QI (2003–…): Season 17, Episode 3 - Quarrels - full transcript

This programme
contains some strong language.

CHEERING, APPLAUSE

Good evening, and welcome to QI,

where, tonight, we'll be quarrelling
with each other all night long.

Here to query everything I say, aw,
quick to criticise - Jason Manford.

APPLAUSE

Constantly quibbling - Aisling Bea.

Quashing all opposition -
Anuvab Pal.

APPLAUSE

And, oh, will you be quiet?

Alan Davies.



LAUGHTER, CHEERING

We've got some particularly
pugnacious buzzers.

Jason goes...

CATS SCREECH

Oh, that's horrible, isn't it?

Hm. Aisling goes...

DOGS BARK

Sounds like my...
SHE CLICKS HER TONGUE

So sorry. So sorry.

LAUGHTER

Um... Anuvab goes...

I was hoping the attention wouldn't
come to me after that.

Order, order!
CATS SCREECH

And Alan goes...



Oh, yes, it is!
AUDIENCE: Oh, no, it isn't!

Wow.

They're so pleased with themselves,
they can't carry on.

That was alarming. Wasn't it?

What happens when you quarrel
with the bellower?

Sandi, I'm new to London,
and I'm beginning to realise

that, when someone has
a dispute or a quarrel,

the English language
works at two levels.

Yes. I realised, in Britain,
when someone says to me,

"Anuvab, I have a slight issue."

Yeah, yeah, it means
I've killed their whole family.

LAUGHTER

That is entirely true.

OK, so the bellower is the nickname
of an actor called James Quin.

He was the leading actor in
London in the first half

of the 18th century.

What has he come as now?

Well, apparently that's him giving
his Coriolanus. Is it, really?

I think it's more anus than
corio, really.

He was unbelievably quarrelsome,
and he actually killed two people

in duels and wounded
multiple others.

He had one of the loudest
voices in show business.

He also did excessive gesticulation,

and he left extremely long pauses.

These were all the hallmarks
of a great actor at that time,

so would-be actors were schooled
in three different pauses,

and there was moderate,
longer and grand.

And, because you're
all natural performers,

I think we would see how you would
fare on stage in Quin's era.

So we're going to act out
what's written on the script cards

that you've got on the desk.

So, Jason and Anuvab, a bit
of quarrelling, please,

from Titus Andronicus.
Very loud, very big gestures.

Yes.

Villain, what hast thou done?

That, sir, which thou
canst not undo.

Thou hast undone our mother?!

LAUGHTER

Very good.

I was taken aback for a second. Yes.
No. Do a pause! Do a grand pause!

Villain...I have done thy mother.

That's an early "your mum"
joke from Shakespeare there.

He invented the word
quarrelsome, actually.

It's, in fact, the only word
he coined beginning with Q.

Comes up in As You Like It and in
The Taming Of The Shrew. Right.

Alan and Aisling, I've got an
EastEnders-style script for you.

I'm actually going to take
a small part in this myself.

Oh! I know.

So, you know, big gestures,
big pausing.

Here we go. OK.

Oh, Aisling.

COCKNEY ACCENT: I'm having
some real Barney Rubble

with me old trouble and strife.

LAUGHTER

LAUGHTER

She found...

LAUGHTER

..a pair of your Alan Whickers
in my Lucy Locket!

GRUFF VOICE: Oh, Alan.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

You absolute doughnut.

You need to be more careful.

COCKNEY ACCENT: NOW!

What's this all about?!

LAUGHTER

STAY OUT OF IT!

You cow. It's you, it's you.

Silence, cow. You're not me mum.

SANDI GASPS

Actually...

LAUGHTER

..she is.

EASTENDERS THEME TUNE PLAYS
Very good.

APPLAUSE

I can see that making
a comeback as a style.

So Quin killed two people. The first
man he killed was an actor

who mispronounced kato
as keto on stage.

I'm like that with Pacific
and specific. Are you?

I'd just take him out long range.

So Quin mocked him in
front of the audience,

and the guy decided to
challenge him to a duel,

and, in fact, he was...
HE mocked somebody? Yes.

LAUGHTER

What did the other bloke look like?

He only got done for manslaughter,
and that was it,

and then he just went back
to work, frankly.

He was a notorious womaniser.

There's a marvellous story.

He once invited a married
woman to his boudoir,

and then he realised
he'd forgotten his key,

so he thought, "Oh, no,
I'll take her to a brothel."

Anyway, awkwardly, her husband
happened to be there.

LAUGHTER

And the husband walked in on them,
you know, in flagrante,

and, in the ensuing fight,
Quin stabbed him in the leg.

Quin's big rival at the time -
David Garrick.

Great, famous actor.
Oh, David Garrick.

First actor, in fact, to move
towards acting

rather than shouting.

"Where's my glove?!
WHERE'S my glove?!

"Props!"

They were friends, and Garrick
eventually wrote the epitaph

that is on Quin's tomb
in Bath Abbey.

That's the Garrick Theatre
named after him? Yeah.

I mentioned that James Quin
was handy in a duel,

but now let's see how you fare.

So, for this question, please start
with your hands on your heads.

We have changed your buzzers so
they all make the same sound.

Which of you is the quickest
at pressing your buzzer?

Go, go, go.

GUN FIRE BUZZER SOUNDS

GUN FIRE

LAUGHTER
Have you...?

GUNSHOT BUZZER SOUNDS

Well, we know who was slowest.

I'm just going to check with VAR.
Oh, yes.

Get the replay there.

LAUGHTER

OK.

And the answer is...Jason!

Jason, you were the winner.

APPLAUSE
Eh, there we go!

So...very good,

but how would a Victorian
have done it differently?

A Victorian? Yes.

It's whether you think the
Victorians would have been quicker.

Would they have beaten Jason?

No, I think slower. Why?
Just cos it's a long time ago?

Partly, and there's less things
to move out the way of quickly.

So here's the thing.

We would think, maybe, that
we would be quicker today,

but, really, the Victorians
had quicker reactions

than we do today. What?

So in the 1880s and '90s,

there was a statistician
called Francis Galton.

He tested thousands of people to see
how quickly they could react

to lights and sound, and we
have consistently got slower.

So, on average, about 10%
over the past century,

and we don't really know why.

So, possibly, modern pollutants
have had an effect on our brains.

That is a possibility.

Possibly... This one,
I don't like at all.

It's because we are taller is
one of the reasons given. Aw.

So our nerve impulses have got
further to travel in our bodies,

and so they take longer
to get to their destinations,

but it does seem to be
that the Victorians

were a bit faster than us.

And do you think boys or girls
are faster?

Say girls. I'm going to say girls.
Be careful, Jason.

Nice try, Sandi! Girls.

It's usually boys. Aw!

But what they've discovered
in the past 40 years or so

is that the gap has decreased. Boys
are getting increasingly jumpy.

Yes.

Are left-handed or right-handed
people quicker?

Left-handed people are the devil,

so I would say right-handed
people, Sandi.

I'm left-handed,
so I'm going to say right.

It's left-handed people.
And you did win.

Of course! I should have
used my own experiment. Yes!

Dammit. It's probably because
most right-handed people

are very, very right-handed.

In other words,
most left-handed people,

so yourself at least,
are more mixed.

The two brain hemispheres
of the left-handers

tend to be more balanced
and split, so they work more...

It's one of the lesser disabilities.

You know, I don't want everything,
just the blue parking badge.

That's all I want.
LAUGHTER

Now, nothing is more likely
to cause a quarrel

than a badly ordered queue.

So my question is what's
the best way to board a plane?

The people are in the lounge,
and you want to board them

onto the plane. What's the most
efficient way of doing that?

Minimise hand baggage. All those
wankers who can't be bothered

to check their bags in.

Come on like mules, like pack mules.

Fill up all the overhead lockers.
with their very important shit.

LAUGHTER

Then they sit down, farting
all the way to Malaga.

Sorry, what was the question?

LAUGHTER

There's a lot of bitterness
in this, isn't there?

I had a moment on a flight
last week, actually,

when I was flying from
Aberdeen to Shetland,

and I was with my tour manager,
who's also a big chap,

and we sit next to each
other cos we're pals,

and there was hardly anyone
else on the flight.

It was only a small plane.

And the stewardess
came over, and she said,

"Mr Manford, Mr Isaacs," she said,
"would you mind separating

"and sitting on either side
of the plane?"

LAUGHTER

Oh, no.

Weight distribution.
Weight distribution!

You're as heavy as a wing.

What, so he's going to land like
this if we...?

Well, that's what you should
have done. We will at the start,

but during the flight, we're going
to set you a series of challenges.

Zig-zagging about the plane.

First time in the history of the
world where turbulence is a person.

That's how I'm going to think of you
now, as turbulent. That's me.

By the back row, then the
next row, then the next row.

That is the most common. Yeah, that
is the most common way of doing it.

It is also the least efficient.

Or in the middle and then fan it out
towards the back and the front.

Take the top off the plane...

LAUGHTER

..let them all swarm in over
the top like ants.

So there's an astrophysicist
called Dr Jason Steffen.

He made a computer model, and then
he teamed up with a TV producer

to get people to act
out boarding planes

in various different arrangements.

So he compared boarding from the
front, from the back, at random,

and what he called Wilma boarding -
which is window, middle,

and then aisle... Nice. Block
boarding, by far the slowest.

That's the way the airlines
currently do it,

so they say, "This group of seats,
and then the next group of seats."

The absolute best way
to do it is board first

the even-numbered window seats
followed by

the odd-numbered window seats,
then repeat with the middle seats,

and then repeat
with the aisle seats.

It's rather complicated,

and so he actually recommends
just board at random.

That would still be much faster
than what we currently do.

You don't want too random,
though, do you?

You don't want to be, like, 16
rows back, and the pilot's there.

LAUGHTER

I was boarding recently,
and this lady announced,

"We are boarding everyone
not in zone F."

And then she said, "And also
not in zone A, B, C, D, E."

Then she paused and said,
"We're just not boarding."

LAUGHTER

I think there's two types
of passengers.

There are the ones who think that,
if anything happened to the pilot,

they could probably be all right
if they took over and got talked in.

That's me.

And there's the other ones who think
there's no way they could do that.

I sort of fancy myself being able
to fly a plane. You're right.

I think I could bloody give it a go.
But don't you think that,

when you've watched a load of ER,
for example, then you think,

"I totally could do
that heart surgery"?

I sort of feel like I'd be
naturally good in emergencies.

Like, I can't speak Spanish now,
but I feel like,

if there is an emergency, I
probably could give it a go. Yeah.

What kind of emergency suddenly
requires Spanish?

I feel like...
A Spanish girl, Sandi.

She's come in, she's choking, no-one
else in the hospital speaks Spanish.

Right. Something's wrong with her.

Yeah. She can mime, but
we're not getting it.

No. They haven't trained like me
in the dramatic art of mime.

LAUGHTER

SHE PRETENDS TO SPEAK SPANISH
..paella...

Eh, Venezuela...

And I'm like, "Don't worry."

PRETENDS TO SPEAK SPANISH

"..penicillin?" "Penicillin!"

And then it'll just be
like that for...

That poor child is dying, and
you're the last thing she sees.

LAUGHTER

Here's a Randi Scandi fact.

There's another queuing study from
the fine country of Denmark.

Economists concluded the very best
method of serving a queue

is to serve the last
person first, so,

when you have a first-in,
first-out system,

it encourages people to queue.
If the last person got served,

nobody would start
to stand in the queue

because there'd be no point in it.
Queues just cause backlog,

and so it's much better to
serve the last person first.

The way different people queue,
you know, around the world,

can lead to problems.

I had a friend of mine
recently in Manchester

went to use a cash machine. When
he got there to the cash machine,

there was a man already
using the machine, and,

six foot behind the man, there was
a woman sort of waiting her turn.

So he says, "Are you in the queue
for the cash machine?"

And she says, "I'm Nigerian, and my
religious beliefs are that,

"because I don't know this man,
and we're not related,

"this is the distance that I feel
safe and respectful, you know,

"to what I believe in." So, cos
Ste's a very thoughtful person,

he then stands six foot
away from her.

You know, it's like a 12-foot,
three-person queue out of nowhere.

Then the man moved, and the
woman moved to the machine

to do her money business. Steve
then stayed the six foot behind.

Perfectly nice. And he was in his
sort of daydream when another man

come over and said, "Are you in the
queue for the cash machine?"

and Steve went to explain but, not
loaded with all the information,

said, "I am, yeah, but I'm standing
here because she's Nigerian."

LAUGHTER

It's a minefield.

Even when you're trying to be nice!

So, anyway, why might you put
a mirror next to a lift?

Any thoughts about this?
We're talking about waiting.

Next to a lift or in a lift?
No, next to it.

It's to do with looking at yourself.
People dislike waiting in line,

but they do like
looking at themselves.

People don't complain if the lift
takes a long time to arrive

if they can constantly
see themselves.

I love this picture, though.
So we had an experiment to see

if we could recreate
this with all of you.

So let's have a look.
Are we able to do that?

There. What do you think? I know!

Oh, it's Top Of The Pops
from the '70s.

LAUGHTER

I love it!

It's like a giant centipede!

That is brilliant.
That is really good fun! Wow.

Can we do, like, the swimming
thing where we go...?

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

This is beginning to look
like a Bollywood movie.

Just keeps going after
you've finished.

Do you know what I did there?
I actually tried to catch myself.

Aw, there she is.
You had me, you had me.

It's like synchronised swimming
on your own. Brilliant.

Very good.

Our queuing advice is to
really rile people up

by ignoring the instructions
at an airport

and standing on the left
of an underground escalator.

AUDIENCE GASP

That's really upset you! No, no, no.

That's the only thing I
care about after Brexit. Yeah.

That's only down here that
that's a problem. That is London.

Only London. It's not even
questioned anywhere else.

Just stand wherever you want.

You stand wherever you want?
Yeah, it's not a thing.

LAUGHTER
Do what you want!

It's just a thing down here.
You stand on the right.

Not anywhere else.

Fucking stand on the right.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

Right. Who's famous for generating
about 25,000 quarrels a year?

Piers Morgan.

KLAXON

Someone had to say it.

CATS SCREECH

Ah, who's that?! Donald Trump.
What, Donald Trump? Yes.

KLAXON

You want another one? Yeah.
Katie Hopkins.

KLAXON

LAUGHTER

We're doing well. That's the three!

What might a quarrel be?

It's a thing rather than
it's a dispute.

Like a vase of some sort.
Why do you think it's a vase?

That's a lovely idea.
Why would you think that?

I have no idea.

LAUGHTER

Is it a hat? No, so...

So it's not a vase,
and it's not a hat.

You haven't left us
with much, Sandi.

We are going to go back in time.

So, between the 10th
and the 15th century,

what was the principal weapon
of war, do you suppose?

Stink bombs.

Plague. The plague?
No, the crossbow,

and the bolt for a crossbow
is called a quarrel. Oh. Oh.

And there was a man called
John Malemont,

and he was England's chief quarrel
maker in the 13th century.

He made up to 100 a day, so he made
about 25,000 quarrels per year

And the earliest crossbows, I mean,
this is sort of an image

of one of the earliest ones. They
were really, really difficult

to operate because it was so tight
to pull it back

so you had to get on your back,
use the strength of both legs,

your back and your arms in order
to pull the mechanism backwards,

then, eventually, they
invented something called

the crossbow stirrup, which meant
you could put your foot in the thing

and then pull back with...

I mean, that looks like it
can backfire pretty badly.

That feels like before the adverts
on You've Been Framed.

LAUGHTER

Harry Hill's like, "What's going
to happen after the break?"

Can I ask you, Sandi, weren't there
female crossbow people

who used to chop off their baps...?
You're thinking of bows and arrows,

and you're thinking of the amazons
who allegedly cut off

their left breast in order
to make it easier.

Actually, it depends on which...
You'd cut off your right breast

so that the... You'd be annoyed if
you cut off the wrong breast.

Yes, I know.

LAUGHTER

"Aw, you're joking." "Oh, no."

I was looking in the mirror,
I was looking in the mirror.

It must have been
really odd for them when

cannons and bullets came about.

This is the thing. What happened
was guns superseded crossbows

in warfare, so you're talking about
the 16th century, and, eventually,

crossbows became reserved
just for recreational use.

I bet when guns come out, there were
some pretty annoyed one-titted women

knocking about.

LAUGHTER

"I chopped off me tit for this!"

Right, moving on. It's time for the
hostile interrogation that we call

General Ignorance.
Fingers on buzzers, please.

What's the most dangerous
part of this ship?

DOGS BARK

Yes? Eh, the buffet.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

So you can see it. You can
see it in this picture.

The lifeboat.

It is the lifeboats.
You are absolutely right.

They're the most
dangerous bit? Yeah.

So there was a safety
study carried out by

the Marine Accident
Investigation Branch in 2001,

and lifeboats killed more
people than they saved

in the UK and Australia
over a ten-year period.

In fact, they found it was
the most common cause of death

on board a ship.

It accounts for 16%
of all lives lost.

Almost all of the accidents happen
during training or maintenance,

and, in the same time period,
no lifeboat was actually used

in an evacuation, so they didn't
save any lives whatsoever.

It is considered
a really serious problem.

Airplanes have a similar issue
with their apparently

life-saving devices.

In fact, we can try them out now.

We're about to crash-land on water.

Fortunately, your life jacket
is under your seat,

and, since we know you
always pay attention

to the safety demonstrations, here
we go. Brace, brace, brace!

KLAXON
Go, go!

AIRPLANE ENGINE WHIRS

That's it! Toggle, toggle, toggle.

LAUGHTER

Stick it on, stick it on.
Inflate it.

WHISTLE BLOWS
Very good.

LAUGHTER

As far as we can ascertain,

life jackets have never
saved anybody's life...

..in a modern commercial airline.

I feel like I overreacted then,
if I'm honest.

So you're going to have to take them
off. So if you just take them...

Can you get it off, darling?
Can you...?

HE GRUNTS

INDISTINCT

No!

SCREECHING

LAUGHTER

Oh, my God!

APPLAUSE

Bloody hell! Are you all right?

Do you remember when that plane
crash-landed on the Hudson?

I do, yeah. Oh, and Tom Hanks
was in the plane. Yes.

Only 33 of the 150 passengers
who were on board

had even managed to get
hold of their life vests,

and, of those 33
who'd managed to find them,

only four were wearing
them correctly.

They're only intended
for planned water landings.

In other words, when there's
been advanced warning,

and that hasn't happened
for several decades.

Well, I often wonder that, when
I'm flying Heathrow to Edinburgh,

they give it all that, "Well,
it'd have to be a good shot, mate.

"Where are you going to...?"

Right into Windermere.

There's a woman called
Cynthia McLean, she's the

Federal Aviation Authority's
principal cabin safety investigator.

She says the best advice is
leave the bloody life vest behind.

It takes too long, and, actually,
the best thing you can do

if you land on the water
is get off the plane.

Why don't they replace
them with parachutes?

I've never understood that.

Because if people can't put the life
jacket on properly,

who the heck is going to manage...?

LAUGHTER

Why can't the plane be equipped

with two enormous parachutes?

Yes! Yes. That's a good shout.

When it's going down, they just
release the two enormous parachutes,

and it floats to the ground.
Yeah, like Wile E Coyote.

LAUGHTER

Right. Moving on.

Where did the Great Fire
of London start?

Oooh.

Go on, then.
You think you know. Go on.

Let the audience get it.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Pudding Lane!

KLAXON

Not nice, is it? It's not nice.

Makes you feel stupid, don't it?

At the monument. So, well, closer
to the monument than we thought.

So it did start at a bakery. It
was a baker called Thomas Farriner,

and he left his fuel out
too close to the oven,

but they've now discovered
planning documents from 1673.

It was an academic called Dorian
Gerhold, and he revealed the oven

was actually situated
on Monument Street,

so it's about 60 feet east
of Pudding Lane, and, of course,

Monument Street wasn't called
that then because...?

There was no monument.

So the monument was built in 1677.

Now, the thing about the monument
is it's 202-feet tall

because it was supposed to be 202
feet from where the fire started,

but it's probably now too tall

because it probably started
much closer to the monument.

Anyway, moving on.

How should you position your hands
when holding the steering wheel?

Ten-to-two.

KLAXON

Used to be. Not any more. Why not?

It's no longer recommended.
Well, it's definitely not that.

Something has changed in cars since

the origins of the ten-to-two idea.

What has changed? Seat belts?

No, not seat belts.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Airbags.

Airbags is absolutely right.

So, if your hands
are too close together,

which is the ten and the two,
it increases the risk of injury,

and some of the injuries
are horrific.

Airbags inflate at up
to 250mph. Jesus.

Broken hands, entire hands
sometimes, requiring amputations.

There is a really stomach-churning
injury called de-gloving.

AUDIENCE GASP
What...?

Yeah. So lifeboats, airbags.

Like, what is...?

What, the paramedics just come
round and slit your throat?

LAUGHTER
What's going on?

The best thing is like
that, nine and three,

because that way the airbag
has got space to come up

between your hands.
Keeps you out of the way.

I just steer with my cock.

LAUGHTER

Just loop it round once.

The British driving test
changed in 2018.

What did they get rid of?
Oh, that's good.

I failed my theory test
three times last year.

Have you passed now? No, she hasn't.

I do believe I'm just
too much of a genius

to grasp something so simple.

That's how I feel. I failed
the practical six times.

What did they pull you up on?

I got to a junction, I looked right,
I said, "All right your side?"

LAUGHTER

I failed my test cos, when
I was meant to go forwards,

I went backwards.

LAUGHTER

They got rid of the turn in the road
manoeuvre. That's gone,

and that reversing around the
corner is gone as well.

Yeah, good. That was hard, that one.
Is that because that's creepy?

LAUGHTER

There's a wonderful survey
they did in 2015 of

the most common reasons
people fail their tests.

Unusual reasons for
failing included -

"I thought a line of parked cars
was a line of traffic

"so waited behind it."

"I went too far forward
at a zebra crossing

"and bumped the bumper
on a pedestrian...

"..and then argued
it wasn't my fault

"as his outfit had made him
blend in with the stripes."

LAUGHTER

"A good-looking man on a
motorbike caught my attention,

"and, without realising, I started
to drive directly towards him.

"The instructor had to enforce
an emergency stop

"because I nearly crashed
straight into him."

Driving instructors, just as a
type of people, are quite mean. Mm.

I was getting my driving test.
I just sat down.

He looked at me, and he said,

"I don't think
you're going to make it."

Wow. Wow.
At least he wasn't a doctor.

LAUGHTER

And, with that questionable
image in your minds,

it's time for the scores.

Well and truly quashed in
last place...with minus 37 -

it's Alan! Thank you very much.

CHEERING, APPLAUSE

INDISTINCT

In fourth place with minus 25 -

Jason!

Fourth? Is that not
the same as last?

In third place with minus 17 -

Aisling!

CHEERING, APPLAUSE

In second place with minus nine -

it's the audience!

CHEERING, WHISTLING

And our winner today
with a full four points -

Anuvab!

CHEERING, APPLAUSE

THEME TUNE PLAYS

Which only leaves me to thank
Anuvab, Aisling, Jason and Alan,

and I leave you with this quick
quotation from the quarrelsome

Elizabeth Gaskell.

"I'll not listen to reason.

"Reason always means what
someone else has got to say."

Goodnight.

APPLAUSE