QI (2003–…): Season 17, Episode 7 - Quests: Part II - full transcript
Sandi Toksvig is joined by Alan Davies, Susan Calman Joe Lycett and Holly Walsh to boldly go where no comedy panel show has gone before in the quest for knowledge and laughter.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Good evening.
Welcome to QI.
Tonight...
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Tonight...
Tonight, we will be getting quite
quizzical about everything
in the Q animal kingdom.
Let's meet tonight's menagerie.
The questing Phill Jupitus.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
The queenly Cariad Lloyd.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
The quasi-autonomous
Daliso Chaponda.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
And... an absolute quokka...
Alan Davies.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
And their buzzers tonight...
..are a quartet of quadrupeds.
A moose in a quarry.
LONG GRUNT AND STONES CLATTER
A moose in a quandary.
PUZZLED GRUNT
A moose in a quadcopter.
HELICOPTER WHIRS
SQUEALING
And a Komodo dragon
in Quentin Tarantino's Jacuzzi.
Oh, my God! Who put a BLEEP Komodo
dragon in the pool?! Huh?
CRUNCH!
YELL
LAUGHTER
OK. Excellent. Right. I love this.
What is blue and sounds
like a whale?
LAUGHTER
Is it a blue whale?
KLAXON
CHEERING
And we're off to a roaring start.
What does a whale sound like?
HE SINGS LIKE A WHALE
LAUGHTER
They're really soothing. You know,
they have those tapes to help
you get to sleep.
"Steve, how far away are you?"
"1,500 miles."
LAUGHTER
"Can you hear me?"
"Yes, you're sounding loud
and clear!"
"What are you eating?"
"Plankton."
"What colour are you?"
"Blue." "You sound like a whale."
Also, we don't know what it means.
It could be soothing to us,
but they're saying,
"I'm choking on the plastic." Yes.
Can I just remind everybody
that this season is the letter Q?
Q... Something... So?
The Queen!
Something... What is blue
and sounds like a whale?
A quail! Yes!
A blue quail is the correct answer!
Is that...?
We're doing Christmas cracker jokes?
We're just trying to upset Alan.
As in, what is orange and
sounds like a parrot?
What is orange...?
A carrot. Oh, sorry.
LAUGHTER
So, the blue quail lives
in Sub-Saharan Africa.
It's one of about 40 species
of quail worldwide.
Actually, only the males are blue.
Girls, they're brown
with buff underparts.
LAUGHTER
What did quail teach us about
sex in space, do you suppose?
They sent quails up to space. Yes.
They could, in fact,
be called the very first
extraterrestrial life form.
OK, I'm going to take a mad guess.
Yep.
They taught us how to be
caring lovers. No. Well...
They sent the eggs up.
They did send the eggs up.
They are the very first vertebrates
to be born in space.
In zero gravity. They went up into
the Mir space station in 1990,
part of the Russian programme.
They wanted to find out if quail
would be a good food source
for a long-term mission.
So eight of them hatched
out of that lot,
but they couldn't
cope with zero gravity. Oh!
So they simply couldn't latch on
and feed themselves at all. Oh!
What they discovered was it
completely removes their sex drive.
What? Yes, entirely -
going up into space.
The females stopped ovulating.
The males had reduced
testosterone levels.
And both sexes exhibited
an absolute apathy to mating.
LAUGHTER
So, this means my girlfriend's
been to space?
LAUGHTER
Maybe.
APPLAUSE DROWNS OUT SPEECH
I'd be all right if Sandra Bullock
drifted by in her underwear.
That'd be...
"Ooh, there's Sandra!
I knew she'd be here."
Sorry, I'm having trouble
concentrating,
I'm just thinking
about Sandra Bullock.
But there seems to be a great deal
of interest
in the sex life of quails.
This is one of my favourite studies.
So, the University of Kentucky,
in 2011,
they received a massive grant from
the National Institute of Health
to study what the effect
of cocaine is on the sex drive
of the Japanese quail.
Everyone's just deep-frying
everything...
LAUGHTER DROWNS SPEECH
Here's something that will
surprise you.
Apparently, the cocaine was linked
to increased risky
sexual behaviour.
"Where, I say, where's my drugs?!"
You're going to love this, Alan.
I have a fact that is just for you.
The male Japanese quail,
they have a gland
above their sex organ...
This is right up your alley.
..that secretes a liquid
containing...
It has some of the same enzymes and
proteins that you get in egg white,
and they whip this into a stiff foam
using their sphincter
and then...
LAUGHTER
Yes, imagine you're beating
like this.
PHILL: No, I don't think I will.
Never, ever take a Japanese
quail meringue. Ever.
And then they deposit into
the female after the sperm.
Like a dessert.
I don't know what...
LAUGHTER
Is it like clay to make sure
it doesn't come back out?
Like a cork? Yes. Yes.
There seems to be some advantage,
but we don't know what it is,
other than, I think, fun.
We've talked a lot
about the male quail.
What's the most numerous
undomesticated bird in the world?
Pigeon. Oh!
KLAXON
That's what I was going to say.
Does that mean he's right?
No, he's wrong. Oh, he's wrong?
It means he's wrong. He's wrong. OK.
You'll hear that a lot
when Alan speaks. OK!
Chicken.
KLAXON
I told you. Two wrong.
So, I'm going to give you a clue.
This is one of the ways to kill it.
This is a piece of dynamite.
OK.
PHILL'S BUZZER
The roadrunner.
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
Is it...? Does it live in Britain?
No. Daliso is in with the best
chance of knowing this,
as there are lots of these
in Malawi. Oh, OK! Yes?
It's weaver birds. Qu...? Quelea.
Weaver bird is what we call it.
Quelea. Quelea. Yeah.
You're absolutely right.
It's called the red-billed quelea.
Ahh!
APPLAUSE
You should...
What? They should not be
applauding these things.
They are a menace. OK.
These things are like the bane of
farmers. They, like, flock
and they eat, like, everything.
They're known as feathered
locusts. That's exactly it. Yes.
There are approximately
1.5 billion of these birds.
So, to put that into some kind
of context,
the UK's most
numerous bird is the wren.
There are 8.6 million
breeding pairs.
They come in flocks of two million
birds... Oh, my God.
..and each bird eats roughly half
its own body weight a day. What?
Are they going to eat that elephant?
Is that...?
They're going to eat the
weight of an elephant.
They can consume 20 tonnes a day,
one flock,
so they can absolutely
decimate agriculture.
It is an extraordinary thing.
And getting rid of them...
People go through the field
with, like, drums,
trying to chase them away.
We don't have dynamite.
That seems like a better plan
than the drums.
The drummers are like, "We might
get dynamite, guys. We might.
"We're seriously thinking about it."
"We don't have the budget!"
It's all right if you don't
have the money for dynamite.
You just try and go into the field
to scare them.
But they're incredibly mobile,
and they'll just go on
to the next field.
They do have wings, don't they?
I'm afraid so. They've tried napalm,
they've tried pathogens,
they've tried electronic devices,
dynamite, fire-bombing...
What about kindness?
You know, a little bit of love?
A field full of Smarties
and they all go over there.
No-one thinks of it.
Or... just a million cats.
Anyway, who's started
waking up earlier in order
to get more selfies?
Hm...
Is it the...? Teenagers?
Teenagers? No.
They're all these young pop stars,
the Kardashians and stuff,
who've got selfies...
KLAXON
Ahhh!
What? What did I say?
Do I win something?
No, it's not a good thing.
I get a buzz for saying Kim
Kardashian? Yeah, because we thought
it was predictable that somebody
at some point... I'm not Kanye West!
Don't get cross, Dali. It's fine.
Remember, we're in Q
and we're doing animals.
Q animals. Q animals.
Quail. Er...
Qu... Queen... koala.
OK, you are in the right part
of the world.
Queen kangaroo.
You are in the right part
of the world.
It is the world's happiest...
Oh, that little...! With the
tiny face from New Zealand!
Yes. No. Aus... Australia.
The tiny happy one from Australia.
When you take a picture,
he looks like he's smiling
and people keep taking pictures.
It looks like he's poking his head
and smiling. It's so cute.
It is the world's happiest animal.
PHILL: Is it a quokka? Quokka.
Yes, absolutely right.
Very well... Have you seen one?
What? They're so cute!
No, I haven't but I want one!
They live, most of them,
on a little tiny island called
Rottnest, just off Perth,
just off the coast
of Western Australia.
That's a great photo.
Isn't it the cutest thing?
I don't trust it. That's like
a person in a suit. That's...
AUSTRALIAN ACCENT: "Have you seen
the rest of the peloton?"
LAUGHTER
"I lost the guys completely."
There are more than
7,400 quokka selfies,
which were posted on social media
in 2018. That's so cute.
Helped by the fact that people like
Roger Federer, the tennis player,
and Margot Robbie, the actress,
both did them.
There's Roger Federer with a quokka.
AUDIENCE: Aww... And, apparently...
Who are you aww-ing?
Roger Federer or the quokkas?!
Everybody was like, "Aww... mm."
They're all on push bikes as well.
But here is the sweetest thing
about them. They're nocturnal.
But those that are on Rottnest
are now staying awake
during the day... Oh, no!
..in order to spend time
with the tourists!
And the ones who are on
the bit of the island
that's highly developed for tourism
are doing better than the ones
in the less disturbed habitats.
No! Yeah. Here's the thing that's
slightly going to put you off
the quokka. Oh... Oh.
..does it shit in your face?
LAUGHTER
That would put me right off!
PHILL: It's got a gland that makes
a stew that you have sex with.
Do not eat their pavlovas!
Not great parents,
so when the female quokka
becomes aware of a predator,
the first thing she does is she
ejects the joey from her pouch
and the infant lies on the ground,
making a sort of hissing noise
and this distraction allows
the mother to escape
and leave the predator...
GASPS AND LAUGHTER
Really?
I mean, you say bad parent, but
in a way she's smart, isn't she?
LAUGHTER
Quokkas get their beauty sleep
at night now,
so they can always look their best
for a daytime selfie.
But selfies are dangerous.
Oh, yes, they are. Yes.
Many people die doing selfies.
Also, like, I was given advice
by a comedian who said,
"Oh, if a fan comes and they
recognise you and they're excited,
"maybe you should say,
'Oh, do you want a selfie?'
"Cos sometimes they're too shy."
And I followed this advice. Yes.
And in Nottingham, a woman was like,
"Oh, I recognise you."
I was like, "Oh, hi." And I said,
"Do you want a selfie?"
And she said, "No, you're not
the Eiffel Tower."
LAUGHTER
Now, sticking with
Australian marsupials,
a quoll is a squirrel-sized
marsupial, OK?
Let us imagine that
you're hosting a barbie.
IN AUSTRALIAN ACCENT:
You're in Australia
and a mob of quolls turn up.
What are you going to offer them?
IN AUSTRALIAN ACCENT: Straight away
you give 'em a tinnie.
Then you ask 'em if they're vego.
NORMALLY: OK.
They're not vegetarian.
But why do we have to offer them
anything? We didn't invite them.
Now we're catering for
everyone who turns up?
Yes, so there is a reason why
you want them to eat something.
Cos they're cuter than you.
Oh, no. No, it's...
Eat that which is cuter than you.
I don't think
that's a nature's rule.
What's a barbecue thing?
Another barbecue thing?
Burgers? Sausages? Sausages.
OK, sausages is what
you need to offer them.
What kind of sausages do you
think you might offer a quoll?
Vegetarian sausages.
OK. The reason we need to do this
is to save them from extinction.
Their numbers have dropped
dramatically
and it is because partly
they've been eaten by foxes
and they've been eaten by cats,
which were introduced by
the Victorians.
But also they like to eat
cane toads.
So there is a toxin
in the back of a cane toad,
so licking them can
cause hallucinations
and there are indeed
Australian dogs,
which are entirely addicted
to doing this!
LAUGHTER
A labrador on a trip
is a fantastic thought.
But the quolls can be killed
by this poison.
So in order to educate them
not to eat cane toads,
they're being fed sausages
made from toad mince.
They take the harmful skin off,
they make the mince
and they lace it with a chemical,
which makes the quolls feel
nauseous.
The plan is to put them off
eating toad.
But I think the ones in the wild
don't smell like barbecued toad!
They're actually hoping now
that they can drop toad sausages
by helicopter...
LAUGHTER
Just say that one more time for me!
In 1935, they were brought in
to sugar plantations
in order to get rid of a pest,
which was the cane beetle.
They brought in 102 toads.
It was a failure. Why?
IMITATES TOAD: "Hello!
"I think we should definitely
leave Europe."
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Why would it be a failure?
They ate other things.
No. So they live on the ground
and beetles can fly. Oh, shit.
Duh!
These 102 toads have grown into
today's population of
1.5 billion toads. Oh, my God!
And they have devastated
Australia's flora and fauna.
Toads love to do it.
Oh, a female toad can have
35,000 eggs.
What?! Yeah. 35,000!
So here's a nice thing - apart from
the toad sausages -
one of the ways they're thinking now
of saving the quoll
is to turn them into pets.
There are people who say that you
should have them instead of a cat,
and, in fact, they're rather sweet.
They can be trained.
They can use a litter tray.
They weigh about the same.
Yeah, sweet! Really sweet!
PHILL SCREECHES
LAUGHTER
HE SCREECHES AGAIN
I don't see that working out.
If you've got your foot sticking
out from under the duvet
and that gets hold of you!
"Ooh-ooh-ooh!"
They do have the second-biggest
bite force quotient.
So how hard they can bite, relative
to the size, of any animal...
Good for children, then! Yeah!
..second only to the
Tasmanian devil. Oh, my God.
But, of course, keeping them
as pets is not going to save
the wild population in
any way whatsoever.
Here's a fact about quolls
that I love.
The breeding season only
lasts for three days,
during which they mate
with their partner
every 15 minutes for the entire
duration of the three days!
Yeah. The males and the females only
meet for that three-day fest.
They want to stop eating the toads
and talk to them about having sex.
Also, not great parents, these ones.
Oh, they never are.
No. So what they do is they give
birth to about 30 offspring,
each one is the size
of a grain of rice.
But the female quoll only
has six nipples,
so the first six who are fastest
to latch on...
"Come on, boys!
Which rice is fastest?"
LAUGHTER
It's madness.
Like some insane reality show.
LAUGHTER
PHILL: Just sit like that
in your living room.
Argh!
Argh...!
Ah!
The idea of you being
a squirrel-sized marsupial!
I have tremendous bite force!
That's equivalent to
the Tasmanian devil,
which can have sex
whenever it wants.
LAUGHTER
Argh!
Scientists are encouraging quolls
to eat sausages
rather than toads in the hole.
AUDIENCE GROANS
Right, moving on.
What is wrong with this zebra?
PHILL'S BUZZER
Yes.
No barcode.
It's just like a mutant zebra
with like half the stripes.
It's an extinct subspecies of zebra.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Quagga.
Oh, someone shouted it out.
It's a...? AUDIENCE MEMBER: Quagga.
It is a quagga, indeed.
DALISO: Wait, didn't we already...?
Aren't the birds the quaggas?
No. So we've had quolls
and quokkas and quelea.
It's Q, darling.
There's going to be a lot
of animals beginning with Q.
It just feels like Dr Seuss has
moved it and started taking over.
"There's quokkas and quaggas and
quails."
CARIAD: "And all of them have
the most magnificent tail!"
It's an extinct subspecies of zebra,
lived in southern Africa.
It was stripy, but only down
to the shoulders.
It's been sort of described
as a zebra
who's forgotten his pyjama bottoms.
I'll tell you an interesting thing
about stripes.
I went to school in Kenya... Yeah.
..and we read early colonial books
and they theorised,
because they'd never seen
any mixed-race children...
Right... so they imagined that
a child would be born with stripes,
if a black person and a white
person... Are you kidding me?!
Yeah. No, it makes sense if you
think about it. If you've never...
LAUGHTER
If you've never seen it, it's more
logical, you know what I mean?
Like, these are people who thought
the world was flat, OK,
but still, that's what
they thought would happen.
Anyway, what I love about the quagga
is it's a really good example
of humans sorting out
the natural world.
The quagga was made a
protected species,
three years after it had
already become extinct.
It was given legal protection by
the Cape Town government in 1886
and the last one died in an
Amsterdam zoo in 1883.
So there were three years too late.
IN DUTCH ACCENT: "Wake up, Clifford,
it is time for your Edam."
HE GASPS
"No! He's dead!"
Oh... Dutch zookeeper.
Yeah. No, fair enough.
LAUGHTER
I thought he'd be called Clifford.
Here's an interesting thing.
For a long time, Grant Museum,
at the University College London,
believed it owned two
zebra skeletons,
but they re-examined them in 1972.
They found one was a quagga
and one was a donkey.
So they didn't have
any zebra skeletons at all.
This is a fantastic thing. This is
the actual skeleton of the quagga.
Now, if you have a look
at the back left leg,
you can see that there is just
a sort of a black outline.
And that is because that particular
leg is missing on this quagga.
And this has an extraordinary story,
and here to tell us about it
is the curator of the Grant Museum,
Tannis Davidson.
Hello, Tannis.
OK, first of all, can I just say,
fabulous museum and a rare museum,
is it not, the Grant Museum?
Yes, we are the last university
zoological museum in London.
And anybody can go and visit it?
Yes. We're open to the public Monday
through Saturday, one til five.
OK. So these skeletons of quaggas,
how many do you think
there are in the world?
Well, it's one of
our star specimens.
We think there's only seven quagga
skeletons anywhere in the world.
Right. And, as far as I know, ours
is the only one with a skull.
But it's missing a leg. What
happened? Where the hell is the leg?
Well, the first idea is
that it had been loaned to
the Royal College of Surgeons
just before World War II.
And, of course,
that building was bombed,
so it was lost during the bombing.
Another idea was that when the
specimens were evacuated to Wales,
it somehow became lost.
So it could still be in Wales?
It could be.
OK. And you're holding
a thing here now. Yes.
This is what it would look like.
This is what it looks like. Right.
How would you know the difference
between a quagga leg
and a zebra leg?
It's very difficult. Oh.
So if you've got one, you may think
that it is, in fact, a zebra leg.
Yes. There is an idea
that perhaps this might be
in someone's collection,
if it was lost in Wales, and maybe
somebody thought it was a donkey leg
or a horse leg, so... But you could
compare it to your actual skeleton
and see if it is a match? Yes.
If somebody found something
like that... Yes.
..we could, you know,
slot it in perfectly
and it would just all become
a whole specimen again.
OK, I feel we are the show to
help you with this. OK. So...
This is a Quime Watch appeal.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
If anyone has any information
relating to the whereabouts
of this missing quagga leg,
please, please, come forward.
There is a reward - an all expenses
paid trip to the mountains of Kong.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Tannis.
Fantastic.
I love the idea somebody
in Wales is going,
"I think there's one of those
in the loft." I know!
Anyway, what is the most offensive
thing anyone could do...
..with this?
I actually have two and it
involves doing something with two.
Sandi, for me, come on,
both of them.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
This summer...
..from Walt Disney Productions...
So you do need both of them.
You actually have to
hold them like this.
CARIAD: What, like boxing gloves?
It is exactly that - that they
were used as boxing gloves. Ohh!
PHILL: Oh! Mm, I know.
So this is a queen conch.
Actually, in the United States,
it's called a konk,
but the British say a conch.
So about 3,000 years ago, the
Mayans used them as boxing gloves
or more of a knuckle duster,
possibly.
Part of the ritual worship of
the rain god Chaahk.
And, ultimately, it resulted
in quite a lot of blood-letting...
CARIAD: Yeah... which was apparently
part of the ceremony.
I don't know what they've got
on their heads. That is...
I would imagine if you're in
a culture that's hitting each other,
wearing conches as boxing gloves,
you're going to invent the
crash helmet, really fast.
Conch shell playing also
has a tremendous tradition.
So I have put a conch beside you.
There's a tiny bit kind of cut off.
CARIAD: Whoa!
And the Aztecs used to have
a conch shell trumpet.
It was called a quiquiztli
and the musicians who played them
were called quiquizoani.
And it's thought to have
had the power to defeat
the Aztec lord of the dead.
LAUGHTER
Are you ready?
SHORT, STRAINED NOTE
SHORT, STRAINED NOTE
LONG, DEEP NOTE
Oh, that's better!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
CARIAD: Wow!
PHILL: Clifford!
It's actually a wonderful noise.
CARIAD: That's amazing.
Apparently, if you move your hand
in and out of the aperture,
that is the way in which you get...
STRAINED, SHORT NOTES
ALAN SHOUTS INDISTINCTLY
Shut up, it's jazz!
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
While we are at the seaside,
this is a quillback sucker
and a quillback rockfish.
But the most well-known quilled
animal is...?
The porcupine.
Porcupine. How does
a porcupine make love?
Carefully! Carefully.
PHILL: Carefully.
KLAXON
APPLAUSE
OK, two families of porcupines,
there's Old World and New World.
This thing that we're looking here,
North American New World porcupine.
So sex takes about a minute,
all right?
And the female signals her interest
by urinating and screaming.
We've all been there.
We've all been there.
Don't want to alarm anybody,
we're just about to have
a look at porcupines...
Is it horizontal?
Well, I'm going to show you.
PHILL: About time too!
Here's the thing, so...
Mating is... Yes, carry on,
go on. I'm good.
Mating is spike free. Yeah, yeah.
So what happens is the female turns
her back on the male,
she arches her tail over her back,
that's covering her quills
and cushioning them...
Less talk, more... Oh!
So there she's pushing...
# Ow-ow-ow-owww!
# Let's get it on!
# Let's get it o-o-on! #
The female looks like this
when they're finished. There we are.
LAUGHTER
It looks like they've just put
it under a hand-dryer!
Here's a cute thing. Baby
porcupines are called porcupettes.
CARIAD: Aww! I know. That's so cute.
PHILL: You can't do five minutes
of solid filth
and then do cute baby names.
I was trying to move us along.
Now, that brings us to the
loving and soft environment
that we call General Ignorance.
Fingers on buzzers, please.
According to the traditional
proverb, what killed the cat?
ALAN'S BUZZER
Yes.
Curiosity.
KLAXON
APPLAUSE
But that's true. That is what
it says in the proverb.
The original version,
for over 260 years,
was that "care killed the cat."
Care meaning worry or sorrow.
If you know your Shakespeare,
it's in Much Ado.
"What courage, man!
What though care killed a cat.
"Thou hast mettle enough
in thee to kill care."
In the mid-19th century,
care was replaced by curiosity
and we just don't know why.
Just don't know why.
The Russian version
of this phrase is,
"Curious Barbara's nose
was torn off at the market."
Which I'm going to use
in the future,
I think it's rather better than,
"Curiosity killed the cat."
Now, how would this animal
protect itself?
Er... By, oh, roll...
Oh, rolling into a ball.
KLAXON
Will it just lie down?
So here's the thing.
There are 18 species of armadillo.
Only two of them -
the Brazilian three-banded
and the southern three-banded -
roll up into a ball.
I was showing you a six-banded
armadillo, which does not do that.
It rolls into a square.
It doesn't go into a square, no.
LAUGHTER
That is the... Where's
the gong? ..armadillo.
You were right, Alan. They very
quickly dig a hole and get into it
and just lie in it with
only the armour showing.
CARIAD: Is he trying to get in that
hole? Well, he's trying to dig it.
Well, there's one already in there.
Get your own hole!
Plus, they have another marvellous
way of escaping a predator.
So the nine-banded armadillo
can walk underwater. What?!
So it can hold its breath
for as long as six minutes,
getting under the water.
It can also make itself buoyant
on the water by swallowing air
and inflating its stomach
and intestines.
It's Jesus. It is.
It is a fantastic thing.
Other facts about armadillos -
what disease are they thought
to be the only ones to get?
AUDIENCE MEMBERS: Leprosy.
Leprosy.
KLAXON
Oh, that was good!
It wasn't us. You lost points on
that. Ha-ha-ha! Mw-ha-ha!
It's not so easy, is it? It's hard!
It's difficult.
They can get leprosy,
but so can mice and rats.
And, in fact, a 2016 study found
that one third of red squirrels
in Britain carry leprosy.
PHILL: Oh! Where's your tail?
It's the most appealing thing
about me.
Now I'm just a hamster.
Now, the scores. Oh, really?
The top dog with -5...
..is Daliso.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
And second place with -6,
it's Phill.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Actually, you're tied, you
and Cariad, also -6. So... Aww!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Which means,
in third place with -10...
..it's the audience.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
You've outdone yourself.
In final place, it's Alan.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
So it's thanks to Daliso, Phill,
Cariad and Alan.
And I leave you with
this quick quotation
from The Porcupine Poem
by Ogden Nash.
Any hound a porcupine nudges
Can't be blamed for
harbouring grudges
I know one hound that
laughed all winter
At a porcupine that sat
on a splinter.
Thank you. Goodnight.
APPLAUSE
Good evening.
Welcome to QI.
Tonight...
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Tonight...
Tonight, we will be getting quite
quizzical about everything
in the Q animal kingdom.
Let's meet tonight's menagerie.
The questing Phill Jupitus.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
The queenly Cariad Lloyd.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
The quasi-autonomous
Daliso Chaponda.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
And... an absolute quokka...
Alan Davies.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
And their buzzers tonight...
..are a quartet of quadrupeds.
A moose in a quarry.
LONG GRUNT AND STONES CLATTER
A moose in a quandary.
PUZZLED GRUNT
A moose in a quadcopter.
HELICOPTER WHIRS
SQUEALING
And a Komodo dragon
in Quentin Tarantino's Jacuzzi.
Oh, my God! Who put a BLEEP Komodo
dragon in the pool?! Huh?
CRUNCH!
YELL
LAUGHTER
OK. Excellent. Right. I love this.
What is blue and sounds
like a whale?
LAUGHTER
Is it a blue whale?
KLAXON
CHEERING
And we're off to a roaring start.
What does a whale sound like?
HE SINGS LIKE A WHALE
LAUGHTER
They're really soothing. You know,
they have those tapes to help
you get to sleep.
"Steve, how far away are you?"
"1,500 miles."
LAUGHTER
"Can you hear me?"
"Yes, you're sounding loud
and clear!"
"What are you eating?"
"Plankton."
"What colour are you?"
"Blue." "You sound like a whale."
Also, we don't know what it means.
It could be soothing to us,
but they're saying,
"I'm choking on the plastic." Yes.
Can I just remind everybody
that this season is the letter Q?
Q... Something... So?
The Queen!
Something... What is blue
and sounds like a whale?
A quail! Yes!
A blue quail is the correct answer!
Is that...?
We're doing Christmas cracker jokes?
We're just trying to upset Alan.
As in, what is orange and
sounds like a parrot?
What is orange...?
A carrot. Oh, sorry.
LAUGHTER
So, the blue quail lives
in Sub-Saharan Africa.
It's one of about 40 species
of quail worldwide.
Actually, only the males are blue.
Girls, they're brown
with buff underparts.
LAUGHTER
What did quail teach us about
sex in space, do you suppose?
They sent quails up to space. Yes.
They could, in fact,
be called the very first
extraterrestrial life form.
OK, I'm going to take a mad guess.
Yep.
They taught us how to be
caring lovers. No. Well...
They sent the eggs up.
They did send the eggs up.
They are the very first vertebrates
to be born in space.
In zero gravity. They went up into
the Mir space station in 1990,
part of the Russian programme.
They wanted to find out if quail
would be a good food source
for a long-term mission.
So eight of them hatched
out of that lot,
but they couldn't
cope with zero gravity. Oh!
So they simply couldn't latch on
and feed themselves at all. Oh!
What they discovered was it
completely removes their sex drive.
What? Yes, entirely -
going up into space.
The females stopped ovulating.
The males had reduced
testosterone levels.
And both sexes exhibited
an absolute apathy to mating.
LAUGHTER
So, this means my girlfriend's
been to space?
LAUGHTER
Maybe.
APPLAUSE DROWNS OUT SPEECH
I'd be all right if Sandra Bullock
drifted by in her underwear.
That'd be...
"Ooh, there's Sandra!
I knew she'd be here."
Sorry, I'm having trouble
concentrating,
I'm just thinking
about Sandra Bullock.
But there seems to be a great deal
of interest
in the sex life of quails.
This is one of my favourite studies.
So, the University of Kentucky,
in 2011,
they received a massive grant from
the National Institute of Health
to study what the effect
of cocaine is on the sex drive
of the Japanese quail.
Everyone's just deep-frying
everything...
LAUGHTER DROWNS SPEECH
Here's something that will
surprise you.
Apparently, the cocaine was linked
to increased risky
sexual behaviour.
"Where, I say, where's my drugs?!"
You're going to love this, Alan.
I have a fact that is just for you.
The male Japanese quail,
they have a gland
above their sex organ...
This is right up your alley.
..that secretes a liquid
containing...
It has some of the same enzymes and
proteins that you get in egg white,
and they whip this into a stiff foam
using their sphincter
and then...
LAUGHTER
Yes, imagine you're beating
like this.
PHILL: No, I don't think I will.
Never, ever take a Japanese
quail meringue. Ever.
And then they deposit into
the female after the sperm.
Like a dessert.
I don't know what...
LAUGHTER
Is it like clay to make sure
it doesn't come back out?
Like a cork? Yes. Yes.
There seems to be some advantage,
but we don't know what it is,
other than, I think, fun.
We've talked a lot
about the male quail.
What's the most numerous
undomesticated bird in the world?
Pigeon. Oh!
KLAXON
That's what I was going to say.
Does that mean he's right?
No, he's wrong. Oh, he's wrong?
It means he's wrong. He's wrong. OK.
You'll hear that a lot
when Alan speaks. OK!
Chicken.
KLAXON
I told you. Two wrong.
So, I'm going to give you a clue.
This is one of the ways to kill it.
This is a piece of dynamite.
OK.
PHILL'S BUZZER
The roadrunner.
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
Is it...? Does it live in Britain?
No. Daliso is in with the best
chance of knowing this,
as there are lots of these
in Malawi. Oh, OK! Yes?
It's weaver birds. Qu...? Quelea.
Weaver bird is what we call it.
Quelea. Quelea. Yeah.
You're absolutely right.
It's called the red-billed quelea.
Ahh!
APPLAUSE
You should...
What? They should not be
applauding these things.
They are a menace. OK.
These things are like the bane of
farmers. They, like, flock
and they eat, like, everything.
They're known as feathered
locusts. That's exactly it. Yes.
There are approximately
1.5 billion of these birds.
So, to put that into some kind
of context,
the UK's most
numerous bird is the wren.
There are 8.6 million
breeding pairs.
They come in flocks of two million
birds... Oh, my God.
..and each bird eats roughly half
its own body weight a day. What?
Are they going to eat that elephant?
Is that...?
They're going to eat the
weight of an elephant.
They can consume 20 tonnes a day,
one flock,
so they can absolutely
decimate agriculture.
It is an extraordinary thing.
And getting rid of them...
People go through the field
with, like, drums,
trying to chase them away.
We don't have dynamite.
That seems like a better plan
than the drums.
The drummers are like, "We might
get dynamite, guys. We might.
"We're seriously thinking about it."
"We don't have the budget!"
It's all right if you don't
have the money for dynamite.
You just try and go into the field
to scare them.
But they're incredibly mobile,
and they'll just go on
to the next field.
They do have wings, don't they?
I'm afraid so. They've tried napalm,
they've tried pathogens,
they've tried electronic devices,
dynamite, fire-bombing...
What about kindness?
You know, a little bit of love?
A field full of Smarties
and they all go over there.
No-one thinks of it.
Or... just a million cats.
Anyway, who's started
waking up earlier in order
to get more selfies?
Hm...
Is it the...? Teenagers?
Teenagers? No.
They're all these young pop stars,
the Kardashians and stuff,
who've got selfies...
KLAXON
Ahhh!
What? What did I say?
Do I win something?
No, it's not a good thing.
I get a buzz for saying Kim
Kardashian? Yeah, because we thought
it was predictable that somebody
at some point... I'm not Kanye West!
Don't get cross, Dali. It's fine.
Remember, we're in Q
and we're doing animals.
Q animals. Q animals.
Quail. Er...
Qu... Queen... koala.
OK, you are in the right part
of the world.
Queen kangaroo.
You are in the right part
of the world.
It is the world's happiest...
Oh, that little...! With the
tiny face from New Zealand!
Yes. No. Aus... Australia.
The tiny happy one from Australia.
When you take a picture,
he looks like he's smiling
and people keep taking pictures.
It looks like he's poking his head
and smiling. It's so cute.
It is the world's happiest animal.
PHILL: Is it a quokka? Quokka.
Yes, absolutely right.
Very well... Have you seen one?
What? They're so cute!
No, I haven't but I want one!
They live, most of them,
on a little tiny island called
Rottnest, just off Perth,
just off the coast
of Western Australia.
That's a great photo.
Isn't it the cutest thing?
I don't trust it. That's like
a person in a suit. That's...
AUSTRALIAN ACCENT: "Have you seen
the rest of the peloton?"
LAUGHTER
"I lost the guys completely."
There are more than
7,400 quokka selfies,
which were posted on social media
in 2018. That's so cute.
Helped by the fact that people like
Roger Federer, the tennis player,
and Margot Robbie, the actress,
both did them.
There's Roger Federer with a quokka.
AUDIENCE: Aww... And, apparently...
Who are you aww-ing?
Roger Federer or the quokkas?!
Everybody was like, "Aww... mm."
They're all on push bikes as well.
But here is the sweetest thing
about them. They're nocturnal.
But those that are on Rottnest
are now staying awake
during the day... Oh, no!
..in order to spend time
with the tourists!
And the ones who are on
the bit of the island
that's highly developed for tourism
are doing better than the ones
in the less disturbed habitats.
No! Yeah. Here's the thing that's
slightly going to put you off
the quokka. Oh... Oh.
..does it shit in your face?
LAUGHTER
That would put me right off!
PHILL: It's got a gland that makes
a stew that you have sex with.
Do not eat their pavlovas!
Not great parents,
so when the female quokka
becomes aware of a predator,
the first thing she does is she
ejects the joey from her pouch
and the infant lies on the ground,
making a sort of hissing noise
and this distraction allows
the mother to escape
and leave the predator...
GASPS AND LAUGHTER
Really?
I mean, you say bad parent, but
in a way she's smart, isn't she?
LAUGHTER
Quokkas get their beauty sleep
at night now,
so they can always look their best
for a daytime selfie.
But selfies are dangerous.
Oh, yes, they are. Yes.
Many people die doing selfies.
Also, like, I was given advice
by a comedian who said,
"Oh, if a fan comes and they
recognise you and they're excited,
"maybe you should say,
'Oh, do you want a selfie?'
"Cos sometimes they're too shy."
And I followed this advice. Yes.
And in Nottingham, a woman was like,
"Oh, I recognise you."
I was like, "Oh, hi." And I said,
"Do you want a selfie?"
And she said, "No, you're not
the Eiffel Tower."
LAUGHTER
Now, sticking with
Australian marsupials,
a quoll is a squirrel-sized
marsupial, OK?
Let us imagine that
you're hosting a barbie.
IN AUSTRALIAN ACCENT:
You're in Australia
and a mob of quolls turn up.
What are you going to offer them?
IN AUSTRALIAN ACCENT: Straight away
you give 'em a tinnie.
Then you ask 'em if they're vego.
NORMALLY: OK.
They're not vegetarian.
But why do we have to offer them
anything? We didn't invite them.
Now we're catering for
everyone who turns up?
Yes, so there is a reason why
you want them to eat something.
Cos they're cuter than you.
Oh, no. No, it's...
Eat that which is cuter than you.
I don't think
that's a nature's rule.
What's a barbecue thing?
Another barbecue thing?
Burgers? Sausages? Sausages.
OK, sausages is what
you need to offer them.
What kind of sausages do you
think you might offer a quoll?
Vegetarian sausages.
OK. The reason we need to do this
is to save them from extinction.
Their numbers have dropped
dramatically
and it is because partly
they've been eaten by foxes
and they've been eaten by cats,
which were introduced by
the Victorians.
But also they like to eat
cane toads.
So there is a toxin
in the back of a cane toad,
so licking them can
cause hallucinations
and there are indeed
Australian dogs,
which are entirely addicted
to doing this!
LAUGHTER
A labrador on a trip
is a fantastic thought.
But the quolls can be killed
by this poison.
So in order to educate them
not to eat cane toads,
they're being fed sausages
made from toad mince.
They take the harmful skin off,
they make the mince
and they lace it with a chemical,
which makes the quolls feel
nauseous.
The plan is to put them off
eating toad.
But I think the ones in the wild
don't smell like barbecued toad!
They're actually hoping now
that they can drop toad sausages
by helicopter...
LAUGHTER
Just say that one more time for me!
In 1935, they were brought in
to sugar plantations
in order to get rid of a pest,
which was the cane beetle.
They brought in 102 toads.
It was a failure. Why?
IMITATES TOAD: "Hello!
"I think we should definitely
leave Europe."
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Why would it be a failure?
They ate other things.
No. So they live on the ground
and beetles can fly. Oh, shit.
Duh!
These 102 toads have grown into
today's population of
1.5 billion toads. Oh, my God!
And they have devastated
Australia's flora and fauna.
Toads love to do it.
Oh, a female toad can have
35,000 eggs.
What?! Yeah. 35,000!
So here's a nice thing - apart from
the toad sausages -
one of the ways they're thinking now
of saving the quoll
is to turn them into pets.
There are people who say that you
should have them instead of a cat,
and, in fact, they're rather sweet.
They can be trained.
They can use a litter tray.
They weigh about the same.
Yeah, sweet! Really sweet!
PHILL SCREECHES
LAUGHTER
HE SCREECHES AGAIN
I don't see that working out.
If you've got your foot sticking
out from under the duvet
and that gets hold of you!
"Ooh-ooh-ooh!"
They do have the second-biggest
bite force quotient.
So how hard they can bite, relative
to the size, of any animal...
Good for children, then! Yeah!
..second only to the
Tasmanian devil. Oh, my God.
But, of course, keeping them
as pets is not going to save
the wild population in
any way whatsoever.
Here's a fact about quolls
that I love.
The breeding season only
lasts for three days,
during which they mate
with their partner
every 15 minutes for the entire
duration of the three days!
Yeah. The males and the females only
meet for that three-day fest.
They want to stop eating the toads
and talk to them about having sex.
Also, not great parents, these ones.
Oh, they never are.
No. So what they do is they give
birth to about 30 offspring,
each one is the size
of a grain of rice.
But the female quoll only
has six nipples,
so the first six who are fastest
to latch on...
"Come on, boys!
Which rice is fastest?"
LAUGHTER
It's madness.
Like some insane reality show.
LAUGHTER
PHILL: Just sit like that
in your living room.
Argh!
Argh...!
Ah!
The idea of you being
a squirrel-sized marsupial!
I have tremendous bite force!
That's equivalent to
the Tasmanian devil,
which can have sex
whenever it wants.
LAUGHTER
Argh!
Scientists are encouraging quolls
to eat sausages
rather than toads in the hole.
AUDIENCE GROANS
Right, moving on.
What is wrong with this zebra?
PHILL'S BUZZER
Yes.
No barcode.
It's just like a mutant zebra
with like half the stripes.
It's an extinct subspecies of zebra.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Quagga.
Oh, someone shouted it out.
It's a...? AUDIENCE MEMBER: Quagga.
It is a quagga, indeed.
DALISO: Wait, didn't we already...?
Aren't the birds the quaggas?
No. So we've had quolls
and quokkas and quelea.
It's Q, darling.
There's going to be a lot
of animals beginning with Q.
It just feels like Dr Seuss has
moved it and started taking over.
"There's quokkas and quaggas and
quails."
CARIAD: "And all of them have
the most magnificent tail!"
It's an extinct subspecies of zebra,
lived in southern Africa.
It was stripy, but only down
to the shoulders.
It's been sort of described
as a zebra
who's forgotten his pyjama bottoms.
I'll tell you an interesting thing
about stripes.
I went to school in Kenya... Yeah.
..and we read early colonial books
and they theorised,
because they'd never seen
any mixed-race children...
Right... so they imagined that
a child would be born with stripes,
if a black person and a white
person... Are you kidding me?!
Yeah. No, it makes sense if you
think about it. If you've never...
LAUGHTER
If you've never seen it, it's more
logical, you know what I mean?
Like, these are people who thought
the world was flat, OK,
but still, that's what
they thought would happen.
Anyway, what I love about the quagga
is it's a really good example
of humans sorting out
the natural world.
The quagga was made a
protected species,
three years after it had
already become extinct.
It was given legal protection by
the Cape Town government in 1886
and the last one died in an
Amsterdam zoo in 1883.
So there were three years too late.
IN DUTCH ACCENT: "Wake up, Clifford,
it is time for your Edam."
HE GASPS
"No! He's dead!"
Oh... Dutch zookeeper.
Yeah. No, fair enough.
LAUGHTER
I thought he'd be called Clifford.
Here's an interesting thing.
For a long time, Grant Museum,
at the University College London,
believed it owned two
zebra skeletons,
but they re-examined them in 1972.
They found one was a quagga
and one was a donkey.
So they didn't have
any zebra skeletons at all.
This is a fantastic thing. This is
the actual skeleton of the quagga.
Now, if you have a look
at the back left leg,
you can see that there is just
a sort of a black outline.
And that is because that particular
leg is missing on this quagga.
And this has an extraordinary story,
and here to tell us about it
is the curator of the Grant Museum,
Tannis Davidson.
Hello, Tannis.
OK, first of all, can I just say,
fabulous museum and a rare museum,
is it not, the Grant Museum?
Yes, we are the last university
zoological museum in London.
And anybody can go and visit it?
Yes. We're open to the public Monday
through Saturday, one til five.
OK. So these skeletons of quaggas,
how many do you think
there are in the world?
Well, it's one of
our star specimens.
We think there's only seven quagga
skeletons anywhere in the world.
Right. And, as far as I know, ours
is the only one with a skull.
But it's missing a leg. What
happened? Where the hell is the leg?
Well, the first idea is
that it had been loaned to
the Royal College of Surgeons
just before World War II.
And, of course,
that building was bombed,
so it was lost during the bombing.
Another idea was that when the
specimens were evacuated to Wales,
it somehow became lost.
So it could still be in Wales?
It could be.
OK. And you're holding
a thing here now. Yes.
This is what it would look like.
This is what it looks like. Right.
How would you know the difference
between a quagga leg
and a zebra leg?
It's very difficult. Oh.
So if you've got one, you may think
that it is, in fact, a zebra leg.
Yes. There is an idea
that perhaps this might be
in someone's collection,
if it was lost in Wales, and maybe
somebody thought it was a donkey leg
or a horse leg, so... But you could
compare it to your actual skeleton
and see if it is a match? Yes.
If somebody found something
like that... Yes.
..we could, you know,
slot it in perfectly
and it would just all become
a whole specimen again.
OK, I feel we are the show to
help you with this. OK. So...
This is a Quime Watch appeal.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
If anyone has any information
relating to the whereabouts
of this missing quagga leg,
please, please, come forward.
There is a reward - an all expenses
paid trip to the mountains of Kong.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Tannis.
Fantastic.
I love the idea somebody
in Wales is going,
"I think there's one of those
in the loft." I know!
Anyway, what is the most offensive
thing anyone could do...
..with this?
I actually have two and it
involves doing something with two.
Sandi, for me, come on,
both of them.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
This summer...
..from Walt Disney Productions...
So you do need both of them.
You actually have to
hold them like this.
CARIAD: What, like boxing gloves?
It is exactly that - that they
were used as boxing gloves. Ohh!
PHILL: Oh! Mm, I know.
So this is a queen conch.
Actually, in the United States,
it's called a konk,
but the British say a conch.
So about 3,000 years ago, the
Mayans used them as boxing gloves
or more of a knuckle duster,
possibly.
Part of the ritual worship of
the rain god Chaahk.
And, ultimately, it resulted
in quite a lot of blood-letting...
CARIAD: Yeah... which was apparently
part of the ceremony.
I don't know what they've got
on their heads. That is...
I would imagine if you're in
a culture that's hitting each other,
wearing conches as boxing gloves,
you're going to invent the
crash helmet, really fast.
Conch shell playing also
has a tremendous tradition.
So I have put a conch beside you.
There's a tiny bit kind of cut off.
CARIAD: Whoa!
And the Aztecs used to have
a conch shell trumpet.
It was called a quiquiztli
and the musicians who played them
were called quiquizoani.
And it's thought to have
had the power to defeat
the Aztec lord of the dead.
LAUGHTER
Are you ready?
SHORT, STRAINED NOTE
SHORT, STRAINED NOTE
LONG, DEEP NOTE
Oh, that's better!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
CARIAD: Wow!
PHILL: Clifford!
It's actually a wonderful noise.
CARIAD: That's amazing.
Apparently, if you move your hand
in and out of the aperture,
that is the way in which you get...
STRAINED, SHORT NOTES
ALAN SHOUTS INDISTINCTLY
Shut up, it's jazz!
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
While we are at the seaside,
this is a quillback sucker
and a quillback rockfish.
But the most well-known quilled
animal is...?
The porcupine.
Porcupine. How does
a porcupine make love?
Carefully! Carefully.
PHILL: Carefully.
KLAXON
APPLAUSE
OK, two families of porcupines,
there's Old World and New World.
This thing that we're looking here,
North American New World porcupine.
So sex takes about a minute,
all right?
And the female signals her interest
by urinating and screaming.
We've all been there.
We've all been there.
Don't want to alarm anybody,
we're just about to have
a look at porcupines...
Is it horizontal?
Well, I'm going to show you.
PHILL: About time too!
Here's the thing, so...
Mating is... Yes, carry on,
go on. I'm good.
Mating is spike free. Yeah, yeah.
So what happens is the female turns
her back on the male,
she arches her tail over her back,
that's covering her quills
and cushioning them...
Less talk, more... Oh!
So there she's pushing...
# Ow-ow-ow-owww!
# Let's get it on!
# Let's get it o-o-on! #
The female looks like this
when they're finished. There we are.
LAUGHTER
It looks like they've just put
it under a hand-dryer!
Here's a cute thing. Baby
porcupines are called porcupettes.
CARIAD: Aww! I know. That's so cute.
PHILL: You can't do five minutes
of solid filth
and then do cute baby names.
I was trying to move us along.
Now, that brings us to the
loving and soft environment
that we call General Ignorance.
Fingers on buzzers, please.
According to the traditional
proverb, what killed the cat?
ALAN'S BUZZER
Yes.
Curiosity.
KLAXON
APPLAUSE
But that's true. That is what
it says in the proverb.
The original version,
for over 260 years,
was that "care killed the cat."
Care meaning worry or sorrow.
If you know your Shakespeare,
it's in Much Ado.
"What courage, man!
What though care killed a cat.
"Thou hast mettle enough
in thee to kill care."
In the mid-19th century,
care was replaced by curiosity
and we just don't know why.
Just don't know why.
The Russian version
of this phrase is,
"Curious Barbara's nose
was torn off at the market."
Which I'm going to use
in the future,
I think it's rather better than,
"Curiosity killed the cat."
Now, how would this animal
protect itself?
Er... By, oh, roll...
Oh, rolling into a ball.
KLAXON
Will it just lie down?
So here's the thing.
There are 18 species of armadillo.
Only two of them -
the Brazilian three-banded
and the southern three-banded -
roll up into a ball.
I was showing you a six-banded
armadillo, which does not do that.
It rolls into a square.
It doesn't go into a square, no.
LAUGHTER
That is the... Where's
the gong? ..armadillo.
You were right, Alan. They very
quickly dig a hole and get into it
and just lie in it with
only the armour showing.
CARIAD: Is he trying to get in that
hole? Well, he's trying to dig it.
Well, there's one already in there.
Get your own hole!
Plus, they have another marvellous
way of escaping a predator.
So the nine-banded armadillo
can walk underwater. What?!
So it can hold its breath
for as long as six minutes,
getting under the water.
It can also make itself buoyant
on the water by swallowing air
and inflating its stomach
and intestines.
It's Jesus. It is.
It is a fantastic thing.
Other facts about armadillos -
what disease are they thought
to be the only ones to get?
AUDIENCE MEMBERS: Leprosy.
Leprosy.
KLAXON
Oh, that was good!
It wasn't us. You lost points on
that. Ha-ha-ha! Mw-ha-ha!
It's not so easy, is it? It's hard!
It's difficult.
They can get leprosy,
but so can mice and rats.
And, in fact, a 2016 study found
that one third of red squirrels
in Britain carry leprosy.
PHILL: Oh! Where's your tail?
It's the most appealing thing
about me.
Now I'm just a hamster.
Now, the scores. Oh, really?
The top dog with -5...
..is Daliso.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
And second place with -6,
it's Phill.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Actually, you're tied, you
and Cariad, also -6. So... Aww!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Which means,
in third place with -10...
..it's the audience.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
You've outdone yourself.
In final place, it's Alan.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
So it's thanks to Daliso, Phill,
Cariad and Alan.
And I leave you with
this quick quotation
from The Porcupine Poem
by Ogden Nash.
Any hound a porcupine nudges
Can't be blamed for
harbouring grudges
I know one hound that
laughed all winter
At a porcupine that sat
on a splinter.
Thank you. Goodnight.
APPLAUSE