QI (2003–…): Season 18, Episode 7 - Revolutions - full transcript

Good evening and welcome to a truly a revolutionary episode of qi rising up in revolt this week

We have four recalcitrant renegades the radicals susan kelman

They're rebellious jessica foster

And he's an absolute riot it's alan davis

Their buzzers are really revolutionary susan goes

Nice jessica goes

I recognize this it's one of my favorites. It's the sex pistols. Yes, and once in the 1980s

It's true I met johnny rotten at the midland hotel manchester I went up to him and I said, oh mr. Rotten

I'm, so delighted to meet you and he said to me fuck off

There's literally nothing I could say to you you wouldn't have an anecdote

Here's question one, uh, stop me when you know what these names are for, okay



patriotic shortener, uh silence mill

Uh, regretful yes. Yes

Silence mills. Um the nickname I gave to my worst ever edinburgh show

It's like tumbleweed

We punks will remember a band called silence mill

Okay, charlie seesaw, that could be a racehorse. I like the necktie of cabet. They all sound like ailments or afflictions

Okay, so i'm going to help you that we have

Translated all of these they were originally in

french

And there was a sound effect that went with each one of them

Yeah, get your team. Let's see

What I don't want to know get the point on a matter of admin

So in french they were absolutely fantastic the patriotic short numbers

Silence



And the regretful climb monda regret all nicknames for the guillotine used in the french revolution, uh

Yes, you met the man who invented

I remember it as well. He told me to fuck off

I do have a personal interest in the subject as it happens. Oh, why is that but before I get to that yes

Let me tell you what little I know about the guillotine the guillotine the guillotine

Yes, do we get bonus points for this information? Am I just wasting time?

My recollection is yes, but we're going back a bit. It's the french revolution

That when I was at university one of my subjects was the french revolution. Oh, right, and as I remember the guillotine

Was named after a man called guillotine and he wanted

A a nicer way of killing the enemies of the revolution right? And so he was actually meaning it in a kind way

Yeah, so I think that's who guillotine was. Yeah, but I know it went on for years and years and years because in 1977

I went to paris for the last use of the guillotine

And this is your personal interest. I

was a

Campaigner against capital punishment I went with a group because we couldn't believe it to protest right?

This was still going on. I know you have t-shirts that said quit while you're ahead

University in the 1960s. So this is a long time ago, but in 1968

Obviously, I was in paris trying to ferment in my pre-punk period yes the revolution in france at the time

When I was at university, I was simply trying to get laid all the way

Oh lots of corduroy and tried to look intelligent

Sadly the ruse did not work

That'll do it for you, I don't know I had one of those sweaters with leather patches on the outside

There's a little pipe. I thought it looked good

It was named after dr guillotine

And in fact his family hated this association with the name and they constantly petitioned the french government saying please call it something else

Please call it something else and in the end they changed their name because they got so fed up with it. Perhaps it was gillette

Yes

There is a rumor that he was killed by his own apparatus it is not true

In fact, he died from an infection on a carbuncle on his shoulder

So, oh, I know that what's a carbuncle it's not pleasant

Don't get one but a nice carb uncle at the end of the night though that can walk

So the person who did the very first guillotining he was the louis the 16th executioner

He was a man by the name of giles only

He was the fourth out of six generations of executioner. He executed nearly 3 000 people

he was a celebrity because he was france's executioner and his uniform that he used to wear which was sort of striped trousers and

Fancy hat and overcoat became a very fashionable look for men. What do you think women might have worn to celebrate corduroy?

Women wore

Guillotine-shaped earrings and what sort of wow unpleasant that's the king and queen's head below. Oh

so

That's weird. Right? I think I might quite like them

Anyway, he was supposed to pass on the job to his eldest son gabriel gabriel died

Unfortunately while he was helping his father with an execution, he slipped on some blood and fell off the scaffold. Oh

They didn't feature any of this in carry on up the french revolution

a wonderful film with kenneth williams

Yes

Oh, I want to watch that again. Now you've never seen them anymore this to be on all the time

No, they're on itv2 if you if you watch television in the afternoon, if you've got no job self-employed, sorry if you're self-employed

They do some wonderful programs do they

I do the voice-over for one of the commercials. Oh, well, it's worth watching just for that it is

It's it's actually I love doing it. I'm the voice now of the tenor flex plus super soft incontinence pad

Gonna do it though. It tells us something about the itv2 audience. I think yes

Joy, is you can watch all the carry-on films right through the afternoon and evening without needing to leave the sofa

Who is the woman associated with the french revolution

Uh madame tussaud because she took facial masks didn't she death masks of the people?

It's an extraordinary story because she was the art teacher and indeed a waxworks, uh modeler for the sister of louis xvi

And so she was seen to be a royalist and her head was actually shaved in preparation for execution

And she was saved by a leading revolutionary who had been friendly with her before and she was made to do the people's likenesses

And then she was asked to come to britain to show them

and was going to go back to france but had to stay because the napoleonic wars started and she wasn't able to return who

Are these so this is the king and queen

Those are actually the king and queen of france. It's marie antoinette and uh and the king. Yeah or the waxworks

officers now charles I thought when you said you have personal experience of this that you were going to mention i'm going to

Family connection this seriously is how I became really interested in this subject of the guillotine and executions

because my forebear

jeremiah brandreth

Was a revolutionary and the last person to be beheaded in this country for treason

I think we have a picture actually of uh jeremiah there. He is part of the pentrick

1817 he was a revolutionary. He began as a luddite he realized that the industrial revolution was going to make people lose their jobs

He was determined to overthrow the government of the day. And uh, anyway, he led this revolution, uh up in derbyshire

he was known as the nottingham captain and uh was arrested put on trial and was

Not just hanged but he was then beheaded

Yes

Because he was a traitor because they wanted to show you the head. I mean

I think he was already dead by the time he was beheaded now

We were trying to see the uh family likeness in this. So, uh

We've done a little bit of photo shopping just to see how that would look. So there you are

I do think darling if you were ever beheaded just as they lifted the head up you'd be going i've got one more story

You know the head can live on for another 15 seconds

Now, uh, what would you have to do if someone read you the riot act

It's an actual thing they would go to the scene and read the right hand. They literally read it out

Technically you had an hour to disperse right once it had been read out

So it was introduced in 1715 to clear crowds to clear the crowds. These are the actual words of the riot act

Uh, and it meant that if more than 12 people gathered and were disruptive a policeman was entitled to read them the riot act

Uh, and it had to be read with the exact correct wedding and after that they had a full hour

You've got an hour now to stop rioting, which I quite like it's very british, isn't it?

I'm giving you notice and then you'll be on the naughty step

We don't have it anymore. It was repeated by the criminal law act of

1967 in fact, uh, the last attempted reading of the riot act was in have I guess anybody which city in this country manchester glasgow?

Oh

1919 but the policeman couldn't get through it before somebody took the page from his hand

It's pretty sad everyone just stopped was that a scottish accent you just

Was an irishman visiting should be fair

I respect the law as much as the next person. Yes, if I had decided I was going to make the positive action of writing

and someone stood in front of me and said

Here's a piece of paper about why you can't write you would just go well i'm taking that piece of paper. I'm a writer

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, yeah, and I don't think that's particularly glad if I mean if I me if I may I would be

like

Oh, they're in the club. But if they don't disperse they don't just go. Oh they haven't yeah

Oh they what I was going to say

He's right

It was contrary to sometimes

occasionally when you said and I knew you were going to say glasgow because you looked at me with that look you look at

Sandra, you look at me. Sometimes again. There's a scottish thing coming up

Just because it was glasgow does not mean that they they were violent. No, I didn't say that

I never they simply politely went i'll take that from you young sir. Yes. I imagine that they

Said excuse me

Officer can I take that i'll take that would you like a mint exactly?

So I want there to be any suggestion. No that the glass nobody was supposed to progressive. Um, excuse me

Nowadays, you don't have to read anything out at all if 12 people or more are present and they cause any kind of violence

It's quite challenging for middle class people to start riots as i've discovered

Well, you've got to wait in you've got to wait in for your white company order. I mean

It's an awful lot to do yeah

In paris when I was trying to take part in the 1968 riots, we didn't know what to do

And well, no, we didn't because we were nice university people we'd gone over to help with the writing and they were instructing in french

Well, I was studying the french revolution

So my french was reasonably, okay, and they advised us what we were to do and it was to knock the policeman's hat off

And apparently knocking hats off goes back hundreds of years as the way riots are started. I think to be fair

if I had gone to the effort of wearing one of my hats

of which I have many because I believe a lady with a hat is a very

Astonishing figure is it made of corduroy?

List of impediments to you getting shad

It's not good is it it's super hard but

Sometimes you think it's a hat day

I feel like wearing a hat i'm gonna wear a cowboy hat i'm gonna wear a top hat i'm gonna wear a bowler hat

And you're walking down the street you're thinking people are laughing at me, but I don't care in myself

I have the confidence i've worked on myself a lot. This is how I feel I feel

Confident i'm a powerful woman. I'm claire baldwin people looking forward

How's that and this is moving by itself

How's it going down the street there must be a dog under a tiny dog

That dog's never going to get

Okay

We're moving on we are moving on. Uh, now, here's another kind of revolution. Why doesn't your house have revolving doors?

Yes, my darling giles my house does have a revolving door

It always has it's a family house it's a tradition. Yes, because one of my forebears invented the revolving door

I happen to know who invented the revolving door theophilus. Yes

Is that who married the daughter of my great great great grandfather a man called. Dr

benjamin brandreth who invented brandless pills was a

pioneer of medicine and advertising and not so much a family tree as a family fucking

Foreign so you're related to theophilus van gaal

Yes

Dr. Brandroth had 13 children, including 10 daughters. Yeah, and he was hugely wealthy and he married them off very well

He also was a friend of pt. Barnum who was a friend of this man who invented the revolving door

So at home, the point is we love it

It's been so useful recently, you know, we only want to self-isolate and have three of the family

It's the reason we don't have them on our homes because of too many terrible pet deaths

No, it's just the house isn't big enough and we don't get that many visitors

They're very good in a tall building because what they do is they let much less air into the building

And it avoids what's called the chimney effect

So what happens is where cold air can be sucked in at the bottom when a door opens?

And warm air rises up through the building and the use of a revolving door stops that it's also more energy efficient

Where do people tend to prefer to use a swing door when they can?

They don't seem to like I like to use revolving doors and pretend to be wonder woman

She would change sometimes and superman did the same thing

And sometimes if you're feeling fancy when i'm in london where there's more revolving doors available

I'll just go in a building then come back out pretend to be wonder woman. I'll just do it

What I have to do is after that is because I carry a suitcase with me all the time and I tip over the suitcase

I've that's a suitcase that's bigger than me

And it makes revolving doors quite difficult

And but you just have to do it because then people look at you like you can't do a door

Why don't you get out of the suitcase, yeah

Carry it through the door and then get back in

I'll get two little leg holes cut

How's that suitcase moving along the road

Now for a question about

Roulette, okay

I will give you ten points to gamble on the next roll of this wheel. I can tell you that these are all black

These are the ones the last ones that have come up the last five

Uh, what would you bet on now? Would you bet on black or red? I think it doesn't matter

That is correct. So, why do you think that is a lot of people would say?

Red, there's some gamblers fallacies

There's some kind of gambler's myth my I grew up spending a lot of time standing outside lab rooks waiting for my dad

on a saturday morning, but um

There's a gambler's myth that if you've lost a certain number of times, you must be do a win

But actually whether it's black or red or whatever

What's gone before there's no relationship to the probability of what's going to happen. Now. It's new every time is it

Well, the wheel doesn't remember what it did before so it has it's 50 50

It's it's red or it's going to be red or all black

Well that then suggest exactly I may as well not wear my lucky pants

I forgot if i'm doing something

Today for example, yeah

Because I enjoy qi and I want to do well to impress you

Yeah, i'm wearing my lucky pants, right if what you're saying is correct like the fact nothing matters

Yeah, I mean as well not bother wearing these pants i've had for 26 years

I can't believe that the lucky pants fallacy has finally

Has finally come clear to you and I think corduroy against the screen is right. Yes. Yes, you don't need pants

Do you know giles not at all? Um i'm afraid it is pretty much a 50 50 bet

No. I'm so sorry

Although it's not quite a 50 50 bet because there is also a zero

And that is how they actually make their money in the casinos, but you're absolutely right, darling

The gambler's fallacy if the wheel has landed on black six times 85 percent of people will bet on red i'm not allowed in casinos

I'll tell you why i'm not allowed in casinos. You can't see over the table

Falling into the room

It was my first time in a casino like a proper casino I had a credit card for the first time and

I ran up 10 000

pounds

in

six

Hours. No, I mean I was I was very young and I was very stupid and I was quite drunk

And after that I decided I liked it so much. I would never go back into one again

Because I loved every single second they gave me lobster. They gave me beer. I thought I was it was amazing

Wow, i've been once so many once played roulette and in extraordinary circumstance

it was quite recently my wife and I went for a wedding anniversary to

Barbados we were on the beach

Sun was setting wonderful golden sand and this little old

Wizard lady came teetering along the beach towards us and it wasn't until she got to about here that we realized

He was actually mick jagger

It's a true story

It turned out he was a really enthusiastic viewer of countdown. So he knew who I was

And I obviously knew who he was and my wife was quite excited

so anyway

We went off for the evening and we went to a casino with mick jagger and he very sweetly gave us the chips

Um, and of course, we we we lost but it didn't seem to bother him

Which was fantastic that's amazing lovely, right? What's so unbritish about a roundabout?

Yes, darling, it's french. Yes. Ah, you will french not be surprised to know that it is a family story

Yes, charles one of my forebears was married to the emperor napoleon iii of france, okay

the emperor napoleon iii of france

in exile lived in southport

And this is true and when he got back to paris

After when he was restored to become the head of gundam in the third again

He decided that paris needed to be redesigned and chose a man called houseman to do it

Yes from whom we get to bull of our heisman and all these wonderful bulldogs in paris

And he said the design I would like is i've been in england in a place called southport

And I would like it to look like southport with these wide boulevards

And these big circles?

And that is why paris looks like southport. Yes, but the actual roundabout was the invention of a french town planner

Uh who was called eugenie inner to the turn of the 20th century houseman had lots of people working for him

and

Sorry

Earlier earlier before the start of the show charles told me that my um my key card for my dressing room

But also work on the tube, is that true?

I mean, uh, so housemate did do mom's job in making the big boulevards, but the actual what's called a cafe

The roundabout was a french town planner

Otherwise is I think not really known

And so in 1907 british researchers were sent to observe it and they copied it and they installed the very first year styling

You're going to find this almost impossible to believe

My father this is getting really close now. Yes, my father

Yes was the legal advisor to the automobile association?

Right and a friend of ernest marple's who was the transport minister in the 1950s or 60s?

My father went with ernest marples to help him open britain's first

Roundabout in lechworth newtown you are absolutely right. Thank you

Thank you

Peace

I totally love this. So there's the arc de triomphe which inspired lechworth

Then you see the red car, this is my dad

Now it's time to take a turn for the worse as we enter the head spinning round that we call general

Ignorance fastest we can please fingers on buzzers. What can you put on your fish and chips in a chippy?

Yeah, it's awesome vinegar

Not salted vinegar salt yes, but not vinegar, uh, because

It's not vinegar. It's all labeled

non-brewed

Condiment, uh by law not only can it not be labeled as vinegar

You can't even put it in a receptacle that would usually hold vinegar. So could you start them tell that to her on the right?

It's not vinegar, um not vinegar no, it's something it's a combination of water and ethanoic acid and flavorings

And then it's watered down even further to be served to customers. It's cheaper

It takes less time to make you can buy it in concentrated form

lovely

No in edinburgh they have salt and sauce in glasgow we have salt and vinegar because we're classy, but you don't

What you actually have is sort of non-brewed condiment

You're seeing all the bottles of vinegar i've ever owned never said vinegar on them

No, if you buy it in a shop, and it says vinegar in it

It is vinegar. If you say to this fish and chip person, please could you put vinegar on it? It isn't vinegar

It is in fact

Non-brewed condiment, but weirdly people don't order it like that

But they do from now on I know

If you ask for vinegar on your fish and chips, you probably won't get it who invented the battle technique of blitzkrieg

yes, someone charles is related to

Blitzkrieg brandrisk the verb german army the germans. Uh

The french uh, so uh, russian british british it was us that's pretty much us we named it

So it is a german word blitz, uh lightning and krieg war very rarely used in germany in the 1930s and 40s

Definitely not used by the german leaders when the blitzkrieg actually happened when they invaded poland in 1939 france in 1941

In fact hitler called it a completely idiotic word. Ein ghans blossoming of wart

It's not often. I quote hitler

Uh, in fact the germans the success of the blitzkrieg completely surprised them

They thought it was rather a miracle, but it wasn't any uh new innovation

So what happens is there are short sharp attacks on the ground with armored vehicles

And then the air support comes in behind and kind of finishes things off some tanks and lots of peaceful undefended villages

That's it. But this kind of uh, tank and aircraft warfare since it's been evolving since world war one

So it was not really a new thing but the british and american press they decided the advance by the germans

Which surprised everybody including the germans? It had to be a revolutionary new kind of warfare

So they claimed that the man in charge of commanding the mechanized troops, uh general heinz gurhayan was the father of the blitzkrieg

And so it locked publicity in the press and in the end the soldiers on the ground were using it

But it was not a german invention at all

It was uh, now what goes around comes around and so we're back to revolutions in which month do russians celebrate

So it is called the october revolution you're absolutely right, but it isn't celebrated in october it's celebrated in november

Why might that be because it's my birthday and everyone has a party on my birthday

Did they shift the calendar? They did shift the calendar. That's exactly it

So russia was still uh using the julian calendar, which was 13 days behind the bolsheviks under lenin revolted on october 24th and 25th

But it was according to the rest of europe. November the 6th and this is my birthday. November the 6th. Is it? Yeah

Lenin would have been so pleased

And with these revolutionary revelations, we come to the final scores I can tell you in last place with -14 it's alan

In third place with three points susan

In first place because he is related to the man who invented first place

Thank you to our guests jessica giles susan and alan I leave you with these words from american actress, lee grant

Which exposed the real problem with revolutionary ideas i've been married to one marxist and one fascist and neither one would take the garbage out

Thank you and good night

You