QI (2003–…): Season 19, Episode 5 - Sugar & Spice - full transcript
Sandi Toksvig looks at sugar and spice and all things nice with her guests Alice Levine, Jason Manford, Rose Matafeo and regular panellist Alan Davies.
APPLAUSE
Hello and welcome to QI.
Whether you like sweet or savoury,
there's something
for everyone tonight,
as we serve up a sensational
selection of Sugar and Spice.
Let's meet some real sweeties.
Sweet as a nut, it's Rose Matafeo.
APPLAUSE
Thank you.
Sweet as pie, it's Alice Levine.
APPLAUSE
Short and sweet,
it's Jason Manford.
APPLAUSE
I'll take that, that's fine.
And you can bet your sweet ass
it's Alan Davies.
APPLAUSE
Let's see if their buzzers are sweet
or spicy. Rose goes...
# Sweet home Alabama... #
Alice goes...
# Sweet dreams are made of this... #
Jason goes...
# Sweet Caroline
# Ba-ba-baaa! #
Oh, I just want to carry on.
I like that.
Uh, and Alan goes...
# Colours of the world!
Spice up your life
# Every boy and every girl!
Spice up your life
# People of the world!
Spice up your life
# Ahhhh... #
Oh.
Wow, you all did a dancy thing.
I once did a show...
Is she called Mel B?
I did a show with her.
She is called Mel B. It depends
who you're talking about.
Anyway, it was charming.
What's sticky
and well worth stealing?
A friggin' nice stick. I don't...
Wow.
But, like, a good stick,
like the best stick you've ever
seen, Sandi.
I agree. When, my son,
if we go for a walk,
he finds the best sticks, like,
and he will hold on to that stick
to the point...
My wife won't let them in the house,
because they've been outside,
so he will leave it on the doorstep.
And, the next morning,
when his stick is still there,
it's like the PlayStation 5
has been delivered.
It's like a box to a kitten,
a stick to a kid.
Oh, they love them. Wait till you
get him a toy. I know.
Oh, there's a bloody forest out
there, help yourself, mate.
It's like Toys R Us.
It's a weapon. It's a friend.
It's a companion. Exactly.
I love a stick. Rose knows.
Like a stick, OK. She knows.
I've forgotten what
the question was.
So, sticky and worth stealing?
Jam.
Sort of. It's a kind of...
I'm going to say Post—its,
because you don't ever buy that kind
of thing, do you?
You just steal that from work.
Just from the office.
Oh, yeah, that's good. That's
the problem with the work I do.
I never go to an office.
Ah, yeah.
No stationery—stealing.
Be a good idea.
What's that?
For a website,
where you could buy some stuff,
but there was a shoplifty corner.
That's such a good idea.
And if you...
if you avoided being detected
by a couple of windows
and you could get into
the shoplifting room,
you could nick a couple of things
and get away with it.
That's such... Let me write
this down. I'm so sorry.
Because the fun of nicking something
is gone at the moment, isn't it?
No—one's nicked anything for ages.
I've never shoplifted in my entire
life, though. Have you shoplifted?
Oh, God, yeah. Really?
I haven't.
Are you kidding? As a schoolboy,
it was an absolute rite of passage.
Oh, my God.
I remember I had friends
who had an aquarium
and they'd go in the pet shop
and just get weeds out of
the fish tank.
I stole a Kinder Egg when I was,
when I was about 13.
I felt so guilty that
I actually took it back
the next day and put it back
on the...
Alice, have you,
have you shoplifted?
I think you know the answer to this.
Alice...
I'm such a goody two-shoes,
I haven't.
So the three women
have not shoplifted,
I'm just putting it out there.
Rose has committed many crimes.
Yeah, yeah, I've committed fraud.
I've been to jail for fraud,
but that's a clever one.
OK. So,
we are going for something sticky,
but it's something you could put
on pancakes.
Oh, syrup. Maple syrup?
Maple syrup.
So, over several months,
from 2011 to 2012,
there was a group of thieves
and they stole 3,000 tons
of maple syrup from Canada's
global syrup reserves.
I mean, who's not glad that those
exist, right?
Oh, my gosh.
It became known,
and I love this title,
The Great Maple Syrup Heist.
Ooh, wow.
When does it become a heist?
When it's enormously valuable.
This is the most valuable heist
in the whole of Canadian history.
So Canada produces 80%
of the world's maple syrup.
90% of that comes from
Quebec alone.
And they have a strategic reserve
of about 160,000,
or more, barrels,
which are worth $1,800 each,
OK. It's quite a lot of money.
And this is controlled by
a group called The Federation
of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers,
the FPAQ.
Great bunch of lads.
I know, such fun at parties.
They sound like a laugh, yeah.
And they keep control of the supply.
And the reserve is only checked
once a year.
So the thieves went into
the place and what they did was
they systematically removed
some barrels,
temporarily replaced them
with empty ones,
syphoned out the syrup,
refilled them with water
and replaced them.
Perfect crime, OK. Yeah.
Because nobody knew until
a syrup inspector
went and had a look,
climbed on a stack of barrels
and nearly fell,
because of the empty ones,
weren't strong enough
to take his weight.
And he raised the alarm
and, in total, 9,000 or more barrels
had been emptied of maple syrup.
Wow.
Worth $18 million.
"Ring the alarum bell."
When is Guy Ritchie
going to make that film?
I know. I want to see Jason Statham
doing a Canadian accent.
Yeah.
Floating in a tank of syrup.
It's thought, apart from the money,
that the crime was motivated partly
by bad feelings towards the FPAQ,
the people who control...
ALAN GASPS
Yes.
And low blood sugar, probably,
because have you ever been hangry?
When I, when I've got a food mood,
I just have to eat there and then.
Like most of these crimes,
there came a point where they should
have just stopped.
Yeah. If we steal any more syrup,
someone's going to notice,
when they climb on the barrels.
Let's stop at a thousand barrels,
what are we like?
Are we greedy people? Yeah. Hm.
What a quote,
"With most crimes, there's a point
where you should stop."
Where does maple syrup come from?
Maple tree?
It's called the sugar maple.
Ah.
And Quebec is currently
the world leader.
Isn't nature amazing?
Look at that, they've got,
they grow with a bucket
on the side ready for you.
They're milking trees.
It's like they want you to have it.
Do you not think he looks like
he's in a...
I don't know what he thinks he looks
like. He thinks he's in a catalogue.
"Man from C&A."
I do suddenly want to buy
some overalls for some reason.
Dungarees is the way forward.
It is actually very interesting,
I've been when they tap the sap.
It usually starts running in
about March,
because the warmer temperature
makes pressure inside
the tree increase, so the sap,
which is basically just sugar
and water,
is squeezed,
how can I put this nicely,
out of any open orifice.
And it takes 40 gallons of the sap
to make one gallon of syrup.
Oh, my gosh. So it's a lot.
But it's not a European invention,
it was made in the Americas
long before
the Europeans turned up,
usually by women from what we call
the First Nation tribes,
who tapped the sap
and then they collected firewood
and boiled the sap to make spirit.
Sounds like a Danny Dyer game show.
It does, yeah. Tap the Sap.
"Ladies and gentlemen,
let's tap the sap."
EAST LONDON ACCENT:
"Tap the sap, come on."
"'Ere comes a bucket."
He doesn't know the rules of it.
In his ear, "Shout tap the sap,
Danny."
"Which direction?" "Any way you
like, we've got you covered."
Maple tapping,
not limited to humans.
So squirrels have been seen
systematically biting...
Stuck to trees.
Stuck, like that.
"What's happened?"
Systematically...
They never know their limits.
"Oh, my gosh, my nuts are stuck."
Sorry, Sandi,
I went too far with that.
No, we're just, I'm trying to think
where to go from sticky nuts. Um...
The bathroom.
Yeah. They systematically bite into
maple trees to allow
the sap to flow.
But here is the really clever thing,
they don't just lap it up there
and go,
"Yay, I got the sap to flow."
They leave it and return,
so that, once the water
has evaporated,
there's a higher concentration
of the sugary sap.
Clever.
Thanks, squirrels.
Isn't that great?
Clever squirrel.
Yeah, lovely.
Yeah, I thought, "Hm, good on you.
Team players. I know.
Explain to me how
adult liquorice works.
All liquorice is adult liquorice,
because only adults like liquorice.
Correct. Yeah.
And I think sometimes mums pretend
to like it just
so there's something in the house
that nobody else is going to eat.
You've never been to Scandinavia,
we just all love liquorice.
You love liquorice.
And we are going to try some, OK?
The thing that makes it adult
is that it is extremely salty.
The flavour comes from
ammonium chloride,
which the Finnish people
call salmiakki, OK?
The Scandinavians say the stronger
and saltier the better,
and I absolutely agree.
So you have a little bowl like this.
Try it. If you don't like
liquorice... Who likes liquorice?
I like liquorice.
I like liquorice.
I don't know if I like salty
liquorice. This is adult liquorice.
Ooh. Oh, my God.
Huh? How good is that?
Boy! oh!
That's disgusting.
Actually, actually...
Coming around, Sandi,
I'm coming around.
Isn't it good? Alan spat his out.
My spine feels weird.
What's happening?
Thatis".
Do you like that, Jason?
I think once you get over
the initial shock.
The disappointment.
Yeah, it just becomes
disappointing, yeah.
You just become steadily
more depressed.
Yeah, it's all right.
There are health implications.
Really?
Thanks for telling us now.
Phew. I made the right call.
Too much ammonium chloride
is bad for you,
and so the European Union
wanted to set the cap
at 0.3%.
But, liquorice is, like, ten times
that much,
salty liquorice.
And there was a genuine fear that
the people of Scandinavia,
the Finns in particular,
would leave the EU
if they messed
with their liquorice.
Oh, God. You know.
A Sami-exit. Yeah.
So an exemption was made
for sweets and ice cream.
It just has to say
"Adult liquorice, not liquorice
for children" on it.
Right.
Do you have to have ID to get it?
I don't think you need to worry
about children
accidentally eating this.
I mean...
It's incredibly resistant
to saliva.
Yeah. That's a good quality
in a man, I think.
Be a good thing to put in
a personal ad. Oh, my God.
"Wanted, man,
incredibly resistant to saliva."
Oh, my God.
"Able to tolerate adult liquorice.
No other qualities necessary."
I hope this doesn't become
a thing now.
I don't want to start seeing...
Every time you come on Ql,
we give you a shit sweet.
Sweet and... Yeah,
sweet and sour jelly babies.
I don't want to see this.
That's sort of like jerky,
isn't it, really?
What, oh, do you like...?
I like jerky.
I think jerky is absolutely lovely.
Not when you're expecting a sweet.
Yeah. It's like a jaffa Cake,
but it's got chicken tikka
masala inside.
But it has been so popular
for so long
that it was found
in Tutankhamun's tomb.
In the tomb, Sandi, in the tomb.
Yeah. Let's bury it,
while he's going,
while the lid's open,
put the liquorice in.
It's incredibly resistant
to saliva.
Better seal it up, quick.
Ancient Romans used it
for bladder problems,
kidney stones, ulcers,
all sorts of things.
Oh, it's medicine,
yeah, it tastes like medicine.
It tastes a bit like medicine.
But medicine when it's...
You know when you're a kid
and medicine is actually quite nice.
It's like strawberry and banana
and then, about 13, they go,
"Oh, you can have chalk now."
Do you know what I mean?
It's that age of medicine.
The English physician
Nicholas Culpeper,
so we're talking 17th century,
recommended taking it
against coughs,
growths in the eye
and ulcers on the genitals.
I mean,
it already tastes like it's been
rubbed on someone's genitals.
What is the town in the UK
that we link with liquorice?
There's one town in West Yorkshire.
Towns in West Yorkshire.
Bassett?
P.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Pontefract.
Pontefract.
Of course it's Pontefract.
Pontefract cakes, absolutely right.
So it's extraordinary
that it's in Pontefract,
because the plant is native
to Southern Europe
and Western Asia.
Probably arrived in Pontefract
in about
the 16th century
via Dominican monks.
And, by the 1920s, there were ten
liquorice factories in the town.
But they're all sweet liquorice,
they're not...
They're the sort you like.
No—one's come in, like,
"Lads, have I got an idea for you."
"Imagine it was this product that
we've been selling millions of,
"but it tastes like shit.
Imagine that. Imagine. Huh, huh?"
I, I love it,
I'm just saying to you.
Not a single convert
in the house, Sandi.
I know.
Anyway, which head of state
did the Spice Girls sleep with?
Well, I'm nervous to say this,
but Nelson Mandela?
KLAXON BLARES
Yeah. It's...
Yeah.
It seemed too obvious.
I sort, I also sort of think
we'd have heard about that.
Do you think? It feels like
a big story, you know.
He said, which is pretty shocking,
that it was the best day of his
life when he met the Spice Girls.
Was it? How.
I met Nelson Mandela?
Did you?
When I was three. In New Zealand.
He came to speak
and all of the crowd, like,
surged forward
and I was sitting on a barrier
and it kind of pushed me
and I was next to my brother.
And so I started crying
and he came up to me
and he was, like,
"Why are you crying?"
And I was, like,
"My brother pushed me!"
To Nelson Mandela.
And then he was like, "Oh, don't
cry." And tried to comfort me.
My mum was like, "Do you know
who that was?"
And I was like, "No, I don't,
I'm three years old, right?"
"Rose, he has bigger fish to fry."
Yeah, exactly.
So the best day wasn't that day
that he met me.
That's very upsetting.
What were you saying, sorry?
So, we are slightly misleading you.
Mel B's child has obviously
just farted.
Oh, yes, yeah.
Which one's Mel B, Sandi?
Yeah, come on Sandi.
Point out the Mel B.
Oh, yeah, you met her, didn't you?
Mel B is the one wearing
a crocodile. That's right, yeah.
Right, so we're talking China.
We're talking China,
the spice girls of ancient China.
So these were the concubines
who slept with the Emperor.
Oh. What a job.
And we're calling them spice girls
because, in the Han Dynasty China,
so we're talking about 202 BC
to 220 AD,
the Emperor's concubines would live
in a pepper house.
So, basically, you've got mud
and plaster on the walls
and it's mixed with Szechuan pepper.
So the spice, it's really nice,
it provides a sort of warm
and fragrant atmosphere,
and also the plant is
a symbol of fertility,
because it has so many seeds.
And, even today, they throw it
sometimes as confetti at newlyweds,
sort of in rural areas of China.
Szechuan pepper?
Szechuan pepper, yes.
It's basically the dried berries
of the prickly ash tree.
Anyway, you get the sensation,
right.
It's not really spiciness,
it's like a tingling,
numbing sensation.
So, we're going to try it, OK.
So, having gone for the liquorice,
what I want you to do
is to take one and to bite...
Just one... No, not the whole thing,
darling, you'll die.
Oh. Yeah.
Well, why would you put
all of them in there?
Why would you risk that?
I wanted to give you choice.
I was about to... No.
...down it in one. I was...
Oh, my God.
Last time we saw Jason Manford...
So bite it and let it
cover your tongue.
May I advise you not to swallow it?
This is the worst game I've ever
played, since the liquorice game.
Yeah, so...
So bite it and then let it cover
your tongue,
and you should get a sensation
which is called paraesthesia and...
Are you all right, Jason? That's...
GARBLED: I think I've had
a reaction.
You know what this feels like at
the moment? Hm?
It feels like, you know sometimes
you see something on the carpet
and you think, oh,
it's a bit of a nut or something,
it's a bit of a crumb of food.
Yeah.
And you pick it up
and put it in your mouth.
And you think, actually,
that isn't food. No.
That's come out of the dog's arse
or off the kids' shoes
or something.
Who let the rabbit in the house?
What do you think, Alice?
It is really citrusy.
Yeah. Is it nice?
It is actually kind of...
It's not unpleasant.
Not unpleasant. It's almost got
the tingle of something mentholy.
Yes. And it gives you
just this kind of,
it's almost like
a tiny little vibration.
It reminds me of... there's a cafe
near me
that hasn't been decorated
for 60 years.
It reminds me of their loo.
The surface of my tongue
now feels like it wants
to leave my body,
is that what happens? Yeah.
It's really fizzy, isn't it?
It's, it's like putting
your wet tongue on a battery.
Ow. Hm, yes.
So they did a test
to see how many vibrations
is it actually causing?
And what they did was,
they got 28 volunteers
and they were kitted out
with little tiny vibrating tools.
And they were asked
to adjust it until it matched
what they could feel
on their tongue.
And Szechuan peppercorns make lips
vibrate at 50 hertz,
which is the same as a cat's purr.
Really?
Are you eating them all now?
I've had them now. Finished.
Have you eaten the lot?
Yeah.
Are you, are you swallowing them?
Who said that?
Your insides are going
to be vibrating at 50 hertz. Yeah.
When did you learn to fly?
What's going on?
Oh, my God, wow.
Hey, I tell you what,
when you have a couple, woo!
Now we're talking. Woohoo!
He's having a good time now.
You have a little line of blood
coming out of one nostril.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Are you currently experiencing
the last third of
2001 Space Odyssey?
You're just flying through space?
Oh, wow.
Zingy and sherberty. Wow, yeah.
Right, uh...
Jason is struggling now!
No.
"It's 3.47pm,
"Jason has had a whole bowl
of peppercorns."
Grandad?
"It's four hours since Jason
had the peppercorns."
I don't do drugs, like,
but that was the nearest...
To doing.
..I've come to it.
Yeah. I can actually see
the back of my head.
New question,
what did the original
Peter Piper pick?
A pickled pepper. Pumpkin.
KLAXON BLARES
Oh.
Not pepper. What else?
Pumpkin. Pumpkin.
Do they have pumpkin in
New Zealand? Is that a thing?
They have pumpkin, yes,
but also, weirdly, in New Zealand,
we eat pumpkin
and, apparently, here,
you guys feed them to pigs.
You're from England, I assume.
Definitely.
Do you eat pumpkin? No.
Why not?
I've got too many pigs to feed.
So, our best guess is that
it was a real person called,
behind the tongue—twister,
a one-armed French horticulturist
called Pierre Poivre.
And it's a really interesting story.
So we're talking 18th century.
He was involved in the spice trade,
he was interested in nutmeg,
cinnamon and cloves, not peppers.
So, he started his career
as a missionary in China.
I don't know what happened,
he was wrongfully arrested as soon
as he arrived. Who knows?
Been there, buddy. I know.
Been there.
So what he did, I like this,
he taught himself Chinese
to defend himself in court.
And when the mission ended,
he sailed back to France,
but there was a skirmish
with a British ship
and he lost an arm
to a cannonball.
And we've all been there.
Worst holiday ever.
Yeah. Had to rest up in Indonesia.
Wow. And then he hatched a plan
to smuggle spices,
because, in the 18th century,
it's sort of hard for us to believe,
spices were the tradeable commodity.
Some of them were worth
more than gold
and the Dutch had complete control
over spice distribution.
And they went to extreme measures
to make sure they had this monopoly.
So, for example,
they'd get nutmeg seeds
and they'd douse them in lime
before they exported them,
so that they wouldn't sprout,
so that you couldn't grow your own.
And smuggling seeds was a crime,
punishable by death.
But he transported more than
3,000 plants into Mauritius
and the Seychelles and Reunion,
and began growing them.
It's one of the reasons why we have
spices that we can trade
so easily today. This is...
Because nutmeg was used,
wasn't it,
to preserve meat on the ship?
Yeah. I mean spices
were really important.
And I know a little bit about this,
because I went to
the Island of Banda in Indonesia,
which was exchanged for what is now
the island of Manhattan
in a property swap.
Yeah. So the nursery rhyme
that we were talking about
at the very beginning, darling,
that was very first published
in 1813
in Peter Piper's
Practical Principles of Plain
and Perfect Pronunciation.
And it has a tongue twister for
every single letter of the alphabet.
So here is the one that we think
is based on this character,
Pierre Poivre.
But this is the S series,
so we've got the rhyme for S.
Who wants to try?
Let's do it.
Do it, Jason? Go for it.
Sammy Smellie smelt
a smell of Small-coal.
Did Sammy Smellie smell
a smelt of Small-coal?
If Sammy Smellie smelt
a smell of Small-coal,
where's the smell of small
coal Sammy Smellie smelt?
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
Wow.
I'm having the same sort of surge
of rage that I used to have
when one of my siblings
would get praised
for doing a simple task...
Yeah, yeah.
We also have a...
All right, whoa, whoa.
...that I haven't been asked to do.
What are you clapping that for?
He's just read it.
All right. Hey, all right,
Billy Big-Balls, you have a go.
Yeah, go on, then. Sammy Smellie
smelt a smell of Small-coal?
It's on the bloody screen.
All of it.
I had to do all of it.
Did Sammy Smellie smell
a smelt of Small-coal?
If Sammy Smellie smelt
a smell of Small-coal,
where's the smell
of Small-coal Sammy Smellie smelt?
APPLAUSE
Yes, and he did do it faster.
I don't want applause!
It's reading!
Well done, Alan.
OK, no, that's terribly impressive,
darling, well done. Oh, my God.
Do you know what Small-coal is?
No, and care not.
Anybody? Extra point.
I imagine it's tiny coal.
It is.
For a tiny fire in a tiny house.
It's what they used to call "slack".
It's coal about the size of
hazelnuts. It's to start the fire.
But I am terribly impressed
with your articulation.
Peter Pepper nicked
a nugget of nibbly nutmeg.
What makes my ice cream...?
ALAN CLAPS
Some of those words
began with the same letter!
There's 40 years in the business.
40 years to achieve this.
That's craft, that's stage craft,
right there. That is stage craft.
That took my breath away.
Extraordinary.
The same letter at
the beginning of the word.
Thank you, darling. It is 40 years.
And with that we stumble
into the sweet
and sour swamp of General Ignorance.
Fingers on buzzers, please.
Where does the UK get most
of its sugar from?
Yes?
# Sweet dreams... #
Morrison's?
Morrison's.
Good answer, yeah. I think
it's a very good answer. Yeah.
Anybody want to name
any other places?
I
No? What's a country, OK?
What is a country...?
Just generally?
# Sweet Home Alabama... #
Just any country,
it comes from a country?
Does it come from a country?
A country other than the UK?
Yes.
No. What?
Yes. So not...
I thought that was foolproof.
No. You went...
You went wide and were wrong.
No. Over 50% is supplied by
the British beet sugar industry.
And the rest is from the EU,
and then there is
a bit of cane sugar imported,
but the majority is grown in the UK.
On the topic of Britain and sugar,
do you think we're eating more
or less than we used to?
I think we're probably eating less.
Yeah, it sort of depends on what
you say what we were used to.
So there was a significant
increase in sugar intake
starting around the 1950s
and it reached 47.3 kilos
per capita in 1961.
But it has been declining.
Today it's about 35.2 kilos
of sugar per person.
Most British sugar is home-grown.
What did William Wrigley junior
start a company for?
# Alabama... #
It's chewing gum?
KLAXON BLARES
Oh, I was totally going
to say that. I'm so glad.
Yeah, I, oh...
Alan? Chewing gum was
a kind of accidental by-product
to something, wasn't it?
That they were trying to make?
Well, chewing gum has been around
for thousands of years,
because people chewed on birch sap
and all kinds of bits.
He actually started
a company selling soap, in 1891.
But he believed,
he had a philosophy,
everybody likes something extra
for nothing.
So he started offering baking powder
as a promotional item
and that was such a success,
he just went straight
to baking powder.
And then chewing gum
became his freebie.
And, soon, the chewing gum was more
popular than anything else.
And, by 1892,
he was just selling chewing gum,
and these favourites,
juicy Fruit and Spearmint there,
1893, they had become
the absolute favourites
that they I think still are.
That's incredible that the branding
is pretty much the same.
Hasn't really changed, has it?
Not really.
By 1909, Wrigley's Spearmint
was the best-selling gum
in the US.
And he did this brilliant thing,
he collected all the addresses
from American phone books
and sent a packet
to every single home.
And then everybody knew about
Wrigley's. And the rest is history.
But to talk about people
chewing gum forever —
in 2019, scientists at
the University of Copenhagen...
Globe...
They managed, this is astonishing,
they managed to sequence
a complete genome of a human being
based on the saliva from
a discarded piece of chewing gum
which was 5,000 years old.
Wow. It came from
the Island of Lolland.
Lolland is just south
of Copenhagen
and so they named this girl
who had eaten this piece
of chewing gum Lola,
they called her, after Lolland.
And they deduced from this one piece
of gum
that she was lactose intolerant,
she suffered from gum disease,
she had blue eyes,
dark skin, dark hair
and had recently eaten
a meal of duck
with hazelnuts,
from that one piece of gum.
Wow. Do you not think
that's astonishing?
And she wasn't brought up right if
she stuck that under a bus seat.
That's amazing.
But I just think that's incredible.
That is, that's so cool.
That's phenomenal, wow.
It's very cool.
Anyway, this is
an artist's impression
of what we know about her.
Can you name any South American
countries due south of Mexico?
Brazil?
KLAXON BLARES
It's going to be none of them,
isn't it? Argentina.
KLAXON BLARES
What, so what is it?
There aren't any?
Chile.
KLAXON BLARES
I could do this all day!
What do you reckon, Alan?
Well, it feels like there can't be
any, then.
There aren't. The whole...
OK, it must be twisted around.
Yeah, so,
so when you look at the map,
the whole of the South American
mainland is east of Mexico.
Indeed, 99% of it
is east of Florida.
The only exception is Easter Island,
which does politically belong
to Chile.
So you could have said Chile and we
wouldn't have... I did say Chile.
Did you say Chile? Yeah, so scrub
that, I was right. Yeah, sorry.
KLAXON BLARES
One way to remember that
South America sticks out like that
is to sort of imagine it on its side
and then the Americas
look uncannily like a duck.
If we can swivel that round
like that.
Oh, wow.
That's very cool, isn't it?
Yeah. I mean, it helps that you've
coloured it in.
Yeah. I think that is true.
Yeah. A lot of things can look like
a duck if you colour them in.
You may think it's quackers,
but all of South America
is east of Mexico.
OK, imagine you work
for British intelligence,
who can you tell?
Well, anybody,
but then you have to kill them.
KLAXON BLARES
What?
Wow.
Are you in my head now?
KLAXON BLARES
No, it's not the answer.
Anybody else?
Your mum?
You could tell your mum.
Yes, you could tell your mum.
Oh. It's the people that you feel
it's essential for you to tell
in order for you to be able
to carry on with the work.
So you just started seeing a guy,
like, for two months
and you're, like,
"I just want to tell him."
Yes. And then, I...
And then you get assigned
an agent handler to discuss
the pros and cons of making
an informed decision
as to whether or not
you should tell.
Really? Yeah.
So they'll check it out.
The general advice is to tell
close family members or friends. OK.
There was an MI6 employee
who was invited by the BBC
to be interviewed, and he told them
that the interviewer
was the sixth person he had told.
There's a marvellous story about
Rupert Murdoch.
So he was furious, he was told that
the former News Of The World
editor,
Rebekah Brooks, couldn't take a call
because she'd gone to the furniture
store, which is called MFI.
And, apparently,
her PA had misheard her
and she'd gone to an MI5 meeting.
I think if you work for MFI,
you shouldn't tell anybody.
Speaking of concealing
your intelligence,
it must be time for the scores.
In last place,
as useful as a chocolate teapot,
with minus 28, it's Alice.
APPLAUSE
Scoring some brownie points in third
with minus 24, it's Alan.
APPLAUSE
A super sugar-daddy in second,
with minus 20, it's Jason.
I'll take that, I'll take that.
Second will do me.
And one smart cookie in first place,
with minus 19, it's Rose.
CHEERING
Don't know how that happened.
That's all from us tonight.
My thanks to Alice,
Jason, Rose and Alan.
And I leave you
with this savoury sign-off.
If it looks like a duck,
walks like a duck,
talks like a duck,
probably needs a little bit
more time in the oven.
Goodnight.
APPLAUSE
Hello and welcome to QI.
Whether you like sweet or savoury,
there's something
for everyone tonight,
as we serve up a sensational
selection of Sugar and Spice.
Let's meet some real sweeties.
Sweet as a nut, it's Rose Matafeo.
APPLAUSE
Thank you.
Sweet as pie, it's Alice Levine.
APPLAUSE
Short and sweet,
it's Jason Manford.
APPLAUSE
I'll take that, that's fine.
And you can bet your sweet ass
it's Alan Davies.
APPLAUSE
Let's see if their buzzers are sweet
or spicy. Rose goes...
# Sweet home Alabama... #
Alice goes...
# Sweet dreams are made of this... #
Jason goes...
# Sweet Caroline
# Ba-ba-baaa! #
Oh, I just want to carry on.
I like that.
Uh, and Alan goes...
# Colours of the world!
Spice up your life
# Every boy and every girl!
Spice up your life
# People of the world!
Spice up your life
# Ahhhh... #
Oh.
Wow, you all did a dancy thing.
I once did a show...
Is she called Mel B?
I did a show with her.
She is called Mel B. It depends
who you're talking about.
Anyway, it was charming.
What's sticky
and well worth stealing?
A friggin' nice stick. I don't...
Wow.
But, like, a good stick,
like the best stick you've ever
seen, Sandi.
I agree. When, my son,
if we go for a walk,
he finds the best sticks, like,
and he will hold on to that stick
to the point...
My wife won't let them in the house,
because they've been outside,
so he will leave it on the doorstep.
And, the next morning,
when his stick is still there,
it's like the PlayStation 5
has been delivered.
It's like a box to a kitten,
a stick to a kid.
Oh, they love them. Wait till you
get him a toy. I know.
Oh, there's a bloody forest out
there, help yourself, mate.
It's like Toys R Us.
It's a weapon. It's a friend.
It's a companion. Exactly.
I love a stick. Rose knows.
Like a stick, OK. She knows.
I've forgotten what
the question was.
So, sticky and worth stealing?
Jam.
Sort of. It's a kind of...
I'm going to say Post—its,
because you don't ever buy that kind
of thing, do you?
You just steal that from work.
Just from the office.
Oh, yeah, that's good. That's
the problem with the work I do.
I never go to an office.
Ah, yeah.
No stationery—stealing.
Be a good idea.
What's that?
For a website,
where you could buy some stuff,
but there was a shoplifty corner.
That's such a good idea.
And if you...
if you avoided being detected
by a couple of windows
and you could get into
the shoplifting room,
you could nick a couple of things
and get away with it.
That's such... Let me write
this down. I'm so sorry.
Because the fun of nicking something
is gone at the moment, isn't it?
No—one's nicked anything for ages.
I've never shoplifted in my entire
life, though. Have you shoplifted?
Oh, God, yeah. Really?
I haven't.
Are you kidding? As a schoolboy,
it was an absolute rite of passage.
Oh, my God.
I remember I had friends
who had an aquarium
and they'd go in the pet shop
and just get weeds out of
the fish tank.
I stole a Kinder Egg when I was,
when I was about 13.
I felt so guilty that
I actually took it back
the next day and put it back
on the...
Alice, have you,
have you shoplifted?
I think you know the answer to this.
Alice...
I'm such a goody two-shoes,
I haven't.
So the three women
have not shoplifted,
I'm just putting it out there.
Rose has committed many crimes.
Yeah, yeah, I've committed fraud.
I've been to jail for fraud,
but that's a clever one.
OK. So,
we are going for something sticky,
but it's something you could put
on pancakes.
Oh, syrup. Maple syrup?
Maple syrup.
So, over several months,
from 2011 to 2012,
there was a group of thieves
and they stole 3,000 tons
of maple syrup from Canada's
global syrup reserves.
I mean, who's not glad that those
exist, right?
Oh, my gosh.
It became known,
and I love this title,
The Great Maple Syrup Heist.
Ooh, wow.
When does it become a heist?
When it's enormously valuable.
This is the most valuable heist
in the whole of Canadian history.
So Canada produces 80%
of the world's maple syrup.
90% of that comes from
Quebec alone.
And they have a strategic reserve
of about 160,000,
or more, barrels,
which are worth $1,800 each,
OK. It's quite a lot of money.
And this is controlled by
a group called The Federation
of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers,
the FPAQ.
Great bunch of lads.
I know, such fun at parties.
They sound like a laugh, yeah.
And they keep control of the supply.
And the reserve is only checked
once a year.
So the thieves went into
the place and what they did was
they systematically removed
some barrels,
temporarily replaced them
with empty ones,
syphoned out the syrup,
refilled them with water
and replaced them.
Perfect crime, OK. Yeah.
Because nobody knew until
a syrup inspector
went and had a look,
climbed on a stack of barrels
and nearly fell,
because of the empty ones,
weren't strong enough
to take his weight.
And he raised the alarm
and, in total, 9,000 or more barrels
had been emptied of maple syrup.
Wow.
Worth $18 million.
"Ring the alarum bell."
When is Guy Ritchie
going to make that film?
I know. I want to see Jason Statham
doing a Canadian accent.
Yeah.
Floating in a tank of syrup.
It's thought, apart from the money,
that the crime was motivated partly
by bad feelings towards the FPAQ,
the people who control...
ALAN GASPS
Yes.
And low blood sugar, probably,
because have you ever been hangry?
When I, when I've got a food mood,
I just have to eat there and then.
Like most of these crimes,
there came a point where they should
have just stopped.
Yeah. If we steal any more syrup,
someone's going to notice,
when they climb on the barrels.
Let's stop at a thousand barrels,
what are we like?
Are we greedy people? Yeah. Hm.
What a quote,
"With most crimes, there's a point
where you should stop."
Where does maple syrup come from?
Maple tree?
It's called the sugar maple.
Ah.
And Quebec is currently
the world leader.
Isn't nature amazing?
Look at that, they've got,
they grow with a bucket
on the side ready for you.
They're milking trees.
It's like they want you to have it.
Do you not think he looks like
he's in a...
I don't know what he thinks he looks
like. He thinks he's in a catalogue.
"Man from C&A."
I do suddenly want to buy
some overalls for some reason.
Dungarees is the way forward.
It is actually very interesting,
I've been when they tap the sap.
It usually starts running in
about March,
because the warmer temperature
makes pressure inside
the tree increase, so the sap,
which is basically just sugar
and water,
is squeezed,
how can I put this nicely,
out of any open orifice.
And it takes 40 gallons of the sap
to make one gallon of syrup.
Oh, my gosh. So it's a lot.
But it's not a European invention,
it was made in the Americas
long before
the Europeans turned up,
usually by women from what we call
the First Nation tribes,
who tapped the sap
and then they collected firewood
and boiled the sap to make spirit.
Sounds like a Danny Dyer game show.
It does, yeah. Tap the Sap.
"Ladies and gentlemen,
let's tap the sap."
EAST LONDON ACCENT:
"Tap the sap, come on."
"'Ere comes a bucket."
He doesn't know the rules of it.
In his ear, "Shout tap the sap,
Danny."
"Which direction?" "Any way you
like, we've got you covered."
Maple tapping,
not limited to humans.
So squirrels have been seen
systematically biting...
Stuck to trees.
Stuck, like that.
"What's happened?"
Systematically...
They never know their limits.
"Oh, my gosh, my nuts are stuck."
Sorry, Sandi,
I went too far with that.
No, we're just, I'm trying to think
where to go from sticky nuts. Um...
The bathroom.
Yeah. They systematically bite into
maple trees to allow
the sap to flow.
But here is the really clever thing,
they don't just lap it up there
and go,
"Yay, I got the sap to flow."
They leave it and return,
so that, once the water
has evaporated,
there's a higher concentration
of the sugary sap.
Clever.
Thanks, squirrels.
Isn't that great?
Clever squirrel.
Yeah, lovely.
Yeah, I thought, "Hm, good on you.
Team players. I know.
Explain to me how
adult liquorice works.
All liquorice is adult liquorice,
because only adults like liquorice.
Correct. Yeah.
And I think sometimes mums pretend
to like it just
so there's something in the house
that nobody else is going to eat.
You've never been to Scandinavia,
we just all love liquorice.
You love liquorice.
And we are going to try some, OK?
The thing that makes it adult
is that it is extremely salty.
The flavour comes from
ammonium chloride,
which the Finnish people
call salmiakki, OK?
The Scandinavians say the stronger
and saltier the better,
and I absolutely agree.
So you have a little bowl like this.
Try it. If you don't like
liquorice... Who likes liquorice?
I like liquorice.
I like liquorice.
I don't know if I like salty
liquorice. This is adult liquorice.
Ooh. Oh, my God.
Huh? How good is that?
Boy! oh!
That's disgusting.
Actually, actually...
Coming around, Sandi,
I'm coming around.
Isn't it good? Alan spat his out.
My spine feels weird.
What's happening?
Thatis".
Do you like that, Jason?
I think once you get over
the initial shock.
The disappointment.
Yeah, it just becomes
disappointing, yeah.
You just become steadily
more depressed.
Yeah, it's all right.
There are health implications.
Really?
Thanks for telling us now.
Phew. I made the right call.
Too much ammonium chloride
is bad for you,
and so the European Union
wanted to set the cap
at 0.3%.
But, liquorice is, like, ten times
that much,
salty liquorice.
And there was a genuine fear that
the people of Scandinavia,
the Finns in particular,
would leave the EU
if they messed
with their liquorice.
Oh, God. You know.
A Sami-exit. Yeah.
So an exemption was made
for sweets and ice cream.
It just has to say
"Adult liquorice, not liquorice
for children" on it.
Right.
Do you have to have ID to get it?
I don't think you need to worry
about children
accidentally eating this.
I mean...
It's incredibly resistant
to saliva.
Yeah. That's a good quality
in a man, I think.
Be a good thing to put in
a personal ad. Oh, my God.
"Wanted, man,
incredibly resistant to saliva."
Oh, my God.
"Able to tolerate adult liquorice.
No other qualities necessary."
I hope this doesn't become
a thing now.
I don't want to start seeing...
Every time you come on Ql,
we give you a shit sweet.
Sweet and... Yeah,
sweet and sour jelly babies.
I don't want to see this.
That's sort of like jerky,
isn't it, really?
What, oh, do you like...?
I like jerky.
I think jerky is absolutely lovely.
Not when you're expecting a sweet.
Yeah. It's like a jaffa Cake,
but it's got chicken tikka
masala inside.
But it has been so popular
for so long
that it was found
in Tutankhamun's tomb.
In the tomb, Sandi, in the tomb.
Yeah. Let's bury it,
while he's going,
while the lid's open,
put the liquorice in.
It's incredibly resistant
to saliva.
Better seal it up, quick.
Ancient Romans used it
for bladder problems,
kidney stones, ulcers,
all sorts of things.
Oh, it's medicine,
yeah, it tastes like medicine.
It tastes a bit like medicine.
But medicine when it's...
You know when you're a kid
and medicine is actually quite nice.
It's like strawberry and banana
and then, about 13, they go,
"Oh, you can have chalk now."
Do you know what I mean?
It's that age of medicine.
The English physician
Nicholas Culpeper,
so we're talking 17th century,
recommended taking it
against coughs,
growths in the eye
and ulcers on the genitals.
I mean,
it already tastes like it's been
rubbed on someone's genitals.
What is the town in the UK
that we link with liquorice?
There's one town in West Yorkshire.
Towns in West Yorkshire.
Bassett?
P.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Pontefract.
Pontefract.
Of course it's Pontefract.
Pontefract cakes, absolutely right.
So it's extraordinary
that it's in Pontefract,
because the plant is native
to Southern Europe
and Western Asia.
Probably arrived in Pontefract
in about
the 16th century
via Dominican monks.
And, by the 1920s, there were ten
liquorice factories in the town.
But they're all sweet liquorice,
they're not...
They're the sort you like.
No—one's come in, like,
"Lads, have I got an idea for you."
"Imagine it was this product that
we've been selling millions of,
"but it tastes like shit.
Imagine that. Imagine. Huh, huh?"
I, I love it,
I'm just saying to you.
Not a single convert
in the house, Sandi.
I know.
Anyway, which head of state
did the Spice Girls sleep with?
Well, I'm nervous to say this,
but Nelson Mandela?
KLAXON BLARES
Yeah. It's...
Yeah.
It seemed too obvious.
I sort, I also sort of think
we'd have heard about that.
Do you think? It feels like
a big story, you know.
He said, which is pretty shocking,
that it was the best day of his
life when he met the Spice Girls.
Was it? How.
I met Nelson Mandela?
Did you?
When I was three. In New Zealand.
He came to speak
and all of the crowd, like,
surged forward
and I was sitting on a barrier
and it kind of pushed me
and I was next to my brother.
And so I started crying
and he came up to me
and he was, like,
"Why are you crying?"
And I was, like,
"My brother pushed me!"
To Nelson Mandela.
And then he was like, "Oh, don't
cry." And tried to comfort me.
My mum was like, "Do you know
who that was?"
And I was like, "No, I don't,
I'm three years old, right?"
"Rose, he has bigger fish to fry."
Yeah, exactly.
So the best day wasn't that day
that he met me.
That's very upsetting.
What were you saying, sorry?
So, we are slightly misleading you.
Mel B's child has obviously
just farted.
Oh, yes, yeah.
Which one's Mel B, Sandi?
Yeah, come on Sandi.
Point out the Mel B.
Oh, yeah, you met her, didn't you?
Mel B is the one wearing
a crocodile. That's right, yeah.
Right, so we're talking China.
We're talking China,
the spice girls of ancient China.
So these were the concubines
who slept with the Emperor.
Oh. What a job.
And we're calling them spice girls
because, in the Han Dynasty China,
so we're talking about 202 BC
to 220 AD,
the Emperor's concubines would live
in a pepper house.
So, basically, you've got mud
and plaster on the walls
and it's mixed with Szechuan pepper.
So the spice, it's really nice,
it provides a sort of warm
and fragrant atmosphere,
and also the plant is
a symbol of fertility,
because it has so many seeds.
And, even today, they throw it
sometimes as confetti at newlyweds,
sort of in rural areas of China.
Szechuan pepper?
Szechuan pepper, yes.
It's basically the dried berries
of the prickly ash tree.
Anyway, you get the sensation,
right.
It's not really spiciness,
it's like a tingling,
numbing sensation.
So, we're going to try it, OK.
So, having gone for the liquorice,
what I want you to do
is to take one and to bite...
Just one... No, not the whole thing,
darling, you'll die.
Oh. Yeah.
Well, why would you put
all of them in there?
Why would you risk that?
I wanted to give you choice.
I was about to... No.
...down it in one. I was...
Oh, my God.
Last time we saw Jason Manford...
So bite it and let it
cover your tongue.
May I advise you not to swallow it?
This is the worst game I've ever
played, since the liquorice game.
Yeah, so...
So bite it and then let it cover
your tongue,
and you should get a sensation
which is called paraesthesia and...
Are you all right, Jason? That's...
GARBLED: I think I've had
a reaction.
You know what this feels like at
the moment? Hm?
It feels like, you know sometimes
you see something on the carpet
and you think, oh,
it's a bit of a nut or something,
it's a bit of a crumb of food.
Yeah.
And you pick it up
and put it in your mouth.
And you think, actually,
that isn't food. No.
That's come out of the dog's arse
or off the kids' shoes
or something.
Who let the rabbit in the house?
What do you think, Alice?
It is really citrusy.
Yeah. Is it nice?
It is actually kind of...
It's not unpleasant.
Not unpleasant. It's almost got
the tingle of something mentholy.
Yes. And it gives you
just this kind of,
it's almost like
a tiny little vibration.
It reminds me of... there's a cafe
near me
that hasn't been decorated
for 60 years.
It reminds me of their loo.
The surface of my tongue
now feels like it wants
to leave my body,
is that what happens? Yeah.
It's really fizzy, isn't it?
It's, it's like putting
your wet tongue on a battery.
Ow. Hm, yes.
So they did a test
to see how many vibrations
is it actually causing?
And what they did was,
they got 28 volunteers
and they were kitted out
with little tiny vibrating tools.
And they were asked
to adjust it until it matched
what they could feel
on their tongue.
And Szechuan peppercorns make lips
vibrate at 50 hertz,
which is the same as a cat's purr.
Really?
Are you eating them all now?
I've had them now. Finished.
Have you eaten the lot?
Yeah.
Are you, are you swallowing them?
Who said that?
Your insides are going
to be vibrating at 50 hertz. Yeah.
When did you learn to fly?
What's going on?
Oh, my God, wow.
Hey, I tell you what,
when you have a couple, woo!
Now we're talking. Woohoo!
He's having a good time now.
You have a little line of blood
coming out of one nostril.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Are you currently experiencing
the last third of
2001 Space Odyssey?
You're just flying through space?
Oh, wow.
Zingy and sherberty. Wow, yeah.
Right, uh...
Jason is struggling now!
No.
"It's 3.47pm,
"Jason has had a whole bowl
of peppercorns."
Grandad?
"It's four hours since Jason
had the peppercorns."
I don't do drugs, like,
but that was the nearest...
To doing.
..I've come to it.
Yeah. I can actually see
the back of my head.
New question,
what did the original
Peter Piper pick?
A pickled pepper. Pumpkin.
KLAXON BLARES
Oh.
Not pepper. What else?
Pumpkin. Pumpkin.
Do they have pumpkin in
New Zealand? Is that a thing?
They have pumpkin, yes,
but also, weirdly, in New Zealand,
we eat pumpkin
and, apparently, here,
you guys feed them to pigs.
You're from England, I assume.
Definitely.
Do you eat pumpkin? No.
Why not?
I've got too many pigs to feed.
So, our best guess is that
it was a real person called,
behind the tongue—twister,
a one-armed French horticulturist
called Pierre Poivre.
And it's a really interesting story.
So we're talking 18th century.
He was involved in the spice trade,
he was interested in nutmeg,
cinnamon and cloves, not peppers.
So, he started his career
as a missionary in China.
I don't know what happened,
he was wrongfully arrested as soon
as he arrived. Who knows?
Been there, buddy. I know.
Been there.
So what he did, I like this,
he taught himself Chinese
to defend himself in court.
And when the mission ended,
he sailed back to France,
but there was a skirmish
with a British ship
and he lost an arm
to a cannonball.
And we've all been there.
Worst holiday ever.
Yeah. Had to rest up in Indonesia.
Wow. And then he hatched a plan
to smuggle spices,
because, in the 18th century,
it's sort of hard for us to believe,
spices were the tradeable commodity.
Some of them were worth
more than gold
and the Dutch had complete control
over spice distribution.
And they went to extreme measures
to make sure they had this monopoly.
So, for example,
they'd get nutmeg seeds
and they'd douse them in lime
before they exported them,
so that they wouldn't sprout,
so that you couldn't grow your own.
And smuggling seeds was a crime,
punishable by death.
But he transported more than
3,000 plants into Mauritius
and the Seychelles and Reunion,
and began growing them.
It's one of the reasons why we have
spices that we can trade
so easily today. This is...
Because nutmeg was used,
wasn't it,
to preserve meat on the ship?
Yeah. I mean spices
were really important.
And I know a little bit about this,
because I went to
the Island of Banda in Indonesia,
which was exchanged for what is now
the island of Manhattan
in a property swap.
Yeah. So the nursery rhyme
that we were talking about
at the very beginning, darling,
that was very first published
in 1813
in Peter Piper's
Practical Principles of Plain
and Perfect Pronunciation.
And it has a tongue twister for
every single letter of the alphabet.
So here is the one that we think
is based on this character,
Pierre Poivre.
But this is the S series,
so we've got the rhyme for S.
Who wants to try?
Let's do it.
Do it, Jason? Go for it.
Sammy Smellie smelt
a smell of Small-coal.
Did Sammy Smellie smell
a smelt of Small-coal?
If Sammy Smellie smelt
a smell of Small-coal,
where's the smell of small
coal Sammy Smellie smelt?
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
Wow.
I'm having the same sort of surge
of rage that I used to have
when one of my siblings
would get praised
for doing a simple task...
Yeah, yeah.
We also have a...
All right, whoa, whoa.
...that I haven't been asked to do.
What are you clapping that for?
He's just read it.
All right. Hey, all right,
Billy Big-Balls, you have a go.
Yeah, go on, then. Sammy Smellie
smelt a smell of Small-coal?
It's on the bloody screen.
All of it.
I had to do all of it.
Did Sammy Smellie smell
a smelt of Small-coal?
If Sammy Smellie smelt
a smell of Small-coal,
where's the smell
of Small-coal Sammy Smellie smelt?
APPLAUSE
Yes, and he did do it faster.
I don't want applause!
It's reading!
Well done, Alan.
OK, no, that's terribly impressive,
darling, well done. Oh, my God.
Do you know what Small-coal is?
No, and care not.
Anybody? Extra point.
I imagine it's tiny coal.
It is.
For a tiny fire in a tiny house.
It's what they used to call "slack".
It's coal about the size of
hazelnuts. It's to start the fire.
But I am terribly impressed
with your articulation.
Peter Pepper nicked
a nugget of nibbly nutmeg.
What makes my ice cream...?
ALAN CLAPS
Some of those words
began with the same letter!
There's 40 years in the business.
40 years to achieve this.
That's craft, that's stage craft,
right there. That is stage craft.
That took my breath away.
Extraordinary.
The same letter at
the beginning of the word.
Thank you, darling. It is 40 years.
And with that we stumble
into the sweet
and sour swamp of General Ignorance.
Fingers on buzzers, please.
Where does the UK get most
of its sugar from?
Yes?
# Sweet dreams... #
Morrison's?
Morrison's.
Good answer, yeah. I think
it's a very good answer. Yeah.
Anybody want to name
any other places?
I
No? What's a country, OK?
What is a country...?
Just generally?
# Sweet Home Alabama... #
Just any country,
it comes from a country?
Does it come from a country?
A country other than the UK?
Yes.
No. What?
Yes. So not...
I thought that was foolproof.
No. You went...
You went wide and were wrong.
No. Over 50% is supplied by
the British beet sugar industry.
And the rest is from the EU,
and then there is
a bit of cane sugar imported,
but the majority is grown in the UK.
On the topic of Britain and sugar,
do you think we're eating more
or less than we used to?
I think we're probably eating less.
Yeah, it sort of depends on what
you say what we were used to.
So there was a significant
increase in sugar intake
starting around the 1950s
and it reached 47.3 kilos
per capita in 1961.
But it has been declining.
Today it's about 35.2 kilos
of sugar per person.
Most British sugar is home-grown.
What did William Wrigley junior
start a company for?
# Alabama... #
It's chewing gum?
KLAXON BLARES
Oh, I was totally going
to say that. I'm so glad.
Yeah, I, oh...
Alan? Chewing gum was
a kind of accidental by-product
to something, wasn't it?
That they were trying to make?
Well, chewing gum has been around
for thousands of years,
because people chewed on birch sap
and all kinds of bits.
He actually started
a company selling soap, in 1891.
But he believed,
he had a philosophy,
everybody likes something extra
for nothing.
So he started offering baking powder
as a promotional item
and that was such a success,
he just went straight
to baking powder.
And then chewing gum
became his freebie.
And, soon, the chewing gum was more
popular than anything else.
And, by 1892,
he was just selling chewing gum,
and these favourites,
juicy Fruit and Spearmint there,
1893, they had become
the absolute favourites
that they I think still are.
That's incredible that the branding
is pretty much the same.
Hasn't really changed, has it?
Not really.
By 1909, Wrigley's Spearmint
was the best-selling gum
in the US.
And he did this brilliant thing,
he collected all the addresses
from American phone books
and sent a packet
to every single home.
And then everybody knew about
Wrigley's. And the rest is history.
But to talk about people
chewing gum forever —
in 2019, scientists at
the University of Copenhagen...
Globe...
They managed, this is astonishing,
they managed to sequence
a complete genome of a human being
based on the saliva from
a discarded piece of chewing gum
which was 5,000 years old.
Wow. It came from
the Island of Lolland.
Lolland is just south
of Copenhagen
and so they named this girl
who had eaten this piece
of chewing gum Lola,
they called her, after Lolland.
And they deduced from this one piece
of gum
that she was lactose intolerant,
she suffered from gum disease,
she had blue eyes,
dark skin, dark hair
and had recently eaten
a meal of duck
with hazelnuts,
from that one piece of gum.
Wow. Do you not think
that's astonishing?
And she wasn't brought up right if
she stuck that under a bus seat.
That's amazing.
But I just think that's incredible.
That is, that's so cool.
That's phenomenal, wow.
It's very cool.
Anyway, this is
an artist's impression
of what we know about her.
Can you name any South American
countries due south of Mexico?
Brazil?
KLAXON BLARES
It's going to be none of them,
isn't it? Argentina.
KLAXON BLARES
What, so what is it?
There aren't any?
Chile.
KLAXON BLARES
I could do this all day!
What do you reckon, Alan?
Well, it feels like there can't be
any, then.
There aren't. The whole...
OK, it must be twisted around.
Yeah, so,
so when you look at the map,
the whole of the South American
mainland is east of Mexico.
Indeed, 99% of it
is east of Florida.
The only exception is Easter Island,
which does politically belong
to Chile.
So you could have said Chile and we
wouldn't have... I did say Chile.
Did you say Chile? Yeah, so scrub
that, I was right. Yeah, sorry.
KLAXON BLARES
One way to remember that
South America sticks out like that
is to sort of imagine it on its side
and then the Americas
look uncannily like a duck.
If we can swivel that round
like that.
Oh, wow.
That's very cool, isn't it?
Yeah. I mean, it helps that you've
coloured it in.
Yeah. I think that is true.
Yeah. A lot of things can look like
a duck if you colour them in.
You may think it's quackers,
but all of South America
is east of Mexico.
OK, imagine you work
for British intelligence,
who can you tell?
Well, anybody,
but then you have to kill them.
KLAXON BLARES
What?
Wow.
Are you in my head now?
KLAXON BLARES
No, it's not the answer.
Anybody else?
Your mum?
You could tell your mum.
Yes, you could tell your mum.
Oh. It's the people that you feel
it's essential for you to tell
in order for you to be able
to carry on with the work.
So you just started seeing a guy,
like, for two months
and you're, like,
"I just want to tell him."
Yes. And then, I...
And then you get assigned
an agent handler to discuss
the pros and cons of making
an informed decision
as to whether or not
you should tell.
Really? Yeah.
So they'll check it out.
The general advice is to tell
close family members or friends. OK.
There was an MI6 employee
who was invited by the BBC
to be interviewed, and he told them
that the interviewer
was the sixth person he had told.
There's a marvellous story about
Rupert Murdoch.
So he was furious, he was told that
the former News Of The World
editor,
Rebekah Brooks, couldn't take a call
because she'd gone to the furniture
store, which is called MFI.
And, apparently,
her PA had misheard her
and she'd gone to an MI5 meeting.
I think if you work for MFI,
you shouldn't tell anybody.
Speaking of concealing
your intelligence,
it must be time for the scores.
In last place,
as useful as a chocolate teapot,
with minus 28, it's Alice.
APPLAUSE
Scoring some brownie points in third
with minus 24, it's Alan.
APPLAUSE
A super sugar-daddy in second,
with minus 20, it's Jason.
I'll take that, I'll take that.
Second will do me.
And one smart cookie in first place,
with minus 19, it's Rose.
CHEERING
Don't know how that happened.
That's all from us tonight.
My thanks to Alice,
Jason, Rose and Alan.
And I leave you
with this savoury sign-off.
If it looks like a duck,
walks like a duck,
talks like a duck,
probably needs a little bit
more time in the oven.
Goodnight.
APPLAUSE