QI (2003–…): Season 2, Episode 8 - Bees - full transcript

(Applause, cheering, whistling)

Well, hello, hello, hello, hello,
and welcome to Ql

for another handful of pickled herrings

from the groaning smorgasbord
of knowledge.

And joining me tonight
in the bistro of bewilderment

- are Rich Hall...
- (Cheering and applause)

Fred MacAulay,

Jo Brand, and Alan Davies.

Well, let's tuck in, shall we? Rich.

(Cork creaking and popping)

And Fred.



- (Wine pouring)
- Ah.

And Jo.

(Sizzling)

And Alan.

(Burp)

Naturellement.

B is for bottle, Burgundy, barbecue,

and, as Alan has shown us, burp.

And the starter of the day as well,
which is biography.

So this question.

Who first discovered
that the world was round?

lt's flat, isn't it?

- ls it going to be a trick question?
- (Laughing) lt's...

- You're cagey from the first.
- Right from the off.



Right from the off you're cagey.

- Any thoughts?
- (Alan) Copernicus.

- Not Copernicus.
- Galileo.

Nor Galileo.

Someone with a telescope worked it out.

They would have been able to work out
that the moon was round,

but your telescope is not that useful
for looking at the earth.

- (Sizzling)
- Yes?

Was it Len Murray?

Are you talking about
the general secretary of the TUC?

- l am.
- Len Murray.

- Not him? No.
- No, it wasn't him.

(Fred) He discovered the potato was round.

(Stephen) He discovered
the potato was round.

- Was it somebody with a boat?
- lt wasn't, no.

lndeed, it's... We're talking about
something perhaps,

or at least something that isn't human.

- A bird.
- An animal. Not a bird, even.

- They fly...
- (Fred) Fish.

- (Alan) Fish.
- Nor a fish.

- Good, though. You're on the right lines.
- Whales?

- Not a whale.
- (Alan) Dolphins, sharks...

- No, not sea animals at all.
- Sea.

- On land?
- Land.

- (Jo) A panda.
- Bees.

- Bees is the right answer!
- Using the...thing and the thing.

They can recognise the position of the sun
even at night.

Even whilst eating pollen
they can keep an eye on it.

Termites, termite mounds
go round in a spiral like that,

because as the termites
build them in the day,

they stay out of the sun,
so the sun goes round

- and they go round like that.
- (Stephen) Staying cool.

Quite interesting?

- lt is quite interesting, very good.
- (Jo) Yes, it is,

but it's not about bees, though, is it.

What is about bees is they also have
the most developed

magnetic sense of any animal,
and if you put a strong magnet

next to one of those, a honeycomb,

it completely changes the shape
into something that's never seen in nature,

a cylindrical-shaped honeycomb,
if you put a magnet next to it.

Yeah, but you would be stung
to death if you did that.

Well, it's true.
lt wouldn't be a wise proceeding.

You could wear one of those
amusing costumes.

Can l ask Alan, you know,
on a cloudy day,

- do the termites really just...
- They really motor upwards.

(Stephen) They probably do.
They probably do.

You can see the termite mound
go swirly, and then whoop, and then...

But bees are very interesting animals,

or at least quite interesting.

Most bees, what happens
when they sting you?

- They die.
- No, they don't.

- Oddly enough.
- Yes, they do.

- Only the honey bee. Only the honey bee.
- Yes. they do.

They've got one sting,
wasps have more than one sting.

No. Only one species of bee...

You're not allowed to kill bees.
You can kill wasps, though.

Only one type of bee,
which is the honey bee,

leaves its sting behind and dies.

But all the other species of bees, and
there are many, can string you repeatedly.

And actually there are several species
of wasp that die when they sting you.

So if you're stung by an animal that has
died, it's more likely to have been a wasp.

l think you'll find
that if a bee has stung you inside my house,

it's likely to die.

Exactly.

l'm not surprised.

Honey, Eddie lzzard
once observed was very odd.

Bees make honey.
Earwigs, he said,

don't make chutney.

lt takes 12 bees
an entire lifetime

to make enough honey
to fill a teaspoon.

So the lifetime of 12 bees.
And you go into a supermarket

and you see all those jars, think
how many bees have been working away.

And if it's a 125ml jar, it'll take 300 bees.

Fantastic.

What a loss
to the accountancy profession.

Those are hexagons.

They are hexagons,
little six-sided bee cells. Brilliant.

Why do they make hexagon shapes?

The hexagonal form
uses the minimum amount of wax

for the maximum amount
of storage in a given area.

l'll just finish off this thing. Honey bees
have evolved a complex language

to tell each other
where the best nectar is,

using the sun as a reference point.

Amazingly, they can also do this
on overcast days and at night

by calculating the position of the sun
on the other side of the world.

This means they can actually learn
and store information.

Has it... Has it occurred to you
that they may not be using the sun?

That whoever has worked that out is wrong?

And is now saying
even when you can't see it,

or it's on the other side
of the world, they still use it.

And the bees are thinking, ''No, we don't,
we just remember where we live!''

Why is it so remarkable
that they know where they live?

Well, because they have
only 950,000 neurons,

as opposed to our ten billion neurons
in our brains.

But they've only got one thing to remember -
where they live.

They've got a lot more to remember.

So how come l've got ten billion

and sometimes l forget where l live?

Exactly.

Which brings us to our next question,
which is, why do bees buzz?

- (Sizzling)
- Jo.

Because they can.

(Alan) They buzz so that when they're
trapped in the living room,

you know to open a window.

(Stephen) lt's a thought.

ls it to, um, sound industrious?

Yes, could be.

You have to look at bees
as aerospace workers.

Right.

- And, uh... Stay with me.
- Yeah, l'm with you.

lt's all right, l'm still here.

When you're flying,
you want to make a lot of noise,

because a...

a quiet aircraft is, uh... (Clears throat)

crashing.

- Well...
- l think it's their knees knocking

that makes the buzzing,
because they hate flying.

They're terrified of flying.

- (Stephen) What is it that makes the noise?
- The wings.

(Alarm)

No. No, it isn't, l'm afraid.

- Not the wings, then?
- No, it won't be the wings.

(Jo) Er, testicles?

Their little tiny mouths. (Buzzing)

Well, it is sort of little mouths, it's through
what they breathe, they're called spiracles,

they have them down their sides,
through which they breathe.

All buzzing insects,
bluebottles the same, it's not the wings.

Less than one per cent of the buzz
comes from their wings.

Bees breathe through 14 holes
along the sides of their bodies,

and they're called spiracles,

and each one has a valve
to limit the flow of air, and they can tune it,

rather like a trumpeter sort of using his lips.

What's that called?
Embouchure, or whatever it is.

- Yes.
- (Rich) Embouchure.

And in the same way
that one human lung on a trumpet

can fill a vast hall with a great sound,

more than it can with its own vocal chords,

so a bee can make this extraordinary noise
just through controlling its breathing.

- lsn't science marvellous?
- lt is.

Are humans the only species
that make unnecessary noise?

- That's an interesting idea.
- (Alan) No, dogs.

(Barks)

Do you think any animals
just sit around and hum or...

- (Fred) Whistle.
- (Blows raspberry)

Or talk inanely, Alan.

That's why there are no panel shows
in the animal kingdom.

As to other animals,
also beginning with Bs,

can barnacles grow wings?
ls the question.

l do know one thing about barnacles,

- l'm afraid it's rude, but...
- (Stephen) Go on.

That relatively speaking,
they have the biggest penis

- of any existing creature.
- You are absolutely...

Which is five times the length of their shell.

Seven times the length, l've got down here.

You're exaggerating,
like you blokes always do.

A typical barnacle.

Well, up until recently,
it was thought that barnacles

were the embryos
of the barnacle goose.

- What fool thought that?
- Well, it is a bit silly-sounding.

There's a barnacle goose, which is named
Anser hibernica after the Latin,

and that got shortened to... Hibernica
became bernica, which became barnacle.

These geese breed in the Arctic,

and so no one had ever seen them
mate or lay eggs.

When they arrived in the summer, at the
same time there'd be a lot of driftwood

coming in off the sea, covered in barnacles,

and people just made the weird assumption

that the barnacles must be
the baby barnacle geese.

But barnacles growing on ships
can increase the inefficiency

- by a huge amount.
- Barnacles growing on chips?

Ships, dear, ships. Not chips.

- That really worried you.
- Oh, it would.

How long would you have to leave a chip
lying about for a barnacle to grow on it?

lt's not gonna happen in my house.

But the way they glue themselves to things
is very, very tough,

and scientists are currently looking at it
as a kind of dental cement.

Better than, you know, PoliGrip, or whatever
these things are that they advertise

round about during Countdown,
for some reason,

they always advertise these strange things

that keep teeth together
and ways of lowering yourself into a bath.

You know when WH Auden got old,
the poet?

(Alan) Oh, yeah, yeah.
(Stephen) All right, yes.

lt's a good one, this, WH Auden.

When he was old,
he had an incredibly lined face,

- really like a native...
- (Jo) Jowly.

Really kind of, you know, craggy lines.

Like Chief Joseph or
one of those, really kind of...

And David Hockney,
one of his first commissions...

- Painter.
- Yes, well done.

One of his first commissions
as a young artist

was to do a series of drawings
of WH Auden.

And Hockney just took one look
at Auden and said,

''Blimey, if that's his face,
what can his scrotum look like?''

Eurgh.

How did Nelson keep his men's spirits up
after he died?

(Sizzling)

Did he allow Hardy to use him
as a ventriloquist's dummy?

No. lt wasn't that.

l would think the men would just be inspired
by the fact that

he just basically slowly dismantled
instead of dying all at once.

There was an arm, then there was an eye,
then there was like a testicle, right?

- Well...
- He was dropping parts like a Volkswagen.

(Rich) l mean, look at that...

The thing is, most sailors, when they die,
were thrown overboard, burial at sea.

And he asked not to be buried at sea.

And so he was going to be taken back
from Trafalgar,

which is sort of off the Spanish coast,
to Britain.

So, what were they going to do
with his body, to make sure it didn't rot?

Put it in beer.

- Well, not beer, but brandy actually.
- Wine. Brandy.

- He was pickled in a barrel of brandy.
- (Jo) And they were allowed to drink it?

Well, they weren't allowed to.
Supposedly...

- using tubes of macaroni, they...
- (Jo) They did.

..they would have a go at this brandy,

and by the time it got to Portsmouth,
there was no brandy left,

and a slightly unfortunate-looking Nelson.

And to this day in the navy,
they use the phrase ''tapping the Admiral''

for having a surreptitious slug
of anything alcoholic.

You can just picture them with
a macaroni straw going...

''Oh, God, that's the...''

''l think that's the other one out.''

Have you got another patch?

But in fact, sadly,
like all these good stories,

it supposedly isn't true.

Now, why are male anglers so pathetic?

- (Sizzling)
- Jo Brand.

Because they like fishing.

- (Cork creaking and popping)
- Rich?

Because they spend ?2,000
on equipment

when you can go to the market
and buy the same thing for ?1 .89.

There's a good book in this country -

Fly Fishing by JR Hartley.

(Stephen) Absolutely! The classic.

Why are they pathetic, though?

Well, what we don't mean
is human male anglers.

There's another type of angler
that isn't human.

(Jo) Angler fish.
(Stephen) Angler fish.

Male angler fish truly are pathetic,
male anglers.

You can eat them, can't you, angler fish?
l'm sure l've had one.

There are shallow angler fish
and there are very deep ones.

You wouldn't want to eat that, it's a bit spiny.

l wouldn't go calling that pathetic to its face,

- l'll tell you.
- That's the female.

- Oh, right.
- The female is very impressive.

- (Jo) Ah.
- The male has a sad life.

lt must be the feeblest male in nature.

Six times smaller than the female.

(Jo) Ahh.

When they find a mate,
they latch on to them with their teeth

and immediately start to disappear.

Scales, bones, blood vessels,

all merge into those of the female,
and after a week

all that's left are two tiny little testes,
which leak sperm into the female.

That sounds very much like my marriage.

Your husband has entirely been
subsumed into you.

He has, and he's six times smaller
than l am.

There are some of these
female angler fish going around

with about eight testicles hanging off them.

lt's like an Essex disco.

''That was Wayne...''

That thing coming out of the top of its head
is why it's called an angler fish,

is its little rod, as it were,
and it's bioluminescent, it lights up.

Attracting other innocent edible fish.

That's what used to be thought, they now
think that's the way of attracting the male,

which then gets absorbed.

That brings us on, bioluminescence,

to what comes from Glasgow
and glows in the dark?

(Sizzling)

ls it Sir Alex Ferguson's nose?

ls it the River Clyde?

lt's not the River Clyde neither.

- We're talking about food.
- (Fred) Luminous food?

Yes, luminous food.

lt's an idea that comes from
creatures like the angler fish.

ls it a deep-fried Mars bar
with a torch attached to it?

Deep-fried torch.

Well, you're in the right area
with deep-fried,

what l believe you call ''carry-outs''
are the food to go.

What is the most popular food in Britain,
supposedly, these days?

- (Wine pouring)
- Chicken tikka masala.

Chicken tikka masala, which was invented
in Glasgow. And there is one.

(Alan) Oh, that's a particularly fine example.

That may be a used one. One that's...

been through the system,
l've a horrible feeling.

''Morag, get me a bed of rice!''

''The children shall eat!''

Well, there is a company called BioLume,

which is planning to have food,
including curry, that glows in the dark,

using extracts of
marine creatures that glow.

And they want to make beer,
in particular, that glows in the dark.

- Children's fizzy drinks that glow.
- (Jo) Why?

Chicken tikka masala
is not something that exists

in Bangladesh or in lndia.

The story of it goes that there was
a restaurant called The Gaylord in 1966,

was the first place to serve
a proper chicken tandoori.

- ln Glasgow or London?
- And it became rather popular.

No, in London, Mortimer Street, in London.

And the story goes, somebody came
into a restaurant in Glasgow,

where they were serving
this new tandoori chicken,

and asked for some gravy to go on it,

and the chef improvised
with tomato soup and cream and spices,

and up grew this strange creature

that is chicken tikka masala,
that has no definition,

that can be hot, it can be mild,
it can be brown,

it can be orange, it can be grey,

but according to Robin Cook
is the Great British national dish.

l have to say, l had a curry once
on the lsle of Man, where l was doing a gig.

lt was served with a cup of tea
and some bread and butter.

l think that's fantastic. Don't you?

Can l just mention that, since we're being
disparaging about the Scottish diet,

that we don't all eat chips every night.

Er, sometimes what we do is,
we'll have some chips

and leave them aside
till the morning, and...

we have them cold the next day,
and that's a salad.

Deep-fried pizza is the...
and Mars bars.

- lt's a myth.
- (Stephen) lt's a myth, is it?

The Mars bar as well,
it happened once.

He dropped his Mars bar.

''l'm no' wasting that.''

He scorched his hand
getting the wrapper off.

''Ow, that's hot!''

(Stephen) Fantastic.

Supposedly you do have the worst teeth
and the worst hearts in Europe, the Scots.

- Oh, your teeth are fine.
- They're all right, yeah.

l've started a wee company
in Scotland, we take the bus...

(Stephen) Using barnacle cement.

Well, they're OK, but the cement goes off
when the penis comes out.

No, we run bus trips to Eastern Europe,

to show Scottish people worse teeth.

(Stephen) Well, while we're in the balti belt,

where is it possible to live
on a diet of smut

- without the neighbours complaining?
- (Sizzling)

ln the greenroom at Channel 5.

A diet of smut is the clue, however.

ls it some sort of
Norwegian food or something?

Not Norwegian. lt's called smut
because it's a sooty black thing

- in its most primitive form.
- Caviar.

No, really sooty and smutty,
in that sense.

- A bit of coal.
- No, but a living thing.

- Fungi.
- Fungus, exactly.

- lt's a fungus, like a little..,
- Why did the mushroom go to the party?

- No, no.
- (Stephen) Oh, not that joke!

Why did the mushroom
go to the party, Alan?

Because he was a fungi.

(Stephen) Lovely. Lovely.

What's wrong with that joke, then?

That's a joke for, like, an imbecile.

You know, kind of, 0.7 years old.

- What's brown and sticky?
- Oh, no. l don't know. Yeah, l do...

- A stick.
- (Audience laughing loudly)

l'm worried by the audience reaction there.

What do you call a boomerang
that won't come back?

- A stick.
- A stick.

Do you have any other jokes where
the punch line's as good?

- Loads.
- All right.

What's orange
and sounds like a parrot?

A carrot.

(Stephen) What's red and silly?

A blood clot.

Oh, don't look at me like that!

You f***ing pig-eyed sack of shit!

Don't you do that!

- (Applause)
- (Alan) You've spoiled it.

- Ah, right.
- What's red and sits in the corner?

A naughty strawberry.

- Very good.
- (Rich) What's green and sings?

Elvis Parsley.

Now the smuts.

Smut fungus, Ustilaginales,
or something similar,

is found in Mexico in particular,
where it's prized as a food.

(Mexican accent)
Why did the mushroom go to the party?

He was a fungi!

(Stephen) There we are.

How do you think the word smut was used

- to allude to pornography?
- Because it's dirty.

Well, where does slut come from?

(Fred) Essex.

So there's a particular smut, the corn smut,
which is edible,

and corn smut's been known to the Aztecs
for centuries as Huitlacoche,

and there it is, a picture of
an engaging young corn smut

which has grown a sort of berry,
which is the bit you eat. There you are.

Try the magisterial
lllustrated Genera of Smut Fungi

by Kalman Vanky.
lt's a hell of a book.

- Erm... And...
- (Rich) Vanky?

And so with that rather obscure
piece of information,

let's plunge yet deeper
into General lgnorance.

Fingers on buzzers, please.

What contains the most caffeine,
a cup of tea or a cup of coffee?

- (Burp)
- Alan?

Tea.

- (Alarm)
- (Groans)

Oh. ln fact there's about
three times more caffeine

in a cup of coffee
than a cup of tea.

Why did someone tell me it was tea, then?

Well, because weight for weight,

a pound of tea leaves
contains more caffeine

than a pound of coffee beans,
but in a cup of same, you get much more,

as we know from drinking it, you know,
it's kind of experience.

People always say,
''Ooh, there's more caffeine in tea.''

- Drink it, you don't get that buzz.
- But there is actually more caffeine in tea.

Weight for weight,
but not in a cup of tea.

(Both) Not in a cup of tea.

- No, which is the question.
- There is more caffeine in tea, though.

But not in a cup of tea,
which is the question.

- But not in a cup of tea.
- Not in a cup of tea,

which is what you drink.

You don't tend to just eat tea like that,
you know,

you have a cup of tea,
which has a third as much caffeine...

- l wouldn't dream of it.
- ..as a cup of coffee. Exactly. Quite right.

Now, what's the only ball game
invented entirely in the USA?

- (Alan) Ball game?
- Yeah.

They haven't invented any ball games.

We invented all ball games,
here in England.

(Sizzling)

Baseball?

(Alarm)

No. As Alan rightly knows,
that's an English invention.

- No, the English invented that.
- Yeah, yeah.

lt's mentioned by Jane Austen
in Northanger Abbey.

- (Jo) Rounders?
- Rounders neither, l'm afraid.

- (Jo) Netball?
- Netball, yes.

- (Cork creaking and popping)
- (Rich) Basketball.

You're right, Rich. Fantastic, well done.

Basketball and netball
were invented by the same person.

Dr James Naismith, University of Kansas.

Though in fact he was actually teaching
at Springfield, Massachusetts,

but you get lots of points there,
and he was in fact Canadian...

- Yeah, from Toronto.
- ..but he invented it in the USA.

- lf you'd said lacrosse, of course...
- That's an lndian game.

But it wasn't the United States of America
when that was invented, so that's...

Basketball, specifically invented...

And the weird thing about it is,
they used an old peach basket,

for 21 years they played the game
without putting a hole

in the bottom of the peach basket.

And someone had to get
a step ladder every time there was a basket.

You can't play basketball with a peach.

- (Rich) No, a peach basket.
- A peach basket, they used.

- A basket for peaches.
- A peach wouldn't bounce.

No. That's right.

(Fred) Do you know what...

As a short-arse, l think there should be
different divisions for basketball,

- different height divisions.
- Yeah.

Cos obviously if you're seven foot four,

you've got an advantage
over somebody like me.

l mean, you wouldn't...
you don't put little boxers

like Prince Naseem Hamed
in against Mike Tyson...

Though l'd like to see that, l have to say.

l think there should be several baskets
you can aim for.

A really high basket for ten points,

and then a lower basket
and then one on the floor.

Did they invent netball as well, then?

Well what happened was,
a woman from Louisiana wrote to Naismith

- and said, ''l'm teaching...''
- ''We've got quite a girlie version.''

One of the stories is she actually
misinterpreted the rules,

because he laid out the dimensions
of a basketball court and she thought,

giving the various areas, and she thought
the players had to stay within those areas,

which l believe is one of the things
about netball.

You can't travel, you can't dribble in netball.

(Alan) Once you've got the ball,
you've got to stand still.

lt wasn't as hard as the basketball
we played,

because we would nail the basket to a truck,
the side of a truck.

The game went on for miles.

Can l just say that that little kid with the
purple shirt is really beginning to annoy me.

Will you sit still? Look, sit down!

This is very old footage, because there are...

- There are white people.
- Yeah.

Oddly enough, though, volleyball was
invented in exactly the same college,

in Springfield, Massachusetts,
as netball and basketball.

- This guy is number zero.
- Really?

There's just no confidence
at all in him, is there?

Anyway, l think we've seen enough of that
looped game, it's going to drive us all nuts.

So, what were Nelson's last words?

(Burp)

The last words of someone
who supped at Nelson's body.

- Yes?
- That's my answer.

- (Stephen) That's your answer?
- ''Kismet, Hardy''.

- But did he say, ''Kiss me, Hardy''?
- (Alarm)

- Oh, dear.
- Well, whatever it is, it's rubbish.

lt's not kismet and it's not kiss me.

''l'll race you to the barrel of brandy.

''Last one in's a kipper.''

Hardy kissed the Admiral twice, apparently,
on the cheek and on the forehead,

when Nelson was struggling
to remain conscious.

He then said, ''God, l've done my duty.''
And then he said, and it's rather peculiar,

''Drink, drink, fan, fan, rub, rub.''

Those were his last words.
He was thirsty, he was hot...

That was navy lingo for,
''Give us a quick hand-job, Hardy.''

But those were, according to the reliable
witnesses, they were all agreed.

Why don't you ever hear that
at school, then?

(Stephen) Because the famous lines
that he said are,

''Thank God l've done my duty'',
and ''Kiss me, Hardy''.

But ''Drink, drink, fan, fan, rub, rub.''

Final words are not to do with
how interesting they are.

They're to do with
what people actually said, surely.

- Myths build up l'm afraid.
- Did he say kiss me or kismet?

Kiss me. lt's almost universally agreed.
The kismet idea is nonsense.

(Alan) Rubbish.
(Stephen) Yeah.

He was hot and thirsty,
so he had his steward standing by

to fan him and feed him
lemonade and wort and wine

while the ship's Captain, Dr Scott,
massaged his chest to ease the pain.

lf you could go in a time machine,
would you go there?

You see, people always say,
''Ooh, l'd go here, there and everywhere,

''but you wouldn't go back.''
l'd go back and see myself.

- That would be fascinating.
- (Rich) So would l.

l would go back,
l had a rolled-up ball of socks

and a hamper
all the way across the room

and l just went like that, you know.

Hits the wall, bounces off the ceiling,
off this wall,

back across that wall,
right into the hamper,

from like 40 feet away.
l would go back and watch that again.

(Stephen) That was your moment.
Fantastic, brilliant.

(Rich) lt was fantastic. l hope that
when you die they play back something

- from your life.
- (Stephen) Oh, yeah, yes.

Those moments. And no one saw it.

Stonehenge, the erection of.
l'd go back there.

(Stephen) Yes. Well done.

lf you'd just waited
a few thousand years...

Go back with a power drill
and a JCB.

Become worshipped as a god.

And we've come to the end
of the round and the end of the competition.

My last words are not ''drink, drink, fan, fan,
rub, rub'', or anything close to it.

They are, ''l'addition, s'il vous plait''.
Let's see how the scores are.

And rather meagre rations
they are too, l'm sorry to say.

Rich scored a lightly battered five points,

which is very good
and puts you in the lead.

Fred was next,
with a gently poached four points.

Jo managed a reheated
minus eight points.

Alan, once again,
it's the kebab van for you, l'm afraid,

with minus 19 points.

(Cheering and applause)

Well, that's all for this week.

l leave you with the thought that while most
of us drink at the fountain of wisdom,

others merely gargle.

From Rich, Fred, Jo, Alan and me,
it's good night. Good night.