QI (2003–…): Season 2, Episode 9 - Bats - full transcript
Host Stephen Fry and guests Alan Davies, Josie Lawrence, John Sessions and Rich Hall tackle the subjects of butterflies, blackberries and Bernards.
# Theme music
(Applause)
Well, hello, hello, hello.
And welcome to another glamour-filled
QI night of a thousand stars.
Spread-eagled
on my casting couch are...
Josie Lawrence...
(Applause)
the stunning Johnny Sessions,
the gorgeous pouting Rich Hall,
and Alan Davies.
Well, let's see you toy
with your globes, girls.
Um, see if anyone rings my bell.
Rich.
(Bell)
Johnny.
(Higher-pitched bell)
Josie.
(Higher-pitched bell)
And Alan.
(Breathy male voice) Well, hello.
(Audience laughs)
Ding dong.
Oh, there we are. Very nice.
And so, to question one.
What eat clothes?
Ding dong.
(Audience laughs)
- I don't know.
I just wanted to do that. (Laughs)
- What eats clothes? - Yeah.-
Moths eat clothes.
- Moths?
- Yes.
(Siren)
(Audience laughs)
Oh, no they don't.
They make holes in them, though,
don't they?
Not moths, no. Their larva.
Their little caterpillars do,
but not the moths.
See? You see?
(Bell)
Larva.
(Laughs)
- So, by the time you see a moth,
it's... - It never eats...
- BOTH: Too late.
- And you very rarely do.
They're only a quarter of an inch
long, the actual moths.
Supposedly there are fewer of them
due to synthetic materials,
which they don't eat,
and dry-cleaning.
- If you dry-clean something, it works
as well as a mothball. - Really?
That camphor and naphthalene smell.
- I don't think I've ever smelt one.
- Have you not?
- Too young. - It's horrible.
It's like a dead body.
A mothball in this hand, a mothball
in that hand - what have I got?
Two mothballs.
- A rather excited moth.
- Oh, right.
(All laugh)
Sorry, I thought
you were literally asking.
No. It's alright.
I've never smelt a dead body either.
No, I haven't.
I've never seen a dead body.
They say a policeman thinks
once you've smelt death
it's just...
it never gets out of your nostrils.
- But, I'll tell you something
quite interesting. - Yeah?
It's that...
(Audience laughs)
Leopards eat rotting flesh.
They don't mind it.
- Cheetahs will only eat fresh.
- Oh, really?
They eat when they've killed,
there and then,
and they eat as quickly as they can.
Otherwise a lion
will come over and have it off them.
- Hmm. - But a leopard
will drag something up into a tree.
and leave it there days on end,
go back, have a bit more.
- Even if it's green and maggoty...
- Oh!- Don't care.
There's a new theory
about Tyrannosaurus rex
being a scavenger -
not in fact going and attacking
big hairy-arsed monsters,
but waiting until they were daed
and rotting, like an old Stilton,
- and then eating them.
- Yeah, yeah.
In Jurassic Park 2,
a Tyrannosaurus rex eats a man
who's sitting on the loo.
That's right.
Do you think that's inaccurate,
then?
What it is, is... Yeah?
(Audience laughs)
- But he's an accountant.
- He's an accountant.
Well, there you are. Yes.
Moths don't eat clothes.
Their larva do, their caterpillars.
Anyway, um...
Next question is - why butterflies?
- Wow, that's a short question.
- Isn't it? Two words.
Do you mean
why are they called that?
It doesn't actually mean that, no.
It means why do they...
who do they exist?
- Why are they?
- Yeah.
I think it's evil to put a food
in front of any bug,
to name like it a butterfly,
'cause I would eat butterflies
when I was a kid,
because I thought they had butter
in 'em.
- Ohhh.
- And honey bees.
There are two theories as to why...
(Audience laughs)
And a hamster.
(All laugh, applaud)
'Cause, you know, you're four years
old - you don't know better.
And we were poor.
Well, there are two theories
as to why they're called butterflies.
One is that it's from a Dutch word
which means 'excretes butter' -
there was this theory
that they actually shat butter.
Early on.
And the other
is that it's from Anglo-Saxon -
that the most common butterflies
in England
when the Anglo-Saxons
invaded Britain,
were yellow
and were butter-coloured -
it's as boring as that.
But, no, the reason they exist...
They're quite a late addition, as it
were, to the family of creatures.
They...when
do they start, then, butterflies?
They were around when I was a kid.
(Audience laughs)
Yes. For a hundred million years
before butterflies evolved,
moths had been around,
and it's generally believed
that butterflies
were kind of an evolution from moths,
because moths have
one big disadvantage.
What is it about moths
that's different from butterflies...
Night - they go around at the night,
in the night.
Yeah, and they get eaten a lot.
- Butterflies go in the day.
- Yeah.
- And the moths have been eaten a lot
by bats. - By bats.
And so, the idea was,
that the butterflies...
- That's a bat.
- Yeah. There's a bat.
Seen a moth there.
Yeah...
Well, not seeing, but hearing.
- So, it's heard a moth? - Yeah.-
Sensed a moth.
Sensed a moth. Exactly.
The precision of their echolocation
is remarkable.
If you put cotton wool in their
ears, they are useless, aren't they?
They bounce off the wall like...
Canadian squash balls.
This is how it was discovered.
It was actually in the 18th century.
A French scientist put cotton wool
in the ears of bats,
and reali...
and saw that they were...
And so he posited the idea
that they had this extra sense.
And then it was pooh-poohed, and
for 150 years it wasn't reconsidered,
and we now know
that he was absolutely right -
that they send out these signals
that bounce back, exactly like sonar,
only much more effective than sonar.
- That's why they never bump into you
as well at night. - That's right.
People get scared of bats,
and they go like that,
but they'd never ever bump
into you - they'd always...
I saw David Attenborough
being interviewed, in which he said,
he once did a piece to camera
for Life On Earth or something,
about bats, saying one thing
that's never true about bats
is you never get them
caught in your hair.
It's never true.
They have such accur...
Bats immediately flew into his head
while he was...
- Stephen, can I tell you something
about David Attenborough... - Go on.
..'cause he is my god.
Ages ago, they're doing a column
in one of the papers -
who would you most like to be like?
And, so I said David Attenborough -
I love the career he's had,
I love his wisdom,
I love his sense of adventure.
And a couple of weeks later,
the article came out.
It was actually - who would
you most like to look like?
(All laugh)
So, there's a lovely picture of me
next to David,
and then like Victoria Wilcox
next to Audrey Hepburn.
..to go from David Attenborough
to Richard Attenborough.
And when he was directing
the great Ben Kingsley in Gandhi.
You probably know there were,
I think, maybe a million,
possibly even two million, extras,
during Gandhi's funeral,
and the first assistant, the very
famous, undoubtable, David Tomblin
was told by Sir Dicky Attenborough
to instruct the crowd
as to how they may react.
And he said to David Tomblin,
he said,
'I want you to convey to them,
David, that Gandhi has died,
and it's an extraordinary event,
darling -
extraordinary event in the
whole history of India, darling -
that Gandhi has gone - their god,
their national hero, is gone.'
So David Tomblin
turned to the crowd and he said,
'Right, listen up. Gandhi's dead
and you're all (Bleep) sad.'
(All laugh)
Excellent.
Very good.
I don't have an anecdote,
but I have a joke.
- Go on.
- They're much better.
We're open to jokes too.
Two vampire bats in a cave,
flying around and...
You know, they like blood.
Haven't had any in a while.
One of 'em goes out on a recon.
Comes back.
Face just covered in blood.
The other bat's beside himself,
and says,
'Wow. What happened?'
And he points to this village.
The bat, well he flaps to it.
'See that village over there?'
and the other bat says, 'Yeah.'
'See that steeple?'
'Yeah.'
'I didn't.'
(All laugh)
So, moths have to devise strategies
to beat the bat.
And some have evolved
to hear the bats -
echolocation, screeching,
which humans can't hear.
As you know, it's very high.
And other ones
decided to live during the day,
and they became butterflies.
Now, moths are alright at night -
they like being in the dark, they
like living in clothes in cupboards.
Yeah.
So, what is this thing
they have about candles and...
Isn't it mad?
I agree with you that...
The light in the porch.
Mad for that.
There you are - you're a nocturnal
animal, you're attracted to light.
Well, then, get up in the morning.
You'll have lots of it.
Another question. Compared to bats,
do owls ring any bells?
(Bell)
- Josie's ringing a bell.
- Yes.
Well, it's like what we've
just been talking about, I think.
It's something to do with sonar.
- Yeah, you're absolutely right.
Why not have a point? - Oh, thank you.
When it was first...
They first tried to experiment
with how bats could see so well
in the dark,
they put owls and bats
in a very, very dark room,
with some bells hung from ropes.
And if it was slightly low light,
the owls could see well enough
to avoid the ropes.
But if it was pitch black,
they would fly into the ropes,
because they couldn't see them.
Whereas the bats, if it was
pitch black, just flew around,
and didn't ring any bells.
And so,
that's how it was first seen
that bats could manoeuvre in the dark
without bumping into anything.
So the flatter an owl's face,
the bigger a bell it's run into.
- Yeah.
- Yes, probably. Exactly.
- That's why it's called an owl. OW!
- They are...
(All laugh)
I have an AGA. Um, yes,
I know I should be shot, but I do.
And it kept going out. Oh, I got
the AGA person to come down...
- What, down the shops, or...
- No.
(All laugh)
- It kept... - Imagine you're out
shopping, and you see your AGA.
You rush over, and just as you
get there, it's not there.
and you keep losing it.
And so the AGA man kept coming,
and he kept saying,
'It's perfectly fine.'
And it kept going out again.
So eventually he said, 'I've got to
stay overnight,' he said.
This wasn't... Come on...
(Audience laughs)
'Cause he would come during the day,
light it - it was perfect.
In the morning I'd ring him up
and say, 'It's gone out overnight,'
and he couldn't work it out.
What it turned out was,
it was an owl -
would roost on the top
of the cowling of the flue,
'cause it liked the warm air up it
or whatever.
And it would cover itself over it,
and it would block it out.
And stop it,
so there is a safety device.
If you block the chicken...
The chicken...
If you block the...
(Audience laughs)
..the chimney, the chimney of an AGA,
it goes out.
Anyway, that's my owl-AGA story.
It wasn't worth telling.
I'm pissed. Never mind.
(Audience laughs, applauds)
So there we are. Ringing the bells.
Our next question. What is batology?
Batology. There's the word
on your screen. What is it?
It is NOT the study of bats.
Correct.
(Audience laughs)
You've saved yourself a big forfeit.
Well done.
(Applause)
There you are.
Can you give us a clue,
or is that not allowed?
It's fruit. Batology is the study
of a particular fruit.
A fruit that has two words for it
in English,
- both of which begin with B.
- Banana...
It's a native to Britain.
(Gasps)
And you can either call it
a bu or a bu.
Apple...
Anyone in the audience?
- Blum...
- WOMAN: Bramble or blackberry.
Bramble or blackberry.
The audience is well up there.
- Blackberries. - The study
of blackberries. Very good.
Well done.
You may say it's not worth studying,
but there are over 1000
different species of bramble.
No, there aren't.
(All laugh)
The study of bats
is actually chiropterology.
Alan, ther's a plot for you here,
mate,
- in your Jonathan Creek...
- Oh, yeah?
You've got an old lady, come in,
she's been picking blackberries,
someone's been killed
in the village, stabbed,
and you go, 'She might be
a batologist' - just a thought.
(All laugh)
So, now, what is batophobia?
Fear of blackberries.
(Audience laughs)
(Siren)
(Applause)
Oh, dear. I'm sorry.
You ought to be right. Ought to be...
And surely no-one's ever had
fear of blackberries.
Quite. Exactly. So, it isn't.
(Audience laughs)
No, a batophobe is actually...
It's a fear of being close
to tall buildings.
Panic attacks. Irregular heartbeat.
Sweating. Nausea.
And an overall feeling of dread.
I've got it.
(Audience laughs)
Other phobias like that are
bathophobia, the fear of depths.
Alan. Um...
(Audience laughs)
The fear of profundancy of any kind.
No, uh...
What is battology?
Battology spelt thus...
Batteries. The study of batteries.
- No, it's not that. Nice thought.
- It is.
(Audience laughs)
There's no other word in English
with B-A-T-T at the beginning...
- 'Battle'?
- 'Battle' is the other one.
(All laugh)
- 'Batter'?
- 'Batter' is another one.
'Batten' - batten down the hatches -
is another one.
Apart from those three...
It reminds me of the story of someone
who was saying that 'sugar'
is the only English word
that begins with S-U,
but where the S is pronounced 'sh'.
And someone called out,
'Are you sure?'
(Audience laughs)
Battology means pointlessly repeating
the same thing over and over again.
Oh, my god.
Battology means pointlessly repeating
the same thing over and over again.
Some people do that, don't they?
I've got a friend
who always repeats himself.
His name's Dave,
and we call him Dave Javoo.
Oh! Very good.
(Audience laughs)
Is Dave aware he does it.
Is he total...
Yeah, 'cause people said to him,
'You say everything twice.
That's why we call you Dave Javoo.'
(Audience laughs)
'I say everything twice.
I say everything twice, like.'
(Audience laughs)
'They call me Dave Javoo.
They call me Dave Javoo.'
(Audience laughs)
We're moving on to births,
but first Swedish girls.
What happened to every eight-year-old
Swedish girl in the year 1994?
(Bell)
Young Rich.
From what I understand, there were
no eight-year-old girls in 1994,
because in 1986 every child
born in Sweden was a boy,
just purely by...
(All laugh)
- Pure law of averages.
- A genealogical freak.
No, no, let me give you the answer,
which is
that they had
their ninth birthdays...
If we believe the official
statistics, alright,
there were exactly 112,521
eight-year-old girls in Sweden
on 1st January 1994,
and there was exactly the same number
of nine-year-olds
on 1st January 1995.
And this is unique in statistics,
because none died, none emigrated -
precisely the same number
survive a whole year.
But in Britain in 1994,
you might be interested to know,
there were an astonishing
range of accidents
reported by the Trade and Industry's
Consumer Safety Unit
Home Accident Surveillance System
report.
Eight people in the UK in '94
were injured by placemats.
(Audience laughs)
Thirteen sustained cruet injuries.
Five were wounded by dustpans.
Eight suffered
as a result of a breadbin accident.
Five were hurt by sieves.
14 fell foul
of a serving trolley.
17 were treated for injuries caused
by a draught excluder.
476 people were injured
while on the lavatory.
There you are.
Underwear hurt 11 people.
How many of those people were drunk?
Well, exactly -
that's a very interesting point.
Well, how many of them were
sexually experimentative, as it were?
You know - you go to the doctor -
'I was just sitting down in the nude,
and this cruet
happened to get stuck...'
That's why in the hospital
they use acronyms for...
You know, like GOMER, which is
'get out of my emergency room'.
- Oh, really? - Or SARA, which is
sexual activity-related accident.
It's called SARA.
There's an acronym they have
in my part of the world,
which doctors apparently put
on patient notes, which is NFN -
- which stands for
'normal for Norfolk'. - Yes.
(All laugh)
On the positive side of 1994,
tea-cosy damage was down
from 3 in '93, to nil,
so we cleared up the menace
of tea-cosy damage.
Who knows? Who knows?
People don't use them very often,
do they, nowadays?
No, because they're so dangerous.
- Lethal.
- Lethal!
Now, what was the biggest
tourist attraction in Canada
between 1934 and 1943?
(Ding dong.)
Ah, beaten to the buzzer
by Leslie Davies.
Niagara Falls.
Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear.
(Siren)
Oh, no, no. No, no, no.
Canada's a relatively young country.
and I'm not sure how much of it
there was at that time.
Was it finished by the '30s?
As it were, I think more or less,
yes.
'Cause Alberta's only about
80 years old.
- I know, I know the story, I know it.
- Yes?
(Bell)
(Laughs) Yes?
- It's a really sad story, actually...
- Yes.
..and didn't they have sextuplets
or octuplets...
- Quins, in fact.
- Qu...
- Quintuplets. - Quintuplets.-
You're absolutely right.
- And everyone came to see them.
- There they are.
And they were taken away
from their parents
- and made to live in a house
across the road. - Exactly right.
Exactly right. It was the Dionnes,
they were known as.
There were these five girls
who were born from a single egg,
to a rather poor family,
and the father started talking about
exhibiting them himself,
because they were very famous.
In those days before
all kinds of fertility treatments,
it was much rarer to have
these kinds of multiple births.
So, the government took over
and put them in a hospital,
and then slowly the hospital
started to admit people,
and it became the single
biggest attraction in Canada.
But, after nine years, the parents
successfully got their girls back,
but at the age of 18 they all left.
Two are still alive, and in '98, Mike
Harris, who was the Prime Minister,
travelled to apologise
to the two remaining ones,
and give them $4 million
as compensation,
and apologise on behalf of Canada...
- Four million Canadian dollars.
- Canadian dollars.
(Laughter drowns speech)
Throw 'em a bone.
Alan, a question for you.
Name all the events at the
first-recorded Olympic Games
in the year 776BC.
Discus.
(Siren)
Have another go.
Javelin.
(Siren)
No, no. Try harder.
- Hammer.
- No! Dear, oh, dearie me.
(Siren)
No, no. I think that way madness
lies.
- That was running.
- Yes, running is the answer.
- Running was running just one race.
- Just one race.
And if you get the distance,
I will be astonished.
- Two hundred metres.
- That's damn close.
(Siren)
It's unfair. It's very unfair.
I think you've taken enough forfeits,
because there was just one event,
and it was 192m.
(Laughs)
Which is the modern equivalent. It's
a stadium, the length of a stadium.
And that was the only race
in the first Olympic Games.
That was the Olympic Games?
- The first recorded one.
- Yeah.
But they later discovered and indeed
included discus and javelin,
or wrestling and boxing - and
all the things you've mentioned.
But, unfortunately, the
first recorded one was just one...
When was the first recorded one?
776BC.
Now, the next question,
which is a subsidiary to this
first recorded Olympics is,
what was the naked chef doing there?
(Ding dong.)
(Audience laughs)
Yes. Is that a response
to the buttocks, or...
- Yeah. A fine pair.
- For what?
Um, naked cooking for the athletes?
No. Not quite.
Preparing meals for the judges.
Selling food to the audience.
Won the race?
Yes! Quite right.
Ah.
The winner was a cook.
(Applause)
His name was Coroebus of Elis,
and he was a cook,
and like all the contestants
was naked.
- And they all ran in the nude.
- All ran in the nude...
- How wonderful.
- Even the trainers.
I would like to have seen
the triple jump.
- How about the pole vault?
- Oh, don't.
He... Coroebus of course
won by a short head. No...
After his... final spurt.
No, shut up.
Now, why is a marathon
26 miles and 385 yards long?
I feel a trap coming up.
(Laughs)
There's an utterly preposterous myth
that it is the distance run
from the Battle of Marathon
back to Athens.
- The myth is that it was a man
called Pheidippides... - Yes.
- ..who actually conducted the run, to
convey the news of the battle. - Yes.
- And in fact it was the Battle of
Snickers, not Marathon. - Exactly.
(All laugh, applaud)
No, that's right.
There is a fairly well-known story
that a man called Pheidippides
apparently ran from Marathon,
where there'd been a battle
against the invading Persians.
According to Herodotus, who was born
six years after the battle,
and whose account is the nearest
we have to a contemporary one,
Pheidippides
ran from Marathon to Sparta,
which is actually about 145 miles.
- There'd be no way!
- Yeah.
- 145 miles? - Yeah. And then
he ran all the way back again,
since the Spartans
were having a holy day.
But he died under the same...
No, he didn't die.
According to Herodotus, he didn't.
- I thought he was...
- No record of him dying at all.
It was 500 years later in Plutarch
and various other sources
that this myth grew up.
But the reason why the marathon
is 26 miles 385 yards
is the British Royal Family.
Is it the distance
from Windsor to St James?
Not Windsor to St James, but you're
absolutely on the right lines.
In 1908, there was an Olympic Games
held in London,
and the marathon started
outside a window in Windsor Castle,
and half the Royal Family
sat in the window going,
'Oh, well done. Go and...' You know,
'What fun.' And there started.
And the finish line was at
the newly built White City stadium,
and it was exactly 26 miles
and 385 yards.
And for every Olympics afterwards,
that was the settled length.
Now, we pay our traditional visit,
ladies and gentlemen,
to the exam hall
where all the candidates are writing
with the wrong end of the pencil -
it's the School of General Ignorance.
So, fingers on buzzers, turn over
your papers, and let's begin.
Where were the first modern Olympics
held? Still on Olympics.
(Bell)
Yes?
1896 was the first year,
and I believe it was Athens.
(Siren)
- It's not correct, I'm afraid.
- No.
- No, but in Greece?
- No, it wasn't in Greece.
(Siren)
I'm sorry about that.
(Bell)
No.
- Was it London? - No.
You're in the right country, though.
- Damn. - If you got the place,
I'd be surprised.
Johnny might. If I were to say
AE Housman, you might get the place.
- Salisbury?
- Nope.
- Shropshire.
- Shropshire is the right answer.
- Much Wenlock, as in on Wenlock Edge.
- Wenlock Edge.
The town of Much Wenlock
in the year 1850, held Olympic Games.
It was an extraordinary man,
called Dr WP Brookes.
1896 was the first Olympic Games.
And so people suggest, but
Baron Coubertin, who was the founder,
supposedly,
of the modern Olympic movement...
And he wrote about WP Brookes,
'Much Wenlock
is a town in Shropshire,
a country on the borders of Wales,
and if the Olympic Games
that modern Greece
has not yet been able to revive...'
He wrote this in 1890, Coubertin.
'..still survive today, it is due
not to a Greek, but to WP Brookes.
It is he who inaugurated them
40 years ago,
and it is he, now 82 years of age,
and still alert and vigorous,
who continues
to organise and inspire them.'
So Coubertin came to Wenlock Edge,
and he, being a baron, having
influence and political connections,
was able to do what this little
country parson was not able to do,
which was to get the rest of the
country, the rest of the world.
But King George I of Greece,
of the Hellenes,
sent a silver medal to be a prize
at the Wenlock Olympics.
So, 46 years before the first Athens
Olympiad as it's counted,
there were Olympic Games
that were recognised
by the very man who is known as
the father of the Olympic movement.
- Gosh. - That's wonderful.
- So, let's hear it for WP Brookes.
But he died just a year before
the Athens Olympics.
- 2012 - Hackney.
- Yeah.
(Audience laughs)
Could be, couldn't it?
Could be Hackney.
Nothing wrong with Hackney.
- What a shithole.
- I live in Hackney.
(All laugh)
- Kayaking down the Lee River.
- I used to live in Hackney.
You can develop film in the Lee
River, but you can't kayak there.
(All laugh)
Now, here's a question -
why was King Charles XIV of Sweden
ashamed of his tattoo?
That's Dudley Moore, innit?
(Audience laughs)
Charles XIV of Sweden.
Well, because Bernadotte,
one of Napoleon's generals,
- went to become King of Sweden...
- He did.
- And the tat... And Charles XIV,
was that Bernadotte? - It was.
And he had a tattoo,
'I love Napoleon' on his arse?
No, no.
He wasn't appointed by Napoleon.
He was actually appointed
by the ailing Charles XIII.
Napoleon regarded it as a joke,
but Bernadotte had been
a young revolutionary, a Jacobin,
and he had a tattoo that said,
'Death to kings.' (Chuckles)
As a young man, and then he was
adopted by the old King of Sweden,
- Charles XIII - became Charles XIV.
- Yes.
And was incredibly successful, and
completely backed away from France.
- Had an alliance with England and
Prussia. - The great coalition.
Invaded Norway.
Became King of Norway as well.
And the Bernadotte family
still rules Sweden.
They are still the kings...
It's very confusing that period,
because Napoleon had Irish generals.
- He even had a Scottish general.
- Yeah.
You know, just because
you came from somewhere,
you didn't have to fight
for their army.
No, indeed. Here's a question.
Which Scandinavian king
might you have in your mobile phone?
(Bell)
- Gustavus Adolphus?
- No.
- King Nokia.
- No, though...
- King Ericsson.
- No. You're cer... I mean...
King Motorola.
Actually in it. Not as the make of.
King Sim.
No.
(All laugh)
- There was a King Harold
who had a nickname. - Bluetooth!
Thank you. Bluetooth is the answer.
Harold Bluetooth was the king...
Me neck went off that side
to get that right.
United Finland and Sweden and Norway,
and when Ericsson and Nokia
and all the others you mentioned
were thinking of a unified approach
to wireless connection
between mobile phones,
they called it Bluetooth,
in his honour.
Oh, really? 'Cause of him?
Actually named after him?
Yeah. We have the last question.
What do St Bernards
carry in barrels around their necks?
(Bell)
Brandy.
(Siren)
(Siren drowns speech)
No, never have.
Armagnac's a myth.
- Armagnac IS a kind of brandy. - Oh.-
Just not cognac.
They never used casks in rescue work.
Brandy, after all,
would kill someone with hypothermia.
- Yes.
- They just do it for tourists.
It's 'cause of a painting in 1831
by Landseer.
Uh, that's not the painting,
incidentally, but...
(Audience laughs)
- Very, very, very good likeness.
- It's just done for tourism.
The dog painted by Landseer
was called Barry,
and he was very handsome,
and he'd rescued 40 people,
and was something of a hero.
Unfortunately,
he was killed by the 41st person,
who thought he was a wolf.
Oh, that's terrible!
But, in his honour,
the handsomest St Bernard...
- That's horrible. - ..is always called
Barry at the St Bernard Hospice.
So, why was Barry painted
with a barrel around his neck, then?
Occasionally they would carry milk
and things like that,
but certainly not brandy.
Was St Bernard a patron saint
of skiers who need some brandy?
Well, it's a pass, isn't it? It's a
pass between Italy and Switzerland.
I'll tell you what is a really good
patron saint to put,
and it works, is St Anthony,
the patron saint of lost things.
If you lose something in the house,
and you just say,
'Please, St Anthony,
will you help me find this?',
I guarantee, 'cause it's happened
with me with keys and everything -
in about half an hour to an hour,
you'll find what it is...
(Cough 'bullshit') Um, um...
(Audience laughs)
- Stephen! It's true.
- No, it's not true. I'm sorry.
Something tells me
it is so much arse.
Anyway, that's it,
ladies and gentlemen.
It's time for the
bittersweet business of the scores.
And here we are. I will have to go,
I fear, in order of first to last.
And tied in first place are Josie
and Rich - with four points!
- Ooh.
- How about that?
(Applause)
In third place, despite
some magnificent knowledge...
Uh, he did plunge into our traps
a few times.
With -14, it's Johnny Sessions.
(Applause)
But, uh... But limping, somewhat,
a few laps behind,
with, I think, a record-breaking -72
is Alan Davies.
(Audience cheers, applauds)
That's all. That's all from Rich,
Johnny, Josie, Alan and myself.
I leave you with this
quite interesting thought.
(Audience laughs)
Good night.
(Applause)
Closed Captions by CSI -
Adrian Tan
(Applause)
Well, hello, hello, hello.
And welcome to another glamour-filled
QI night of a thousand stars.
Spread-eagled
on my casting couch are...
Josie Lawrence...
(Applause)
the stunning Johnny Sessions,
the gorgeous pouting Rich Hall,
and Alan Davies.
Well, let's see you toy
with your globes, girls.
Um, see if anyone rings my bell.
Rich.
(Bell)
Johnny.
(Higher-pitched bell)
Josie.
(Higher-pitched bell)
And Alan.
(Breathy male voice) Well, hello.
(Audience laughs)
Ding dong.
Oh, there we are. Very nice.
And so, to question one.
What eat clothes?
Ding dong.
(Audience laughs)
- I don't know.
I just wanted to do that. (Laughs)
- What eats clothes? - Yeah.-
Moths eat clothes.
- Moths?
- Yes.
(Siren)
(Audience laughs)
Oh, no they don't.
They make holes in them, though,
don't they?
Not moths, no. Their larva.
Their little caterpillars do,
but not the moths.
See? You see?
(Bell)
Larva.
(Laughs)
- So, by the time you see a moth,
it's... - It never eats...
- BOTH: Too late.
- And you very rarely do.
They're only a quarter of an inch
long, the actual moths.
Supposedly there are fewer of them
due to synthetic materials,
which they don't eat,
and dry-cleaning.
- If you dry-clean something, it works
as well as a mothball. - Really?
That camphor and naphthalene smell.
- I don't think I've ever smelt one.
- Have you not?
- Too young. - It's horrible.
It's like a dead body.
A mothball in this hand, a mothball
in that hand - what have I got?
Two mothballs.
- A rather excited moth.
- Oh, right.
(All laugh)
Sorry, I thought
you were literally asking.
No. It's alright.
I've never smelt a dead body either.
No, I haven't.
I've never seen a dead body.
They say a policeman thinks
once you've smelt death
it's just...
it never gets out of your nostrils.
- But, I'll tell you something
quite interesting. - Yeah?
It's that...
(Audience laughs)
Leopards eat rotting flesh.
They don't mind it.
- Cheetahs will only eat fresh.
- Oh, really?
They eat when they've killed,
there and then,
and they eat as quickly as they can.
Otherwise a lion
will come over and have it off them.
- Hmm. - But a leopard
will drag something up into a tree.
and leave it there days on end,
go back, have a bit more.
- Even if it's green and maggoty...
- Oh!- Don't care.
There's a new theory
about Tyrannosaurus rex
being a scavenger -
not in fact going and attacking
big hairy-arsed monsters,
but waiting until they were daed
and rotting, like an old Stilton,
- and then eating them.
- Yeah, yeah.
In Jurassic Park 2,
a Tyrannosaurus rex eats a man
who's sitting on the loo.
That's right.
Do you think that's inaccurate,
then?
What it is, is... Yeah?
(Audience laughs)
- But he's an accountant.
- He's an accountant.
Well, there you are. Yes.
Moths don't eat clothes.
Their larva do, their caterpillars.
Anyway, um...
Next question is - why butterflies?
- Wow, that's a short question.
- Isn't it? Two words.
Do you mean
why are they called that?
It doesn't actually mean that, no.
It means why do they...
who do they exist?
- Why are they?
- Yeah.
I think it's evil to put a food
in front of any bug,
to name like it a butterfly,
'cause I would eat butterflies
when I was a kid,
because I thought they had butter
in 'em.
- Ohhh.
- And honey bees.
There are two theories as to why...
(Audience laughs)
And a hamster.
(All laugh, applaud)
'Cause, you know, you're four years
old - you don't know better.
And we were poor.
Well, there are two theories
as to why they're called butterflies.
One is that it's from a Dutch word
which means 'excretes butter' -
there was this theory
that they actually shat butter.
Early on.
And the other
is that it's from Anglo-Saxon -
that the most common butterflies
in England
when the Anglo-Saxons
invaded Britain,
were yellow
and were butter-coloured -
it's as boring as that.
But, no, the reason they exist...
They're quite a late addition, as it
were, to the family of creatures.
They...when
do they start, then, butterflies?
They were around when I was a kid.
(Audience laughs)
Yes. For a hundred million years
before butterflies evolved,
moths had been around,
and it's generally believed
that butterflies
were kind of an evolution from moths,
because moths have
one big disadvantage.
What is it about moths
that's different from butterflies...
Night - they go around at the night,
in the night.
Yeah, and they get eaten a lot.
- Butterflies go in the day.
- Yeah.
- And the moths have been eaten a lot
by bats. - By bats.
And so, the idea was,
that the butterflies...
- That's a bat.
- Yeah. There's a bat.
Seen a moth there.
Yeah...
Well, not seeing, but hearing.
- So, it's heard a moth? - Yeah.-
Sensed a moth.
Sensed a moth. Exactly.
The precision of their echolocation
is remarkable.
If you put cotton wool in their
ears, they are useless, aren't they?
They bounce off the wall like...
Canadian squash balls.
This is how it was discovered.
It was actually in the 18th century.
A French scientist put cotton wool
in the ears of bats,
and reali...
and saw that they were...
And so he posited the idea
that they had this extra sense.
And then it was pooh-poohed, and
for 150 years it wasn't reconsidered,
and we now know
that he was absolutely right -
that they send out these signals
that bounce back, exactly like sonar,
only much more effective than sonar.
- That's why they never bump into you
as well at night. - That's right.
People get scared of bats,
and they go like that,
but they'd never ever bump
into you - they'd always...
I saw David Attenborough
being interviewed, in which he said,
he once did a piece to camera
for Life On Earth or something,
about bats, saying one thing
that's never true about bats
is you never get them
caught in your hair.
It's never true.
They have such accur...
Bats immediately flew into his head
while he was...
- Stephen, can I tell you something
about David Attenborough... - Go on.
..'cause he is my god.
Ages ago, they're doing a column
in one of the papers -
who would you most like to be like?
And, so I said David Attenborough -
I love the career he's had,
I love his wisdom,
I love his sense of adventure.
And a couple of weeks later,
the article came out.
It was actually - who would
you most like to look like?
(All laugh)
So, there's a lovely picture of me
next to David,
and then like Victoria Wilcox
next to Audrey Hepburn.
..to go from David Attenborough
to Richard Attenborough.
And when he was directing
the great Ben Kingsley in Gandhi.
You probably know there were,
I think, maybe a million,
possibly even two million, extras,
during Gandhi's funeral,
and the first assistant, the very
famous, undoubtable, David Tomblin
was told by Sir Dicky Attenborough
to instruct the crowd
as to how they may react.
And he said to David Tomblin,
he said,
'I want you to convey to them,
David, that Gandhi has died,
and it's an extraordinary event,
darling -
extraordinary event in the
whole history of India, darling -
that Gandhi has gone - their god,
their national hero, is gone.'
So David Tomblin
turned to the crowd and he said,
'Right, listen up. Gandhi's dead
and you're all (Bleep) sad.'
(All laugh)
Excellent.
Very good.
I don't have an anecdote,
but I have a joke.
- Go on.
- They're much better.
We're open to jokes too.
Two vampire bats in a cave,
flying around and...
You know, they like blood.
Haven't had any in a while.
One of 'em goes out on a recon.
Comes back.
Face just covered in blood.
The other bat's beside himself,
and says,
'Wow. What happened?'
And he points to this village.
The bat, well he flaps to it.
'See that village over there?'
and the other bat says, 'Yeah.'
'See that steeple?'
'Yeah.'
'I didn't.'
(All laugh)
So, moths have to devise strategies
to beat the bat.
And some have evolved
to hear the bats -
echolocation, screeching,
which humans can't hear.
As you know, it's very high.
And other ones
decided to live during the day,
and they became butterflies.
Now, moths are alright at night -
they like being in the dark, they
like living in clothes in cupboards.
Yeah.
So, what is this thing
they have about candles and...
Isn't it mad?
I agree with you that...
The light in the porch.
Mad for that.
There you are - you're a nocturnal
animal, you're attracted to light.
Well, then, get up in the morning.
You'll have lots of it.
Another question. Compared to bats,
do owls ring any bells?
(Bell)
- Josie's ringing a bell.
- Yes.
Well, it's like what we've
just been talking about, I think.
It's something to do with sonar.
- Yeah, you're absolutely right.
Why not have a point? - Oh, thank you.
When it was first...
They first tried to experiment
with how bats could see so well
in the dark,
they put owls and bats
in a very, very dark room,
with some bells hung from ropes.
And if it was slightly low light,
the owls could see well enough
to avoid the ropes.
But if it was pitch black,
they would fly into the ropes,
because they couldn't see them.
Whereas the bats, if it was
pitch black, just flew around,
and didn't ring any bells.
And so,
that's how it was first seen
that bats could manoeuvre in the dark
without bumping into anything.
So the flatter an owl's face,
the bigger a bell it's run into.
- Yeah.
- Yes, probably. Exactly.
- That's why it's called an owl. OW!
- They are...
(All laugh)
I have an AGA. Um, yes,
I know I should be shot, but I do.
And it kept going out. Oh, I got
the AGA person to come down...
- What, down the shops, or...
- No.
(All laugh)
- It kept... - Imagine you're out
shopping, and you see your AGA.
You rush over, and just as you
get there, it's not there.
and you keep losing it.
And so the AGA man kept coming,
and he kept saying,
'It's perfectly fine.'
And it kept going out again.
So eventually he said, 'I've got to
stay overnight,' he said.
This wasn't... Come on...
(Audience laughs)
'Cause he would come during the day,
light it - it was perfect.
In the morning I'd ring him up
and say, 'It's gone out overnight,'
and he couldn't work it out.
What it turned out was,
it was an owl -
would roost on the top
of the cowling of the flue,
'cause it liked the warm air up it
or whatever.
And it would cover itself over it,
and it would block it out.
And stop it,
so there is a safety device.
If you block the chicken...
The chicken...
If you block the...
(Audience laughs)
..the chimney, the chimney of an AGA,
it goes out.
Anyway, that's my owl-AGA story.
It wasn't worth telling.
I'm pissed. Never mind.
(Audience laughs, applauds)
So there we are. Ringing the bells.
Our next question. What is batology?
Batology. There's the word
on your screen. What is it?
It is NOT the study of bats.
Correct.
(Audience laughs)
You've saved yourself a big forfeit.
Well done.
(Applause)
There you are.
Can you give us a clue,
or is that not allowed?
It's fruit. Batology is the study
of a particular fruit.
A fruit that has two words for it
in English,
- both of which begin with B.
- Banana...
It's a native to Britain.
(Gasps)
And you can either call it
a bu or a bu.
Apple...
Anyone in the audience?
- Blum...
- WOMAN: Bramble or blackberry.
Bramble or blackberry.
The audience is well up there.
- Blackberries. - The study
of blackberries. Very good.
Well done.
You may say it's not worth studying,
but there are over 1000
different species of bramble.
No, there aren't.
(All laugh)
The study of bats
is actually chiropterology.
Alan, ther's a plot for you here,
mate,
- in your Jonathan Creek...
- Oh, yeah?
You've got an old lady, come in,
she's been picking blackberries,
someone's been killed
in the village, stabbed,
and you go, 'She might be
a batologist' - just a thought.
(All laugh)
So, now, what is batophobia?
Fear of blackberries.
(Audience laughs)
(Siren)
(Applause)
Oh, dear. I'm sorry.
You ought to be right. Ought to be...
And surely no-one's ever had
fear of blackberries.
Quite. Exactly. So, it isn't.
(Audience laughs)
No, a batophobe is actually...
It's a fear of being close
to tall buildings.
Panic attacks. Irregular heartbeat.
Sweating. Nausea.
And an overall feeling of dread.
I've got it.
(Audience laughs)
Other phobias like that are
bathophobia, the fear of depths.
Alan. Um...
(Audience laughs)
The fear of profundancy of any kind.
No, uh...
What is battology?
Battology spelt thus...
Batteries. The study of batteries.
- No, it's not that. Nice thought.
- It is.
(Audience laughs)
There's no other word in English
with B-A-T-T at the beginning...
- 'Battle'?
- 'Battle' is the other one.
(All laugh)
- 'Batter'?
- 'Batter' is another one.
'Batten' - batten down the hatches -
is another one.
Apart from those three...
It reminds me of the story of someone
who was saying that 'sugar'
is the only English word
that begins with S-U,
but where the S is pronounced 'sh'.
And someone called out,
'Are you sure?'
(Audience laughs)
Battology means pointlessly repeating
the same thing over and over again.
Oh, my god.
Battology means pointlessly repeating
the same thing over and over again.
Some people do that, don't they?
I've got a friend
who always repeats himself.
His name's Dave,
and we call him Dave Javoo.
Oh! Very good.
(Audience laughs)
Is Dave aware he does it.
Is he total...
Yeah, 'cause people said to him,
'You say everything twice.
That's why we call you Dave Javoo.'
(Audience laughs)
'I say everything twice.
I say everything twice, like.'
(Audience laughs)
'They call me Dave Javoo.
They call me Dave Javoo.'
(Audience laughs)
We're moving on to births,
but first Swedish girls.
What happened to every eight-year-old
Swedish girl in the year 1994?
(Bell)
Young Rich.
From what I understand, there were
no eight-year-old girls in 1994,
because in 1986 every child
born in Sweden was a boy,
just purely by...
(All laugh)
- Pure law of averages.
- A genealogical freak.
No, no, let me give you the answer,
which is
that they had
their ninth birthdays...
If we believe the official
statistics, alright,
there were exactly 112,521
eight-year-old girls in Sweden
on 1st January 1994,
and there was exactly the same number
of nine-year-olds
on 1st January 1995.
And this is unique in statistics,
because none died, none emigrated -
precisely the same number
survive a whole year.
But in Britain in 1994,
you might be interested to know,
there were an astonishing
range of accidents
reported by the Trade and Industry's
Consumer Safety Unit
Home Accident Surveillance System
report.
Eight people in the UK in '94
were injured by placemats.
(Audience laughs)
Thirteen sustained cruet injuries.
Five were wounded by dustpans.
Eight suffered
as a result of a breadbin accident.
Five were hurt by sieves.
14 fell foul
of a serving trolley.
17 were treated for injuries caused
by a draught excluder.
476 people were injured
while on the lavatory.
There you are.
Underwear hurt 11 people.
How many of those people were drunk?
Well, exactly -
that's a very interesting point.
Well, how many of them were
sexually experimentative, as it were?
You know - you go to the doctor -
'I was just sitting down in the nude,
and this cruet
happened to get stuck...'
That's why in the hospital
they use acronyms for...
You know, like GOMER, which is
'get out of my emergency room'.
- Oh, really? - Or SARA, which is
sexual activity-related accident.
It's called SARA.
There's an acronym they have
in my part of the world,
which doctors apparently put
on patient notes, which is NFN -
- which stands for
'normal for Norfolk'. - Yes.
(All laugh)
On the positive side of 1994,
tea-cosy damage was down
from 3 in '93, to nil,
so we cleared up the menace
of tea-cosy damage.
Who knows? Who knows?
People don't use them very often,
do they, nowadays?
No, because they're so dangerous.
- Lethal.
- Lethal!
Now, what was the biggest
tourist attraction in Canada
between 1934 and 1943?
(Ding dong.)
Ah, beaten to the buzzer
by Leslie Davies.
Niagara Falls.
Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear.
(Siren)
Oh, no, no. No, no, no.
Canada's a relatively young country.
and I'm not sure how much of it
there was at that time.
Was it finished by the '30s?
As it were, I think more or less,
yes.
'Cause Alberta's only about
80 years old.
- I know, I know the story, I know it.
- Yes?
(Bell)
(Laughs) Yes?
- It's a really sad story, actually...
- Yes.
..and didn't they have sextuplets
or octuplets...
- Quins, in fact.
- Qu...
- Quintuplets. - Quintuplets.-
You're absolutely right.
- And everyone came to see them.
- There they are.
And they were taken away
from their parents
- and made to live in a house
across the road. - Exactly right.
Exactly right. It was the Dionnes,
they were known as.
There were these five girls
who were born from a single egg,
to a rather poor family,
and the father started talking about
exhibiting them himself,
because they were very famous.
In those days before
all kinds of fertility treatments,
it was much rarer to have
these kinds of multiple births.
So, the government took over
and put them in a hospital,
and then slowly the hospital
started to admit people,
and it became the single
biggest attraction in Canada.
But, after nine years, the parents
successfully got their girls back,
but at the age of 18 they all left.
Two are still alive, and in '98, Mike
Harris, who was the Prime Minister,
travelled to apologise
to the two remaining ones,
and give them $4 million
as compensation,
and apologise on behalf of Canada...
- Four million Canadian dollars.
- Canadian dollars.
(Laughter drowns speech)
Throw 'em a bone.
Alan, a question for you.
Name all the events at the
first-recorded Olympic Games
in the year 776BC.
Discus.
(Siren)
Have another go.
Javelin.
(Siren)
No, no. Try harder.
- Hammer.
- No! Dear, oh, dearie me.
(Siren)
No, no. I think that way madness
lies.
- That was running.
- Yes, running is the answer.
- Running was running just one race.
- Just one race.
And if you get the distance,
I will be astonished.
- Two hundred metres.
- That's damn close.
(Siren)
It's unfair. It's very unfair.
I think you've taken enough forfeits,
because there was just one event,
and it was 192m.
(Laughs)
Which is the modern equivalent. It's
a stadium, the length of a stadium.
And that was the only race
in the first Olympic Games.
That was the Olympic Games?
- The first recorded one.
- Yeah.
But they later discovered and indeed
included discus and javelin,
or wrestling and boxing - and
all the things you've mentioned.
But, unfortunately, the
first recorded one was just one...
When was the first recorded one?
776BC.
Now, the next question,
which is a subsidiary to this
first recorded Olympics is,
what was the naked chef doing there?
(Ding dong.)
(Audience laughs)
Yes. Is that a response
to the buttocks, or...
- Yeah. A fine pair.
- For what?
Um, naked cooking for the athletes?
No. Not quite.
Preparing meals for the judges.
Selling food to the audience.
Won the race?
Yes! Quite right.
Ah.
The winner was a cook.
(Applause)
His name was Coroebus of Elis,
and he was a cook,
and like all the contestants
was naked.
- And they all ran in the nude.
- All ran in the nude...
- How wonderful.
- Even the trainers.
I would like to have seen
the triple jump.
- How about the pole vault?
- Oh, don't.
He... Coroebus of course
won by a short head. No...
After his... final spurt.
No, shut up.
Now, why is a marathon
26 miles and 385 yards long?
I feel a trap coming up.
(Laughs)
There's an utterly preposterous myth
that it is the distance run
from the Battle of Marathon
back to Athens.
- The myth is that it was a man
called Pheidippides... - Yes.
- ..who actually conducted the run, to
convey the news of the battle. - Yes.
- And in fact it was the Battle of
Snickers, not Marathon. - Exactly.
(All laugh, applaud)
No, that's right.
There is a fairly well-known story
that a man called Pheidippides
apparently ran from Marathon,
where there'd been a battle
against the invading Persians.
According to Herodotus, who was born
six years after the battle,
and whose account is the nearest
we have to a contemporary one,
Pheidippides
ran from Marathon to Sparta,
which is actually about 145 miles.
- There'd be no way!
- Yeah.
- 145 miles? - Yeah. And then
he ran all the way back again,
since the Spartans
were having a holy day.
But he died under the same...
No, he didn't die.
According to Herodotus, he didn't.
- I thought he was...
- No record of him dying at all.
It was 500 years later in Plutarch
and various other sources
that this myth grew up.
But the reason why the marathon
is 26 miles 385 yards
is the British Royal Family.
Is it the distance
from Windsor to St James?
Not Windsor to St James, but you're
absolutely on the right lines.
In 1908, there was an Olympic Games
held in London,
and the marathon started
outside a window in Windsor Castle,
and half the Royal Family
sat in the window going,
'Oh, well done. Go and...' You know,
'What fun.' And there started.
And the finish line was at
the newly built White City stadium,
and it was exactly 26 miles
and 385 yards.
And for every Olympics afterwards,
that was the settled length.
Now, we pay our traditional visit,
ladies and gentlemen,
to the exam hall
where all the candidates are writing
with the wrong end of the pencil -
it's the School of General Ignorance.
So, fingers on buzzers, turn over
your papers, and let's begin.
Where were the first modern Olympics
held? Still on Olympics.
(Bell)
Yes?
1896 was the first year,
and I believe it was Athens.
(Siren)
- It's not correct, I'm afraid.
- No.
- No, but in Greece?
- No, it wasn't in Greece.
(Siren)
I'm sorry about that.
(Bell)
No.
- Was it London? - No.
You're in the right country, though.
- Damn. - If you got the place,
I'd be surprised.
Johnny might. If I were to say
AE Housman, you might get the place.
- Salisbury?
- Nope.
- Shropshire.
- Shropshire is the right answer.
- Much Wenlock, as in on Wenlock Edge.
- Wenlock Edge.
The town of Much Wenlock
in the year 1850, held Olympic Games.
It was an extraordinary man,
called Dr WP Brookes.
1896 was the first Olympic Games.
And so people suggest, but
Baron Coubertin, who was the founder,
supposedly,
of the modern Olympic movement...
And he wrote about WP Brookes,
'Much Wenlock
is a town in Shropshire,
a country on the borders of Wales,
and if the Olympic Games
that modern Greece
has not yet been able to revive...'
He wrote this in 1890, Coubertin.
'..still survive today, it is due
not to a Greek, but to WP Brookes.
It is he who inaugurated them
40 years ago,
and it is he, now 82 years of age,
and still alert and vigorous,
who continues
to organise and inspire them.'
So Coubertin came to Wenlock Edge,
and he, being a baron, having
influence and political connections,
was able to do what this little
country parson was not able to do,
which was to get the rest of the
country, the rest of the world.
But King George I of Greece,
of the Hellenes,
sent a silver medal to be a prize
at the Wenlock Olympics.
So, 46 years before the first Athens
Olympiad as it's counted,
there were Olympic Games
that were recognised
by the very man who is known as
the father of the Olympic movement.
- Gosh. - That's wonderful.
- So, let's hear it for WP Brookes.
But he died just a year before
the Athens Olympics.
- 2012 - Hackney.
- Yeah.
(Audience laughs)
Could be, couldn't it?
Could be Hackney.
Nothing wrong with Hackney.
- What a shithole.
- I live in Hackney.
(All laugh)
- Kayaking down the Lee River.
- I used to live in Hackney.
You can develop film in the Lee
River, but you can't kayak there.
(All laugh)
Now, here's a question -
why was King Charles XIV of Sweden
ashamed of his tattoo?
That's Dudley Moore, innit?
(Audience laughs)
Charles XIV of Sweden.
Well, because Bernadotte,
one of Napoleon's generals,
- went to become King of Sweden...
- He did.
- And the tat... And Charles XIV,
was that Bernadotte? - It was.
And he had a tattoo,
'I love Napoleon' on his arse?
No, no.
He wasn't appointed by Napoleon.
He was actually appointed
by the ailing Charles XIII.
Napoleon regarded it as a joke,
but Bernadotte had been
a young revolutionary, a Jacobin,
and he had a tattoo that said,
'Death to kings.' (Chuckles)
As a young man, and then he was
adopted by the old King of Sweden,
- Charles XIII - became Charles XIV.
- Yes.
And was incredibly successful, and
completely backed away from France.
- Had an alliance with England and
Prussia. - The great coalition.
Invaded Norway.
Became King of Norway as well.
And the Bernadotte family
still rules Sweden.
They are still the kings...
It's very confusing that period,
because Napoleon had Irish generals.
- He even had a Scottish general.
- Yeah.
You know, just because
you came from somewhere,
you didn't have to fight
for their army.
No, indeed. Here's a question.
Which Scandinavian king
might you have in your mobile phone?
(Bell)
- Gustavus Adolphus?
- No.
- King Nokia.
- No, though...
- King Ericsson.
- No. You're cer... I mean...
King Motorola.
Actually in it. Not as the make of.
King Sim.
No.
(All laugh)
- There was a King Harold
who had a nickname. - Bluetooth!
Thank you. Bluetooth is the answer.
Harold Bluetooth was the king...
Me neck went off that side
to get that right.
United Finland and Sweden and Norway,
and when Ericsson and Nokia
and all the others you mentioned
were thinking of a unified approach
to wireless connection
between mobile phones,
they called it Bluetooth,
in his honour.
Oh, really? 'Cause of him?
Actually named after him?
Yeah. We have the last question.
What do St Bernards
carry in barrels around their necks?
(Bell)
Brandy.
(Siren)
(Siren drowns speech)
No, never have.
Armagnac's a myth.
- Armagnac IS a kind of brandy. - Oh.-
Just not cognac.
They never used casks in rescue work.
Brandy, after all,
would kill someone with hypothermia.
- Yes.
- They just do it for tourists.
It's 'cause of a painting in 1831
by Landseer.
Uh, that's not the painting,
incidentally, but...
(Audience laughs)
- Very, very, very good likeness.
- It's just done for tourism.
The dog painted by Landseer
was called Barry,
and he was very handsome,
and he'd rescued 40 people,
and was something of a hero.
Unfortunately,
he was killed by the 41st person,
who thought he was a wolf.
Oh, that's terrible!
But, in his honour,
the handsomest St Bernard...
- That's horrible. - ..is always called
Barry at the St Bernard Hospice.
So, why was Barry painted
with a barrel around his neck, then?
Occasionally they would carry milk
and things like that,
but certainly not brandy.
Was St Bernard a patron saint
of skiers who need some brandy?
Well, it's a pass, isn't it? It's a
pass between Italy and Switzerland.
I'll tell you what is a really good
patron saint to put,
and it works, is St Anthony,
the patron saint of lost things.
If you lose something in the house,
and you just say,
'Please, St Anthony,
will you help me find this?',
I guarantee, 'cause it's happened
with me with keys and everything -
in about half an hour to an hour,
you'll find what it is...
(Cough 'bullshit') Um, um...
(Audience laughs)
- Stephen! It's true.
- No, it's not true. I'm sorry.
Something tells me
it is so much arse.
Anyway, that's it,
ladies and gentlemen.
It's time for the
bittersweet business of the scores.
And here we are. I will have to go,
I fear, in order of first to last.
And tied in first place are Josie
and Rich - with four points!
- Ooh.
- How about that?
(Applause)
In third place, despite
some magnificent knowledge...
Uh, he did plunge into our traps
a few times.
With -14, it's Johnny Sessions.
(Applause)
But, uh... But limping, somewhat,
a few laps behind,
with, I think, a record-breaking -72
is Alan Davies.
(Audience cheers, applauds)
That's all. That's all from Rich,
Johnny, Josie, Alan and myself.
I leave you with this
quite interesting thought.
(Audience laughs)
Good night.
(Applause)
Closed Captions by CSI -
Adrian Tan