QI (2003–…): Season 20, Episode 12 - Episode #20.12 - full transcript
Hello, and welcome to QI.
Tonight, we'll be looking at
a bit of this, a bit of that, and
maybe even a bit of t'other.
Let's meet our tribe of troubadours.
The mellow Jo Brand.
The melodious Sally Phillips.
The mellifluous Guz Khan.
And, ding dong, it's Alan Davies.
And this is all about that.
Sally goes...
# That's life
That's life... #
Oh, I like that.
# That's what all the people say. #
Jo goes...
# That's the way, ah-ah ah-ah
I like it. #
Guz goes...
# When the moon hits your eye
Like a big pizza pie
# That's amore. #
And Alan goes...
# That's not my name
That's not my name
# That's not my name
That's not my...name. #
Right, question number one.
Complete the following -
Sigmund Freud, Catherine
the Great and Che Guevara
walk into a karaoke bar...
# That's amore! #
Catherine the Great
told Che to drop kick Sigmund
in the chest.
Oh! Because he was running round
saying everybody wanted
to tickle their mum.
Is the karaoke significant?
Yes. It's all about singing.
Freud hated music. OK, so now you're
heading in the right direction.
Why do you say he hated music?
Because he hated music.
What it was was that he claimed
that he was tone-deaf, so he wanted
to sing, but he was almost
totally out of tune.
He just thought that he was
completely tone-deaf.
But the two people who do seem
to have been tone-deaf are
Catherine the Great and Che.
They do seem to have been properly
tone-deaf. Oh, really?
She was a tremendous patron
of the arts in Russia.
She wrote her own libretti
for operas and so on,
but she couldn't personally
perceive the music.
And Che, he wrote that he would ask
a friend to nudge him
whenever a tango was played
so that he could dance.
A friend nudged him one time, he got
up, danced a very slow, passionate
tango, and it was, in fact,
they were playing a quick
Peruvian folk dance, so...
Che Guevara was really into rugby.
Did you know that?
He published his own rugby magazine
called Tackle.
And he said... And he said,
"I love it so much
"that I don't care if I die playing
rugby." Yes, he said,
"Even if it kills me,
"I'm happy..." You'd think if he
were born English, he wouldn't
have been bothered with all
these revolutions? He'd have just
played for the Lions?
Yeah. There's a technical word
for tone deafness. It's amusia
and congenital amusia -
so proper, untreatable
tone deafness -
is about 1.5% of the population.
There's a colloquial term for tone
deafness, as well,
which is East 17.
I was on the Big Breakfast once -
a long time ago in the '90s -
and East 17 were on guesting
and someone came in with headphones
and a clipboard. It's live, you
know.
"Would the boys sing
a Big Breakfast jingle?"
And the manager said,
"Boys don't sing."
There's a lot of facts in this show.
I'm... I'm trying to process all
this stuff.
There's facts firing off left
and right.
I feel bad now. Do you want
me to do less?
I want you to be happy.
No, I'm happy. OK.
Che Guevara, rugby.
The thing is, you just tell me
things you know that I don't know.
That's how it works. We just knock
it backwards and forwards.
Is that what he is? Yeah. Tell me
something I don't know. Go on.
I once accidentally kicked
a turtle off a roof in Morocco.
There you go. I mean, there's a lot
to unpack there, really.
You rarely see a turtle on a roof.
I know!
What were you and the turtle
doing on the roof?
I didn't know he was there.
No. Fair.
And I had very slippy, local,
like, Moroccan slippers on.
Yeah? And somebody pinged me a size
five football
and, as I volleyed that... Yeah.
..the turtle's come out
from behind that plant pot...
..and the ball and the turtle
have gone off the roof.
It was an accident. Pure accident,
swear down. Yeah, what are
the chances? Innit? OK.
What happened then? You just
went, "Oh, shit. Oh, well."
Did you go down to see if it was all
right? Somebody did go and check if
it was all right. And?
It weren't all right.
Most people who say that they are
tone-deaf, it's just that they lost
confidence as a child.
But there is a thing called
congenital amusia, and that's
because you have a loss
of connectivity between your left
and your right auditory cortex
and they jumble the sounds.
But, as I say, it is very rare.
The thing that's not so rare
is perfect pitch.
Probably 1 in 20 music
students have it.
Here's the thing - if we all sang
a song of which there's one famous
recording - like, Hey Jude
would be a good example of a song -
about one in five of us in this room
will probably hit the first note
exactly.
And that's called remembered pitch.
Many of us have that -
certainly a large proportion
of the population.
If you don't have it, it is
perfectly possible to learn it.
You know that song by
Minnie Riperton - Loving You?
# Loving you... #
Then it goes...
# La la la la la
La la la la la
# La la la la la la la
la la la la
# Doo-n-doo-n-doo-doo....
I've always wanted
to be able to do that.
I have got you some chewing gum.
And while you are chewing on that,
here is another question.
How can I get Kylie Minogue's
I Can't Get You Out Of My Head
out of my head?
Play another song.
Is a very good answer, indeed.
Absolutely right.
So when you can't get a song
out of your head, it's called
an earworm, also known
as stuck song syndrome.
And it tends to appear when
you've allowed your mind to wander.
But it can also happen
when you're very stressed
or overloaded with work.
But there are the following
treatments.
The one you suggested - substitute
a different earworm is one way
of doing it.
Distract yourself with a puzzle.
Do you do puzzles at all, Guz? I do
Wordle. Yeah. Are you good at it?
They... When things get bad,
So the other thing is to chew gum.
Chew gum for three minutes
and it sometimes does the trick.
# Can't get you out of my head. #
It's not working.
It's not working?
How long do you think people
have been chewing gum?
Thousands of years. Yeah.
Thousands and thousands. I'd say...
Go. Well, there's no written
history, of course,
but oral traditions would suggest...
This is what you do, Guz.
Are you impressed?
See what I'm doing? Smashing.
Yes, smashing it.
4,600 years, I think,
was the earliest, um...
It's the Neolithic period. It's
about 10,000 years. So close!
I've forgot about the
Neolithic... You were!
Were they chewing gum
before they're brushing their teeth?
What came first? Yes
is the answer to that.
The ancient Greeks did it.
They chewed something called mastic
tree resin.
The Mayans chewed tree resin,
as well, and Native Americans chewed
spruce tree sap.
It may be that it's just a way
of freshening the mouth,
or it just is a nice kind
of repetitive thing.
This is such a good show.
Thank you.
Like BBC Bitesize, but real life.
It's shown that chewing gum
has a better effect on performance
than caffeine, and nobody knows why.
There is some kind of connection
between chewing gum... Stick it
under the desk, it'll still be there
next year. Do not do that.
We don't know why there's
this connection between chewing gum
and cognitive performance.
It can't be the sugar,
because sugar-free gum
has exactly the same effect.
There is a thing called
mastication-induced arousal.
Wow. Mm-hm.
How do you achieve that?
How you achieve it is you have,
like, a really massive sausage roll.
I mean, is it how you're
masticating, when you're
masticating?
Is it what you're masticating?
Is it who you're masticating with?!
I thought it made you go blind.
Right. What item beginning with T
do people use for fun today
but was once a serious punishment?
# That's life. #
Tom Cruise.
# That's life. #
Torture chambers.
So, kind of. So it begins with T.
Today, people use it for fun.
Thumb screw.
No, no. I mean, generally...
People in this audience would...
Many, many would use it
for a bit of fun. Toilet.
# That's life. #
Trampoline.
Trampoline? You're just saying words
beginning with T. We are!
# That's amore. #
I'm going to kill these
buzzers in a minute. Stop it.
Testicles.
Oh, I know! Yes?
Tottenham Hotspur.
Treadmills. Treadmills - yes!
What?! What?
I feel like there's a lot of people
and you see them sometimes in
town centres, sometimes there'll
be a window on the first floor
and they're all at the glass,
looking like they're trying to cycle
out of the window
and land in the street.
What are they doing?
They're pounding and running
towards the window, but never
get there. I don't know what
they're seeing, where they're trying
to get to. I wish, one day,
the window would just open up
and they'd all fly out.
Maybe take off, maybe just
fly around the town
and, eventually, like a balloon -
when you release a balloon
and it goes...
And all of that energy! They're all
doing that and it's just going,
it's going nowhere. They're not even
powering the lights.
They should be... They could be
going into the National Grid.
We should be harvesting that!
Yes. Yes.
Today, the treadmill is a popular
tool of voluntary exercise.
But in the 19th century
it was a punishment device.
So it was introduced in England
in 1818 by the engineer
Sir William Cubitt and he devised
a tread wheel with a handrail
that acted like a sort of
endless staircase.
He put one into Brixton
prison and it ground grain
for a nearby mill, then they went on
to do some that pumped water.
Up to 40 prisoners at a time.
And by 1865 every male prisoner
over the age of 16 serving
a sentence for hard labour
was forced to walk the treadmill.
But it became a punishment
rather than something practical.
Are you an exerciser?
Is your thing?
Absolutely not. No. Good man.
Er, extra point.
There we go!
Now, what's the perfect
underwear for the underworld?
# That's the way. #
This just gives me
a chance to say
my top-ten most-hated word ever. OK.
Is it panties?
Why do you not like the word
panties?
It's something
that gynaecologists say
and you know you should
call the police.
"Would you just like to slip
your panties off?"
"No! I'd like to slip off my bloody
great, navy, school knick-knocks,
"if you don't mind."
So you're right about panties.
Whose panties might it be
that we are talking about?
We are heading back in time.
We're heading back to Egypt.
Is it Tutankhamun?
Yes, absolutely right. Bloody hell!
Tutankhamun. So he was buried
with hundreds of objects
to use in the afterlife.
The clothing included 12 tunics,
28 gloves, 4 socks with separate
toe sections - so he could still
wear sandals in the afterlife -
and 145 pairs of panties
all neatly folded.
Which is the good thing.
The less good thing -
they have discovered that they were
all used and probably...
Oh!
Hmm, right? Dirty panties.
They were dirty. He didn't do
his laundry before he went off.
We've made a sort of mock up,
Sally, next to you.
A pair of dirty pants?
They're a "mock up".
So this is what it would
have looked like.
It was a triangular thing.
So what you do is you put
it around your waist
from behind and tie those
two corners round.
I've got a label here -
"property of Tutankhamun".
So, from behind, put it round you
and tie it.
At the front. At the front.
Like that. Yes. Then bring the
other bit up between your legs,
like that. It's a nappy, basically.
Basically, nappies. Yes.
That is your basic Egyptian
panties right there.
Wow. Tutankhamun was rolling
to heaven with skid marks.
That's not a....
Maybe they put a washing machine...
Maybe there was a top loader
in the corner.
I thought loin cloths weren't... Can
you give us a twirl with those on?
A twirl? Yeah, sure.
Yeah. Let's just see how they...
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Ooh!
It's as though the boy king
was in the room.
Maybe there were loads of dirty
pants because he was a teenager.
Well, this is it.
It was a replica of his bedroom.
Yeah.
That's about right. Look at it.
Anyway, moving on.
Why does David Mitchell stand
in the midday sun every day
and yell the news to anybody
who will listen?
THE David Mitchell? Ah!
Is there a THE David Mitchell?
You'd think so for the amount
of times he's on telly.
I know why I think it is.
Go on, then.
Is he a town crier?
You are absolutely right.
There's only one place in Britain
where there is still the tradition
of regular midday town crier
proclamations.
And there's two official
town criers - David Mitchell
and his wife, Julie. And
David Mitchell is in the audience.
Where are you, David?
Good evening, my lady.
How would you start a town cry?
Always with the three oyez.
OK, can you do that for us?
Oyez! Oyez!
Oy...
..ez!
So it just means "hear ye",
doesn't it, or "hearken"?
Do you give out news -
is that the main object?
Not like national news.
We never announce the result
of battles or kings dying
or anything like that.
It was very local things.
Mainly lost things.
Like, for example, if parents
had lost a child, or a farmer's
livestock had strayed, then we
would announce that kind of thing.
If I lost Alan, could I call you?
The strap you use to put the bell
in, has that got a particular name?
It shares its name with
Lord Blackadder's servant.
This is, in fact, a baldric.
Ah!
And your wife is also
a town crier? She is.
Do the two of you shout at each
other at breakfast? I just...
Pass the marmalade!
We're out of marmalade!
We're out of marmalade!
Thank you for letting me know!
I hope you have children -
the last two town criers
in all of England.
We're by no means the last.
There are probably 240.
But Chester is the only place in the
world that chooses its town criers
on the basis of their
photogenic good looks. Wow.
Well, we're delighted you are here.
Thank you so much, David Mitchell.
You need one of those in Cov, Guz.
You could be that.
I could be... I could be that.
But, to be honest with you, the way
that David described what he does,
by spilling all the local goss,
that would make him a snitch.
In Cov, he's getting shot,
so I wouldn't bother, mate,
to be honest with you. Right,
Describe the most thrilling way
to come down from the top
of the Eiffel Tower.
# That's the way. #
Tossing yourself off?
So not that, not that. Thrilling way
to come down from the Eiffel Tower.
Any thoughts?
What would be a cool way?
Some kind of massive slide? Yes.
On a magical unicorn
made of Camembert.
Bare-back riding
with Robert Pattinson.
So this is fantastic.
There was a French engineer,
1891, called Charles Carron,
and he proposed a giant bullet
that people would sit inside
as it fell down
from the Eiffel Tower
into an enormous pool
of water at the base.
OK? The fall -
about 1,000 feet -
and it would allow 15 brave riders
to reach speeds up to 180mph,
whilst not restrained
by a seat belt or anything else
in any way. I just wonder
if any of the panel can think of
a practical problem
that might arise with
this particular idea. I'd say
certain death. Certain death.
Well, the main thing was
that they needed something for them
to land it, right?
So he proposed a dive pool
190ft deep,
shaped like a giant champagne
flute. Once they're in the bottom
of the pool... Yeah?
..how are they getting out then?
That's the other thing.
Well spotted.
The bullet is 11 tons.
Ooh! Yeah.
And he did say, probably, we'd have
to get them out quite quickly -
before they asphyxiated or drowned -
presuming, I think, that they hadn't
died from the impact.
The Boston Globe suggested
that those who survive
will be decorated with the
Medal of Legion, or something
like that, to commemorate
their bravery - the others will be
decently buried by the state.
Anyway, never built, weirdly. No?
Health and safety
has ruined everything. Yeah.
I like the fact that it's got quite
an elegant lamp above them.
Yeah. As if they might...
In the final seconds,
they might be reading
a bit of Zola.
I'm just thinking, like,
look at this guy - free thinker.
Like, imagine if he was around
designing, like,
lollipop ladies' lollipops.
If that's where his mind
is with this...
..something as mundane as a lollipop
lady, she'd have, like, straps
and go, like, brrrr,
if the kids were coming out.
Get back, you little prick!
Zap! Like that.
This is the kind of guy
we need in today's society, innit?
It certainly is.
My brother had a friend who,
when they went to
something like,
you know, a scary theme park,
he would take a massive kind of
rusty bolt with him
and he would wait till the ride
started and he went,
"I've just found that
under my seat."
"Aagh!"
OK. What sort of things do
Australian talking ducks say?
Ah, look!
And then something else.
They always start with "Ah, look."
"There's an egg." Look at that.
"Ah, look, I've laid one!"
Struth! I seem to have
a testicle under my beak.
"What have I swallowed here,
Sheila? Look at that!"
So it's a particularly curious duck
from Australia
called a musk duck.
And it's part of a rare group
of vocal language learners.
That includes humans, some bats,
elephants who can reproduce sounds
that are around them. There's a duck
in the Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve
in Canberra, Australia. The duck
was obviously called Ripper.
Ripper? Ripper.
WITH AUSTRALIAN ACCENT: Yeah. 1987.
It was recorded making a noise.
It sounded like a human being
saying, "You bloody fool!"
Now, this is what I've been told.
We've got a recording.
You tell me if that's what it sounds
like. Have a listen to this.
GENTLE COOING: You bloody fooool.
Apparently, there's a musk duck
in Pensthorpe Natural Park
in the UK.
It sounds like a snorting pony.
There's one at Slimbridge Wildfowl
Trust that coughs like his keeper
and squeaks like a turnstile.
There used to be a sensational
German vaudeville act called
Don the Talking Dog. And, in 1912,
he went to America. He arrived
and everybody was very excited
to meet Don the Talking Dog.
But he was too seasick
to converse with anybody. Aw!
In the event, he only spoke German,
apparently.
He could say yes, no, quiet, cake,
have, hunger, and his owner's name.
He was very like Alan.
And, um...
Could he say "sausages"?
Well, OK.
Most famous talking dog
in Britain was called...?
I was thinking of Esther Rantzen.
Yes! It was the dog called Prince.
1979, Prince and his owner,
Paul Allen, appeared
on the Esther Rantzen That's Life
to demonstrate his vocabulary.
His vocabulary included Elvis,
Esther and, most famously, sausages.
I know Esther and she says there
was a time in the '70s when she
couldn't walk down the street
without people yelling, "Sausages!"
Shall we have a look? Oh, yeah.
Now for our latest talented pet.
This one is quite unbelievable,
but we promise you
it really is true.
We didn't believe it ourselves
when we heard that Paul Allen,
who lives in Leeds,
has a talking dog.
George, next door, gives him
sausages. He comes out every
Thursday with a plate of sausages
and puts them on't back door step
and Prince goes
and has a good tuck-in.
Tell us what you have on a Thursday,
Prince.
What does George give you, Prince?
Saus... A what? Sausage.
So brilliant.
That would get you on the telly
in the '70s. I know!
Right, time to talk turkey in the
round we call General Ignorance.
Fingers on buzzers, please.
What kind of nail is most likely
to give you tetanus?
# That's life. #
Yes? Jimmy Nail.
A rusty nail.
It's a bacterial infection. It is.
Bacterial infection
is nothing to do with rust. No.
Is it one smeared
with human saliva?
Well, it's most commonly found
in human and animal faeces.
Oh, super! Yeah.
But it's also in soil and dust.
It tends to hide in the soil.
So a sprig of holly would be
a greater threat to you
than a rusty nail. All these years!
Why did everyone say,
"Oh, don't stand on a rusty..."
Someone would have to shit
on the nail first?
Or wiped it with
Tutankhamun's nappies.
You get lockjaw. You do.
It's very, very unpleasant.
Then you can't say what's happened
to you. "But what's wrong with you?"
"Ask the dog!"
"I shat on a nail."
Rusty nails don't inherently
cause tetanus,
but best just to avoid them,
in case.
What do you call the spot
where an earthquake starts?
Is it the epicentre?
Yay!
So the epicentre is the point
on the Earth's surface
above the location
where an earthquake starts.
The place where it actually starts
is the focus or hypocentre.
The hypocentre? Hypocentre. We've
got one of those at Brent Cross.
Next to the blue car park.
So, quakes start along fault lines.
So it's where two tectonic plates
rub against each other.
They cannot physically occur
on the surface of the Earth.
So most earthquakes start very,
very deep within the Earth's crust.
Earthquakes are proper scary.
I experienced one for the first time
in my life in LA and, apparently,
they're quite common there.
But I didn't know that. So I was...
You don't know, do you?
I'm from Coventry - you don't have
flipping earthquakes there.
I was in my hotel room
in only my pants.
Then, sort of when the
building starts shaking...
Yeah. ..I shit myself.
And I ran in the hallway. All my
tits are out flying everywhere.
And I was so scared
that I had the strength to kick
in the door opposite.
And there was just one - bless
him - little Chinese dude sitting
on his chair. And I've kicked his
door in, tits flailing everywhere.
He's screaming. I'm screaming.
It was scary, man.
That's the end of the story. Yeah.
Which brings us to the scores.
But why should I proclaim the scores
when I've got David Mitchell
here to do it? David,
please tell us the results.
Oy...ez!
In fifth place with -20 points
is Alan.
Oh, Alan!
In fourth place with seven points -
Guz.
In third place with 11 points
is Sally.
In second place with 14 points -
Jo.
But tonight's winner,
with 15 points is
the audience!
Thank you, David, and thank you,
Guz, Sally, Jo and Alan.
I leave you with this - the American
actress Tallulah Bankhead
was once at a party in New York
when a man rushed over and said,
"My God, Tallulah, I haven't
seen you in 30 years."
And she looked him up and down
and said icily,
"I thought I told you to
wait in the car." Goodnight.
Tonight, we'll be looking at
a bit of this, a bit of that, and
maybe even a bit of t'other.
Let's meet our tribe of troubadours.
The mellow Jo Brand.
The melodious Sally Phillips.
The mellifluous Guz Khan.
And, ding dong, it's Alan Davies.
And this is all about that.
Sally goes...
# That's life
That's life... #
Oh, I like that.
# That's what all the people say. #
Jo goes...
# That's the way, ah-ah ah-ah
I like it. #
Guz goes...
# When the moon hits your eye
Like a big pizza pie
# That's amore. #
And Alan goes...
# That's not my name
That's not my name
# That's not my name
That's not my...name. #
Right, question number one.
Complete the following -
Sigmund Freud, Catherine
the Great and Che Guevara
walk into a karaoke bar...
# That's amore! #
Catherine the Great
told Che to drop kick Sigmund
in the chest.
Oh! Because he was running round
saying everybody wanted
to tickle their mum.
Is the karaoke significant?
Yes. It's all about singing.
Freud hated music. OK, so now you're
heading in the right direction.
Why do you say he hated music?
Because he hated music.
What it was was that he claimed
that he was tone-deaf, so he wanted
to sing, but he was almost
totally out of tune.
He just thought that he was
completely tone-deaf.
But the two people who do seem
to have been tone-deaf are
Catherine the Great and Che.
They do seem to have been properly
tone-deaf. Oh, really?
She was a tremendous patron
of the arts in Russia.
She wrote her own libretti
for operas and so on,
but she couldn't personally
perceive the music.
And Che, he wrote that he would ask
a friend to nudge him
whenever a tango was played
so that he could dance.
A friend nudged him one time, he got
up, danced a very slow, passionate
tango, and it was, in fact,
they were playing a quick
Peruvian folk dance, so...
Che Guevara was really into rugby.
Did you know that?
He published his own rugby magazine
called Tackle.
And he said... And he said,
"I love it so much
"that I don't care if I die playing
rugby." Yes, he said,
"Even if it kills me,
"I'm happy..." You'd think if he
were born English, he wouldn't
have been bothered with all
these revolutions? He'd have just
played for the Lions?
Yeah. There's a technical word
for tone deafness. It's amusia
and congenital amusia -
so proper, untreatable
tone deafness -
is about 1.5% of the population.
There's a colloquial term for tone
deafness, as well,
which is East 17.
I was on the Big Breakfast once -
a long time ago in the '90s -
and East 17 were on guesting
and someone came in with headphones
and a clipboard. It's live, you
know.
"Would the boys sing
a Big Breakfast jingle?"
And the manager said,
"Boys don't sing."
There's a lot of facts in this show.
I'm... I'm trying to process all
this stuff.
There's facts firing off left
and right.
I feel bad now. Do you want
me to do less?
I want you to be happy.
No, I'm happy. OK.
Che Guevara, rugby.
The thing is, you just tell me
things you know that I don't know.
That's how it works. We just knock
it backwards and forwards.
Is that what he is? Yeah. Tell me
something I don't know. Go on.
I once accidentally kicked
a turtle off a roof in Morocco.
There you go. I mean, there's a lot
to unpack there, really.
You rarely see a turtle on a roof.
I know!
What were you and the turtle
doing on the roof?
I didn't know he was there.
No. Fair.
And I had very slippy, local,
like, Moroccan slippers on.
Yeah? And somebody pinged me a size
five football
and, as I volleyed that... Yeah.
..the turtle's come out
from behind that plant pot...
..and the ball and the turtle
have gone off the roof.
It was an accident. Pure accident,
swear down. Yeah, what are
the chances? Innit? OK.
What happened then? You just
went, "Oh, shit. Oh, well."
Did you go down to see if it was all
right? Somebody did go and check if
it was all right. And?
It weren't all right.
Most people who say that they are
tone-deaf, it's just that they lost
confidence as a child.
But there is a thing called
congenital amusia, and that's
because you have a loss
of connectivity between your left
and your right auditory cortex
and they jumble the sounds.
But, as I say, it is very rare.
The thing that's not so rare
is perfect pitch.
Probably 1 in 20 music
students have it.
Here's the thing - if we all sang
a song of which there's one famous
recording - like, Hey Jude
would be a good example of a song -
about one in five of us in this room
will probably hit the first note
exactly.
And that's called remembered pitch.
Many of us have that -
certainly a large proportion
of the population.
If you don't have it, it is
perfectly possible to learn it.
You know that song by
Minnie Riperton - Loving You?
# Loving you... #
Then it goes...
# La la la la la
La la la la la
# La la la la la la la
la la la la
# Doo-n-doo-n-doo-doo....
I've always wanted
to be able to do that.
I have got you some chewing gum.
And while you are chewing on that,
here is another question.
How can I get Kylie Minogue's
I Can't Get You Out Of My Head
out of my head?
Play another song.
Is a very good answer, indeed.
Absolutely right.
So when you can't get a song
out of your head, it's called
an earworm, also known
as stuck song syndrome.
And it tends to appear when
you've allowed your mind to wander.
But it can also happen
when you're very stressed
or overloaded with work.
But there are the following
treatments.
The one you suggested - substitute
a different earworm is one way
of doing it.
Distract yourself with a puzzle.
Do you do puzzles at all, Guz? I do
Wordle. Yeah. Are you good at it?
They... When things get bad,
So the other thing is to chew gum.
Chew gum for three minutes
and it sometimes does the trick.
# Can't get you out of my head. #
It's not working.
It's not working?
How long do you think people
have been chewing gum?
Thousands of years. Yeah.
Thousands and thousands. I'd say...
Go. Well, there's no written
history, of course,
but oral traditions would suggest...
This is what you do, Guz.
Are you impressed?
See what I'm doing? Smashing.
Yes, smashing it.
4,600 years, I think,
was the earliest, um...
It's the Neolithic period. It's
about 10,000 years. So close!
I've forgot about the
Neolithic... You were!
Were they chewing gum
before they're brushing their teeth?
What came first? Yes
is the answer to that.
The ancient Greeks did it.
They chewed something called mastic
tree resin.
The Mayans chewed tree resin,
as well, and Native Americans chewed
spruce tree sap.
It may be that it's just a way
of freshening the mouth,
or it just is a nice kind
of repetitive thing.
This is such a good show.
Thank you.
Like BBC Bitesize, but real life.
It's shown that chewing gum
has a better effect on performance
than caffeine, and nobody knows why.
There is some kind of connection
between chewing gum... Stick it
under the desk, it'll still be there
next year. Do not do that.
We don't know why there's
this connection between chewing gum
and cognitive performance.
It can't be the sugar,
because sugar-free gum
has exactly the same effect.
There is a thing called
mastication-induced arousal.
Wow. Mm-hm.
How do you achieve that?
How you achieve it is you have,
like, a really massive sausage roll.
I mean, is it how you're
masticating, when you're
masticating?
Is it what you're masticating?
Is it who you're masticating with?!
I thought it made you go blind.
Right. What item beginning with T
do people use for fun today
but was once a serious punishment?
# That's life. #
Tom Cruise.
# That's life. #
Torture chambers.
So, kind of. So it begins with T.
Today, people use it for fun.
Thumb screw.
No, no. I mean, generally...
People in this audience would...
Many, many would use it
for a bit of fun. Toilet.
# That's life. #
Trampoline.
Trampoline? You're just saying words
beginning with T. We are!
# That's amore. #
I'm going to kill these
buzzers in a minute. Stop it.
Testicles.
Oh, I know! Yes?
Tottenham Hotspur.
Treadmills. Treadmills - yes!
What?! What?
I feel like there's a lot of people
and you see them sometimes in
town centres, sometimes there'll
be a window on the first floor
and they're all at the glass,
looking like they're trying to cycle
out of the window
and land in the street.
What are they doing?
They're pounding and running
towards the window, but never
get there. I don't know what
they're seeing, where they're trying
to get to. I wish, one day,
the window would just open up
and they'd all fly out.
Maybe take off, maybe just
fly around the town
and, eventually, like a balloon -
when you release a balloon
and it goes...
And all of that energy! They're all
doing that and it's just going,
it's going nowhere. They're not even
powering the lights.
They should be... They could be
going into the National Grid.
We should be harvesting that!
Yes. Yes.
Today, the treadmill is a popular
tool of voluntary exercise.
But in the 19th century
it was a punishment device.
So it was introduced in England
in 1818 by the engineer
Sir William Cubitt and he devised
a tread wheel with a handrail
that acted like a sort of
endless staircase.
He put one into Brixton
prison and it ground grain
for a nearby mill, then they went on
to do some that pumped water.
Up to 40 prisoners at a time.
And by 1865 every male prisoner
over the age of 16 serving
a sentence for hard labour
was forced to walk the treadmill.
But it became a punishment
rather than something practical.
Are you an exerciser?
Is your thing?
Absolutely not. No. Good man.
Er, extra point.
There we go!
Now, what's the perfect
underwear for the underworld?
# That's the way. #
This just gives me
a chance to say
my top-ten most-hated word ever. OK.
Is it panties?
Why do you not like the word
panties?
It's something
that gynaecologists say
and you know you should
call the police.
"Would you just like to slip
your panties off?"
"No! I'd like to slip off my bloody
great, navy, school knick-knocks,
"if you don't mind."
So you're right about panties.
Whose panties might it be
that we are talking about?
We are heading back in time.
We're heading back to Egypt.
Is it Tutankhamun?
Yes, absolutely right. Bloody hell!
Tutankhamun. So he was buried
with hundreds of objects
to use in the afterlife.
The clothing included 12 tunics,
28 gloves, 4 socks with separate
toe sections - so he could still
wear sandals in the afterlife -
and 145 pairs of panties
all neatly folded.
Which is the good thing.
The less good thing -
they have discovered that they were
all used and probably...
Oh!
Hmm, right? Dirty panties.
They were dirty. He didn't do
his laundry before he went off.
We've made a sort of mock up,
Sally, next to you.
A pair of dirty pants?
They're a "mock up".
So this is what it would
have looked like.
It was a triangular thing.
So what you do is you put
it around your waist
from behind and tie those
two corners round.
I've got a label here -
"property of Tutankhamun".
So, from behind, put it round you
and tie it.
At the front. At the front.
Like that. Yes. Then bring the
other bit up between your legs,
like that. It's a nappy, basically.
Basically, nappies. Yes.
That is your basic Egyptian
panties right there.
Wow. Tutankhamun was rolling
to heaven with skid marks.
That's not a....
Maybe they put a washing machine...
Maybe there was a top loader
in the corner.
I thought loin cloths weren't... Can
you give us a twirl with those on?
A twirl? Yeah, sure.
Yeah. Let's just see how they...
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Ooh!
It's as though the boy king
was in the room.
Maybe there were loads of dirty
pants because he was a teenager.
Well, this is it.
It was a replica of his bedroom.
Yeah.
That's about right. Look at it.
Anyway, moving on.
Why does David Mitchell stand
in the midday sun every day
and yell the news to anybody
who will listen?
THE David Mitchell? Ah!
Is there a THE David Mitchell?
You'd think so for the amount
of times he's on telly.
I know why I think it is.
Go on, then.
Is he a town crier?
You are absolutely right.
There's only one place in Britain
where there is still the tradition
of regular midday town crier
proclamations.
And there's two official
town criers - David Mitchell
and his wife, Julie. And
David Mitchell is in the audience.
Where are you, David?
Good evening, my lady.
How would you start a town cry?
Always with the three oyez.
OK, can you do that for us?
Oyez! Oyez!
Oy...
..ez!
So it just means "hear ye",
doesn't it, or "hearken"?
Do you give out news -
is that the main object?
Not like national news.
We never announce the result
of battles or kings dying
or anything like that.
It was very local things.
Mainly lost things.
Like, for example, if parents
had lost a child, or a farmer's
livestock had strayed, then we
would announce that kind of thing.
If I lost Alan, could I call you?
The strap you use to put the bell
in, has that got a particular name?
It shares its name with
Lord Blackadder's servant.
This is, in fact, a baldric.
Ah!
And your wife is also
a town crier? She is.
Do the two of you shout at each
other at breakfast? I just...
Pass the marmalade!
We're out of marmalade!
We're out of marmalade!
Thank you for letting me know!
I hope you have children -
the last two town criers
in all of England.
We're by no means the last.
There are probably 240.
But Chester is the only place in the
world that chooses its town criers
on the basis of their
photogenic good looks. Wow.
Well, we're delighted you are here.
Thank you so much, David Mitchell.
You need one of those in Cov, Guz.
You could be that.
I could be... I could be that.
But, to be honest with you, the way
that David described what he does,
by spilling all the local goss,
that would make him a snitch.
In Cov, he's getting shot,
so I wouldn't bother, mate,
to be honest with you. Right,
Describe the most thrilling way
to come down from the top
of the Eiffel Tower.
# That's the way. #
Tossing yourself off?
So not that, not that. Thrilling way
to come down from the Eiffel Tower.
Any thoughts?
What would be a cool way?
Some kind of massive slide? Yes.
On a magical unicorn
made of Camembert.
Bare-back riding
with Robert Pattinson.
So this is fantastic.
There was a French engineer,
1891, called Charles Carron,
and he proposed a giant bullet
that people would sit inside
as it fell down
from the Eiffel Tower
into an enormous pool
of water at the base.
OK? The fall -
about 1,000 feet -
and it would allow 15 brave riders
to reach speeds up to 180mph,
whilst not restrained
by a seat belt or anything else
in any way. I just wonder
if any of the panel can think of
a practical problem
that might arise with
this particular idea. I'd say
certain death. Certain death.
Well, the main thing was
that they needed something for them
to land it, right?
So he proposed a dive pool
190ft deep,
shaped like a giant champagne
flute. Once they're in the bottom
of the pool... Yeah?
..how are they getting out then?
That's the other thing.
Well spotted.
The bullet is 11 tons.
Ooh! Yeah.
And he did say, probably, we'd have
to get them out quite quickly -
before they asphyxiated or drowned -
presuming, I think, that they hadn't
died from the impact.
The Boston Globe suggested
that those who survive
will be decorated with the
Medal of Legion, or something
like that, to commemorate
their bravery - the others will be
decently buried by the state.
Anyway, never built, weirdly. No?
Health and safety
has ruined everything. Yeah.
I like the fact that it's got quite
an elegant lamp above them.
Yeah. As if they might...
In the final seconds,
they might be reading
a bit of Zola.
I'm just thinking, like,
look at this guy - free thinker.
Like, imagine if he was around
designing, like,
lollipop ladies' lollipops.
If that's where his mind
is with this...
..something as mundane as a lollipop
lady, she'd have, like, straps
and go, like, brrrr,
if the kids were coming out.
Get back, you little prick!
Zap! Like that.
This is the kind of guy
we need in today's society, innit?
It certainly is.
My brother had a friend who,
when they went to
something like,
you know, a scary theme park,
he would take a massive kind of
rusty bolt with him
and he would wait till the ride
started and he went,
"I've just found that
under my seat."
"Aagh!"
OK. What sort of things do
Australian talking ducks say?
Ah, look!
And then something else.
They always start with "Ah, look."
"There's an egg." Look at that.
"Ah, look, I've laid one!"
Struth! I seem to have
a testicle under my beak.
"What have I swallowed here,
Sheila? Look at that!"
So it's a particularly curious duck
from Australia
called a musk duck.
And it's part of a rare group
of vocal language learners.
That includes humans, some bats,
elephants who can reproduce sounds
that are around them. There's a duck
in the Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve
in Canberra, Australia. The duck
was obviously called Ripper.
Ripper? Ripper.
WITH AUSTRALIAN ACCENT: Yeah. 1987.
It was recorded making a noise.
It sounded like a human being
saying, "You bloody fool!"
Now, this is what I've been told.
We've got a recording.
You tell me if that's what it sounds
like. Have a listen to this.
GENTLE COOING: You bloody fooool.
Apparently, there's a musk duck
in Pensthorpe Natural Park
in the UK.
It sounds like a snorting pony.
There's one at Slimbridge Wildfowl
Trust that coughs like his keeper
and squeaks like a turnstile.
There used to be a sensational
German vaudeville act called
Don the Talking Dog. And, in 1912,
he went to America. He arrived
and everybody was very excited
to meet Don the Talking Dog.
But he was too seasick
to converse with anybody. Aw!
In the event, he only spoke German,
apparently.
He could say yes, no, quiet, cake,
have, hunger, and his owner's name.
He was very like Alan.
And, um...
Could he say "sausages"?
Well, OK.
Most famous talking dog
in Britain was called...?
I was thinking of Esther Rantzen.
Yes! It was the dog called Prince.
1979, Prince and his owner,
Paul Allen, appeared
on the Esther Rantzen That's Life
to demonstrate his vocabulary.
His vocabulary included Elvis,
Esther and, most famously, sausages.
I know Esther and she says there
was a time in the '70s when she
couldn't walk down the street
without people yelling, "Sausages!"
Shall we have a look? Oh, yeah.
Now for our latest talented pet.
This one is quite unbelievable,
but we promise you
it really is true.
We didn't believe it ourselves
when we heard that Paul Allen,
who lives in Leeds,
has a talking dog.
George, next door, gives him
sausages. He comes out every
Thursday with a plate of sausages
and puts them on't back door step
and Prince goes
and has a good tuck-in.
Tell us what you have on a Thursday,
Prince.
What does George give you, Prince?
Saus... A what? Sausage.
So brilliant.
That would get you on the telly
in the '70s. I know!
Right, time to talk turkey in the
round we call General Ignorance.
Fingers on buzzers, please.
What kind of nail is most likely
to give you tetanus?
# That's life. #
Yes? Jimmy Nail.
A rusty nail.
It's a bacterial infection. It is.
Bacterial infection
is nothing to do with rust. No.
Is it one smeared
with human saliva?
Well, it's most commonly found
in human and animal faeces.
Oh, super! Yeah.
But it's also in soil and dust.
It tends to hide in the soil.
So a sprig of holly would be
a greater threat to you
than a rusty nail. All these years!
Why did everyone say,
"Oh, don't stand on a rusty..."
Someone would have to shit
on the nail first?
Or wiped it with
Tutankhamun's nappies.
You get lockjaw. You do.
It's very, very unpleasant.
Then you can't say what's happened
to you. "But what's wrong with you?"
"Ask the dog!"
"I shat on a nail."
Rusty nails don't inherently
cause tetanus,
but best just to avoid them,
in case.
What do you call the spot
where an earthquake starts?
Is it the epicentre?
Yay!
So the epicentre is the point
on the Earth's surface
above the location
where an earthquake starts.
The place where it actually starts
is the focus or hypocentre.
The hypocentre? Hypocentre. We've
got one of those at Brent Cross.
Next to the blue car park.
So, quakes start along fault lines.
So it's where two tectonic plates
rub against each other.
They cannot physically occur
on the surface of the Earth.
So most earthquakes start very,
very deep within the Earth's crust.
Earthquakes are proper scary.
I experienced one for the first time
in my life in LA and, apparently,
they're quite common there.
But I didn't know that. So I was...
You don't know, do you?
I'm from Coventry - you don't have
flipping earthquakes there.
I was in my hotel room
in only my pants.
Then, sort of when the
building starts shaking...
Yeah. ..I shit myself.
And I ran in the hallway. All my
tits are out flying everywhere.
And I was so scared
that I had the strength to kick
in the door opposite.
And there was just one - bless
him - little Chinese dude sitting
on his chair. And I've kicked his
door in, tits flailing everywhere.
He's screaming. I'm screaming.
It was scary, man.
That's the end of the story. Yeah.
Which brings us to the scores.
But why should I proclaim the scores
when I've got David Mitchell
here to do it? David,
please tell us the results.
Oy...ez!
In fifth place with -20 points
is Alan.
Oh, Alan!
In fourth place with seven points -
Guz.
In third place with 11 points
is Sally.
In second place with 14 points -
Jo.
But tonight's winner,
with 15 points is
the audience!
Thank you, David, and thank you,
Guz, Sally, Jo and Alan.
I leave you with this - the American
actress Tallulah Bankhead
was once at a party in New York
when a man rushed over and said,
"My God, Tallulah, I haven't
seen you in 30 years."
And she looked him up and down
and said icily,
"I thought I told you to
wait in the car." Goodnight.