QI (2003–…): Season 20, Episode 6 - Tricks & Treats - full transcript

*Q I*
Season 20 Episode 06

Episode Title: " Tricks & Treats"
Aired on: December 16, 2022.

Hello and welcome to QI.

Tonight we are up to our usual
tricks and will be treating you

to a show all about
tricks and treats.

And joining me are four
absolute sweeties.

A proper Smartie -
it's Ria Lina.

Getting their Snickers in a twist,
it's Eshaan Akbar.

Giving us all a Boost,
it's Jimmy Carr.

And always coming up
smelling of Roses,

it's Alan Davies.



And their buzzers
are four tasty treats.

Ria goes...

♪ Sweets for my sweet,
sugar for my honey... ♪

Eshaan goes...

♪ Just a spoonful of sugar
helps the medicine go down... ♪

Not if you're diabetic.

Which I am.

Oh, are you?

I'm pre-diabetic.

Is there a post-diabetic?

Jimmy goes...

♪ Yummy, yummy, yummy,
I got love in my tummy

♪ And I feel like I'm loving you. ♪

And Alan goes...



♪ Sweet Caroline

♪ Ba ba ba

♪ Good times never seemed so good

♪ So good, so good. ♪

Let's just do karaoke.

All right. So I suppose the first
question today has to be,

trick or treat?

Jimmy? A treat, please.

You want a treat?

Treat. Treat.

Trick. Trick.

Trick. Trick.

OK, you two can have the chocolate
cake that's just beside you.

Oh, what?

This is going very well.

Has this show got dumbed down a bit?
Because I remember the questions

being a lot more difficult
the last time I was on.

Do you guys want
a bit of cake, though?

Oh, is there? Fine?

But what I would have liked
to have given you

is German chocolate cake.

Oh, no. Do you not like German...

I don't like German chocolate cake.

OK, why don't you like it?

Well, hang on. Let's be clear.

Do we mean chocolate cake
from Germany

or German chocolate cake?

See, already you are going
to probably get an extra point

because my question is,

where does German
chocolate cake come from?

Greggs.

I know the answer to this.

Well, there's a cake in America
called German chocolate cake.

And it's from a man called German,
not from Germany.

Exactly right.

You get an extra point,
that is entirely correct.

I don't know if you've seen
the show before.

We could be out of here
in 20 minutes.

This is going to be terrific.

You were supposed to say
Black Forest.

So there was a guy called
Samuel German, and he developed

a product in 1852 of baking
chocolate that was already

a little bit sweeter.

So you had to put one less
ingredient in your cake.

And this was developed into a thing
called German chocolate cake,

and it became hugely successful.

The thing about Samuel German
is that he was an English American,

so English, but German, I mean,
a bit like the royal family.

Funny name to have, isn't it?

The Germans are coming round.

Oh!

German chocolate cake sounds
like the kind of thing you would not

put into Google at work.

That could be something
really dreadful.

We couldn't have a German chocolate
cake on the show in case one person

in the audience had a nut allergy.

I always thought a nut allergy

was a very good euphemism
for lesbian.

What's Sandi like?

You know, she's got a nut allergy.

Can I just say as a hetero woman,
you don't have to be a lesbian

to have a nut allergy.

I feel we're dividing into
niche tribes straight away.

Germans are coming around -
that's a euphemism for something.

But here is something
very, very British.

Anybody know what this is?

Is it a dragonfly with an erection?

Wow...

You know, I hadn't seen that, and
now that's all I can see. Right?!

Actually... That's it.

Festival Hall. Festival Hall.
Festival of Britain.

So it was the Festival of Britain
and it was called the Skylon.

It was the centrepiece of
the Festival of Britain.

It was 90 metres high... Whoa. Wow.

...and it was kept erect
through tension.

I'm sure everybody's been there. Oh.

It was the largest object in
the world supported by wires,

and what's really a shame is that
they didn't keep it because it was

a remarkable construction, but
it was pulled down a year later.

They were going to take it to
Scarborough, More cam be,

even the United States,
but it was too expensive.

They sold it to a scrap metal
dealer in White City,

probably right near
where we are now.

Wood Lane, White City -
George Cohen and Sons.

Were people meant to climb up this
thing? What was the point of it?

What was the point?
It's right at the end, mate.

It's quite a hazard to skydivers

because I imagine
you can't see it at all...

Coming down, "Look at that view of
the Thames..."

MIMES RIPPING FABRIC

There was a student who wanted
to climb up it and hang a pair

of knickers... Of course. ..at the
top, at the official opening.

He's called Philip Gordon.

He was a student at the
University of London's Air Squadron.

He shimmied up at midnight, dressed
as a workman, and his plan was

to jump into the river to escape.

I'm just going to say "90 metres"
again to everybody... Wow.

Anyway, bless his heart, he slightly
bottled it and hung a scarf

instead of a pair of knickers,
because the King was coming.

But he did get up there.

No, he got there... He got up there.
..he couldn't bear to do pants.

Or they were dirty
because he bottled it.

Yeah. He got to the top and soiled
himself, that's what we've learned.

But hang on - the plan to get down
was initially to jump,

and then he thought,
"Do you know what?" Yeah...

"I'm just going to shimmy."

That's a good name for you -
Shimmy Carr. I like that.

Give us a shimmy. Yeah! Yeah!
There we go.

Lots of people didn't like it.

The Sydney Morning Herald
called it "phallic flippancy".

I don't think if your phallus
looks like that,

you can afford to be flippant.
No...

Wonder if they'd be bothered
by reviews, would they?

I mean, who's looking at that,
going, "Oh, well,

"it wasn't well reviewed,
I'll look over here"? Yeah.

Some of it was used for rearmament
in the Korean War,

and some of it was made into
commemorative letter openers.

Oh, I feel bad for the guy
that ended up in the Korean War

with the letter opener. Yeah...!

It's an example of something
called "tensegrity".

Tension and integrity.

It's a word coined by the architect,
Richard Buckmunster...

Buckmis... Sorry.

Richard Buckminster Fuller...
Well said.

I try not to get my Buckminster
and my Fuller confused...

You nearly said "buttmuncher"
there. And you... Yeah, I know!

Now, for a question about
TREAT-ments.

It's time for a round of
What's The Treatment, Sandi?

OK! What do we think the treatment
is to stop snoring?

Wake up.

APPLAUSE

I just read a book about this! Oh!

A whole book about snoring?
Yeah, well, it's called Breathe.

It's quite a good book,
and it's about how we developed,

and basically, the whole book says,
you've got to breathe

through your nose, so put a bit
of tape over your mouth,

stop your snoring. Oh...

Why did you read a whole book
about breathing...?

Well, I thought... "You know what?

"Some people stop breathing
and then..." Yeah.

So you go... I want to get...
This is the basics. Yeah.

You want to nail this stuff. Good.

I've been breathing the whole show.

It is to do with breathing.

Divorce is not the answer.
Divorce is one way of doing it.

But you might want to stop your own
snoring and train yourself not to.

ALAN:Oh, I do...

Well, I snore a little bit
and my girlfriend's got...

She's got noise-cancelling fists.

But you're in the right area, Jimmy,
because what we really need to do

is train the muscles of the
upper airways to do what's called

circular breathing. OK.

So you need to inhale through

the nose whilst blowing through...

Is that right?

It's that breathing in through
the nose, out through the mouth,

in through the nose
and out through the mouth

in a continuous circular movement.

The best way is to
take up an instrument.

Which instrument might it be?
I think trombone, isn't it?

Nope. Anybody, any thoughts?
Bagpipes. Xylophone.

Flute. Xyl...?!

Didgeridoo! Harmonica! Didgeridoo!

Oh... It's the didgeridoo. Well
done, Alan. Got to get a big...

Yes.

APPLAUSE

And there I am with my didgeridoo!

So, 2006, a group of scientists
in Zurich decided,

"Let's stop snoring by trying to get
people to play the didgeridoo."

So what they did was they got a
group of snorers and they made them

practise the didge, made them
practise every day for four months,

and then they had a
control group who were told

they were on the waiting list
for lessons, OK?

And they were told to do anything
except play the didgeridoo.

And those who played the
didgeridoo, that does seem to work

to help your snoring because it
creates this circular breathing.

Wow. Mm-hm!

Anyway, moving on,

what is this fly
doing in this painting?

Oh, the one by the plate?
There's also one on her head.

Oh, yes. Talking to the one by
the plate? Yeah.

"Come up here." "The food's HERE -

"the food's down here!"

"You can see for miles up here!"

"They'll swat you!"

"They won't... She won't swat
herself in the head, will she?"

It's called musca depicta -
so "musca", Latin for "fly",

and it was to show
how skilful the artist is.

It's a way of saying, "I can
paint a fly that is so realistic,

"an observer might just
want to kind of..."

Well, clearly not, because that's
the world's biggest fly.

So when you see the painting,
you think, "There's a fly on it."

Yeah... Exactly."Oh!"
"Oh, oh!""God...!"

"It's painted on?!"

At the time it was painted, that was
thought to be quite a thing,

so it was a fairly new idea,
the concept of "trompe-I'oeil",

or "trick of the eye".

That people go in trying
to eat the beans.

That - exactly that.

"It's a painting! Oh, my God!"

The very supposed first-ever use of
the trompe-I'oeil

was a painting competition in
ancient Greece between the artists

Zeuxis and Parrhasius.

And Zeuxis painted
some realistic grapes

that, apparently, the birds
flew down and tried to take.

And so, Parrhasius then painted
a curtain that was so realistic

that Zeuxis himself was fooled
and tried to push it to one side.

Do you think ALL of these stories
from ancient Greece

are just nonsense?

Yes, let's not do that any more...

I can't believe...

This is so exciting to me.

"Yes, rip it up! Rip it up!" Yes!

"It's nonsense..."
It's all nonsense.

"..The bird flew down to the
grapes... It did not! It's 2D!

"The bird could've identified that,
it's not seeing grapes..."

"The curtains! They're
real curtains. Bullshit!

"The curtains are painted!"

And the Greeks they just spread it
about, you know, "That happened,"

and we... Thousands of years, we're
still going, "Amazing, you know,

"in ancient Greece..."

The single... How've they
convinced us of this utter non...?!

I don't know!

A single torn card, I've got rid of
the whole of Greek mythology.

Get out. Move that, Alan.

So that... That is amazing.

That was painted in 1658.

That actually does look like a
curtain. Isn't that incredible?

In fairness, that is good though,
ain't it?

I mean, if the Greeks saw that,
they'd shit themselves.

Oh, you don't... You missed it,
though. You missed it,

because a bird just flew in, Alan.

The flowers are terrible,
the curtain's unbelievable.

Deliberately so,
obviously deliberately so.

It makes the curtain look
more like a curtain

if the flowers are shit. Can I...?

Sorry, just two seconds,
can I have some sellotape?

Have you...?

So, this was painted by a man,
wasn't it?

This was painted by
Adriaen van der Spelt in 1650.

Cos... Why is it?
Why? Because it's not ironed.

No, that's a fair point.

I don't know a lot about him,
Adriaen van der Spelt,

I just know that he had
a nasty third wife

who drove him to his grave.
That's literally all I've got.

What, literally gave him a lift?
Yeah.

"Don't worry, you'll be there in a
minute.""Where are we going? Agh!"

Cos all she wanted him to do
was iron the curtains

and he kept painting them!

Anyway, moving on...

What trickery was this boat
involved in?

Is it a boat meant to be... look
like something else?

You are absolutely heading
in the right direction.

So this is a
case mate ironclad boat.

And this is something
that fought in the Civil War...

Civil War. American Civil War!

American Civil War!1860s. 1862.
This particular picture.

You get an extra point, Alan.
This is rather frightening...

HE GASPS,
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Little bit of good news for you -
I read a book about the Civil War.

What did you learn?

The fact that I learned I found
interesting was that the youngest

you could be, legally, to be a
soldier in the Civil War was nine.

Wow. Because eight-year-old
soldiers, that's crazy.

Ridiculous.

The other thing I learnt about,
that I thought was interesting,

was the biggest killer
in the American Civil War?

Diarrhoea. Yeah.
AUDIENCE GROANS

Imagine being shot with that!

But that is true.

That is true, darling, in
most of the old conflicts.

So the Boer War - typhoid.
It's those things... It's...

It's your illnesses,
your stomach-related illnesses

that that kills more, quite often
than... Oh, I know...

Same with panel shows.

Apparently, there was... a code of
honour in the American Civil War

where you couldn't shoot anyone

if they were shitting.

Which I think is quite a nice thing,
which is...

I would've spent the whole of
the Civil War going, "Hang on!"

Have you got that
the right way round?

"You can't shit if you're shootin',

"you can't shoot if you're
shittin'... It's one of those!"

APPLAUSE

So a lot of the battles
that took place

between the Confederates in the
South and the Unionists in the North

took place on the Mississippi River.

And these boats, these casement
ironclads, were brand-new,

they were like
a sort of moving fort.

And this boat belonged
to the Unionists,

but they had to, for various
reasons, they had to abandon it,

and the Confederates
tried to salvage it.

So in order to stop them
salvaging it, the Unionists built

a completely fake boat.

It was made out of timber
and tar and... and a toilet!

It was called the Black Terror.

It flew both the American flag
and the skull and crossbones.

It cost $8.63 to construct.

It's about $208 today...$8?!

$8 to construct!

And they even lit
a sort of tar fire,

so it looked like engine smoke,
and the Confederate salvagers,

they destroyed the original gunboat,
the India no la,

because they thought that
the Unionists were coming to get it.

And it made the Unionists
cry and cry with laughter.

So they managed to use
an entirely fake boat

to get the others to
destroy a very valuable one.

There was a little bit of levity
in the middle of all that slaughter.

There's another
excellent wartime dummy trick.

So in World War I,
a horse was killed

in what was called No Man's Land.

And somebody thought, "Ooh, I
know, we'll turn it into a lookout."

And under cover of night, French
soldiers made a papier mache version

of the horse, and a soldier
then went in it

and, apparently,

used his anus as a gun port,

which I think, you know...

That's something I'm definitely
going to Google later on.

This is a gun port.

The horse... It's the horse's anus.

Yes, the horse... Yes. Thank God.

Don't always understand everything
first time.

But then it rains and...

Is there...? Is this going to be
a follow-up story

about the... greatest hero of that
war was, of course,

a pantomime horse?

Well, they used papier-mache heads.
I think you've got some.

They used to use papier-mache heads
on sticks to put up over the trench.

Oh, hang on, look... Oh, no,
I have got one, yeah. Look at this.

RIA:Oh!
ESHAAN:Oh, gosh.

There wasn't much diversity then,
was there?

No, no, it's not wild on diversity.
They all...

Ours have found love.

ALAN SINGS:♪ Yummy, yummy, yummy
I got love in my tummy... ♪

I'm always hungry after a blow job.
Yeah...!

How dare you!

Right.

It's time for another game of
What's The Treatment, Sandi?

OK. How do you stop
your toe from dropping off?

Oh. Stop cutting your toenails
with a Black & Decker?

That's quite a good answer. Put them
in the freezer or something?

How would that work? Well...

IN HIGH PITCH:All right, let me
explain...!

MOCKING HIGH PITCH:WHAT?!

Now he's got to think of some logic.
Yeah, I have...!

So! You put your f...

..your toes in the freezer
and as it defrosts,

just before it completely defrosts,
put it back in again.

Well, why don't you just put
a sock on? Just wear a sock!

Socks can get cold.

What?! What?!

What did you...?
What did you think Sandi asked?

There is a condition called
dactylolysis spontanea,

or ainhum,
which is much easier to say,

and it's a very rare condition where
the little toe,

normally on both feet,
atrophies and then falls off.

JIMMY GASPS

Well, it actually goes to market.

APPLAUSE

The constrictive ring of tissue
forms at the base of the toe,

and that just restricts oxygen.

It can be caused by injury
or infection, sometimes happens

with no clear reason at all,

primarily found in males
of African descent.

Probably the best thing to do is to
cut it off pre-emptively, amputate.

Or just put it in a freezer.
Freezer! What then?

So hang on, hang on.

That is a worse answer than your
answer, I think.

The best way to stop your toes
from falling off is to cut them off

before they get a chance.
"Don't give 'em the satisfaction!"

Don't give them the satisfaction.

You cut off your toes first.
Apparently...

If you're watching at home,
get rid of them all!

Apparently, with this particular
condition, it is less painful

to amputate it and
you are less likely

to have the wound become infected,

so it is better, in this instance,
to cut it off yourself.

Well, I'm looking at the picture,
I think he looks fine. Yeah.

Right. I have treated myself to
a new pair...

...of glasses, OK?

So a little bit like Clark Kent,
I'm going to put them on.

OK. Here is the trick.
As soon as I put them on,

who do you think I look like now?

AUDIENCE MEMBER:Prue Leith.

Prue Leith is a right answer.

It's somebody badass.

It's a person who has killed
more baddies on screen

than any other actor.
Oh... I'm going...

I'm going John Wayne.

It's Milla Jovovich! Oh...

Look, do you not think?
RIA:Really?

ESHAAN:Yeah, yeah!

THEY TALK VERY EACH OTHER

Uncanny! Uncanny!

She... What are we doing?

What are we doing?
What's going on here?

What's going on? Yeah, OK.
Do you know who she is? Yes.

She's not even wearing glasses.
You know that, right? No, so...

She's the star of The Fifth Element,
as well as the Resident Evil series,

and she has killed a shed load
of people.

So this is how you fool
facial recognition, OK?

In 2016, the researchers
at Carnegie Mellon University

found that they could trick
facial recognition software into

mistaking their identity by using
a pair of colourful glasses. OK?

And they were able to have
a middle-aged male researcher

be mistaken by the software

as Milla Jovovich, OK? And this is
what the glasses look like...

I think I slept with
the wrong person.

If it makes you feel any better,
Jimmy, so do they.

APPLAUSE

The way facial recognition software
works is it doesn't know

if it's looking for a tiny image
in a great big picture

or it's looking for an image
that's filling the entire picture.

It's looking for little bits of
specifics that then it says,

"Yes, that's that person."

So it looks for a particular
shape of an eyebrow,

it looks for a particular shape
of a cheekbone.

It is possible to compress
all of that information

down into a section of
the frame of the glasses.

And what'll happen is
the computer will say,

"Oh, I've found the things
I'm looking for."Oh!

It'll ignore, entirely, the face
that is actually wearing the glasses

because it feels it
has already found the person.

You don't have to do that
Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible -

where you peel your face off,
any more?

You just put on a ridiculous
pair of glasses and get in anyway?

So the spectacles could possibly
trick facial recognition software

into making them think
you're somebody else.

You probably couldn't
open Milla's phone or her laptop,

but you could certainly...
I can definitely open Romesh's.

APPLAUSE

Now for one final round
of What's The Treatment, Sandi?

JAUNTY XYLOPHONE INTRO PLAYS

Love this!

What do you treat by shoving a piece
of cloth up your nose

and setting fire to it?

If you're in certain parts of
the US, that's how you cure Covid.

APPLAUSE

It's excessive sleeping.

I mean, I have to say,
it's an attempted cure. Wha...?!

It... I know. Yeah!

Stay awake because you'll be
setting your face on fire!

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah! So...
Sleep through this...!

Yeah.

So we're going back a bit - 1738.
We're going to France.

There was a woman called
Elizabeth Orion

and she started sleeping
18 hours a day

and literally nobody could wake her.

And this went on for years and years
and years until she was finally

examined by a guy called Dr Brady,
and he wanted to check out

if she was faking it.

So first he shouted really
loudly at her.

Then he stuck a pin in her flesh,
right through to the bone and so on,

and finally, he took a piece of
cloth and he dipped it in alcohol,

set fire to it,
and shoved it up her nose.

She slept through the whole thing

and then eventually woke up
completely naturally...

I love this - "ate heartily
and did some spinning."

Was her nose or face not singed?

Well, I don't really know

because the villagers had done
all sorts of things.

They had, at one point,
rubbed her back in honey

and laid her in front of a beehive
on a hot day.

I mean, really?!

Was there a fraternity?
Yeah, why...?!

They just hated her sleeping.

And I don't know
what the outcome was.

I love these old cures, though.

There was a 13th century
physician called Bernard de Gordon,

and his recommendation for jolting
somebody out of a coma

was to hold a squealing pig in
their face.

I mean, you could be tempted,
couldn't you?

I could see it happening. If that
works, brilliant, you're a genius.

If not, you're a doctor with a pig,
going home. Yeah! Perfect.

"I didn't manage to wake her, love,
but we're having bacon tomorrow."

Yeah. "Lend me a pig."
"Wake up and smell the bacon!" Yeah.

CHEERING

Let's now treat ourselves
to a round of General Ignorance.

Fingers on buzzers, please.

Which has most body fat -

a human, a pig, a cow, a walrus
or an elephant?

Depends who you're talking about,
really.

Walrus. Oh...

KLAXON BLARES

Are we talking about as a percentage

or actual quantity of fat?
So, proportional to size, OK,

it is the percentage
of body fat content.

A human? It is a human.
It is absolutely a human.

Most humans have higher body
fat than an elephant.

Well, I want to retract that forfeit

because the question
wasn't properly worded.

APPLAUSE

Worth a try!

I've had a terrible day.

If you're a professional athlete,
it's different. If you're...

What's he called, Ronaldo?
Ronaldo. Yeah.

Hungry, hungry Ronaldo,
he's called. Yes.

But he's very lean.
He's about 7% body fat, so...

He's always in a cryo chamber. Yeah.

Freezing! He's got all his toes.
Yeah. It works! Yeah, it works!

Inflammation cannot exist
at those temperatures.

That's what I was told. Oh...

OK, erm...

I read a book about it! Yeah!

What they were examining was
low fertility in captive elephants,

and they thought it might be
something to do with diet

and an obesity issue,
but it isn't that.

The animals are perfectly lean.
Actually, it's stress.

But humans are sometimes known as
the fat primate, so our...

Who's calling us that?

That's one of us!
That's one of our own, Sandi.

That's got to...
That's definitely not any of them.

The cow didn't say that about us!
I won't have it.

One of us has turned on us.

I think it's the bonobos - that's
our nearest relative, the bonobos.

The bonobos? "Here they come,
the fat primate." Yeah...

"Have a... banana,
you fat so-and-so."

What about blue whales?
What do you reckon?

There's barely an ounce
of fat on them.

They're lean and trim
like Usain Bolt.

No, they are fatter than us,
way fatter. They're...

They're hugely fat. Very, very fat.

They could fill the dome
of St Paul's Cathedral

with the fat of a single whale bleu.
This is one of those facts

where you just go, this is weird,
but it's quite interesting

anyway - if you took all the fat in
a sort of larger blue whale,

it would weigh too much to be
legally transported

on British roads.

Which is one of the reasons I don't
do it any more. Yeah.

It turns out humans are a lot
fatter than most other animals.

More than 150 years ago,
which American holiday

had people dressed in scary masks,

giving candy to children and pulling
pranks on unsuspecting passers?

Halloween.

KLAXON BLARES

It is now, but it used to be
Thanksgiving Masking

and it comes from much older
traditions which come from Europe.

"Mumming", you every heard about
mumming?

Which is basically going
door to door..

That's an internet search
I don't want to tell you about.

...asking for food or money
sometimes in exchange for a song.

It's a very, very, very
old tradition.

Called mumming? Mumming?
Yeah, probably named after Mom us,

this is back to your Greek
mythology, so probably not true.

Probably a lie...
He was the persona...

They never even had buckets! No...

Which brings us nicely to the end
of our Trick and Treat show.

So let's see who's
got a bucket of candy

and who's going to be
pelted with eggs.

In last place, falling for every
trick in the book with -26,

it's Alan! Oh...

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

So rude!

In third place with -9, Eshaan!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

In second place with a very
creditable plus three points,

it's Jimmy. Look at that! Three!

Three! Count 'em! Count 'em.

One for every book I've read.

And our winner, never missed
a trick,

it's Milla Jovovich...!
No, it's Ria!

And our thanks to Ria, Jimmy,
Eshaan and Alan

and I leave you with this trick
to live by from WC Fields.

"Always carry a flagon of whiskey
in case of snakebite,

"and furthermore,

"always carry a small snake."

Thank you. Goodnight.