QI (2003–…): Season 20, Episode 8 - Ticks Tax Toes - full transcript

Welcome to tonight's QI,

where we'll be looking
at ticks, tax and toes

in the company of
the ticklish Rose Matafeo...

..the tactile Ross Noble...

..the toe-tally transcendent
Lou Sanders...

..and the tax deductible
Alan Davies.

Thank you.

And for their buzzers, Rose goes...

# Tick tock, tick tock... #
Oh, yeah.

# Tick tock
Tick tock. #

Nice. Ross goes...



# The taxman's taken
all my dough... #

Lou goes...

# I feel it in my fingers

# I feel it in my toes... #

And Alan goes...

# Tiptoe through the tulips

# With me... #

Wow. Wow. Was that Tiny Tim?

It was Tiny Tim. And, yes,
I do look exactly like him.

I don't know why I turned to you
in that moment, I'm so sorry.

Right, we're going to start
with question one.

Why might a Parisian taxi ride
be electrifying?

So it was an experiment in Paris
that they... With electricity.

With electricity, literally.
In taxis, were taxis involved?



Yeah, yes.
Nothing gets past you. Nothing. No.

They've got the flying ones,
haven't they?

They're talking about bringing
them in. The heck? The huh. Hey!

Ho! Are you talking about flying,
flying taxis?

Yeah, the French are developing
flying taxis. What? Sorry.

No, it's just like
some sort of circus thing.

"Hey, hey, hey, hey!"

That's how I do all my thinking.

"Hup, hup - here it comes."

It's the first time anyone else
has actually done it

to help me into the "Hup, hup!
You see it's going now! Go!"

If you could just shout "the heck"
every now and then. The heck, hup.

The heck. Ho.
He'll be off, he'll be off.

1987, they decided
to experiment in Paris,

so they had a number of passengers
who maybe didn't behave very well

or a bit rude, or whatever...
Zap them? Yes.

An electrified seat.

Wow. Nonfatal, they said.

It's hilarious in the rudest city
in the world. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

So it's operated by a foot pedal
in front of the driver's seat.

The idea was to protect them from...

You'd never stop, would you?

Just holding it down.

Seeing them in the mirror.

This is... But you need one
the other way around,

so that when they start
being a bit racist,

"The thing about the foreigners..."
Bzzzzt!

That guy there,
he was the head of the taxi union

and he's showing off
one of these things.

And apparently the drivers
said it would be perfectly safe

and they could tell if somebody
was going to be violent

cos they could see it
in their expressions.

OK, so the seats were 52,000 volts.

Yeah.

That is slightly more powerful
than a police stun gun,

which is sort of
40,000 to 50,000 volts.

And, weirdly, eventually banned.

Ah, but what it means is,
on the second-hand market,

some of them taxis
are still knocking about. Yeah.

Yes, please. Yeah.
I'll have one of them.

Yeah, pick up your mother.

When you haven't got a passenger
in the back, bit of cheese,

bit of baguette,
chuck it in the back.

Bzzzt!

Croque monsieur.

Thank you very much.
Sorry, could I just say, the heck?

The huh, the heck-heck-heckety-huh.

That's a great idea, Ross.
Jeez Louise.

Cheese Louise? Cheese Louise, yeah.
That's like the croque monsieur.

"We're having Cheese Louise."
That's a Peugeot, by the way.

What's a Peugeot? On the left there.
That's a Peugeot.

I was overlooked for Top Gear.

In favour of three total idiots.

So one of the things I love about
the whole subject about taxis

in Paris is the women
who drove the taxis.

From 1907,
the first coachwomen appeared.

Here's the sort of down side of it,

the female drivers
were often heckled

and the heckle that they used to get
is "Et les chaussettes?"

Anybody know what it means?

She's a shoe.

"What about the socks?"
In other words,

"Who's going to darn the socks,
if you are driving a taxi?"

And people sometimes...
Oh, that is just sexism, Sandi.

I know. It's shocking.
Yet another example. Shocking, yeah.

That's why you were overlooked
for Sock To... Top Gear. Sock Gear?

I love the sound of Sock Gear.

If you're going to make that show,
I'm in.

We review different socks. Different
socks. Every week. Sounds awesome.

Now, what noise
is this clock making?

Tick-tock.

Is it wrong?
It is wrong, yeah. Oh.

So, no clock goes tick-tock.

It's actually just tick-tick-tick.
Oh. Oh. But what we do

is we automatically organise
repeating sounds into music.

And generally the brain
gives the second note in a pair

a slightly lower tone, and so we
put the emphasis on the first,

so we go tick-tock. But you can
overrule this conditioning, OK?

So if you try
and say tick-tock-tick,

tick-tock-tick aloud
as you listen to a clock,

you will gradually hear the ticks
become tocks. Now look... What?

Clocks, they do...

It's not always the same sound
on the way there as the way back.

Whaaaat?!
Are you talking about time machines?

Yes. That's what it is.

Are you saying a pendulum
takes longer to come back one way?

No, I'm saying it... I feel, I feel
in my head... Yes.

..that a clock makes
a tick and a tock sound. Yes.

It doesn't make the same sound
twice, it makes one sound one way,

a different sound the other.
On the journey it kind of changes

and it comes back a different
person. It comes back. Yeah.

Does anyone else feel that way?

No-one! Oh, shit!

What if you were eating Tic Tacs...
Yeah. ..while you said it?

Would that change it? The truth is,
most clocks go tick-tick,

but we want to hear it as tick-tock.

And we do this in changing vowels
all the time.

So we have flip-flop,
ping-pong, mish-mash, tip-top.

It's something that we do. Oh,
right, but what about bring-bring?

What is bring-bring?
"Bring-bring." Oh!

I thought it was... "Bring-bring,"
no-one's saying "bring-brong."

Like it's,
"I can't handle bring-bring!"

I thought bring-bring was something
you said to the butler. Hey...

What about...
Now I'm thinking of dick-pic.

We're all thinking that, Ross.
Ross, welcome to my world.

Oh the phone, "Would you like me
to send you a d-ick-pic?

"Dick, dick, dick-pic. Dick-a-dick.
Pick-a-dick for the dick-pic."

OK. It's basically
a trick of the mind.

The same thing can happen
with car indicator noises,

that we think that
there are two different notes,

because we automatically try

and make it a little bit more
musical than it actually is.

That also works
if you're listening to The Prodigy.

What is The Prodigy?

It's a small child
who plays a violin.

Yes, quite a lot of posh people
get a bit confused,

they turn up to a Prodigy gig,
they're expecting to find...

"When is this young boy going to say
'smack my bitch up'?"

So there's another clock-based
trick of the mind.

What I want you to do is glance at
the second hand of an analogue clock

as it's ticking, OK?
And there is an illusion

which is called
the stopped clock illusion,

that when you glance at it, the very
first tick as you look at it

seems to take a little bit longer
than usual.

And it's a thing called
chronostasis. You know that thing,

it's an old-fashioned thing,

but if you have the receiver
in one ear and it's ringing...

Bring-bring. Bring-bring.
Bring-bring. of course.

Bring-bring, right. Oh, now
we all want bring-bring. Yeah.

If you switch to the other ear,

then for a brief moment
you can hear silence.

It's as if the phone
has been answered,

and then the ringing starts again.
There is no extra gap there,

it's just that that's
what it feels like to us.

Actually, the most... Sorry! I was
just... Did you just lost it...?

I was overwhelmed by the concept
of time, I think, I don't...

It's just, it's all... Cos time
is just made-up, isn't it?

Well, OK, let's...
What about when you...?

What about when you go on holiday,
OK? Oh, God.

When you go on holiday... Yeah.

..what seems to happen, if you're
on holiday for two weeks... Yeah.

There you are. ..what seems
to happen in the second week?

Everyone's hair
gets slightly longer.

No, the second week you sort of
drop the offensive accent...

..and you've finished with the
waiter already. You've sort of...

You're done with the waiter.
Done with the waiter. Yeah.

How do you get your food?
How do you...?

Well, no, he's not
bringing you food. Ah.

Oh, wow. So, basically,
time seems to be quicker, obviously.

Quicker. And that's because
you're used to everything,

you're used to where you are,
you're used to...

You see the inflatable
just next to the steps there?

Only the Queen is allowed
to ride on that.

Doesn't it depend on
how much you like your family?

What, whether time is quick or slow?
Is quicker or slower.

Well, it sort of depends on whether
you're being over-stimulated or not.

Time apparently seems to slow down
on a person's first sky dive by 36%.

Really? Wow. Because you're so
overwhelmed by all the stimulus

that you're taking in, and it seems
to make time slow down for you. Wow.

Here's the thing about sky diving...
Oh, yeah?

..you know when you pull
the thing like that,

and you would think that you'd go
"whoosh" up in the air? Hmm, yeah.

But that's because when it's filmed
you go whoomph like that,

and the camera person's there and
it...whoosh...and they keep falling,

so you think that it's an up,
but it's just a, "Oh."

So, can I just ask, have you ever
been sky diving? No, never. But...

I've never done it,

but I did talk to a cameraman once.

Brave, brave. Love that. Yeah.

I did it, I was strapped on
to a bloke and he jumped out.

But did time seem to stand still
in that moment

that you launched yourself
from the plane?

It was the most
frightening thing ever.

Did you do it for charity
or just for yourself?

I did it because I'd broken up
with a girlfriend who told me

that her previous boyfriend
was much braver than me.

And cleverer and all the...

And funnier -
that was very wounding.

And I thought, "I'm going to jump
out of a plane, I'll show you."

And they said, "Right, put your foot
out on the wheel strut,"

and I absolutely shat myself.

If I hadn't been strapped to this
fella, I would never have gone.

Just to be clear,
cos you shat yourself =

was he behind you or in front
of you? He was behind me.

Took it in his stride,
Sandi, literally.

And did you land safely into your
ex-girlfriend's wedding or...?

Right. What's wrong
with this creature?

Oh. It's not in my lap.

Does anybody know what it is?
It's an echidna. Yes.

Have you seen an echidna?
Oh, not only have I seen echidnas,

I'm obsessed with them.
Why obsessed with them?

Well, cos they crawl about
in my garden. OK.

Let me get this out.
Yeah. They're great. Oh!

No, the echidna has... Don't...

Now I know you're going
to get annoyed

when I say this, cos it's...
It's got four penises.

Not another one.

It's got one penis,
and with four ends on,

so, you know, take your pick.

So it's like eco, sport... Yes!

No, you're...

You're thinking of Cock Gear,
that's what you're thinking of.

Perfect. So they live in Australia
and New Guinea is where they live.

And they're a mammal, but they
lay eggs. Yeah, that's true.

This is an extraordinary example
of an echidna.

It dates back to 1828,
it's from the Grant Museum at UCL,

and it was leant to us
by Tannis Davidson.

WHISPERING: Is it sleeping?

Hang on, but hang on... It's dead.

..you started this question
by saying, "What's wrong with it?"

What's right with it
is it's got four dicks.

But it's got four something else
which are wrong. Legs.

Yeah. Four legs.
In what way are they wrong?

They're facing the wrong direction.
How do you know that?

I'm guessing, Sandi...

Is it that the toes... It's a bit
flat. ..should go that way?

Yes, so it's got its feet
on back to front. Yeah.

Is the thing. Like, yeah.

So they have what look like backward
feet on their rear legs.

So can you see the one on the right?
That is correct, OK?

It's to make predators think
that they're going towards them,

or something. It's like
when you paint a face on your bum.

It's to enable you to dig properly,
so that you can scrape earth

out of the hole much more
efficiently, as you go downwards.

So the problem with this,

clearly the taxidermist
had never seen an echidna, OK?

And it arrived, didn't know
what it looked like and thought,

"Well, those feet, for a start, they
must be on the wrong way round."

And it just put them
where you'd think feet ought to go.

But it's completely back to front.

So in those days
an exotic specimen would arrive,

you wouldn't have
a photograph or whatever.

It would probably be pickled
and it would be incomplete.

And the taxidermist's job is to put
it back together and then stuff it.

If you've never seen
the animal before,

you would have no idea whatsoever
how it ought to be displayed.

The most famous example of that
is one of my favourites,

it's the Gripsholm Castle lion
in Stockholm. Oh, yes.

Have you seen it?
Yeah, it's amazing.

Yeah. Wow. Yeah.

He was a present in the 1730s
to King Frederick I of Sweden,

but clearly the guy who received
the bundle of bones and whatever

had never actually seen a lion.

What he's done there is he's got the
lenses from a pair of sunglasses...

Yeah. I love him. I love him,
and I have just discovered

that Leo the Lion
has his own Facebook page.

He has 7,500 followers -
one more today.

And I found his last posting, it was
from Christmas, have a look at this.

This is a really pleasing thing.

Oh, wow! That is terrifying.
Wow.

I think I'm becoming
a fan of bad taxidermy.

This is a wonky ocelot,
which I really like.

That's... Look at that.

Isn't that great?

So the first one is from 1880,
the one on the left is 1880.

The second one, 1934.
I think they thought,

"That didn't go so well,
that first one."

There is a taxidermied blue whale,
I have discovered for you.

Yes, I'm very excited about this.
It's a juvenile,

it's not the full kind of size,
but it's in a museum... Acceptable.

..in Gothenburg.
It was caught in the 1860s,

and what they did was
they took the skin off

and they stretched it over a frame.

And to make it more attractive
to visitors, OK,

they hinged the jaw
and you could go inside.

And that's just about 25 people
having dinner... Wow.

..on the left there. That picture on
the right, is that it breaking out?

Well... Well, it had...
They moved...

"I've had enough of this."

They moved the museum,
the Natural History Museum,

to a new building and this was how
they got the whale out. Oh.

I would have loved to have had
dinner inside a whale.

Do you not think that's an amazing
thing? It does look quite good fun.

They stopped doing it in the 1930s,

cos they discovered a couple
having sex inside the whale. Oh!

One couple spoils it for everyone.
I know.

Jonah and the Moaner.

Anybody in the audience remember
seeing stuffed dogs

at train stations, with coin slots
in them, in order to collect money?

Put your hand up if you remember.
Wimbledon. Wimbledon. Wimbledon.

Yeah, so they were real dogs
that had been taxidermied,

and then they had coin slots
for donations in the...

Either in their backs
or in their heads.

And it dates from a Victorian
tradition which I think lasted until

about the 1950s, that dogs,
they were called charity dogs,

used to roam around British railway
stations collecting for good causes

and they'd have a collection box
on them, and then some of them

were stuffed after death
so that they could go on collecting.

There's a very good example
called London Jack.

And London Jack was a black dog,
a flat coated retriever...

That's him on the left there,
he'd gone blonde in the sunlight.

And a taxidermist looked at him,
discovered he'd got dark roots,

so they re-dyed him on the...

Every woman will appreciate
this can happen, this can happen,

that you just need a little bit...

There was a load of real Labradors

that died from getting coins
jammed in their head.

I used to have a...
I had a stuffed otter, and...

It's not a euphemism, calm down.

I was... So I was in Kilkenny
and I won some money on a horse

and I got this money, I was walking
past this sort of junk shop

and I saw this stuffed otter

and I thought, "Well, hang on,
there's a stuffed otter,

"I've got some money -
this is a match made in heaven."

So I got this otter and I spent
three days just having fun with it

around Kilkenny, you know,
playing pranks on people,

that sort of thing.
And then I wanted to bring it back,

I was living in London at the time,
and I thought, "Are you allowed to

"import animal products,
that sort of thing?" Yeah.

So I went to the police station
and I walked in with it

under my arm and there was an old
Irish policeman sat there like that.

And I said, "I want
to take this otter to London."

And he went,
"Oh, that'll be nice for him."

Have you still got it? No.

What happened to it?

He went... It died.

He returned to his homeland.
What, did you return him to the sea?

No, if you must know, Sandi,
my house burnt down,

and I lost everything I owned,
but let's not mention that.

Is that true? Yeah. Yeah.

And you know what?

I suspect the otter.

Now, what do elephants
and ballerinas have in common?

Costumes, look. Yeah.

It's really unethical to ride
either of them for entertainment.

You shouldn't do it.

Although if you go to
the Royal Ballet

and try to ride
one of the ballerinas,

only the Queen is allowed to ride...

..the ones from Swan Lake.
You nearly made it through there.

I nearly did, but I started laughing
before I had the chance to finish.

You thought of
the mental image of it. Yeah.

I've got it. If they look at you
in a certain way,

they're going to charge at you.

Is it to do with
the laws of physics?

Oh, now this is interesting.
Is it to do with how unlikely it is

that you could stand on your toes

as an elephant stands on things
in circuses? You are heading

in the right direction
and it is to do with their toes.

Elephants naturally walk
on their toes,

which are positioned
at the front of their feet.

But their heel bones
are off the ground.

And if we have a look at a drawing,
they also have this large fatty pad

behind the toes, and that structure,
so toes in front

and the fatty pad behind,
it gives them a longer step

and enables them to spread out
their massive weight.

And the ballet tiptoe technique,

that is something
that they have in common.

It was actually first started
in the early 19th century.

It was considered a stunt until
a wonderful ballerina turned up

called Marie Taglioni,

and before that ballerinas had stood
on their toes with the aid of wires.

I'm sorry to give it away.
And she was just a superstar.

There were Taglioni mania,
there was cakes, hairstyles,

dolls named after her.

She was a kind of star
that it's hard to imagine today.

And after her last performance,
which was in Russia in 1842,

a group of ballet fans supposedly
bought a pair of her shoes.

They had them fricasseed and they
ate them washed down with champagne.

Wow. Werner Herzog, that's great.

But here is a lesson
about celebrity.

She could not have been more famous,
more revered,

and she ended her life poor,
giving deportment lessons in London.

Right. What is the curse
of knowledge?

Oh, go on, ask me.

What is the curse of knowledge?
Alan?

Well, ignorance is bliss, Sandi,
isn't it? You see. OK,

I'm going to demonstrate
what I mean by it. OK.

So let's start with you, Ross.
You've got a stick beside you.

Oh, have I? Oh, sorry. Yeah.

And there is a card
next to you on it,

which I do not want you
to say it out loud,

but there's the name
of a well-known tune,

which I am going to get you to tap
out on the desk with your stick. OK?

Right. What do you think are
the chances, like percentage-wise,

the chances of us guessing
what you're tapping out?

I would think 2%. 2%? Why,
are you really rubbish at tapping?

Yeah, you're musical. No, it's just
cos you've only got the rhythm,

haven't you? You haven't got the...
OK. Give it a go.

But I'm ready to be proved wrong.
OK. Right, OK.

If you go down to the woods today,
you're sure of a big surprise. Yes!

Oh, yeah. Wow. Wow!

Wow! Can I just say... He's
a wizard, he's a wizard! Burn him!

Can I just say, also overlooked
for Never Mind The Buzzcocks.

That was very impressive.

There was a famous experiment
done by a psychologist

called Elizabeth Newton in the 1990s
and she got people to tap out tunes,

and the tappers used to estimate
beforehand how much success

they were going to have. And so they
mostly guessed things like 50%.

In fact, their success rate
was about 2.5%.

I said two, didn't I? I said two.
Yeah, you did say. I said two.

But he's a wizard, so...
But what happened was,

the tappers were astonished
that people couldn't get it

from the tapping, because
they knew what the answer was,

so they rather imagined

that the listeners
must know what the answer was.

And it's known as
the curse of knowledge.

We all over-estimate our ability
to clearly convey information

and we find it very difficult
to remember or know that somebody

doesn't actually know the answer.
And you see it in young children.

Show a four-year-old
a box of sweets,

or what looks like a box of sweets
on the outside,

and you say, "What's inside this
box?" And they'll say, "Sweets."

If you open it and show them
that there are pencils inside,

then immediately they go, "Oh, yeah,
yeah, yeah, it's pencils, right."

So when the next child is asked,
"What do you think is in this box?"

And the child says, "Sweets,"

the other child goes,
"You idiot, you're an idiot." Yeah.

"You're an idiot, it's pencils,
everybody knows it's pencils."

Because they can no longer imagine

not knowing
that it's got pencils in there.

Well, kids are thick,
aren't they? So...

I've got one you know, you know
I've got one. Do you want to try?

What are the percentages of us
having a guess? 100%. 100%, OK.

Get real.

National Anthem.

Come on, everyone.

# Twinkle, twinkle,
little star

# How I wonder what you are. #

I knew you were getting it!

So, so what I think is,
ten points for the audience.

We know what this means,
brand-new TV format -

Tap Gear.

Come on.

Now we've toed the line,
ticking every box along the way,

let's tack in the direction
of General Ignorance.

What are those little bumps
you can see on your tongue called?

Herpes.

Papillae.

They are called papillae. Yes!
You're so clever today.

And, um...
And what do you do with those?

Well, cats scrape
the skin off animals with them.

I've seen a lion eat horse meat
and its papillae are so sharp,

it can lick a lump of horse meat
and it'll hang off its tongue. Wow.

So for us, they're not really
serving a lot of purpose.

Do you know what the purple
bits are? Make them look pretty?

Those are our taste buds.
Taste buds, hmm.

Yeah, which most people think are
the little bumps, but they are,

in fact, all taste buds are entirely
invisible to the naked eye.

25% of the population, mainly women,
are what are called super-tasters.

They are specifically good
at detecting bitterness.

This is the sort of thing
you should have on a Tinder profile.

And then there's 25% of people
are non-tasters.

And these are people who can't
detect bitter tastes at all.

Equally good on a Tinder profile.

"I'm a non-taster,
I can't detect anything."

Children are more sensitive
to bitterness than adults,

so when a child says, "That
Brussels sprout tastes disgusting,"

it probably to them
is absolutely disgusting.

Also Brussels sprouts are
disgusting. No! Whoa, whoa, whoa.

I'll stop you there.
I love a Brussels sprout.

I'll stop you right there.
I'm a super-taster.

Anyway, moving on.

Where would you find
the world's oldest boomerang?

Oh, it's still out there somewhere.

Where would you find it?
Come on, what's the obvious answer?

Australia. Australia.

Kent. Yeah, it's probably
in a British museum,

because they bloody stole it
from Australia.

So the oldest surviving Australian
boomerang comes from a peat bog

in South Australia.
It's about the same age as boats,

it's about 10,000 years old.
But in 1986, archaeologists found

a boomerang in southern Poland.

Ah! Mm. It's 23,000 years old.

Either it was Polish
or it had come a bloody long way.

That is a fingernail,
I'm so sorry to say that.

It's actually the same shape
as the Australian boomerang,

but made of a mammoth tusk.

And there are carved
ancient boomerangs,

they're found all over the world,
from North Africa to Arizona.

And they were probably used
in hunting and in warfare.

Almost all of the non-Australian
ones are non-returning, as it were.

If you want a returning boomerang,
you have to find an Australian one.

Have you tried a boomerang?
I have. And?

Have you tried catching
a wooden boomerang? Is it painful?

Take your fingers off, because you
go, "Oh, I've done it, I've done it.

"Oh, shit!

"I don't want it to come back."

I had one that my auntie
in Australia sent me as a present,

and I opened it up,
went in the garden and threw it.

And it looped right round

and into next door's window
and set their burglar alarm off.

My ex-boyfriend used to call me
Boomerang cos I kept coming back.

Oh, sweetie.

That and other names. OK.

Two things I did not know
about boomerangs.

Boomerang World Championships,
the Germans and the Americans

win nearly all the titles.
Australians have not won since 1984.

And Britain exports
over 50,000 boomerangs a year.

Like... But they keep coming back.
No, don't...

Right, it's time to talk about
the scores.

Finishing last, with a taxi for one,
with -20, it's Alan.

Thank you very much.

In fourth place,
with 2 points, it's Rose.

In third place, with 3, it's Lou.

In second place,
with 4 points, it's Ross.

Which means, in first place
and getting a big tick from me,

with 10 points, it's the audience!

Thank you to Rose,
Ross, Lou and Alan.

And we leave you with this tactical
solution to a tough problem

from Albert Einstein.

"When I was young,

"I found out that the big toe always
ends up making a hole in a sock.

"So I stopped wearing socks."
Goodnight.