QI (2003–…): Season 3, Episode 4 - Cheating - full transcript
(Applause)
Well, hello, hello, hello, hello
and welcome to another edition
of Ql, otherwise
known as the British space
between the ears programme.
And boldly going
nowhere with me tonight are
Jeremy Clarkson.
Alexander Armstrong.
John Sessions.
And Alan Davies.
So tonight
we have three astronauts
and one astro minus 25.
Ha, the things l do with words!
Tonight's buzzer noises
all have some relevance
to the questions that will be coming up
this evening.
- Jeremy goes...
- (Firework rocket)
- Alexander goes...
- (Moose mating call)
- John goes...
- # Fruity, fruity, fruity!
♪ Fruity, fruity, fruity, fruity, fruity, fruity ♪
- And Alan goes...
- (Cuckoo calling)
(Gunshot)
(Cuckoo calling)
This week we have something
rather exciting going on,
and that is, as you guests
are more grown-up than usual,
we're going to do something very daring
and we're going to treat you like adults
and we're going to ask you
to keep your own scores.
So l have absolute...
You see, l told the producer
there would be a flaw in this system.
And you see,
what l'm going to do at the end
is l'm going to subtract
the amount you lie by,
because we're also going
to have an electronic check.
But, if you're very accurate,
l will give an extra 100 points to anyone
who's bang on their own scores.
"l like Stephen."
lt's like having your own little
performing donkeys.
Now, l have absolute faith
in your honesty, gentlemen,
but by coincidence, the first question does
happen to be about cheating.
The 1904 Olympic Games
were held in St Louis, Missouri,
and they were notable for
a number of bizarre events,
including something called
Anthropology Days
where so-called "uncivilised" tribes
such as Pygmies and Sioux lndians
held mud fights and tug-of-wars
against each other in tribal costume.
The Marathon, however,
which featured the first Africans
ever to compete in the Olympics,
was equally remarkable.
Two of the first four men
to cross the line
were disqualified
because they'd been poisoned.
And the winner himself
was disqualified,
but l want to know
why the winner was disqualified.
♪ Fruity, fruity, fruity! ♪
Erm, in a moment
of inadvisable candour,
he said, "l'm afraid l poisoned
the other two contestants."
lt's a good answer.
What sort of poison was it that made them
run 26 miles and nearly win?
Do you mean
they did it to themselves?
lt was performance-enhancing poison?
Well, that's really very intelligent,
because they did,
their trainers gave them
and they gave themselves strychnine,
which was commonly used
as a rat poison and is very poisonous.
lt was quite legal to do so,
it enhanced performance.
- (Jeremy) But it kills you.
- Non-fatal doses won't kill you.
- l ran a marathon the other day.
- Did you?
Well, l didn't run it, l drove it. But...
l did race against a marathon runner,
from Greenwich on the London
marathon course to the Mall
in normal London traffic,
and he was faster by eight minutes.
- That's fantastic.
- lsn't it great?
And amazingly,
gestures towards the answer.
- He had a car.
- Yes!
(Alan) He got a lift?
The winner Fred Lorz
went most of the way by car.
He was given
a laurel by Alice Roosevelt,
the daughter of President Theodore.
- Was he in the car on the podium?
- He wasn't actually.
(Stephen) The car ran out of petrol...
and he ran the last 11 miles or so.
He couldn't go on the course,
he must have had to go quite round.
- (Jeremy) They'd have seen him.
- They'd have seen him
- ln a running vest...
- (Alan) Vrrrroom.
Fourth place was awarded to
a Cuban postman called Felix Carvajal,
- who rather sweetly...
- Delivered the post on the way round.
(Mexican accent) l have a letter for you.
- That's so like...
- lt's from Cuba.
lt's so like your famous
Mexican accent, but no.
He had to run in street clothes,
which he snipped around the legs
to make them look like shorts.
And then he stopped off in an orchard
to have a snack on some apples
and they poisoned him and...
The strychnine didn't kill the winner
but the apples nearly killed
the bloke that came fourth.
They were rotten, so he had to lie down
and have a nap.
But he still... he still came fourth.
The athlete who came ninth
was called Len Tau,
and he was a Tswana tribesman,
the first African ever to run in the Olympics,
and he had to run more
than a kilometre out of his way
because he was being chased by a dog.
ln the 1904 Olympics,
the same Games,
there was a fellow called George Eyser,
who won six medals in gymnastics.
And he had a handicap.
Can you imagine what that was?
- Blind.
- No.
- (Alan) Deaf.
- No.
(Jeremy) Mad.
Club foot, two left feet, one leg.
- One wooden leg.
- He had a wooden leg?
He had a wooden leg
and he won six gold medals.
Maybe he could do
brilliant stuff spinning on it.
- (Stephen) Yes. Freestyle hopping.
- Take it off, put it on his head.
Put wheels on it, little wheels.
ln 1900 there was a sport
where Great Britain won the gold medal,
in which the only other country
that competed was France.
Can you imagine
what that might have been?
Arrogance?
(Alan) Cricket?
We played France
at cricket and beat them.
We whipped their arses.
Though the French team
was actually British Embassy officials
from Paris.
lt's a way to run the Olympics, isn't it?
They don't have a French team now,
do they?
l should think the Embassy
has still got a team.
(Stephen) The Embassy will have.
And they do a marvellous
Pirates Of Penzance every other year.
1904 Tour de France, interestingly,
what do we know about the
Tour de France? A lot of cheating there.
(Alan) Cycling.
Yes, good. Award yourself a point.
Absolutely.
There were some night races
and there were some riders
discovered biting cork,
on the end of which was a wire,
on the other end of which was a car.
They were being towed by their teeth.
Yeah. Though the winner...
Tie it on the handlebar, you idiot!
You'd think, but l suppose
they could, l don't know.
They could, if they were found,
they could let go quickly.
Maurice Garin was the first man
to cross the finishing line,
but he was disqualified
when it was discovered that he had gone
part of the way...
by train.
His main rival fell
from his bicycle fast asleep
because he'd been given chicken
with sleeping pills in it.
And there were other nobblings...
Yeah, there were other... Laxatives...
Laxative in a water bottle
was a very common one.
ltching powder in jumpers
and sandpaper in the jockstrap.
(All) Ooh!
You'd notice that when you pulled it on,
though, l would guess.
Anyway, there we are.
Stop me when you've guessed
what l am now listing.
Challenger.
- Tornado.
- (Cuckoo clock)
Tanks.
- (Alarm)
- Oh! Tanks.
- Jet fighters.
- (Alarm)
Biscuits, types of biscuits.
Dragonflies, butterflies.
Moths.
(Stephen) Shall l carry on with the list?
Typhoon.
- Mustang.
- (Moose)
Tennis balls.
No, but good.
- (Alan) Cars.
- Laser.
Getting good, Marauder.
- (Firework explosion)
- Boats.
- No. Hurricane.
- They all are boats.
- Star Quest. Apache.
- Yeah, all boats. Still boats.
- Buccaneer.
- Boat.
Jet Stream and Super Storm.
- Are they air currents?
- (Alan) Hovercraft.
l was in one the other day
that was actually a Cobra.
- A helicopter.
- (Alarm)
Oh, hello, who said helicopter?
lt was him.
- Ferries. Car ferries.
- Big ones that you live in.
- (John) You live in?
- Barges.
Caravans! Ladies and gentlemen.
- They are all makes of caravan.
- (Jeremy) You can't say that word!
(Jeremy) Don't look at it!
Just... take it away!
But, Jeremy, l've got
so much to talk to you about.
No, l'm not listening, not listening.
You've destroyed a few in your time,
you've done a service, haven't you?
We played conkers with them
not that long ago.
l saw that. Now the world record speed
for towing a caravan is?
- 140-something miles an hour.
- Oh, he's good, isn't he?
(Alan) They tried to beat it
on your programme.
lt's 139.113, very good indeed.
- (Applause)
- Wrong again. No, wrong.
Miss is as good as a mile.
Now, so, that was fun actually,
let's try it again with something else.
Fingers on buzzers again.
What am l listing now?
- Patriot. Gladiator.
- (Firework explosion)
- Missiles.
- (Alarm)
- Best to wait.
- ♪ Fruity, fruity, fruity! ♪
Really big dodgy gay condoms.
Oh, yes, they could be actually,
that's a very good name.
l'll keep going, though. Dagger. Javelin.
- (Moose)
- Merlin, Archer, Arrow.
Tory Party summer balls
for the last ten years.
- (Alan) Apples.
- You're in the right area now.
- (Alan) Pears.
- Well, it's not a fruit, though.
- Apricot, no.
- Tomatoes, radishes.
- Oh, now that's close.
- (John) Potato.
They were used as potatoes in Britain
before potatoes were discovered,
- if you know what l mean.
- Turnips, swedes.
- Oh, you're so in the right family now.
- (Alan) Parsnips.
Parsnips is the right answer.
There you go!
- Get some points.
- How many do l get?
Well done, l don't know, how many you think
you deserve, old thing.
But which parsnip wrote a great novel
of the 20th century?
Probably the best-known Russian novel
of the 20th century.
- ls it Pasternak, Boris Pasternak?
- Pasternak, which is the Russian for?
- Parsnip.
- Exactly.
Boris Parsnip wrote Dr Zhivago.
So there you are, parsnips.
What else can we say about them?
Sometimes, when you're a kid
you think they're chips
and you plunge in
and they're not chips.
That is a disappointment.
Bet l'm the only person here
that grows their own parsnips.
- (Stephen) Do you?
- Yeah.
(Alan) ls that a euphemism?
"They say he grows his own parsnips."
When l say "l grow them,"
they are grown on a piece of soil
near where l live.
- And Jess Hardacre, your gardener...
- A man comes and leans on a shovel.
"Er, l say there, Mr Clarkson,
they come up lovely, Mr Clarkson.
"Maybe if l could have a cup of tea
once a week, that would be nice."
Get out, get out, get out
with your muddy shoes.
Now, what kind of creature
was actually the first
to be sent into space?
- (Moose)
- (John) Dog.
- A monkey.
- (Alarm)
- And what did you say?
- He said dog, sir.
l think he did say dog, didn't you, John.
- (Alarm)
- Yes, yes.
l bet it was something that they didn't know
had gone into space.
- No, they sent it deliberately.
- A fly.
Fly is correct.
Do you know what kind of fly?
- (Alan) Fruit flies.
- Fruit fly.
You divide points between yourselves.
- Very good indeed.
- Why did they do that?
Well, they're very light,
so there was no payload.
They sent them up in July 1946
on an American V2
along with some corn seeds.
But fruit flies, why are they used
so much in science?
Because they can talk
and they tell you exactly what's going on.
lf you're a fly and it's weightless,
what happens then?
Do you suddenly sort of stop flapping
and you go, "Hang on."
"This is what l've always dreamed of."
No effort,
they just stay like that.
ln space, when they
go to do a number two, they do it in the wall,
- they dock into the wall like that.
- (Stephen) Yeah, all right.
All right, thank you, Davies.
One of the things about fruit flies is...
- (Fart)
- Thank you.
- But there's no sound in space.
- (Stephen) No.
So you can't hear your own farts.
He's so amused,
that's what's so sweet.
He is absolutely adoring it.
No, 61 per cent of all known
human disease genes
have a recognisable
match in fruit flies.
Fruit flies also go to sleep at night,
rather sweetly.
Do they get a cold, then,
do they get the common cold?
- A-zzzp!
- They may well do.
And the other thing is, every two weeks
you've got a new generation,
so any experimentation you do,
you can observe
very fast what happens.
Scientists who work with fruit flies
give them jokey names
and l want you to tell me
why they're called what they're called.
There's a gene strain called
the Ken and Barbie fruit fly,
- why is it called that?
- They've got no penises.
Yes, they have no external genitalia,
quite right.
There's one called the Maggie.
Why would that be called the Maggie?
Handbag.
Hates the unions, a bit right-wing.
No, because it suffers
from arrested development,
- like... Maggie in?
- (Alexander) The Simpsons.
Yes. Someone in the audience
got there before you,
they must award themselves a point.
So there's the Maggie one,
there's the Cheap Date,
which is sensitive
to ethanol intoxication.
Go figure. Erm, anyway,
what's quite interesting
about the sperm of the fruit fly?
(Alexander) lt smells of guava.
(Alan) The thing is,
Alexander actually knows that.
- Fruit fly spunk, what can we say about it?
- They don't have any of it.
They... By God, they do.
lt is the most fecund sperm.
The parsnips taste nice in it.
l'm afraid it's size,
l'm just going about size.
lt's the largest sperm of any living thing.
Uncoiled, it's 20 times
as long as its own body.
lt's 5.8 centimetres long,
one sperm, l'm not talking about
its seminal fluid.
- Five centimetres?
- Yeah, 5.8 centimetres.
A human sperm is 0.05 millimetres.
So you don't think tadpole,
think Loch Ness monster.
lt really is absolutely gigantic.
You could probably have one
as a pet, couldn't you?
Well over a thousand times longer
than a human sperm.
(Grunts)
(Stephen) Oh dear.
Cos our sperm are the smallest cell
in the human body.
- What's the largest?
- (Alan) The smallest cell in the body?
- Yes, the human sperm.
- The largest. The brain?
(Stephen) No. After all...
(Alexander) Cheek.
Only half human beings
have the sperm,
which is the smallest, and funnily enough,
the largest cell the other half have,
- which is the...
- The womb.
The womb is not a cell!
Even l, who as you say, am not exactly
an expert in these matters,
do know that the womb is not a cell.
- No, whereas the ovum is, the egg.
- The ovary. Ovum, yeah.
lt is kind of a cell, like, for nine months.
(Stephen) Yeah, yeah. Good point.
Very good.
Now, bearing in mind all that has
gone before, boys and gentlemen,
what's the connection between
Nancy Kerrigan
and Wrong Way Corrigan?
- (Cuckoo clock)
- Yes?
She was the skater
who had her leg smashed
by Tonya Harding.
- Absolutely right.
- And he was another skater
who had his leg smashed
by another skater.
No, that's not right, but the link is
what was Tonya Harding doing?
l mean, essentially in a very violent
and appalling way.
She was trying to eliminate
her rival from the competition.
She was cheating.
Wrong Way Corrigan
was a shamed porn star...
in the '70s.
He looks like Edward Fox there, doesn't he?
- He's a jockey, isn't he?
- (Stephen) No. He was a famous cheat.
He had a ticker-tape parade
in Manhattan
where more than a million people turned up
in the streets.
He was inspired
by a man called Lindbergh.
He was determined
to fly across the Atlantic,
although Lindbergh had already done it.
They told him he wasn't allowed to,
because his aeroplane wasn't up to snuff,
it was a mess, it was an old crate.
So what he said happened was,
he flew from New York to California,
but he ended up in Dublin airport.
And he flew across the Atlantic,
but claimed that he had just gone
the wrong way by mistake.
And to his dying day he claimed
that it was just an error in that, you know,
he'd lost one of his compasses.
But he was known as Wrong Way Corrigan.
Did he ever look out
of the window, because, hey?
He couldn't see, it was night, it was foggy,
he says.
lt can't have been night for 3,000 miles.
He does look like Eddie Fox
in the Day of the Jackal.
When he said, "lt's going to cost you
a lot of money."
He does a bit.
Eddie Fox, the only man
with a bicep in his face.
"Wallace,
l'm going to have to abdicate."
l was in a play in Chichester years ago,
20-odd years ago,
first play l was ever in,
and he was in another play,
but l got to know the DSM,
as they call the deputy stage manager,
very well,
and she'd not met him,
and he suddenly appeared
and put a hand on either shoulder
and lent into her ear and said,
"lf we do go to bed together,
it'll be strictly on my terms."
Hell of a pick-up line, isn't it?
Edward is one of these guys,
he just stares into space
and suddenly says something.
And he was sitting
in a dressing room,
possibly at Chichester
again actually, and he said,
"l'm so glad there are no homosexuals
in this company."
And everyone just sort of looked at him.
"The other lot
in the Anthony And Cleopatra play
"were an absolute fleet of Berties."
Now, one last chance to even things up
by awarding yourselves a few points
in the mad sprint for the finishing line
that we call General lgnorance.
Buzzers.
ln which year
did the Second World War end?
- (Cuckoo clock)
- 1945.
- No, what a pity!
- (Alarm)
- Who was the war between and against?
- Germany and Britain.
- Germany, now, what happened...
- America and...
There was a peace accord
of Paris in 1947,
but where was Germany?
There was no Germany, was there?
- Well, there was.
- (Stephen) There were two.
So it ended in 1990,
when they unified Germany.
ls the right answer, when Germany
became one country again.
3rd September 1990.
That is officially when
the war ended against Germany,
because Germany didn't exist
until then again.
l know it's weird, but it's technically true.
That is silly and l lost 20 points for it.
(Laughs) Oh dear.
- l knew that was going to happen.
- All right, we'll make up for it this way, Alan.
Name something, fingers on buzzers,
invented by the Swiss?
- (Cuckoo clock)
- The cuckoo clock.
- Oh dear!
- (Alarm)
Oh, no!
(German accent) lt was a Tcherman
invention, l fear.
- Chocolate.
- Not chocolate itself, no.
l'll give you a few.
Well, Velcro is a good one.
Well, milk chocolate, you see, l think
you should give yourself some points,
because milk chocolate they did invent.
What, got some chocolate
and put milk in it? That's not an invention.
- (Stephen) But it was certainly impressive.
- lt's not even close to being an invention.
- Cellophane, that was important.
- (Jeremy) Oh, wow!
(Stephen) Now...
Dr Jacques Brandenberger
in 1908 invented cellophane.
Rayon, the first of the proper
man-made fibres, rayon.
And the Swiss army knife. What can you
tell us about the Swiss army knife?
You can use it to cut your toenails?
- lt's always got a name on it.
- Equinox or something like that.
Oh, very close. Victorinox. Named after
Victoria, the inventor's mother,
- and inox, which is the...
- (Alan) Half a point.
...international symbol for stainless steel.
But that was only the German-speaking
Swiss army knife.
A few years later,
the French invented one...
- (John) With a little white flag on it.
- Well... No. (Laughs)
Very good.
Well, oddly enough, they both have got
the Swiss cross on it,
but they're bitter rivals,
one calls themselves the original
and the other the genuine.
And the Swiss army meticulously
buys 50 per cent from one company
and 50 per cent of
its supplies from the other.
There you are. The only difference is
the very first one has the shield stamp
of its flag and the other one just has the flag.
The first cuckoo clock was designed
and made by Franz Anton Ketterer
in the village Schonwald
near Triberg in the Schwarzwald.
Black Forest. ln about 1738.
The Swiss have the highest
motorcycle ownership in the world.
- (Stephen) Do they?
- And the highest gun ownership.
Eight million guns in private hands
from a population of six million.
l once had the pleasure of being stopped
in a car in Switzerland,
which l was told
by the policeman was too loud.
They measured it and said, "lt's too loud,
you're not allowed to use this car any more."
And at no point mentioned
the machine gun on my driver's seat.
A loaded machine gun,
no, just not interested.
"This exhaust,
on the other hand, matey boy,
"you're on foot from here on in."
Well, that brings us to our last question.
Now, the year is 1792.
lt was a notable year
for a number of reasons.
lt was the year
the guillotine was first used.
(Alan) Which was last used in 1960.
- A point for that.
- No, because it's not true.
- You're wrong.
- lt is true.
(Stephen) No, it isn't.
We'll come to that, l'm afraid. 1977.
The last French... Sorry, no.
lt was a one-legged French criminal
who was guillotined in 1977.
1792 was the year
the guillotine was first used
and the year of birth
of the inventor of the computer
and the death of the man after whom
the sandwich is named.
- What was invented...
- Lord Sandwich.
Yes.
Well, it wasn't going to be
Nora Buttie, was it?
(Jeremy) Charles Babbage.
Charles Babbage, you're right,
is the inventor of the computer,
- so you've all added to that.
- Difference engine.
- Yes, the difference engine.
- l know how many were at his funeral.
- (Stephen) Oh, go on.
- Three.
Only three people went to his funeral.
None of his friends turned up because
he was a laughing stock by the time he died,
and he'd invented the computer.
- Which was only recently...
- They rebuilt one, didn't they?
Science Museum,
and turned it, and it works.
ln Vietnam, the guillotine
was last used in 1960.
However, in France, in 1977...
En France.
En France, exactly, en France.
Has anyone survived it?
Well, do you remember
Jim Dale in the film...
- lf you survive it, you can go.
- That smarts. That smarts.
Savlon! Bit of Savlon! Anything!
- (Stephen) Guillotine be gone.
- The head just flopping over like that.
Do you remember Jim Dale
in the Carry On film, you know,
Don't Lose Your Head,
and he's just being guillotined,
it's the French Revolution and they say,
"There's a note for you from Robespierre,"
and he says, "Leave it in the basket,
l'll read it later on."
Well, there's a horrible truth to that,
because of course it was maintained
by contemporary witnesses
that a lot of the heads
were quite sentient...
- for some time after decapitation.
- They twitched.
They're going, "You bastards!"
lf they were there long enough, you'd get
some weirdo who'd want to marry them.
- Well, the tricoteuses, who sat knitting...
- Start writing to them.
"Ooh, l love you.
- "Will you marry me?"
- Our question is,
what was invented
at Cambridge University in 1792?
Was it girls?
Not... No, we had to wait about
a hundred years before girls arrived.
(Jeremy) Was it homosexuality?
That had been going on at Cambridge
and still, l proudly claim, to this day.
- What goes on at Cambridge?
- Studying.
Studying, and at the end of studying is?
- Exams.
- ls exams.
How do you know
when someone's done well in an exam?
- The person who marks it.
- Who marks it.
And where did this idea of marking exams
come from?
- (Jeremy) 1792.
- lt was invented in Cambridge, right.
So the written exam
was invented there in 1792?
ln Cambridge in 1792
by professor of chemistry,
Farish his name was.
Before that you would speak in Latin,
you'd be asked questions, you'd answer.
But they were starting to be paid
in piecework with the industrial revolution,
and they decided they'd process
a lot more students
if they got them to write down what they
knew and then someone would mark them
and give them an award
according to how well they'd done.
l've learned one thing that is
quite interesting.
You see?
ln fact, if this show
had been made before 1792,
it's scoring system
would have been regarded
as even more weird
and innovative, wouldn't it?
Which brings me to wonder what scores
you have given yourself.
So, let's have a look,
let's start with you, Xander.
- Minus seven.
- Minus seven, right.
- Minus 29.
- (Stephen) Minus 29.
- John, what have you got?
- Plus seven.
- Plus seven, he's given himself.
- l've got minus 85 and a half.
This is very interesting.
Now, l did say if anyone was spot on
the money, what did l say would happen?
They'd have sex.
l think the wish is father of the thought
there, young Alan,
l know how... But no.
Someone around this table
has got their score exactly right
according to our scoring computer
and that person is
Alexander Armstrong with minus seven.
- (Applause)
- Honest. Honest John.
- Which means you get another minus 40?
- l think so, yeah.
So, your plus score
takes you definitely into the lead,
you're the winner with 93 points.
ln second place with zero is Jeremy,
did a lot better than he thought.
And in third place,
because he did fall into a few of our traps,
with minus ten is John Sessions.
But only 33 out, in last place,
with minus 52, Alan Davies!
Well, there we go.
That's just about it from Ql.
My thanks to fellow invigilators Jeremy,
Xander, John and Alan.
Till next week, l leave you with this
quite interesting question.
What do lawyers
and sperm have in common?
One in fifty million
has a chance of becoming
a human being. Good night.
Well, hello, hello, hello, hello
and welcome to another edition
of Ql, otherwise
known as the British space
between the ears programme.
And boldly going
nowhere with me tonight are
Jeremy Clarkson.
Alexander Armstrong.
John Sessions.
And Alan Davies.
So tonight
we have three astronauts
and one astro minus 25.
Ha, the things l do with words!
Tonight's buzzer noises
all have some relevance
to the questions that will be coming up
this evening.
- Jeremy goes...
- (Firework rocket)
- Alexander goes...
- (Moose mating call)
- John goes...
- # Fruity, fruity, fruity!
♪ Fruity, fruity, fruity, fruity, fruity, fruity ♪
- And Alan goes...
- (Cuckoo calling)
(Gunshot)
(Cuckoo calling)
This week we have something
rather exciting going on,
and that is, as you guests
are more grown-up than usual,
we're going to do something very daring
and we're going to treat you like adults
and we're going to ask you
to keep your own scores.
So l have absolute...
You see, l told the producer
there would be a flaw in this system.
And you see,
what l'm going to do at the end
is l'm going to subtract
the amount you lie by,
because we're also going
to have an electronic check.
But, if you're very accurate,
l will give an extra 100 points to anyone
who's bang on their own scores.
"l like Stephen."
lt's like having your own little
performing donkeys.
Now, l have absolute faith
in your honesty, gentlemen,
but by coincidence, the first question does
happen to be about cheating.
The 1904 Olympic Games
were held in St Louis, Missouri,
and they were notable for
a number of bizarre events,
including something called
Anthropology Days
where so-called "uncivilised" tribes
such as Pygmies and Sioux lndians
held mud fights and tug-of-wars
against each other in tribal costume.
The Marathon, however,
which featured the first Africans
ever to compete in the Olympics,
was equally remarkable.
Two of the first four men
to cross the line
were disqualified
because they'd been poisoned.
And the winner himself
was disqualified,
but l want to know
why the winner was disqualified.
♪ Fruity, fruity, fruity! ♪
Erm, in a moment
of inadvisable candour,
he said, "l'm afraid l poisoned
the other two contestants."
lt's a good answer.
What sort of poison was it that made them
run 26 miles and nearly win?
Do you mean
they did it to themselves?
lt was performance-enhancing poison?
Well, that's really very intelligent,
because they did,
their trainers gave them
and they gave themselves strychnine,
which was commonly used
as a rat poison and is very poisonous.
lt was quite legal to do so,
it enhanced performance.
- (Jeremy) But it kills you.
- Non-fatal doses won't kill you.
- l ran a marathon the other day.
- Did you?
Well, l didn't run it, l drove it. But...
l did race against a marathon runner,
from Greenwich on the London
marathon course to the Mall
in normal London traffic,
and he was faster by eight minutes.
- That's fantastic.
- lsn't it great?
And amazingly,
gestures towards the answer.
- He had a car.
- Yes!
(Alan) He got a lift?
The winner Fred Lorz
went most of the way by car.
He was given
a laurel by Alice Roosevelt,
the daughter of President Theodore.
- Was he in the car on the podium?
- He wasn't actually.
(Stephen) The car ran out of petrol...
and he ran the last 11 miles or so.
He couldn't go on the course,
he must have had to go quite round.
- (Jeremy) They'd have seen him.
- They'd have seen him
- ln a running vest...
- (Alan) Vrrrroom.
Fourth place was awarded to
a Cuban postman called Felix Carvajal,
- who rather sweetly...
- Delivered the post on the way round.
(Mexican accent) l have a letter for you.
- That's so like...
- lt's from Cuba.
lt's so like your famous
Mexican accent, but no.
He had to run in street clothes,
which he snipped around the legs
to make them look like shorts.
And then he stopped off in an orchard
to have a snack on some apples
and they poisoned him and...
The strychnine didn't kill the winner
but the apples nearly killed
the bloke that came fourth.
They were rotten, so he had to lie down
and have a nap.
But he still... he still came fourth.
The athlete who came ninth
was called Len Tau,
and he was a Tswana tribesman,
the first African ever to run in the Olympics,
and he had to run more
than a kilometre out of his way
because he was being chased by a dog.
ln the 1904 Olympics,
the same Games,
there was a fellow called George Eyser,
who won six medals in gymnastics.
And he had a handicap.
Can you imagine what that was?
- Blind.
- No.
- (Alan) Deaf.
- No.
(Jeremy) Mad.
Club foot, two left feet, one leg.
- One wooden leg.
- He had a wooden leg?
He had a wooden leg
and he won six gold medals.
Maybe he could do
brilliant stuff spinning on it.
- (Stephen) Yes. Freestyle hopping.
- Take it off, put it on his head.
Put wheels on it, little wheels.
ln 1900 there was a sport
where Great Britain won the gold medal,
in which the only other country
that competed was France.
Can you imagine
what that might have been?
Arrogance?
(Alan) Cricket?
We played France
at cricket and beat them.
We whipped their arses.
Though the French team
was actually British Embassy officials
from Paris.
lt's a way to run the Olympics, isn't it?
They don't have a French team now,
do they?
l should think the Embassy
has still got a team.
(Stephen) The Embassy will have.
And they do a marvellous
Pirates Of Penzance every other year.
1904 Tour de France, interestingly,
what do we know about the
Tour de France? A lot of cheating there.
(Alan) Cycling.
Yes, good. Award yourself a point.
Absolutely.
There were some night races
and there were some riders
discovered biting cork,
on the end of which was a wire,
on the other end of which was a car.
They were being towed by their teeth.
Yeah. Though the winner...
Tie it on the handlebar, you idiot!
You'd think, but l suppose
they could, l don't know.
They could, if they were found,
they could let go quickly.
Maurice Garin was the first man
to cross the finishing line,
but he was disqualified
when it was discovered that he had gone
part of the way...
by train.
His main rival fell
from his bicycle fast asleep
because he'd been given chicken
with sleeping pills in it.
And there were other nobblings...
Yeah, there were other... Laxatives...
Laxative in a water bottle
was a very common one.
ltching powder in jumpers
and sandpaper in the jockstrap.
(All) Ooh!
You'd notice that when you pulled it on,
though, l would guess.
Anyway, there we are.
Stop me when you've guessed
what l am now listing.
Challenger.
- Tornado.
- (Cuckoo clock)
Tanks.
- (Alarm)
- Oh! Tanks.
- Jet fighters.
- (Alarm)
Biscuits, types of biscuits.
Dragonflies, butterflies.
Moths.
(Stephen) Shall l carry on with the list?
Typhoon.
- Mustang.
- (Moose)
Tennis balls.
No, but good.
- (Alan) Cars.
- Laser.
Getting good, Marauder.
- (Firework explosion)
- Boats.
- No. Hurricane.
- They all are boats.
- Star Quest. Apache.
- Yeah, all boats. Still boats.
- Buccaneer.
- Boat.
Jet Stream and Super Storm.
- Are they air currents?
- (Alan) Hovercraft.
l was in one the other day
that was actually a Cobra.
- A helicopter.
- (Alarm)
Oh, hello, who said helicopter?
lt was him.
- Ferries. Car ferries.
- Big ones that you live in.
- (John) You live in?
- Barges.
Caravans! Ladies and gentlemen.
- They are all makes of caravan.
- (Jeremy) You can't say that word!
(Jeremy) Don't look at it!
Just... take it away!
But, Jeremy, l've got
so much to talk to you about.
No, l'm not listening, not listening.
You've destroyed a few in your time,
you've done a service, haven't you?
We played conkers with them
not that long ago.
l saw that. Now the world record speed
for towing a caravan is?
- 140-something miles an hour.
- Oh, he's good, isn't he?
(Alan) They tried to beat it
on your programme.
lt's 139.113, very good indeed.
- (Applause)
- Wrong again. No, wrong.
Miss is as good as a mile.
Now, so, that was fun actually,
let's try it again with something else.
Fingers on buzzers again.
What am l listing now?
- Patriot. Gladiator.
- (Firework explosion)
- Missiles.
- (Alarm)
- Best to wait.
- ♪ Fruity, fruity, fruity! ♪
Really big dodgy gay condoms.
Oh, yes, they could be actually,
that's a very good name.
l'll keep going, though. Dagger. Javelin.
- (Moose)
- Merlin, Archer, Arrow.
Tory Party summer balls
for the last ten years.
- (Alan) Apples.
- You're in the right area now.
- (Alan) Pears.
- Well, it's not a fruit, though.
- Apricot, no.
- Tomatoes, radishes.
- Oh, now that's close.
- (John) Potato.
They were used as potatoes in Britain
before potatoes were discovered,
- if you know what l mean.
- Turnips, swedes.
- Oh, you're so in the right family now.
- (Alan) Parsnips.
Parsnips is the right answer.
There you go!
- Get some points.
- How many do l get?
Well done, l don't know, how many you think
you deserve, old thing.
But which parsnip wrote a great novel
of the 20th century?
Probably the best-known Russian novel
of the 20th century.
- ls it Pasternak, Boris Pasternak?
- Pasternak, which is the Russian for?
- Parsnip.
- Exactly.
Boris Parsnip wrote Dr Zhivago.
So there you are, parsnips.
What else can we say about them?
Sometimes, when you're a kid
you think they're chips
and you plunge in
and they're not chips.
That is a disappointment.
Bet l'm the only person here
that grows their own parsnips.
- (Stephen) Do you?
- Yeah.
(Alan) ls that a euphemism?
"They say he grows his own parsnips."
When l say "l grow them,"
they are grown on a piece of soil
near where l live.
- And Jess Hardacre, your gardener...
- A man comes and leans on a shovel.
"Er, l say there, Mr Clarkson,
they come up lovely, Mr Clarkson.
"Maybe if l could have a cup of tea
once a week, that would be nice."
Get out, get out, get out
with your muddy shoes.
Now, what kind of creature
was actually the first
to be sent into space?
- (Moose)
- (John) Dog.
- A monkey.
- (Alarm)
- And what did you say?
- He said dog, sir.
l think he did say dog, didn't you, John.
- (Alarm)
- Yes, yes.
l bet it was something that they didn't know
had gone into space.
- No, they sent it deliberately.
- A fly.
Fly is correct.
Do you know what kind of fly?
- (Alan) Fruit flies.
- Fruit fly.
You divide points between yourselves.
- Very good indeed.
- Why did they do that?
Well, they're very light,
so there was no payload.
They sent them up in July 1946
on an American V2
along with some corn seeds.
But fruit flies, why are they used
so much in science?
Because they can talk
and they tell you exactly what's going on.
lf you're a fly and it's weightless,
what happens then?
Do you suddenly sort of stop flapping
and you go, "Hang on."
"This is what l've always dreamed of."
No effort,
they just stay like that.
ln space, when they
go to do a number two, they do it in the wall,
- they dock into the wall like that.
- (Stephen) Yeah, all right.
All right, thank you, Davies.
One of the things about fruit flies is...
- (Fart)
- Thank you.
- But there's no sound in space.
- (Stephen) No.
So you can't hear your own farts.
He's so amused,
that's what's so sweet.
He is absolutely adoring it.
No, 61 per cent of all known
human disease genes
have a recognisable
match in fruit flies.
Fruit flies also go to sleep at night,
rather sweetly.
Do they get a cold, then,
do they get the common cold?
- A-zzzp!
- They may well do.
And the other thing is, every two weeks
you've got a new generation,
so any experimentation you do,
you can observe
very fast what happens.
Scientists who work with fruit flies
give them jokey names
and l want you to tell me
why they're called what they're called.
There's a gene strain called
the Ken and Barbie fruit fly,
- why is it called that?
- They've got no penises.
Yes, they have no external genitalia,
quite right.
There's one called the Maggie.
Why would that be called the Maggie?
Handbag.
Hates the unions, a bit right-wing.
No, because it suffers
from arrested development,
- like... Maggie in?
- (Alexander) The Simpsons.
Yes. Someone in the audience
got there before you,
they must award themselves a point.
So there's the Maggie one,
there's the Cheap Date,
which is sensitive
to ethanol intoxication.
Go figure. Erm, anyway,
what's quite interesting
about the sperm of the fruit fly?
(Alexander) lt smells of guava.
(Alan) The thing is,
Alexander actually knows that.
- Fruit fly spunk, what can we say about it?
- They don't have any of it.
They... By God, they do.
lt is the most fecund sperm.
The parsnips taste nice in it.
l'm afraid it's size,
l'm just going about size.
lt's the largest sperm of any living thing.
Uncoiled, it's 20 times
as long as its own body.
lt's 5.8 centimetres long,
one sperm, l'm not talking about
its seminal fluid.
- Five centimetres?
- Yeah, 5.8 centimetres.
A human sperm is 0.05 millimetres.
So you don't think tadpole,
think Loch Ness monster.
lt really is absolutely gigantic.
You could probably have one
as a pet, couldn't you?
Well over a thousand times longer
than a human sperm.
(Grunts)
(Stephen) Oh dear.
Cos our sperm are the smallest cell
in the human body.
- What's the largest?
- (Alan) The smallest cell in the body?
- Yes, the human sperm.
- The largest. The brain?
(Stephen) No. After all...
(Alexander) Cheek.
Only half human beings
have the sperm,
which is the smallest, and funnily enough,
the largest cell the other half have,
- which is the...
- The womb.
The womb is not a cell!
Even l, who as you say, am not exactly
an expert in these matters,
do know that the womb is not a cell.
- No, whereas the ovum is, the egg.
- The ovary. Ovum, yeah.
lt is kind of a cell, like, for nine months.
(Stephen) Yeah, yeah. Good point.
Very good.
Now, bearing in mind all that has
gone before, boys and gentlemen,
what's the connection between
Nancy Kerrigan
and Wrong Way Corrigan?
- (Cuckoo clock)
- Yes?
She was the skater
who had her leg smashed
by Tonya Harding.
- Absolutely right.
- And he was another skater
who had his leg smashed
by another skater.
No, that's not right, but the link is
what was Tonya Harding doing?
l mean, essentially in a very violent
and appalling way.
She was trying to eliminate
her rival from the competition.
She was cheating.
Wrong Way Corrigan
was a shamed porn star...
in the '70s.
He looks like Edward Fox there, doesn't he?
- He's a jockey, isn't he?
- (Stephen) No. He was a famous cheat.
He had a ticker-tape parade
in Manhattan
where more than a million people turned up
in the streets.
He was inspired
by a man called Lindbergh.
He was determined
to fly across the Atlantic,
although Lindbergh had already done it.
They told him he wasn't allowed to,
because his aeroplane wasn't up to snuff,
it was a mess, it was an old crate.
So what he said happened was,
he flew from New York to California,
but he ended up in Dublin airport.
And he flew across the Atlantic,
but claimed that he had just gone
the wrong way by mistake.
And to his dying day he claimed
that it was just an error in that, you know,
he'd lost one of his compasses.
But he was known as Wrong Way Corrigan.
Did he ever look out
of the window, because, hey?
He couldn't see, it was night, it was foggy,
he says.
lt can't have been night for 3,000 miles.
He does look like Eddie Fox
in the Day of the Jackal.
When he said, "lt's going to cost you
a lot of money."
He does a bit.
Eddie Fox, the only man
with a bicep in his face.
"Wallace,
l'm going to have to abdicate."
l was in a play in Chichester years ago,
20-odd years ago,
first play l was ever in,
and he was in another play,
but l got to know the DSM,
as they call the deputy stage manager,
very well,
and she'd not met him,
and he suddenly appeared
and put a hand on either shoulder
and lent into her ear and said,
"lf we do go to bed together,
it'll be strictly on my terms."
Hell of a pick-up line, isn't it?
Edward is one of these guys,
he just stares into space
and suddenly says something.
And he was sitting
in a dressing room,
possibly at Chichester
again actually, and he said,
"l'm so glad there are no homosexuals
in this company."
And everyone just sort of looked at him.
"The other lot
in the Anthony And Cleopatra play
"were an absolute fleet of Berties."
Now, one last chance to even things up
by awarding yourselves a few points
in the mad sprint for the finishing line
that we call General lgnorance.
Buzzers.
ln which year
did the Second World War end?
- (Cuckoo clock)
- 1945.
- No, what a pity!
- (Alarm)
- Who was the war between and against?
- Germany and Britain.
- Germany, now, what happened...
- America and...
There was a peace accord
of Paris in 1947,
but where was Germany?
There was no Germany, was there?
- Well, there was.
- (Stephen) There were two.
So it ended in 1990,
when they unified Germany.
ls the right answer, when Germany
became one country again.
3rd September 1990.
That is officially when
the war ended against Germany,
because Germany didn't exist
until then again.
l know it's weird, but it's technically true.
That is silly and l lost 20 points for it.
(Laughs) Oh dear.
- l knew that was going to happen.
- All right, we'll make up for it this way, Alan.
Name something, fingers on buzzers,
invented by the Swiss?
- (Cuckoo clock)
- The cuckoo clock.
- Oh dear!
- (Alarm)
Oh, no!
(German accent) lt was a Tcherman
invention, l fear.
- Chocolate.
- Not chocolate itself, no.
l'll give you a few.
Well, Velcro is a good one.
Well, milk chocolate, you see, l think
you should give yourself some points,
because milk chocolate they did invent.
What, got some chocolate
and put milk in it? That's not an invention.
- (Stephen) But it was certainly impressive.
- lt's not even close to being an invention.
- Cellophane, that was important.
- (Jeremy) Oh, wow!
(Stephen) Now...
Dr Jacques Brandenberger
in 1908 invented cellophane.
Rayon, the first of the proper
man-made fibres, rayon.
And the Swiss army knife. What can you
tell us about the Swiss army knife?
You can use it to cut your toenails?
- lt's always got a name on it.
- Equinox or something like that.
Oh, very close. Victorinox. Named after
Victoria, the inventor's mother,
- and inox, which is the...
- (Alan) Half a point.
...international symbol for stainless steel.
But that was only the German-speaking
Swiss army knife.
A few years later,
the French invented one...
- (John) With a little white flag on it.
- Well... No. (Laughs)
Very good.
Well, oddly enough, they both have got
the Swiss cross on it,
but they're bitter rivals,
one calls themselves the original
and the other the genuine.
And the Swiss army meticulously
buys 50 per cent from one company
and 50 per cent of
its supplies from the other.
There you are. The only difference is
the very first one has the shield stamp
of its flag and the other one just has the flag.
The first cuckoo clock was designed
and made by Franz Anton Ketterer
in the village Schonwald
near Triberg in the Schwarzwald.
Black Forest. ln about 1738.
The Swiss have the highest
motorcycle ownership in the world.
- (Stephen) Do they?
- And the highest gun ownership.
Eight million guns in private hands
from a population of six million.
l once had the pleasure of being stopped
in a car in Switzerland,
which l was told
by the policeman was too loud.
They measured it and said, "lt's too loud,
you're not allowed to use this car any more."
And at no point mentioned
the machine gun on my driver's seat.
A loaded machine gun,
no, just not interested.
"This exhaust,
on the other hand, matey boy,
"you're on foot from here on in."
Well, that brings us to our last question.
Now, the year is 1792.
lt was a notable year
for a number of reasons.
lt was the year
the guillotine was first used.
(Alan) Which was last used in 1960.
- A point for that.
- No, because it's not true.
- You're wrong.
- lt is true.
(Stephen) No, it isn't.
We'll come to that, l'm afraid. 1977.
The last French... Sorry, no.
lt was a one-legged French criminal
who was guillotined in 1977.
1792 was the year
the guillotine was first used
and the year of birth
of the inventor of the computer
and the death of the man after whom
the sandwich is named.
- What was invented...
- Lord Sandwich.
Yes.
Well, it wasn't going to be
Nora Buttie, was it?
(Jeremy) Charles Babbage.
Charles Babbage, you're right,
is the inventor of the computer,
- so you've all added to that.
- Difference engine.
- Yes, the difference engine.
- l know how many were at his funeral.
- (Stephen) Oh, go on.
- Three.
Only three people went to his funeral.
None of his friends turned up because
he was a laughing stock by the time he died,
and he'd invented the computer.
- Which was only recently...
- They rebuilt one, didn't they?
Science Museum,
and turned it, and it works.
ln Vietnam, the guillotine
was last used in 1960.
However, in France, in 1977...
En France.
En France, exactly, en France.
Has anyone survived it?
Well, do you remember
Jim Dale in the film...
- lf you survive it, you can go.
- That smarts. That smarts.
Savlon! Bit of Savlon! Anything!
- (Stephen) Guillotine be gone.
- The head just flopping over like that.
Do you remember Jim Dale
in the Carry On film, you know,
Don't Lose Your Head,
and he's just being guillotined,
it's the French Revolution and they say,
"There's a note for you from Robespierre,"
and he says, "Leave it in the basket,
l'll read it later on."
Well, there's a horrible truth to that,
because of course it was maintained
by contemporary witnesses
that a lot of the heads
were quite sentient...
- for some time after decapitation.
- They twitched.
They're going, "You bastards!"
lf they were there long enough, you'd get
some weirdo who'd want to marry them.
- Well, the tricoteuses, who sat knitting...
- Start writing to them.
"Ooh, l love you.
- "Will you marry me?"
- Our question is,
what was invented
at Cambridge University in 1792?
Was it girls?
Not... No, we had to wait about
a hundred years before girls arrived.
(Jeremy) Was it homosexuality?
That had been going on at Cambridge
and still, l proudly claim, to this day.
- What goes on at Cambridge?
- Studying.
Studying, and at the end of studying is?
- Exams.
- ls exams.
How do you know
when someone's done well in an exam?
- The person who marks it.
- Who marks it.
And where did this idea of marking exams
come from?
- (Jeremy) 1792.
- lt was invented in Cambridge, right.
So the written exam
was invented there in 1792?
ln Cambridge in 1792
by professor of chemistry,
Farish his name was.
Before that you would speak in Latin,
you'd be asked questions, you'd answer.
But they were starting to be paid
in piecework with the industrial revolution,
and they decided they'd process
a lot more students
if they got them to write down what they
knew and then someone would mark them
and give them an award
according to how well they'd done.
l've learned one thing that is
quite interesting.
You see?
ln fact, if this show
had been made before 1792,
it's scoring system
would have been regarded
as even more weird
and innovative, wouldn't it?
Which brings me to wonder what scores
you have given yourself.
So, let's have a look,
let's start with you, Xander.
- Minus seven.
- Minus seven, right.
- Minus 29.
- (Stephen) Minus 29.
- John, what have you got?
- Plus seven.
- Plus seven, he's given himself.
- l've got minus 85 and a half.
This is very interesting.
Now, l did say if anyone was spot on
the money, what did l say would happen?
They'd have sex.
l think the wish is father of the thought
there, young Alan,
l know how... But no.
Someone around this table
has got their score exactly right
according to our scoring computer
and that person is
Alexander Armstrong with minus seven.
- (Applause)
- Honest. Honest John.
- Which means you get another minus 40?
- l think so, yeah.
So, your plus score
takes you definitely into the lead,
you're the winner with 93 points.
ln second place with zero is Jeremy,
did a lot better than he thought.
And in third place,
because he did fall into a few of our traps,
with minus ten is John Sessions.
But only 33 out, in last place,
with minus 52, Alan Davies!
Well, there we go.
That's just about it from Ql.
My thanks to fellow invigilators Jeremy,
Xander, John and Alan.
Till next week, l leave you with this
quite interesting question.
What do lawyers
and sperm have in common?
One in fifty million
has a chance of becoming
a human being. Good night.