QI (2003–…): Season 5, Episode 7 - Espionage - full transcript
Good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening,
good evening, good evening, good evening,
and welcome to QI-Spy,
where tonight, the codeword is "Espionage"!
[An ominous sting, on strings, plays on speakers.]
Concealed amongst you are four masters of disguise.
Special agent Jo Brand!
Undercover man, Clive Anderson!
Counter-intelligence operative, Vic Reeves!
And the spy in the ointment, Alan Davies!
Now, please identify yourself by your call signs. Jo goes:
[Mission Impossible theme]
Clive goes:
[Peter Gunn theme]
Vic goes:
[Inspector Gadget theme]
And Alan goes:
[voice of a little girl lisping, "I spy with my little eye!"]
And remember, in Series "E", the watchword is "constant vigilance".
If you spy an elephant in the room
inform your handler immediately.
Now, first question. Do you know how to beat a lie detector?
[Mission Impossible theme]
- Jo.
Spot of gentle masturbation?
[Stephen breathes in and out uncertainly, lost for words]
There is a... There's a kind of logic in what you're saying.
Can you expand, as it were?
You know what I mean!
[Jo laughs shortly]
Why would that help?
Well, it would help because you'd get yourself into
a slightly different, sort of, state of consciousness,
so that you would fool the lie detector into thinking
that something was going on that actually wasn't going on.
But I don't think that that's gonna work,
because if you're rubbing your genitals,
or they're in a state of excitement, you lie naturally anyway,
so it'll be obvious... it'll be obvious whatever you say is a lie.
- Well...
- "I do love you!" Erm...
- What's it called? A stenograph?
- Well, it's a polygraph.
- A polygraph.
- Polygraph.
It's called a polygraph, and it kind of tests the...
detects your... your, erm, sweat, and--
- There are a number of things.
- Blood pressure...
Sweat, palpitations, vibrations in the body
and various clenchings of muscles and so on.
But in order to see how it works,
you obviously have to ask people a series of questions
to which they don't lie, like their name and their address.
These are called control questions.
So if you want to beat it,
when you're being asked what your name is,
sort of behave as if you were lying.
In other words, either think very exciting thoughts
or clench your anal sphincter.
They have a pad, er, a lot of these things,
where they sense involuntary clenches of the sphincter,
which is a sign, apparently, of lying.
- Is it?
- So if you do it when you're telling the truth,
they get completely thrown when you lie,
because it's the same response. That's the point.
Well, it's odd, 'cause on this programme, I've always got this.
Sitting here, waiting for the next question.
They could calibrate my anal sphincter from that.
- But you would have to--
- That wouldn't stand up in court, Clive.
Oddly enough, you can't use it in court in this country.
No, you can't, and you can't in America,
and they are just simply nonsense.
I mean, the FBI have said that they're
about as much use as astrology and tea leaves.
- Do you remember who invented the polygraph machine?
- Er, Polly Graph, herself!
- He was... His name was William Marston,
and he was the inventor of Wonder Woman.
- Ah.
Well, that's fantastic. That's a fantastic range of things to...
Wonder Woman and the polygraph!
- It is, isn't it?
- That's an achievement.
- A wide spectrum, exactly.
- A wide spectrum will give you away!
Hey.
Hey.
That's the first thing they're looking for!
But the point is, you have to contract your anal sphincter...
I say "anal sphincter" because, of course,
there are actually lots of sphincters in the body,
but the anal one--
- Well, why are you concentrating on the anal one?
Because that's where they have a detector in the... in a pad.
- A detective? Yes.
- A detector.
It's always the youngest one. "Right, you're underneath."
"Why me?"
"I've heard of going undercover, but this is ridiculous!"
"Is he clenching it?"
"No, not yet."
You have to tighten the sphincter without clenching--
"No, nothing yet, sir."
"Hang on."
Can you do it without clenching your buttocks, though?
Can you tighten the sphincter--
Can I do it without clenching my buttocks?
Yeah. That's what you have to do.
That's the little practice needed
just so you can tighten your sphincter,
but don't clench your buttocks.
I'm strengthening my pelvic floor, I know I am.
- Yeah? Doing that?
- Yes, yes.
- Yep.
- What's this pad look like?
I mean, has it got a tube? Is it like--
I'm doing it now! I'm doing it now!
Do I look like I'm lying?
Try not to roll your eyes.
Try not to roll your eyes so that you can see the whites.
I'm gripping quite hard on the seat!
The other... The other way to beat the test is...
is quite the opposite, is to relax completely.
There was a man called Aldridge Ames, who was a double agent
who worked for the Soviets but was also a CIA operative,
and he beat the polygraph twice. And he was very nervous
when he was going to be examined by the CIA,
who were sort of on to him, and his Soviet handler said, er,
"Get a good night's sleep and rest.
Go into the test rested and relaxed.
Be nice to the polygraph examiner, develop a rapport,
be cooperative, and try and maintain your calm,"
and that was enough to beat it twice.
You're certainly going to be nice to the one
who's shoving the... the thing up your anal sphincter.
- The pad, wouldn't you? Yes.
- In the nature of things.
You'd be pathetic with gratitude, wouldn't you? Yeah.
Well, there you are.
Apparently, the key to beating the lie detector
is a discreet flexing if your anal sphincter.
What's the best way to trick a female spy into exposing herself?
- The best-known female spy was Mata Hari.
- Yes, she was.
And you didn't need to, er, get her to expose herself
because she'd already done it.
Because before she was a spy,
she was a bit of an exotic, erotic dancer...
- She... She was that.
- I meant "expose herself" in purely innocent terms,
and reveal herself to be a spy from another country.
Someone...
For example, this was actually discovered by Heinrich M?ller,
the head of the Gestapo. He discovered--
Do you have sexual intercourse with her
and she cries out in her original language?
You're so close. You're absolutely on the right lines.
I don't care whether I'm close or not.
I just want to try it a few times and, er...
Unfortunately, there is a nine-month gap.
- You get her pregnant--
- Yes!
--and then if she's from Sweden, she says,
"I'd like to call the baby Leif." And you know.
- Apparently, according to the Gestapo, when a woman--
- Birth pains bring out your original language.
- When a... Exactly. When a woman screams with birth pain--
- "Fuck!"
- ...she can't help doing it in her own language.
- I'm guessing.
- It's not terribly efficient, time-wise, though, is it?
- No. It is the one--
"We need to know where the bomb has been planted."
"Just... Just a minute, sir! I'll get it out of her!"
It obviously is a wait, and that is the huge disadvantage.
But a female Russian radio operator, operating in Germany
during World War Two, was exposed this way when pregnant.
She couldn't help swearing in Russian, er,
having spoken perfect German and been taken to be a German.
Heinrich M?ller was...
was the head of the Gestapo,
and was probably the only senior Nazi
to escape completely without trace.
He walked out of the F?hrerbunker, 29th of April,
1945, and was never seen or heard of again.
- Until tonight!
- Until tonight! I believe... !
[Alan whips off his had and cackles demonically]
Now, what did Harry Houdini hide behind the mirror?
Ooh. We know he was killed by somebody
punching him in the stomach.
- A boy, wasn't it?
- Yes, it was one of his students.
Doing... Doing one of his usual tricks,
but he wasn't... he wasn't ready for it.
I think... he hid one of those!
- You are right, Jo Brand! Hey!
- Well done.
Yes! Well done. Elephant in the room.
Very good, indeed.
So, how did he hide a... an elephant behind a mirror?
It was his greatest stage illusion.
He was said to be not a very good magician,
partly because his personality was very tiresome,
and he just didn't have any panache onstage. Obviously--
I can't think of any magicians like that today!
No! He was obviously a great, er, escapologist,
but he brought this elephant, called Jenny, onto stage,
and instantly, she disappeared in front of the audience.
And it was a remarkable trick.
No one knew how he did it, and he didn't
reveal the secret. But having said that--
- The elephant knew!
- The elephant, apparently--
- It never forgot. It never forgot.
- Actually, Houdini's quoted as saying,
- "Even the elephant does not know how it's done."
- Yeah.
Essentially, it involved a mirror folding back that revealed,
er, an identically-done box in the flies of the thing.
So it reflected back and made it look
as if you were looking at the... the empty crate.
It's all done with mirrors.
All done with mirrors! Yes, exactly.
And it was impressive for those who sat in the right place.
The best things he did...
Houdini would go around the place
exposing charlatans and frauds.
That's what he was really good at.
You're absolutely right.
He knew when people were tricking people
out of money and conning people.
Well, like all magicians, obviously,
they only have to look at someone
who claims to be a spiritualist or a mind reader,
and you know they're just using magic.
I mean, it's what Darren Brown does;
it's what James Randy does in America.
So, who did Harry Houdini come in combative relations to?
Because there was a great man of the age who, rather tragically,
did believe in spiritualism and mediums
and dead people being able to talk.
- Oh, I don't know. Not--
- Was it, erm . . .
- He was a Briton.
- Was it Conan Doyle or something?
- It was Arthur Conan Doyle--
- Yeah. Yeah.
- ...who created Sherlock Holmes, who sadly--
- Believed in fairies, or--
...devoted the last twenty to thirty years of his life
believing in fairies and spiritualism and things,
and Houdini was foursquare against it,
but it was a period when
a lot of people did sort of believe
in these kinds of... and ectoplasm.
There's a great story about Conan Doyle, actually.
Just for a joke one day, he wrote a note saying,
"We are discovered; flee immediately," and he sent it to
five of his friends to see what they would do,
and one of them disappeared!
Isn't that brilliant!
- Yeah.
- And they had no idea why, but they never saw him again.
So Houdini, yes, as you were saying, he was punched in the stomach
by a student whose name was J Gordon Whitehead, erm...
- Apparently, he wasn't ready--
- Yes.
--'cause he's claimed that he could be punched
at any time by anyone and he could take that punch,
but this guy just tapped him on the shoulder
and went like that before he could tense his muscles.
Supposedly, er, that's what ruptured
something and caused peritonitis,
though it's now believed that he might
actually have had appendicitis already--
- Yeah.
- ...so it merely just, er, exacerbated it.
Didn't make the student feel any better, though, did it?
No. But there's been a recent demand to
have his body exhumed, and it may even be so, er...
You'd never get it out.
You'll never get it out of the coffin.
- Hey, hey! Very good.
- It won't be in there!
But they... They want to test it for poison, because
there are those who believe that spiritualists poisoned him
because he was giving them such a bad name,
but I think that's, er...
Can you test bones if you've been poisoned?
Oh, you can test bodies for poison for... 'Cause of the hair,
which never goes away; that retains a lot of poison--
- That's what you think.
- Very good!
Houdini was pretty remarkable, though. He could pick up pins
with his eyelashes. Eyelashes still attached to his eyes.
- I could do that.
- Yeah, can you, really?
You're pretty extraordinary, too.
He could also undo knows--
Not much of a stage act, though, is it?
- No, but it was a technique--
- Yeah.
- ...he used for his escapology. That's the point.
- Oh, I see.
- When he was naked and he was bound, and he was in a cell--
- Yeah.
...he had probably managed to get to the cell beforehand
and leave pins almost invisibly there,
that he could then pick up,
manouever down to his mouth, and then use.
- Tip of his tongue? Oh, extraordinary.
- He could undo knots and thread a needle--
- With his penis.
- ...with his toes. Yeah, with his feet, exactly.
- No, his penis.
- Oh, with his penis. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
I misread. I misread the...
No, it is actually "toes", funnily enough!
On this occasion, you're not right, Alan.
Erm, I don't know how that could be.
Anyway, Houdini hid an elephant in the Hippodrome
and never told anyone where he'd put it.
How can you tell when you've run out of invisible ink?
How never.
Don't you discover...
You see if invisible ink is there
by putting lemon or something on it?
So you'd have to just check--
- It is lemon.
- Oh, it is lemon.
Lemon itself is the invisible ink.
Well... Well, you put something on it to make it...
You heat it up? Or--
- Heat it. Yes.
- Heat it. So you'd have to keep heating it and check.
- Exactly.
- "Oh, that's all right."
Exactly, that's what you do. There's a... Lemon and...
Popular household ones are lemon and milk,
oddly enough, will... will do it.
- But the man who founded MI6--
- Yeah.
--whose, er, codename was "C",
who was a very eccentric and extraordinary man...
He discovered something else that would work
as invisible ink. Something that all his spies--
- Semen.
- ...carried around with them, exactly!
- Semen.
- Exactly.
He said, "Every man has his own stylo." Erm... His name,
rather pleasingly, was Mansfield Smith Cumming. It's all true.
"My name is Cumming. Mansfield Smith Cumming."
- Yeah, exactly.
- Mansfield Smith Cumming.
I can imagine he couldn't even write his own name, though,
could he? It was a bit long. Do you know what I mean?
- True.
- He'd just do a "C".
Oh, lawks!
He could do it on the ceiling!
When he was a younger man, obviously.
Yes, obviously. Dear, oh, dear!
There... There's a paining by
Marcel Duchamp called "The Bride Stripped"--
- "Bare by the Bachelors".
- Yeah. Well, there's this sort of smudge... smudgy affair on it.
And... And, er... He was in love with this woman,
and he had an affair with this woman for a long time,
and whenever he thought about her, he...
he filled one of his paint pots--
- With his . . .
- ...with his thoughts! And they analysed the painting,
- ...which was between two pieces of glass--
- Yeah.
...and they analysed the smudge,
and it is just a... a huge amount of semen.
Oh, splendid.
Well, they're very interesting--
And he knew about what that painting
was about, but no one else did.
That's rather pleasing, isn't it?
It's a gift to his loved one.
Erm, do you know that story of the Pittsburgh bank robber?
He was arrested for... while robbing a bank.
He was seen on a... squinting rather oddly,
but on a surveillance camera in the bank,
and he was astonished to be stopped by the police.
And... And he said,
"How did you see me?
I had the lemon juice all over my face!"
Somebody had told him that if he covered himself in lemon juice,
he wouldn't be visible. This was in 1995. Bless him!
You know, you can also get rid of a
port wine stain on the face with lemon.
- Can you?
- No!
I fall for it every time! It's pathetic, isn't it?
Dear, oh, dear, oh, dear.
Anyway, erm, invisible ink.
Er, the answer to a question we can't tell anybody has ever asked.
Something more tangible now, however.
How did loo paper help to win the Cold War?
Was there a shortage of loo paper in the,
er, eastern part of the world, and they--
- There was--
- Yes.
...a shortage of loo paper behind the Iron Curtain.
- The loo paper was made in America, let's say--
- Ah.
...and then they didn't let the Russians have any,
so they were confused.
That would have been clever. What happened is,
the Russians instead used documents, er,
and all kinds of things for loo paper because...
there was nothing else to use.
- And an operation called Operation Tamarisk--
- Documents?!
meant that the spies behind the Iron Curtain had to go
into these bins and find the paper that had been used--
--'cause it wasn't soluble like lavatory paper,
and couldn't be used in the sewage system.
- Oh, right.
- So it was thrown out in bins.
- Gone right off spying, now!
- You see!
- I used to think it was quite glamorous.
- It's not all glamour, I'm afraid!
Because in military hospitals, the paper refuse that
they went through also contained amputated limbs.
And the spies were complaining to their handlers back in
America and the UK and France, and said, you know,
"It's horrible; We've got to go through bins
and there's these amputated limbs.
And we're gotta go through those as well as used lavatory paper."
And then, of course, their spymaster said,
"Oh, bring back the limbs, as well! We want to see
what sort of shrapnel they're using!"
So they had to carry around severed limbs and excreted matter.
So if they were stopped going through customs:
"Could you just open the bag?"
- It's a bit of a shock.
- Yes.
- Even... Even for a customs officer who's seen everything.
- "It's for personal use!"
But apparently, according to The Hidden Hand,
by Richard Aldridge, a book that covers this,
it says that operation Tamarisk was "very successful". It...
Maybe without it, we'd still have communist Russia. Who knows?
But how would you use gummy bears to rob a bank?
- Pass them over. I... I need to look at them.
- I thought you might.
- I might just take a handful myself--
- Okay.
...because I happen to be rather partial.
- Aren't they good?
- What I would do--
- Yeah?
...is sneak up behind the... the bank clerks
and push them into their eyes! Where they couldn't...
On a hot... Perhaps on a hot day, so they couldn't actually
peel them off. While I'd just go and riffle through the drawers.
- Any other thoughts?
- Just simply bribery.
- Not much people wouldn't' do for a gummy bear!
- "Give me the money!" "No!" "Gummy bear?" "Ohh..."
- Bring them to life and use them as a tiny jelly army.
- Yes! I want to see that.
If you stuck them all over your face,
they could be a brilliant disguise,
'cause you'd just look like an idiot with lots of sweets
stuck to your face. They'd never suspect you.
- It would be called "bear-faced cheek", wouldn't it?
- Are they made--
Now!
Sorry.
Can you use them as some sort of plastic explosives?
Are they in that family?
- It's... Well, not gelignite, but what are they made of?
- Gelatin.
- Gelatin, yeah. If you melt them down, all right--
- You can make a whale.
A Japanese cryptographer whose name is Tsutomo Matsumoto
has found that he can fool 80% of all fingerprint detectors
using a fake finger made from gummy bears.
You get someone's finger, and you dip it in the mould material--
--and you make a mould, then you pour the gelatin into the mould,
and you've got yourself a little gummy finger.
You do that when you go to America, now.
They make you do that.
Yes. They do.
So you've got to get the bank manager
to put his finger in your gum first?
- Well, that was his first thing.
- Yes.
Obviously, he was doing it as an experiment,
but he's discovered, with the same rate of success,
all he has to do is just take someone's
fingerprint photographed off glass--
- Yes.
- ...and he can make a gummy finger.
- So there, an unwilling person--
- Or, you can use a monkey.
- How?
- 'Cause they've got fingerprints!
Well, they have, but you have to have the fingerprints
that are recognised by the machine,
so the monkey that runs that particular company
that you want to get into, obviously...
Or, what would happen, though,
if you worked in the pineapple industry?
- Free pineapples!
You would get free pineapples, but can you think of
anything related to your fingerprints and pineapples?
- Well, they're get... They get... Quite spiky!
- They are spiky. That's true.
The pineapple is the only fruit to have fingerprints.
It... It has an enzyme, er, which is called Bromelin,
'cause they're bromeliads, aren't they,
pineapples, and bromelin actually erases and destroys
the fingerprints of people who work with pineapples.
It was used as a plot point in an episode of
Hawaii Five-O, would you believe?
Episode one, I should think! Because they're really...
Pineapples are supposed to be very good if you've got mouth ulcers,
er, so that... that would, I assume, be the same sort of process.
Seizing up your mouth ulcers; removing your fingerprints.
It might be. Proteolysis, it's called, which is the...
the eating of proteins by enzymes. The digestion of them.
So if I left my fingers in a... in a tin of, erm, pineapple rings
overnight, I would... I could become a master criminal by morning!
- It's perfectly possible!
- You could just have five pineapple chunks.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm preparing for the raid."
If you didn't have any fingerprints,
would you be allowed into America?
That would mean somebody without
any hands wouldn't be allowed to go.
That'd mean there would be no
pineapple workers in America.
Yeah. And that... that way, madness lies. Surely.
Now, what's the best thing to do in a falling lift?
[Peter Gunn theme]
Yes, Clive.
Well, strictly speaking, I don't know, but I'd like to...
to say that I once interviewed a man who had been in a falling lift,
and we were investigating the theory,
which I know I'll lose points for if I say it out loud,
that by jumping up just before it hits the ground, you can, sort of--
[Forfeit: Klaxons sound.]
You see, there it is! We were investigating this theory--
- Yes. It's so very unfair to forfeit you there.
- ...and he, erm... he was sort of very deadpan about it
and he had survived this experience, and he... he sort of
said that maybe jumping up may have... may have helped, but, er...
What about making everyone else in the lift lie down, so that
when you splat on the ground, you're sort of cushioned by them?
This is it. This is more or less what...
what Clive was saying about the thing...
It is, basically, lie down on a fat person as you're going down.
- No wonder everyone smiles when I get in the lift!
- And that's probably the best one.
Particularly when you get in and have a lie down!
- A long journey, you might.
- Which I often do!
Sometimes, they give the rather alarming advice of
"bend your knees slightly just so when you hit the ground,
your thigh bones don't go up through your abdomen".
But that's pretty unpleasant.
- Has this even happened?
- Erm, well... Yes and no.
The rope snaps and you say,
"Would you mind lying down so I can lie on top of you?"
You've only got a couple of seconds to think about it.
While hurtling to the ground.
Well, first of all, it is a very improbably scenario,
because multiple cables support every lift,
each cable capable of holding the entire lift.
- There's no rope, then.
- Plus, if they were all to go, they...
they have emergency brakes on them,
and they have had, since, you know, the 1850s and '60s.
Don't you think they should tell people
that write thrillers about that fact?
Er, yeah. They don't have strange little vents
that you can climb up through.
They're always plunging to their death, aren't they?
What is it when...
There are people who are frightened of being in lifts.
What are they actually frightened of?
Are they frightened of this happening?
Or getting stuck. A kind of claustrophobia mixed with that.
Er, in a skyscraper, lifts can achieve speeds of
up to 120 mph by the time it hits the bottom.
But the problem with jumping is,
it might take 5 mph of this 120 if you did it.
You'd have to time it perfectly.
Plus, lifts bounce, 'cause there's springs at the bottom.
So you'd be in real trouble;
you'd bang your head and everything.
So, yeah. Basically, just
"get the impact cushioned" is the answer.
Now, there was a time when all the cable on a lift were
sheared off, in, er, the Empire State Building.
- Do you know about this story?
- Ah, there was a huge ape on the outside.
- I've seen it. And his paw was just covered in... this thing, and...
- It was beauty!
- Dreadful, yes.
- Beauty brought down the lift.
It sounds like a murder attempt of some sort.
- Er, no, it was... it was an aeroplane.
- A criminal act?
A B-25 bomber in 1945 collided with the building,
in an eerie foreshadowing of 9/11, I suppose you would say.
In fact, it's the... the only time before 9/11 such a thing
had happened. Killed eleven of the office workers,
and one of the engines broke off and actually sheared through
all the cables on a lift. There were two women in that lift.
The brakes did work, and they went all the way down
to the bottom and survived,
'cause they just slowed it...
slowed it right down.
So it proved Otis's point that, er, you know,
their safety measures are pretty damn good.
So, there you have it. Yes, the best thing to do in a
falling lift is lie on top of a fat person like me.
So, er, to the padded cell of General Ignorance,
where our victims protest that they know nothing,
but we go ahead and torture them anyway.
In which country are you most likely to see a tornado?
["I spy with my little eye!"]
Yes, Alan.
- I'm going, er, Russia.
- It is not the right answer.
[Mission Impossible theme]
Luxembourg.
A wild stab in the dark, or do you know something?
- I know something.
- It's not right.
[Inspector Gadget theme]
Yes.
- Derbyshire. I know it's got to be somewhere like that.
- It is a country, rather than a county.
[Mission Impossible theme]
America.
[Forfeit: Klaxons sound.]
Oh, Jo, you fell for it.
- That'll do it. Mongolia.
- Er, no.
- Kazakhstan.
- Are you going to go through all the "-stans"?
- Yes!
- 'Cause I'm going to say "no" to them all!
- Not "Kazak-", not "Uzbeki-"--
- Can we do a...
Can you give us a clue?
Can you give us a continent?
- Yes, we're in it.
- Europe. Germany.
- We're even more in it!
- England!
- England?
- "The United Kingdom" is the right answer, yes.
Well, hang on, then, Stephen. You've got to back this up, er...
When did you last see a tornado in--
- There was one in Birmingham last... It was on the news.
- That's it.
On the 21st of November, 1981,
there were 104 tornadoes in Britain in a single day.
- Which day?
- 21st of November, 1981.
- Oh, right. Yes.
A University of Leeds study in 2004 suggested that the actual average
number of tornadoes in Britain is higher than a hundred a year,
so it's one every three days, roughly. But, er, meteorologist
Dr Tetsuya Fujita has the scale of tornado frequency and incident.
If Britain has an average of 33 tornadoes every year,
and in fact, it's probably more than that,
in an area 38 times smaller than the USA, you are twice as likely
to witness a tornado in the UK than you are in America.
- A friend of mine lived through that Birmingham tornado--
- Oh, really?
...and, erm, he was sat on the bus the following day
and an old lady behind him said to her mate,
"D'ye know what happened yesterday?
We had a torpedo!"
- "Torpedo"?
- "Torpedo."
- "We had a torpedo..."
- Tornado Alley. Where's that?
- Kansas.
- Birmingham.
- Sorry?
- Kansas.
- Er, yeah. It's a number of states.
It's Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and South Dakota.
It's where the... the... that main season of really heavy tornadoes--
- "It's a twister!"
- They're... "That's right!"
And they're bad. I mean, obviously,
they are much worse, as a rule, than British ones.
- So bad, you can get blown all the way to Oz.
- You can, exactly! And not be in Kansas anymore.
- Yes.
Now, what shouldn't you do for twenty minutes after lunch?
["I spy with my little eye."]
- Yes.
- Swim!
[Forfeit: Klaxons sound.]
Oh, Alan! Oh!
- I can't believe that! That's... Surely, everybody knows that.
- And it's a complete myth.
- It gives you stomach cramps.
- It's absolute nonsense.
Basically, parents who don't want to supervise
their children in swimming pools
'cause they personally want to go and sleep, probably,
but the fact is that you don't get cramps after eating.
There is no evidence of anybody getting into trouble
as a result of swimming after eating.
What, if you dive into the water, doesn't your stomach burst apart?
They used to say that at school.
"Oh, yes, diving in after a heavy meal;
it splashes, and belly flop; water'll go everywhere!"
Indeed, and for some reason,
it's just something that's popularly held
that is absolutely not backed up by any fact whatsoever
that's known to medical science or anything else.
That's the answer to that question,
and it brings us to the final reckoning.
And our ace of spies tonight...
Well, we have two of them.
In joint first place, with five points each,
it's Vic and Clive!
And closely shadowing them,
with four points, Jo Brand!
But I'm afraid, with his cover completely blown,
on minus eight, it's Alan Davies!
Well, that's all from Clive, Vic, Jo, Alan, and me. I leave you
with this chilling report of modern espionage recruitment techniques.
Two men and a woman recently made
the shortlist for CIA assassin.
And the first man was taken to a door
and told that his wife was in there sitting on a chair,
and he was given a gun and told to go in and kill her.
And he said, [American accent] "I can't do that.
I cannot kill my wife. You can't ask me to."
And they said, "Well, then you, can't be a hit man for the CIA."
And so, he left. And the second man was told the same thing.
He went in; five minutes passed; he came out in tears.
He said, "I can't do it. I'm sorry.
I just can't do it. I can't be a CIA killer."
And then, the woman's turn came. They said.
"This is your final test. You're husband's in there, sitting on a chair;
here's a gun; go in, kill him."
She went through the door, she barely closed the door.
They heard six rounds fired straight away.
Then banging, screaming, and shouting. Then she came out.
She said, "You bastards!
You might have told me there were blanks in the gun."
"I had to beat him to death with the chair leg!"
Good night.
good evening, good evening, good evening,
and welcome to QI-Spy,
where tonight, the codeword is "Espionage"!
[An ominous sting, on strings, plays on speakers.]
Concealed amongst you are four masters of disguise.
Special agent Jo Brand!
Undercover man, Clive Anderson!
Counter-intelligence operative, Vic Reeves!
And the spy in the ointment, Alan Davies!
Now, please identify yourself by your call signs. Jo goes:
[Mission Impossible theme]
Clive goes:
[Peter Gunn theme]
Vic goes:
[Inspector Gadget theme]
And Alan goes:
[voice of a little girl lisping, "I spy with my little eye!"]
And remember, in Series "E", the watchword is "constant vigilance".
If you spy an elephant in the room
inform your handler immediately.
Now, first question. Do you know how to beat a lie detector?
[Mission Impossible theme]
- Jo.
Spot of gentle masturbation?
[Stephen breathes in and out uncertainly, lost for words]
There is a... There's a kind of logic in what you're saying.
Can you expand, as it were?
You know what I mean!
[Jo laughs shortly]
Why would that help?
Well, it would help because you'd get yourself into
a slightly different, sort of, state of consciousness,
so that you would fool the lie detector into thinking
that something was going on that actually wasn't going on.
But I don't think that that's gonna work,
because if you're rubbing your genitals,
or they're in a state of excitement, you lie naturally anyway,
so it'll be obvious... it'll be obvious whatever you say is a lie.
- Well...
- "I do love you!" Erm...
- What's it called? A stenograph?
- Well, it's a polygraph.
- A polygraph.
- Polygraph.
It's called a polygraph, and it kind of tests the...
detects your... your, erm, sweat, and--
- There are a number of things.
- Blood pressure...
Sweat, palpitations, vibrations in the body
and various clenchings of muscles and so on.
But in order to see how it works,
you obviously have to ask people a series of questions
to which they don't lie, like their name and their address.
These are called control questions.
So if you want to beat it,
when you're being asked what your name is,
sort of behave as if you were lying.
In other words, either think very exciting thoughts
or clench your anal sphincter.
They have a pad, er, a lot of these things,
where they sense involuntary clenches of the sphincter,
which is a sign, apparently, of lying.
- Is it?
- So if you do it when you're telling the truth,
they get completely thrown when you lie,
because it's the same response. That's the point.
Well, it's odd, 'cause on this programme, I've always got this.
Sitting here, waiting for the next question.
They could calibrate my anal sphincter from that.
- But you would have to--
- That wouldn't stand up in court, Clive.
Oddly enough, you can't use it in court in this country.
No, you can't, and you can't in America,
and they are just simply nonsense.
I mean, the FBI have said that they're
about as much use as astrology and tea leaves.
- Do you remember who invented the polygraph machine?
- Er, Polly Graph, herself!
- He was... His name was William Marston,
and he was the inventor of Wonder Woman.
- Ah.
Well, that's fantastic. That's a fantastic range of things to...
Wonder Woman and the polygraph!
- It is, isn't it?
- That's an achievement.
- A wide spectrum, exactly.
- A wide spectrum will give you away!
Hey.
Hey.
That's the first thing they're looking for!
But the point is, you have to contract your anal sphincter...
I say "anal sphincter" because, of course,
there are actually lots of sphincters in the body,
but the anal one--
- Well, why are you concentrating on the anal one?
Because that's where they have a detector in the... in a pad.
- A detective? Yes.
- A detector.
It's always the youngest one. "Right, you're underneath."
"Why me?"
"I've heard of going undercover, but this is ridiculous!"
"Is he clenching it?"
"No, not yet."
You have to tighten the sphincter without clenching--
"No, nothing yet, sir."
"Hang on."
Can you do it without clenching your buttocks, though?
Can you tighten the sphincter--
Can I do it without clenching my buttocks?
Yeah. That's what you have to do.
That's the little practice needed
just so you can tighten your sphincter,
but don't clench your buttocks.
I'm strengthening my pelvic floor, I know I am.
- Yeah? Doing that?
- Yes, yes.
- Yep.
- What's this pad look like?
I mean, has it got a tube? Is it like--
I'm doing it now! I'm doing it now!
Do I look like I'm lying?
Try not to roll your eyes.
Try not to roll your eyes so that you can see the whites.
I'm gripping quite hard on the seat!
The other... The other way to beat the test is...
is quite the opposite, is to relax completely.
There was a man called Aldridge Ames, who was a double agent
who worked for the Soviets but was also a CIA operative,
and he beat the polygraph twice. And he was very nervous
when he was going to be examined by the CIA,
who were sort of on to him, and his Soviet handler said, er,
"Get a good night's sleep and rest.
Go into the test rested and relaxed.
Be nice to the polygraph examiner, develop a rapport,
be cooperative, and try and maintain your calm,"
and that was enough to beat it twice.
You're certainly going to be nice to the one
who's shoving the... the thing up your anal sphincter.
- The pad, wouldn't you? Yes.
- In the nature of things.
You'd be pathetic with gratitude, wouldn't you? Yeah.
Well, there you are.
Apparently, the key to beating the lie detector
is a discreet flexing if your anal sphincter.
What's the best way to trick a female spy into exposing herself?
- The best-known female spy was Mata Hari.
- Yes, she was.
And you didn't need to, er, get her to expose herself
because she'd already done it.
Because before she was a spy,
she was a bit of an exotic, erotic dancer...
- She... She was that.
- I meant "expose herself" in purely innocent terms,
and reveal herself to be a spy from another country.
Someone...
For example, this was actually discovered by Heinrich M?ller,
the head of the Gestapo. He discovered--
Do you have sexual intercourse with her
and she cries out in her original language?
You're so close. You're absolutely on the right lines.
I don't care whether I'm close or not.
I just want to try it a few times and, er...
Unfortunately, there is a nine-month gap.
- You get her pregnant--
- Yes!
--and then if she's from Sweden, she says,
"I'd like to call the baby Leif." And you know.
- Apparently, according to the Gestapo, when a woman--
- Birth pains bring out your original language.
- When a... Exactly. When a woman screams with birth pain--
- "Fuck!"
- ...she can't help doing it in her own language.
- I'm guessing.
- It's not terribly efficient, time-wise, though, is it?
- No. It is the one--
"We need to know where the bomb has been planted."
"Just... Just a minute, sir! I'll get it out of her!"
It obviously is a wait, and that is the huge disadvantage.
But a female Russian radio operator, operating in Germany
during World War Two, was exposed this way when pregnant.
She couldn't help swearing in Russian, er,
having spoken perfect German and been taken to be a German.
Heinrich M?ller was...
was the head of the Gestapo,
and was probably the only senior Nazi
to escape completely without trace.
He walked out of the F?hrerbunker, 29th of April,
1945, and was never seen or heard of again.
- Until tonight!
- Until tonight! I believe... !
[Alan whips off his had and cackles demonically]
Now, what did Harry Houdini hide behind the mirror?
Ooh. We know he was killed by somebody
punching him in the stomach.
- A boy, wasn't it?
- Yes, it was one of his students.
Doing... Doing one of his usual tricks,
but he wasn't... he wasn't ready for it.
I think... he hid one of those!
- You are right, Jo Brand! Hey!
- Well done.
Yes! Well done. Elephant in the room.
Very good, indeed.
So, how did he hide a... an elephant behind a mirror?
It was his greatest stage illusion.
He was said to be not a very good magician,
partly because his personality was very tiresome,
and he just didn't have any panache onstage. Obviously--
I can't think of any magicians like that today!
No! He was obviously a great, er, escapologist,
but he brought this elephant, called Jenny, onto stage,
and instantly, she disappeared in front of the audience.
And it was a remarkable trick.
No one knew how he did it, and he didn't
reveal the secret. But having said that--
- The elephant knew!
- The elephant, apparently--
- It never forgot. It never forgot.
- Actually, Houdini's quoted as saying,
- "Even the elephant does not know how it's done."
- Yeah.
Essentially, it involved a mirror folding back that revealed,
er, an identically-done box in the flies of the thing.
So it reflected back and made it look
as if you were looking at the... the empty crate.
It's all done with mirrors.
All done with mirrors! Yes, exactly.
And it was impressive for those who sat in the right place.
The best things he did...
Houdini would go around the place
exposing charlatans and frauds.
That's what he was really good at.
You're absolutely right.
He knew when people were tricking people
out of money and conning people.
Well, like all magicians, obviously,
they only have to look at someone
who claims to be a spiritualist or a mind reader,
and you know they're just using magic.
I mean, it's what Darren Brown does;
it's what James Randy does in America.
So, who did Harry Houdini come in combative relations to?
Because there was a great man of the age who, rather tragically,
did believe in spiritualism and mediums
and dead people being able to talk.
- Oh, I don't know. Not--
- Was it, erm . . .
- He was a Briton.
- Was it Conan Doyle or something?
- It was Arthur Conan Doyle--
- Yeah. Yeah.
- ...who created Sherlock Holmes, who sadly--
- Believed in fairies, or--
...devoted the last twenty to thirty years of his life
believing in fairies and spiritualism and things,
and Houdini was foursquare against it,
but it was a period when
a lot of people did sort of believe
in these kinds of... and ectoplasm.
There's a great story about Conan Doyle, actually.
Just for a joke one day, he wrote a note saying,
"We are discovered; flee immediately," and he sent it to
five of his friends to see what they would do,
and one of them disappeared!
Isn't that brilliant!
- Yeah.
- And they had no idea why, but they never saw him again.
So Houdini, yes, as you were saying, he was punched in the stomach
by a student whose name was J Gordon Whitehead, erm...
- Apparently, he wasn't ready--
- Yes.
--'cause he's claimed that he could be punched
at any time by anyone and he could take that punch,
but this guy just tapped him on the shoulder
and went like that before he could tense his muscles.
Supposedly, er, that's what ruptured
something and caused peritonitis,
though it's now believed that he might
actually have had appendicitis already--
- Yeah.
- ...so it merely just, er, exacerbated it.
Didn't make the student feel any better, though, did it?
No. But there's been a recent demand to
have his body exhumed, and it may even be so, er...
You'd never get it out.
You'll never get it out of the coffin.
- Hey, hey! Very good.
- It won't be in there!
But they... They want to test it for poison, because
there are those who believe that spiritualists poisoned him
because he was giving them such a bad name,
but I think that's, er...
Can you test bones if you've been poisoned?
Oh, you can test bodies for poison for... 'Cause of the hair,
which never goes away; that retains a lot of poison--
- That's what you think.
- Very good!
Houdini was pretty remarkable, though. He could pick up pins
with his eyelashes. Eyelashes still attached to his eyes.
- I could do that.
- Yeah, can you, really?
You're pretty extraordinary, too.
He could also undo knows--
Not much of a stage act, though, is it?
- No, but it was a technique--
- Yeah.
- ...he used for his escapology. That's the point.
- Oh, I see.
- When he was naked and he was bound, and he was in a cell--
- Yeah.
...he had probably managed to get to the cell beforehand
and leave pins almost invisibly there,
that he could then pick up,
manouever down to his mouth, and then use.
- Tip of his tongue? Oh, extraordinary.
- He could undo knots and thread a needle--
- With his penis.
- ...with his toes. Yeah, with his feet, exactly.
- No, his penis.
- Oh, with his penis. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
I misread. I misread the...
No, it is actually "toes", funnily enough!
On this occasion, you're not right, Alan.
Erm, I don't know how that could be.
Anyway, Houdini hid an elephant in the Hippodrome
and never told anyone where he'd put it.
How can you tell when you've run out of invisible ink?
How never.
Don't you discover...
You see if invisible ink is there
by putting lemon or something on it?
So you'd have to just check--
- It is lemon.
- Oh, it is lemon.
Lemon itself is the invisible ink.
Well... Well, you put something on it to make it...
You heat it up? Or--
- Heat it. Yes.
- Heat it. So you'd have to keep heating it and check.
- Exactly.
- "Oh, that's all right."
Exactly, that's what you do. There's a... Lemon and...
Popular household ones are lemon and milk,
oddly enough, will... will do it.
- But the man who founded MI6--
- Yeah.
--whose, er, codename was "C",
who was a very eccentric and extraordinary man...
He discovered something else that would work
as invisible ink. Something that all his spies--
- Semen.
- ...carried around with them, exactly!
- Semen.
- Exactly.
He said, "Every man has his own stylo." Erm... His name,
rather pleasingly, was Mansfield Smith Cumming. It's all true.
"My name is Cumming. Mansfield Smith Cumming."
- Yeah, exactly.
- Mansfield Smith Cumming.
I can imagine he couldn't even write his own name, though,
could he? It was a bit long. Do you know what I mean?
- True.
- He'd just do a "C".
Oh, lawks!
He could do it on the ceiling!
When he was a younger man, obviously.
Yes, obviously. Dear, oh, dear!
There... There's a paining by
Marcel Duchamp called "The Bride Stripped"--
- "Bare by the Bachelors".
- Yeah. Well, there's this sort of smudge... smudgy affair on it.
And... And, er... He was in love with this woman,
and he had an affair with this woman for a long time,
and whenever he thought about her, he...
he filled one of his paint pots--
- With his . . .
- ...with his thoughts! And they analysed the painting,
- ...which was between two pieces of glass--
- Yeah.
...and they analysed the smudge,
and it is just a... a huge amount of semen.
Oh, splendid.
Well, they're very interesting--
And he knew about what that painting
was about, but no one else did.
That's rather pleasing, isn't it?
It's a gift to his loved one.
Erm, do you know that story of the Pittsburgh bank robber?
He was arrested for... while robbing a bank.
He was seen on a... squinting rather oddly,
but on a surveillance camera in the bank,
and he was astonished to be stopped by the police.
And... And he said,
"How did you see me?
I had the lemon juice all over my face!"
Somebody had told him that if he covered himself in lemon juice,
he wouldn't be visible. This was in 1995. Bless him!
You know, you can also get rid of a
port wine stain on the face with lemon.
- Can you?
- No!
I fall for it every time! It's pathetic, isn't it?
Dear, oh, dear, oh, dear.
Anyway, erm, invisible ink.
Er, the answer to a question we can't tell anybody has ever asked.
Something more tangible now, however.
How did loo paper help to win the Cold War?
Was there a shortage of loo paper in the,
er, eastern part of the world, and they--
- There was--
- Yes.
...a shortage of loo paper behind the Iron Curtain.
- The loo paper was made in America, let's say--
- Ah.
...and then they didn't let the Russians have any,
so they were confused.
That would have been clever. What happened is,
the Russians instead used documents, er,
and all kinds of things for loo paper because...
there was nothing else to use.
- And an operation called Operation Tamarisk--
- Documents?!
meant that the spies behind the Iron Curtain had to go
into these bins and find the paper that had been used--
--'cause it wasn't soluble like lavatory paper,
and couldn't be used in the sewage system.
- Oh, right.
- So it was thrown out in bins.
- Gone right off spying, now!
- You see!
- I used to think it was quite glamorous.
- It's not all glamour, I'm afraid!
Because in military hospitals, the paper refuse that
they went through also contained amputated limbs.
And the spies were complaining to their handlers back in
America and the UK and France, and said, you know,
"It's horrible; We've got to go through bins
and there's these amputated limbs.
And we're gotta go through those as well as used lavatory paper."
And then, of course, their spymaster said,
"Oh, bring back the limbs, as well! We want to see
what sort of shrapnel they're using!"
So they had to carry around severed limbs and excreted matter.
So if they were stopped going through customs:
"Could you just open the bag?"
- It's a bit of a shock.
- Yes.
- Even... Even for a customs officer who's seen everything.
- "It's for personal use!"
But apparently, according to The Hidden Hand,
by Richard Aldridge, a book that covers this,
it says that operation Tamarisk was "very successful". It...
Maybe without it, we'd still have communist Russia. Who knows?
But how would you use gummy bears to rob a bank?
- Pass them over. I... I need to look at them.
- I thought you might.
- I might just take a handful myself--
- Okay.
...because I happen to be rather partial.
- Aren't they good?
- What I would do--
- Yeah?
...is sneak up behind the... the bank clerks
and push them into their eyes! Where they couldn't...
On a hot... Perhaps on a hot day, so they couldn't actually
peel them off. While I'd just go and riffle through the drawers.
- Any other thoughts?
- Just simply bribery.
- Not much people wouldn't' do for a gummy bear!
- "Give me the money!" "No!" "Gummy bear?" "Ohh..."
- Bring them to life and use them as a tiny jelly army.
- Yes! I want to see that.
If you stuck them all over your face,
they could be a brilliant disguise,
'cause you'd just look like an idiot with lots of sweets
stuck to your face. They'd never suspect you.
- It would be called "bear-faced cheek", wouldn't it?
- Are they made--
Now!
Sorry.
Can you use them as some sort of plastic explosives?
Are they in that family?
- It's... Well, not gelignite, but what are they made of?
- Gelatin.
- Gelatin, yeah. If you melt them down, all right--
- You can make a whale.
A Japanese cryptographer whose name is Tsutomo Matsumoto
has found that he can fool 80% of all fingerprint detectors
using a fake finger made from gummy bears.
You get someone's finger, and you dip it in the mould material--
--and you make a mould, then you pour the gelatin into the mould,
and you've got yourself a little gummy finger.
You do that when you go to America, now.
They make you do that.
Yes. They do.
So you've got to get the bank manager
to put his finger in your gum first?
- Well, that was his first thing.
- Yes.
Obviously, he was doing it as an experiment,
but he's discovered, with the same rate of success,
all he has to do is just take someone's
fingerprint photographed off glass--
- Yes.
- ...and he can make a gummy finger.
- So there, an unwilling person--
- Or, you can use a monkey.
- How?
- 'Cause they've got fingerprints!
Well, they have, but you have to have the fingerprints
that are recognised by the machine,
so the monkey that runs that particular company
that you want to get into, obviously...
Or, what would happen, though,
if you worked in the pineapple industry?
- Free pineapples!
You would get free pineapples, but can you think of
anything related to your fingerprints and pineapples?
- Well, they're get... They get... Quite spiky!
- They are spiky. That's true.
The pineapple is the only fruit to have fingerprints.
It... It has an enzyme, er, which is called Bromelin,
'cause they're bromeliads, aren't they,
pineapples, and bromelin actually erases and destroys
the fingerprints of people who work with pineapples.
It was used as a plot point in an episode of
Hawaii Five-O, would you believe?
Episode one, I should think! Because they're really...
Pineapples are supposed to be very good if you've got mouth ulcers,
er, so that... that would, I assume, be the same sort of process.
Seizing up your mouth ulcers; removing your fingerprints.
It might be. Proteolysis, it's called, which is the...
the eating of proteins by enzymes. The digestion of them.
So if I left my fingers in a... in a tin of, erm, pineapple rings
overnight, I would... I could become a master criminal by morning!
- It's perfectly possible!
- You could just have five pineapple chunks.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm preparing for the raid."
If you didn't have any fingerprints,
would you be allowed into America?
That would mean somebody without
any hands wouldn't be allowed to go.
That'd mean there would be no
pineapple workers in America.
Yeah. And that... that way, madness lies. Surely.
Now, what's the best thing to do in a falling lift?
[Peter Gunn theme]
Yes, Clive.
Well, strictly speaking, I don't know, but I'd like to...
to say that I once interviewed a man who had been in a falling lift,
and we were investigating the theory,
which I know I'll lose points for if I say it out loud,
that by jumping up just before it hits the ground, you can, sort of--
[Forfeit: Klaxons sound.]
You see, there it is! We were investigating this theory--
- Yes. It's so very unfair to forfeit you there.
- ...and he, erm... he was sort of very deadpan about it
and he had survived this experience, and he... he sort of
said that maybe jumping up may have... may have helped, but, er...
What about making everyone else in the lift lie down, so that
when you splat on the ground, you're sort of cushioned by them?
This is it. This is more or less what...
what Clive was saying about the thing...
It is, basically, lie down on a fat person as you're going down.
- No wonder everyone smiles when I get in the lift!
- And that's probably the best one.
Particularly when you get in and have a lie down!
- A long journey, you might.
- Which I often do!
Sometimes, they give the rather alarming advice of
"bend your knees slightly just so when you hit the ground,
your thigh bones don't go up through your abdomen".
But that's pretty unpleasant.
- Has this even happened?
- Erm, well... Yes and no.
The rope snaps and you say,
"Would you mind lying down so I can lie on top of you?"
You've only got a couple of seconds to think about it.
While hurtling to the ground.
Well, first of all, it is a very improbably scenario,
because multiple cables support every lift,
each cable capable of holding the entire lift.
- There's no rope, then.
- Plus, if they were all to go, they...
they have emergency brakes on them,
and they have had, since, you know, the 1850s and '60s.
Don't you think they should tell people
that write thrillers about that fact?
Er, yeah. They don't have strange little vents
that you can climb up through.
They're always plunging to their death, aren't they?
What is it when...
There are people who are frightened of being in lifts.
What are they actually frightened of?
Are they frightened of this happening?
Or getting stuck. A kind of claustrophobia mixed with that.
Er, in a skyscraper, lifts can achieve speeds of
up to 120 mph by the time it hits the bottom.
But the problem with jumping is,
it might take 5 mph of this 120 if you did it.
You'd have to time it perfectly.
Plus, lifts bounce, 'cause there's springs at the bottom.
So you'd be in real trouble;
you'd bang your head and everything.
So, yeah. Basically, just
"get the impact cushioned" is the answer.
Now, there was a time when all the cable on a lift were
sheared off, in, er, the Empire State Building.
- Do you know about this story?
- Ah, there was a huge ape on the outside.
- I've seen it. And his paw was just covered in... this thing, and...
- It was beauty!
- Dreadful, yes.
- Beauty brought down the lift.
It sounds like a murder attempt of some sort.
- Er, no, it was... it was an aeroplane.
- A criminal act?
A B-25 bomber in 1945 collided with the building,
in an eerie foreshadowing of 9/11, I suppose you would say.
In fact, it's the... the only time before 9/11 such a thing
had happened. Killed eleven of the office workers,
and one of the engines broke off and actually sheared through
all the cables on a lift. There were two women in that lift.
The brakes did work, and they went all the way down
to the bottom and survived,
'cause they just slowed it...
slowed it right down.
So it proved Otis's point that, er, you know,
their safety measures are pretty damn good.
So, there you have it. Yes, the best thing to do in a
falling lift is lie on top of a fat person like me.
So, er, to the padded cell of General Ignorance,
where our victims protest that they know nothing,
but we go ahead and torture them anyway.
In which country are you most likely to see a tornado?
["I spy with my little eye!"]
Yes, Alan.
- I'm going, er, Russia.
- It is not the right answer.
[Mission Impossible theme]
Luxembourg.
A wild stab in the dark, or do you know something?
- I know something.
- It's not right.
[Inspector Gadget theme]
Yes.
- Derbyshire. I know it's got to be somewhere like that.
- It is a country, rather than a county.
[Mission Impossible theme]
America.
[Forfeit: Klaxons sound.]
Oh, Jo, you fell for it.
- That'll do it. Mongolia.
- Er, no.
- Kazakhstan.
- Are you going to go through all the "-stans"?
- Yes!
- 'Cause I'm going to say "no" to them all!
- Not "Kazak-", not "Uzbeki-"--
- Can we do a...
Can you give us a clue?
Can you give us a continent?
- Yes, we're in it.
- Europe. Germany.
- We're even more in it!
- England!
- England?
- "The United Kingdom" is the right answer, yes.
Well, hang on, then, Stephen. You've got to back this up, er...
When did you last see a tornado in--
- There was one in Birmingham last... It was on the news.
- That's it.
On the 21st of November, 1981,
there were 104 tornadoes in Britain in a single day.
- Which day?
- 21st of November, 1981.
- Oh, right. Yes.
A University of Leeds study in 2004 suggested that the actual average
number of tornadoes in Britain is higher than a hundred a year,
so it's one every three days, roughly. But, er, meteorologist
Dr Tetsuya Fujita has the scale of tornado frequency and incident.
If Britain has an average of 33 tornadoes every year,
and in fact, it's probably more than that,
in an area 38 times smaller than the USA, you are twice as likely
to witness a tornado in the UK than you are in America.
- A friend of mine lived through that Birmingham tornado--
- Oh, really?
...and, erm, he was sat on the bus the following day
and an old lady behind him said to her mate,
"D'ye know what happened yesterday?
We had a torpedo!"
- "Torpedo"?
- "Torpedo."
- "We had a torpedo..."
- Tornado Alley. Where's that?
- Kansas.
- Birmingham.
- Sorry?
- Kansas.
- Er, yeah. It's a number of states.
It's Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and South Dakota.
It's where the... the... that main season of really heavy tornadoes--
- "It's a twister!"
- They're... "That's right!"
And they're bad. I mean, obviously,
they are much worse, as a rule, than British ones.
- So bad, you can get blown all the way to Oz.
- You can, exactly! And not be in Kansas anymore.
- Yes.
Now, what shouldn't you do for twenty minutes after lunch?
["I spy with my little eye."]
- Yes.
- Swim!
[Forfeit: Klaxons sound.]
Oh, Alan! Oh!
- I can't believe that! That's... Surely, everybody knows that.
- And it's a complete myth.
- It gives you stomach cramps.
- It's absolute nonsense.
Basically, parents who don't want to supervise
their children in swimming pools
'cause they personally want to go and sleep, probably,
but the fact is that you don't get cramps after eating.
There is no evidence of anybody getting into trouble
as a result of swimming after eating.
What, if you dive into the water, doesn't your stomach burst apart?
They used to say that at school.
"Oh, yes, diving in after a heavy meal;
it splashes, and belly flop; water'll go everywhere!"
Indeed, and for some reason,
it's just something that's popularly held
that is absolutely not backed up by any fact whatsoever
that's known to medical science or anything else.
That's the answer to that question,
and it brings us to the final reckoning.
And our ace of spies tonight...
Well, we have two of them.
In joint first place, with five points each,
it's Vic and Clive!
And closely shadowing them,
with four points, Jo Brand!
But I'm afraid, with his cover completely blown,
on minus eight, it's Alan Davies!
Well, that's all from Clive, Vic, Jo, Alan, and me. I leave you
with this chilling report of modern espionage recruitment techniques.
Two men and a woman recently made
the shortlist for CIA assassin.
And the first man was taken to a door
and told that his wife was in there sitting on a chair,
and he was given a gun and told to go in and kill her.
And he said, [American accent] "I can't do that.
I cannot kill my wife. You can't ask me to."
And they said, "Well, then you, can't be a hit man for the CIA."
And so, he left. And the second man was told the same thing.
He went in; five minutes passed; he came out in tears.
He said, "I can't do it. I'm sorry.
I just can't do it. I can't be a CIA killer."
And then, the woman's turn came. They said.
"This is your final test. You're husband's in there, sitting on a chair;
here's a gun; go in, kill him."
She went through the door, she barely closed the door.
They heard six rounds fired straight away.
Then banging, screaming, and shouting. Then she came out.
She said, "You bastards!
You might have told me there were blanks in the gun."
"I had to beat him to death with the chair leg!"
Good night.