QI (2003–…): Season 6, Episode 7 - Fingers and Fumbs - full transcript
Good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening!
Welcome to QI!
Tonight we're all fingers and fumbs, faces and feet, and other physical features beginning with F.
And to help us, we have four familiar fizzogs.
We have... Jo Brand!
Dara O'Briain!
Phill Jupitus!
And... Alan Davies!
So it's...
fingers at the ready, please; let's face the music and buzz. Phill goes:
Dara goes:
Jo goes:
And Alan goes:
Now, we have a special forfeit word.
If you use a particular F-word at any stage of this evening --
Oh, fuck off!
It was almost like a subtle double bluff, that it couldn't possibly be that word.
But it was. So there's your forfeit, I'm afraid.
Now, Alan, do you enjoy fargling?
Am I fargling now?
No, I hope you're about to, though. Fargling. F-A-R-G --
Is it a foreign word for saying amusing things?
It's an American word that's sometimes used for a game that involves your hands and fingers.
Oh, GIBBERISH, Rock Paper Scissors!
Yes! Paper Scissors Stone or Rock Paper Scissors.
We're gonna play tonight, because any time any one of you gets a forfeit, you have a chance to go double or quits with Paper Scissors Stone.
But Stephen, I can only get a forfeit if I say "Fuck."
Paper Scissors Stone, then!
And you'll double your forfeit if you lose, and you will halve it if you win.
One, two, three! [both play Scissors]
Oh! It's a draw.
By the way, does anyone know incidentally, what is the best opening move of Paper Scissors Stone?
If you say, "You go first."
Very good! Very good.
Is it having a real rock?
That might work.
- Can--
I'll bet people do Stone first. Is Stone the most common?
Interestingly, people think Stone is the most common
sometimes, so they - I mean, supposedly--
They go Paper, (According to the New Scientist)
so you go Scissors?
the best tactic is to play Scissors.
Because many people know that Rock is a common opening, so they play Paper.
Another
- And they think you'll do Rock.
Though now everybody knows that; everyone will start with Scissors.
Always making sure you play it with a Saudi shoplifter.
'Cause they can only do Rock, couldn't they?
Yes, exactly.
Avoid playing it with Abu Hamza, because then you...
Abu Hamza can't ... Abu Hamza can only do Question Mark.
...Phil Rock, Paper, Quizzical Expression!
He can do Question Mark, Corkscrew, and Thing for Digging Stones out of Horses' Hooves.
He's not a Swiss Army cleric!
Surely he is!
Okay ... now, in India and Indonesia, they don't use Paper, Scissors, and Stone.
They use animals. Do you know what animals they use?
- Right, so they play Elephant-
Yes! -Cow!
No.
Elephant, (Mouse)
Kestrel?
Kestrel?!
-Yeah.
Does the Kestrel carry off the Elephant, or does the Elephant sit on the Kestrel?
No, no, no! Elephant covers Kestrel, Kestrel eats Ant.
You've got two of them, amazingly!
-Ant, elephant... (Ant?)
And... -Dodo!
Human.
Human? -Human!
Elephant beats Human. -Right,
Okay, so that is the mime for Elephant.
Okay? -Right.
There's Human. -Yup.
There's Ant! -Yeah!
But which beats which?
Er ... Elephant beats Human, is one.
Human beats Ant. Please tell me Human beats Ant!
Yes, Human does beat Ant, but Ant beats Elephant.
-How does Ant beat Elephant?!
They're scary! -In the same way that mice supposedly
frighten elephants, ants frighten elephants.
They go "Woo!" -No, they don't.
Well ... they're said to.
-All right. Suspend disbelief.
Yeah. After all, Paper doesn't really beat Stone, does it?
It does in the game -
-That's an engineering question I'm not prepared to answer.
Fair enough, fair enough. There you are; that's Fargling for you.
Now, right. From fingers to facial features.
We're going to try a scientific experiment now, so you all have a pencil in front of you, I hope.
I'd like Phill and Dara to put the pencil between your teeth, actually, if you would.
and...That's it. Thank you.
Okay! -Tight between your teeth.
Wouldn't you rather we had a ball gag, Stephen?
It all started innocently enough with pencils; they woke up in Dortmund four days later:
And could you put your pencils in, holding them only with your lips? Not your teeth.
This reminds me of my husband.
Oh, please! -No, he's got a pencil like that! --Oh, has he?
Well, now. You may not remove them until I say so.
That's quite important. And my question is this.
On the face of it, which is funnier: quack or moo?
Quack! -Quack.
No, you can't take it out until I say!
-'Cause it's got a K in it.
Yes ... is the right answer. You know this.
You're professional comedians, most of you ...
Is this not like a bad move in a spoken word comedy show?
I'm ... I'm choosing my words very carefully here.
Yeah.
You've essentially disabled the four contestants, er ...
Could somebody please call Social Services?
Any idea why a K is funny?
It is related to the pencils... (-Oh, erm) ...in a strange sort of way.
'cause it's the, the, the shape of your face.
Is the right answer! To say a "Ker," you have to smile.
-Makes a smiley face. Absolutely.
And people think that you're gonna be funny.
Yeah. They did an experiment with people putting pencils in their mouth in the way you have,
which makes you smile, in which-
- It's not making me fucking smile!
You've done it again! All right, one, two, three...
and One, two, three! -Oh! Erm--
Uh, so...
-Will someone do a Rock?!
It'll take you a --
-"Do a Rock? Do a Rock?!" What's a Rock?!
Quack! I can hardly do a, a... Scissors!
A Rock-a!
You can take your pencils out of your mouths now.
-No, no, no!
No, I like it! I'll keep it in for the rest of the show!
Let's put a pencil between your mouth; let's see how the rest of the series goes!
Oh, very well. -Now, Fry!
According to psychologists (Aah!), words containing the letter K are
the funniest because they force you to smile. It's called facial feedback.
What else can you tell us about a duck's quack?
Do you know anything interesting about a duck's quack?
It's, er, has no echo. -Oh!
A commonly held misapprehension, unfortunately.
Er, a man from Salford University actually put a duck in a reverberation chamber
in order to find out if this is true. Because it is so prevalent a myth that they do have an echo.
They... They do have... a duck's echo.
I'm ... I'm gonna take one to Canterbury Cathedral. I'm just
gonna get a big old duck and take it and just poke it.
Just try it out meself. -Why... why should we
believe the things you say on this quiz, Stephen?
"A man took one to a chamber and tested it."
No! Let's test it ourselves!
I approve of your empirical zeal. Now, back to faces.
What's the ideal way to kiss a Frenchman?
A French man?
With their... consent?
Very well put! Excellent. What a nice young man!
I really mean just as a greeting, in the way that
French and European (-Oh, that's it!) people do.
Yes, how many?
Two in Paris, three in rural France, and if you go to very rural France, it's ... it can be kiss-kiss-kiss-kiss. Four times.
Mmm, very good, I will give you your points there. I have it as two in central and southern France and four in the northern country part, Brittany and
Well, I clearly found an intermediate place where they like three, yeah.
There may be a three. Three, certainly. Three is true in Belgium and Holland.
-Yes, you're absolutely right.
They always do three there. -And now the Snogging Forecast for...
...in France. Brittany, one: some saliva.
Paris, two: ...occasional tongue.
Outlying areas, four: some pregnancy.
Yeah. And five is Corsica, I suppose.
Surely they (Five?) kiss each other five times in Corsica, do they?
-They really have little to do in Corsica, do they? Er...
Can you tell me what sort of person kisses five times?
-Of course I can! Erm...
I'm sorry. I'm very sorry.
-I think you might have to go now.
But at least they know what it is. I mean, I don't know what it is here. What ...
If you're unsure about whether to do one cheek or two, the best way
to deal with it is to cup their genitals while you're doing it.
They won't ... they won't mind how many kisses. They won't even be thinking about it.
Cup their genitals?
Just cup them lightly.
-Yeah, see.
I have two words: "carrier bag", sir?
In America, it's strictly one cheek. They are very baffled by Europeans doing any more than one.
You bump noses, you bump glasses, 'cause you go to the wrong side. You go to the right first or the left?
And apparently in Spain, it has to be the right cheek first,
however many times. -Really? --Yes.
So what happens if you go for the left first?
-There'll be a disgrace upon your family!
In 1819, a German travel guide to London said,
"The kiss of friendship between men is strictly avoided in Britain as inclining towards the sin regarded in England as more abominable than any other
Yeah. Queue barging, presumably.
Erm, that or sodomy.
They're the top two, aren't they?
-Yeah, really!
Sodomy and-
-Particularly if there's a queue for sodomy. Er...
Don't cut in! Yeah. Don't cut in on the buggery line!
-Excuse me. Excuse me!
You next. Thank you very much.
Man, I thought the Northern Line was bad, but a Buggery Line, wow.
Oh, dear. -No seats!
Oh, Jesus.
Now to another set of people who like to kiss one another.
What can you tell about a footballer from the size of his fingers?
Jo.
-Is it his position on the WAG penetration index?
My goodness me. Mmm. Very good. Erm ... any thoughts?
Right, hang on. There's always something about the index being longer than the one on the other side of the...
Yes, you're right. It's the ratio between fingers two and four is known as the 2D and 4D.
It's actually kind of difficult to do the ratio between fingers two and four without being incredibly rude
to whoever happens to be in the room at the same time.
Well, there's an academic, and isn't there always, who has devoted thirty-five years of his academic life to
determining things about humans on the basis of the ratio of the length of their... of their... it has something to do with the...
what testosterone and estrogen do to your finger lengths. Seems to be important, and his name is Doctor John Manning of the University of Liverpool.
Did he take the duck into the echo chamber?
He wasn't the same man!
That sounds so much like a euphemism, I don't know-
is this the queue for taking the duck into the echo chamber?
Is it true that there's so much estrogen in the water supply now that men are being rendered impotent, and lots more people are turning gay?
No, that's just you.
I want an explanation for the rapidly swelling size of my man bosoms, and that may well be it.
So many women are on the Pill, and they're urinating bits of estrogen into the water-
Could you not do that (down the drain), please?
I quite like the idea of you going into Rigby and Peller.
"Hello." "Conceal them."
Lift and separate.
"I'd like a bra-a-a!"
-Actually, you know, you should do that, just for a laugh,
'cause they've got a woman with a very faint trace of an Austrian accent in Rigby and Peller
who can tell the size of your bosoms just by looking at them, right?
-Oh, wow!
And I went in, and she just said to me, "Go on then, take all your top bits off." I was like, erm, okay.
And she went, "Oh, not as bad as I'd imagined."
How rude!
-Thanks for that backhanded compliment, madam!
Obviously balls (I hope she didn't) in socks. Sorry.
What would she make of my, erm ... What would she make of my fulsome pair of funbags, can you imagine?
They're pretty... they're pretty good, aren't they?
No, I think they're-
-There's a fair amount going on.
Please, please, Steven, I'm already pitching a semi, er ...
Any more of this talk and I'll be knocking the desk over!
Anyway. Apparently, according to Doctor John Manning of the University of Liverpool,
the 2D-4D ratio, such as is on that photograph behind me, is predictive of infertility, autism, dyslexia, migraine, stammering, immune disfunction, my
even, as well as perceived dominance and masculinity, but not attractiveness. And including things like possibly psychopathic tendencies and ... and a
But continuing on our footie theme, what does a thorny devil do with his feet? Any of you know what a thorny devil might be?
Is it a lizard- -Is, er, thorny...
thorny devil is a lizard?
It is a lizard. Well done. -Is it that one that goes on turned-up feet to stop the heat?
It's not alone as a lizard in doing that. As a matter of fact, we may have footage of... of a very attractive animal doing that very thing you're me
Oh, sorry, I kind of coughed and sneezed
... and wet myself all at the same time.
I think the fiver is mine!
Can I just ask, 'cause I don't know this.
Is there a facility for men to wet themselves when they cough?
Does that ever happen to... A facility?
-Oh, you mean like, like a place you'd go? Er ...
There's ... there's a felicity. It's a wonderful, warm feeling.
But do... do men wet themselves when they cough? No, sometimes... sometimes... When they get old? Shit themselves?
Sometimes we do ... we do poo a little bit when we cough sometimes. But only sometimes.
I just wondered. You... sometimes you wet yourself if you dream about going to the toilet.
Yes. Yes. Yes. -Yeah, we've all had that, yeah. --As you ...
If you're dreaming about going to the toilet, (I... I... I don't think...) you've gotta try and wake up really fast.
I don't think it's the dream that did it to me. I think you wanted to go to the toilet, and the dream just kind of worked itself around the fact tha
I agree! I think they're post facto dreams like that.
Yeah. I think your body decides to go, "No, I'm getting rid of this," and your dream kind of went, "Well, let's weave it into the narrative, shal
It's definitely an early warning system. -You're briefing an Arthurian knight, but now, now you really, desperately need to go to the toilet!
I was once on a boat with Elvis Presley.
Oh, this was within a dream! Oh, thank heavens.
And, er, I was joking with Elvis Presley, and I said, "Excuse me, I've got to go to the toilet," and I wet the bed.
Didn't he wear nappies? -In his final unhappy days, I believe he wore diapers. --Eh, you wouldn't be that unhappy in a nappy, would you?
I would, actually. -There's always the moment when he's
on stage where you could actually tell, where he went,
"We'll have a blue ... Christmas ... without you!"
"And since my baby left me ...
...Found a new place to dwell!"
Erm, I don't know the answer. All I do know is, as you age, you tend to wear pale trousers less and less so that you don't reveal the Dot of Shame.
I have one thing. One thing. Here's an interesting fact from, you know, I know some urologists, er, by ... marriage. Er,
and er, there is ... when you go ... if you tinkle at night -- I'm not sure if this is a forefeit, I'm not said it more harshly than that. Er,
and you turn around to go back in again. A couple -- a lot of people do that; they go back in again to have a little bit more.
And it's because it's been expelled by the bladder but caught in a little U shape ... er, within you.
So what you're supposed to do - is reach in and give yourself a little "Hoy!" Er, the noise is optional, and, er...
Where ... where are you hoy-ing?
-You're hoying... go... go all the way down and around...
To the perineum?
Er, down around the back like, er ... but not too far! Then you'd be hoy-ing the wrong thing.
And two days after that dinner party, Dara's mates are going, "You're not gonna believe what I told him!"
Erm ... anyway, it's an Antipodean, rather beautiful --
Hello! -Isn't it wonderful?
These do something unique?
Well, yeah. They can take in water in any part of their body from their feet. If they stand in a puddle.
But what's impressive is that the water doesn't just get absorbed through the skin and go into their system.
It goes through grooves and capillaries; it's drawn up by capillary action all the way to the corners of their mouth and into the mouth.
So they actually drink water from anywhere, and every part of their body has this system --
So they just put their hand in a pint?
A thorny devil is an Australian lizard that can, er, drink through its feet and, indeed, any other part of its body! Now,
how could I tell that Alan is a criminal just by looking at him?
A merry criminal. -Yeah? He's wearing your shirt.
That would be one way. Let's imagine he's na-- oh, all right, not naked. Let's imagine it's nothing to do with clothing.
Is it (right?) the shifty little eyes, pointy nose, and in general a sort of little pug face?
Interesting! Um...
A totally unfair reading, surely! -I've never seen you happier. Never been happier! It's the happiest I've ever seen you!
I bet that one's been building up for over twenty years! "I'm lettin' this one out on telly."
One day, I'm really gonna tell you what I think of you. When will the opportunity arise? Oh, go on!
Is this something... the -- phrenology?
-Well, in fact, I have a phrenological bust. Everyone has one of those. --Everyone has one of these.
This is a copy of the original. -In Melbourne Jail, they've got casts of Ned Kelly and all the murderers.
Absolutely, because in the Nineteenth Century, not only phrenology but (of the face?) physiognomy, the art of reading character through the face, was
Is it his ears? Something to do with his ears!
-Nose! (Well, I'll...) --Teeth!
Well, I'll tell you. The father of physiognomy was, of course, one of Alan's best friends, Aristotle.
According to what he said about the face and character, your curly hair signifies someone who is dull of apprehension, soon angry, and given to lying
Cor, and you thought Jo was bad! -Yeah!
The distance between your eyebrows, as worked out by the QI Elves, is that you are hard hearted, envious, close and cunning, addicted to cruelty more
Oh! Dara. -Yes?
He who hath a large, full forehead and a little round withal, destitute of hair, or at least that has little on it,
is bold, malicious, high spirited, full of color, apt to transgress beyond bounds, and yet of good wit and very apprehensive. There you are.
You threw me a little bone there at the end, didn't you? You are scumbag, scumbag, scumbag, scumbag, couple of gags, scumbag, scumbag!
Exactly, basically. Whereas Phill: he whose hair groweth thick on his temples and his brow is by nature
simple, vain, luxurious, lustful, credulous, clownish in his speech and conversation, and double chin shows a peacable disposition, but --
Ha ha ha ha! Think on.
-Vain, credulous, a great supplanter, and secret in all your actions.
And not to mention peckish!
There is that. Jo, one whose hair is of reddish complexion is for the most part, if not always --
That is hair dye. -proud, deceitful, detracting, venereous, and full of envy.
Venereous?
-Yeah. As in venereal, sort of.
Disease?!
-To do with - Huh-huh!
Oh, God!
Anyway, there we have one of the serious answers. Of course, phrenology is the [?] Lorenzo Fowler's head covers all these supposed emotional and vari
and you're supposed to feel for bumps on people. Er, now largely -- indeed, if not wholly -- discredited. Duncan, of course; do you remember Duncan i
Tell me do. -"There's no art to find the mind's construction in the face." So even then, Shakespeare knew it was nonsense.
If only Shakespeare had said something about the duck's echo,
we could've saved everybody a lot of time. -Would've saved -- would've saved one
Stop, Horatio! Take yon duck into the cathedral and there make it sound off. -She quacketh!
That, that, that would be "doth."
That would be "doth," not "dost." I do -- it is annoying when they get that wrong.
Doth you or dost he ... no! Dost thou, it's not difficult!
Art thou? -English lit you, English language see. Good fucking luck, my friend.
One, two, three! -Oh!
Do a stone!
Oh! Oh, dear. Now, how would you describe the famous Thatcher Effect?
Yes, you get the country to bend over, and you give it one until its eyes water.
It was great, actually, when she became Lady Thatcher, because then she sounded like a device for removing pubic hair, didn't she?
Couldn't take her seriously after that. -It's true! Absolutely. The Brazilian Lady Thatcher.
removing straggling pubic hairs with the Lady Thatcher, you know.
We need a Margaret Thatcher
-It wouldn't be -- it wouldn't be--
Here is the Thatcher Effect. Do you now know what it is?
Oh! I know what it is. Oh, I know that if it's too frightening,
so we have to put her that way.
Well... -The eyes look the same upside down as
they do the right way up? --Mmmm ...
No, they only look sympathetic! Ah, interesting point.
No, what it is is our ability to read faces.
Some people in the audience, some people at home may have noticed that on one of those pictures, two of major features are actually inverted in her up
So if we were to turn them around now, we'd see--
-Oh yeah, the mouth. Yeah.
That what we're looking at was...
..that!
BURN THE WITCH!!
This was Peter Thompson of the University of York -- largest plastic bottom lake in Europe -- erm ...
Did you say that for a bet? -I knew someone--
How can I get it in?
-- who went to the University of York, and every time he said he was there, he couldn't help giving this fact.
He didn't know that he told everybody this entirely banal, hopelessly uninteresting fact.
And so he -- I can't help hearing the phrase "University of York" without going, "largest plastic bottom lake in Europe."
So anyway, Peter Thompson of the University of York ... All Largest plastic bottom lake in Europe!
Wouldn't it be awful if they discovered it had been supplanted by some other lake, plastic bottomed or not?
In what way would that possibly be awful?
Well, it would just be so sad for York! What does did it have to boast now? University of York, third largest plastic bottom lake in Europe!
There's an [episode bloke?] from the University of [?]
"Hello? I help you? Oh, gross lake with the big and plastic!"
"Ha ha, York! Ha ha!"
So there we are. That's the Thatcher Effect.
-We can only do it when we face the right side up.
He discovered that when it's the right side up, we'd instantly see which items are upside down. But when it's then turned upside down itself --
I, I'm racking my brain trying to think of any application, short of ... you're in the middle of a soixante-neuf, and then you turn, and you go,
"Well, how's -- Oh, God, you're hideous! Jesus! Er, you looked fine when we started, but this is ridiculous."
Application's hard to say, but as you know, these things sometimes emerge.
Turn it upside down, please, now.
Oh! You never would have guessed, would you? That's astounding, isn't it?
That's a face you don't want to see after a sixty-nine, isn't it?
Yeah, we are worried. Erm...
facial recognition is, indeed, a natural human instinct.
We see faces everywhere, in cloud formations, and so on. Here are some little examples. Perhaps you can tell me what you think the faces are.
They're all -- they're always, by the way, Jesus or Mary, these things.
-Well, that's right, yeah.
The middle one is the Virgin Mary in a pie
Actually, most people see Marlene Dietrich in that one. (Oh, yeah.)
If you look closely, I think it does look like Marlene. On the left?
The Moon. -It's actually Mars. And people see, yes,
the Madonna or something. And on the right ...
Jee-zus!
You can only say "Jesus" like that when you say the baby. "The Bay-bee Jee-zus."
-I know, it's usually the Ickle Baby Jesus.
Baby Jeebers! (Baby Jeebers.) -Ah, Baby Jeebers.
My saviour, actually.
-You make Richard Dawkins look like a fucking Buddhist.
But the Thatcher Effect makes it difficult for one to detect inverted features in an upside down face. Now, erm, here's an equally famous face, but w
They got repaired.
-Got shaved off on her hen weekend.
Oh!
No. Actually, I'm going to give you the points there, young Alan, yeah.
The fact is that when the painting was painted in the early part of the Sixteenth Century,
Leonardo painted a full set of eyebrows and eyelashes, and indeed, Vasari, the great art critic and biographer of the Cinquecento artists...
he said that they were particularly fine, and he actually raved about the way the eyebrows were painted.
But successive restorations had them worn off, and they're now visible in x-ray, so it's provable that they were there.
So, when I go to the Louvre -Yes.
To see the great work, I'm not getting my full money's worth, is that it?
It's behind glass, could you not, like, you know, paint on to the glass, like a Groucho Marx set of eyebrows?
That you could, you know?
-It was done in terms of a moustache and beard by ...
Marcel Duchamp did that famous, erm, little moustache and... And it had a weird nickname. You have to speak French for this, but it was called L.H.O.O
which if you say it in French, means, "She's got a hot arse." Elle a chaud au cul.
Aaahh. But I was-
-She's hot at the arse. Elle a chaud au cul.
Ninety percent of all the people who go to the Louvre Museum in Paris go straight to see the Mona Lisa, spend three minutes or less looking at it, and
There's so much better stuff, by the way, (Yeah, it's very disappointing) in the corridor leading up to it.
There's amazing shit in there. Get me, I'm like Brian Sewell!
The University of Amsterdam used emotion recognition software to analyze the famous, enigmatic smile. -Or looked at her! --Yeah.
Emotion recognition software! I dunno; my money's on bored, what'd you reckon?
Yeah. It shows that the subject was eighty-three percent happy, nine percent disgusted, six percent fearful, and two percent angry.
She was less than one percent neutral and not even a quarter of one percent surprised.
Sounds like a breakdown of the audience. -Yes!
Now. At exactly the same time that Leonardo was discharging his commission to make the beautiful Mona Lisa,
Michelangelo Buonarroti was, er, putting the finishing touches to, perhaps, his most famous work -
- the most famous iconic statue there ever was - the David.
Three of him. And the David is a representation of?
David who slingshot Goliath.
King David, who slew the champion of the Philistines, Goliath. Exactly. What use did he have for two hundred foreskins?
Who cares? It's a feminist's dream.
He didn't make his slingshot out of them, did he?
Oh, no, he didn't.
-Er, he deep fried them and invented hula hoops.
There was... there was a rabbi who saved up all the foreskins from all his, he was a moyel, you know, the bris.
And he dried them, and he made a wallet out of them.
Yeah, it was amazing; if you stroked it, it became a briefcase!
You keep that up, kid, I'll have ya playin' the big rooms!
Anyway. This is, er, we're Biblical here. Who was David's great patron, and whom did he, actually, then succeed as king of Israel and king of Judea?
Saul? -Saul. King Saul. Very good!
Saul was, as kings did in the Bible, grew very jealous of David, although he was the one who brought him up from shepherd boy to great general --
Thought you were going to say shepherd's bush! Did he have a shepherd's bush?
-David Ben Jesse!
I can't slay these four, what're ya thinking about?
So, Saul grew very jealous and basically wanted him slain in battle, so he said to him,
"You can marry my daughter, but as a dowry, I want a hundred foreskins from the Gentile Philistines." And he went into battle.
He got two hundred, would you believe? Then Saul gave him his daughter Michael in marriage. Unfortunate end of the bargain, but there you are.
Once you've got the hundred, why did he then think, "I'm not sure, you know, get another hundred."
A hundred and one. Come on, another one.
They're like chocolate Hobnobs.
Anyway, let's put our best foot forward into the final furlong of General Ignorance.
So be careful not to put your foot in it, but put your fingers on the mushroomoids.
And where would you find the world's largest organ?
Er, in a cathedral. Somewhere like, erm, St. Peter's in Rome, maybe. Or somewhere, or Seville. Or some huge cathedral.
That's a good answer.
-But not the correct one.
The blue whale!
I'm sorry, no. -Six years in a row.
We're thinking of a musical instrument. The world's --
It's never been the blue whale, ever!
It's, it's the world's largest musical instrument.
-Rick Wakeman's house.
It IS a musical instrument.
Uh-huh. -Is it in a university?
No, it's inside a natural phenomenon, and it's been turned into an organ.
Cave. Some sort of cave.
In caves, and it's a man -Whacking.
A man with the ridiculous name of Leland W. Sprinkle, who-
American! He has to be American.
-American, yes.
Has made the felted hammers that strike the stalactites in the cave, and they are tuned and very, very precise.
Stephen, if you'd asked us where the world's biggest xylophone was, then I might have been able to help you.
Ah... -Strictly an organ. --No, no, you are! I agree with you that anything percussive of one kind--
--is a kind of xylophone, though it couldn't really technically be a xylophone, because xylos is the Greek for wood, and it's not wood, is it? -Oh,
So, er, the largest organ in the world can be found deep in the Luray Caverns in Virginia.
Now, what can you tell about a man from the size of his feet?
The size of his shoes.
Oddly enough, not!
That's not just because we thought people would say that, they genuinely are true. Most people wear the wrong size shoes.
I know it sounds bizarre, but apparently, because they aren't aware of how their feet change --
The size of his cock.
I'm -- I'm sorry that isn't true, because I have size thirteen feet. But it isn't, apparently, true in all cases.
Apparently, the size of your hands is in proportion to the size of your feet, though there are many other views.
One is that your foot size is the same from the point of your elbow to your arm. It's exactly that.
Then why do people think that you're cock's to do with your foot size?
It was a rumour started by clowns.
You know what they say: 'Big shoes, big penis.'
As they come in the room. 'Oh, baby.'
Oh, dear. What do we measure feet in, in Britain? Obviously, the one-two-three? What is that?
The measurement of the slidy thing?
-Yes, but what is the unit? What is the unit?
Er, the fraction of the slidy thing. Er ...
Yes. It's called a barleycorn. A third of an inch.
-Barleycorn?! --A barleycorn.
So if you're size twelve, you're a barleycorn bigger than a size eleven. Two barleycorns bigger than a size ten.
Why don't they ever tell you that down the shoe shop?
-I think they are probably not aware of the fact.
If I go into [?] tomorrow and go, "Good vendor of shoes! How many barleycorns am I this fine day?"
and I point my foot at them, I'm gonna get short changed.
I have size thirteen feet as well, which is an absolute plague, 'cause most shoe production goes up to eleven,
maybe, possibly twelve, and you go into shops. Every time I go in, I go, "Do you have anything in size thirteen," I get a speech where they go--
"You might find it difficult to find shoes in that size." Do you look at them and go, "Really? 'Cause this is the first day I've had size thirtee
It was a birthday present! -"Yesterday, I had size nine,
and then I played poker with the witch, er,
and it went hideously wrong. Now I've got these things, but thank you! Thank you for setting me straight."
Do they not go, "Good sir, you're a barleycorn too far for this shop, I'll wager!"
"We'll not have enough barleycorns for you!"
-"Off to Big Ron's Freak Foot Outlet!"
"Where the clowns buy their shoes!"
Listen for the--
"Come in, you are welcome here ... Tichy Feet!"
Behave yourselves. Now, erm, good! Shoes. So, how many muscles are there, incidentally, in your fingers?
One, if you play your cards right.
I'll not look at you, dreadful boy! I'm not going to pay any attention to you now.
I'll put the pencil in!
Oh, Lord bless you. Oh, stop it!
-Oh, Mr Fry! You're so dirty.
None!
-None is the right answer, thank you.
There are no muscles in your fingers, only tendons. The muscles are in the hand and in the forearm that control the fingers.
In fact, a way of showing... if you do a sort of spidery thing--and then pull in your middle finger like that, all right? Now, lift your thumb. Lift i
Tap your little finger.
Tap your index finger.
Now, tap your ring finger.
You can't move it at all.
-I've - I've hurt myself!
The thing is it has no muscle. All it is is, but it has a shared tendon with the middle fingers, so it can't even move at all.
It hurt there! -Yeah. It's weird, isn't it?
There you have a picture of the musculature of the hand and arm, and you can see there are no muscles there in the fingers.
And lastly now! Which is easier, smiling or frowning?
Oh, smiling uses less muscles than frowning.
Oh, dear no! In fact, it's exactly (The other way around?)
the opposite is true.
It's the kind of thing people say in a banal manner to shopkeepers, "You know, it uses less muscles to smile than frown." In fact, it's not true.
I'm glad that's not true, because that's the most annoying thing that anyone's ever said. -Exactly.
In fact, you use twelve muscles.
You use twelve muscles to smile and only eleven to frown, as it happens. Like this!
Ah, you look like that photo of yourself earlier.
I'm using twenty-three muscles!
Still twenty-three!
Hey! Let's see now--
It is the most hideously irritating thing, going, "Oh, you know, the fewer--"
It's like, "A friend is a stranger you haven't met yet." People who say that kind of --
Tea towels?
-Yeah, yeah. And we go, yeah. And I do want to go,
"How many muscles, exactly, does it take?"
-And I say, "Fuck off!"
Oh! Come on, then. All right, because it's, er, just... it's a crazy childhood dream of mine. I've always wanted to beat you at Rock, Paper, Scisso
Okay, are we doing one? -No.
Okay, that's right. One, two, three!
I like it when you're standing, you might be thinking about something, you might be a bit pensive, you might be lost,
and someone you don't know just comes and goes, "Cheer up."
- Oh, I know.
"Cheer up!" Oh, fuck off.
Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen, place your bets!
What way will Davies go in the current trends --
He's been talking Stone all night. He's been talking Stone all night. Do you think it's gonna be Stone? -No. It'll be Stone. --All right.
Ah-one! Ah-two! Ah-three! Ah-wow!
YES! -OH!
Let's see ... let's see if these reversals and forfeits
- Cheer up!
-- have any effect...!
So! Who will be smiling when the scores are revealed? Let's have a look at them.
In first place... with minus twenty-four!
Oh! It's Phill Jupitus!
In second place with minus twenty-six is Jo Brand!
In third place with minus twenty-eight, Dara O'Briain!
Which means the Scissors crushed by the Stone tonight with minus forty-two, Alan Davies!
Anyway, it's thanks to Phill, Dara, Jo, and Alan, and I leave you with this face saving story:
Abraham Lincoln was once accused of being two-faced.
And he replied, "If I were two-faced, do you think I'd be wearing this one?" Thank you, and good night!
Welcome to QI!
Tonight we're all fingers and fumbs, faces and feet, and other physical features beginning with F.
And to help us, we have four familiar fizzogs.
We have... Jo Brand!
Dara O'Briain!
Phill Jupitus!
And... Alan Davies!
So it's...
fingers at the ready, please; let's face the music and buzz. Phill goes:
Dara goes:
Jo goes:
And Alan goes:
Now, we have a special forfeit word.
If you use a particular F-word at any stage of this evening --
Oh, fuck off!
It was almost like a subtle double bluff, that it couldn't possibly be that word.
But it was. So there's your forfeit, I'm afraid.
Now, Alan, do you enjoy fargling?
Am I fargling now?
No, I hope you're about to, though. Fargling. F-A-R-G --
Is it a foreign word for saying amusing things?
It's an American word that's sometimes used for a game that involves your hands and fingers.
Oh, GIBBERISH, Rock Paper Scissors!
Yes! Paper Scissors Stone or Rock Paper Scissors.
We're gonna play tonight, because any time any one of you gets a forfeit, you have a chance to go double or quits with Paper Scissors Stone.
But Stephen, I can only get a forfeit if I say "Fuck."
Paper Scissors Stone, then!
And you'll double your forfeit if you lose, and you will halve it if you win.
One, two, three! [both play Scissors]
Oh! It's a draw.
By the way, does anyone know incidentally, what is the best opening move of Paper Scissors Stone?
If you say, "You go first."
Very good! Very good.
Is it having a real rock?
That might work.
- Can--
I'll bet people do Stone first. Is Stone the most common?
Interestingly, people think Stone is the most common
sometimes, so they - I mean, supposedly--
They go Paper, (According to the New Scientist)
so you go Scissors?
the best tactic is to play Scissors.
Because many people know that Rock is a common opening, so they play Paper.
Another
- And they think you'll do Rock.
Though now everybody knows that; everyone will start with Scissors.
Always making sure you play it with a Saudi shoplifter.
'Cause they can only do Rock, couldn't they?
Yes, exactly.
Avoid playing it with Abu Hamza, because then you...
Abu Hamza can't ... Abu Hamza can only do Question Mark.
...Phil Rock, Paper, Quizzical Expression!
He can do Question Mark, Corkscrew, and Thing for Digging Stones out of Horses' Hooves.
He's not a Swiss Army cleric!
Surely he is!
Okay ... now, in India and Indonesia, they don't use Paper, Scissors, and Stone.
They use animals. Do you know what animals they use?
- Right, so they play Elephant-
Yes! -Cow!
No.
Elephant, (Mouse)
Kestrel?
Kestrel?!
-Yeah.
Does the Kestrel carry off the Elephant, or does the Elephant sit on the Kestrel?
No, no, no! Elephant covers Kestrel, Kestrel eats Ant.
You've got two of them, amazingly!
-Ant, elephant... (Ant?)
And... -Dodo!
Human.
Human? -Human!
Elephant beats Human. -Right,
Okay, so that is the mime for Elephant.
Okay? -Right.
There's Human. -Yup.
There's Ant! -Yeah!
But which beats which?
Er ... Elephant beats Human, is one.
Human beats Ant. Please tell me Human beats Ant!
Yes, Human does beat Ant, but Ant beats Elephant.
-How does Ant beat Elephant?!
They're scary! -In the same way that mice supposedly
frighten elephants, ants frighten elephants.
They go "Woo!" -No, they don't.
Well ... they're said to.
-All right. Suspend disbelief.
Yeah. After all, Paper doesn't really beat Stone, does it?
It does in the game -
-That's an engineering question I'm not prepared to answer.
Fair enough, fair enough. There you are; that's Fargling for you.
Now, right. From fingers to facial features.
We're going to try a scientific experiment now, so you all have a pencil in front of you, I hope.
I'd like Phill and Dara to put the pencil between your teeth, actually, if you would.
and...That's it. Thank you.
Okay! -Tight between your teeth.
Wouldn't you rather we had a ball gag, Stephen?
It all started innocently enough with pencils; they woke up in Dortmund four days later:
And could you put your pencils in, holding them only with your lips? Not your teeth.
This reminds me of my husband.
Oh, please! -No, he's got a pencil like that! --Oh, has he?
Well, now. You may not remove them until I say so.
That's quite important. And my question is this.
On the face of it, which is funnier: quack or moo?
Quack! -Quack.
No, you can't take it out until I say!
-'Cause it's got a K in it.
Yes ... is the right answer. You know this.
You're professional comedians, most of you ...
Is this not like a bad move in a spoken word comedy show?
I'm ... I'm choosing my words very carefully here.
Yeah.
You've essentially disabled the four contestants, er ...
Could somebody please call Social Services?
Any idea why a K is funny?
It is related to the pencils... (-Oh, erm) ...in a strange sort of way.
'cause it's the, the, the shape of your face.
Is the right answer! To say a "Ker," you have to smile.
-Makes a smiley face. Absolutely.
And people think that you're gonna be funny.
Yeah. They did an experiment with people putting pencils in their mouth in the way you have,
which makes you smile, in which-
- It's not making me fucking smile!
You've done it again! All right, one, two, three...
and One, two, three! -Oh! Erm--
Uh, so...
-Will someone do a Rock?!
It'll take you a --
-"Do a Rock? Do a Rock?!" What's a Rock?!
Quack! I can hardly do a, a... Scissors!
A Rock-a!
You can take your pencils out of your mouths now.
-No, no, no!
No, I like it! I'll keep it in for the rest of the show!
Let's put a pencil between your mouth; let's see how the rest of the series goes!
Oh, very well. -Now, Fry!
According to psychologists (Aah!), words containing the letter K are
the funniest because they force you to smile. It's called facial feedback.
What else can you tell us about a duck's quack?
Do you know anything interesting about a duck's quack?
It's, er, has no echo. -Oh!
A commonly held misapprehension, unfortunately.
Er, a man from Salford University actually put a duck in a reverberation chamber
in order to find out if this is true. Because it is so prevalent a myth that they do have an echo.
They... They do have... a duck's echo.
I'm ... I'm gonna take one to Canterbury Cathedral. I'm just
gonna get a big old duck and take it and just poke it.
Just try it out meself. -Why... why should we
believe the things you say on this quiz, Stephen?
"A man took one to a chamber and tested it."
No! Let's test it ourselves!
I approve of your empirical zeal. Now, back to faces.
What's the ideal way to kiss a Frenchman?
A French man?
With their... consent?
Very well put! Excellent. What a nice young man!
I really mean just as a greeting, in the way that
French and European (-Oh, that's it!) people do.
Yes, how many?
Two in Paris, three in rural France, and if you go to very rural France, it's ... it can be kiss-kiss-kiss-kiss. Four times.
Mmm, very good, I will give you your points there. I have it as two in central and southern France and four in the northern country part, Brittany and
Well, I clearly found an intermediate place where they like three, yeah.
There may be a three. Three, certainly. Three is true in Belgium and Holland.
-Yes, you're absolutely right.
They always do three there. -And now the Snogging Forecast for...
...in France. Brittany, one: some saliva.
Paris, two: ...occasional tongue.
Outlying areas, four: some pregnancy.
Yeah. And five is Corsica, I suppose.
Surely they (Five?) kiss each other five times in Corsica, do they?
-They really have little to do in Corsica, do they? Er...
Can you tell me what sort of person kisses five times?
-Of course I can! Erm...
I'm sorry. I'm very sorry.
-I think you might have to go now.
But at least they know what it is. I mean, I don't know what it is here. What ...
If you're unsure about whether to do one cheek or two, the best way
to deal with it is to cup their genitals while you're doing it.
They won't ... they won't mind how many kisses. They won't even be thinking about it.
Cup their genitals?
Just cup them lightly.
-Yeah, see.
I have two words: "carrier bag", sir?
In America, it's strictly one cheek. They are very baffled by Europeans doing any more than one.
You bump noses, you bump glasses, 'cause you go to the wrong side. You go to the right first or the left?
And apparently in Spain, it has to be the right cheek first,
however many times. -Really? --Yes.
So what happens if you go for the left first?
-There'll be a disgrace upon your family!
In 1819, a German travel guide to London said,
"The kiss of friendship between men is strictly avoided in Britain as inclining towards the sin regarded in England as more abominable than any other
Yeah. Queue barging, presumably.
Erm, that or sodomy.
They're the top two, aren't they?
-Yeah, really!
Sodomy and-
-Particularly if there's a queue for sodomy. Er...
Don't cut in! Yeah. Don't cut in on the buggery line!
-Excuse me. Excuse me!
You next. Thank you very much.
Man, I thought the Northern Line was bad, but a Buggery Line, wow.
Oh, dear. -No seats!
Oh, Jesus.
Now to another set of people who like to kiss one another.
What can you tell about a footballer from the size of his fingers?
Jo.
-Is it his position on the WAG penetration index?
My goodness me. Mmm. Very good. Erm ... any thoughts?
Right, hang on. There's always something about the index being longer than the one on the other side of the...
Yes, you're right. It's the ratio between fingers two and four is known as the 2D and 4D.
It's actually kind of difficult to do the ratio between fingers two and four without being incredibly rude
to whoever happens to be in the room at the same time.
Well, there's an academic, and isn't there always, who has devoted thirty-five years of his academic life to
determining things about humans on the basis of the ratio of the length of their... of their... it has something to do with the...
what testosterone and estrogen do to your finger lengths. Seems to be important, and his name is Doctor John Manning of the University of Liverpool.
Did he take the duck into the echo chamber?
He wasn't the same man!
That sounds so much like a euphemism, I don't know-
is this the queue for taking the duck into the echo chamber?
Is it true that there's so much estrogen in the water supply now that men are being rendered impotent, and lots more people are turning gay?
No, that's just you.
I want an explanation for the rapidly swelling size of my man bosoms, and that may well be it.
So many women are on the Pill, and they're urinating bits of estrogen into the water-
Could you not do that (down the drain), please?
I quite like the idea of you going into Rigby and Peller.
"Hello." "Conceal them."
Lift and separate.
"I'd like a bra-a-a!"
-Actually, you know, you should do that, just for a laugh,
'cause they've got a woman with a very faint trace of an Austrian accent in Rigby and Peller
who can tell the size of your bosoms just by looking at them, right?
-Oh, wow!
And I went in, and she just said to me, "Go on then, take all your top bits off." I was like, erm, okay.
And she went, "Oh, not as bad as I'd imagined."
How rude!
-Thanks for that backhanded compliment, madam!
Obviously balls (I hope she didn't) in socks. Sorry.
What would she make of my, erm ... What would she make of my fulsome pair of funbags, can you imagine?
They're pretty... they're pretty good, aren't they?
No, I think they're-
-There's a fair amount going on.
Please, please, Steven, I'm already pitching a semi, er ...
Any more of this talk and I'll be knocking the desk over!
Anyway. Apparently, according to Doctor John Manning of the University of Liverpool,
the 2D-4D ratio, such as is on that photograph behind me, is predictive of infertility, autism, dyslexia, migraine, stammering, immune disfunction, my
even, as well as perceived dominance and masculinity, but not attractiveness. And including things like possibly psychopathic tendencies and ... and a
But continuing on our footie theme, what does a thorny devil do with his feet? Any of you know what a thorny devil might be?
Is it a lizard- -Is, er, thorny...
thorny devil is a lizard?
It is a lizard. Well done. -Is it that one that goes on turned-up feet to stop the heat?
It's not alone as a lizard in doing that. As a matter of fact, we may have footage of... of a very attractive animal doing that very thing you're me
Oh, sorry, I kind of coughed and sneezed
... and wet myself all at the same time.
I think the fiver is mine!
Can I just ask, 'cause I don't know this.
Is there a facility for men to wet themselves when they cough?
Does that ever happen to... A facility?
-Oh, you mean like, like a place you'd go? Er ...
There's ... there's a felicity. It's a wonderful, warm feeling.
But do... do men wet themselves when they cough? No, sometimes... sometimes... When they get old? Shit themselves?
Sometimes we do ... we do poo a little bit when we cough sometimes. But only sometimes.
I just wondered. You... sometimes you wet yourself if you dream about going to the toilet.
Yes. Yes. Yes. -Yeah, we've all had that, yeah. --As you ...
If you're dreaming about going to the toilet, (I... I... I don't think...) you've gotta try and wake up really fast.
I don't think it's the dream that did it to me. I think you wanted to go to the toilet, and the dream just kind of worked itself around the fact tha
I agree! I think they're post facto dreams like that.
Yeah. I think your body decides to go, "No, I'm getting rid of this," and your dream kind of went, "Well, let's weave it into the narrative, shal
It's definitely an early warning system. -You're briefing an Arthurian knight, but now, now you really, desperately need to go to the toilet!
I was once on a boat with Elvis Presley.
Oh, this was within a dream! Oh, thank heavens.
And, er, I was joking with Elvis Presley, and I said, "Excuse me, I've got to go to the toilet," and I wet the bed.
Didn't he wear nappies? -In his final unhappy days, I believe he wore diapers. --Eh, you wouldn't be that unhappy in a nappy, would you?
I would, actually. -There's always the moment when he's
on stage where you could actually tell, where he went,
"We'll have a blue ... Christmas ... without you!"
"And since my baby left me ...
...Found a new place to dwell!"
Erm, I don't know the answer. All I do know is, as you age, you tend to wear pale trousers less and less so that you don't reveal the Dot of Shame.
I have one thing. One thing. Here's an interesting fact from, you know, I know some urologists, er, by ... marriage. Er,
and er, there is ... when you go ... if you tinkle at night -- I'm not sure if this is a forefeit, I'm not said it more harshly than that. Er,
and you turn around to go back in again. A couple -- a lot of people do that; they go back in again to have a little bit more.
And it's because it's been expelled by the bladder but caught in a little U shape ... er, within you.
So what you're supposed to do - is reach in and give yourself a little "Hoy!" Er, the noise is optional, and, er...
Where ... where are you hoy-ing?
-You're hoying... go... go all the way down and around...
To the perineum?
Er, down around the back like, er ... but not too far! Then you'd be hoy-ing the wrong thing.
And two days after that dinner party, Dara's mates are going, "You're not gonna believe what I told him!"
Erm ... anyway, it's an Antipodean, rather beautiful --
Hello! -Isn't it wonderful?
These do something unique?
Well, yeah. They can take in water in any part of their body from their feet. If they stand in a puddle.
But what's impressive is that the water doesn't just get absorbed through the skin and go into their system.
It goes through grooves and capillaries; it's drawn up by capillary action all the way to the corners of their mouth and into the mouth.
So they actually drink water from anywhere, and every part of their body has this system --
So they just put their hand in a pint?
A thorny devil is an Australian lizard that can, er, drink through its feet and, indeed, any other part of its body! Now,
how could I tell that Alan is a criminal just by looking at him?
A merry criminal. -Yeah? He's wearing your shirt.
That would be one way. Let's imagine he's na-- oh, all right, not naked. Let's imagine it's nothing to do with clothing.
Is it (right?) the shifty little eyes, pointy nose, and in general a sort of little pug face?
Interesting! Um...
A totally unfair reading, surely! -I've never seen you happier. Never been happier! It's the happiest I've ever seen you!
I bet that one's been building up for over twenty years! "I'm lettin' this one out on telly."
One day, I'm really gonna tell you what I think of you. When will the opportunity arise? Oh, go on!
Is this something... the -- phrenology?
-Well, in fact, I have a phrenological bust. Everyone has one of those. --Everyone has one of these.
This is a copy of the original. -In Melbourne Jail, they've got casts of Ned Kelly and all the murderers.
Absolutely, because in the Nineteenth Century, not only phrenology but (of the face?) physiognomy, the art of reading character through the face, was
Is it his ears? Something to do with his ears!
-Nose! (Well, I'll...) --Teeth!
Well, I'll tell you. The father of physiognomy was, of course, one of Alan's best friends, Aristotle.
According to what he said about the face and character, your curly hair signifies someone who is dull of apprehension, soon angry, and given to lying
Cor, and you thought Jo was bad! -Yeah!
The distance between your eyebrows, as worked out by the QI Elves, is that you are hard hearted, envious, close and cunning, addicted to cruelty more
Oh! Dara. -Yes?
He who hath a large, full forehead and a little round withal, destitute of hair, or at least that has little on it,
is bold, malicious, high spirited, full of color, apt to transgress beyond bounds, and yet of good wit and very apprehensive. There you are.
You threw me a little bone there at the end, didn't you? You are scumbag, scumbag, scumbag, scumbag, couple of gags, scumbag, scumbag!
Exactly, basically. Whereas Phill: he whose hair groweth thick on his temples and his brow is by nature
simple, vain, luxurious, lustful, credulous, clownish in his speech and conversation, and double chin shows a peacable disposition, but --
Ha ha ha ha! Think on.
-Vain, credulous, a great supplanter, and secret in all your actions.
And not to mention peckish!
There is that. Jo, one whose hair is of reddish complexion is for the most part, if not always --
That is hair dye. -proud, deceitful, detracting, venereous, and full of envy.
Venereous?
-Yeah. As in venereal, sort of.
Disease?!
-To do with - Huh-huh!
Oh, God!
Anyway, there we have one of the serious answers. Of course, phrenology is the [?] Lorenzo Fowler's head covers all these supposed emotional and vari
and you're supposed to feel for bumps on people. Er, now largely -- indeed, if not wholly -- discredited. Duncan, of course; do you remember Duncan i
Tell me do. -"There's no art to find the mind's construction in the face." So even then, Shakespeare knew it was nonsense.
If only Shakespeare had said something about the duck's echo,
we could've saved everybody a lot of time. -Would've saved -- would've saved one
Stop, Horatio! Take yon duck into the cathedral and there make it sound off. -She quacketh!
That, that, that would be "doth."
That would be "doth," not "dost." I do -- it is annoying when they get that wrong.
Doth you or dost he ... no! Dost thou, it's not difficult!
Art thou? -English lit you, English language see. Good fucking luck, my friend.
One, two, three! -Oh!
Do a stone!
Oh! Oh, dear. Now, how would you describe the famous Thatcher Effect?
Yes, you get the country to bend over, and you give it one until its eyes water.
It was great, actually, when she became Lady Thatcher, because then she sounded like a device for removing pubic hair, didn't she?
Couldn't take her seriously after that. -It's true! Absolutely. The Brazilian Lady Thatcher.
removing straggling pubic hairs with the Lady Thatcher, you know.
We need a Margaret Thatcher
-It wouldn't be -- it wouldn't be--
Here is the Thatcher Effect. Do you now know what it is?
Oh! I know what it is. Oh, I know that if it's too frightening,
so we have to put her that way.
Well... -The eyes look the same upside down as
they do the right way up? --Mmmm ...
No, they only look sympathetic! Ah, interesting point.
No, what it is is our ability to read faces.
Some people in the audience, some people at home may have noticed that on one of those pictures, two of major features are actually inverted in her up
So if we were to turn them around now, we'd see--
-Oh yeah, the mouth. Yeah.
That what we're looking at was...
..that!
BURN THE WITCH!!
This was Peter Thompson of the University of York -- largest plastic bottom lake in Europe -- erm ...
Did you say that for a bet? -I knew someone--
How can I get it in?
-- who went to the University of York, and every time he said he was there, he couldn't help giving this fact.
He didn't know that he told everybody this entirely banal, hopelessly uninteresting fact.
And so he -- I can't help hearing the phrase "University of York" without going, "largest plastic bottom lake in Europe."
So anyway, Peter Thompson of the University of York ... All Largest plastic bottom lake in Europe!
Wouldn't it be awful if they discovered it had been supplanted by some other lake, plastic bottomed or not?
In what way would that possibly be awful?
Well, it would just be so sad for York! What does did it have to boast now? University of York, third largest plastic bottom lake in Europe!
There's an [episode bloke?] from the University of [?]
"Hello? I help you? Oh, gross lake with the big and plastic!"
"Ha ha, York! Ha ha!"
So there we are. That's the Thatcher Effect.
-We can only do it when we face the right side up.
He discovered that when it's the right side up, we'd instantly see which items are upside down. But when it's then turned upside down itself --
I, I'm racking my brain trying to think of any application, short of ... you're in the middle of a soixante-neuf, and then you turn, and you go,
"Well, how's -- Oh, God, you're hideous! Jesus! Er, you looked fine when we started, but this is ridiculous."
Application's hard to say, but as you know, these things sometimes emerge.
Turn it upside down, please, now.
Oh! You never would have guessed, would you? That's astounding, isn't it?
That's a face you don't want to see after a sixty-nine, isn't it?
Yeah, we are worried. Erm...
facial recognition is, indeed, a natural human instinct.
We see faces everywhere, in cloud formations, and so on. Here are some little examples. Perhaps you can tell me what you think the faces are.
They're all -- they're always, by the way, Jesus or Mary, these things.
-Well, that's right, yeah.
The middle one is the Virgin Mary in a pie
Actually, most people see Marlene Dietrich in that one. (Oh, yeah.)
If you look closely, I think it does look like Marlene. On the left?
The Moon. -It's actually Mars. And people see, yes,
the Madonna or something. And on the right ...
Jee-zus!
You can only say "Jesus" like that when you say the baby. "The Bay-bee Jee-zus."
-I know, it's usually the Ickle Baby Jesus.
Baby Jeebers! (Baby Jeebers.) -Ah, Baby Jeebers.
My saviour, actually.
-You make Richard Dawkins look like a fucking Buddhist.
But the Thatcher Effect makes it difficult for one to detect inverted features in an upside down face. Now, erm, here's an equally famous face, but w
They got repaired.
-Got shaved off on her hen weekend.
Oh!
No. Actually, I'm going to give you the points there, young Alan, yeah.
The fact is that when the painting was painted in the early part of the Sixteenth Century,
Leonardo painted a full set of eyebrows and eyelashes, and indeed, Vasari, the great art critic and biographer of the Cinquecento artists...
he said that they were particularly fine, and he actually raved about the way the eyebrows were painted.
But successive restorations had them worn off, and they're now visible in x-ray, so it's provable that they were there.
So, when I go to the Louvre -Yes.
To see the great work, I'm not getting my full money's worth, is that it?
It's behind glass, could you not, like, you know, paint on to the glass, like a Groucho Marx set of eyebrows?
That you could, you know?
-It was done in terms of a moustache and beard by ...
Marcel Duchamp did that famous, erm, little moustache and... And it had a weird nickname. You have to speak French for this, but it was called L.H.O.O
which if you say it in French, means, "She's got a hot arse." Elle a chaud au cul.
Aaahh. But I was-
-She's hot at the arse. Elle a chaud au cul.
Ninety percent of all the people who go to the Louvre Museum in Paris go straight to see the Mona Lisa, spend three minutes or less looking at it, and
There's so much better stuff, by the way, (Yeah, it's very disappointing) in the corridor leading up to it.
There's amazing shit in there. Get me, I'm like Brian Sewell!
The University of Amsterdam used emotion recognition software to analyze the famous, enigmatic smile. -Or looked at her! --Yeah.
Emotion recognition software! I dunno; my money's on bored, what'd you reckon?
Yeah. It shows that the subject was eighty-three percent happy, nine percent disgusted, six percent fearful, and two percent angry.
She was less than one percent neutral and not even a quarter of one percent surprised.
Sounds like a breakdown of the audience. -Yes!
Now. At exactly the same time that Leonardo was discharging his commission to make the beautiful Mona Lisa,
Michelangelo Buonarroti was, er, putting the finishing touches to, perhaps, his most famous work -
- the most famous iconic statue there ever was - the David.
Three of him. And the David is a representation of?
David who slingshot Goliath.
King David, who slew the champion of the Philistines, Goliath. Exactly. What use did he have for two hundred foreskins?
Who cares? It's a feminist's dream.
He didn't make his slingshot out of them, did he?
Oh, no, he didn't.
-Er, he deep fried them and invented hula hoops.
There was... there was a rabbi who saved up all the foreskins from all his, he was a moyel, you know, the bris.
And he dried them, and he made a wallet out of them.
Yeah, it was amazing; if you stroked it, it became a briefcase!
You keep that up, kid, I'll have ya playin' the big rooms!
Anyway. This is, er, we're Biblical here. Who was David's great patron, and whom did he, actually, then succeed as king of Israel and king of Judea?
Saul? -Saul. King Saul. Very good!
Saul was, as kings did in the Bible, grew very jealous of David, although he was the one who brought him up from shepherd boy to great general --
Thought you were going to say shepherd's bush! Did he have a shepherd's bush?
-David Ben Jesse!
I can't slay these four, what're ya thinking about?
So, Saul grew very jealous and basically wanted him slain in battle, so he said to him,
"You can marry my daughter, but as a dowry, I want a hundred foreskins from the Gentile Philistines." And he went into battle.
He got two hundred, would you believe? Then Saul gave him his daughter Michael in marriage. Unfortunate end of the bargain, but there you are.
Once you've got the hundred, why did he then think, "I'm not sure, you know, get another hundred."
A hundred and one. Come on, another one.
They're like chocolate Hobnobs.
Anyway, let's put our best foot forward into the final furlong of General Ignorance.
So be careful not to put your foot in it, but put your fingers on the mushroomoids.
And where would you find the world's largest organ?
Er, in a cathedral. Somewhere like, erm, St. Peter's in Rome, maybe. Or somewhere, or Seville. Or some huge cathedral.
That's a good answer.
-But not the correct one.
The blue whale!
I'm sorry, no. -Six years in a row.
We're thinking of a musical instrument. The world's --
It's never been the blue whale, ever!
It's, it's the world's largest musical instrument.
-Rick Wakeman's house.
It IS a musical instrument.
Uh-huh. -Is it in a university?
No, it's inside a natural phenomenon, and it's been turned into an organ.
Cave. Some sort of cave.
In caves, and it's a man -Whacking.
A man with the ridiculous name of Leland W. Sprinkle, who-
American! He has to be American.
-American, yes.
Has made the felted hammers that strike the stalactites in the cave, and they are tuned and very, very precise.
Stephen, if you'd asked us where the world's biggest xylophone was, then I might have been able to help you.
Ah... -Strictly an organ. --No, no, you are! I agree with you that anything percussive of one kind--
--is a kind of xylophone, though it couldn't really technically be a xylophone, because xylos is the Greek for wood, and it's not wood, is it? -Oh,
So, er, the largest organ in the world can be found deep in the Luray Caverns in Virginia.
Now, what can you tell about a man from the size of his feet?
The size of his shoes.
Oddly enough, not!
That's not just because we thought people would say that, they genuinely are true. Most people wear the wrong size shoes.
I know it sounds bizarre, but apparently, because they aren't aware of how their feet change --
The size of his cock.
I'm -- I'm sorry that isn't true, because I have size thirteen feet. But it isn't, apparently, true in all cases.
Apparently, the size of your hands is in proportion to the size of your feet, though there are many other views.
One is that your foot size is the same from the point of your elbow to your arm. It's exactly that.
Then why do people think that you're cock's to do with your foot size?
It was a rumour started by clowns.
You know what they say: 'Big shoes, big penis.'
As they come in the room. 'Oh, baby.'
Oh, dear. What do we measure feet in, in Britain? Obviously, the one-two-three? What is that?
The measurement of the slidy thing?
-Yes, but what is the unit? What is the unit?
Er, the fraction of the slidy thing. Er ...
Yes. It's called a barleycorn. A third of an inch.
-Barleycorn?! --A barleycorn.
So if you're size twelve, you're a barleycorn bigger than a size eleven. Two barleycorns bigger than a size ten.
Why don't they ever tell you that down the shoe shop?
-I think they are probably not aware of the fact.
If I go into [?] tomorrow and go, "Good vendor of shoes! How many barleycorns am I this fine day?"
and I point my foot at them, I'm gonna get short changed.
I have size thirteen feet as well, which is an absolute plague, 'cause most shoe production goes up to eleven,
maybe, possibly twelve, and you go into shops. Every time I go in, I go, "Do you have anything in size thirteen," I get a speech where they go--
"You might find it difficult to find shoes in that size." Do you look at them and go, "Really? 'Cause this is the first day I've had size thirtee
It was a birthday present! -"Yesterday, I had size nine,
and then I played poker with the witch, er,
and it went hideously wrong. Now I've got these things, but thank you! Thank you for setting me straight."
Do they not go, "Good sir, you're a barleycorn too far for this shop, I'll wager!"
"We'll not have enough barleycorns for you!"
-"Off to Big Ron's Freak Foot Outlet!"
"Where the clowns buy their shoes!"
Listen for the--
"Come in, you are welcome here ... Tichy Feet!"
Behave yourselves. Now, erm, good! Shoes. So, how many muscles are there, incidentally, in your fingers?
One, if you play your cards right.
I'll not look at you, dreadful boy! I'm not going to pay any attention to you now.
I'll put the pencil in!
Oh, Lord bless you. Oh, stop it!
-Oh, Mr Fry! You're so dirty.
None!
-None is the right answer, thank you.
There are no muscles in your fingers, only tendons. The muscles are in the hand and in the forearm that control the fingers.
In fact, a way of showing... if you do a sort of spidery thing--and then pull in your middle finger like that, all right? Now, lift your thumb. Lift i
Tap your little finger.
Tap your index finger.
Now, tap your ring finger.
You can't move it at all.
-I've - I've hurt myself!
The thing is it has no muscle. All it is is, but it has a shared tendon with the middle fingers, so it can't even move at all.
It hurt there! -Yeah. It's weird, isn't it?
There you have a picture of the musculature of the hand and arm, and you can see there are no muscles there in the fingers.
And lastly now! Which is easier, smiling or frowning?
Oh, smiling uses less muscles than frowning.
Oh, dear no! In fact, it's exactly (The other way around?)
the opposite is true.
It's the kind of thing people say in a banal manner to shopkeepers, "You know, it uses less muscles to smile than frown." In fact, it's not true.
I'm glad that's not true, because that's the most annoying thing that anyone's ever said. -Exactly.
In fact, you use twelve muscles.
You use twelve muscles to smile and only eleven to frown, as it happens. Like this!
Ah, you look like that photo of yourself earlier.
I'm using twenty-three muscles!
Still twenty-three!
Hey! Let's see now--
It is the most hideously irritating thing, going, "Oh, you know, the fewer--"
It's like, "A friend is a stranger you haven't met yet." People who say that kind of --
Tea towels?
-Yeah, yeah. And we go, yeah. And I do want to go,
"How many muscles, exactly, does it take?"
-And I say, "Fuck off!"
Oh! Come on, then. All right, because it's, er, just... it's a crazy childhood dream of mine. I've always wanted to beat you at Rock, Paper, Scisso
Okay, are we doing one? -No.
Okay, that's right. One, two, three!
I like it when you're standing, you might be thinking about something, you might be a bit pensive, you might be lost,
and someone you don't know just comes and goes, "Cheer up."
- Oh, I know.
"Cheer up!" Oh, fuck off.
Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen, place your bets!
What way will Davies go in the current trends --
He's been talking Stone all night. He's been talking Stone all night. Do you think it's gonna be Stone? -No. It'll be Stone. --All right.
Ah-one! Ah-two! Ah-three! Ah-wow!
YES! -OH!
Let's see ... let's see if these reversals and forfeits
- Cheer up!
-- have any effect...!
So! Who will be smiling when the scores are revealed? Let's have a look at them.
In first place... with minus twenty-four!
Oh! It's Phill Jupitus!
In second place with minus twenty-six is Jo Brand!
In third place with minus twenty-eight, Dara O'Briain!
Which means the Scissors crushed by the Stone tonight with minus forty-two, Alan Davies!
Anyway, it's thanks to Phill, Dara, Jo, and Alan, and I leave you with this face saving story:
Abraham Lincoln was once accused of being two-faced.
And he replied, "If I were two-faced, do you think I'd be wearing this one?" Thank you, and good night!