QI (2003–…): Season 8, Episode 11 - Highs and Lows - full transcript

APPLAUSE

Well, hi there, hi there, hi there,
hiya, hiya, hi and hello!

Tonight we scale the heights
and plumb the depths

for our theme is highs and lows
and joining me tonight,

the height of good manners,

- Sandi Toksvig...
- APPLAUSE

- ..and the highly-fancied
Rob Brydon...
- APPLAUSE

- ..the highly-regarded
Fred MacAulay...
- APPLAUSE

- ..and the depths of depravity,
Alan Davies.
- APPLAUSE

So...

- ..your buzzers, if you please.
Sandi goes...
- MID-RANGE # La! #



- ..Rob goes...
- HIGHER: # La! #

- ..Fred goes...
- HIGHER STILL: # La! #

- ..Alan goes...
- DEEP: # LA! #

Of course, what else?
Let's start our journey
in the heather-clad Highlands.

Fred, perhaps you can help us
as a Scot.

I'm a non-Scotsman, as are the
others, so which of the tartans here
would I NOT be entitled to wear?

Oh, good grief!

- Do you recognise any of them? - I
think the one on the extreme left
could be a Stewart. - It is!

- Not just a Stewart. - Royal.
- Royal Stewart. - Royal Stewart.

- The next one, I think, is...
- A mistake. - ..probably Burberry.

- Burp-erry. - No, Burb-erry. Ahem,
forgive me.

Erm...as is the next one. I don't
think you'd be allowed to wear

anything other than
the black and white one.

Well, it's interesting.
What you say is true.



That one is the Royal Stewart.
The one next to it, the purple
and green, is actually known as

the Sikh tartan and it's
for the Singh, S-I-N-G-H,

and a rich Sikh businessman went to
the biggest of the tartan companies
and said, "I want a Sikh tartan,"

and, of course, they obliged.

- It's the Wimbledon colours. - It is
actually Wimbledon, you're right,
green and purple. - Yeah.

The point is that the whole tartan
business is very recent.
It's not an ancient clan thing.

It's only in the 19th century when
the Highlands became the playground
of the Royal Family and Balmoral

and places like this, they were
never related to families.

It wasn't like,
"Oh, we're in Glen Coe and we're
the MacDonalds, so this is ours."

That all happened much, much later
and was a sort of invention of the
tartan-selling cloth merchants

- of the Royal Mile and other such
places. - I fear I might not be able
to contribute. I'm welling up.

If there is one we CAN wear, it is
the Royal Stewart because we can all
wear the tartan of our chieftain,

and, constitutionally,
Her Maj is our chieftain

- and therefore we, if we're British
subjects... - So I couldn't wear it,
then?

- You're not a British subject.
- I'm Danish. - You're Danish.

- Is there a Danish tartan,
made of pastry...? - No.

That's our entire culture
in a nutshell, um...

You forgot the porn films,
you silly boy.

With an apricot plopped in the
middle, so your people certainly
claimed the tartan,

and took hold of it, but there's
nothing in history to show that that
was the first place that plaid,

- as the Americans call tartan...
Do you know what "plaid" means,
where it's from? - It means tartan.

- No, it doesn't really, it's a Gaelic
word... - It's the same as plaiting.
- Is it blanket? Like a blanket? - Yes.

- The Gaelic for blanket is plaid.
- Plaid. - And tartan is thought to
come from the French "tertaine"...

He didn't know how to put that on,
did he? Oh!

Oh, I don't know!

I don't know. How's that?

- Steady! - If I move, it'll fall off.

- Take the picture, take the picture.
- Funnily enough, that was the
original tartan,

- the long thing that went over
your shoulders, and the modern...
- SCOTTISH: - "I've my sword in my toe!

"Ha! God!

"Take the picture, it hurts!"

- The short kilt... - "Is there a weed
in my hat? Is there something
growing in my hat?

"It's a weed!" "No, no, it's fine."

- It's a symbol of something... - "I
cannae move, my tartan will fall."
Sorry about this offensive accent.

It's lovely to see you again...

There will be a lot of people
watching who will wonder, "What does
a true Scotsman wear under his kilt?"

And I can tell you
a true Scotsman would never tell
you what he wears under his kilt.

- He will SHOW you at the drop
of a hat. - I've seen dandruff
on the shoes. That's a giveaway.

AUDIENCE GROANS

- Oh, dear. The short kilt...
- I don't feel well now.

How could you, with that
information? Give me something else.
Give me another image.

Danish pastry, Danish pastry.

The short kilt, you'll be sorry
to know, is an English invention.

It was an industrialist called
Rawlinson who had an iron mill
in Scotland,

who thought that this long blanket
was a waste of time,

but that the short kilt with skirt,
basically, would be a very handy
and efficient way of dressing.

Do you know how to get the exact
length of the kilt correct?
You kneel down so the bottom hem

- of the kilt just has to rest on
the surface. - That's how we measured
our skirts at school. - Oh, really?

At boarding school. Mind you,
we all wore two pair of pants
just on the off-chance.

- We wore a white pair with a blue
pair over the top, in case any boy
should happen... - No! - Yes. - Seriously?

In case one pair would fly off
accidentally.

- How extraordinary! - They were
terrified of boys. Meanwhile,
I was in a dorm full of girls

and quite happy.

- I was going to say that.
- LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Well, there you are. The fact is ,
the idea of being entitled to a
particular tartan is fairly recent,

comes from England, but you can't go
wrong with Royal Stewart. How do you
win a caber-throwing competition?

- Oh-ho! He's a big boy! - Good to see
Mel Smith getting back out
into the public eye.

- he looks like he's just caught that
one. - It does, doesn't it? - Whooar!
I've got it!

What's really unlikely
is that I have taken part

- in a caber...
- LAUGHTER
- I know. - Wow! - Yeah. I took part

- in some Highland Games. You have to
toss it and it has to flip over...
- Yes.

- ..and then it's the direction... - It
doesn't matter how high it is or how
far it is, not like putting shot,

- it's not about distance, it's how
straight it is... - 12 o'clock.
- 12 o'clock is the phrase.

You have points deducted for every
minute off 12 o'clock
you are from yourself.

We can see someone doing a very good
one and it doesn't look easy.

- That must be very, very heavy. - Yeah.

And you think, "It's going to fall
back on him,"

- but no, it just goes over and...
that's impressive. - It's disappeared.

It's completely disappeared
into the long grass.

It could be a man in early January
disposing of this Christmas tree.

Yes.

- Or trying to. - I love
the Highland Games cos they do
just what it says on the tin.

- Weight over the bar is one of them
and you throw a weight over a bar.
- LAUGHTER

- They have sheaf toss... - A sheaf
toss. - A sheaf, and you toss it.

It's straightforward...
For those of us that loathe sport,
it's straightforward.

I know what's going to happen.

- Hammer toss. I'll get out the way.
I know what's happening. - Putting
the hot was putting the stone.

- Aye! - But again, it's a recent
invention. People have claimed
it goes back to Malcolm III,

you know, the son of the murdered
King Duncan, the one that Macbeth
murdered, but there's no evidence.

The first one was in the 19th
century, the first gathering of
these games

and it was around the time
of Queen Victoria,

- and Prince Albert came to Balmoral
and they liked it, there was one
at Braemar... - "Entertainment!

- "We need entertainment." - Exactly.
And around the same time, or
a little later, Baron de Coubertin,

who founded the modern Olympic
movement, he saw them and he liked
a lot of the events, including...

- Which ones went into the Olympics
from the Highland Games? - Poetry. - No.

There was poetry in the Olympic
Games, as you rightly remembered,
but no.

- The hammer is still there, the shot.
- Not the caber-tossing.
- Not the caber toss. - Never made it.

Dancing was another feature,
which was originally all men,

but now tends to be
almost exclusively women.

- As is the man on the left. - Oh, yes.
- Can I just say well done to whoever
used the computer-aided design

to put in a blue sky
and some shadows.

Very good indeed.

- Did you ever try it as a child?
- We had to do country dancing
in primary school. - I had to.

- I was in the lead-off pair
with Nicola Raby. - Wow!

- That came out very quickly. Nicola
Raby obviously meant something to
you. - Yeah, she was a good dancer -

- the best in the class. - Do you know
who the great, you may have heard of
him, Donald Dinnie was?

Donald Dinnie? That's an instruction
in Scotland. "Donald, dinnae!

"Whatever it is you're thinking
about, Donald, dinnae!

"Jimmy, you can,
but, Donald, dinnae!"

Well, I'm afraid Donald DID!
Those are all his medals.

He was far and away the most
successful Highland Games exponent
in all disciplines.

- "Remove these. They're all going to
fall off!" - He won, in one day alone,
20 prizes in different disciplines

- in a Highland gathering. - He doesn't
look the build of a heavy...
- For 40 years, from 1850 to 1890,

he ruled supreme.

- Can I ask, Stephen, what did he win
the medals for? - Caber-tossing,
he was most proficient at.

He was also a high jumper.

There was one high jumping thing and
he failed twice, took his kilt off
and managed it on the third attempt.

So, yes, caber-tossing is all about
the straightness of the throw.

Caber-tossing is sometimes called
spurning the barre,

- not something you'd imagine
any Scot ever doing.
- LAUGHTER

What was regularly smuggled into the
USA from Canada for the traditional
Burns Night celebrations?

- What do they have at Burns Night
celebrations - haggises?
- Is the right answer! - Thank you.

CHEERING

We thought you might be tempted
to say whisky, but this is
from 1989 up until 2010,

haggises were smuggled from Canada
into America - why might this be?

- Because the Americans don't approve
of inedible food. - Haggis is delish!

- Why? I can't think... - There is
one element inside the haggis
that was contraband.

- There it is.
What's the outer casing? - Stomach.

- A sheep's stomach, and inside is...
- It's called pluck. Pluck is the
correct word for the bits...

- Is it heart, liver and...?
- Offal, certainly, bits of that,

- but one... - Lung. - Lugs, which is
known, in the butcher's trade,
as the lights, which are...

And those were outlawed in America
because of BSE and indeed their own
problems. You couldn't eat them.

So there was a trade
in smuggled Canadian haggis.

What do we know about the haggis?
Which nation invented the haggis?

- I wonder if we're not responsible.
- You think it might be Danes?
- It might be.

The first reference in the British
Isles is Lancashire but there are
lots of theories about the haggis.

- Offal comes from Danish. It's from
the Danish word for rubbish -
affald. - Oh, really?

- There must be some hideous
Scandinavian connection. - Some think
it was Vikings who brought it over.

- It comes from Lancashire, does it?
- The first reference to it. - You know
the Burns Address to the haggis?

- Yes, it's a poem. - It's a poem, which
on Burns Night, at a Burns Supper,
somebody would address it.

It would come in... That's been cut
open but before it's cut,

someone addresses it and it starts
with, "Fair fa'
your honest, sonsie face,

"Great chieftain o' the puddin-race!

"Aboon them a' ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm

- "Weel are ye wordy of a grace
As lang's my arm." - Oh, bravo!
- APPLAUSE

And there it is being piped in,
but somebody I know was doing
a Burns Supper abroad,

and they had sent the address over
to Germany and it was translated
into German,

but the German translated it back and
the line, instead of "Great chieftain
o' the puddin-race!"

translated back as, "Mighty Fuhrer
of the sausage people."

Oh, that's fabulous!

That should stay. It's a lot
better than "Great chieftain
o' the puddin-race!"

- "Mighty Fuhrer of the sausage
people." What is the date of Burns
Night? - January 25th.

Yes, it's his birthday. I like the
way you get all your celebrations
in one corner of the year.

Being Scottish, you have Christmas
craziness, then Hogmanay insanity,
Burns Night three weeks later...

- PRIM SCOTTISH ACCENT:
- ..and for the rest of the year,
nothing. Just a long hangover.

- Abstinence. - Abstinence. Dourness.

There is no poet that has the same
affection in the English culture.

We venerate Shakespeare
in different ways. Some people
resent him because of school.

- But there is a deep love for Burns.
- Absolutely. He was a great man
and very forward-thinking.

He was completely and utterly
anti-slave trade.

So much so that if you go
to the Burns Museum, there is
a photograph of Muhammad Ali,

who came over to Scotland and visited
it because he was a student of Burns,

because of the humanitarian work
that he'd done 150 years ago.

- And he was fond of a rhyme.
- And he loves haggis.

"I love all you sausage people,"
he used to say.

Scottish friends of mine used
to say, "I don't know why you go on
about our accent being impenetrable.

"Americans find it easier
to understand than English."

Then I saw Trainspotting in America
and there were subtitles
all the way through.

Where is the Chinese Burns Night
celebrated?

- Beijing. - No, oddly enough.

- There is one... - Chinese Burns Night?
- There's one where they combine...

Isn't that something unpleasant done
to your wrist?

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

- I mean, fun, but a whole evening?
- LAUGHTER

It combines Burns Night with
the Chinese New Year.

Because they often fall very close
to each other. And in Vancouver
they hold them together.

It's called Gung Haggis Fat Choy,
and they have haggis with bean curd
sauce and things like that.

And the biggest Highland Games,
with regular spectators of 50,000,
is where, do you think?

- It has to be in the States. - It is.

- It's Arkansas, Kentucky or... - No,
it's actually in San Francisco.

- I was going to get there eventually.
- Quite camp, then. - Quite camp, yes!
- Pink tartan. - Oh, dear me!

Canadian haggis smugglers
plied their wicked trade across
the US border right up until 2010.

Now, once he'd conquered Everest,
what did Edmund Hillary do
for an encore?

- He had a massive teeth-off
with Sherpa Tenzing.
- LAUGHTER

"I can notice no other...
Look at my teeth, they've grown!
Look at my teeth!"

"Mine too, Edmund, mine too!"

Look at this. Ready? Ready? >

You DO look like him!

- Oh, my God!
- LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

- Did he become a Welsh comedian? - No!
- Me or him?

I do look a bit like him,
actually, but there's not much
you can do with it.

- Not really. - You've got to do
a Kiwi accent.

KIWI ACCENT:
Yeah, I mean, I've climbed a few
mountains in my time, sure I hiv,

but it's not something I like to go
on abit.

I'm struggling because...

- Needs a bit of work there, Rob.
- I'm sorry, I apologise...

I apologise to any New Zealanders
watching.

The Australians, they don't
say Elvis, they say Ilvis.

I heard that New Zealanders are
traditionally quite puritanical

and it's quite hard for them
even to say the word "six".

One, two, three, four, five... Ooh,
I can't say it. Six.

There's a famous graffiti that was
seen in Melbourne,

which looked like a rugby score,
"Australia 6, New Zealand 7",

which of course they would
pronounce as "Australia sucks,
New Zealand's heaven."

- Isn't that clever? - Doesn't really
travel, does it? - No, it doesn't.

I should tell you, when this
photograph was taken - I'll never
forget it - we'd had a...

LAUGHTER

We'd had a wonderful day
and I'd just said a lovely joke
to my good friend there

- and as you can see he was pissing
himself laughing. - And his name was?

His name was Bert.

- LAUGHTER
- His name was?

- Sherpa Tenzing. - Sherpa Tenzing
Norgay. - Yes, but to his FRIENDS...

- Wasn't it cheating, having someone
carry your luggage for you?
- STEPHEN LAUGHS

- Now, which one of them got
to the peak first? - Sherpa Tenzing.

- No, Hillary. - Edmund Hillary.

And not only that...

- Were they racing? - Not at all, they
were friends, and Tenzing Norgay

wrote in his autobiography
that Hillary got to the top first,

and that Hillary said, "No, we tell
everybody we got there together."

Then the King of Nepal said,
"Everybody knows that Tenzing
got there first,"

and Hillary didn't say a word.

- Oh... - He was very noble about it.

And he actually devoted most of
his life to raising money for
the Nepalese people.

25 schools, his charity, so he was
a very good man,

but what did he do after Everest?

- He went to the bottom of the sea.
- No. - Did he climb something else?

No, he didn't. Well, sort of.
It was in the Himalayas still,
but he went on an expedition...

He took an incredible challenge
that tested the extremes of
physical endurance.

- Not really. It was a bit of a wild
goose chase. - Was he looking for
the Yeti? - He went on a Yeti hunt.

He concluded that the thing didn't
exist, but this is him preparing,
looking slightly less like Rob.

- Who does he look like there? - Erm...
- Edmund Hillary. - Basically, yes.

He does look awkward. He does look
like, "Yes, I am going to marry her,
because I love her."

- "I'm standing by her." - In that
picture I look more like the chap
in the drawing, actually.

Did he really think that it existed?

He wanted to settle the matter,
or at least attempt to,

and of course they didn't find it,
but one thing they discovered
is this footprint business,

and in shadows a fox print is small,
but as it gets into a sunny area
it gets elongated as it melts,

and a human footprint can go
up to 21 inches,

and that seems to be an explanation
for some of the footprint stories.

- They're like the crop circles
of the Himalayas. - They kind of are.

To be fair, one of the members said,
"We were probably too noisy,"

because they didn't see a snow
leopard, and we know they exist,
so it doesn't prove that they don't.

- Are you suggesting that only
an expedition that was fantastically
quiet might find it? - Well...

- "Shhhh!" - Yes, basically.

They lost their mobile signal.
"Hello?! Yeah, we're nearly
at the top! You're breaking up."

"We're looking for the Yeti!"

Ironically, you get fantastic
mobile coverage high up mountains.

If you ever go on a skiing holiday,
you... Oh, good God, what's that?

An artist's impression of a thing
that doesn't exist.

- Edmund Hillary, after looking for
a Yeti for 20 years.
- LAUGHTER

Some people thought that actually
they were on a spying mission,

because two of the people with him
were rocket experts,

and that they were spying on Chinese
rocket installations in Tibet.

- Who knows? - Some people now think
that may have been... - Yes, they still
think that's what they were doing.

So, there you are.
That's basically the answer.

After conquering Everest in '53,
Edmund Hillary went in search of
the Abominable Snowman.

Speaking of Yetis, what would
be the quickest way of getting
Brian Blessed to the top of Everest?

LAUGHTER

Tell him they're putting on
a production of Peter Pan,

Ken Branagh's directing
and he's a shoo-in for Captain...

- MIMICS BRIAN BLESSED:
- "I'd do it like a shot!"

- That's possible. - He loves
mountain climbing. - Of course he does.
Has he climbed Everest?

- He had a go. - He's had several goes.

He got incredibly close. He got
to 28,000 feet without oxygen,

the oldest man ever
to climb that height.

He had to turn back to save
someone's life. His whole life,
he'd been wanting to climb it.

He helped save someone's life, so
that stopped him going to the top.

He's a Black Belt in judo,
he was a boxing champion.

He's the oldest man to go
to the North Pole and to 28,000 feet
without oxygen. He's extraordinary.

You say he went to 28,000 feet
without oxygen,
but he must have had some.

No, I mean... Sorry.
Without the assistance.

He held his breath all the way. >

"Here we go, OK."
BREATHES HEAVILY

Using the very little
that is in the atmosphere.

I think the fastest way to get him up
is you get a big balloon
full of hot air,

then tell him to go up the mountain.

That would be quite...
There is a quicker way,
but it's incredibly dangerous.

- It's only recently been done.
- Can't you be dropped by a plane?

It's been done once by helicopter.
It's unbelievably difficult

because with that little air,
the rotor resistance...

And the hydraulic fluids all behave
differently. It's a pretty
insane thing to try and do.

And the winds gust at 160mph.

It was done by a Frenchman
called Didier Desalle. He stayed
on the surface for two minutes.

So it's the highest ever in history
landing and take-off
that has ever been made.

I thought you couldn't breathe at...
I went sky-diving once
and it was at 17,500 feet.

AUSTRALIAN ACCENT:
They said that's the highest
you can sky-dive without oxygen.

This was in Lancashire,
which was rather odd.

- How many people who attempt it die,
would you say? - Quite a lot.

A lot of people
don't even go halfway
because of the altitude sickness.

- What is this condition? - Heart
failure? - It's a cerebral oedema
or a pulmonary oedema.

Fluid build-up in the brain
or the lungs.

So you start to get a headache
at about 14,000 feet or something
and apparently there are signs

saying, "If you're getting
a headache...go back."

"Tiredness kills. Take a break."

LAUGHTER
"Feeling woozy?
Pull in for a coffee."

"Moto - two miles."

"M&S Simply Food - 12 miles."
LAUGHTER

We'll keep going to the M&S!

It's so much better there.

There is the Dead Zone,
which has a lot of bodies in it
and a lot of equipment.

- Some Nepalese and Sherpas are
planning to get rid of the litter.
- They're going to get a skip. - Yes.

There will be a lot of dead bodies.
Brian Blessed is a lover of animals.

He has over 2,000 animals
at his house in Surrey, apparently.

- In his house?! - His house and gardens.
He has a lot in his house as well.

- No wonder he shouts!
Thousands? - 2,000.

- What species?
- All kinds. - Wasps, llamas.

- 2,000 creatures of various kinds.
- But that seems a ridiculous number.

- Am I the only person to be staggered
by two... - No. - I know someone with 12
dogs and I think that's incredible!

- He's a remarkable man.
- If it was bees, you could
understand, but eland or zebra...

All mixture of creatures.
Some tiny-winy and lots of,
some quite big and only a few.

He's also one of the few people
to have boxed with the Dalai Lama.

- You're making it up! - No,
the Dalai Lama was keen on boxing

and they actually sparred together.
Few people can say they've sparred
with His Holiness.

- He is one of the most remarkable
men. - I agree. One cow.

When he dies, he'll be able to look
back on a much richer life
than just about anybody else.

Extraordinary. Acted with the RSC,
played Voltan in Flash Gordon!

- "Fly, my beauties!"
- LAUGHTER

You can't ask for better than that,
can you?

- Why did he box with the Dalai Lama?
- He met him and they talked
about boxing.

He was a boxing champion himself
in the past, Blessed, in
Yorkshire, where he comes form.

- The Dalai Lama is a passionate fan
of boxing. - Not as prized as
he should be, Brian Blessed.

- I agree, he's a remarkable figure.
- He's not held up the way
he should be.

He calls me spunk bubble.
"Hello, spunk bubble! How are you?"

- LAUGHTER
- Don't know why, but he does.

Maybe that's the reason why
he's not prized!

"If only I hadn't called Stephen Fry
a spunk bubble!"

- Why does he call you...
- We don't want to know!

- No explanation. - Did he do it
without oxygen?

No-o-o! Enough, already!

Since the record-breaking flight
of Didier Desalle in 2005,

the quickest way of getting to
the top of Everest is by helicopter.

If you were on top of a mountain,
how could you tell how high you were
without electronic instrumentation?

I went up the Old Man of Coniston
earlier this year.

I have to say
he was very accommodating.

I think he enjoyed it.
And at the top there

they've got a thing that tells you
where you are. But that's not
what you're getting at, Stephen.

You're thinking of somewhere
fiendishly clever.

- Not really... - Can you?
- You can if you have a spirit stove
and a kettle.

- I have one here... - Is this to do
with the temperature? - Not
the temperature. - The boiling point?

The boiling point, yes. At sea level
it is 100 degrees Celsius,

but every 1,000 feet up you go,

boiling happens
at one centigrade lower.

- Right. - Right?

Climb 1,000 feet and it's 99 degrees
Celsius at which water boils.

By the time you get to, say,
Mont Blanc,

it's about 84 degrees
and by the time you get to Everest,
it's 70 degrees it boils at.

You could never be completely
accurate. Mountains must be sinking.

Actually, Everest is growing
by a tiny amount every year.

- It's dead people...
- LAUGHTER

That's basically what it is!
That's a terrible thought.

Conversely, if you tried to boil
an egg down in the Mariana Trench,
in the deepest part of the ocean...

- You couldn't get the fire to light.
- There is that problem!

But it would be 584 degrees
before water boiled.

So it would be far too hot. The
higher you go, you could put your
fingers in it and not get burned.

- Is it to do with air pressure? - Yes.
- Such a British notion. "I wonder
how tall it is. Let's make tea."

- This tea is cold. - We couldn't live
in this trench! You can't make tea.

It's called hypsometry,
the art of determining your height
according to various metrics.

There are other ways, not on
a mountain, to tell temperature.

- Animal ways, which are surprisingly
precise. - Finger in your bum.

- Mm. Yeah. Mm.
- LAUGHTER

- No? - Mm.

- I was thinking of the field cricket.
- Of course, sorry.
Field cricket in your bum.

- So...if you count the number
of chirps... - Yes, you're right.

Below 13 degrees Celsius,
it doesn't chirp at all.

At 13 exactly, it chirps
at around 60 a minute, one a second.

- Yes(!) - And then the rate increases
with temperature. So 140 a minute
tells you it's 22.5 degrees Celsius.

- The quicker he's chirping,
the hotter it is? - Yes. - Gosh.
- And it's quite reliable. 22.5.

In hot countries, you're tossing
at night, you can't get off.

LAUGHTER

No... No! No!

- I'm simply not having it.
- It sounds like it.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

You can tell what the weather will
be like with your coffee.

If you get a cup of coffee,
before you put the milk in,
if the bubbles go into the middle...

Let me get this right.
..it's going to be low pressure.

- So you can tell if it'll be a nice
day or not. Or look out the window.
- LAUGHTER

- Bubbles in your coffee. - The simplest
way to calculate the height of
your mountain is to boil a kettle.

More record-breaking international
cooperation, this time
at the bottom of the sea.

An Englishman and a Frenchman were
drilling a tunnel under the Channel.

Who made sure they met
in the middle?

- Were they really dressed like that?
- LAUGHTER

The Frenchman is called
Philippe Cozette and the Englishman
is called Graham Fagg.

- LAUGHTER
- Er, and...

they did meet in the middle. They
were just 300-odd millimetres out.

It was extraordinary how accurate
it was. But what would they use?

- Sonar, I would imagine. - Not sonar.
- Shouting? - Not shouting, no!

- LAUGHTER
- "Hello? Are you there?"

"We are here!"

"Oh, we've gone past you!
We're coming back."

Then they would just say
it's two tunnels,

- one's the exit tunnel.
- "We'll keep going!"

- Have you read Birdsong by
Sebastian Faulks? - Indeed, yes.
- All about tunnelling. - The saps.

It's a brilliant book.
They would tunnel underneath
the enemy trenches

and plant explosives. But the other
side were doing the same thing,

so they would be...
It's a brilliant novel.
They're in the tunnel

and everyone has to be completely
quiet, and they can hear
the Germans tunnelling.

Are they going to let
their bomb off, are we going
to let our bomb off?

See how quiet it's gone?
That's how good the book is!

- I'm not going to tell you what
happens, but it's really good.
- It is.

- Was it a Scot, the engineer?
- It wasn't. - Come on! - You'd think
it would be.

Is that Superman up the top there?

- LAUGHTER
- It is Superman!

What's going on?!

They told him to wear high
visibility clothing, and he did!

Came straight from the party
the night before.

- Obviously it was some celebration
there. - That machine they use,

they had it at the side of
the motorway for ages afterwards.

They had a large sign on it
that said, "One careful owner".

The French, rather sweetly,
gave them names. Brigitte, Europa,
Catherine, Virginie,

Pascaline and Severine, and after
the tunnel, they dismantled them,
rebuilt them and kept them.

The British didn't give them names.
They made the machines burrow
themselves into the ground,

- where they just left them. - Aww!
That says it all, doesn't it?
- I'm ashamed.

- I'm faintly ashamed. - So who did get
them to meet in the middle? - A German
invented a machine to do it.

And the machine is called
a gyrotheodolite.

You can't know where you are
underground, you can't use a compass
because of the magnetic ore.

- Or GPS. - Or GPS, because you haven't
got line of sight with the...
- "Turn left."

- LAUGHTER
- Yeah, so...

- the use is, being a
gyrotheodolite... - "Do U-turn where
possible." - "PLEASE do U-turn."

- "You are under the sea." - But what
would a gyrotheodolite use

to find out where you are, or where
north is? "Gyro" means...?

- Revolving. - Revolving,
it's the rotation of the Earth.

- Ah! - So it can work out where
north is. - Why not just ask Superman?

Ask Superman, who has a little place
at the North Pole.

I love how Superman's got
a hard hat. "Come on, you're
the man of steel!"

So it was a German invention.
His name was Max Schuler.

So the French had one of these
machines and the British had one?

They didn't meet halfway, however.
Who had got furthest, the French
or the English?

- Oh, the English, surely!
- We got furthest.

It was the French, cos the English
were wandering about,

disposing of the earth out of
the bottom of their trousers.

Making sure nobody could see.

"We've just passed the guy vaulting
the horse, we'll be fine, come on."

We got further?

Yes, but not because the French
were lazy and workshy.

They were talking to their machines.
"My beautiful machine!"

They had geological difficulties
their end.

IN FRENCH ACCENT:
"We are experiencing geological
difficulties, mon petit cher,

"but soon, it will all be good."

They're giving them names!

"Let the English do the work!"

It reminded me of the German
who made a gyroscopic theodolite.

Yes.

I've got to say, a brilliant
invention, but not a huge market!

That's unfortunately true.
Not enough tunnels being built.

IN GERMAN ACCENT:
"We have sold two!"

LAUGHTER

"All gone very well!

"We were hoping for sales of one,
but we're selling two!"

There was a man
called Colonel Barog,

who could have used it when
they were doing a tunnel
for the railway there,

and they missed, and he went home
and shot himself. He was so ashamed.

Did he hit?

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

The ends of the Channel Tunnel
met in the middle

thanks to a clever German invention
called a gyro-theodolite.

Now the time has come to abandon
the uplands of knowledge and plunge
into the abyss of general ignorance.

Name a country where English
is the official language.

LAUGHTER

Go on, my children.

- Yes? - Wales.

Yes! It's the right answer.
Very good.

- APPLAUSE
- Any others?

Scotland!

- Eng...England. - England?

HOOTER BLARES

I'm afraid not.

- India? - Yes, I think it is
an official language.

Absolutely right. Very good.

- Yeah? - France.
LAUGHTER

- No, darling. No, it isn't.
- You know when you're thinking,
"It sounds crazy, but...

- "Go on, be brave.
Leap into the abyss."
- Odd use of the word "thinking".

LAUGHTER

- So we haven't got an official
language, obviously. - The point is
that it has never arisen here.

An official language is defined
as one which, in statute,
is enshrined in the legal system

as a language that can be used in
documentation. So it's never arisen.

In America, nor has it arisen.
Theodore Roosevelt said everybody
should learn English,

but if it's suggested as an official
language, Hispanics complain.

Maybe just make them both
official languages.

In Canada it's an official language
because French is there.

- Australia? - No. Not in Australia.
- So what's the deal with the map?

- To show English-speaking countries
and lure you into our web.
- Yes, it worked. - It did, I'm afraid.

Many countries have English as the
official language, but not England.

Where do modern Huns live?

Hungerford.

- Huntington. - Huntington!

- Germany. - Germany?
- HOOTER BLARES

- Any offers? Come on.
- I can't think where they might be.

- Why do we associate them with
Germany? - The Hun! - But why Germans?
- The Huns are an ancient...

But it was only ever applied
to the Germans in 1910.

- It was all the Kaiser's fault.
- Much was. - He made a speech in 1910

- when he was sending German troops
off to China. - Look at that outfit!
I love those. Look at them. - I know.

- You'd get up. "Oh, God, I'm stuck!"
- LAUGHTER

He was sending troops off to China
to fight in the Boxer Wars

and he said, "Take no prisoners,
we will sweep down on them
like the Hun."

- He was merely comparing himself
to Attila the Hun. The Huns didn't
come from Germany. - Mongolia?

They came from the East, certainly.
They weren't a people.
They were an army you could join.

- Attila was the most famous.
- Did you ever in your time at Dundee
drink in the Speedwell Tavern?

- Yes. - In the '70s,
when I was a student there,

it was owned by a chap called
Ian Thompson, who had a German wife
called Connie,

- who used to stand at the cash
register and her nickname was
the Hun at the Till. - Oh, very good!

- Very good.
- APPLAUSE

So the answer is that the Huns were
an army, not a tribe and no modern
country is descended from them.

- What do you suffer from if you are
afraid of heights? - Vertigo.

HOOTER BLARES

It's all Alfred Hitchcock's fault.
Vertigo is not a fear of heights.

It's a condition of dizziness.
People who are afraid of heights
can get vertigo,

- but most of them have a particular
phobia. - Heightophobia. - Yes...
Usually we use Greek, don't we?

- Not me.
- LAUGHTER

- So there's a high city in Greece.
Acropol, as in Acropolis.
- Acropolis.

And an acrobat flies high.
So it's acrophobia.

- As opposed to agro.
- As opposed to agoraphobia.

- The guy's gone a bit far
to take a photo of his shoes. - Yes!

You remember the movie Vertigo
with James Stewart and Kim Novak.

The story is that James Stewart
smuggled the Yeti's hand
out of India

and took it to the United States.
James Stewart and his wife, Gloria.

They thought they'll never check his
luggage. He put it in her underwear.

- It was transported out of India.
- Good Lord.

- A strange connection between Vertigo
and the Yeti. - It's a very good one.

- To weave and link.
- Quite interesting. - Indeed.

Lots of people say they're scared
of heights, but I don't think
they are. Everyone is, to a degree.

- Is it to do with perspective...?
- It's a pretty straightforward,
logical evolutionary defence

- against this not being a safe place
to be. - Like in I'm A Celebrity when
they don't like the rope bridge.

- That's the perfect example.
- Well done.

LAUGHTER

Fear of heights is acrophobia.
Vertigo is a spinning or whirling
experienced when stationary.

Which point on Earth is furthest
from the centre?

- The centre of the Earth.
Which point is furthest from it?
- The top of Mount Everest.

- HOOTER BLARES
- Sadly not.

- You'd think it would be.
- Yes. Very much so.

It being the highest point on Earth
so furthest from its centre.

- The South Pole? - The Earth isn't
round. It's a funny shape.
- Yes! - Trick question!

It's flattened at the poles
so the South Pole is nearer
to the centre.

It bulges at the Equator.
That's the point.

- Somewhere in Japan? - No, not Japan.
In South America. The Andes. - The
Andes. At the end of your armies.

- Annapurna? - Not Annapurna.

- Chimborazo. - Of course!

- Chimborazo, at the time, people
thought was the highest on Earth.
20,500 feet. - High enough for me.

Oh, yes. Very, very high. Because
it's so close to the Equator,

it's on the bulge part. It's only
a degree off the exact Equator.

So it ends up being 1.3 miles
further from the centre of the Earth
than Everest.

- And snow on the Equator.
That's quite unusual. - Yeah.

Do you know how you should say
Everest? Because it's named after...

- Everest Double Glazing. - No.

The boot may be
on the other foot there.

It was named after George of that
name, Surveyor General in India,
but he pronounced it Ee-verest.

- Eeverest? - It should be
Mount Eeverest. - I like that.

Look! The tea is not boiling
on Mount Eeverest.

Which brings us to the high point
of our evening - the scores.

Suffering altitude sickness,
in first place is Fred MacAulay
with eight points!

APPLAUSE

Fred is closely followed
by the high-flying six-pointer,
Sandi Toksvig!

APPLAUSE

In third place,
we have with one point
the mildly adventurous Rob Brydon!

That's good for me!

Lurking down in a Mariana Trench
of his own making with -39
is Alan Davies!

Wow!

It only remains for me to thank
Sandi, Rob, Fred and Alan

and to leave you with this
timely proverb about ambition.

The higher a monkey climbs,
the more you can see of its bottom.
Good night.

Subtitles by Subtext
for Red Bee Media Ltd - 2010