QI (2003–…): Season 8, Episode 8 - Hypothetical - full transcript

Well, hello!

Hello, hello, hello, hello,
hello, and welcome to QI,

where we bring you a television
first - a quiz show with no answers.

Yes, tonight we depart from
the certainties of

everyday life to explore the realm
of hypothetical questions.

Or do we?!

It's a job for only the very
finest minds, by which I mean
the potential Johnny Vegas...

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

..the possible Sandi Toksvig...

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

..and the increasingly-unlikely
Alan Davies.



CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Now, tonight is
the 99th recording of QI,
and to celebrate, we have with us

the man who thought it all up
in the first place.

He can dish it out, but let's see
if he can take it. Mr John Lloyd!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

They all have
appropriately-quizzical buzzers.
Sandi goes...

- 'Erm.' - ..Johnny goes...

- 'Hmm.' - ..John goes...

- 'Ooh, erm.' - ..and Alan goes...

'Oh, sir, sir! I know! Me, sir!'

Oh, as if! And let's
open our minds now to
the possibilities of question one.

What's the best way to
weigh your own head?

Any thoughts?

Well, cut it off, obviously,
would be the most accurate way.



Yes, then someone else could
weigh it, but you couldn't, you see?

KLAXON BLARES

- That would be the problem.
You wouldn't... - You introduced us,
and you normally introduce me last.

- Yeah. - It slightly caught me out,
and I was applauding myself. - Oh!

"Alan Davies!" I was
applauding myself insincerely!

That's what Soviet leaders do,
isn't it? Or chimpanzees.

- One or the other. - One or the other.

Why would you want to weigh
your own head? It's a boys' thing.

Imagine a woman married to
a scientist, she's wormed the dog

and fed the children
and got everything sorted and
her husband gets home and says,

"Good news, dear -
I've weighed my own head."

It may not seem the most useful
thing to do, but it employs

interesting scientific ideas
on which we all depend.

Is it that thing...?
David Frost used to tell
that joke for years and years.

Do you want to lose
12lbs of unsightly fat?

Cut off your head.

- Is that his joke?
- He used to tell that a lot, yeah.

What is one of
the most famous ancient moments
of scientific discovery?

- Is it Archimedes in the bath?
- Archimedes in the bath. What did
Archimedes do, and why did he...?

Just put your head in a bucket?

- Oh, right. Is that right?
- I have no idea.

- Join in!
- I was going to weigh meself -

go to the swimming baths, right,

and bob, and then get people to
feed me until I sank.

Then come back out and
weigh meself again, yeah?

It sounds much more scientific!

So by displacement of the water,
you can tell?

Yeah, take a bucket of water,
and you drop your head in,

and because water and the density
of your head are about the same,
you get a very close approximation

by the water that you displace.

- You could put apples in to make it
fun. - You could bob for apples, yes.

And what did your head weigh
when you tried this?

What would you say is
the average weight?

The University of Sydney has
a department where they weigh heads
quite a lot,

- and they have a pretty good average.
- By dunking them in buckets?

- They don't actually dunk them
in buckets. - Is it 12lbs?

- It's four and a half to five kilos,
which is...? - That's 2.2 kilos,
something like that.

- Not far... Yeah, 2.2...
- It's about 12lbs.

Yeah, about 12lbs. Well done.

I'll give you
the point for 12lbs, John.

- I think I've negotiated
some points! - Yeah!

Surely you should give
those points to David Frost!

- If only he hadn't cut his head off!
- What if you get
an air pocket in your ears?

- A pocket? - You know, the air pockets.

Yes. But the air cavities
are cancelled out...

Take your fingers out -
you won't hear the answer.

APPLAUSE

The bones. You have bones
that are denser than water and air
pockets that are lighter than water.

And together, it does seem that
the head averages about water,
so it's a good displacement test.

But there is a modern piece of
technology that can do it to
frightening degrees of accuracy.

- Bound to be a laser
or something like that.
- No, it's a CAT scan, a CT,

and they can tell the density of
every little tiniest part
of the brain and the skull

- and all the rest of it
and tot it all up. - My dad's got
heavy eyes. - Has he now?

Yeah.

- You've weighed his eyes?
- No, we've not weighed 'em, but he's
very fearful of leaning forward.

Is he?!

Honestly, he doesn't like
leaning forward because he thinks
they're going to come out.

Are they on springs,
like those things you can buy?

No! We got rid of Novelty Dad!

- This is Mental Dad! - Right!

My grandfather had
two glass eyes, and yet he could see.

So what happened was sad,
he lost one eye - he wasn't
careless, he was ill -

and he had a glass eye made
which was exactly like

his other perfectly-working
blue Scandinavian eye,

and then he had one made that was
bloodshot, and it was known as
Grandpa's party eye.

He kept it on the mantelpiece.
When he was going out,

he'd take out the false one
and he'd put in the bloodshot one

- and he'd say, "I'm going out now and
I shan't be back till they match."
- Oh, that's brilliant!

- Absolutely brilliant! Fantastic!
- APPLAUSE

I thought he had
two glass eyes like that!

Did he have a hole at the back
where somebody put their hand?
Was your granddad Nookie Bear?

On the subject of heads, do you know
anything about Sir Francis Drake?

I don't mean Sir Francis Drake.

But as I've mentioned him,
do you know anything about him?

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

- Something to do with bowling.
- Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

He was in the Navy!

Let's move on
from Francis Drake! Thanks!

What do you know about
Sir Walter Raleigh?

He invented the bicycle.

His wife carried his head around
after he died.

- Excellently correct.
- In a velvet bag.

- In a velvet bag. - A red velvet bag,
yes. Sir Walter was executed...

I see why John had to invent
a show for this kind of information
he carries around with him!

Much as Lady Raleigh carried around
the head.

- It was on Buzzcocks last week.
- Was it?!

- What sort of a bag? Was it
a sealed bag, like a cool box? - I
don't know. People did keep heads.

There was an Archbishop of
Canterbury who was killed

in the Peasants' Revolt and they've
still got his head in the church
in Sudbury where... There it is.

The flesh has rotted off,
but it's been there continuously
since he was killed...

- As it rots away, you empty
the bag out and rinse it
and pop it back in? - Nature helps.

The flies and the maggots eat it
all up, and the bacteria.

I bet it was years before anybody
wanted to sit next to her at dinner.

I'm sure that's true.

People going, "Oh, she's not
going to bring the head, is she?"

Very fine. Don't know how
we got there but, like many of

the questions in tonight's show,
there's no one correct answer.

But dunking your head in a bucket
might be a good start.

And if that hasn't got you
scratching your head, when might you
engage in paradoxical undressing?

It's a known thing,
paradoxical undressing.
It's a phrase that is used.

- It's not made up by us.
- You're undressing but
you're actually dressing?

No. It's not really paradoxical.

- Is it physics? Something physics
or mathematics? - No.

- Is it counter-intuitive undressing?
- That's much more what it is.

So taking your clothes off if Jeremy
Clarkson asks you would be...?

- Meow! - Would be silly.
- It's taking your clothes when

taking your clothes off looks like
the worst-possible idea
you could have.

Is it some effect of hypothermia?

It's exactly what it is.

It may be mental, it may be
physical. It's not quite understood.

Oh, that is very unpleasant!

Yeah, it is!

Can we go back to
the previous picture?!

Yeah, it's one of the peculiar
side effects of hypothermia,
when you're actually dying of cold,

almost the last thing you do,
very commonly - not always -
is take all your clothes off.

People think it may be
a delusional thing, but it is
also part of the fact that

your blood vessels near your skin
tend to just give up and open, and
it may be that people feel very hot.

Because you never survive
once you've got to that stage,

you can't ask someone why they did
it, but it is a common thing to do.

I went in freezing water once,
and I screamed a lot and swam about,

and then I got out and I was
completely shocking, livid pink
and felt hot.

Perhaps seconds from death, then.

Maybe you were! Maybe you're
one of the few who survived it.

- Yeah. - Well, what sort of temperature
do you think would start you
on the road to hypothermia?

- Body temperature -
I don't mean outside temperature.
- What's the temperature in here?!

Really, I'd say pretty quickly.

I don't think it would have to drop
much. Maybe four or five degrees
below normal body temperature?

Basically, that's right.
35 degrees Celsius.

Once your body temperature
starts to get below that.

And, interestingly,
in the coldest cities in the world,
hypothermia is very rare.

It's more common where
it doesn't get very cold at all.

There's a very remarkable Briton
called Lewis Pugh.

Have you heard of Lewis Pugh?
He's a man who's able to control
his own body temperature.

He does endurance cold swimming.

He's the only person known to
science who can do what he can do.

He can swim in cold conditions
unlike anybody else,

and he is able to raise
his body temperature at will.

It's completely startling.

- He's a superhero.
- He can stop himself shivering.

He's really an incredible figure,
and we contacted him.

And he said that he thought...

He said he's not coming in here
cos it's freezing!

He said he thought he could do this
because he had trained himself
over years

to do these endurance swims
in incredibly-cold waters,

and then his body, as it were,
saw it coming and prepared for it.

- That was his only explanation. - Cold
water has a bad effect on a boy.

- I bet he doesn't fill his
swimming trunks when he gets out.
- There may be that!

Actually, this is not that unusual.

We went on this yoga thing recently.

- Mmm? - And the yoga teacher was
saying that

these sadhus in India can do
this body-raising thing.

And in fact, they did
some scientific experiments
in the States,

where they shipped in these guys,
you know,
little wiry guys with turbans on,

and they put wet towels on them.
And they'd turn up their own
body temperature and they would

literally steam the towels dry
in a few minutes. Extraordinary.

- Can you hire these people? - Yeah!

What an act. They'd get on
Britain's Got Talent.

That would be really good!
"What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to dry this wet towel."

You could do patterns on wet towels
with your hands. It's art!

I thought if you were going
into cold, you needed to lower

your body temperature
so it wasn't such a shock.

You have a cold drink in a cold
place, a hot drink in a hot place.

- Yes, it does seem likely, but...
- Are the SAS just wrong about that?

Well, maybe. But maybe for the
extremes that he goes under, it's
more important for him to stay warm.

But when people do that sauna thing

and jump into the snow,
why don't they get hypothermia?

They're not in it long enough,
I think.

Also, they're pissed, usually.

- Cos they're
Scandiwegian. - Scandiwegian.

We can't resist a drink, I'm afraid.

Very true. Anyway, paradoxically,
the last thing people do

when they're freezing to death is
take their clothes off. But how
can I tell if I am actually dead?

- Well... - How can one tell
if a person is actually dead?

A roomful of people are cheering.

The 20-year-old malt is
being broken out.

- We would weep at your death.
- You can feel someone putting
a pen in my hand and just going...

Rewriting my will.

- You mean the vital signs don't
count? Is that what's going to
set the ringer off? - No.

It's a moot point.
There's the difference between
legal death and medical death.

There's also... It's quite recent.

In the 1830s in France, there were
about 30 different symptoms,
if you can call them that,

that people thought were
determining symptoms of death.

But nobody could be sure,
so they held a prize -

quite a big prize,
over 1,000 francs -

for the person who could come up
with the best way of determining
if a person was dead.

They're watching EastEnders
without reaching to turn it off.

Unfortunately, it just pre-dated
the first episode
of EastEnders, 1830...

The prize wasn't given till 1848,
and even when it was awarded,
most of the medical establishment

refused to believe the winner,
who was a young medical chap.

The Victorians used to use
a trembling scarab.

It looked like a little scarab,
with legs on,

and they put it on the head of
somebody and watch to see if
it moved. If it didn't, that was...

There were things like that.
These were some of the ideas
that didn't win.

Sticking a thermometer into
the stomach to see if the patient
was cool enough to be dead.

Attaching pincers to the nipples.

- Oh! - Yep.

Scalding the patient's arm
with boiling water
to see if a blister appeared.

Did they try all of these
on one person?!

"Agh! Oh!"

They didn't know...

"He's alive! Burn him!"

They didn't know about comas,
so they knew that people could

sometimes appear dead
and not respond to pain,

so they knew that
just pain wasn't enough.

So that was the blister-forming.
Putting leeches on a corpse's
bottom, apparently, one way.

This just sounds like a typical day
of my mum getting me up for school.

Sticking a long needle into the
heart with a flag on the end, and
they knew that if the flag waved...

It's such a sweet method!

- That's lovely!
- I'm talking about the 1830s.

- No, it's not so long ago, really.
- Could you just put a mirror there?

The most-common method
that had been used is to put
a mirror in front of the...

And if it misted up...

You can't always hear the breath.
But there was a device that had
been invented

in the 1840s that caused this young
fellow who won the prize...

He suggested the use of this device.

- Stethoscope? - A stethoscope.
To listen to see if the heart beat.

It seems so obvious to us,
but lots of brilliant people...

It never occurred to them that
the sound of the heart might be
the determining factor.

Hans Christian Andersen used to

sleep with a sign next to his bed
that said, "I'm not dead -
I'm asleep."

And there were coffins with
bells inside that people could
ring in case they woke up.

They were terrified of
being buried alive.

- Rather than a bell, they should just
give them a saw and a spade. - Yes!

You're a cruel man,
but fair, Alan Davies.

While you're ringing away
down there, you could be...

There were special hospitals.

Would you go out the top
or the side? I'd do the side.
It'd fall in otherwise.

That's how a coffin lid is attached,
you think the logical thing is
to push up.

Saw at the side and then kind of
go up sort of gradually.

- Don't go straight up.
- You've thought this through, Alan.

I might also say,
"Oh, bugger - I chose cremation."
That's the other one.

"How do I reassemble these ashes?"

That is why Vikings put them
in a boat and set fire to it.
Doubly sure. "Off you go."

There's an actual word for it,
the fear of being buried alive.

Because the 18th-century clown
Grimaldi had a pathological fear
of being buried alive,

and he specified that when he died,
they should cut off his head

to be sure that he wouldn't have to
ring the bell in the coffin.

- He wasn't just weighing it?
- You put it in the bucket...!

A very Edgar Allan Poe-type thing,
isn't it? Though being walled up
alive is the classic fear.

So in Germany, in particular,
where they were most afraid of this,

late in the 18th
and early in the 19th century,

they actually had warm mortuaries
to encourage putrefaction.

So the smell said that,
"He's definitely dead, cos, whoa!
That is very smelly."

But it's not as obvious
as we might think.

- So if you had really bad personal
hygiene but you weren't actually
dead? - Yes. You could be...

- That would be a problem.
- "He stinks, he must be dead!" - Yeah!

"He's walking around,
he's talking." "He's dead."

But the fear of death is
thanatophobia, of course.

But fear of being buried alive is
taphophobia. T-A-P-H-O-phobia.

Now it's time for a round of
quickfire hypotheticals.

Quickfire hypotheticals!

Mmm! So, all you have to do is

tell me the first thing that
comes into your head, basically.

It's a quickfire
hypothetical question.

Let's say you've found
a fallen tree in the forest, right?

- Obviously, it fell down before
you arrived, but did it make
a sound as it fell? - 'Ooh, erm!'

- No.
- KLAXON BLARES

Well, no-one's going to say yes,
are they?!

Do you know where this question
comes from, as it were?

- It's a famous... - Bishop Berkeley.
- Bishop Berkeley, yeah.

- Philosophical question, isn't it?
- That if there's no-one
to hear a sound,

is there a sound? It depends so much
what you mean by sound, doesn't it?

Well, there isn't, because sound is
the vibration of the ear drum.

There is no sound
if no-one hears it.

It depends, because part of
the definition of sound is that
there has to be a recipient for it.

There's the thing that makes
the noise, its transmission
and its reception.

- Yeah. - But if there's no reception,
maybe the noise doesn't exist.

Other things are still vibrating,
and whether that vibration counts
as a sound or not is a moot point.

Sound is what happens in the ear.

- There isn't sound if there's
no-one to hear it. - A moot point.

If there's the speed of sound
and it's what happens in the ear,

how do you get that speed
between that and your ear?

No, I'm...

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Maybe by the time that tree's
fallen and you've got there,
that sound's halfway round the world

and making someone else
very nervous. "Agh!"

Stephen, are you sure about this?

Well, no-one is sure.
That is the point.

That's why it's a hypothetical.
No-one knows.

To a semanticist or neurologist,
they may say that sound is that,
but to a physicist,

they would say the propagation
of sound waves is sound.

Whether or not there is an ear
to vibrate, it is a sound wave...

- I disagree that they are
sound waves... - You may disagree,
but that's... You're welcome to.

They only become a sound wave
when there's an ear to receive it.

Do you remember we talked...?
The thing that really astonished me.

Do you know that light's invisible?
It's the most extraordinary thing.
If you're in a dark vacuum...

if you shoot a beam of light
across the eyeballs, like that,
you can't see it.

- Because you can only see what light
hits. - Yeah, but what about sound?

But people said
that's a stupid answer

because the definition of light is
something that goes into your eye
and is then received.

- Until it does that,
it's not light. - Mmm.

But we have all kinds of things.

Are you saying that it's not sound
if it registers
on a recording device

that is left there
without a human there?

That it's bending the needle?

Does the machine not hear? Is it
not a sound wave that is actually
causing the machine to register?

- Yeah, but in Bishop Berkeley's...
- I talked about you,
not about Bishop Berkeley!

The point is, it's not as simple as
just to say yes or no.

- JOHNNY: - Go on, Stephen! Go on!

You've got him!

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Good question. We would unfairly
have forfeited someone who said yes,
as much as somebody who said no.

You said there was no right answer.

That's why it's a good question.
There is no right answer.
So your yes, and your no are both...

- Whatever I said would have been...?
- Afraid so.

What if the tree fell down and there
was no-one there to see it fall?
It should still be upright.

Very true.

That's my only conclusion!

You're right.

- Yeah, yeah. - Anyway, Alan,
are you keeping well?

Yeah! But that tree fell over
and there was a hell of a bang!

Yeah. It's a quickfire hypothetical,
don't forget, so we move on.

- OK, all right. You're talking
to an... - I can't do quickfire!
- Yes, you can, darling.

If a quickfire hypothetical round
takes a really long time,
is it still a quickfire?

Good point! We'll find out!

APPLAUSE

Very good point.
You're talking to an alien
in a distant galaxy by radio.

How could you explain
which is right and which is left?

Breaker, breaker.

That would do it, would it?
Just by saying, "Breaker, breaker,"
he would know...?

Well, it would depend
what height mast they had,
but yeah, he should...

- There's got to be alien truckers!
- It's a fair point.

I'd tell 'em what's left and right
and if he's got a Smokey on his ass.

Right, right.

Wouldn't it be
a very boring conversation,

because the nearest galaxy's,
what, four light years away?

I think we'd have to
use the word hypothetical.

- So it's a hypothetical conversation.
- Hypothetically, are we looking at
any common reference point?

That is the point. You can't...

"Can you see Mars?
We're on the right of Mars."

"Can you see this spot on Jupiter?"

Yes, you'd have to have
something to reference.

You can't... Semantically, there is
no explanation for left or right

without reference to a physical
world that someone can identify.

You can't explain it
just by language.

That is the point of the question.

If they visited in a ship, you could
give them a temporary tattoo.

Yes, you could do that,
which is why we framed the question
so specifically, saying that...

- Or talking on a radio.
- ..temporary tattoos were out.

- Ah, sorry. I'm just a problem
solver by nature! - No, it's good!

And anyway, they might not have...
Cos we always draw them
in that shape with two eyes.

What if they've got four eyes
and eight arms?

- Exactly, they may not be symmetrical
in any way. - They might have other
dimensions and all sorts. - Yeah.

They might have 19 versions of left.
Imagine that on a sat nav!

- "Left...ish!" - "Not that one!"

- "That one!" - "L...eft!"

- Why do we always draw them like that?
- I've no idea. - Seems so strange.

- They might just have one eye.
- Certainly, the ones that probed me
looked nothing like that.

Do you have a mnemonic
for when you forget which is
left or right temporarily?

Do you do that?

I walk into traffic.

- Sorts it out straightaway! - Yeah!

- Why, do you have a problem? - No,
I don't, but if I have to think...

I remember the thumb I used to suck
when I was a very small child,

- that that's my right hand.
- Like a therapy session, this.

There's a wonderful story about
a famous ocean-liner captain.

He had a little box that he kept
in his pocket, and every time
they came into port,

he'd open up the box, look
and put it away.

And after many, many years' service,
he finally died.

His second in command said,
"I must look inside."

And he opened up the box and it said,
"Port, left. Starboard, right."

- That's brilliant. - You want to
get that right, though, don't you?!

Yes, that's the point, though.
You can't really find out.
So, our next hypothetical.

Take someone who has been blind
from birth, right,

and let him or her handle
a sphere and a cube.

And then, there's a new operation
that amazingly comes and restores
their sight and you show them

the sphere and the cube.
Will they be able to tell
which is which just by looking?

- Do you think it's the first thing
they'd want to do?
- No, that's why it's hypothetical.

But it has been done.
It is really interesting...

I think the answer is,
no, they can't.

- The information that their eyes
tell them is meaningless junk
for quite a while. - Exactly right.

One's tactile and one's sensory,
it would be different.

That's right. But to us, it seems
so obvious that perhaps we overlook

how used we are to relating the feel
of a corner to the look of it.

This is cutting-edge neuroscience,
isn't it?

- Yes. - There was a case recently
where somebody had been blind for,
I don't know,

years and years and years,
and they restored his sight,

and he was able to see
his own children
for the first time in years.

And he literally didn't recognise
them. It was like fuzzy lines.

It took two weeks or something
for him to realise,
to assemble the information...

When they took the beards
and the hats off.

Sorry, I couldn't resist it!

It was a once-in-a-lifetime chance!

Have you done the reverse thing,
going to the restaurant
where it's completely dark?

I went to one in Berlin called the
Nocti, where it's absolutely blind.

- Have you been? - No, but I mean to go.

- It's blind people who serve you.
- Yes, that's right.

They walk around with great ease.
Does it make a difference
to how you eat?

- Does it taste different? - Yes,
it does. That's really the point.

They talk you through the food.

You feel it and you smell it
and you use all these other things
that you usually forget

to use cos you're looking at people
and you just look down and see
how well-arranged it is.

But instead, it's quite animal.
The weird thing is going to the loo.

This waiter takes you by the hand
and kind of threads you
through the tables.

You go into a passageway, he closes
a door into the restaurant,
so that stays dark,

and he opens the other door
towards where the loos are.

He doesn't actually take the old
chap out or anything like that.

Unless you tip him very well.

Unless you tip him very well!

You can go to Little Chef
and you're served by people
with complete indifference.

It's an amazing sort of experience.

- Not since Heston Blumenthal
took over! - Surely not!

So, that's quite right.
Absolutely spot on.

Now, a lorry load of birds are
being weighed on a weigh bridge.

At some moment, all the birds
simultaneously rise off
their perches and flap in the air.

- So they're all alive?
- Oh, yeah. They're all alive.

- Does the lorry weigh less? - Yes.
- When they rise up in the air?
- Yes. - No.

Got a yes and a no.

- They're not in contact
with the actual thing? - No.
- So it would weigh less.

- Is it sealed, the lorry?
- It's a closed...

It's got a tailgate, it's locked up,
they're inside, you can't see them.

- But wouldn't there be pressure
from the air? - Yeah.

It weighs the same,
and it's got something to do...

It's something similar to
if you weigh yourself
and then you do a number two

and weigh yourself, you don't lose
the weight of the number two.

Ah.

Now, there we're in
a slightly different territory.

If you will crap on the scales...!

You're right. The answer is
not to poo on the scales!

- No, no! - Leave the scales,
do the number two,
come back to the scales!

- Of course you do! - The money
I've wasted on enemas. - No, I know!

No, it doesn't. It weighs the same,
and I can't remember the reason why.

So they all lift off
at exactly the same time?

The fact is,
it's the bird/lorry system...

I know it's weird, but...

- Is it to do with it
being sealed? - Yeah.

If you're carrying a bowling ball
and you're on the scales

- and you throw the ball
in the air... - Yeah.

- It will kill you, even though...!
- Because it's sealed...

- And the air's moving, exactly.
- ..you and the air have created that
weight, so wherever the birds put

themselves within there,
it still weighs the same.

You're absolutely right.
I mean, you can sort of test it.

Don't pass it off that easily!

But interestingly,
if it's a open-top lorry and
they're all sitting on the perch

and they jump up, and they jump
slightly higher and then they're
actually out of the system,

they're no longer
part of the lorry/bird system,
then it would be lighter.

Well done, everybody.

Perhaps now it's time to move on
from our hypotheticals.

That was very quick(!)

So, hypothetical problems are
of course the curse of the practical
man, but how do curses work?

Well, someone curses you
and you think you've been cursed,

so you change your behaviour
and bring about your downfall.

That's kind of more or less
precisely right.

- It's a negative version of
what effect? - The placebo effect.
- Yes, it is indeed.

- I'm on the wrong show - I should be
on Mastermind! - You should!

- Are you saying it only
works if you believe it? - Yes.

It's like a placebo. It is
actually called the nocebo effect.

N-O-C-E-B-O,
as in noxious, as in harm.

I will harm, "nocebo" in Latin.

So if I made a voodoo doll of Johnny
and I stuck pins in it, it wouldn't
work unless I sent him

- a sort of picture on his phone
to show I'd done it? - Yes, and he
believed, of course, that...

- The point is, you have to believe
it. - You have to get a good likeness.

Otherwise Peter Kay would be
rolling round in pain somewhere.

That would never do.
Now, other curses.

- Do you know what the 27 Club is?
There's a curse, supposedly. - No.

- Is it something to do with nearing
your 30th birthday? - Yes, it is.

It's a particular age, 27,
that seems to resonate
in popular cultural history.

- Oh... - Is it people who died at 27?
- Yes. Can you name some
who died at 27?

James Dean or someone like that?

Oh, is it older than that?

Jim Morrison.

- Yeah, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix,
Janice Joplin. - Woah!

- Yeah. More. - Sid Vicious.
- Kurt Cobain. - Brian Jones.

And Brian Jones in fact, yes.
Robert Johnson of Crossroads fame.

- All 27, really? - They're all aged 27.

Old enough to develop enough
of an intolerance to something
to keep doing too much of it.

And young enough to be stupid enough
to keep doing too much of it.

- Probably right. - It's the late 20s.
It's a very hazardous age. - Clearly.

Do you know about the curse of
the ninth? What would that be?

They all died on the ninth?

- No. - This is getting ridiculous.

- Was that a Roman legion?
- Not a Roman legion.

The Eagle of the Ninth, not that.
No, it's symphonies.

Oh! Oh, yes. You're not supposed
to write more than nine.

- Well, it's not that you're not
supposed to, but it's a... - Beethoven
wrote nine and then popped off.

You finish a ninth and you die
while writing the tenth.

It happened to Dvorak, Beethoven
and Bruckner and Schubert.

- What an unusual serial killer that
was. - That's the curse of the ninth.

If only they'd had CSI Vienna.

The nocebo effect is the placebo
effect's evil cousin.

Now, hypothetically, what would
happen if Schrodinger put a
Siamese cat in the fridge?

- In the fridge?
- Yeah. - Well, he wouldn't know
if it was alive or dead.

Oh, good! You're referring to
Schrodinger's cat, which is...

- Yeah, I've learnt about
this on Horizon. - Very good.

You don't know, until you open the
door, whether the cat is alive...

That is the sort of quantum paradox
of Schrodinger's cat, yes.

- You put a Siamese cat in the fridge?
- Yeah. - What is the question?

What would happen to the cat?

It would get cold.
What would happen to the fridge?

They'd be less milk left, probably.

It would eat all the tuna melt.

All the tuna melt would go, yes.

But something quite
extraordinary would happen.

It would turn into an ordinary cat.

- Well, almost! Almost.
- It would turn into a dog. - No, no.

- Nor is it that remarkable.
- In seconds.

Meow! Woof!

Let's have a look at a Siamese cat
and see what's particular about it.

White body, black face. Ah!

So it goes to a black body
and a white face.

It's got a white body
and a black tail and black ears
and black mouth and black socks.

In other words, black extremities.

What is particular about the
extremities of any mammal?

- They get cold... - So if you put
the whole animal in a fridge?

- It goes black.
- It goes black, Johnny.

That's death, though, isn't it?

- There. That's what happens. - Oh!

It's fur has this peculiar colourant

that keeps it pale in warm blood
heat, but only a small difference

in temperature down and it will lose
the white or gain the black,

- whichever way you prefer to look
at it. - When you take it out,
does it go pale again?

- Yes, back to its normal colour.
- It would be worth trying
just for the lark, wouldn't it?

I don't like cats very much.

- Oh! - Oh, I'm sorry. So many cats,
so few recipes. I just think...

I just think it sounds like fun.

You can also try it
on a Himalayan rabbit.

- They have the same issue.
- But please don't try it at home.
- Please don't. No, no.

Do you know about buttered cat?

- There's a recipe, straightaway!
- Delicious. - Buttered cat syndrome.

Oh, you put butter on their paws
to stop them going home
when you've moved house.

There is that, but this is a kind of
paradox, because there are two laws.

- One is that if you have a piece of
buttered toast and you drop it, what
happens? - It falls butter-side down.

- And if you drop a cat, what happens
to the cat? - It falls butter-side up!

No, no.

- It lands on its feet. - So if you were
to put a piece of toast with the
butter up and attach it to a cat...

- Ah...! - Right? What would happen
is the cat would drop and it
would have to revolve forever.

Because the laws would compete
and it would be in total balance.

Would it work with margarine?

I don't know.
I think that law doesn't state
that margarine falls downwards.

Well, what about I Can't
Believe It's Not Butter?

What if it was margarine but
the cat believed it was butter?

Ah! The placebo effect. Exactly.

Brilliant, brilliant!
You've all got the point.

What if cats discovered this
and started to migrate?

Where would they go?

I don't know!

It's just a cat with a piece of
toast. I not going to dictate...

Let's just keep it from them.
So, yeah, yeah,

the point is, if you put a Siamese
cat in a fridge for long enough...

and actually it would have to be
quite a long time, probably weeks...

it would go black.
And you absolutely mustn't.

But after that voyage through a land
where there are no wrong answers,

we come at last to one where there
is rarely a right one, the realm
of general ignorance.

So put your fingers
on your buzzers and tell me...

You're on death row, all right?

What can you tell me
about your last meal?

'Hmm.'

It's three courses.

- Three courses? - Yeah, and it's
absolutely whatever you want.

Mm, no.

KLAXON AND BELL

Not necessarily the case at all,
you can order whatever you want.

You can only have what
they've got in the kitchen.

You know where there's
a death row in England.

- Tell. - It's at the Lord's pavilion.

The seating in the pavilion is
unreserved, so you have to get

there early in the morning for
the Australian Tests, for example.

But nowadays, a lot of the MCC
members are living to a very old age

and they can't get there at six.
So the oldest...

I think there's about 18
seats or something in the row.

They have a seat,
the oldest X number of members.

That's called death row

by the stewards.

You can't even choose what you're
going to have for your last supper?

In different states it varies, but
in some states there's a 20 budget.

In Florida, it's a 40 budget.
Sometimes they're really mean.

There was a figure called Philip
Workman who asked for a large

vegetarian pizza to be given to a
homeless person as his last dinner,

and the prison officials refused.

And after this guy was executed,

all kinds of homeless shelters
all over Tennessee, the state
where it happened, were sent

these vegetarian pizzas for homeless
people by just ordinary Americans

who wanted to honour his last
wishes, which is rather touching.

- That's lovely. But wouldn't it be
awful if you were about to die and
you got a very limited menu? - I know.

And huge portions are pared down.
There was one inmate who requested
24 tacos and he only got four.

- Oh, it's just..! - Isn't it mean?
You're not allowed to smoke,

- even if you want to... - It's hardly
worth being there! - It almost isn't!

It almost isn't. And some of
them get very mournful about this.

A fellow called Thomas Grasso.

His last words in 1995 were,
"Please tell the media I did not get
my Spaghetti-Os. I got spaghetti.

"I want the press to know this."

It's very forlorn, isn't it?

Do they say to you,
"Did you have anything from
the mini-bar last night?"

- They probably do. - The last question.
- I'd want a Kinder egg.

A Kinder egg, yes!

I'd want some chocolate,
a toy and a surprise.

- What's not to like? - Just to distract
you from death. - You so would.

Anyway, in the USA, most states
place strict restrictions on
inmates' special meals,

as they're called. In some states
it isn't even their final meal.

They actually have it two weeks
or so before they're executed.

So stop me when you know
what I'm talking about now.

It's an insectivorous mammal.

It's found all round the world.

It's active at night.
It's almost totally blind.

- A bat. - A bat?

KLAXON AND BELL

- No. You were so right until the
last part. - It's not blind, then? - No.

- Anteater, would you say?
- No, not an anteater, no.

- A mole. - It's insectivorous, so it
could eat ants. - Is it a mole?

- A mole is the right answer.
- I said mole!

- Oh, did you? I'm sorry. Did he say
mole, ladies and gentlemen? - Yes!

No, because sound is just a
thing and it didn't travel...

Yeah, if you didn't hear me say
mole, then I didn't say mole.

You need the points I suspect,
Alan, after the bat thing.

No, there are about 1,100 different
species of bat and none of them
is sightless. Not one is blind.

Is the mole completely
sightless, then?

It can just about distinguish
between light and dark,
but essentially it's blind.

- It can tell if the telly's on or
off. - Yes, if you like. It's a lot...

Yeah, it can't tell
if it's on standby.

- How many moles do you think
there are in Ireland? - None.

- You're right, there are none.
They don't... - They were very pally
with the snakes. - Well, they...

Glaciation and the separation of
Ireland from the rest of the place,

- they never got back because it was
then an island. - They could tunnel.

Like snakes... They could tunnel!

- If any animal could tunnel, it would
be a mole. - Oh, sweet. Look.

You say sweet, but almost certainly
all photographs of moles

that are taken are of dead moles
because they fluff them up.

- That's terrible. - And you can't tell
cos their eyes are always
little black slits.

It's like all those greetings card
pictures of a cat on a deck chair or
a cat hitting a mouse with a spoon.

- They're all dead. - Yeah.

I fear so. Yes, moles
are as blind as a proverbial bat.
Bats, perversely, aren't.

And, finally,
the ultimate hypothetical question.

Which came first,
the chicken or the egg?

- Er, chicken. - No!

KLAXON AND BELL

- The egg. - The egg is the
right answer, yes.

There's that old joke about the
chicken and egg have just made love

and they're lying there
having a post-coital cigarette.

The chicken says to the egg, "Well,
that answers that old question."

As the great scientist JBS Haldane
said, "Anyone who can ask

"that question obviously
hasn't understood evolution."

Because a chicken evolved from
reptiles that laid eggs themselves.

So those eggs were always coming
well before there was a chicken,
there were eggs.

So it did indeed
come first, the egg.

Um, what's unique about chickens?
Well, there are quite a few things

that are unique about them, but the
most obvious thing, looking at that?

What does it have
that no other bird has?

Combs. No other animal has those
strange combs on the head.

Thought to be something to do
with temperature regulation.

They cool themselves down
with the regulation of blood flow.

What's the longest recorded flight
by a chicken in time terms,
not distance?

- 13 seconds, isn't it,
something like that? - Is it? - Yes...

- Yes, it is 13 seconds.
- Is it really?!

APPLAUSE AND CHEERS

I don't claim that's true,
but that is one of the oldest
internet pieces of trivia I know,

apart from a duck's quack
does not echo and no-one knows why.

- Which we know isn't true.
- No, we know that isn't true.

So, anyway, birds evolved
from egg-laying reptiles,

so there were definitely eggs
before there were chickens.

So we emerge older
but not much wiser

at the end of the only quiz show
to offer no answers,
just more questions.

But had there been answers,
let's see who would,
hypothetically, have won.

And our theoretical winner tonight,
with two points, is Sandi Toksvig!

APPLAUSE AND CHEERS

Notionally in second place

is elf-master general,
John Lloyd, with minus one!

APPLAUSE AND CHEERS

On paper, in third place,
with an extremely creditable
minus seven, Johnny Vegas!

APPLAUSE AND CHEERS

Finally, proving that it's
all academic and a dream,
with minus 27, Alan Davies!

APPLAUSE AND CHEERS

So that's all from this
hypothetical edition of QI.

Or is it? ..Yes, it is.

So it's good night from Sandi,
Johnny, John, Alan and me.

Good night.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERS

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd.