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QI XL S23E13 Wordmongery

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00:30Good evening, and welcome to QI, where tonight we'll be weaving a web of words.
00:37Let's meet our cunning linguists, the wryly articulate Michael Oduwale.
00:44The widely read, Callie Beaton.
00:50A winsome windbag, it's Giles Brandreth.
00:56And words fail me, it's Alan Davis.
01:00APPLAUSE
01:01There, brothers tonight, are wordly, wibbly, wobbly Michael goes...
01:09Ali goes...
01:14Giles goes...
01:17Giles goes...
01:22And Alan goes...
01:30I love that.
01:31So, talking of silly words, what's the worst thing to wake up to?
01:35Is it a wobbulator, a wood pussy, or feeling absolutely womble-scropped?
01:41Wow.
01:42Yeah.
01:43Wood pussy?
01:44Honestly, that sounds like an ethical, sustainable sex toy that got rejected.
01:50Do you know the name Havelock Ellis?
01:53He was a pioneer sexologist.
01:55Oh, yes, of course.
01:56He was the sex therapist.
01:57In 1997, he wrote a big book about homosexuality.
01:59And a couple of years later, he wrote a book about auto-eroticism.
02:02In which these three words feature.
02:04The wobbulator...
02:06Yes.
02:07..was to assist you.
02:08The wood pussy was to inspire you.
02:10And the womble-scropped is how you felt afterwards.
02:14LAUGHTER
02:24Giles, I think you need an oly fence.
02:25I mean, that was...
02:26Yeah.
02:28It's educational.
02:29I have to say, the whole lot sounds a bit like menopause as well.
02:32And mid-life dating.
02:33Yeah, wood pussy sounds a bit not lubricated, doesn't it?
02:36It does.
02:37Wood pussy is a word from 1899.
02:39It is North American slang for a skunk.
02:42OK.
02:47Look at that hose.
02:48Is it trying to pretend to be something else?
02:50Yeah, I think so.
02:51Is it giving a signal?
02:52I think so.
02:53Either that, or it's being beamed up by an alien...
02:56..an alien ship run by tiny rodents from another galaxy.
03:00I love that.
03:02What if that was the case, O Samuel?
03:04What? What?
03:05The aliens who come to Earth in ships are tiny and furry
03:09and really, really small.
03:10And they're not interested in all the big mammals, only the tiny ones.
03:14They only want the skunks.
03:15And they're off being probed and no-one cares.
03:19Have you recently incurred a knock to the head?
03:22Yeah.
03:23LAUGHTER
03:28So, I grew up in New York and we had these striped skunks.
03:31They are very common in North America.
03:33It comes from an Algonquin word meaning urinating fox.
03:36And that's because of the extraordinary way it sprays this stink behind.
03:39Anybody know what you do if you've been sprayed by a skunk?
03:42Tomatoes.
03:43It's what everybody thinks it is, and it doesn't work.
03:47Hmm.
03:48So, people used to take a bath in tomato juice, but in fact it's just
03:50that it smells stronger briefly than the skunk.
03:54And then once the tomato juice wears off...
03:56.
03:57I mean, I'm going to give you a point because that is so true.
04:01Let's come on to the next word. What about wobulator?
04:04What do we think about wobulator?
04:06I do know this word, I think. Oh, dear God.
04:10I think it's going to be a word to do with the early days of radio
04:14and trying to get the waves working properly.
04:17How are you doing on the wobulator?
04:19I think it's going to be a word to do with the early days of radio
04:22and trying to get the waves working properly.
04:25How are you doing on the wobulator?
04:27You are correct.
04:37In the very simplest terms, it is a gadget that is able to make noises.
04:40So it looked like that, but in these modern times,
04:43we have created our own, which now looks like this.
04:46What it can do is it can send out infinite sound frequencies
04:50within a certain range.
04:51So it can make very low sounds, it can make very high sounds,
04:54every sound in between.
04:55So I just turn it on here.
04:57Oh, yeah.
04:58So then you can make these...
04:59Oh, Doctor Who is arriving.
05:01Well, funnily enough, do you want to have a play, darling?
05:05Yes, I do.
05:06I thought you might.
05:07The BBC Sound Department used this for entertainment purposes
05:11and used it to create the Doctor Who theme tune.
05:14Oh, did they?
05:15Yeah.
05:16So the woman in this photo, that's Delia Derbyshire.
05:17She produced the Doctor Who theme tune in 1963.
05:20That's her working at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop in Maida Vale in London.
05:24And she is the mother of electronic music influencing Pink Floyd,
05:28The Chemical Brothers, Paul McCartney, lots of people.
05:30Fabulous woman.
05:31This is a reproduction of the Wobbulator, which was designed by the
05:34technologist Nina Richard for the Delia Derbyshire Day charity
05:37for Doctor Who's 60th anniversary.
05:39Do you want to have a bang on that?
05:41What I don't know about playing with a little switch on a board...
05:46How familiar are you at your age with radios, Michael?
05:49Yeah, I'm familiar.
05:50You are familiar?
05:51They are, like, yeah, but I'm aware of them, yeah.
05:53Because you probably haven't ever tuned a radio.
05:56You've just gone on your phone...
05:57Yeah, yeah, I just kind of use... I don't really tune one, no.
05:59No?
06:00No.
06:01Siri, tune a radio.
06:02Exactly.
06:05On my radio, I can still get the light programme and the home service.
06:08Oh.
06:09You don't even know where I am.
06:10I don't know what that means.
06:11I was just...
06:12I was happy for you then.
06:14He's easily pleased, Michael.
06:16I had a crystal radio when I was a little boy.
06:18Fantastic.
06:19And I had a torch with three colours.
06:21Oh.
06:22That's cool.
06:23Happy days.
06:24Happy days.
06:25Red, yellow, and I wanted to frighten myself, I put on the green.
06:34Anybody got a follow-up anecdote?
06:36No.
06:37OK, let's move on to Womble Scropped.
06:40I love the Wombles.
06:41Is it to do with the Wombles?
06:42Yeah.
06:43It's nothing to do with the Wombles.
06:44Who was your favourite?
06:45Orinoco.
06:46Oh, yeah, Orinoco.
06:47Orinoco, because he was an idiot.
06:49They're wumbling free in Wimbledon still.
06:51Yeah.
06:52The Wombles are the wood pussy of our generation.
06:54Really?
06:55Yeah.
06:56Yeah.
06:57I understand like one in three of your sentences.
06:58No, here's the thing, Michael.
06:59If you want to sit closer to me, that's fine.
07:00I spent five years doing a podcast with Susie Dent.
07:13Ah, yes.
07:14And she loves these old words.
07:16And she would say, oh, I'm feeling a bit womble-stromped this morning.
07:20And I said, that mean you're feeling a bit queasy?
07:22And she says, yes, probably more indigestion than being hungover.
07:26Yeah.
07:27It is absolutely correct, darling.
07:28You do get two points for that.
07:30I will send them to Susie Dent and I'll show you a picture of her later.
07:37So it's indigestion but particularly after drinking, after excess.
07:43Can I just tell you about one of my favourite studies?
07:45This was one of last year's Ig Nobel Prizes.
07:47It was for womble-scropped worms and it was the chemists at the University of Amsterdam.
07:52And they figured out if you flush worms through a maze,
07:57the drunk ones take longer to escape.
08:00I wonder why this happened in Amsterdam.
08:04So these are sludge worms and they are found in the sediment of lakes and rivers and so on.
08:09And what they found is that the drunk ones initially would go limp, right?
08:12And they'd be less resistant and they would float through the maze.
08:15But it turned out that they got stuck on corners and pillars along the way,
08:20a bit like drunk people latch on to lampposts.
08:23So they were going, going, going, and they were just like, ohhhh.
08:26And so they took longer.
08:29Let's look at some other words.
08:31Anybody want to pick a word from there?
08:33I quite like wooden-er.
08:34Is that like an Edwardian Viagra?
08:36What is that wooden-er?
08:37That's very good.
08:39Any thoughts?
08:40Well, Daddy wooden top was wooden-er than Mummy wooden top.
08:43Yes.
08:44Wooden top, when I'm telling you later about the manuals,
08:47I'll show you.
08:48I've got some lovely old wooden top annuals.
08:50OK.
08:51Michael?
08:52LAUGHTER
08:55Say no.
08:56LAUGHTER
08:58I'm just asking for Angela.
09:00LAUGHTER
09:01APPLAUSE
09:02Oh, it worries me that you know that.
09:12LAUGHTER
09:13So, no, it's a knock-out punch, a wooden-er.
09:16So it makes the target seem to be like an unmoving plank.
09:19It's from the early 20th century, a wooden-er.
09:21Michael, pick one.
09:22Wee-quashing.
09:23OK, what do you reckon?
09:25Is it toilet-based?
09:26No.
09:27It comes from one of the Algonquian languages.
09:30OK.
09:31So that's North American, like Cree or Blackfoot or Delaware or something.
09:33Mm-hm.
09:34Does that help you?
09:35Wee-quashing.
09:36Like a tribe?
09:37Yes, darling, like a Native American tribe.
09:39OK.
09:40Yeah, so it's a Native American tribe.
09:42LAUGHTER
09:45It's the spearing of eels from a canoe by candlelight.
09:49Oh, wow.
09:50LAUGHTER
09:51That sounds like it's making it disproportionately difficult.
09:53Yeah.
09:54So, unlike a fish spearing, where you actually tab the thing,
09:57the eel spears are designed to hold the eel between the tines.
10:01Ooh, wow.
10:02You can see how Havelock Ellis would have been interested in all this sort of stuff.
10:05Yeah.
10:06LAUGHTER
10:07What other words have we got?
10:09Alan, do you want to choose one?
10:10A weeple is a wonky steeple.
10:13LAUGHTER
10:14It's a wonky something.
10:15Is it a dyslexic nun's wimple?
10:18LAUGHTER
10:19There was this dyslexic nun.
10:21It's the beginning of a Barry Cryer joke.
10:23I like that.
10:24Something man-made.
10:25Is it a garment?
10:26A weeple.
10:27No.
10:28It's a very feeble whistle.
10:30A weeple.
10:31A weeple.
10:32Weeple, yeah.
10:33It's 18th century.
10:34Do you know about Jiminy Cricket?
10:36LAUGHTER
10:37What's the name?
10:38Give a little whistle.
10:39Can you do a proper whistle?
10:41No.
10:42No.
10:43So, you are, in fact, a person who does a weeple.
10:46So, the people most prone to weeples, apart from Michael, are astronauts.
10:50In 1999, the NASA astronaut Daniel Barry discovered he could not whistle in a spacesuit because the air pressure inside is three and a half times lower than normal atmospheric pressure on Earth, and so there's not enough air molecules to blow through the lips, so you just do a weeple.
11:05I never could whistle until I got a dog, and I loved my dog so much that I realised another range of communication would be denied between us if I didn't learn to whistle, so my weeple turned into a whistle because of a little wire-haired Dachshund.
11:17Oh, I love that.
11:18So, yeah.
11:19Oh, I love that.
11:20And if the Dachshund could speak, it'd go, shut the fuck up!
11:21Yes, exactly.
11:22LAUGHTER
11:23If it had longer legs, it would go like that.
11:26LAUGHTER
11:28I think we've got one word left on our list, Giles.
11:35Well...
11:36Worry-go-nimble.
11:37Is it a kind of jack-and-apes, a worry-go-nimble?
11:39It sounds like a Victorian hen party after a Worry-go-nimble.
11:42Well, after you've been to a hen party, you might have this.
11:45It is a loosening of the bowels.
11:47Ooh!
11:48What sort of hen parties have you been going to?
11:51It's diarrhoea, basically.
11:53One of my worst things.
11:55What, diarrhoea?
11:56Yeah.
11:57Just one of your worst things.
11:58Yeah.
11:59One of my worst discharges.
12:00Is it?
12:01LAUGHTER
12:02Oh, it's not one of my worst discharges.
12:04LAUGHTER
12:05Not even in the top three.
12:07LAUGHTER
12:10I don't know if you two might discuss that later.
12:12LAUGHTER
12:14Right, moving on.
12:15What is the use of handwriting now that we've all got computers?
12:18Everything.
12:19OK.
12:20I mean this seriously.
12:21OK.
12:22You can't write a love poem on a computer.
12:24If you want something from the heart, it has to come through the hand.
12:27I really believe this.
12:29But I don't think you're far off, Giles, because the thing is that the movements
12:32that you do in handwriting require you to process information actively,
12:36and that means there are many more links between regions of the brain
12:39which process information and the ones responsible for memory, for example.
12:42So I think you're right.
12:43I think there is an unlocking of creativity when you use handwriting.
12:47Do you hand write anything, Michael?
12:48Yeah, I mean, I like, you know, like, love notes.
12:51Yes.
12:52You know.
12:53Exactly.
12:54You up.
12:55You know, send that by.
12:56LAUGHTER
12:57How old were you when you first began to practise your autograph?
13:12Uh...
13:13It must have been about four, I suppose.
13:16But not because I thought of it as my autograph.
13:18Oh, didn't you develop it?
13:19Most people, I think, will have developed their autograph over the years.
13:22Worked out the full name, for an L and one L, two Ls, all this.
13:25No?
13:26No.
13:27I feel the male psyche is fascinating.
13:28I know, isn't it?
13:29Isn't it?
13:30I was always writing people I fancied names.
13:32That's what I was doing.
13:34Yeah, I spent lots of time doing that.
13:36Did you practise, Michael?
13:37Did you practise my autograph?
13:38Just, like, normally, like, in detention, you know, just...
13:41LAUGHTER
13:42Were you a naughty boy?
13:43A little bit.
13:44It's getting more exciting by the minute.
13:46LAUGHTER
13:49Practising my signature came into its own
13:52when I signed the largest cheque in the history of this country.
13:56When you were the Lord Commissioner of the Treasury?
13:58I was the Lord Commissioner of the Treasury
13:59and I signed a cheque for £137 billion.
14:02Wow.
14:03What did you buy?
14:04LAUGHTER
14:05Social Security payments, first quarter.
14:07Every bit of government expenditure has to be signed off
14:11by a Treasury Minister.
14:13And I was the junior Treasury Minister,
14:15the Lord Commissioner of the Treasury,
14:16who had to do this.
14:17They explained to me,
14:18with these big cheques, the billion-pound cheques,
14:20you'll be doing them with the head of the Treasury.
14:22I said, who's that?
14:23They said it was the Queen.
14:24So I would go down the mile with the government chequebook
14:26to sign these huge cheques with the Queen,
14:28our signatures together.
14:30And the first time I did this,
14:31I wasn't sure what the etiquette was, you know.
14:32I didn't want to patronise her,
14:33because she was a woman saying, after you.
14:35Or, indeed, pull rank,
14:36because I was the elected one.
14:37Anyway, she was...
14:38LAUGHTER
14:43She was holding the pen,
14:45and she seemed to think she should sign first,
14:47so I let her.
14:48Big, loopy handwriting, Elizabeth R,
14:50and then I put mine underneath.
14:51Almost as big, but I know my place.
14:53LAUGHTER
14:54And the last time we did this,
14:56this was the cheque for £137 billion.
14:58It was she who told me it was the largest cheque
15:00she had ever signed, and she said,
15:02you know, the way the government insists
15:03on the two of us signing these cheques,
15:05I can't help wondering which of the two of us it is
15:07the government doesn't entirely trust.
15:09LAUGHTER
15:13Now, if somebody dies without making a will,
15:23what's a fun way to decide who gets what?
15:27Ooh.
15:28A race.
15:29Or...
15:30LAUGHTER
15:31Yeah, that's a good idea.
15:32The money's over there.
15:33Go.
15:34LAUGHTER
15:35What's your ring?
15:36I don't know, whoever loved him most,
15:38and then you just kind of go from there.
15:40You've had no dealings with the law, have you?
15:42No.
15:43LAUGHTER
15:44I feel very bad about this.
15:45Oh, do you, darling?
15:46Well, because over the years,
15:47I have inadvertently killed a number of people.
15:50LAUGHTER
15:51I have just realised the Queen is no longer with us.
15:56LAUGHTER
15:57APPLAUSE
15:58Oh, dear.
16:07When I was a child, I was in the choir at Holy Trinity Brompton,
16:11and we were paid a shilling a week for services,
16:14two shillings for weddings, but five shillings.
16:16Five shillings.
16:17I'll tell you what they are later.
16:18Five shillings...
16:19LAUGHTER
16:20..for funerals.
16:21Yeah.
16:22So we wanted funerals.
16:23We were little boys who wanted death in our midst.
16:25LAUGHTER
16:26So we would, during the prayers,
16:27we would eye up the congregation as we were praying
16:30through our hands like this,
16:31and we'd focus on the frailest-looking member of the congregation.
16:35LAUGHTER
16:37And then we would all simultaneously pray for this person to die.
16:42LAUGHTER
16:47And God loves a young entrepreneur.
16:50LAUGHTER
16:52Because week after week,
16:54these old buggers fell off the back.
16:56LAUGHTER
16:57Many of them, unfortunately, dying intestate.
16:59Because they weren't...
17:00Without a will.
17:01Without a will.
17:02Right.
17:03So that is the point.
17:04So I feel guilty that people don't die without needing a will.
17:07But if they were old and frail,
17:09by then they really should have had wills.
17:10Yeah.
17:11They should have known better.
17:12They weren't like...
17:13If Michael didn't have a will,
17:14it would be more understandable than no offence
17:16if you didn't have a will.
17:17LAUGHTER
17:20I've got stuff.
17:21I've got, like, tamagotchis.
17:22I can give...
17:23LAUGHTER
17:24I've got valuable stuff.
17:25Have you made a will?
17:26I've not made a will, no, but...
17:27No.
17:28In the UK, if you die without a will,
17:30your assets automatically will go to your spouse
17:32or to your civil partner
17:34or, you know, a portion to your children if you have any.
17:36So we're going to South America.
17:38In the indigenous communities
17:39like the Aymara people of the Andes,
17:41so Ecuadorian salascans, the canelos,
17:44they traditionally gambled for the deceased's possessions
17:49in a game with dice called jueru.
17:52So they used dice, which looked like this,
17:54made from the bones of donkeys or llamas or oxen and so on.
17:57And what I like about this, they play the game at the wake.
18:00Right?
18:01Yeah.
18:02So the person's died, there's no will,
18:04and then they play with these dice to work out who's going to do it.
18:07So they put the coffin beside the players
18:09and it's believed that their spirit will reach out
18:12to affect the game, to affect the roles and so on.
18:15And that means that their intentions will be honoured
18:17even if it hasn't been written down.
18:19I think this is a fantastic way of doing it.
18:22If somebody from the salascan community dies without getting married,
18:25what they do is they place a chicken or a cockerel
18:28by the coffin to stand in for the would-be spouse.
18:32And the dead person's hand is made to touch the chicken
18:35so that they're married.
18:37And the idea is that they then have a companion in afterlife.
18:40And afterwards, the chicken gets to live with the bereaved family
18:43and then it gets a funeral of its own when it dies.
18:46Oh, girl.
18:47Yes, I know, aren't we weird? We're r-ing a chicken.
18:50So they let the chicken die of, like, natural causes?
18:53Yes, they don't eat it.
18:54They don't, not fried?
18:55No, no, no.
18:56Add some seasoning?
18:57Yeah.
18:58I mean, suddenly you're making it sound very tempting.
18:59Yeah, it does sound good.
19:01In India, there's a group of people who eat their own relatives.
19:05They eat, well, actually, they eat their grandparents when they've died.
19:09I don't know what to do with that, I'll be honest with you.
19:11I don't know what you wanted from me from that moment, I can't lie.
19:16No, it's...
19:18What happens is this, you see, they actually, when the grandparents die,
19:23they put them into the river and then the fish eat them
19:26and then the children and the grandchildren eat the fish.
19:29It's to carry on.
19:30Michael, you don't have to believe all of this.
19:33Stay away from the man.
19:35It's gone to one in five, I understand.
19:37There, I've got you.
19:38What do we think a holographic will is?
19:42Oh, it's like in Star Wars.
19:44Harry Fisher comes up and says,
19:46I'm leaving you half the house.
19:52Maybe it has a bit of pointing.
19:54You're getting nothing.
19:55You're getting nothing.
19:56I'm giving it all to the cat.
19:58So a holographic will is one that's written entirely by hand
20:02and it can be problematic because it doesn't have the right terminology.
20:05There's a very famous court case.
20:07It's called Thorn and Dickens in 1906
20:09and it was a three-word holographic will and it just said all for mother.
20:14OK?
20:15And it's often used as an example of the importance of clarity in documents.
20:18The man's widow claimed that mother referred to her,
20:21that they used to refer to each other as father and mother
20:24and his actual mother challenged it.
20:27But in the end, the court ruled in the wife's favour.
20:29But you can see how it's complicated, right?
20:31You just think, what does that exactly mean?
20:34What words spring to mind when you think of a steamy blowing room
20:37full of male strippers?
20:39Members of Parliament.
20:41It's a question about weaving.
20:47Weaving?
20:48Yes.
20:49These are all terms from Victorian cotton mills.
20:51Does that help anybody at all?
20:53Can you say the sentence again?
20:55The steamy blowing room full of male strippers.
20:58A spinning Jenny.
21:00It's the only thing you know about weaving.
21:03That's it.
21:04What is a spinning Jenny?
21:06Something about a loom.
21:07You didn't have to do it yourself.
21:09Because you've got Jenny to do it.
21:10LAUGHTER
21:14There's steam in the room.
21:15There is, yes.
21:16So here's the thing about cotton,
21:18is that you need to keep it artificially hot and moist
21:21in order to keep the threads from breaking.
21:23This is very, very important.
21:24And it's one of the reasons why Lancashire, for example,
21:26was very famous for cotton weaving,
21:28because it often rains and the air is very damp.
21:30But first of all, they have to smooth the raw cotton
21:32by perhaps passing steam through it.
21:34So this is in the blowing room.
21:36Then there is the carding room.
21:37And then there is drawing and roving.
21:39This is what's happening here.
21:41But you mentioned male strippers and these are girls.
21:43Yes.
21:44So stripping was seen as a man's job
21:45because it required more strength
21:46and the women on the whole did the weaving.
21:48But why do you think there was so much kissing going on?
21:50Kissing?
21:51It's bored, isn't it?
21:52Yes.
21:53It's a technique.
21:54It's a delicate technique for plucking of something that needed to be plucked.
22:04I mean, you're heading in the right direction.
22:05So, I don't know if you've ever seen a shuttle.
22:07I do a lot of weaving myself and I have many of these old shuttles.
22:09You do a lot of weaving.
22:10I do, darling.
22:11And so you get an old shuttle and the thread has to go through the eye of the shuttle.
22:15And so the easiest way to do it was to suck it in and it was called kissing the shuttle.
22:20When your wife said, let's do some kissing the shuttle, she didn't think you were going to get a loom, Sandy.
22:25She's from Lancashire. I didn't understand anything she was saying.
22:30But once industrialisation kicked in, then kissing the shuttle became incredibly unhygienic.
22:36The government set up a shuttle kissing committee in order to deal with it.
22:39It had to be banned because it was unhygienic.
22:42But the machinery was so loud, in order to get their point across to each other,
22:47they would exaggerate the mouthing and the miming and the lip-reading
22:50and it's known as me-moing.
22:51Me-moing?
22:52Me-moing, yeah.
22:53And every mill had its own dialect, even though this is your mouthing words.
22:58And people were able even to have private conversations by holding their hands over their mouth like that.
23:03And I know this because my wife's family, all me-mo,
23:06and I went to a party at a working men's club and it was a bingo and karaoke night
23:12and the bingo and the karaoke was happening at the same time.
23:17And they were all having these long conversations but they were me-moing to each other.
23:20You have married very well, haven't you?
23:22They're absolutely the most glorious people.
23:25And Debbie's Aunty Betty came up to me and she looked at me and she went...
23:30Which was, you're off the telly.
23:33But we get a lot, we get a lot from weaving.
23:36The word rocket that we use comes from weaving.
23:38It means the bobbin.
23:39It comes from an Italian word, rocchetto.
23:41It's the cylindrical shape.
23:43And shuttle.
23:44We use the shuttle, like trains, for example.
23:46So things are going very fast back and forth.
23:49What's the biggest thing you've ever woven?
23:51I once did a complete tapestry of the story of The Wizard of Oz.
23:56What?
23:57The buyer of Oz?
23:59The buyer...
24:00Who?
24:01Who was with William Wordsworth when he wandered as lonely as a cloud in a field of golden daffodils?
24:08Was it Alan Titchmarsh?
24:10LAUGHTER
24:11Wandered lonely as a cloud.
24:13There's stuff about that, isn't there?
24:14There was jiggery-pokery around how that got written and when.
24:17Well, some people think he originally wrote,
24:19I wandered lonely as a cow, which I rather prefer.
24:21Yeah.
24:22Who do you think he was with?
24:24Giles knows.
24:25I think I do know.
24:27Yes, darling?
24:28He was with his sister.
24:29He's right, yeah, absolutely.
24:30He was always with his sister.
24:32OK.
24:33Even when he was with his wife, he was with his sister.
24:36Oh!
24:37It's quite a strange relationship.
24:38His sister was the meaning of his life in many ways.
24:42They were brought up, I think, separately.
24:44Yes.
24:45And when they came together, they really became almost inseparable.
24:48They loved one another, I think, in a perfectly lovely way.
24:51They loved gambling across the moors together, the hills.
24:54It was all happening in Cumbria, Lake District.
24:56Then he got married.
24:58And that created a bit of tension.
25:00His wife was called Mary, is that right?
25:02Yes, so she's called Dorothy.
25:03And Mary became a friend of Dorothy.
25:05But in a nice way.
25:07He got a better artist to do his drawing.
25:11Yes.
25:12But it is quite a strange relationship.
25:16The night before he got married to Mary, he allowed Dorothy to wear the wedding ring.
25:20And in the morning, he took the ring off Dorothy's finger.
25:24She refused to go to the actual ceremony.
25:27And when she learnt it was done, she became, as they say, insensible.
25:31And she never married.
25:32That dog's got stories to tell, hasn't it?
25:36But, so the story of the poem, they were exploring Ullswater together, Dorothy and William, 1802.
25:42So this is the lovely footpath from Gowbarrow down to Ullswater.
25:45Isn't it beautiful?
25:46Beautiful.
25:47And she wrote about it in her diary, which he would have read because he was so close.
25:51Is this where he did his sister?
25:52Is that what we're saying?
25:53Is that what we're saying?
25:54If that's what you're into, what you need to know about is Lord Byron.
26:04OK.
26:05This is especially this subject.
26:07Well, Lord Byron, I think, possibly did have it away with his half-sister, who was called Aurora.
26:13There's no evidence that the act of darkness took place between Dorothy and William.
26:17But what you should know is all of these poets, they were constantly bickering with each other, because you mentioned Lord Byron.
26:22William once badmouthed the works of Alexander Pope, who was another poet, and he was seriously admired by Lord Byron.
26:28And Byron was so angry, he renamed William Wordsworth William Turdsworth.
26:32But she talks about the fact that they were in Galbarrow Park and saw daffodils close to the water.
26:39So it was definitely a thing that they did together.
26:42He becomes quite a grumpy old man, because originally, look at this place, it's fantastic.
26:48And when he was young, he said, everybody must have access to this place, equal access to nature and so on.
26:54And he wanted the Lake District to become a sort of national park and everything.
26:57But then as he got older, he got very cross with the working class invading the place by train.
27:02And also, he'd become a sort of tourist attraction.
27:04People used to go and knock on his window when he was sitting and they want to go,
27:07Hi, you're Willy Wordsworth, hi.
27:11But anyway, wonderful poet.
27:13If you haven't read it, The Prelude.
27:14Oh.
27:15Oh, it's magnificent.
27:16It's one of the greatest poems ever.
27:18This poem, basically, tells the story of his poetic awakening.
27:23It's almost the story of his life.
27:25And he and the people around him, they really invented our modern view of the world,
27:30our view of childhood and nature.
27:32Would you not agree?
27:33I would.
27:34I mean, the way he talks about nature both being in awe and in fear of it is just magnificent.
27:38But did he write that, or did Dorothy?
27:40I mean, that's a very good question, isn't it?
27:42We all never know.
27:43But the opening of The Prelude is so beautiful.
27:45It talks about a pinnace, which is a kind of ship.
27:48She was an elf in pinnace.
27:50Lustily, I dipped my oars into the silent lake.
27:53And as I rose upon the stroke, my boat went heaving through the water like a swan.
27:59Isn't it magnificent?
28:00Wonderful.
28:01Or filth.
28:02LAUGHTER
28:10She rose upon a stroke?
28:12LAUGHTER
28:14And plunged.
28:15My whole career trying to get us back on track.
28:17LAUGHTER
28:18Now, for a question about some very famous books with no words,
28:23I'm going to show you a picture of our live studio audience.
28:26Let's settle this once and for all.
28:28Where is Wally?
28:29One point to the first person who can spot him on the panel.
28:32Alan was first.
28:33Have you seen him?
28:34In the hat.
28:35In the hat.
28:36Put your hand up.
28:37There he is.
28:38OK.
28:39OK.
28:40How did you discover him?
28:41I mean, you were the first.
28:42It was quickest.
28:43But also, I'd spotted him before you asked.
28:45I thought, why...
28:46LAUGHTER
28:48Why is that man wearing a hat?
28:49How annoying for the fellow behind him.
28:51LAUGHTER
28:52You can take it off.
28:53One of our wonderful elves, Jo.
28:54APPLAUSE
28:59These are these books, they were published in 1987,
29:01Where's Wally?
29:02And it's books by an illustrator called Martin Hanford.
29:04But what I love is that somebody has done a mathematical calculation
29:07as to the quickest way to find Wally,
29:09and it's the optimal search path for where he is going to be in any picture.
29:14Can we put the graph over the top so that we can see...
29:18It's a Walgorithm.
29:19It looks like the way to Uranus, doesn't it?
29:20Yeah.
29:21Yes, it does.
29:22It has sold more copies, these Where's Wally books, than Winnie the Pooh.
29:25Has it?
29:26I know.
29:27And in the beginning, there was no Wally in them, OK?
29:29There was...
29:30I know.
29:31It was just something that was added in to give the reader something to do.
29:33Did you have these books when you...
29:34Yeah, I caught them.
29:35Nobody asks how is Wally, so to make sure you're good?
29:38You're good, Wally?
29:39Yeah.
29:40I love a whole book of Wally's thoughts.
29:42LAUGHTER
29:43Jesus, I can't...
29:45I can get no peace.
29:47Every time I go out, he's in it, Wally!
29:51Fuck me, I just came out for some fags.
29:54Wally!
29:55Wally!
29:56LAUGHTER
30:00No-one gives a shit about me.
30:02No-one...
30:03Literally no-one cares.
30:05Only Michael, the first person who's ever thought of how well he is.
30:09There we go, you know.
30:10So, this is the optimal search path, if you have a look,
30:13that has been calculated by a data...
30:15I love this, a data analyst has sorted this out, Randall Olsen.
30:19The white line is an approximation, but these books,
30:22called swarming picture books, books with lots and lots of pictures
30:25full of movement.
30:26They've been really popular since the 16th century,
30:28and probably the most famous of these Wimmel builders
30:31is Hieronymus Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights,
30:34painted in the early 1500s.
30:36And if we zoom in to the bottom right-hand corner,
30:39one of the hidden features of the painting is a naked woman
30:43with a small piece of written music across her bottom.
30:46That's Cheryl Cole.
30:48LAUGHTER
30:50The earliest tattoo.
30:51Right that's the girls' love.
30:53LAUGHTER
30:55But what I love is that somebody thought,
30:57oh, I'll see if I can play that.
30:59Yeah, there's a woman called Amelia Hamrick,
31:01she's a student from Oklahoma Christian University,
31:03and she recorded it on a combination of lute, harp and hurdy-gurdy,
31:07and she called the piece the 500-year-old butt song from hell.
31:11LAUGHTER
31:14We don't have a copy of it,
31:15but apparently she described it as not very good.
31:18LAUGHTER
31:20We have these books in Denmark, but everybody uses a different name.
31:23Where's Waldo is the American version.
31:24That's the American version.
31:25So, in Denmark, it's Finn Holger.
31:27So, Holger is the person in Finn to look for.
31:29Willy in Norway, Charlie in France.
31:31Apparently, Waldo, in the United States it was changed
31:34because Wally, the publisher, thought it sounded too much like
31:37Wallace Simpson.
31:38No. Yes.
31:39And for a while, the first Where's Waldo was briefly banned
31:42in the United States because one page had a topless sunbather.
31:46Ooh.
31:47She now wears a bikini.
31:48Oh.
31:49That's Martin Hanford who did all the drawings.
31:51He's terrible at it, he's right there.
31:52Yeah, he's absolutely right.
31:58Are you going to share with us the myth, or is it the truth,
32:02about the origin of the phrase Where's Wally?
32:05Are you talking about the story from the 1970 Isle of Wight festival?
32:07No.
32:08Is that not true?
32:09Well, I mean, it's such a good story that I think it...
32:11Sure.
32:12It probably could be true.
32:13So, during the 1970 Isle of Wight festival,
32:16somebody called Wally got lost in the crowds.
32:18There are people who say it was actually a dog called Wally.
32:20Anyway, either way, people started calling Wally during the festival
32:24and it began sort of resonating through the festival
32:26and people took it up and it became repeated at British festivals
32:29for years afterwards because there's nothing we like better than an old joke.
32:32We love an old joke.
32:33We do.
32:34I am Spartacus.
32:35Yes, exactly that.
32:36You're supposed to say that after me.
32:38Anyway, then go on.
32:40I think you're fine.
32:41Yeah, yeah.
32:43Honestly, we don't really know and I think the potential for altered minds
32:48at the festival may mean this is misremembered.
32:51Funny that they always draw glasses as if the whole eye...
32:55Yes.
32:56It's right in the middle.
32:57Does Homer Simpson have that?
32:58Yeah.
32:59I can imagine that.
33:00Oh, no, he put glasses on with eyes on, didn't he?
33:03Yeah, he did, yeah.
33:04So he could sleep when he was on jury duty.
33:06Exactly.
33:07And he looked like he was awake.
33:08Yeah.
33:09You have a busy life, don't you?
33:12And now for a question about, about, oh, what the hell is it called?
33:16You know, when you...
33:17What's the thing when you can't remember a word?
33:19Tot.
33:20What?
33:21Tip of the tongue.
33:22Yes, tip of the tongue syndrome.
33:23What's it called in sign language?
33:29I mean, that almost looked offensive.
33:32Um...
33:33Tot.
33:34Tip of the finger syndrome.
33:35Ah, really?
33:36Tip of the tongue, tip of the finger syndrome.
33:37Oh, it's lovely.
33:38Do you have anything that happened to you?
33:39It's really...
33:40It can't...
33:41I mean, it's...
33:42I think it might...
33:43I can't remember what I'm trying to say.
33:44What's the question?
33:45At this stage in life, the brain fog, they say that it's the nouns that go first.
33:51I forgot the word for polyamory today.
33:53The other people in the bed didn't care.
33:55I did care, but I had to get up.
33:59Um...
34:00There's a very...
34:01I was right down the bottom.
34:04There's a nice...
34:06Most wonderful old Barry Cryer joke.
34:09There's two old men sitting chatting at the kitchen table and the wives are just obviously busy washing up.
34:14And the bloke says to the other bloke, he says, oh, it's the most fantastic restaurant last night.
34:18And he says, oh, yeah, what was it called?
34:19He says, oh, what the hell was it called?
34:21What's that thing?
34:22What's that lovely smelling flower with thorns?
34:26And he goes, Rose?
34:27And he goes, yeah, Rose?
34:28What's the name of that restaurant?
34:29LAUGHTER
34:35Anyway, people use placeholders when they can't remember a word.
34:38So there are some fantastic words that have been used over many, many years.
34:42Washicle, which is like, whatchamacallit?
34:45Yeah, that's good.
34:46There is a wangdoodle.
34:48Oh, a wangdoodle.
34:49Thingam thingam is very good.
34:50From 1684, thingam thingam.
34:52Uggia capivi?
34:53Do you think? Uggia capivi?
34:54You said that in quite an Italian way.
34:56I did.
34:57Ah, uggia capivi.
34:58Yes.
34:59Did you read about the lady who had a stroke and woke up speaking with an Italian accent?
35:03It was a black lady on TikTok.
35:05Yeah.
35:06Really?
35:07Now we're talking.
35:08Yeah.
35:09If I may say so, you up.
35:12Yeah, yeah.
35:13Oh, no.
35:14Is that the only thing you said?
35:15Not that one.
35:16Not that one.
35:17No, not the two of you.
35:18No, no, no.
35:19The chemistry's right, then, you know, but, no, OK, go on.
35:23Are you not up?
35:24No, you're not up.
35:25Stay down.
35:26Stay down.
35:27Stay down.
35:28Oh, OK.
35:29This is great Dutch ones, actually.
35:30What do these mean?
35:31These are all sort of place words that you use when you can't think of a thing.
35:34That would be packed.
35:35So...
35:36Samozingo is Turkish.
35:37Dingsgergen.
35:38I like Dingskirchen.
35:39It's German for when you forget a place and it just means thingchurch.
35:43You know, what's the name?
35:44Yeah, Dingsgergen.
35:45Yeah.
35:46What about the remote control?
35:47Would you call the remote control for the television, would you just call it remote control?
35:50Or do you have a...
35:51Some thingamajig, sometimes I call it that.
35:52Thingamajig, yeah.
35:53Thingamajig.
35:54Yeah.
35:55Which one do you want?
35:56I mean, there are several normally lying around the house.
35:58There is that.
35:59People in Licensing in 2016 did a survey and they found that people in the UK have over
36:03a hundred words for the remote control.
36:05After remote, the second most common was doofa, zapper, clicker, flicker, thingamajig,
36:11and whatchamacallit.
36:12In Oxford, it's the thing.
36:13In Wales, they call them panic buttons.
36:16And Oliver Hampton, the turny-over machine.
36:19LAUGHTER
36:21In Holland, lots of the houses have floor-to-ceiling sort of glass windows,
36:26big glass, and there's a tradition, you don't shut your curtains in the evening.
36:29And one of the things that the youths of the neighbourhood used to do,
36:32where my parents-in-law used to live, is they used to just go by with remote controls
36:35and change the channel.
36:37LAUGHTER
36:39Now it's time to horse around with some general ignorance.
36:42Fingers on buzzers, please.
36:43What feature can BBC viewers turn on to let them read exactly what I am saying?
36:48Subtitles, I'd assume.
36:52Exactly.
36:54So, subtitles translate speech from different languages, right?
36:58So, you can be watching a Korean programme, and then you can watch it in English,
37:02or you can read it in English.
37:03What is the thing if I want somebody who speaks English to exactly see,
37:08written down, what it is?
37:09Closed captions.
37:12It's closed captions.
37:13You're absolutely right.
37:14Don't trust them, Michael, because they're often done by a computer.
37:17Yes.
37:18I know this, because when I was watching the replay of Margaret Thatcher's funeral...
37:23Yeah.
37:28..when I was watching this, it had these closed captions,
37:32and when they got to the bit where the voiceover was, I read it,
37:37it said, the archbitch will now speak.
37:39LAUGHTER
37:44That was an error.
37:45That was an error.
37:47How long ago do you think that they were able to put written speech onto a film?
37:51Oh.
37:521972.
37:53Long time ago.
37:54It is a long time ago, yes.
37:551872.
37:56No, I'd say...
37:57I'm going to say the 1930s or something.
37:59No, 1903.
38:001903?
38:01Yes, yeah.
38:02Before my time.
38:03I mean, just...
38:06Uncle Tom's Cabin, 1903, Edwin Porters had inter-titles between the scenes,
38:10and then his 1907 film, College Chums, he managed to...
38:14I have to say, this is really impressive.
38:15This is 1907, look at that, embedded into the picture.
38:19Oh.
38:20Don't you think that's brilliant?
38:21That's like a Wes Anderson, doesn't it?
38:22I think it's really impressive.
38:24Darling, yes.
38:25What's he saying?
38:26Darling?
38:27Don't, darling me...
38:28Oh, they're having a row in text.
38:29Who was that girl you were with in the park today?
38:32No!
38:33I mean, what was the problem with using text in pictures like this in 1903?
38:38Going international, maybe?
38:39People didn't read.
38:40Well...
38:41Yes, the high degree of illiteracy.
38:42Yeah.
38:43It was a serious issue.
38:44I'm just worried the first ever dick pics about to fly across the screen.
38:47It was 1909 that they very first were put at the bottom of the screen.
38:52That's when we get the closed captions.
38:54The words on your screen are captions, subtitles are subtly different.
38:57Now, you may know that Frankenstein is not the name of the monster,
38:59but the person who created it, Victor Frankenstein.
39:01What qualifications did he have?
39:03Was he a butcher?
39:05Do you know, of all the things we thought you might say...
39:09LAUGHTER
39:12I remember, years ago, going to see Edna Everidge live,
39:15and she said to somebody in the audience,
39:18what colour is your house, darling?
39:20And the person said, beige.
39:21And there was a really long pause, and she went,
39:23yes, you forget about beige, don't you?
39:26LAUGHTER
39:27She's actually got a joke for every single colour.
39:30LAUGHTER
39:31Not that.
39:32I've got nothing for butcher.
39:33Nothing.
39:34Nothing at all.
39:35Well, it's not going to be doctor, is it?
39:36No.
39:37It isn't doctor.
39:38We don't get him to be a doctor until he's first portrayed
39:41in a romantic play.
39:42It has no qualifications whatsoever.
39:44Oh, he's an influencer.
39:46LAUGHTER
39:47APPLAUSE
39:56So, Mary Shelley wrote the book in 1818.
39:58Can I just say, this is one of my favourite stories of all time
40:00about misunderstanding something.
40:02Part of her inspiration for Frankenstein came,
40:04and this was in her own introduction to the book,
40:07from a belief that pasta could come to life.
40:10Pasta?
40:11Yes.
40:12So, she discussed an experiment which was performed by Erasmus Darwin,
40:16who was Charles Darwin's grandfather, in which,
40:19and this is quoting her,
40:20preserved a piece of vermicelli in a glass case,
40:24till by some extraordinary means it began to move
40:26with a voluntary motion.
40:28And she had misremembered the word.
40:31Erasmus Darwin claimed to have reanimated vorticelli,
40:34which are tiny wriggly worm-like creatures,
40:37and not vermicelli, which is pasta.
40:40LAUGHTER
40:42During the Cold War, if you crossed the Berlin Wall,
40:45coming from East Germany,
40:47which country would you end up in?
40:49West Germany?
40:50BUZZER
40:51BUZZER
40:52BUZZER
40:53BUZZER
40:55You're going to be in West Berlin, right?
40:57Yes.
40:58And the thing about West Berlin wasn't legally or constitutionally
41:00a part of either West or...
41:02Was it in the Soviet Union at that stage?
41:04It sort of weirdly wasn't anything.
41:05So, you get the partition of the city.
41:08It's divided between the US, UK, France and the Soviet Union
41:12by the Yalta Conference in 1945,
41:14but the West was run by France, Britain and the United States
41:17as a completely independent territory.
41:19Oh.
41:20It wasn't officially part of any country.
41:22It was sort of a no-man's land.
41:24I wish I'd known you were bringing this up,
41:26because I've got at home a bit of the Berlin Wall.
41:28Oh, so have I, a little fragment of it.
41:29Yeah, did you go?
41:30Yeah, yes.
41:31We took our children, thinking this was going to be...
41:33It was too important not to go.
41:35And we went with our children, and we helped.
41:37There were lots of East Germans and West Germans
41:39were helping pull it down,
41:41and so there are lots of souvenirs everywhere,
41:43and each of our children took a souvenir home.
41:45It was extraordinary, 1990.
41:47I'm glad we've kept our bit,
41:48because they may be putting it up again soon
41:50and we could take it back.
41:51LAUGHTER
41:54There's technically a bit of East Germany that still exists.
41:56Does anybody know where it is?
41:58It's in Cuba.
41:59Oh.
42:001972, Fidel Castro gave one of the Cuban islands
42:03to East Germany as a gift for their communist alliance,
42:06and it was called Cayo Blanco del Sur,
42:08and Castro renamed it Ernst Talman Island.
42:11So Ernst Talman ran the German Communist Party in 1925 to 1933,
42:16and when the Berlin Wall came down,
42:19nobody mentioned the island.
42:21So, strictly speaking, still East Germany.
42:25Michael, you have been just wonderful.
42:27I just want to apologise for the seating arrangements.
42:29LAUGHTER
42:31This is my best friend now.
42:32Yes.
42:35Now I'm afraid the writing is on the wall
42:37as we come to the matter of the scores.
42:40Our winner tonight,
42:41well, I'm lost for words,
42:42six whole points, it's Kelly.
42:44CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
42:46In second place, as good as their word with four points,
42:50it's Michael.
42:51CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
42:53In third place, on the streets with one point,
42:56Alan.
42:57CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
42:59In last place, oh, dear, it's a complete write-off.
43:02Minus one, it's Giles.
43:03CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
43:05So it's a big thank you to Michael, Giles, Callie and Alan,
43:14and I leave you with the last words of the poet Dylan Thomas.
43:17I just had 18 straight whiskies.
43:20I think that's a record.
43:22Good night.
43:23CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
43:25Heisenberg, the director of the Clan's Culture
43:29And take care of it all.
43:34Thank you, Mike.
43:39You're welcome.
43:40Thank you, Mike.
43:41Thank you very much.
43:45Thank you, Mike.
43:47Thank you, Mike.
43:49It's been taken by it for this week.
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