- 4 minutes ago
QI XL S23E14 Whatnots
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00:00Music
00:08Music
00:12Music
00:18Music
00:24Music
00:28Music
00:29We have a random wound up of widgets and what nots for you. Let's whiz through our workforce. The wonderful Joanne McNally
00:47Andrew Maxwell
00:52Sally Phillips
00:57What a surprise is Alan Davis
00:59Thank you
01:04Right, let's hear your Watcher McCallums, which are all woodwind. Joanne goes
01:13Oh, a little bit of recorder there. Andrew goes
01:19Oh, bass clarinet. Sally goes
01:22Sex
01:26Oh, I love a bit of sex
01:28Can I just say that all our buzzers have been made for us this evening by two fabulous musicians David Tobin and Tim Garland
01:34Let's have a listen what Alan's is
01:36Do you know what it is, darling?
01:38No, it's called a crumb horn. It's a wooden renaissance instrument like a crook. Yeah, like a crook you blow into the straight end
01:57Anyway, here's a qi fact, right?
01:59So David Tobin who played the crumb horn his dad was fidel Castro's dentist. Don't you love that?
02:04Wow
02:06Did he have good teeth, Vito Castro?
02:08He was known as the horse
02:10Was he?
02:11No
02:12That wasn't to do with his teeth, Andrew
02:14It was because he had a tail
02:18How do you know that?
02:20It's just it's a well-known fact about Castro
02:22You say that I didn't know. Hands up who knew that Castro was hung like a horse
02:26I am so
02:28You've added in a detail there of your own
02:32Right, let's get the show going
02:34What begins with W and has become louder since Brexit?
02:40Washing a Gwashing
02:44I guess
02:46I mean, I'm gonna give you two points just because that's not something any of us have thought of
02:50Is it waves?
02:52Like the sea?
02:54Just all waves are louder
02:56Because we're now measuring them
02:58A different way that we used to
03:00Because it used to be a metric EU measurement
03:04We've gone back to an imperial wave measurement
03:08Chip in any time, Jo
03:10I mean
03:12It's waiting, waiting
03:14You have to wait for everything more now
03:16In airports and passports and
03:18Yes
03:19My soda stream
03:20I don't care for politics
03:22But Brexit only really
03:24I took it seriously when I tried to order
03:26Refills for my soda stream
03:28And it was gonna take 12 weeks and cost 6 grand
03:30To get it into the country and I went right now
03:32I'm politically motivated
03:34See, I like when somebody's got a limit
03:36There you go
03:38I'll take to the streets if I can't get my sparkly water on time
03:40The answer is wheelie bins
03:42So 1993 the European Commission decided that they were going to issue the outdoor noise directive
03:54Right? And it regulated sounds made by 57 different types of outdoor equipment
03:58So things you'd expect
04:00Bulldozers, leaf blowers, that kind of thing
04:02But they also did for an appropriately designed container fitted with wheels intended to store waste temporarily
04:08And which is equipped with a cover
04:10It's a wheelie bin
04:12And so they opened and closed the lid of a wheelie bin 20 times
04:16And they dragged it across, I don't know, steel mesh to, you know, simulate irregular ground
04:20And they set a limit
04:22But since Brexit
04:24No legal requirement
04:26Freedom, finally free
04:28It's freedom
04:30It's freedom
04:31Have a noisy bin again
04:32How loud is it
04:34When you pour eight wine bottles into one?
04:37Two in the morning
04:39Alan, do you not tip and slide, no?
04:41What's tip and slide?
04:42You just tip the bin back on the two wheels that the Lord God gave you
04:45And slide the bottle in
04:47Oh, that's smart
04:48You're not using your own bin, are you?
04:50You're going around the neighborhood
04:55Putting one item in everybody's bin, I know you are
04:59Every bin gets a bottle of Merlot
05:02Yeah, I dress up as a bin sometimes
05:05I was just thinking I could fit in quite a...
05:07Easily fit in
05:09What's more, it would be lower than the required sound limit
05:12Yes
05:13I have a good question about this picture
05:15I just noticed
05:16What's wrong with this picture?
05:17I'm upside down
05:18No, no, Tony, I'm not asking you
05:20Is it me bothering you, the flag?
05:24Yeah
05:25Yeah
05:26What's wrong with it?
05:27It's upside down, isn't it?
05:30That's why it's in the bin, probably
05:32Yeah, yeah
05:33In Ethiopia, there is a walled city of Harar
05:37How do you think the recycling is done in this city?
05:40Are they... have they got the bins? They've got the wheelie bins?
05:42It's nothing to do with bins at all
05:43Are they... are they using pigs?
05:45Pigs?
05:46It is an animal
05:47To chew glass
05:48Well, it's not necessarily glass
05:49It's all the other stuff, all of the waste products that you might put out
05:53Are tiny weevils?
05:55No, hyenas
05:56Hyenas?
05:57Oh!
05:58When it gets dark, they let them in through a series of hyena doors and they eat whatever is left in the streets and because they're nocturnal they go back to their dens during the day
06:07I don't think they can do glass selling but they can bite through bone
06:11Yeah, fine
06:12And digest anything from hair to hooves
06:15Oh, gross
06:16And because of their diet, their poo is almost entirely white
06:20Like the dogs in the 80s, do you remember?
06:22Yes
06:23White dog poo is making a return
06:24Is it?
06:25Because everyone's doing raw food, my dogs poo white after 24 hours
06:28Well, I mean...
06:29Thank you
06:32It comes out white? It doesn't turn white
06:34No, it comes out dark and within 24 hours it's gone white
06:37Darling, are you not supposed to pick it up in a bag? You're not supposed to leave it for 24 hours and go back and see how it's...
06:41It's a really sordid version of Autumn Watch
06:46Just sitting there watching a poo turn white over two evenings
06:50I'm going to pull a pashmina out of my dog's arse
06:53No, never pull
06:54Must never pull
06:55It's got to go through naturally
06:57That's why it died
07:04Never mind the dog, what happened to the pashmina?
07:07Oh, it's my mother so it was washed and reused
07:09Birds in urban areas, this I like is a piece of recycling
07:13They sometimes collect cigarette butts and use them for nests
07:16There's a phenomenon in Mexico City and apparently it's very good for the city
07:20So it's a form of cleaning and then the chemicals in the tobacco repel parasites for the birds
07:25I think it's rather fine
07:26Does anybody know what shoddy is?
07:28It means the lowest quality of leather
07:31Not leather but old clothing, old rags
07:33Yeah
07:34Shoddy, yeah, it was another form of recycling
07:35So 1813 a man called Benjamin Law, he was a Yorkshireman
07:38And he invented a type of recycling
07:40And it's taking old clothes rags and shredding them into thin fibers and then re-spinning them
07:45And in the American Civil War, they had such a shortage of cloth
07:48They imported six million tons of this stuff
07:51This cheap fabric, cheap shoddy to make uniforms and blankets
07:54But it was absolutely rubbish
07:55The minute it rained the uniforms started to fall apart
07:58And that's where we get the modern meaning of shoddies from an original idea for recycling
08:02Here is a good piece of news about waste though
08:052023 was a government report found that since the charge for plastic bags has been introduced in the UK
08:12Which was in 2015 the usage has fallen by 98%
08:16Wow
08:17Yes, 7 billion plastic bags
08:242014 average household took home 140 single-use plastic bags and by 2023 it was just two
08:30Wow
08:31And don't you feel guilty now though when they go would you like a bag?
08:34Yeah
08:35Yes
08:36Yes
08:37Sorry
08:38Yes
08:39I'm always buying bags for life
08:40So as far as before I was only buying one
08:42How many single-use plastic bags go into a bag for life?
08:46Also, how much are you going to like that bag that you want to have it for life?
08:49It's quite a big commitment with a partner
08:51Never mind the...
08:53Is that what you call the wife?
08:55A bag for life
08:56Yes
08:57LAUGHTER
08:58Who's used bag for life?
09:03Never let a man write his own wedding vows
09:08LAUGHTER
09:10OK, moving along
09:12Why would tinfoil and Wi-Fi go together?
09:16You put the tinfoil around your head to protect you from the rays
09:22OK
09:23That the Martians
09:24Yeah
09:25Are sending back to Earth
09:27And using the liberal media to pervert our minds
09:30LAUGHTER
09:31I just want to take that whole section and transmit it just by itself
09:36LAUGHTER
09:37So your router box transmits radio waves to connect your devices to the internet
09:41And the signal is pumped out in all sorts of directions
09:43But you can strengthen it with aluminium foil
09:45So what you do is you put it behind the box and it acts as a sort of mirror
09:49Because the radio waves would otherwise be soaked up by the wall, right?
09:52So that's one way of doing it
09:54Or you can use the foil to block the signal
09:56Like when you go shoplifting?
09:58LAUGHTER
10:02You just line your pockets with the foil, don't you?
10:04Do you?
10:05And then when you go through those things they can't...
10:07Oh!
10:08Oh!
10:09That is so cool
10:10You can just pour the soup directly into your...
10:12LAUGHTER
10:13LAUGHTER
10:14Jeez
10:15Put tinfoil in and then fill your pockets with potatoes
10:19LAUGHTER
10:20They test Wi-Fi on airplanes with sacks of potatoes?
10:24That is absolutely correct
10:26So Boeing in 2012 they wanted to test how their in-flight Wi-Fi was working
10:31LAUGHTER
10:32They wanted to test it on a full plane
10:33But they didn't want to have people sitting there for ten hours
10:35I've seen that one right there
10:37LAUGHTER
10:39They used sacks of potatoes
10:40Nine tonnes of potatoes to make into human-sized people
10:43Because potatoes have a similar density to humans
10:46And they're also mostly water
10:48And so the potatoes absorb energy in a similar sort of way
10:52And I love this
10:53Boeing called the project
10:54Synthetic personnel using dielectric substitution
10:58LAUGHTER
10:59Which is, of course...
11:00LAUGHTER
11:02Studs
11:03Would I bake in five minutes then like a potato?
11:06Well, you're quite a big potato
11:07Yeah
11:08I don't think you'd fit in a microwave
11:09I mean, I might
11:10Oh, sorry, you're just microwaving potatoes
11:12I microwave everything
11:13I do
11:14I microwave red wine
11:15What?
11:16Yeah
11:17Why?
11:18To get it to room temperature in a hurry
11:19Because I'm always in a hurry for Merlot
11:20My mother-in-law
11:21And I bet no-one else does this
11:23Microwaves white wine
11:25Because she doesn't like it cold
11:26That's disgusting
11:27It's disgraceful
11:28I'm sorry, the red wine is fine
11:30But the...
11:31LAUGHTER
11:32I'm a sommelier compared to that
11:34LAUGHTER
11:35How might you use Wi-Fi to look through a wall?
11:38So this was some research done at the University of California
11:41Is it like sonar?
11:42In what way?
11:43Like it sends out something and it reflect bounces off something and tells you there's something on the other side of the wall
11:48Is the correct answer?
11:49Oh, it is, you see
11:50Oh!
11:51I was just about to say you've confused Wi-Fi with a whale
11:58But no
12:00So in that way it is exactly like sonar
12:03So what you do is you send out your radio waves as normal and then the receiver logs any signals that bounce back
12:08Do you think if animals could talk to us and chat on the world would be better or worse?
12:14They've trained a poodle to speak
12:18Obviously it can't actually speak but they've got these touch pads
12:21So they've not trained it to speak
12:22No, no, it can't
12:23They can speak in a way a non-vocal human could speak through
12:26There's all these pads that say things, hello, good morning, how are you?
12:29Right
12:30Why is my shit white?
12:31LAUGHTER
12:35Don't leave it up, leave it, leave it
12:36I want to see if it goes white, I want to see if it goes white
12:39My poo, what's wrong with you?
12:41Put that there on purpose
12:43LAUGHTER
12:44No, but they do find that whales, a whale song conforms to laws of language
12:52There's no reason why they aren't communicating just because we don't understand what they're saying
12:57No, no, whales are absolutely communicating, that is absolutely correct
13:00Although utterly irrelevant to Wi-Fi through a wall
13:03Just going to try and bring us back to that
13:06So what can the dog do?
13:08LAUGHTER
13:12I mean, I saw the clips, the dog was talking
13:15LAUGHTER
13:16I'm just going to chase the postman
13:18I'll be back inside
13:19LAUGHTER
13:21Apparently pigs can play the Nintendo
13:23LAUGHTER
13:25I have this horrible feeling I'm in a parallel universe today
13:30LAUGHTER
13:31I ask a perfectly reasonable question and people say random things too
13:34LAUGHTER
13:35You know what I think?
13:36I think cats are stupid
13:37And I think...
13:38LAUGHTER
13:39All the people who go, oh, my cat's not
13:41When they...
13:42If their cat can talk, they think, Jesus, this thing's an idiot
13:46LAUGHTER
13:47A narcissistic, psychopathic idiot
13:50Yeah
13:51Our little cockapoo has been trained that if I say, secure the perimeter, she will run all the way around the whole garden
13:58Oh...
13:59That's...
14:00We sometimes say it just to get her to go away
14:02LAUGHTER
14:04Right, so you were talking about sonar and being able to look through the wall with the Wi-Fi
14:07You're absolutely right
14:08They did this with the word believe
14:10So they wouldn't cut out letters on the other side
14:12And the imaging results when it came back, you were able to read through using Wi-Fi
14:16What else you can do?
14:17What?
14:18Bouncing off the wall
14:19And I found this out as a student
14:20Yeah
14:21You can turn your neighbour's TV over
14:23LAUGHTER
14:24With your remote
14:25How do you do that?
14:26You can just go through the window and it bounce off the wall and hit their telly
14:30LAUGHTER
14:31That's our generation video games, isn't it?
14:34LAUGHTER
14:37LAUGHTER
14:39Anybody know what the connection is with show business and Wi-Fi?
14:43Ooh, ooh, yes!
14:44LAUGHTER
14:45Are you dating a dog now?
14:47No, I think it was a monkey
14:48Definitely
14:49A January deal
14:50Yes, go
14:51It's one of the most beautiful women to have ever been in Hollywood
14:54Yes
14:55Hedy Lamarr
14:56Oh, yes
14:57Hedy Lamarr
14:58Was also a scientific genius
14:59She was extraordinary
15:00There she is
15:01Star of the biblical epic Samson and Delilah
15:03At the peak of her career
15:05She was known as the most beautiful woman in the world
15:07But in her spare time, she was an inventor
15:10She always liked inventing
15:11As soon as she got money, she made a whole room
15:13Where she was always working on different projects
15:15A better traffic light
15:16A tablet that dissolved in water to make a fizzy drink or whatever
15:19Anyway, during World War II, she came up with a new way of guiding torpedoes to their targets using radio waves
15:25And she thought that if you hopped between frequencies, you know, a bit like pressing different keys on a piano
15:30It would be more difficult for the enemy to jam the signals
15:34And so she approached a pianist that she knew film composer called George Antile
15:37And they made a prototype with 88 different possible signals
15:41Why 88?
15:42Is that the number of keys on a piano?
15:44The number of keys on a grand piano, exactly right
15:45Keys on a piano, yeah
15:46And they patented the idea in 1942, but the Navy didn't use it
15:48And the patent expired and they never earned any money from it
15:51But frequency hopping is now the basis not only of Wi-Fi, but of GPS and Bluetooth
15:56And she is often called the queen of Wi-Fi
15:59And I love her
16:00Isn't that fantastic?
16:01Yeah
16:02I think it's great, look at her
16:03She was the model for Snow White as well
16:05Yes, that's right, yeah
16:06Does anybody know what Wi-Fi is short for?
16:09Anyone?
16:10No, don't start asking them
16:12You know, none of us know
16:15Weird
16:16Wireless
16:17Frequency
16:18Feet
16:19Infidels
16:20Yes
16:21Wireless
16:22Infidels
16:23Infidels, no Wi-Fi
16:24Fine
16:25Wireless what?
16:26Wireless
16:27Wireless Fidelity
16:28Wireless Fidelity
16:29Wireless Fidelity
16:30Oh
16:35You can't buy the stuff out
16:37Yeah, you think it looks easy, don't you?
16:39I mean, it's fair enough that you might think it's easy
16:41It's fair enough that you might think it's wireless fidelity because we have high fidelity, don't we?
16:44We have hi-fi
16:45But it doesn't mean anything actually, it was invented by a marketing agency
16:48They were asked to come up with something catchier than what it was called before
16:52It was known as wireless standard IEEE 802.11
16:57Direct sequence
16:59And they all said, that's a bit long
17:01Let's have something else
17:03I think it was a dog actually said suggestion
17:06Right, moving on
17:07Moving on
17:08In the mid-20th century, which European city was divided by a wall over two metres high and topped with lethal spikes?
17:15Uh...
17:16No
17:17No
17:18No
17:19Yes
17:20Euro Disney
17:24Two metres is nothing
17:25Lilliput
17:26Legoland
17:27Oh, I love Legoland
17:28Thank you
17:29It isn't going to be anything that you might think, so Berlin, for example, topped with barbed wire, didn't have spikes
17:38It's Oxford
17:39What?
17:40I know
17:41Is it a division between town and gown or something?
17:43Not really, it's between those that have and those that do not
17:46For a quarter of a century, part of Oxford was divided by the infamous Cutterslow walls
17:51So there were two housing estates that were built in the Cutterslow suburb
17:55And they were built right next door to each other
17:57One was for council tenants and one was for private residents
18:00Developed by a man called Clive Saxton of Urban Housing Company
18:03And in 1934 Oxford City Council started relocating families from slum clearances into the estate
18:10And Saxton was worried his houses wouldn't sell
18:12So he erected two walls down the street to separate his residents from the riffraff
18:20So council tenants started a petition to have these walls removed
18:23And in 1938 the city council against legal advice did demolish the wall with a steamroller
18:28And the developer sued and they had to rebuild the wall
18:32World War II a tank on an exercise went through the wall
18:35And back it up it went again
18:37And then finally the council got compulsory power of purchase in 1953
18:42And in 1959 it was taken down
18:44But in 2006 they put up a blue plaque to commemorate the fact
18:47And there they were
18:48The Cutterslow walls finally demolished in 1959
18:51How can a wall help you if you are feeling lonely?
18:55Is that a clue?
18:57I think it's just a person with a wall who's a bit lonely
19:00This is one of the weirder things okay
19:03I don't know what I actually think about this
19:05You can buy the Berlin Wall in pill form
19:11What?
19:12Yeah okay
19:13So this is genuine and I have them here
19:15This is from Ainsworth the royal family's official homeopath
19:19These are pieces of the original concrete from the Berlin Wall
19:24Finely ground down and diluted with sucrose water and alcohol
19:28So this little bottle costs about 14 pounds
19:30Now it's homeopathy
19:32Not everybody agrees that it works
19:34But the pills supposedly help feelings of oppression and isolation
19:40They're tiny little ones
19:41Some reviews say it helps with headaches helps with insomnia
19:44But it is crushed up Berlin Wall mixed with
19:48I've got six here is that too many?
19:51I think you'll turn into an extension
19:55You can also buy homeopathic mobile phone pills
19:58What?
19:59Yeah they contain a trace of a crushed up iPhone
20:02And supposedly helps you with technologically related anxiety
20:05I did read a story once about a guy who snorted his mother
20:10Do you remember this?
20:11What?
20:12I mean
20:13He had her cremated and he snorted her ashes
20:15What is wrong with you two?
20:19Yeah he snorted his mother
20:20Why?
20:21I think he was on something
20:23I think he'd taken a drink
20:24And his mother had been cremated
20:26And I think it was like
20:27Wanted to be close to her
20:29Or wanted to show up to his friends
20:30I don't know
20:31Anyway there was a bit of an after party after the funeral
20:33And he snorted her
20:35Chucked her out
20:36He didn't do all of her
20:37Not all
20:38He couldn't do all of her
20:39That's the whole weekend
20:40Well
20:41I mean
20:42It's possible because
20:43Keith Richards claimed
20:44That he snorted his dad's ashes with cocaine
20:47People tattoo themselves with the ashes of their dead loved ones
20:50Yeah
20:51Do they?
20:52You can get the ash then turned into a paint
20:53And then you have your granny turned into a skull
20:55Mmm
20:56Imagine your granny being a tramp stamp
20:59Like it's just not right
21:01I mean my mother gets under my skin anyway
21:04So
21:05Do you remember your man who stole the girl that he fancied out of her tomb
21:09And then took her home
21:10He used to dance with her at night
21:12Yeah
21:13Yeah
21:14And then the neighbours walked past and they noticed that he was dancing
21:18With this
21:19Dead body
21:20Dead body
21:21And then the family were like
21:22We knew it because he was obsessed with her
21:24And they went and checked the tomb and she was gone
21:26Do you know what I think?
21:27I think that we shouldn't bother to do any research at all
21:30We should just have Andrew and Joe
21:32Why did the fall of Berlin Wall not go entirely according to plan?
21:37What do you reckon?
21:38It fell the wrong way
21:39Did it?
21:40No
21:41Did it?
21:42No
21:43No, but I was quite willing to go with it
21:46I
21:47No, so there was an East German spokesman called Gunther Schabowski
21:50And he was asked about the travel restrictions and so on
21:53And instead of saying the wall will come down tomorrow
21:56He said immediately
21:57And there was an instant crash of people trying to get to the wall
22:01I mean he later got fired
22:03It was obviously
22:04I'm not feeling any better
22:06They're not kicked in
22:08Are you still feeling isolated and oppressed?
22:10Yeah
22:11I somehow feel like I won't be able to get to work in the morning
22:14There'll be some obstacle and I won't see my cousin for 30 years
22:18There's a very interesting building in Chicago
22:22It's called the Tribune Tower
22:24And they've got something called the Wall of Walls
22:27And it's made up of bits of wall from all over the world
22:30But I mean I'm talking about astonishing pieces of wall
22:32The Great Pyramid and so on
22:33So if you have a look
22:34That's Hamlet's Castle, Elsinore, top left there
22:36The Berlin Wall, top right
22:38And the Great Wall of China, bottom right
22:40But they've got them from all over the place
22:42The Forbidden City, Pompeii
22:44Now
22:45What's the best time to sell a watch?
22:47I'm not a fan of watches
22:49Really? Why?
22:50I find that lads
22:51It's a bit of a dick swinging competition really
22:53With the watches at times
22:55It's random lads going around with these huge jokes
22:57Like they're scuba diving pilots
22:59They've like
23:00They can deep sea dive and read the sky
23:02And while you're like
23:04You work in marketing, get over it
23:07Do not wear a watch?
23:08I don't wear watches
23:09Don't believe in them
23:10There you go
23:11Wow, I mean
23:12They're a real thing
23:16She's right
23:17You don't need a watch
23:18I don't have one either
23:19If you're late somebody will tell you
23:21So in adverts
23:22And shop displays that kind of thing
23:24An analogue watch
23:25Someone with hands on it
23:26Was nearly always set at ten past ten
23:29Why do you think that might be?
23:31Because you can see the hands nice and neatly?
23:34Yes, is one reason
23:35It'll look nice
23:36It looks a little bit like a smile
23:38So the first thing is that you can see the brand
23:40Usually that's where the brand is
23:42Oh, right
23:43It's right in the middle there
23:44If it was twenty past eight
23:45It would look depressed
23:46Yeah
23:47But you know there's a thing called pareidolia
23:49It's our tendency to see patterns in things
23:51It's a bit like seeing animal shapes in clouds
23:53Or faces in inanimate
23:54Jesus in toast
23:55Jesus in toast
23:56So pareidolia our tendency to see patterns in things
23:59It reminds us subliminally
24:01Reminds us of a smile
24:02This makes us happy
24:03It makes us more likely to buy
24:04Twenty past
24:05Sorry, go on
24:06Go on what darling
24:07I was just saying twenty past ten
24:08Would look kind of fascist
24:09I'm trying to think of the
24:10Yeah
24:11Don't do that fascist
24:12That would be nice
24:13I think you've done more of a teapot than an attitude
24:17I'd be terrible fascist
24:18I'd be like come on girls
24:19A group of psychologists looked into this 2017 to prove it
24:32And it does seem to be a fact that people at ten past ten
24:35It positively affects customers' brains
24:37Women more so than men tend to be influenced by it
24:39And the reverse effect of the thing that might make you sad
24:42If ten past ten makes you
24:43Yes, what would that be?
24:44Twenty past eight
24:45Twenty past eight
24:46Twenty past eight
24:47Yeah, twenty past eight
24:48It makes people sad
24:49When they sell digital watches
24:50What time do you think they put them to?
24:51It just flashes
24:52Double eight, double eight, double eight
24:53And then you throw it in a bin
24:54Hello
24:57Well, boobs
24:59Eight, zero, zero, eight
25:01Well the ads still use ten past ten
25:03Because it's sort of a watch tradition
25:05Although Apple Watch shows 10.09
25:07I don't know whether they're saying
25:08Look at us
25:09We're ahead of the curve
25:10Yeah
25:11Apple Watches
25:12This is an extraordinary thing
25:13They launched in April 2015
25:14And the last three months of 2017
25:16So just two years after they started
25:18Apple sold more watches than the whole of Switzerland
25:21I know
25:22It's an enormous amount
25:24Anybody know who had the very first ever wristwatch?
25:27Ooh
25:28Wasn't anyone in the McNally family?
25:30Is there clean ass?
25:31We don't believe in time
25:34Marie Antoinette
25:35A little bit later on
25:36Napoleon's youngest sister Caroline Murat
25:38Ah, yeah her
25:411810
25:42She commissioned the very first ever wristwatch
25:45Designed for her by the master Swiss watchmaker
25:47Abraham Louis Breguet
25:49But I thought it was the first world war
25:51Well, it's interesting
25:52First world war they started putting her on their wrists
25:54So at first it was seen as a woman's thing partly because of Caroline
25:58But then gradually it becomes a thing for men
26:01The Duke of Wellington he also had a watch made by Breguet
26:04Which he bought while he occupied Paris after the Battle of Waterloo
26:08But he didn't have a wristwatch it was really primarily for women
26:11In 2017 a Rolex once commissioned by Bao Dai
26:14Who's the last emperor of Vietnam
26:16Became the most expensive wristwatch ever sold at auction
26:19It fetched five million dollars for a single watch
26:23Sold through Philips watches the auction house
26:26Very kindly gave us this photograph
26:28There's a really weird thing with Rolexes
26:29They're more expensive second-hand than they are brand new
26:31They're an investment thing aren't they?
26:33Well my father was a foreign correspondent
26:35And he always said you should wear a watch expensive enough
26:38To get you home from anywhere if you had to sell it
26:42And he once I remember he came back from a war zone without his watch
26:45And we were very glad that he had he returned
26:47So there'd be a reason there for you to
26:49Yeah fair enough
26:51Maybe not one of just those Casio's
26:53Swatch watch isn't going to get you back very far
26:56Exactly
26:57How do you stop a bunch of drunks crashing into your window?
27:00Put the booze on the outside
27:02Ah
27:04What might crash into a window?
27:06Well an insect
27:07Have you confused drunks with butterflies?
27:10Think of an insect talking about?
27:11Birds
27:12Yes
27:13These are birds called wax wings
27:14And flocks of them can crash into glass when they're drunk
27:18You can see them in the UK during the winter
27:20They're called wax wings because of this lovely
27:22Can you see the lovely red tips?
27:23Yeah
27:24On some of the feathers
27:25It's a bit like they've been dipped in that wax for sealing letters
27:27Anyway, they mostly eat berries and they have an expandable pouch in their gullet where they store them
27:32And sometimes they ferment and the bird gets drunk
27:35And their blood alcohol can reach double the legal driving limit in Scotland
27:40OK?
27:41Yeah
27:42And they go
27:43Oh, there's a window
27:44And crashing into windows is a leading cause of death for birds
27:49They reckon annually in the UK 33 million birds meet their end on a window
27:57What?
27:58That's an insane amount
27:59Oh, in the US darling the estimate is about a billion
28:02So how do we stop this terrible bird massacre?
28:05Well
28:06Keep the windows open
28:07They can't see the difference between transparent glass and air
28:11We've all walked into a window, haven't we?
28:13Yes, we have
28:14Indeed
28:15You can put these bird stickers on the glass
28:17But it would have to be lots and lots of them
28:18It would not be sufficient to just put one or two
28:20Better to put a cat sticker on the window
28:23Well, the best thing to do is to reflect UV light
28:27So birds can see UV light
28:29We can't see it
28:30So look at the difference between the picture on the left is what we see
28:33And then the picture on the right is what the birds can see
28:36We don't really know why they evolved UV vision
28:40But there is an Austrian company called Bird Shades
28:42And they produce giant stick-on sheets of UV reflective film for glass buildings
28:47So this is actually looking through a window
28:50And to birds this would be dangerous
28:53But if you put the bird shade on it
28:55This giant stick-on sheet of UV
28:58It looks like prison bars to the bird
29:00This is what the bird would see
29:01And it reduces bird collisions by about 80%
29:04So still not foolproof
29:05Wow
29:06Yeah
29:07There was another window invention in Germany
29:08Not, I have to say, such a hit
29:10Sky Deutschland in 2013
29:12They developed something called talking windows for trains
29:15What do you think it is?
29:16Oh God
29:17Yes, what?
29:18Set an alarm in the window
29:22The window will tell you if you fall asleep
29:24It'll be like, you're stop, you're stop, get up
29:26That is a very, very good idea
29:28I know
29:29What it did was it played adverts
29:30If you rested your head against the glass
29:32Oh
29:33Yeah
29:34And the sound was transmitted directly into your skull
29:36Oh God
29:37Rather than through the air
29:38You'd pull the emergency lever, wouldn't you?
29:40Yeah
29:41Well, blocking your ears only made it louder
29:42Weirdly, not popular
29:44German ads as well
29:47Would you like another sausage?
29:49What about a well-made diesel car?
29:54I tell you something I have seen
29:56Which is really ingenious way of using train windows
29:59Is to paint a series of pictures in a tunnel
30:02And so it becomes an animated scene as the train passes
30:05It's like those old flip books
30:06Yes
30:07It's fantastic
30:08So I saw it in Montreal
30:09It's been tried in Atlanta, New York, in Athens and Seoul
30:12It's usually an advertising campaign
30:14But look, so as you're going past
30:16Oh, yeah
30:17Isn't it clever?
30:18Yeah, yeah
30:19I took the kids on the Eurostar
30:20Yeah
30:21And I said to them
30:22You have to listen to that for the splash
30:25And that's when we're in the sea
30:30And they, I didn't think they'd believe it
30:32I thought, it's out
30:33Shut up, Dad
30:34That's what they normally say
30:35And they're absolutely hook, line and sinker
30:36They thought we were going to go in the sea
30:38And they're a bit disappointed
30:40But you can get a thing on your phone
30:42Where if you, when you're on the Eurostar
30:44It's like an app
30:45And you can point it
30:47And it looks like there are fish outside the windows
30:51Ah!
30:52Right, let's wash our hands of windows
30:54And move on to another question
30:55Imagine you have a big bowl of cream
30:57And a hand whisk
30:59And I want you to show me how you'd whip it
31:01Now, you should have beside you an apron
31:03Because we don't want to get you all filthy
31:04And a whisk
31:05And a bowl of cream
31:06So let's have a go
31:07There's your, there's your thing
31:09I'm not going to bother doing it
31:10Are you good at cooking, Joanne?
31:11No
31:12No
31:13Nothing's not your area
31:14No
31:15I order a lot of food in
31:16Right
31:17Yeah, toast and stuff
31:18Like I'm, yeah
31:19I bought an air fryer to try and make an air fryer
31:23But I just keep my keys in it now
31:26Alan, you don't have a bowl of cream
31:29Why not?
31:30Well, I'll explain you in a minute
31:31You look like you could do a cooking show
31:33Yeah!
31:34Very hot
31:35Can we start?
31:36Yes, go ahead, go ahead, yeah
31:37Sally's done that before
31:38Oh
31:39That's it
31:40Yeah
31:41So nobody so far is doing
31:46Oh, what about, is it that?
31:47No, it's still not that
31:49Great technique though
31:50Yeah
31:51So the way that it
31:52It's how I make money
31:57Andrew's only fans is popping off
31:58You want to introduce air bubbles, right?
31:59And the most effective way is to whip side to side, not round and round
32:12Really?
32:13Yeah, because it produces something called shearing forces
32:14So where the two forces go in opposite directions and they affect each other
32:17So Alan, you have got
32:19Why am I not allowed to play?
32:20You've got a cocktail shaker
32:22Because it's exactly the same shearing forces
32:24And you can easily make cream in a cocktail maker
32:27No way!
32:28No, just go, don't
32:29I've seen them do it
32:31It's not the Copacabana
32:33I've seen them do it
32:34I've seen Tom Cruise do it
32:35Just go back and forth like that
32:37What you want with the shearing forces is you want to make the liquid continually bash into itself
32:41Okay?
32:42So, no, just side to side
32:44Side to side
32:45Side to side
32:46Side to side
32:47Side to side
32:48Like that
32:49Like that
32:50You've made this in a bar
32:52No one will buy a drink
32:54Go out of a cocktail
32:58Stop doing that
32:59If you, if you
33:01What is this?
33:02Can you imagine that in a Tom Cruise movie?
33:07So, we were going to do a test
33:10To see if it works
33:11And to see
33:12Has anybody made enough cream
33:13That we could tip the bowl upside down
33:15And put it over your head
33:17Oh, I know
33:20They have not
33:21They have not
33:32So, have I got it on your top?
33:34That is literally the worst thing a boy has ever thrown at me
33:40It feels like they're at kindergarten, doesn't it?
33:42Oh, my God
33:43It's all over me cards, you knob-end
33:47Did you hear that? That's abuse in the workplace
33:51It does look like he's jizzed all over the what?
33:55I'm going to put the lid on and I'm always telling my kids
34:00Put the lid on properly
34:02I left this lid
34:03Don't pick it up by the lid
34:05I've got my lid obsessed
34:06And now I've fucked up on the telly
34:12Okay, has anybody got to the point where they could tip the bowl upside down
34:15And put it on top of their head
34:17Yeah, yeah, I'll do it
34:18I think I've made my hair
34:20Is that possible?
34:22It's a bowl of dog shit
34:24Is it?
34:25That was easy
34:27There's a couple of dogs round the back going
34:28If he puts this over his head, I'll piss myself
34:32What colour is your piss?
34:33Normal colour
34:34It's just shit that's fine
34:35What's the monitor?
34:36What's the monitor?
34:39That's what it would be like if animals could talk
34:41Some of you thought it wouldn't be better, you weirdo
34:45Right, can you dip it upside down and put it over your head
34:47I'm going to see if it's whipped
34:48Over, on my head
34:49Do it over Sally's head
34:50See if it's whipped sufficiently
34:53Oh, oh, do we...
34:54Yeah!
34:55Right, april's off and cream away, please
35:10When do we get to have the biscuits?
35:12Next
35:16Right, this brings us to the whisky business of general ignorance
35:19Fingers on whatnots, please
35:20Name a food that was invented in the Dutch city of Gouda
35:25Yes
35:26Cheese
35:31Right in there
35:33Yes
35:34What?
35:35Stroompwafel
35:36Is the correct answer
35:44So the cheese, sometimes we call it Gouda, Gouda, Gouda
35:47Is named after the city where it was traded
35:49And not the place where it was manufactured
35:52So middle ages, the Dutch cities, they would acquire monopolies
35:55And the city of Gouda got the one for cheese
35:57So every cheesemaker in the country could only sell their wares there
36:01We don't actually know where it was first made
36:03But the stroompwafel was indeed invented in the town of Gouda
36:07It means syrup waffle in Dutch
36:09You've got some there
36:10I don't know if you want to dip them in your cream
36:11Oh, I love a stroompwafel
36:13I love these, yeah
36:14This is the best thing the Dutch have ever done
36:16It really isn't the best thing the Dutch have ever done
36:18And well do you know it, young man
36:20Well, you took the...
36:21Those marijuana cafes are fucking incredible
36:23LAUGHTER
36:27Makers of the late 1700s, early 1800s
36:29Using up scraps of surplus dough, batter and crumbs
36:32Does anyone like one?
36:34And they were known as...
36:35Oh, they're starving, they all want one
36:37They were known as...
36:38They were known as...
36:39So poor man's cookies
36:41Good?
36:42They'd be nice in the air fryer
36:44With your keys?
36:46With your keys
36:47Just push the keys aside, five minutes
36:49LAUGHTER
36:50I went to Eindhoven to watch Arsenal play
36:53And they give you a joint and then a little tube
36:55A clear tube
36:56So you can smoke a bit of it
36:57And then you can put it back in the tube
36:59And then you get to the stadium and they search me
37:01And I thought, oh no, they're going to find my tube
37:04And this policeman found my tube
37:06And he goes, ha!
37:07A joint
37:08And put it back in my pocket
37:10LAUGHTER
37:12When they got it in the ground
37:13All the Arsenal fans were stoned off their teeth
37:16LAUGHTER
37:17It was brilliant, hadn't we, 1-4-0?
37:19LAUGHTER
37:20I don't really like football, but that sounds fun
37:22Oh, it's great
37:23When they had the Euros in 2000
37:25Oh
37:26It was half in Belgium and half in the Netherlands
37:28And in Belgium, they had ultra-strong beer
37:31People were slaughtered
37:33There were riots and water cannon, it was a disaster
37:35In the Netherlands, everyone was just off their tipped stone
37:39When they made marijuana illegal and alcohol legal
37:42That was the wrong way on
37:43Yeah
37:44I can agree with that
37:46APPLAUSE
37:47LAUGHTER
37:48RANDOM
37:51One random political bridge
37:55Just you and me, my friend, let's go
37:57LAUGHTER
37:59This is the best episode of Question Time to have ever heard
38:03LAUGHTER
38:05Who invented the Ponzi scheme?
38:08Was it Ponzi?
38:10Was he...?
38:15Was he...?
38:16Was Charles Ponzi the first investor?
38:19Was he the first victim of the first Ponzi scheme?
38:21No, he wasn't the first investor
38:22Indeed, the whole scheme predates Charles Ponzi by quite a long way
38:27So he was an Italian fraudster
38:29He operated in North America in the 1920s
38:31And so the whole scheme, if you don't know how it works, is you get investors to invest in basically non-existent businesses
38:38And then you use money that deposited by newer investors to pay people back
38:42There's basically nothing there
38:44Oh, that's a brilliant idea
38:45People are lured in, the numbers are increased exponentially
38:48And then it becomes ultimately impossible to pay everybody
38:51So I've invented this train that goes under the sea
38:53Do you want to invest?
38:54LAUGHTER
38:55That sort of thing
38:56When his scheme collapsed, it cost his victims about $300 million each day
39:01In today's money
39:02But the very first known Ponzi scheme
39:051869, a cigar-smoking German actress called Adele Spitzeder
39:10So she was the richest person in Bavaria
39:12So she started out as an actress
39:14For whatever reason, her career didn't take off
39:16But she had an incredibly extravagant lifestyle
39:18She had an entourage of very attractive young girlfriends
39:21She had lots of servants
39:22She had six dogs
39:23So on
39:24So she started promising people
39:25If they invested, they could get 10% back from her per month
39:29And this was fantastic
39:31Because more and more people thought, how marvellous, I get 10% for my money
39:34And more and more people joined the scheme
39:36And then it became so successful that she thought, I know what I'll do
39:39I'll open a bank
39:40Right?
39:41But she had no formal training in accounting
39:43And indeed, she didn't even have a physical bank
39:45She kept all of the money in cupboards in her hotel room
39:48Or sometimes in sacks on the floor
39:50And then the hotel owner started to complain
39:52Too many people were coming and going
39:53So she bought a house
39:54At one point, more than 80 people were working in this house
39:57She went on to buy at least 16 other houses that we know of in Munich alone
40:01And people just kept coming
40:03Now, to give her credit, she did open 12 soup kitchens for the poor
40:07But nevertheless, there was so much money going into her scheme
40:11Which was basically piffle
40:13That the entire Bavarian financial system was near to collapse
40:17And in the end, by 1872
40:19More and more people were taking their money out of her bank
40:21And she had to limit withdrawals to an hour a day
40:246am to 7am
40:26Not on Wednesdays or Saturdays
40:29But she was eventually brought to justice
40:31Today's equivalent of 430 million dollars
40:34From 32,000 people
40:36Nobody had ever run a scam like it before
40:39So it wasn't technically illegal
40:41Did she go to prison?
40:43She was convicted of lesser charges
40:45She went to prison for 3 years and 10 months
40:47She must have had something about her
40:49Because when she came out
40:50It was the people who had lost money who looked after her
40:53But she couldn't help herself
40:54She went back to swindling
40:56And she was in and out of prison until she died aged 63
41:00But it's a fantastic story
41:01And we know about Charles Ponzi
41:02We don't know about her
41:03I just think it's a great story
41:05That funny Dutch biscuit's interfering now with my Berlin Wall
41:09I feel really weird
41:10LAUGHTER
41:13I don't know whether I'm coming or going
41:15LAUGHTER
41:17Ponzi schemes should probably be called
41:19Spitzende Scams
41:20In the American army, what does GI stand for?
41:24General Infantry
41:26BUZZER
41:30Next question, that's correct, let's move on
41:32LAUGHTER
41:34Gutsy individual
41:36Oh, we hadn't thought of that but I like that
41:38BUZZER
41:40BUZZER
41:41Is it ground infantry?
41:43BUZZER
41:48So I can tell you there's no infantry in it at all
41:50Ian
41:52LAUGHTER
41:54It stands for galvanised iron
41:56Oh
41:57LAUGHTER
41:58Yeah, I know
41:59Right, so iron that's been coated in zinc
42:01To stop it from rusting
42:02So it was used on lists of military equipment
42:05It said GI
42:06So for example it would say buckets GI
42:08Other than that it doesn't seem as if the letters have ever had any kind of official meaning whatsoever
42:13So World War I GI was often interpreted as government issue or general issue
42:18So there would be GI soap, you know, for army soap, that kind of thing
42:21The earliest reference that we can find meaning ordinary soldier is 1935 and even then it wasn't really an official thing
42:28The actual expression GI Joe comes from a comic strip called Yank
42:32But you don't even need the GI Joe because really in America Joe just means an American soldier
42:37In British army GI stands for gunnery instructor
42:41Oh
42:42I can hardly contain myself because it's time for the scores
42:45In first place whipping up a storm with five points, it's Sally
42:49CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
42:54In second place whirling into light with minus eight is Andrew
42:57CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
43:00In third place with minus ten it's the audience
43:03CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
43:06In fourth place wringing our hands with minus twelve is Joanne
43:10CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
43:13And in last place wriggling in embarrassment with minus seventeen it's Alan
43:17CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
43:19I leave you with these wise words from Douglas Adams
43:31A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof
43:35is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools
43:39trên vinciyse
43:40Ofinating femmes
43:41I'll defeat tr praises
43:42While I was really careful in my eyes
43:43And this time I enjoyed you very much
43:45That's not me. I should, I might fib I can walk unless
43:46Do you have to wrap your hands up a mirror
43:49EL fading out of my back?
43:50Some OER
43:53Pynnum
43:58The ideas of black people
43:58Don't be afraid that peoplealten
44:00strategy
44:03It'sinhathal
44:06Planet
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