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00:00Thank you very much.
00:30Welcome, welcome, welcome to QI.
00:34Tonight we have a random wound up of widgets and whatnots for you.
00:40Let's whiz through our workforce.
00:41The wonderful Joanne McNally.
00:46The witty Andrew Maxwell.
00:51The warm-hearted Sally Phillips.
00:56And, well, well, what a surprise.
00:58It's Alan Davis.
01:00APPLAUSE
01:01Right, let's hear your whatshamacallams, which are all woodwind.
01:08Joanne goes...
01:10Oh.
01:13A little bit of recorder there.
01:15Andrew goes...
01:17Ooh, bass clarinet.
01:21Sally goes...
01:24Sex.
01:25Sex.
01:26Oh, I love a bit of sex.
01:27Fax-y.
01:28Yeah.
01:29Can I just say that all our buzzers have been made for us this evening by two fabulous musicians,
01:33David Tobin and Tim Garland.
01:35Let's have a listen to what Alan's is.
01:36Let's have a listen to what Alan's is.
01:38BUZZ
01:39BUZZ
01:40BUZZ
01:41BUZZ
01:42BUZZ
01:43BUZZ
01:44BUZZ
01:45Do you know what it is, darling?
01:46No.
01:47It's called a crumb horn.
01:48It's a wooden renaissance instrument.
01:49Yeah, like a crook.
01:50Yeah, like a crook.
01:51Yeah, like a crook.
01:52You blow into the straight end.
01:53Anyway, here's a QI fact, right?
01:54So, David Tobin, who played the crumb horn, his dad was Fidel Castro's dentist.
01:57Don't you love that?
01:58Wow!
01:59Did he have good teeth, Fidel Castro?
02:00He was known as the horse.
02:01Was he?
02:02No.
02:03That wasn't to do with his teeth, actually.
02:04Because he had a tail.
02:05How do you know that?
02:06It's just a well-known fact about Castro.
02:07You say that.
02:08I didn't know.
02:09Hands up.
02:10Who knew that Castro was hung like a horse?
02:11Hands up.
02:12You've added in a detail there of your own.
02:14Right, let's get the show going.
02:15What begins with WU?
02:16Did he have good teeth, Fidel Castro?
02:17Did he have good teeth, Fidel Castro?
02:18No.
02:19He was known as the horse.
02:20Was he?
02:21No.
02:22That wasn't to do with his teeth, actually.
02:23Because he had a tail.
02:24How do you know that?
02:25It's just a well-known fact about Castro.
02:26You say that.
02:27I didn't know.
02:28Hands up.
02:29Who knew that Castro was hung like a horse?
02:30Hands up.
02:31You've added in a detail there of your own.
02:32Right.
02:33Let's get the show going.
02:35What begins with W and has become louder since Brexit?
02:38Um.
02:39Woo.
02:40Washing a Gwashing?
02:45Yes.
02:46I mean, I'm going to give you two points just because that's not something any of us have thought of.
02:52Is it waves?
02:53Like the sea?
02:54Just all waves are louder.
02:56Because we're now measuring them a different way than we used to.
03:01Because it used to be a metric EU measurement.
03:04And we've gone back to an imperial wave measurement.
03:09Chip in any time, Gemma.
03:11I mean...
03:12It's waiting.
03:14Waiting.
03:15You have to wait for everything more now.
03:17In airports and passports and...
03:18Yes.
03:19My SodaStream.
03:20I don't care for politics.
03:21Right.
03:22But Brexit only really...
03:23I took it seriously when I tried to order refills for my SodaStream and it was going to take 12 weeks and cost 6 grand to get it into the country.
03:30And I went, right now I'm politically motivated.
03:32See, I like when somebody's got a limit.
03:34There you go.
03:35I'll take to the streets if I can't get my sparkly water on time.
03:38The answer is wheelie bins.
03:40Oh!
03:41I was going to say wankers.
03:42Yes.
03:43Yeah.
03:44LAUGHTER
03:45APPLAUSE
03:46So, 1993, the European Commission decided that they were going to issue the Outdoor Noise Directive, right?
03:56And it regulated sounds made by 57 different types of outdoor equipment.
04:00So, things you'd expect, bulldozers, leaf blowers, that kind of thing.
04:03But they also did for an appropriately designed container fitted with wheels intended to store waste temporarily and which is equipped with a cover.
04:12It's a wheelie bin.
04:13We've seen.
04:14And so, they opened and closed the lid of a wheelie bin 20 times and they dragged it across, I don't know, steel mesh to, you know, simulate irregular ground.
04:22And they set a limit.
04:23But since Brexit, no legal requirement.
04:27Freedom.
04:28Finally free.
04:29LAUGHTER
04:30It's freedom.
04:31Have a noisy bin again.
04:34How loud is it when you pour eight wine bottles into one at two in the morning?
04:40Alan, do you not tip and slide, no?
04:42What's tip and slide?
04:43You just tip the bin back on the two wheels that the Lord God gave you and slide the bottle in.
04:48Oh, that's smart.
04:49You're not using your own bin, are you?
04:51LAUGHTER
04:52You're going round a neighbour and putting one item in everybody's bin.
04:54I know you are.
04:55LAUGHTER
04:56Every bin gets a bottle of Merlot.
04:57Yeah, I dress up as a bin sometimes.
04:58LAUGHTER
04:59I was just thinking I could fit in quite a...
05:00Easily fit in.
05:01And once more, it would be lower than the required sound limit.
05:02Yes.
05:03A good question about this picture, I just noticed.
05:04What's wrong with this picture?
05:05OK, there's some...
05:06I'm upside down.
05:07No, no, Tony, I'm not asking you.
05:08What's wrong with this picture?
05:09I'm upside down.
05:10No, no, Tony, I'm not asking you.
05:11What's wrong with this picture?
05:12What's wrong with this picture?
05:13What's wrong with this picture?
05:16What's wrong with this picture?
05:17OK, there's some...
05:18Upside down.
05:19No, no, Tony, I'm not asking you.
05:21LAUGHTER
05:22Is it me bothering you, the flag?
05:25Yeah.
05:26Yeah.
05:27What's wrong with it?
05:28It's upside down, isn't it?
05:29LAUGHTER
05:31That's why it's in the bin, probably.
05:33Yeah, yeah.
05:34In Ethiopia, there is a walled city of Harar.
05:37How do you think the recycling is done in this city?
05:41Have they got the bins?
05:43It's nothing to do with bins at all.
05:44Are they using pigs?
05:46It is an animal.
05:47To chew glass?
05:48Well, it's not necessarily glass, it's all the other stuff,
05:51all of the waste products that you might put out.
05:54Are tiny weevils?
05:55No, hyenas.
05:56Hyenas?
05:57Oh.
05:58When it gets dark, they let them in through a series of hyena doors
06:02and they eat whatever is left in the streets.
06:05And because they're nocturnal, they go back to their dens during the day.
06:08I don't think they can do glass selling, but they can bite through bone.
06:11Yeah, fine.
06:12Basically.
06:13And digest anything from hair to hooves.
06:16Oh, gross.
06:17And 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.
06:25Is it?
06:26Because everyone's doing raw food.
06:27My dog's poo white after 24 hours.
06:29Well, I mean...
06:33It comes out white?
06:34It doesn't turn white.
06:35It comes out dark, and within 24 hours it's gone white.
06:37Darling, are you not supposed to pick it up in a bag?
06:39You're not supposed to leave it for 24 hours and go back and see how it is?
06:42It's a really sordid version of Autumn Watch.
06:47Just 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.
06:54Must never pull.
06:55It's got to go through naturally.
06:57That's why it died.
06:58And the...
07:05Never mind the dog.
07:06What happened to the pashmina?
07:07Well, it's my mother, so it was washed and reused.
07:10Oh, fine.
07:11Birds in urban areas, this I like, is a piece of recycling.
07:14They sometimes collect cigarette butts and use them for nests.
07:17There's a phenomenon in Mexico City, and apparently it's very good for the city,
07:21so it's a form of cleaning, and then the chemicals in the tobacco
07:24repel parasites for the birds.
07:26I think it's rather fine.
07:27Does anybody know what shoddy is?
07:29It means the lowest quality of leather.
07:31Not leather, but old clothing, old rags.
07:33Yeah.
07:34Shoddy.
07:35Yeah, it was another form of recycling.
07:36So, 1813, a man called Benjamin Law, he was a Yorkshireman, and he invented a type of recycling.
07:41And it's taking old clothes rags and shredding them into thin fibres and then re-spinning them.
07:46And in the American Civil War, they had such a shortage of cloth, they imported six million tons of this stuff,
07:52this cheap fabric, cheap shoddy, to make uniforms and blankets.
07:55But it was absolutely rubbish.
07:56And the minute it rained, the uniforms started to fall apart.
07:59And that's where we get the modern meaning of shoddies from an original idea for recycling.
08:03Here is a good piece of news about waste, though.
08:062023, there 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%.
08:17Wow.
08:18Yes.
08:19Seven billion plastic bags.
08:252014, average household took home 140 single-use plastic bags.
08:29And by 2023, it was just two.
08:31Wow.
08:32And don't you feel guilty now, though, when they go, would you like a bag?
08:35Yeah.
08:36And you go, yes, yes, sorry, yes.
08:38I'm always buying bags for life.
08:40I've got a cupboard full of them.
08:41So, whereas before, I was only buying one.
08:42I've got a cupboard full of them.
08:43How many single-use plastic bags go into a bag for life?
08:47Also, how much are you going to like that bag that you want to have it for life?
08:50It's quite a big commitment with a partner.
08:52Never mind the...
08:53..something bag.
08:54Is that what you call the wife?
08:55Yes.
08:56A bag for life?
08:57Yes.
08:58LAUGHTER
08:59LAUGHTER
09:00LAUGHTER
09:01There's a huge bag for life.
09:03LAUGHTER
09:04Never let a man write his own wedding vows.
09:09LAUGHTER
09:12OK, moving along.
09:13Why would tinfoil and Wi-Fi go together?
09:18You put the tinfoil around your head to protect you from the rays...
09:22OK.
09:23..that the Martians are sending back to Earth and using the liberal media
09:29to pervert our minds.
09:31LAUGHTER
09:34I just want to take that whole section and transmit it just by itself.
09:37LAUGHTER
09:38So, your router box transmits radio waves to connect your devices to the internet
09:42and the signal is pumped out in all sorts of directions,
09:44but you can strengthen it with aluminium foil.
09:46So, what you do is you put it behind the box and it acts as a sort of mirror
09:50because the radio waves would otherwise be soaked up by the wall, right?
09:53So, that's one way of doing it.
09:55Or you can use the foil to block the signal.
09:57Like when you go shoplifting.
09:59LAUGHTER
10:02You just lie in your pockets with the foil, don't you?
10:05Do you?
10:06And then when you go through those things, they can't...
10:08Oh!
10:09That is so clever.
10:10Oh!
10:11You can just pour the soup directly into your...
10:13LAUGHTER
10:14LAUGHTER
10:15Jeez!
10:16Put it in and then fill your pockets with potatoes.
10:19LAUGHTER
10:20They test Wi-Fi on airplanes with sacks of potatoes.
10:25That is absolutely correct.
10:27So, 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,
10:34but they didn't want to have people sitting there for 10 hours.
10:36I've seen that fellow on Ryanair.
10:37LAUGHTER
10:39They used sacks of potatoes.
10:41Nine tonnes of potatoes to make into human-sized people.
10:44Because potatoes have a similar density to humans,
10:47and they're also mostly water,
10:49and so the potatoes absorb energy in a similar sort of way.
10:52And I love this.
10:53Boeing called the project
10:55Synthetic Personnel Using Dielectric Substitution.
10:59LAUGHTER
11:00Which is, of course...
11:01LAUGHTER
11:03Studs.
11:04Would I bake in five minutes, then, like a potato?
11:06Well, you're quite a big potato.
11:08Yeah.
11:09I don't think you'd fit in a microwave.
11:10I mean, I might.
11:11Oh, sorry.
11:12You use microwaving potatoes.
11:13I microwave everything.
11:14I do.
11:15I microwave red wine.
11:16What?
11:17Yeah.
11:18Why?
11:19To get it to room temperature in a hurry,
11:20because I'm always in a hurry for Merlot.
11:21My other-in-law, and I bet no-one else does this,
11:24microwaves white wine because she doesn't like it cold.
11:27That's disgusting.
11:28It's disgraceful.
11:29I'm sorry, the red wine is fine, but...
11:31LAUGHTER
11:32I'm a sommelier compared to that.
11:35LAUGHTER
11:36How might you use Wi-Fi to look through a wall?
11:39So this was some research done at the University of California.
11:42Is it like sonar?
11:43In what way?
11:44Like it sends out something and it reflect bounces off something
11:47and tells you there's something on the other side of the wall.
11:49Is the correct answer.
11:50Oh, it is, you see.
11:51Oh!
11:52APPLAUSE
11:57I was just about to say you've confused Wi-Fi with a whale.
12:00LAUGHTER
12:01But no.
12:02So in that way it is exactly like sonar.
12:04So what you do is you send out your radio waves as normal
12:07and then the receiver logs any signals that bounce back.
12:09Do you think if animals could talk to us and chat on,
12:13the world would be better or worse?
12:15They've trained a poodle to speak.
12:19Obviously it can't actually speak, but they've got these touch pads.
12:21So they've not trained it to speak?
12:23No, no, it can't.
12:24They can speak in a way a non-vocal human could speak through.
12:26Right.
12:27There's all these pads that say things,
12:28hello, good morning, how are you?
12:30Right.
12:31Why is my shit white?
12:32LAUGHTER
12:35Don't leave it up, leave it, leave it!
12:37I want to see if it goes white, I want to see if it goes white.
12:39Don't wag my poo, what's wrong with you?
12:41Put that there on purpose!
12:43LAUGHTER
12:46No, but they do find that Wales,
12:48a Wales song conforms to laws of language.
12:53Yes.
12:54There's no reason why they aren't communication,
12:56just because we don't understand what they're saying.
12:57No, no, Wales are absolutely communicating.
12:59That is absolutely correct.
13:00Yes.
13:01Although utterly irrelevant to Wi-Fi through a wall.
13:04Just going to try and bring us back to that.
13:07So what can the dog do?
13:09LAUGHTER
13:10I mean, I saw the clips, the dog was talking.
13:16LAUGHTER
13:17I'm just going to chase the postman.
13:19I'll be back in a second.
13:21LAUGHTER
13:22Apparently pigs can play the Nintendo.
13:24LAUGHTER
13:26I have this horrible feeling I'm in a parallel universe today.
13:31LAUGHTER
13:32I ask a perfectly reasonable question and people say random things too.
13:35LAUGHTER
13:36You know what I think?
13:37I think cats are stupid.
13:38And I think...
13:39LAUGHTER
13:40All the people who go,
13:41Ooh, my cat's not.
13:42When they...
13:43If their cat can talk, they think,
13:44Jesus, this thing's an idiot.
13:45LAUGHTER
13:46A narcissistic, psychopathic idiot.
13:50Yeah.
13:51Our little cockapoo has been trained that if I say,
13:55secure 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.
14:03LAUGHTER
14:04Right.
14:05So you were talking about sonar and being able to look through the wall
14:08with the Wi-Fi.
14:09You're absolutely right.
14:10They did this with the word believe,
14:11so there were wooden cut-out letters on the other side
14:13and the imaging results, when it came back,
14:15you were able to read through using Wi-Fi.
14:16You know what else you can do?
14:17What?
14:18Bouncing off the wall,
14:19and I found this out as a student.
14:21Yeah.
14:22You can turn your neighbour's TV over.
14:24LAUGHTER
14:25With your remote.
14:26How do you do that?
14:27You can just go through the window and it bounce off the wall
14:29and hit their telly.
14:31LAUGHTER
14:32That's our generation video games, isn't it?
14:35LAUGHTER
14:39Anybody know what the connection is with show business and Wi-Fi?
14:43Ooh, ooh, yes.
14:45LAUGHTER
14:46Are you doing a dog now?
14:48No, I think it was a monkey.
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.
15:01There she is, star of the biblical epic Samson and Delilah.
15:04At the peak of her career, she was known as the most beautiful woman
15:07in the world.
15:08But in her spare time, she was an inventor.
15:10She always liked inventing.
15:12As soon as she got money, she made a whole room
15:14where she was always working on different projects.
15:16A better traffic light, a tablet that dissolved in water
15:18to make a fizzy drink or whatever.
15:20Anyway, during World War II, she came up with a new way
15:23of guiding torpedoes to their targets using radio waves.
15:26And she thought that if you hopped between frequencies,
15:29you know, a bit like pressing different keys on a piano,
15:31it would be more difficult for the enemy to jam the signals.
15:35And so she approached a pianist that she knew,
15:37a film composer called George Antile,
15:39and they made a prototype with 88 different possible signals.
15:42Why 88?
15:43Is that the number of keys on a piano?
15:45The number of keys on a grand piano, exactly right.
15:46Keys on a piano.
15:47And they patented the idea in 1942, but the Navy didn't use it.
15:50And the patent expired and they never earned any money from it.
15:53But frequency hopping is now the basis, not only of Wi-Fi,
15:56but of GPS and Bluetooth,
15:58and she is often called the queen of Wi-Fi, and I love her.
16:02Isn't that fantastic? Yeah.
16:03I think it's great. Look at her, she's amazing.
16:05She was the model for Snow White as well.
16:07Yes, that's right, yeah.
16:08Does anybody know what Wi-Fi is short for?
16:11Anyone?
16:12No, don't start asking them.
16:14You know, none of us know.
16:16Weird. Wireless.
16:18Frequency.
16:19Feet.
16:20Internal. Infidels.
16:21Yes.
16:22Wireless.
16:23Infidels.
16:24Infidels, no Wi-Fi.
16:25Fine.
16:26Wireless what?
16:27Wireless.
16:28Wireless Fidelity.
16:29Wireless Fidelity.
16:30Wireless Fidelity.
16:31Oh!
16:36You've got wireless phone now.
16:37Yeah.
16:38You think it looks easy, don't you?
16:41I mean, it's fair enough that you might think it's wireless fidelity,
16:43because we have high fidelity, don't we?
16:45We have hi-fi.
16:46But it doesn't mean anything, actually.
16:47It was invented by a marketing agency.
16:49They were asked to come up with something catchier than what it was called before.
16:53It was known as Wireless Standard IEEE 802.11 Direct Sequence.
17:00And they all said, that's a bit long.
17:02Let's have something else.
17:04I think it was a dog, actually, you said suggestion.
17:06LAUGHTER
17:07Right, moving on.
17:08In the mid-20th century, which European city was divided by a wall over two metres high
17:13and topped with lethal spikes?
17:16Uh...
17:17Now.
17:18LAUGHTER
17:19Yeah.
17:20Euro Disney.
17:21LAUGHTER
17:24Two metres is nothing.
17:26Lilliput.
17:30Lilliput.
17:31Legoland.
17:32Oh, I love Legoland.
17:34It isn't going to be anything that you might think.
17:36So, Berlin, for example, topped with barbed wire, didn't have spikes.
17:39It's Oxford.
17:41What?
17:42I know.
17:43A division between town and gown or something.
17:44Not really.
17:45It's between those that have and those that do not.
17:47For a quarter of a century, part of Oxford was divided by the infamous Cutterslow walls.
17:52So, there were two housing estates that were built in the Cutterslow suburb
17:56and they were built right next door to each other.
17:58One was for council tenants and one was for private residents,
18:01developed by a man called Clive Saxton of Urban Housing Company.
18:04And in 1934, Oxford City Council started relocating families from slum clearances into the estate
18:11and Saxton was worried his houses wouldn't sell.
18:13So, he erected two walls down the street to separate his residents from the riff-raff.
18:18LAUGHTER
18:20So, council tenants started a petition to have these walls removed.
18:24And in 1938, the city council, against legal advice, did demolish the wall with a steamroller
18:29and the developer sued and they had to rebuild the wall.
18:33World War II, a tank on an exercise went through the wall and back it up, it went again.
18:38And then, finally, the council got compulsory power of purchase in 1953 and in 1959 it was taken down.
18:44But in 2006 they put up a blue plaque to commemorate the fact.
18:48There they were, the Cutterslow walls finally demolished in 1959.
18:52How can a wall help you if you are feeling lonely?
18:57Is that a clue?
18:59I think it's just a person with a wall who's a bit lonely.
19:01This is one of the weirder things, OK?
19:03I don't know what I actually think about this.
19:06You can buy the Berlin Wall in pill form.
19:11What?
19:13Yeah, OK.
19:14So, this is genuine and I have them here.
19:16This is from Ainsworth, the royal family's official homeopath.
19:20These are pieces of the original concrete from the Berlin Wall,
19:25finely ground down and diluted with sucrose, water and alcohol.
19:29So, this little bottle costs about £14.
19:31Now, it's homeopathy.
19:33Not everybody agrees that it works.
19:35But the pills supposedly help feelings of oppression and isolation.
19:40They're tiny little ones.
19:42Some reviews say it helps with headaches, helps with insomnia,
19:45but it is crushed up Berlin Wall mixed with...
19:49I've got six here, is that too many?
19:52I think you'll turn into an extension.
19:56You can also buy homeopathic mobile phone pills.
19:59What?
20:00Yeah, they contain a trace of a crushed up iPhone
20:03and supposedly helps you with technologically related anxiety.
20:08I did read a story once about a guy who snorted his mother.
20:11Do you remember this?
20:12What?
20:13I mean...
20:14He had her cremated and he snorted her ashes.
20:16What is wrong with you two?
20:20Yeah, he snorted his mother.
20:21Why?
20:22I think he was on something.
20:24I think he'd taken a drink and his mother had been cremated
20:27and I think it was like, wanted to be close to her
20:30or wanted to show off to his friends.
20:31I don't know.
20:32Anyway, there was a bit of an after party after the funeral
20:34and he snorted her.
20:36Chucked her out.
20:37He didn't do all of her.
20:38Not all.
20:39You couldn't do all of her.
20:40That's the whole weekend.
20:41Well, I mean, it's possible because Keith Richards claimed
20:45that 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
20:54and then you can have your granny turned into a skull.
20:56Mmm.
20:58Imagine your granny being a tramp stamp.
21:00Like, it's just not right.
21:03I mean, my mother gets under my skin anyway, so...
21:07Do you remember your man who stole the girl that he fancied
21:09out of her tomb and then took her home
21:11and he used to dance with her at night?
21:13Yeah.
21:14Yeah.
21:15And then the neighbours walked past and they noticed
21:18that he was dancing with this...
21:20Dead body.
21:21Dead body.
21:22And then the family were like,
21:23we knew it because he was obsessed with her.
21:25And they went and checked the tomb and she was gone.
21:27Do you know what I think?
21:28I think that we shouldn't bother to do any research at all.
21:30We should just have Andrew and Jane.
21:32Why did the fall of Berlin Wall not go entirely
21:36according to plan?
21:37What do you reckon?
21:38It fell the wrong way.
21:40Did it?
21:41No.
21:42No, but I was quite willing to go with it.
21:47I...
21:48No, so there was an East German spokesman called Gunther Schabowski
21:52and he was asked about the travel restrictions and so on.
21:54And instead of saying the wall will come down tomorrow,
21:57he said immediately.
21:59And there was an instant crash of people trying to get to the wall.
22:02I mean, he later got fired.
22:04It was obviously...
22:05I'm not feeling any better.
22:07They're not kicked in.
22:09Are you still feeling isolated and oppressed?
22:11Yeah.
22:12Yeah.
22:13Somehow I feel like I won't be able to get to work in the morning,
22:16there'll be some obstacle and I won't see my cousin for 30 years.
22:19LAUGHTER
22:21There's a very interesting building in Chicago,
22:23a place called the Tribune Tower,
22:25and they've got something called the Wall of Walls,
22:27and it's made up of bits of wall from all over the world.
22:31But I mean, I'm talking about astonishing pieces of wall,
22:33the Great Pyramid and so on.
22:34So if you have a look, that's Hamlet's Castle,
22:36Elsinore, top left there.
22:37The Berlin Wall, top right,
22:39and the Great Wall of China, bottom right.
22:41But they've got them from all over the place.
22:43The Forbidden City, Pompeii.
22:45Now...
22:46What's the best time to sell a watch?
22:48I'm not a fan of watches.
22:50Really? Why?
22:51I find that lads,
22:52it's a bit of a dick-swinging competition really
22:54with the watches at times.
22:56It's random lads going around with these huge jokes
22:58like they're scuba diving pilots.
23:00They've, like,
23:01make a deep sea dive and read the sky,
23:03and while you're like,
23:04you work in marketing, get over it.
23:08Do not wear a watch?
23:09I don't wear watches.
23:10Don't believe in them.
23:11There you go.
23:12Wow. I mean, they're a real thing.
23:17She's right.
23:18You don't need a watch.
23:19I don't have one either.
23:20If you're late, somebody will tell you.
23:22So in adverts and shop displays,
23:24that kind of thing,
23:25an analogue watch,
23:26someone with hands on it,
23:27was nearly always set at ten past ten.
23:30Why do you think that might be?
23:32Because you can see the hands nice and neatly?
23:35Yes, is one reason.
23:36It'll look nice.
23:37It looks a little bit like a smile.
23:40So the first thing is that you can see the brand.
23:42Usually that's where the brand is of the name of the watch.
23:44It's right in the middle there.
23:45If it was twenty past eight,
23:46it would look depressed.
23:47Yeah.
23:48But you notice a thing called pareidolia?
23:50It's our tendency to see patterns in things.
23:52It's a bit like seeing animal shapes in clouds
23:54or faces in inanimate clouds.
23:55Jesus in toast.
23:56So pareidolia, our tendency to see patterns in things,
23:59it reminds us subliminally,
24:01it reminds us of a smile.
24:02This makes us happy.
24:03It makes us more likely to buy.
24:05Twenty past...
24:06Sorry, go on.
24:07Go on, what, darling?
24:08I was just saying,
24:09twenty past ten would look kind of fascist.
24:10I'm trying to think of the...
24:11Yeah.
24:12Yeah.
24:13Don't do that fascist.
24:14That would be nice.
24:15That would be nice.
24:16I think you've done more of a teapot than an attitude.
24:18Oh, yes.
24:19Oh, yes.
24:20Yeah.
24:21I mean, hold on.
24:23I'd be terrible fascist.
24:24I'd be like, come on, girls.
24:25A group of psychologists looked into this in 2017 to prove it,
24:27and it does seem to be a fact that people at ten past ten,
24:28it positively affects customers' brains.
24:29Women more so than men tend to be influenced by it.
24:31And the reverse affects the thing that might make you sad.
24:32If ten past ten makes you...
24:33Yes, what would that be?
24:34Twenty past eight.
24:35Twenty past eight.
24:36Twenty past eight, yeah.
24:37Twenty past eight makes people sad.
24:38When they sell digital watches, what time do you think they put them to?
24:39That just flashes double eight, double eight, double eight,
24:40and then you throw it in a bin.
24:42Hello.
24:43Well, boobs.
24:44Eight zero zero eight.
24:45Well, the ads still use ten past ten because it's sort of a watch tradition,
24:47although Apple Watch shows 10.
24:48That's a watch tradition.
24:49Although Apple Watch shows 10.
24:50Oh, no.
24:51Which one of the most people who they are more so than men tend to be influenced by it.
24:52And the reverse affects the thing that might make you sad.
24:54If ten past ten makes you...
24:55Yes, what would that be?
24:56Twenty past eight.
24:57Twenty past eight.
24:58Twenty past eight.
24:59Yeah.
25:00Twenty past eight, yeah.
25:01Twenty past eight, it makes people sad.
25:02Twenty past eight.
25:03Well, the ads still use ten past ten because it's sort of a watch tradition,
25:05although Apple Watch shows 10.09.
25:07I don't know whether they're saying, look at us, we're ahead of the curve.
25:10Yeah.
25:11Yeah, yeah.
25:12Apple Watch is...
25:13This is an extraordinary thing.
25:14They launched in April 2015 and the last three months of 2017,
25:17so just two years after they started,
25:19Apple sold more watches than the whole of Switzerland.
25:22I know.
25:23It's an enormous amount.
25:25Anybody know who had the very first ever wristwatch?
25:28Ooh.
25:29Was it anyone in the McNally family?
25:31Absolutely not.
25:32I see.
25:33We don't believe in time.
25:35Marie Antoinette.
25:36A little bit later on, Napoleon's youngest sister, Caroline Moura.
25:39Ah, yeah, her.
25:421810, she commissioned the very first ever wristwatch designed for her
25:47by the master Swiss watchmaker, Abraham Louis Breguet.
25:50And I thought it was the First World War.
25:52Well, it's interesting...
25:53First World War, they started putting her on their wrists.
25:56So, at first it was seen as a woman's thing, partly because of Caroline,
25:59but then gradually it becomes a thing for men.
26:02The Duke of Wellington, he also had a watch made by Breguet,
26:05which he bought while he occupied Paris after the Battle of Waterloo,
26:09but he didn't have a wristwatch.
26:10It was really primarily for women.
26:12In 2017, a Rolex once commissioned by Bao Dai,
26:15who's the last emperor of Vietnam,
26:17became the most expensive wristwatch ever sold at auction.
26:20It fetched $5 million for a single watch.
26:23Mm!
26:24Sold through Philips Watches, the auction house.
26:26Very kindly gave us this photograph.
26:28There's a really weird thing with Rolexes.
26:30They're more expensive second-hand than they are brand new.
26:32They're an investment thing, aren't they?
26:34Well, my father was a foreign correspondent and he always said,
26:36you should wear a watch expensive enough to get you home from anywhere
26:41if you had to sell it.
26:42And he once...
26:43I remember he came back from a war zone without his watch
26:46and we were very glad that he returned.
26:48So, there'd be a reason there for you to...
26:50Yeah, fair enough.
26:52Maybe not one of just those Casios.
26:54Swatch watch isn't going to get you back very far.
26:57Exactly.
26:58How do you stop a bunch of drunks crashing into your window?
27:01Put the booze on the outside.
27:03Ah.
27:04Yeah.
27:05What might crash into a window?
27:07Well, an insect.
27:08Have you confused drunks with butterflies?
27:10A thing that an insect you're talking about?
27:12Birds.
27:13Yes.
27:14These are birds called waxwings and flocks of them can crash
27:17into glass when they're drunk.
27:19You can see them in the UK during the winter.
27:21They're called waxwings because of this lovely...
27:23Can you see the lovely red tips?
27:24Yeah.
27:25On some of the feathers.
27:26It's a bit like they've been dipped in that wax for sealing letters.
27:28Anyway, they mostly eat berries and they have an expression
27:30and they have an expandable pouch in their gullet where they store them
27:33and sometimes they ferment and the bird gets drunk
27:37and their blood alcohol can reach double the legal driving limit in Scotland.
27:41OK?
27:42Good job.
27:43And they go, oh, there's a window.
27:45And crashing into windows is a leading cause of death for birds.
27:50They reckon annually in the UK 33 million birds meet their end on a window.
27:58What?
27:59That's an insane amount!
28:00Oh!
28:01In the US, darling, the estimate is about a billion.
28:03So how do we stop this terrible bird massacre?
28:06Well...
28:07Keep the windows open.
28:09They can't see the difference between transparent glass and air.
28:12They've all walked into a window, haven't they?
28:14Yes, we have, yes.
28:15Indeed.
28:16They put these bird stickers on the glass, but it would have to be lots and lots of them.
28:19It would not be sufficient to just put one or two.
28:21Better to put a cat sticker on the window.
28:24Well, the best thing to do is to reflect UV light so birds can see UV light.
28:30We can't see it.
28:31So look at the difference between the picture on the left is what we see
28:34and then the picture on the right is what the birds can see.
28:37We don't really know why they evolved UV vision, but there is an Austrian company called Bird Shades
28:43and they produce giant stick-on sheets of UV reflective film for glass buildings.
28:48So this is actually looking through a window and to birds this would be dangerous,
28:54but if you put the bird shade on it, this giant stick-on sheet of UV,
28:59it looks like prison bars to the bird.
29:01This is what the bird would see and it reduces bird collisions by about 80%.
29:05So still not foolproof.
29:06Wow.
29:07Yeah.
29:08There was another window invention in Germany, not, I have to say, such a hit.
29:11Sky Deutschland in 2013, they developed something called talking windows for trains.
29:16What do you think it is?
29:17Oh, God.
29:21Yes, what?
29:22Set an alarm in the window.
29:23The window will tell you if you fall asleep, it'll be like,
29:26your stop, your stop, get up.
29:27That is a very, very good idea.
29:29I know.
29:30What it did was it played adverts if you rested your head against the glass.
29:33Oh.
29:34Yeah.
29:35And the sound was transmitted directly into your skull.
29:37Oh, God.
29:38Rather than through the air.
29:39You'd pull the emergency lever, wouldn't you?
29:41Yeah.
29:42Well, blocking your ears only made it louder.
29:44Weirdly, not popular.
29:45German ads as well.
29:46Would you like another sausage?
29:47What about a well-made diesel car?
29:48I tell you something I have seen, which is really ingenious way of using train windows,
30:01is to paint a series of pictures in a tunnel.
30:04And so it becomes an animated scene as the train passes.
30:07It's like those old flip books.
30:08Yes.
30:09It's fantastic.
30:10So I saw it in Montreal.
30:11It's been tried in Atlanta, New York, in Athens and Seoul.
30:14It's usually an advertising campaign.
30:16But look, as you're going past...
30:17Oh, yeah.
30:18Isn't it clever?
30:19Yeah, yeah.
30:20I took the kids on the Eurostar.
30:22Yeah.
30:23And I said to them, you have to listen to that for the splash.
30:26And that's when we were in the sea.
30:31And they...
30:32I didn't think they'd believe it.
30:33I thought, it's out.
30:34Shut up, Dad.
30:35That's what they normally say.
30:36And they're absolutely hook, line and sink.
30:37And they thought we were going to go in the sea.
30:40And they were a bit disappointed.
30:41But you can get a thing on your phone, where if you...
30:44When you're on the Eurostar, like an app, and you can point it.
30:48And it looks like there are fish outside the windows.
30:52Ah!
30:53Right, let's wash our hands of windows and move on to another question.
30:56Imagine you have a big bowl of cream and a hand whisk.
31:00I want you to show me how you'd whip it.
31:02Now, you should have beside you an apron,
31:04because we don't want to get you all filthy,
31:05and a whisk and a bowl of cream.
31:07Ooh.
31:08So let's have a go.
31:09There's your thing.
31:10I'm not going to bother doing it.
31:11Are you good at cooking, Joanne?
31:12No.
31:13No.
31:14Nothing's not your area.
31:15No.
31:16OK.
31:17I order a lot of food in.
31:18Right.
31:19Yeah, toast and stuff.
31:20Like, I'm...
31:21Yeah.
31:22I bought an air fryer to try and make an effort,
31:25but I just keep my keys in it now.
31:27Alan, you don't have a bowl of cream.
31:30Why not?
31:31Well, I'll explain you in a minute.
31:32You look like you could do a cooking show.
31:34Yeah!
31:35Very hot.
31:36Can we start?
31:37Yes, go ahead.
31:38Sally's done that before.
31:39Yeah.
31:40OK.
31:41Yeah.
31:42Yeah.
31:43So nobody so far is doing it correctly.
31:47Oh, what about?
31:48Is it that?
31:49No, it's still not that.
31:50Very technical.
31:51Yeah.
31:52It's the way that it...
31:53What are you doing?
31:54It's how I make money.
31:55Andrew's OnlyFans is popping off.
31:56You want to introduce air bubbles, right?
31:57Oh.
31:58The most effective way is to whip side to side, not round and round.
31:59Really?
32:00Yeah.
32:01Yeah.
32:02Because it produces something called shearing forces.
32:03So where the two forces go in opposite directions and they affect each other.
32:06So, Alan, you have got...
32:07Why am I not allowed to play?
32:08You've got a cocktail shaker because it's exactly the same shearing forces and you can easily
32:13make cream in a cocktail maker.
32:14No way!
32:15No, just go, don't...
32:16I've seen them do it.
32:17It's not the Copacabana.
32:18I've seen them do it.
32:19I've seen them do it.
32:20I've seen them do it.
32:21I've seen Tom Cruise do it.
32:22It's going backwards and forwards like that.
32:23What you want with the shearing forces is you want to make the liquid continually bash
32:28into itself, okay.
32:29So, no, just side to side.
32:30Just side to side.
32:31Just side to side.
32:32Like that?
32:33Like that?
32:34I've seen them do it.
32:35I've seen Tom Cruise do it.
32:36I've seen Tom Cruise do it.
32:37That's going backwards and forwards like that.
32:38What you want with the shearing forces is you want to make the liquid continually bash
32:42into itself.
32:43Okay?
32:44So, no, just side to side.
32:45Just side to side for it.
32:47Like that.
32:48Like that?
32:49Like that.
32:51The fiscal case in a bar, no one would buy a drink.
32:54What do you think?
32:55LAUGHTER
32:57Have a cocktail, stop doing that!
33:00Who the heck?
33:01If you, if you...
33:03What is this?
33:05Can you imagine that in a Tom Cruise movie?
33:09We were going to do a test to see if it works
33:13and to see, has anybody made enough cream
33:15that we could tip the bowl upside down
33:17and put it over your head?
33:19Oh, no.
33:21They have not.
33:23LAUGHTER
33:34Have I got it on your top?
33:36That is literally the worst thing a boy has ever thrown at me.
33:40It feels like they're at kindergarten, doesn't it?
33:43Oh, my God.
33:45It's all over me cards, you knob-end.
33:48LAUGHTER
33:50Did you hear that? That's abuse in the workplace.
33:52LAUGHTER
33:53It does look like he's jizzed all over the...
33:56What?
33:57LAUGHTER
33:59I'm doing it on the lid and I'm always telling my kids,
34:01put the lid on properly!
34:03I left this lid!
34:05Don't pick it up on the lid!
34:07I'm lid obsessed and now I've fucked up on the telly.
34:10LAUGHTER
34:12OK, has anybody got to the point where they could tip the bowl upside down
34:17and put it on top of their head?
34:18Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll do it.
34:19I think I've buried mine's hair!
34:21Is that possible?
34:22LAUGHTER
34:23It's a bowl of dog shit.
34:25Is it?
34:26That was easy.
34:28There's a couple of dogs round the back going,
34:29if he puts this over his head, I'll piss myself.
34:32LAUGHTER
34:33What colour is your piss?
34:34Normal colour!
34:35It's just shit, it's fine.
34:36What's the monitor?
34:38LAUGHTER
34:39That's what it would be like if animals could talk.
34:42Some of you thought it wouldn't be better, you weirdo.
34:44LAUGHTER
34:45Right.
34:46Can you dip it upside down and put it over your head?
34:48I wonder if it's whipped...
34:49Over? On my head?
34:50Oh, yeah.
34:51Do it over Sally's head.
34:52See if it's whipped sufficiently.
34:53Oh.
34:54Oh.
34:55Oh.
34:56Do we...?
34:57Yeah!
34:58CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
35:06Uh, right.
35:07Aprils off and cream away, please.
35:11When do we get to have the biscuits?
35:12Next.
35:17Right, this brings us to the whisky business of general ignorance.
35:19Fingers on whatnots, please.
35:21Name a food that was invented in the Dutch city of Gouda.
35:24BUZZER
35:25Yes.
35:26Cheese.
35:27LAUGHTER
35:32Right in there.
35:33All those...
35:34Yes.
35:35What?
35:36Stroompwafel.
35:37Is the correct answer.
35:38CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
35:44So the cheese, sometimes we call it gouda, gouda, gouda,
35:47is named after the city where it was traded and not the place where it was manufactured.
35:52So Middle Ages, the Dutch cities, they would acquire monopolies and the city of Gouda got the one for cheese.
35:58So 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.
36:07I mean, syrup waffle in Dutch.
36:09You've got some there.
36:10I don't know if you want to dip them in your cream.
36:12Oh, 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.
36:17It really isn't the best thing the Dutch have ever done.
36:19And well do you know it, young man.
36:20Well, you...
36:21Those marijuana cafes are fucking incredible.
36:28Makers of the late 1700s, early 1800s, using up scraps of surplus dough, batter and crumbs.
36:33Does anyone like one?
36:35And they were known as...
36:36Ooh, they're starving.
36:37They all want one.
36:38They were known as...
36:39They were known as...
36:40So poor man's cookies.
36:42Good?
36:43They'd be nice in the air fryer.
36:45What was your keys?
36:47My keys.
36:48Just push the keys aside.
36:49Five minutes.
36:50I went to Eindhoven to watch Arsenal play.
36:54And they'd give you a joint and then a little tube, a clear tube, so you can smoke a bit of it and then you can put it back in the tube.
36:59And they get to the stadium and they search me.
37:02And I thought, oh no, they're going to find my tube.
37:05And this policeman found my tube and he goes, ha!
37:08A joint.
37:09Put it back in my pocket.
37:10But they're done in the ground.
37:14All the Arsenal fans were stoned off their tits.
37:17It was brilliant, hadn't we, 1-4-0?
37:20I don't really like football, but that sounds fun.
37:23Oh, it's great.
37:24When they had the Euros in 2000, it was half in Belgium and half in the Netherlands.
37:29And in Belgium, they had ultra-strong beer.
37:32People were slaughtered.
37:33There were riots and water cannon.
37:35It was a disaster.
37:36In the Netherlands, everyone was just off their tits.
37:39Don't you?
37:40When they made marijuana illegal and alcohol legal, that was the wrong way on.
37:44Yeah.
37:45I can agree with that.
37:46I can agree with that.
37:47I can agree with that.
37:48I can agree with that.
37:51Random...
37:52One random political risk.
37:56Just you and me, my friend.
37:57Let's go.
37:58Yes.
37:59This is the best episode of Question Time to have ever heard.
38:03Who invented the Ponzi scheme?
38:09Was it Ponzi?
38:12Was he...?
38:17Was Charles Ponzi the first investor?
38:20Was he the first victim of the first Ponzi scheme?
38:22No, he wasn't the first investor.
38:23Indeed, the whole scheme predates Charles Ponzi by quite a long way.
38:28So, he was an Italian fraudster.
38:30He operated in North America in the 1920s.
38:33And so, the whole scheme, if you don't know how it works,
38:35is you get investors to invest in basically non-existent businesses
38:39and then you use money that are deposited by newer investors
38:42to pay people back.
38:43There's basically nothing there.
38:44Oh, that's a brilliant idea.
38:45People are lured in, the numbers are increased exponentially
38:49and 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?
38:55That's the sort of thing.
38:57When his scheme collapsed, it cost his victims about $300 million
39:01in today's money.
39:03But the very first known Ponzi scheme, 1869,
39:07a cigar-smoking German actress called Adele Spitzeder.
39:11So, she was the richest person in Bavaria.
39:13So, she started out as an actress.
39:14For whatever reason, her career didn't take off.
39:16But she had an incredibly extravagant lifestyle.
39:19She had an entourage of very attractive young girlfriends.
39:21She had lots of servants.
39:22She had six dogs, so on.
39:24So, she started promising people, if they invested,
39:27they could get 10% back from her per month.
39:30And this was fantastic because more and more people thought,
39:33how marvellous, I get 10% for my money.
39:35And more and more people joined the scheme.
39:37And then it became so successful that she thought,
39:39I know what I'll do.
39:40I'll open a bank, right?
39:41But she had no formal training in accounting.
39:44And indeed, she didn't even have a fiscal bank.
39:46She kept all of the money in cupboards in her hotel room.
39:49Or sometimes in sacks on the floor.
39:51And then the hotel owner started to complain.
39:53Too many people were coming and going.
39:54So, she bought a house.
39:55At one point, more than 80 people were working in this house.
39:58She went on to buy at least 16 other houses that we know of
40:01in Munich alone.
40:02And people just kept coming.
40:04Now, to give her credit,
40:05she did open 12 soup kitchens for the poor.
40:08But nevertheless, there was so much money going into her scheme,
40:12which was basically piffle,
40:14that the entire Bavarian financial system was near to collapse.
40:18And in the end, by 1872,
40:20more and more people were taking their money out of her bank.
40:22And she had to limit withdrawals to an hour a day,
40:256am to 7am.
40:27Not on Wednesdays or Saturdays.
40:30But she was eventually brought to justice.
40:32Today's equivalent of $430 million from 32,000 people.
40:37Nobody had ever run a scam like it before.
40:40So, it wasn't technically illegal.
40:42Did she go to prison?
40:44She was convicted of lesser charges.
40:46She went to prison for three years and ten months.
40:48She must have had something about her because when she came out,
40:51it was the people who had lost money who looked after her.
40:54But she couldn't help herself.
40:55She went back to swindling.
40:57And she was in and out of prison until she died aged 63.
41:01But it's a fantastic story.
41:02And we know about Charles Ponzi.
41:03We don't know about her.
41:04I just think it's a great story.
41:06That funny Dutch biscuits interfering now with my Berlin Wall.
41:09I feel really weird.
41:10LAUGHTER
41:12LAUGHTER
41:13I don't know whether I'm coming or going.
41:16LAUGHTER
41:17Ponzi schemes should probably be called Spitzender Scams.
41:21In the American army, what does GI stand for?
41:24General Infantry.
41:26BUZZER
41:28BUZZER
41:30BUZZER
41:31Next question, that's correct.
41:32Let's move on.
41:33LAUGHTER
41:35Goodsy individual.
41:36Oh, we hadn't thought of that, but I like that.
41:39BUZZER
41:40BUZZER
41:41BUZZER
41:42Is it ground infantry?
41:43BUZZER
41:45BUZZER
41:47BUZZER
41:48BUZZER
41:49So I can tell you there's no infantry in it at all.
41:51Ian.
41:52LAUGHTER
41:55It stands for galvanised iron.
41:57Oh.
41:58LAUGHTER
41:59Yeah, I know.
42:00Right, so iron that's been coated in zinc to stop it from rusting.
42:03So it was used on lists of military equipment.
42:05It said GI soap.
42:06For example, it would say buckets, GI.
42:08Other than that, it doesn't seem as if the letters have ever had
42:11any kind of official meaning whatsoever.
42:13So, World War I, GI was often interpreted as government issue
42:17or general issue, so there would be GI soap, you know,
42:20for army soap, that kind of thing.
42:22The earliest reference that we can find, meaning ordinary soldier,
42:25is 1935, and even then it wasn't really an official thing.
42:29The actual expression GI Joe comes from a comic strip called Yank.
42:33I bet you don't even need the GI Joe, because really, in America,
42:36Joe just means an American soldier.
42:38In British Army, GI stands for gunnery instructor.
42:42Oh.
42:43I can hardly contain myself because it's time for the scores.
42:46In first place, whipping up a storm with five points, it's Sally.
42:49And in second place, whirling into light with minus eight, it's Andrew.
42:59In fourth place, with minus ten, it's the audience.
43:04CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
43:08In fourth place, wringing our hands with minus 12, it's Joanne.
43:11CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
43:14And in last place, wringing in embarrassment with minus 17, it's Alan.
43:18CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
43:19CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
43:21AND APPLAUSE
43:23My friends, Sally, Andrew, Joanne and, of course, Alan,
43:28I leave you with these wise words from Douglas Adams.
43:31A common mistake that people make when trying to design something
43:34completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
43:40LAUGHTER
43:41APPLAUSE
43:43AND APPLAUSE
43:44AND APPLAUSE
43:46AND APPLAUSE
43:47AND APPLAUSE
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