- 11 hours ago
First broadcast 11th September 2003.
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
John Sessions
Danny Baker
Hugh Laurie
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
John Sessions
Danny Baker
Hugh Laurie
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Well, hello and welcome to QI, the quiz show where the answers are much more interesting than the questions, but the questions are completely impossible.
00:10As I don't really expect anyone to get any of them right, I shall be awarding points for being interesting along the way, regardless of whether the panel's answers are correct or even relevant.
00:18So let's just meet the panel who want to commit intellectual suicide tonight, and they are Danny Baker, John Sessions, Q Laurie.
00:30And Alan Davies.
00:35Now, each of our employees, I can't really be doing with the word guests, each of our employees here tonight has a buzzer in the time-honoured tradition.
00:44Danny goes, John goes, Hugh goes, Alan goes, and I go to Belgium, for which I profusely apologise.
00:58Well, we've got a lot to do, so let's get on with it.
01:01And where better to start than right at the beginning, with a round of questions on Adam and Eve.
01:06Whether or not you believe in them, they are quite interesting, which is all we ask on this programme.
01:10Like God, as Woody Allen said, how can I believe in God when just last week I got my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter?
01:18Cari Snow, the American comedian, said, if God was a woman, sperm would taste of chocolate.
01:26But, um, perhaps, I don't understand it either.
01:33Perhaps we...
01:34How do you know it doesn't?
01:38Oh, he knows.
01:40Damn.
01:40Um, but perhaps, you know, we should believe in Adam and Eve.
01:44Um, geneticists have established that every woman in the world shares a single female ancestor who lived 150,000 years ago.
01:51Scientists do actually call her Eve, and every man shares a single male ancestor dubbed Adam.
01:56It's also been established, however, that Adam was born 80,000 years after Eve.
02:01So the world before him was one of heavy to industrial-strength lesbianism, I assume.
02:07Um, now, the first question goes to Alan.
02:09What is the connection between the Archbishop of Canterbury's left ear and Adam's belly button?
02:17His ear...the ear and the belly button?
02:19God, just as you said that, there was a painting came up.
02:21We do this, I'm afraid, yeah.
02:24I'm not going to ask who did the painting.
02:26That would be an insult.
02:27Adam's on the left.
02:28Yes, well done.
02:29That's his belly button there.
02:31It would seem.
02:32And the Archbishop of Canterbury's ear...
02:35Yeah.
02:36The only time I can ever think where you'd put your ear to someone's belly button would be to hear if their tummy was rumbling.
02:44Yes.
02:44You go, your tummy's rumbling, you're hungry, aren't you?
02:48True.
02:48Is that, is that what it is?
02:49I'm afraid...
02:50I don't want to astonish you, but I'm afraid it isn't.
02:54Is it because Adam wouldn't have had a belly button, would he, being the first man, and neither is the...
02:57Oh, you're, you're, you're really good.
03:00So, he is good, isn't he?
03:03I'm going to give him three points for that.
03:05The fact is, they're both purely decorative.
03:08Adam, of course, cannot have had a navel because he was created.
03:12He wasn't born.
03:13So there wouldn't have been an umbilical cord.
03:16You're saying the Archbishop of Canterbury's left ear is purely decorative?
03:18He describes it himself.
03:19It's purely decorative.
03:21Because he was born deaf in the left ear, so it has no...
03:25Right.
03:26If his left ear is purely decorative, it's very unimaginative for him just to have an ear there, isn't it?
03:31Yeah.
03:33He really could have had anything he wanted there at all.
03:36A doughnut or another, another organ like a hand.
03:40Abandoned racket, I heard him say that.
03:42Abandoned racket or a chuckle cock.
03:45A road sign.
03:46A little chick lit.
03:49Or rather sort of, surreally, a portrait of Van Gogh.
03:51Ah.
03:52Yeah, he could have had Van Gogh in sea.
03:53That's brilliant.
03:54He was missing, yeah.
03:55He'd have a little Van Gogh there, saying, as if to say, do you see?
03:59Mm.
03:59All good.
04:01Very good.
04:01Well, we've got something out of the wreckage.
04:03I'm...
04:03Who painted that picture?
04:071475 till 1564.
04:10I hate myself for saying that.
04:11Those are his dates.
04:13He's quite correct.
04:13Who's Michelangelo Buonarroti?
04:16We have to give five points to Johnny Sessions for knowing the birth and death dates of Michelangelo.
04:20I hear you.
04:21We also have to hate him, incidentally.
04:22Yes.
04:24Very impressed.
04:25You can do this.
04:25I've done this with John Sessions at parties.
04:27When was Bruckner born?
04:291824.
04:30Died 1896.
04:31You see?
04:31It's white.
04:31Isn't it wonderful?
04:33Marla.
04:341860.
04:35Born July the 7th in Caliste in Austria.
04:38Died 1911 in Caliste in Austria.
04:44It was a sickness.
04:45It was a horrible sickness.
04:48I met a man the other day who said he was a naval doctor.
04:50I didn't know they specialised that much.
04:51According to Rita Mae Brown, if Michelangelo had been heterosexual, the Sistine Chapel would
04:58have been painted basic white and with a roller.
05:00It's your question now.
05:04After the flood, God gave Noah the right to do what?
05:08To sheep.
05:10A right...
05:10A right which he denied to Adam.
05:14Well, what do we know about Adam?
05:15We know Adam was forbidden...
05:18The forbidden fruit, so it's not dead.
05:19It wasn't the forbidden sheep, was it?
05:20I know that much about Sunday school.
05:21To keep them, to make, to farm them, to...
05:25Well, it could be.
05:26He could not eat them.
05:27It's as simple as that.
05:28As simple as that.
05:30It doesn't make any sense, because Adam, there would have been probably a lot of sheep.
05:34But Noah's down to the last two sheep.
05:37And God said, it's all right, if you fancy a kebab, you'll have one on me.
05:45And Noah said, I'm not going to eat the sheep, God.
05:47You're out of your mind.
05:48No, eat them is the right answer, because according to the Bible, Adam and Eve were vegetarians
05:52told by God to eat fruit and vegetables only.
05:54Some theological authorities believe that the forbidden fruit, which is not specifically
05:58named in the Bible, which was eaten by Adam and Eve, was in fact a banana.
06:02It was only after the great flood, when God made a new covenant with Noah, and he said,
06:07every living thing that moves will be yours to eat.
06:10And somehow, we got from there to Bernard Matthews' golden turkey drummers.
06:21Here's one that anyone can answer, fingers on buzzers.
06:24Of whom was it said, working with her was like being hit over the head with a valentine card?
06:32Ann Widdicombe.
06:33Not Ann Widdicombe.
06:34It's not her.
06:35In fact, it was Christopher Plummer on the subject of Julie Andrews.
06:38Oh, wow.
06:39And this brings us to a round about Andrews, people called Andrew, or Andrews.
06:44John, the painter Caravaggio was once arrested for throwing artichokes at a waiter.
06:50The art historian Andrew Graham Dixon discovered something about Caravaggio's outrageous behavior
06:56on the tennis court.
06:57What was it?
06:58Something similar to Caravaggio.
06:59Caravaggio, he died in 1610, but that, no, he brought me advice now, I think it was 1610,
07:03and of course, then he committed murder, and, but in fact, Andrews program, of course,
07:07but not that we should be talking about other programs, that's far too incestuous.
07:10Well, this, what the question is about, is about Andrew Graham Dixon, the artist historian,
07:12who made a program about Caravaggio.
07:13Yes, sorry, I'm wine-fat, Caravaggio died prematurely,
07:16and was possibly murdered by those avenging him for the death of Thomas Sino,
07:19I think, was the artist he, yeah, the fight with, for those of you who didn't watch it.
07:23That's good.
07:24Stay with us.
07:25Yeah.
07:25And, um, I'll give you five points to that, but I'll, anybody else know the answer to this?
07:29What, what Caravaggio did on a tennis court?
07:30On a tennis court, he said, enough with the square balls, why don't we use my round?
07:35That was all good answers, I'll have to tell you.
07:38He's beaten by a British player, that's what I'm still talking about.
07:40That's what I'm still talking about.
07:40That's what I'm talking about.
07:41Excellent.
07:46For almost 400 years, historians have believed that Caravaggio was exclusively homosexual,
07:53and they believed that he murdered a man called Ranuccio Tomassoni in a squabble over a tennis match.
08:01But it's now thought, thanks to the pioneering work of Andrew Graham Dixon,
08:04that Tomassoni's death was an accident, and Caravaggio was only trying to cut off his testicles.
08:08Not to kill him.
08:10There you are.
08:11Yes.
08:12Over a game, Teddy.
08:13Well, yes.
08:14New balls, please.
08:15Oh!
08:16Oh, no!
08:22Minus ten points.
08:24I didn't even know who he is.
08:26Caravaggio.
08:27Oh, thank God you said that.
08:30See, to my mind, that's not interesting enough.
08:33I was hanging in there.
08:34Oh, no, Caravaggio's very interesting.
08:35He would find me.
08:36He was the brilliant, perhaps.
08:37I know something about castration, though.
08:39I knew there was something about castration.
08:40Tell me about castration.
08:41And it's to do with this.
08:42Yes.
08:44When they castrate a sheep, they do it without breaking the skin of the scrotum.
08:48Yes.
08:48Yes.
08:49Yes.
08:49Done it.
08:50He's done it.
08:52Yes.
08:52And the testicles just fall into the ball sack, and then they do the kind of great sultana
08:58thing.
08:58They become a little frivolous.
08:59They drop off.
08:59They wither, don't they?
09:00They do wither, yeah.
09:00You use a little elastic band, don't you?
09:02You use a little tiny elastic.
09:03I've got one on at the moment.
09:04That's a big block.
09:09For Prince Albert.
09:12Oh, Prince Albert.
09:13Now, there's a story, isn't it?
09:14Oh, really?
09:14Yes.
09:15Yes.
09:15He and Victoria, they had masses of sex.
09:18I mean, they had nine children, and they probably had sex maybe a hundred times a night
09:21for years and years and years.
09:22Until you died.
09:23Stop.
09:23After you die.
09:24Is that why the Albert Memorial is a great big tall?
09:27Well, I did a charity show in the heyday of the Spice Girls, and there was a line-up
09:34afterwards with the Prince of Wales.
09:36I was there.
09:37Were you there?
09:37You were that one.
09:38Do you remember?
09:38And they asked him whether or not Prince Albert actually did wear a Prince Albert.
09:43No.
09:43And he said?
09:43And Prince Wales said, I have no idea what a Prince Albert is.
09:48So I had to explain to him that it wasn't an item.
09:50Did you tell him?
09:50I didn't say it was a cock ring.
09:52I said it was a cock ring.
09:53He said it was a piece of jewellery worn in an intimate area.
10:00He would have said.
10:01He said, oh, a cock ring.
10:05Let's tear ourselves back to Caravaggio and Tomasini, if we can.
10:09The two men were rivals for the favours of Philidae Melandroni, a beautiful female prostitute
10:14for whom Tomasini acted as pimp.
10:17Caravaggio had been commissioned to paint her for an Italian nobleman.
10:20For an extra five points, can you connect this, I will pass it around if you need to handle
10:26it or smell it.
10:26Fennel.
10:27With Italian homosexuals.
10:29Oh.
10:31Are there any Italian homosexuals in the room?
10:35My dressing room number is 315.
10:39Is it fennel?
10:41It is fennel.
10:42I will tell you that, yes.
10:43Is the street slang for homosexual fennel?
10:46Yes.
10:47Correct.
10:47Wow.
10:48Ten points.
10:49Wow.
10:49Look at that.
10:50You get some.
10:52Yeah.
10:53But what is it, though?
10:55Because there's a certain word.
10:56Pinocchio, which is fennel in Italian.
10:59Like Pinocchio, but with an F.
11:00Yeah.
11:01That's quite interesting.
11:01It is.
11:01It's quite interesting.
11:02It's quite interesting.
11:03Good.
11:03Good.
11:04Good.
11:04Now, cue.
11:05Still with Andrews.
11:05According to Andrew Marshall's recent book about Burma, a Burmese may well sidle up to
11:11you and murmur, excuse me, sir, but I see that your department store is open even on
11:17weekends.
11:19What does he mean by that?
11:20What's the game?
11:22Well, it's either it's sort of just too much Lendayton.
11:25I've been reading too many Lendayton novels.
11:26It means the merchandiser, you know, the microfilm is under the seat.
11:29Or it's your flies are open or something.
11:34Ten points.
11:34Your flies are undone is exactly.
11:35That's exactly what it means.
11:36That's right.
11:37Very good.
11:38Very good.
11:43Perfectly enough, this book on Burma is called The Trouser People.
11:48To give you a foretaste, it quotes the diary of Sir George Scott, the man who introduced football
11:53to Burma in the 19th century.
11:55Stepped on something soft and wobbly, struck a match, found it was a dead Chinaman.
12:03That's very much the word of the day as well.
12:04You wonder why the British are hated around the globe.
12:10The upstairs, ready my angel, of course, was Burma.
12:13Burma.
12:13B-U-R-M-A from Alan Bennett's.
12:15And not love as well, knickers off ready when I come home.
12:18That's Norwich.
12:19Norwich.
12:19I mean, that's...
12:20Oh, no, it's not the other one, isn't it?
12:24Oh, it doesn't matter.
12:25That's Bolton.
12:26But I didn't think about that.
12:27Yes, Norwich.
12:28The man is clinically insane.
12:30So, actually, interesting, while double-checking this information about etiquette and Burma
12:35on the internet, we came up with the extraordinary information that it's considered polite to
12:40express joy by eating snow and to send unwanted guests away by biting their leg, and normal
12:46behaviour to wipe your mouth on the sofa.
12:48And this is absolutely true.
12:51The researcher is writing this down with great excitement about what Burma...
12:54Only to discover, in the end, that Burma turned out to be the name of a poodle belonging
12:57to the author of the website.
12:58Now, this third round is about actors.
13:10After weeks of being pointedly ignored on tour by Sir John Gielgud, Clive Morton, the character
13:14actor, plucked up the courage to knock on his dressing room door.
13:17Gielgud opened it.
13:18Thank God it's you, he said.
13:19For one dreadful moment, I thought it was going to be that ghastly bore Clive Morton.
13:22Now, why, Hugh, yes, why does the actor Edward Woodward have four D's in his name?
13:33What?
13:34No, what are you doing?
13:35I'm sorry, I'm not going to tell you, I'm finished, what are you doing?
13:37What are you doing?
13:37I'm sorry, it was a spasm.
13:39You can't do that.
13:40You can't do that.
13:41I'll put it out.
13:43Just carry on.
13:44Did you know, this is quite interesting.
13:46Yes, good, that's what we're here for.
13:49Did you know?
13:50Very good.
13:50Kiwi fruit uses more than its own weight in aviation fuel to get from New Zealand to Europe.
14:03Five points.
14:04Wonderful.
14:05A lot of five points.
14:06It sounds mad, but is it, of course, true, absolutely.
14:08And regarding the Edward Woodward.
14:10Yes.
14:10That's how you spell it.
14:11Oh, no, no, if you get that.
14:13Of course you.
14:14No, really, that's fine.
14:16I was going to say exactly that, that it's got that many D's in it, because that's his name.
14:22If you took the D's out, it would be a different name.
14:25And what name would it be?
14:25It would be a woo-woo.
14:27Exactly, it would be E-Wa-Woo-Woo.
14:29It's a sort of structural device, like a joist, which would start his name collapsing into
14:36the sort of spongy mass of E-Wa-Woo-Woo.
14:41You're mentioning Edward Woodward.
14:42And before that, I mentioned John Gielgud.
14:44John Gielgud, when he first heard the name Edward Woodward, said, this is an interesting
14:48name.
14:48It sounds like a fart in the bath.
14:51Edward Woodward.
14:52It does.
14:54Yeah, quite unfair.
14:55But, I mean, you get your point, so you, naturally.
14:57Now, let's go back to our actor's run.
15:00Which actor said, one of my chief regrets during my years in the theatre is that I couldn't
15:04sit in the audience and watch me?
15:06Oh, God, any of them.
15:09Well, actually, no, hold on, because I think actors do a bloody difficult job.
15:12Yeah.
15:14You know, it's quite easy to sit there and, you know, sort of...
15:17Fall asleep.
15:20John Gielgud, I reckon.
15:21Yes.
15:22No, it's not, actually.
15:23There is a very good story, though, about Peter O'Toole, who was once getting drunk
15:27in his Celtic Hellraiser days in a pub in London, and they were throwing out time at
15:32lunchtime.
15:32He said, let's go and see a play.
15:34And at one point O'Toole nudged his friend and said, this is brilliant.
15:37This is a bit where I come on.
15:39Oh, bonnet!
15:43But, in fact, he doesn't, is the answer.
15:47It wasn't any of those.
15:48It was another great, considered the great Hamlet of his age, if you're an American.
15:52John Barrymore, it was.
15:53Oh, right.
15:54Barrymore also famously said, love is the delightful interval between meeting a beautiful girl and
15:59discovering that she looks like a haddock.
16:01Right, bearing in mind we want to be in the bar before half past ten.
16:11Fingers on the buzzers, please, gentlemen, and identify the following.
16:14They puff out their hair like a cat, raise one front foot, and then hop menacingly from
16:19side to side, roaring with all the fury of a clogged drain.
16:24Yes.
16:24It's either cats, or clogged drains.
16:32It's actually anteaters.
16:34Oh!
16:34Anteaters.
16:35Part of the elaborate play sequences of young giant anteaters, in fact, which is known as
16:40bluff charging.
16:41Oh!
16:41And we're going to have a few questions about anteaters.
16:44We're going to start with you, Alan.
16:45Oh!
16:45What would you do with a pencil and a lesser anteater?
16:49Oh, hours of fun.
16:53I'd probably try and make it, pick it up with its nose.
16:58And then if it really got a good grip on it, I'd encourage it to do a sketch or a note.
17:04I'd say anything that's on your mind, get it down now.
17:08It could go for 35 miles, which is how long an average graphite pencil will, if you just
17:13go like that, all the way until there's nothing left.
17:1535 miles.
17:15This man's extraordinary.
17:16It's another five points.
17:1735 miles.
17:18It is.
17:18He knows how many miles a graphite pencil is at.
17:20Yes, he does.
17:20All the exact situation test is 35 miles.
17:23However, with an anteater, you know.
17:24I mean, I can't get out of my head the notion of inserting the pencil somewhere.
17:31And then there being a release of hundreds of ants.
17:37Well, let's not that.
17:38I'll tell you what it is.
17:39Anteaters have enormously long tongues, but tiny little mouths, which are about the diameter
17:44of the pencil.
17:45Its tongue is around 16 inches long.
17:47I nearly had my face off then.
17:49No, no, this way.
17:51That's it, yeah.
17:51Not that way.
17:53I knew a landlord of a pub once.
17:55I used to say to any female customer that you like the look of, I've got a nine-inch tongue
18:00and I can breathe through my ears.
18:07Wow.
18:10All the trauma.
18:13Now.
18:17Good.
18:19That's the longest sustained laugh I've ever had.
18:23Never went very high, but it just went, oh, a bit like the graphite pencil of laugh.
18:3035 mile laugh.
18:33John, your question.
18:34Would you like to be hugged by a giant anteater?
18:39Probably not.
18:40I would probably be eviscerating.
18:42Quite right.
18:43The anteaters have, in order to claw open a termite hill, I'm sorry, I'm getting very
18:48dull now.
18:49I don't know what Attenborough does is so much better, but then they have curly fingers
18:52like that, only the metal, and they pull it apart.
18:55Once it is pulled apart, as it were, like a rather interesting pie, then they can get
18:59the tongue in that Alan's friend in the pub was talking about, so it's really, and I
19:04think I've answered the question.
19:06Absolutely right.
19:06Yes, yes, a hug from a giant anteater is fatal to humans, partly because of the fact
19:11that giant anteaters are also known as ant bears for that reason, because their hug is
19:15so fatal.
19:16They normally squash you.
19:17They squash you.
19:17That's a squashing hug.
19:18Yeah, they break your ribs and your guts go out.
19:21Have they been known to attack humans, except perceived by an ant?
19:23Yes, they have.
19:24In the end of the day, they're normally very easygoing.
19:26John, and then go, oh, no.
19:29I didn't mean any harm.
19:33I didn't mean any harm.
19:34I don't know my own strength.
19:40Hugh, how big is a dwarf anteater, roughly?
19:44You can use your hands.
19:47Metric or imperial?
19:48A dwarf anteater is exactly the same length as a dwarf anteater.
19:54Ah.
19:55Both species are 62 feet.
20:01Actually, they're about the size of a squirrel.
20:04Right.
20:05A 62-foot squirrel is about that sort of size.
20:09Well, they are.
20:09And they're similar to squirrels, because they spend a lot of time in trees.
20:13And in South America, stewed anteater of this variety, the dwarf anteater, is a popular dish.
20:18Fried or grilled baby squirrels are popular in the United States.
20:21Yeah.
20:22But as someone pointed out in a letter to the Telegraph,
20:24the fried or grilled squirrels should contain a warning, may contain nuts.
20:30Which I thought was lovely.
20:36Now, there's just time for a quick last round, which is an assortment called General Ignorance.
20:41Fingers on the buzzers, please.
20:43This quickfire round, 10 points for a right answer, but minus 10 for anything which I have written down.
20:50Here.
20:51Right.
20:52All righty.
20:52So, which country has the world's highest suicide rate?
20:58Yes.
20:59Woof.
21:04It's always Sweden, isn't it?
21:05Oh, you're so...
21:07You always do Sweden.
21:09It's one of those urban myth-y things, isn't it?
21:12It's not Sweden.
21:12Another one, but I read somewhere, is that a ship's captain cannot marry people.
21:18Yes.
21:18Never been true.
21:19I've heard that.
21:20And it's invented by screenwriters.
21:22Yeah.
21:22And lemmings don't jump over cliffs, do they?
21:24They, they, they, exactly.
21:25Heard it together for that Disney film in 1964 called White Windrug.
21:28So, Disney round out all these lemmings and drove Land Rovers at them.
21:31And we've all seen, we've all seen that footage of them going over the cliffs, but they don't
21:35do, they never did.
21:36You've got to be fired for being interesting about lemmings, this man is just a runaway
21:39interest.
21:40Suicide answer, I think, I don't know why, but did somebody say Indonesia to me once?
21:44They didn't.
21:45Not currently, as far as we know, is it the correct answer?
21:47No.
21:48Neither.
21:49It's actually...
21:50England.
21:51Not England, no.
21:52Spain?
21:53No.
21:54This could be rather a long evening, but it's actually Lithuania.
21:59Is it?
21:59Oh.
21:59I've started with 52 suicides per 100,000 head of population, more than 13 times higher
22:05than the United States, which has 4.1 per 100,000, and six and a half times that of Britain
22:09with eight.
22:10Nobody has any idea why this should be.
22:12Is it because the capital is so difficult to spell and it's a say and it's, it's one
22:18of those words that really...
22:19Must be that.
22:20Must be that.
22:20Which is Vilnius, isn't it?
22:21Vilnius, it's not that hard to say.
22:22This is kind of a big trick, isn't it?
22:24Vilnius, Vilnius.
22:24Vilnius, Vilnius.
22:25V-I-L-N-U-I-S.
22:26Can the audience please say Vilnius?
22:28One, two, three.
22:29Yes.
22:30I'm sorry.
22:31That's pretty easy.
22:32I was just looking for an answer.
22:34I was very good that you knew the answer was good.
22:37Do you think it would be interesting if you got all of the suicide notes and published
22:47them as a book?
22:47Well?
22:48Well?
22:49Yes.
22:50Well, yes.
22:51I might find out actually what the hell's going on in Vilnius.
22:55It's the food.
22:56It's the food.
22:57Yes.
22:58They're all sick of it.
22:59They're all sick of the food here.
23:00Clearly, again and again, the references.
23:05You're favourite painter coming up now, Alan, in this question, what was Caravaggio's real
23:11name?
23:12It sounds like Italian for Carphone Warehouse.
23:14It's a buzzer aunt.
23:15Fabio.
23:16Fabio.
23:17Fabio.
23:18You'd think that because he travelled, because of killing people, it would be Caravaggio,
23:27like a lover of travel.
23:28Oh, very good.
23:29Exactly.
23:30Yes.
23:31Dear travel, yes.
23:32But it's not.
23:33No.
23:34My name is Michelangelo.
23:35Michelangelo.
23:36Oh, that is something.
23:37Did Derek Jarman make a film about him?
23:38He did indeed.
23:39It's called simply Caravaggio.
23:40Is that interesting enough for a point?
23:42No.
23:43Oh.
23:44Clearly it is.
23:45We're losing it.
23:46We're losing it.
23:47We're losing it.
23:48We're losing it.
23:49All right.
23:50Caravaggio took the name Caravaggio.
23:53Because his father, Fermo Marisi, was the steward and chief architect of the Marquis of Caravaggio.
24:02So, who invented the steam engine?
24:05Fingers on buzzers.
24:06Yes.
24:07It wasn't, as a lot of people think, George Stevenson.
24:11Right.
24:12I said, who did?
24:13Exactly.
24:14That person would be Mr. Trevithick.
24:17Very good.
24:18Very good.
24:19That's very interesting.
24:21And do you know that Richard Trevithick went into a pub one night and...
24:28It's true.
24:29They built a steam engine.
24:30Yes.
24:31And they got it up to pressure.
24:32And they went into a pub, the whole gang of them.
24:34It's all absolutely true.
24:35And they got absolutely slaughtered.
24:36They forgot about the steam engine and it blew up.
24:38And it just about...
24:39Oh, good lord.
24:40Well, of course, it was Richard and Andrew Trevithick who are credited with the modern invention.
24:44But the real answer, of course, is neither of those.
24:46It was Hero or Hieron of Alexandria in 100 AD.
24:50Oh, good lord.
24:51It was called the Aelopile, or wind ball, using the same principle as geocropulsion.
24:57A metal sphere spun around, steam generated at 1500 RPM, making it the fastest rotating object in the world.
25:03The ancient Greeks found it an amusing novelty, nothing more.
25:06But none of them thought it to put together with the railway, which, amazingly, had been invented 700 years earlier.
25:13No.
25:14By Periander of Corinth.
25:16No.
25:17Who had a railway.
25:18Yes, but not steam powered.
25:19Powered by human force.
25:22Moving on.
25:23I know something interesting.
25:27Stevenson's rocket went at 30 miles an hour.
25:32And they were sure that if you went to 30 miles an hour over, you would suffer irreparable brain damage.
25:37So they put fences alongside the track so that passers-by wouldn't have to witness, oh, they're just losing it.
25:46I suspect that the person who came up with that notion wasn't a medical doctor or anything like that.
25:51I suspect it was a fence maker.
25:56It's astonishing what people think will cause illness.
25:59The Romans thought the term buggery caused earthquakes.
26:02Really?
26:04If it's done right, if it's done right.
26:09Lastly, what is the name of the 23rd tallest tree in the world?
26:18Well, like a Christian name or other type of...
26:20Yeah.
26:21No, it's probably Dave or something like that.
26:25Giant redwood.
26:26Well, that is the species of trees, certainly the sequoia, the giant redwood.
26:31But you heard the name, the 23rd tallest...
26:33Lesser giant redwood.
26:35The 24th redwood.
26:38The answer is...
26:39Oh, you'll kick yourselves.
26:41Again?
26:42Well, because it's themed.
26:45The answer is Adam.
26:47Oh!
26:48Remember that far back?
26:49No.
26:51It's one of the 30 named giant sequoias in the giant forest in California and is named, of course, after the first man.
26:58So we come full circle, just in time, for the final score.
27:03Alan.
27:05I've been really interested in time.
27:06You have been so interested.
27:08And you've made many new friends here.
27:11But you've only made minus five new points.
27:14Really?
27:16In third place, with ten, it's John.
27:18And in second place, with eleven, is Hugh.
27:22But our runaway winner, with eighteen QI points, is Danny Baker.
27:26Thank you very much, indeed.
27:27Thank you very much.
27:28Thank you very much.
27:30Thank you very much.
27:32That's about wraps it up for QI.
27:34It only remains for me to thank Danny, Alan, Hugh and John, and to leave you with something quite interesting.
27:40And it's this local tidbit from the Independent.
27:43An army bomb unit was called to investigate a suspicious-looking package outside the territorial army unit in Bristol.
27:49They blew up with a controlled explosion, the package, only to discover that it was a parcel of leaflets explaining how to deal with suspicious packages.
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