- 20 hours ago
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00I do know there's a tribe in China that don't speak at all, they don't talk at all, they just
00:05sing to each other, that's all they do.
00:07Really?
00:08Yeah. If you're courting someone and you want to go out with them or marry them, you have to go
00:12and do a singing audition to his or her parents,
00:15and they decide whether you've got a good enough voice to match them.
00:18They're called the Dong.
00:20The Dong? Oh, there you are.
00:22Yeah, this is tribe.
00:23The Dong.
00:23They sing continually.
00:24Yeah, and they live in two valleys and they're so cut off that the Chinese government put a phone box
00:28in their thing, you know, as an amenity for them all, because no one's got a phone at home.
00:33And they had this phone box and they said, well, we know everybody, they're in the street, why is everyone
00:36to phone?
00:37So they gave up with the phone box and they just put chickens in it instead.
00:41Oh, five very useful QI points there.
00:44That's terrific.
00:45Touching on the phone thing, of course, so not every nation answers the phone, you know, in different nations they
00:48answer in different ways, but the word hello was never meant as a greeting,
00:52it was actually as a result of a New York Times competition, because people would pick up the phone and
00:56the correct way of doing it in the early days of phone was ahoy hoy.
00:59But people were embarrassed by this, so the New York Times said, come on, can we agree upon a word
01:02that we should...
01:03It was the Bell Telephone Company that had a competition, in fact, in order to decide which word should be
01:07used.
01:08But up to that point, hello was just a...
01:09Hello was an expression of surprise.
01:10You'd go, hello, what's this?
01:12Yeah.
01:12It did not mean hi there.
01:13It's a pocket chocolate.
01:14Oh, thank you.
01:14And so it was agreed upon that without embarrassment you could answer the phone by saying hello.
01:20For five extra points then, can you think of another word that was invented by, in this case, a magazine
01:25in the 1950s.
01:27They wanted to find a word for the kind of people who did something which was new in the 50s
01:32and there was no word to describe it.
01:33Well you may be right, didn't you?
01:34Beat generation.
01:35Did you say teenager already?
01:36No, it's not that.
01:38They live out there.
01:40Aliens.
01:40They live out there.
01:41They live out there.
01:42They live out there in camera one and camera two and camera two.
01:45Viewers.
01:45Viewers.
01:46Really?
01:46A viewer?
01:46Radio Times had a competition.
01:48Because there was the word listener for the radio.
01:50But people didn't know whether to call it a watcher or a seer or a looker.
01:54Wow.
01:54It seems obvious to us now that it should be viewer.
01:57George III's last words are quite interesting.
01:59Go on.
02:00I think I shall have another of Mr Bellamy's pork pies.
02:05You should never second guess the almighty, shouldn't you?
02:08No.
02:08Mr Bellamy came in and said, who's had my pie?
02:11You, George.
02:12And then it was awful similar.
02:14He actually died on the lavatory, of course.
02:16Did he?
02:16George III, yes he did.
02:17As did Elvis.
02:19Elvis did as well.
02:21Adders are, of course, known to be vipers but they are virtually harmless.
02:24Their sting or bite is generally no more dangerous than that of a wasp.
02:28More people die from nut allergies and insect stings every year
02:31than are killed by adder bites in a whole century.
02:33The last adder fatality in Britain was a girl of five years old in 1977, I believe.
02:37An angry aardvark on the other hand is a completely different proposition.
02:40It puts up a fierce defence.
02:42Standing upright, slashing with its claws, kicking with its legs,
02:46executing high-speed forward somersaults.
02:48A sort of long-nosed Keanu Reeves.
02:53And so we return to our opening theme with the horrific tale of animal aggression
02:58that was reported in the News of the World.
03:00Kevin Keegan told me last night, after what happened to me, the last...
03:06Hello.
03:06He couldn't tell me that.
03:09I love this.
03:10If it's grammatically incorrect, you actually can't read it out.
03:13LAUGHTER
03:14I can't.
03:16Is that the Terminator game?
03:17Because it does not declare an analogy.
03:19I'm so sorry.
03:20I'm so sorry.
03:23Um...
03:24LAUGHTER
03:25Oh, yeah.
03:26Um...
03:27It's not English.
03:27The quotation marks begin somewhere else in this particular story.
03:32Um...
03:32I'll read it if it's grammatically incorrect.
03:35Right.
03:36Change syntax.
03:37Oh, OK.
03:38You have 20 seconds to comply.
03:40LAUGHTER
03:41LAUGHTER
03:44And...
03:45Robo-petency.
03:47LAUGHTER
03:47Mathematical terminology.
03:49Oh...
03:49Oh, thank you very much.
03:52After what seemed...
03:57LAUGHTER
03:58An age...
04:00I'm sorry.
04:02After that...
04:03It still doesn't make sense.
04:05LAUGHTER
04:08I, frankly, don't see there's anything embarrassing about going into chemists
04:11and asking for a pile treatment friend.
04:13I'm perfectly prepared to go.
04:15Do you find that embarrassing?
04:16No, I go regularly.
04:18LAUGHTER
04:19Enough for products.
04:21Even though...
04:22More embarrassing.
04:22None of them work.
04:24LAUGHTER
04:25None of them works.
04:27LAUGHTER
04:29This happens every week, though, these gentlemen.
04:30It's quite extraordinary.
04:31I'm very tough on the gentlemen here.
04:33Why is it none of them works?
04:34None means not one.
04:35Yeah.
04:35Not one of them works.
04:36You can't say one of them work and one of them don't.
04:39LAUGHTER
04:39One of them works.
04:40One of them doesn't.
04:42LAUGHTER
04:43It's like people who say between you and I, thinking they're being grammatical.
04:46It's between you and me.
04:47But you'd say...
04:48Two don't work.
04:49Two of them don't work.
04:50And one doesn't work.
04:52One...
04:52One...
05:05One...
05:05Is incorrect.
05:07Is incorrect.
05:07Because...
05:08Use one.
05:09All those papers on the table.
05:11One of them works.
05:12What's the pattern?
05:12Or not one of them works.
05:14And not one is none.
05:16None of them works.
05:17I work.
05:17You work.
05:18He works.
05:20He works.
05:21He works.
05:21They work.
05:22Yes.
05:22Third-person senior.
05:23He's from the Southern Hemisphere.
05:25Yeah.
05:26I'm sorry.
05:27We mustn't let this become a grammar lesson for our unfortunate Alan.
05:31We...
05:31We love him, dear.
05:34He's...
05:35He's pig England, but he's not.
05:40It is time for our final scores.
05:42And here they are.
05:43Bill, much as we love you, I'm afraid I have to say, you didn't come first, second or third.
05:48Oh.
05:50What was that then?
05:52Jeremy and Rich came second equal.
05:55But in the lead with 30, it's Alan this week, basically.
06:04I can't understand that either.
06:08Oh, I beg your pardon.
06:09I feel a student's inquiry coming on.
06:12I beg your pardon.
06:12Ladies and gentlemen, I'm very sorry.
06:14I've made a mistake.
06:15I think you'll be amused when you find out what it is.
06:17Well, shall we start again?
06:19That's it.
06:20It's time for the final scores.
06:22And let's see.
06:23Um...
06:24Let's start.
06:24In first equal position, it's Jeremy and Rich with 20 each.
06:31That means...
06:31Well done.
06:32You have to have...
06:33There's a playoff.
06:34No, no.
06:34And one of you has to say something really interesting.
06:37Now, let's leave the audience with a will to live, shall we?
06:41Yeah.
06:43So, in third place therefore, it is Bill with five points, but sadly, trailing a little this
06:49week with minus 30 points.
06:59about a third of the world's languages are spoken in Papua New Guinea the four
07:04million or so inhabitants speak more than 700 languages between them the
07:09official language is English but most people get by in pidgin English known as
07:15talk pigeon and if I tell you that in talk pigeon Prince Charles is rendered
07:22as number one picadini belong mrs. Queen right and that the pigeon for a male
07:31contraceptive is gummy belong cock then you will be able to answer this
07:38question what is the Papua New Guinea pigeon English for helicopter anybody
07:43have a thought it's Sikorsky A-10 C-night reconnaissance craft
07:58wordy birdy landy from the sky down it's that sort of thing I'll tell you what it
08:03is a helicopter is magic mix belong Jesus it's called the magic mix belong Jesus
08:10you mean they had the magic mix before they had the chopper yes that's a weird
08:14thought isn't it
08:19when Fry was at school everyone copied
08:30well he was only at school for two weeks
08:32a joke upon the sky walking highego
08:41yes
08:43yes
08:50right
08:56yes
08:57yes
08:57on the flip side
08:59Which U.S. state could Spam be a good advertisement for?
09:03In fact, I'll accept two U.S. states.
09:06Oh, Hawaii.
09:07One of each.
09:07Hawaii, yes.
09:08Why do you say that?
09:09Spam is very popular in Hawaii.
09:11In fact, they have Spam Carving Contests.
09:14Yeah, absolutely right.
09:15Where they carve different figurines.
09:17Absolutely right.
09:17In Hawaii, it's massively popular.
09:19Is Spam one of these funny made-up words?
09:21Is it an acronym or something?
09:22I think it stands for Spiced Ham, does it not?
09:23Yeah.
09:24Yeah.
09:24Yes, it's all.
09:25It's a Spiced Ham.
09:27There are about 15,000 practising vampires in America today, most of whom live in Seattle.
09:34What are there at least 2,370 of living in Texas?
09:39Assholes.
09:45It is a leopard.
09:47Not a leopard, but that's very close.
09:48It is a cheetah.
09:49Cheetah.
09:50It's a more exciting.
09:51Panther.
09:52Jaguar.
09:52What's the most exciting?
09:53Lion.
09:54India.
09:55Tiger.
09:56We've got that.
09:57We've got that.
09:57It's a tiger.
09:58It's a tiger.
09:58There are 2,000 tigers.
10:00It has the third largest population of tigers in the world.
10:04Tigers?
10:05Yes.
10:05Not wild.
10:06No, not wild.
10:08That's the extraordinary thing.
10:09About a third of all the world's tigers live in Texas.
10:11More than anywhere else except India, in fact.
10:13Nearly all are domestic pets.
10:17In the words of Charles Luckman, the trouble with America is that there are far too many wide-open spaces
10:22surrounded by teeth.
10:24But that's not the half of it.
10:26Two-thirds.
10:27Two-thirds.
10:28Two-thirds, ladies and gentlemen, of all the lawyers in the world live in the USA.
10:33American children get $64 billion every year in pocket money.
10:3810,113 American virgins insured themselves against giving birth to the Messiah at the millennium.
10:48And Americans are more than twice as likely to die from liposuction than in a car crash.
10:55So, the spotlight of doom now falls on our resident American, Mr. Rich Hall, for his specialist subject.
11:01The 50 states of America.
11:02Rich, where is the toilet paper capital of the world?
11:08Flushing, New York.
11:10Oh, good.
11:11It ought to be flushing.
11:12I think it might be in Washington State and it might be the Georgia Pacific Paper Company.
11:18It isn't.
11:19I could give you a hint in that it's a small town of perhaps not much significance except that it
11:25has a very successful football team.
11:27Green Bay, Wisconsin.
11:28Green Bay, Wisconsin is the answer.
11:30Green Bay, Wisconsin.
11:33There it is.
11:34The famous Packers.
11:35Yes.
11:36No jokes, please.
11:37The Packers.
11:37The Packers.
11:38It's the oldest city in the state and home of the legendary Green Bay Packers.
11:41The toilet paper, or lavatory paper as I'd prefer to call it, was invented in 1902 in Green Bay.
11:46But it wasn't until 1935 that they were at last able to advertise it as splinter-free, apparently.
11:52Yes.
11:53Absolutely true.
11:54The Neville Museum in Green Bay recently had an exhibition on the history of lavatory paper called Privy to the
12:00Past Inside America's Most Private Room.
12:03The exhibition explained how leaves, newspaper, and corn cobs were used before lavatory paper, and the prize exhibit was an
12:11ancient Roman communal toilet sponge.
12:15Do you know that the roll in the middle is called the dirter?
12:19Really?
12:20How do you spell that?
12:21D-U-R-D-U-R.
12:24I'll put my snake in here.
12:25D-U-R-D-U-R.
12:26D-U-R-D-U-R.
12:28D-U-R-D-U-R.
12:28D-U-R-D-U-R.
12:29D-U-R-D-U-R.
12:32D-U-R-D-U-R.
12:33Ozone is, in fact, lethal.
12:35It is poisonous.
12:35Although it is a pure form of oxygen, O3, it is actually poisonous.
12:40But it's not only...
12:41Well, also, you're too high up.
12:42It doesn't only exist in the ozone layer.
12:43You can manufacture it on Earth.
12:45It's the action of sunlight on oxygen, which causes the molecules to break up into a threesome, which makes the
12:49ozone molecule.
12:51How do you know that?
12:52Sorry?
12:52Did someone tell you that, or do you know that?
12:55No, I worked it out for myself.
12:58Of course someone told me.
12:59That's what this programme is about.
13:01Very, very good at trampolining as a boy, and he used to go very, very, very hard.
13:07It's Norfolk champion.
13:08Until the accident.
13:11It's landed in suffer.
13:13No, well, it's my business to know these things, Geoff.
13:16That's what I'm here to do, to share with you.
13:17And I have an army of little helpers who've made sure I'm well briefed on these things.
13:22And sometimes I rely on things I've remembered myself.
13:25But in the case of ozone, it is a poisonous gas.
13:28And it smells faintly of geraniums, which is mysterious, because geraniums are not a pure form of oxygen at all.
13:33Also, geraniums don't smell that strong.
13:35Well, there are a lot of different types of geraniums, aren't there?
13:38There are a lot of different types of geraniums.
13:39I've never known anyone who goes, geraniums.
13:45You're probably talking about the kind of geraniums that we mostly see in municipal roundabouts and in people's conservatories and
13:51greenhouses.
13:52I have geraniums in my window box.
13:53Oh, indeed, window boxes is a classic place.
13:54But there are other, there are wild geraniums, of course.
13:56The crane spill is, geranium is from the Greek for a crane or the bird, a crane.
14:01Oddly enough, though, almost all forms of wild geranium are called crane something or stalk something.
14:06But the two that aren't, little Robin and Herb Roberts, smell of mice.
14:12What do mice smell of?
14:13Ozone.
14:14Have you never kept it?
14:15Maybe the ozone actually smells of mice rather than any other kind of geranium.
14:19The fact that it smells of geraniums is interesting, I suppose.
14:22But have you never kept mice as a child?
14:24There's a very particular smell.
14:25I did have a mouse called Andrew, but he smelled of shite and sawdust.
14:28Well, that's it.
14:29It must have been his house.
14:30But there's a nutty, warm, mousy smell in the middle of that shite and sawdust
14:35that is particularly mouse.
14:36My mouse, Snowball, smelt very much of that.
14:39Should we all be returning our geraniums to the wild then
14:42and setting them free in their natural habitat?
14:44And go, run, Tarka, run!
14:46All flowers started out wild in some way, unless they were entirely, you know...
14:50But we had to tame them, because otherwise they were like triffids, weren't they?
14:54Big man-eating geraniums.
14:55Yeah, absolutely.
14:57Absolutely.
14:57A voice in my ear is correcting me and says that actually Geranos from geranium is Latin for crane,
15:02not Greek, but I don't believe him, frankly.
15:06So there.
15:06Is the plural of geranium gerania, then?
15:09Well, you can if you want to.
15:11I think the language actually allows us to use plurals of putting an S on the end of things.
15:14That's our English way.
15:15It's rather dull when people sort of do stadia for stadiums, isn't it?
15:19I don't know, really.
15:20I do find it dull if you...
15:21Cappuccine eye.
15:22Yes, exactly.
15:25Typewriter eye.
15:26Is it referendum or referenda?
15:28You decide.
15:29Hooray!
15:31Well, that's really interesting, because it's a gerund rather than a noun, isn't it?
15:34And whether gerunds have plurals or not is a very interesting point.
15:37Or is it?
15:38No.
15:38I sense that it isn't.
15:41Shakespeare invented the phrase vanish into thin air.
15:43Yes.
15:44And in Hamlet, it's got all the modern clichés.
15:47It's got a cruel to be kind.
15:49Yes.
15:49To the manor born.
15:50To the manor born.
15:51And when Polonius is lecturing Laertes, he says, he says, to thine own self be true, and neither a borrower
15:57nor a lender be.
15:58But disappointingly, he doesn't say, it's not what you know, it's who you know, or a swan can break your
16:02arm.
16:03Yes.
16:03But, to be fair to Shakespeare, who needs no fairness from me, is the most towering genius who ever drew
16:09breath, Polonius is self-consciously a bore, and people, you're supposed to laugh at him.
16:13And what I was finding amusing is people say, ah, neither a borrower nor a lender be, Shakespeare.
16:18I say, well, no, it's not Shakespeare.
16:19He put it in the mouth of a gibbering idiot.
16:21That's the point.
16:22Shakespeare was a generous-spirited man, I'm sure, who borrowed money and lent it.
16:25The idea that somehow it has the seal of Shakespeare's approval not to lend money, I think that's creepy.
16:30I think it's nasty.
16:31I think it's, I can, frankly, find that bigger insult.
16:34I think it's holy Daily Mail.
16:36That's what I am.
16:42Originally devised to give man something to do while hanging around for prostitutes, what happens in the so-called sausage
16:49houses of Buenos Aires?
16:53Yes.
16:54That's what happens.
16:56I've got another thing that's similar to this, if I may.
16:59I don't know what happens in the sausage houses, but the term ragtime, you know, ragtime music, Scott drop in
17:05all that, comes from the fact that all the early ragtime pianists played in brothels.
17:09That's where they played.
17:10And because all the women who worked there had their periods at the same time, there was no, as it
17:18were, business going on for three or four days of the month, and so the pianists would play.
17:23That would be when they do their special, it's piano night tonight, we'll do a real thing, and the best
17:27players would come along.
17:27Look at Alan's face.
17:30Oh, ladies' business.
17:33That is the origin of ragtime, I kid you not.
17:37Well, we'll have to get our little mice again working on that one, it's very interesting.
17:41I said, you know, jazz was also, was it, was it, the name jazz comes similarly from...
17:45Jizz?
17:45Cat houses, not from jizz.
17:50What a pity.
17:51What a pity.
17:53Jizz.
17:55I'll give you jizz, young...
17:57Oh, no, no, no.
17:58Sorry, sorry.
18:00I'll do a couple of them.
18:03Is it a euphemism for penis?
18:05Yes.
18:06No, it's not, oddly enough, in this instance.
18:08It's not masturbating.
18:09The houses themselves are only six feet wide, they are shaped like sausage.
18:14Yeah.
18:14And what happened in it, because of probably a constriction of the size, is the tango.
18:18It started in Argentina in about 1880, and has been described often as making love in a vertical position.
18:25Sausage houses, or casas chorizos, were the long, thin houses of the barrio of San Telmo in Buenos Aires.
18:31And they're often only just six feet wide, just wide enough for tango practice.
18:36There are more than a million species of arthropod, so...
18:41Are we arthropods?
18:42We're not arthropods, odd enough, but I'll tell you what are.
18:45We've got jointed legs.
18:46We've got jointed legs.
18:47We have got jointed legs.
18:48I want to be an arthropod.
18:52How can I be an arthropod?
18:54I'll tell you.
18:54What else do I need?
18:56Is it the number of legs?
18:57It's just the luck of a draw.
18:58It's those joints in, it's the joints, those legs, all joints, we've got one knee.
19:01They seem to have lots, don't they?
19:02Maybe that's what distinguishes it.
19:04Jointed rather than just one.
19:05Yeah, yeah, maybe.
19:07But if you want to be an arthropod, I'm sure you can write off and join an arthropod society
19:10or something like that.
19:11Was the queen mum an arthropod?
19:17The Greek, the spider one, instead, is Arachne, who was this amazing, she was a beautiful woman
19:21who would weave beautifully, and she became rather cocky and boastful, and she said she
19:25could even weave a more beautiful tapestry than Pallas Athene, the goddess of wisdom,
19:30who was also the goddess of weaving, and the gods in Greek mythology hated human boasting
19:34more than anything.
19:35So Athene came down and said, very well, let us both have an equal amount of material,
19:39let us both do a tapestry, and so, Arachne.
19:42Someone played violin, ferociously.
19:44Arachne worked on hers, made this beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, listen, listen, and
19:48you're laughing.
19:49So, probably the god went, all right, yeah, I'll take that bet.
19:52What were they playing for?
19:53Of course they could.
19:53That's why the Greek gods are so wonderful, because they're like us.
19:56They're capricious and they're gameful.
19:57I bet I could beat our god at chess.
19:58Yes.
19:59Well, you're fine.
20:01Well, Capoblanca, the great chess, Capoblanca boasted exactly that, that he could beat
20:04I could take Jesus at swing ball.
20:05Yes.
20:08I'm getting very angry with you now.
20:10Sorry, I'm not listening to good stories.
20:12These are great stories, and you'll learn something.
20:14So, Arachne does her beautiful tapestry, and then Athene does her tapestry, and is infinitely
20:19more beautiful, and she punishes Arachne how you will shrivel into nothing and do nothing
20:24but weave for the rest of your days, which is why spiders are called Arachnids, as they
20:28are, and indeed spiders weave, and that's what they do.
20:30So, again, we've learned something.
20:32Instead of making a cheap joke about the Greek civilisation upon which everything around
20:36us depends, from electricity to clothes to democracy and logic and philosophy and everything,
20:41we take granted that it is so dear to us.
20:44Let's give it a try.
20:52All I'm saying, Stephen, is in swing ball, it's all about the serve.
20:58LAUGHTER
20:58Idi Amin, the Ugandan despot, starved himself King of Scotland.
21:02His other titles included Lord of all the beasts of the earth and the fishes of the sea
21:06and conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in general, and Uganda in particular.
21:13LAUGHTER
21:13True.
21:14I love the subject.
21:15Yes.
21:15That's fantastic.
21:16After he seized power in 1971, he destroyed Uganda's economy and was responsible for the
21:20murder of 300,000 Ugandans.
21:22He also ate people.
21:24None of this was anticipated by the West, who welcomed him in the early years.
21:27The Daily Mirror called him a thoroughly nice man, as gentle as a lamb.
21:32Good luck to you, the Daily Telegraph said.
21:35He dined with Edward Heath and the Queen.
21:37He liked Heath.
21:38He said of Heath, he is like Hitler, really tough, I admire him.
21:42LAUGHTER
21:42But that's just eating it.
21:44LAUGHTER
21:44It'd be fibrous.
21:47The first apples originated in the primeval apple forests of the foothills of the Tien Shan mountains
21:53in Almaly, in Kazakhstan's main city there.
21:56And it means father of apples in the Kazakh language.
21:59Travellers on the great silk routes of Central Asia developed a taste for them
22:03and spat out their pips wherever they went.
22:05Today, apples are the most popular fruit in the world grown anywhere, everywhere in the world.
22:10Did you say spat out?
22:11Except Antarctica.
22:11They spat out the pips, yeah.
22:13They spat out the pips.
22:14But which nationality, as a matter of interest, do you think eats the most?
22:18Apples.
22:18Germans.
22:19No.
22:19Dutch.
22:20No.
22:20Belgians.
22:21No, no, no.
22:40It's Turkey.
22:45It's Turkey.
22:47It's Turkey.
22:50apples per head as Germany, which is the nearest rival.
22:53So you came second by saying Germany.
22:55Something like half their body weight each year.
22:57In terms of numbers of apples, this is equivalent to the total apple consumption
23:00in the United States, despite Turkey, having a quarter of the population.
23:04Nobody knows why.
23:05They like apple ties, that's why. They love it. They drink it.
23:08They clearly do. There is Turkey, as if, again, to prove me right.
23:12The British, despite having contributed some of the most memorable brands of apple,
23:16Cox's, Bramley's, Slackmar Girdle's and Nobby Russets.
23:21We consume fewer apples per head than any other country in Europe.
23:25Half as many as the Swedes.
23:27Really?
23:28Yeah. Fact. Absolute fact.
23:30And do you know what I have this from?
23:31We've got all those ties, though.
23:32I have this from the published statistics.
23:35World apple situation.
23:37All this sort of thing.
23:39Come on, let's start eating more apples.
23:41Turkey, 36 kilograms.
23:42Let's feed Turkey, come on.
23:45Ten kilograms a year is all we can manage.
23:47We've got to eat 36 kilograms a year of apples each.
23:50But we outpace the rest of the world on bananas.
23:52Did you know that a banana is the most traded object in the supermarket?
23:56That's the most common object people buy in the supermarket, a banana.
23:58Did you know, to get a kiwi fruit out of New Zealand,
24:01you have to use more than its own weight of aviation fuel?
24:04Really?
24:05It's my way of thinking.
24:08It's hardly worth it.
24:09I don't like them, do you?
24:11I find it so uninteresting.
24:13It's very environmentally unfound.
24:14You just chuck it.
24:15Chuck it for a plate.
24:16They carry it across.
24:18Yeah.
24:18Someone's from Burma.
24:19A catapult.
24:20But do you know what I really hate?
24:22Coriander.
24:24Really?
24:24What?
24:25It tastes soapy to me.
24:27It's delicious.
24:27It's the king of her.
24:28I always think it's a mistake.
24:30Does anyone want to hear, like, you all like coriander, don't you?
24:33Do you think it's been washed?
24:34What is it with me?
24:35What do you think?
24:36Perhaps you're washing it too thoroughly.
24:40No, I just, I don't know.
24:42And oddly enough, Tom Courtney agrees with me.
24:44So, no.
24:48It's the honey mushroom, of which the largest recorded specimen is, um...
24:52Bigger than a redwood tree.
24:53Yes.
24:54The largest specimen is in the Mallow National Forest in Oregon.
24:57It covers 2,200 acres, ladies and gentlemen.
25:01One mushroom?
25:02And it's between 2,000 and 8,000 years old.
25:04Most of the vast life forms, uh, the last...
25:07Piss and arse and wank.
25:09Sorry.
25:12That trailer for the series.
25:15Piss and arse and wank.
25:17Yes.
25:20He had perfected the telephone by 1871, but couldn't afford to register a patent.
25:25Poor fellow.
25:25Isn't that sad?
25:26Uh, when it was being assessed for a patent in the laboratories of Western Union.
25:31I can't afford a patent.
25:32I can't afford a patent.
25:32Listen.
25:34Tell, tell everybody it was me.
25:38No, I know, because he's talking.
25:39And there's gut.
25:40Yeah.
25:40I know, it is quite interesting, but he's talking.
25:42Hey, who's getting caught?
25:43And no one's going to learn anything.
25:44Because I think he's doing, sort of, mafia type.
25:47I'm not sure.
25:48Well, he's doing very mafia.
25:49Yeah.
25:50Right.
25:50Okay.
25:50No.
25:51No, I'll take...
25:51My idea all along.
25:56Back in the old...
25:57No.
25:57Let's have respect for this.
25:58I am ready to do it.
26:03This poor man.
26:14Now, the normally unchristian Genghis Khan said that the Sami were the only people he would
26:20never fight.
26:22Was this in the spirit of goodwill on the part of Genghis Khan?
26:25I mean, everyone, he was a hard bloke.
26:27He was very hard, Genghis.
26:28Nobody's going to honor upset Father Christmas, are they?
26:31No presents for you.
26:33Yeah.
26:34He's very far away.
26:35I mean, that's one of the main reasons.
26:37Oh, he got all the way up there.
26:38So he got there and looked at them, met them, and said, no way, I'm going to chop them to
26:43pieces.
26:43Well, no, the odd thing is, they pulled a brilliant trick.
26:45If you face a ferocious, marauding warrior who rapes, pillages, kills, takes no prisoners,
26:52and they're determined to fight you, they did a brilliant thing.
26:56Hide.
26:57Yes.
26:58They simply refused to fight.
27:00They've never declared war on anybody.
27:02They've never fought anybody.
27:03They rang the bell and they just melted away into the tunnel.
27:06Exactly.
27:08The same technique we used today with Jehovah's Witnesses.
27:14There's no one in.
27:15There's no one in.
27:16Exactly.
27:17Move.
27:18We'll go to the next town.
27:19He's going.
27:22Very good being above the things.
27:24First you're a caribou, then you're a Mongol horde.
27:30Don't do that.
27:31Well, it's not done.
27:35Now, we're going to just keep your hands above, I think, keep them up here.
27:38For the rest of the lesson.
27:42Who's texting?
27:44Who's texting?
27:45Somebody texting.
27:46That's what happens to the schoolmaster now all the time.
27:49So, we're just going to do the alternative version when I'm told we're ready.
27:52Is this the beginning of the show?
27:54Yeah.
27:54But there's shit everywhere.
27:55I know.
27:56We're just going to hope that it's a bit tighter.
28:01I've got a Christmas tree on there.
28:02Yeah, because...
28:03Fuck, fuck, fuck.
28:03We're pretending...
28:06I need me now.
28:07I need me now.
28:07I need me now.
28:07I need me from a cracker.
28:08There's no cracker.
28:10We're pretending now.
28:11Fuck it.
28:12Fuck it.
28:12You're all off.
28:17You can imagine what life's like on the set of Jonathan Creek, can't you?
28:21Another hissy fit from our star.
28:26Right, we're ready to go.
28:27From the beginning.
28:28Yeah.
28:29So, from the beginning, ladies and gentlemen, I'm afraid if you're not clapped out.
28:31Is it now Easter?
28:32What the fuck?
28:34You'll find out.
28:35A few weeks before Christmas.
28:37Is this the pancake day?
28:39It's a few shopping days.
28:40Welcome to.
28:40Shopping weeks before Christmas.
28:42Do you want a drink?
28:43The Yom Kippur Special.
28:44Yep.
28:53Well, hello and welcome to this special Christmas shopping, coke strip and office lunch edition
29:03of QI, which, as tradition dictates, takes position.
29:05Oh, fucking arse.
29:07Sorry.
29:08So sorry.
29:11No, an Antarctic ten is the term used by scientists in Antarctica to measure the sexual attractiveness
29:17of someone who in the outside world would only be a five, not to be confused with the Antarctic
29:21tern, which is a different kind of bird altogether.
29:29This is going to be a 29-minute program.
29:32What time did we start?
29:34It started at ten past eight.
29:35Wednesday.
29:36Oh, well.
29:37The phrase, for fuck's sake.
29:38Springtime.
29:46Well, who did most of the talking?
29:48I think it was me.
29:50No.
Comments