- 14 hours ago
First broadcast 8th October 2004.
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
Bill Bailey
Jo Brand
Sean Lock
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
Bill Bailey
Jo Brand
Sean Lock
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, and a very good evening to you and welcome to QI.
00:06This is the show where everything is as bright as a new pin and we avoid clichés like the plague.
00:11You won't hear me saying that our four players are champing at the bit and raring to go.
00:16Not in a month of Sundays.
00:17So without further ado, let's meet and greet Bill Bailey, Sean Locke, Joe Brown and Alan Davies.
00:30Now tonight, although this is series B, we're talking about colour, so all of our buzzers are blue.
00:37Bill goes.
00:41Sean goes.
00:46Joe goes.
00:51And Alan goes.
00:54Oh, that's a genuine recording.
01:02You said that without moving your legs.
01:05Right, now, sweeties.
01:07You all have sweeties.
01:08And to help you get into a primary mood, a range of bright colours.
01:12And here's a nice Mediterranean one to get you started with.
01:15What colour was the sky in ancient Greece?
01:21Oh, yeah.
01:24No, if that picture's anything.
01:26Oh, no, no, no, no, no, it wasn't, I'm afraid blue.
01:31I should have, I should have told you that it was ancient Greece and I did.
01:35Yeah, you did.
01:36Yeah, yeah.
01:37And we didn't, they didn't take photographs in ancient Greece, so that might have been.
01:41The photograph was in modern Greece.
01:44Well, I know.
01:45Yes, no, no, you fell into our beauty.
01:47It could be a very good carving.
01:48It could be, I suppose.
01:50Wouldn't it perhaps have been darker blue, because it's sort of faded a little over your time?
01:56Yes, it might have done.
01:57What we call blue, they call something else.
02:00Well, no, the ancient Greeks didn't call anything blue.
02:02They didn't look up, ever.
02:03No, they didn't call anything blue.
02:05They didn't have colours.
02:06No word for blue.
02:06They had colours, but they didn't have a word for blue.
02:08Ah.
02:08No word for blue.
02:09What do they say?
02:10The sky.
02:11Bronze.
02:12Bronze?
02:12Yes, they called it the bronze.
02:14Homer called it bronze colour.
02:16There's no time for these Greeks.
02:18And yet, without them, you wouldn't be here.
02:20Oh, that's so rubbish.
02:22You say this every week.
02:23Because it's true.
02:24Because without logic, mathematics, harmony, democracy, justice...
02:29That's got nothing to do with the people shagging for decades, ending up with me.
02:34There wouldn't be television.
02:35Without television, you are nothing.
02:36I know that better than anything.
02:40There wouldn't be a word for television.
02:42A Greek word.
02:43Well, no, funnily enough, television is a word that offends a lot of classicists, because
02:47it's both Latin and Greek.
02:48It's a hybrid word.
02:49They're so touchy, aren't they?
02:50They are.
02:52They call it a chimeric word, because the tele is Greek and the vision is Latin.
02:56But if there was no Greek, the Saxon word for television would be something like poxy-like.
03:00We know what they are, because the German, it would be Fensin.
03:03Oh, yeah.
03:07Wake up, Sean.
03:09They've got blue in their flag.
03:10What do they call the flag?
03:11That's the modern Greeks.
03:13Oh, the modern Greeks.
03:15It's not that blue didn't exist.
03:16They didn't have a word for it.
03:18I would be here without the ancient Greeks.
03:20I wonder how many Welsh words there are for colours, Alan Davis, when we start on this.
03:25Unfortunately, because of you English people destroying our natural culture and heritage,
03:29I don't know our own language.
03:32Oh, yes.
03:33I must apologise for that.
03:34Cruel imperial invader.
03:37My great-grandfather was forced to flee Cardiff and set up a restaurant in the East End.
03:45Do you want to know something very interesting, Alan?
03:48There is no Welsh word for blue.
03:49Oh, well, I'm sure there is.
03:52There is.
03:52There is.
03:53You just can't say it.
03:54There isn't.
03:56So when did they hand over?
03:57When did ancient Greece hand over to modern Greece?
03:59Well, that's...
04:00There you go.
04:01What?
04:02The first thing we're going to do, the sky is...
04:04Blue, all right?
04:04There you go.
04:06It's a very interesting question.
04:09They used to believe, some Darwinians believed, that the Greeks genuinely,
04:12that's to say, Greeks as ancient as Homer,
04:13who was a very, very long time before even Sophocles and Socrates,
04:17the ancient Greeks that you and I talk about every day,
04:21he...
04:22They actually believed that they hadn't developed a colour sense in the eye,
04:25but it's now essentially perceived that they didn't really find any use
04:30for calling things by different colours,
04:32so much as they did as function...
04:34Yes, darling.
04:35Am I boring you?
04:35Losing the world's celebrity.
04:37I'm so sorry.
04:39I'm so sorry.
04:43Can you just hit that over your buzzer there, Al?
04:46Eh?
04:46Just a...
04:47Oh!
04:48That's just an excerpt from a bronze movie, I think.
04:52Very good.
04:53Very, very good.
04:55Nice.
05:01Now, in a similar spirit, Homer regarded wine, the sea, and sheep
05:05as all being the same colour, which is red.
05:07To us, colours are so obvious that this seems peculiar,
05:10but colour is just one way of describing tones.
05:13Now, look at this picture.
05:14What does a rainbow look like from the other side?
05:17I can't see it.
05:18Slightly different.
05:19Yeah.
05:19Just slightly different.
05:21No, it's not...
05:22It's nice.
05:25But it's not quite the same.
05:27It's a bit of a...
05:28It's all right, look at it.
05:28You'd rather be on the proper side, but it's all right.
05:34I wouldn't bother going round to look at it,
05:36just go, no, it's better, this is a long journey.
05:38You can't really concentrate on it,
05:39because there are people going,
05:40come round, look at it from this side.
05:43But your first answer was correct,
05:44for which you would get some points.
05:45You could only see it from...
05:47From the side that you're on.
05:48From...
05:50Yeah.
05:52Otherwise, you wouldn't have said it.
05:53No, there is a very particular way.
05:55It's to do with where the rain is and where you are.
05:57Where the sun is.
05:57Where the sun is and the rain and where you are.
05:59There has to be some,
06:00and the sun has to be behind you.
06:02Yeah.
06:02Because there's light coming from behind your head,
06:05they're going through a raindrop,
06:07they're bouncing off the back of a raindrop,
06:09and coming back to your eye.
06:11And it can only happen at an angle of 42 degrees,
06:13which is why it's in a...
06:16Oh, yeah.
06:16Can you tell me at what points in time
06:18human beings were actually able to sing a rainbow?
06:21Ah.
06:23Is there a song about singing a rainbow?
06:24I can sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow.
06:28There's loads of different ones, wasn't there?
06:29Grey and grey and grey and grey and grey.
06:31Grey and grey and grey.
06:33I can sing a wood louse.
06:35You know, it's like...
06:36You can sing.
06:38Very good.
06:38Very good.
06:39Very good.
06:41In Estonia, they believe that if you point at a rainbow,
06:43your finger will fall off.
06:44Oh, for God's sake.
06:45I know.
06:48Estonians aren't stupid people, are they?
06:50They aren't.
06:51They're very stumpy, aren't they?
06:52Yeah.
06:56Indigo, incidentally.
06:57What do you know about indigo?
06:58Blue, isn't it?
06:59Purple.
06:59Purple.
07:00It's a funny colour.
07:01Do you remember what it's...
07:01It's the colour of, um...
07:03Silence.
07:04No.
07:06Did you sing that song, incidentally?
07:08No, I can't.
07:09It's the colour of audacity.
07:10See, I'm doing it now.
07:11I'm talking right back.
07:13It's the colour of audacity.
07:14Stop it.
07:16It's a sort of darky blue, isn't it?
07:18No, isn't it a fertility thing?
07:20Well, it's an Indian plant that was used for dying.
07:24In what sense would it be a fertility thing?
07:27It's a colour.
07:28Doesn't it come up on women's legs in circles when they're ready?
07:34That may be...
07:35That may be in Petya girls.
07:36That band.
07:37I wish that you've in Petya girls.
07:42It comes up on women's legs.
07:43Garters, right?
07:44Isn't they red Petya girls?
07:47It's a dark blue dye used for such things as jeans and police uniforms.
07:52Which brings me...
07:53Why, oh why, take the piss out of Newcastle?
07:58They haven't got any toilets.
08:01They've got no toilets.
08:03And they hold it in.
08:04They're so hard, they can hold it in till they go on holiday.
08:08And that's why they talk out the side of their moof like that.
08:12Do it to visit, auntie.
08:13Come up with.
08:15Interesting theory.
08:17Is that wrong?
08:17Is it that the urine is exceptionally pure because of the filtering prices of brown ale?
08:24It used to be very pure.
08:25Right.
08:25But now no longer probably is.
08:27Newcastle was a major exporter of piss.
08:31Ah.
08:31In the 18th century.
08:33What does urine contain?
08:35Ammonia.
08:35Ammonia, good.
08:36Some sort of infection thing.
08:38If a jellyfish stings you, you've got to pee on your leg.
08:43I'll give you a further hint, which was that I introduced the question by saying...
08:46Anesthetic.
08:47Indigo was used for such things as policemen's uniforms, yes.
08:52A dyeing agent.
08:52So ammonia was used in the dyeing industry.
08:56And in North Yorkshire they had these great quarries where they mixed the ammonia and stones and things with woad
09:03and came out with these dyes.
09:06Newcastle's third biggest export after coal and beer was wee-wee.
09:09Do you think you could wee...
09:10Does anyone ever weed into their own mouth?
09:14You could be certain people have done...
09:16Actually, babies do that.
09:17It's very funny.
09:18You know, they're lying wriggling having been changed.
09:21They pee into their mouths and...
09:22We used to have a toilet at school and there was a...
09:25There was a urine up to it there and then a wall and then a window.
09:28Yes.
09:29And it was quite high.
09:30And my friend Danny, the squirt...
09:36Bending right quite far back like that.
09:38Could wee out of the window.
09:40Wow.
09:42Well, the fact of the matter was, in Newcastle people had to pee into buckets which were collected weekly.
09:48The reason that policemen's uniforms used to be such a rich and impressive hue was that they had been whittled
09:54on by Geordies, ultimately.
09:56Have you all enjoyed your sweeties?
09:58Yeah.
09:59Good.
09:59Which colour did you like best?
10:01Red, I think.
10:01Red.
10:02Red.
10:02Now, that's interesting.
10:03Most children, when asked which colour they like most, will say red.
10:06When a food manufacturer wants to colour food red, he uses one of these, in fact.
10:13It's a food additive.
10:14It's this E120 colourant.
10:17My question is, what is E120 made from?
10:20Oh, yeah.
10:22A beetle of some sort.
10:24Oh, no.
10:24I'm afraid of it.
10:26No, we probably were rather predicted you would say that.
10:28It's rather unfair of us, because you're almost right.
10:31It's actually a bug, not a beetle.
10:32Oh, well.
10:34What's the difference in a bug and a beetle, then?
10:36Oh, don't ask me that.
10:37You should remember, of all people, because we covered it, um...
10:40Bugs suck things.
10:41We covered it last year.
10:42Well done, you did remember.
10:43Five points for remembering.
10:44What do beetles do?
10:45They don't suck.
10:46Well, they're an order of insects.
10:48If they're drinking a straw, and they'll look at you like, yeah.
10:52It's not a bug, all right?
10:54The point is, Joe Bug, is not just American slang for any insect.
10:58It's a specific scientific word.
10:59It has piercing mouthparts.
11:01Oh, and mandibles.
11:03Yes.
11:03Yes, mandibles.
11:04You answered to that like it was your nickname.
11:08Mandibles, you went, yes.
11:11How could I have this?
11:12But, um...
11:13What is his nickname?
11:14It's called.
11:14Mandibles Fry.
11:15But the point about this stuff, which is also called...
11:19Cochineal.
11:19Cochineal, yes.
11:20You can get some points back for that, of course.
11:21Is that it is made from crushed insects.
11:24They're called Dactylopius coccus, um, and they're a kind of bug, as I say,
11:29and it takes about 70,000 of them to make one pound of cochineal.
11:33We've moved away from cochineal because those people who don't like eating animals
11:36felt they were being conned by things that were supposedly vegetarian,
11:39like a team of Smarties, when it turned out they had dead animals in them.
11:42And, of course, they're not kosher.
11:43E-122, which we now use, except in Smarties.
11:47In Smarties, you're still eating the crushed bugs.
11:49I'm eating crushed bugs.
11:50Crushed bugs, yeah, with the red ones.
11:52But E-122 is very bad if you have an allergy to aspirin, for example.
11:56It makes some people go very blotchy.
11:57It makes some people hyperactive.
11:58And, er, so it's an interesting issue.
12:01Can I stop there?
12:02Yep.
12:03Change my mind.
12:04I think I prefer green.
12:05Oh, well, there you are.
12:06Never mind.
12:07Oh.
12:09Where did the whole notion of crushing beetles to get their colouring from, I mean, arise?
12:14When did people think, this, these foods are just not the right colour?
12:17I need a bit more pizzazz in my, in my lunch.
12:20Well, I think you only need, sort of, imagine, don't you?
12:22I mean, you know, you're pounding maize in, in Mexico, which is where this thing sort of
12:26started.
12:26Right.
12:26And, and a few of these beetles that live, they're all over the place.
12:30Accidentally fall in.
12:31And while you're pounding it, it goes all a rather beautiful pink colour.
12:33Wait a minute.
12:33And your husband says, I like this new maize cake, this, this pink polenta.
12:37They didn't start, like, crushing animals and slowly work their way down to beetles.
12:40They were like, crushing a squirrel.
12:42No, that's no good, that colour.
12:45Next animal.
12:47That's all I made.
12:47Oh, look.
12:48You set your buzzer off.
12:50That's quite amazing.
12:50Also, they didn't say, I love this pink polenta.
12:53They said, the pink polenta, I love it.
12:57So you think that...
12:59I want some of my pink polenta.
13:01So you think this happened after the Spanish colonisation of Mexico?
13:07Oh, Alan.
13:10Oh, what?
13:11He got you.
13:12He got you.
13:12That was a good one.
13:14That's off.
13:15Are you telling me the Incas talk like Oxbridge graduates?
13:19How old have they talked?
13:20I'm just going up to finish off Machu Picchu.
13:24Can you help me with these stones?
13:25It was really the Aztecs we were concerned with.
13:28But, in either case, never mind.
13:31Never felt like your weapon's not big enough.
13:33No.
13:34Nonsense, nonsense.
13:35No.
13:36No.
13:36Let's move from bugs to beetles.
13:40Lovely big polenta.
13:42He's short.
13:44Beetle fancies, as you probably know, are called...
13:49Colliopterists.
13:49Very good.
13:50Colliopterists.
13:51He'll give you five points.
13:52Thank you very much.
13:53Press him on how the hell he knows that.
13:55Yeah.
13:56Well, because when I was a child, I...
13:58In Alan's world, knowing something is a kind of freakish weird...
14:00It's just that you have to explain.
14:02So, could you explain how many knows something?
14:06I would love to know the mystery of this.
14:09Well, welcome to my world of knowing.
14:12The wonderful world of looking up things in books.
14:15You looked it up in a...
14:16No, no, because when I was a kid, I collected butterflies.
14:19What were you called then?
14:21What was that?
14:21A lipidopterist.
14:23A lipidopterist.
14:23I was a lipidopterist.
14:24Not a leopard collector, as you may have thought.
14:27You sort of run out and kind of kill them yourself.
14:29No, you cut them in a net, and then you put them in a bottle with chloroform, and they gradually...
14:33Oh, no, it's not...
14:34It's cruel.
14:34That's not very nice.
14:35Were you a lipidopterist as well?
14:38I did...
14:39I did a bit of bug hunting, yes.
14:41Did you?
14:42I can see you running along with a big net.
14:54I did a bit of that when I was a young man, yeah.
15:12Or a metallurgist.
15:12Yeah.
15:13Yeah, loser, we got it.
15:16No.
15:17Polyopterists...
15:18Who love people.
15:19Polyopterists are extremely busy people, far too busy to sit and watch television panellists
15:23dithering about, so we have to push on a bit if we want to keep them on board, because
15:27they're very, very busy.
15:28How long is it since anyone discovered a new type of beetle?
15:32Eight seconds.
15:34Eight seconds is quite recent, but it's not far, aren't you?
15:39Seven hundred years.
15:41No.
15:42No.
15:43No.
15:44Look, no one is forcing you to play this game.
15:45You're a killer.
15:50You're a killer.
15:50You are.
15:51Come on, I released them into the wild after they've killed them.
15:55Actually, that's it.
15:56It's in supreme irony that moths got into the collection and ate them all.
16:02The answer is, well, it could be five minutes.
16:04It's about an hour.
16:05Since 1700, they reckon that a new species was discovered on average at the rate of about
16:12one new species every six hours, but it's accelerated.
16:14There may be as many as 10 million different species of beetle, and only 2,000 coleopterists
16:21in the world, supposedly.
16:22So many beetles, just not enough time.
16:28The amazing thing about beetles, two-thirds of all insects are beetles, but even more,
16:34if you put all examples of plants and animal species in a row, every fifth one would be
16:40a beetle.
16:41Every tenth one would be a weevil, as it happens.
16:44So, we come to the next question.
16:45Which is the odd one out of these three, a petiliiidae, beetle, a camel, or the Sultan
16:50of Brunei?
16:55A petiliiidae beetle.
16:56It is.
16:57Correct.
16:58You get the points.
16:59Can you elaborate?
17:00Um, well, I don't want to show off.
17:05So, the camel stores water in its hub.
17:08Well, I know the Sultan of Brunei.
17:09What do we know about the Sultan of Brunei?
17:10What do we know about the Sultan of Brunei?
17:11I don't even know.
17:12You don't know.
17:12He can afford to pay pop stars to dance around in their knickers.
17:16Indeed he can.
17:16He's that rich.
17:16He's that rich.
17:18He's that rich.
17:18Now, what do rich people have in common with camels?
17:21The ability to sustain water in their pumps.
17:25The inability.
17:25No!
17:27Yes.
17:27They're f***ing miserable all the time.
17:31What can they not do?
17:32Pass through the eye of a needle.
17:33Does heaven pass through the eye of a needle?
17:35It's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the
17:38kingdom of heaven.
17:38Yes, it is.
17:39So, the point is, this little beetle is so small it can literally go through the eye of a needle,
17:42unlike a camel or a rich person.
17:44Oh.
17:44Oh.
17:45And they come in very, very varying sizes, beetles.
17:48The biggest one, Titanus giganta, is huge.
17:52We have a sample of the second biggest one.
17:54This is the Hercules beetle.
17:57This is from the Natural History Museum in London.
17:59How many examples of beetle do you think they have there?
18:02How many different?
18:04820,000.
18:05No, it's a lot more.
18:06It's 12 million.
18:07Oh.
18:08They have 12 million.
18:09Finally, we plunge into the land that knowledge forgot.
18:13Daviesland, the place we call general ignorance.
18:16So, fingers on buzzers please for one last chance to avoid looking like a big Charlie's.
18:22Firstly, and returning to our colour theme, what rhymes with orange?
18:28Oh.
18:35Nothing.
18:36Oh.
18:39Oh, lordy bless.
18:40Flange.
18:42Flange?
18:44Orange.
18:46Orange.
18:47Can you think of any words that might rhyme with it?
18:49Orange.
18:50Orange would rhyme with it.
18:52Yeah.
18:52I don't think there is such a thing as borange.
18:54There's borange.
18:54No, borange, borange.
18:56Lossies.
18:57That's what you suck up.
19:00So, Locke's making it up to them.
19:04They're terribly close because there's blorange.
19:06Blorange?
19:07It's a place.
19:08Anyone know where blorange is?
19:10Well, it sounds like it's in Belgium.
19:12No, closer to home.
19:14Blorange.
19:15Where is it?
19:17It is.
19:18It overlooks Abergavenny.
19:19It has a famous car park.
19:24It has a horse is buried, though.
19:27A famous horse called Fox Hunter.
19:29There's also gorange.
19:32You could say corage with a cold.
19:33Yeah.
19:34Yes.
19:34Corage.
19:35I've got a cold.
19:36I've got some corage.
19:38Lester Piggott.
19:39He goes, well, where's the breakfast, Lester?
19:41I'm in coins.
19:41Orange.
19:42Pips and coins.
19:43I'm sure that Richard Whiteley, on countdown, said that nothing rhymes with orange.
19:48He may well have done, but we are here to explode the myths of the Whiteleys.
19:52Vote Richard Whiteley.
19:54I saw him interviewing two bluebell dancers once.
19:57Really?
19:58I thought he was going to have a coronary.
20:01Could I have two from the top?
20:03I would.
20:06Very good.
20:08Here we are.
20:09Gorange.
20:10What's his surname?
20:10It's probably the same route as Goering.
20:13My prep school tailors were called Gorange.
20:15Really?
20:15But they're not.
20:16Really?
20:16We get our uniforms made, yeah.
20:21For like a suit you wear when you're five.
20:25Were you born in the 1850s?
20:29I shall measure up, young sir, with shorts and caps.
20:34A particular outfitter, who was the school outfit, which was a tailoring shop, or the outfit school outfit, called Gorange.
20:41Which side does young sir dress up?
20:44There's nothing really to worry about.
20:45You should bear that, it's written on the toilet wall.
20:49Oh, jeez.
20:50Oh, heavens.
20:51Why did I keep a mention of that?
20:53That's got to get measured up for sure.
20:57Lord!
20:58Would you like to wear a cravat on the cross-country run?
21:02Oh, you're all such beasts.
21:13Well, anyway, Gorange is a splendid in his surname.
21:15I suggest a...
21:16I suggest a...
21:16I suggest a cammer band for geography.
21:17Is this what I'm talking about?
21:21Is this what I'm talking about?
21:23Is this what I'm talking about?
21:24Is this what I'm talking about?
21:25What the...?
21:26I say...
21:29I would rather like this pink polentard.
21:34I feel lot of, is it?
21:36Gorange.
21:37Gorange is the splendid English surname of, amongst others, Henry Honeychurch Gorange,
21:41who brought Cleopatra's Needle to New York Central Park,
21:44in case you didn't know.
21:45Anyway, what colour, fingers on buzzers,
21:48what colour is the planet Mars?
21:51Yes, Jo.
21:52It's red.
21:53Oh, no.
21:55I knew that was going to happen.
21:57It may be called the red planet, but it isn't red.
21:59I'm afraid it's actually brown.
22:00Rusty brown.
22:01It's browny brown, really.
22:02No, it only appears red sometimes
22:04because of the dust in the atmosphere.
22:07In fact, its landscape is a very boring brown colour.
22:10Why are we going there?
22:11What's the f***ing point?
22:12Oh, you are just unbelievable.
22:17You go, ah, I see.
22:19I see.
22:20Yes.
22:21I see.
22:22Right.
22:23I refuse to rise to debate.
22:26All right.
22:27According to New Scientist, actually,
22:29the most recent pictures of Mars issued by NASA
22:31were tweaked by sort of, you know,
22:35by using filters and Photoshop.
22:37Britney Spears on it.
22:38In order to conform...
22:39LAUGHTER
22:40They were tweaked in order to conform
22:42with our expectations of its redness.
22:44Next, apropos of absolutely nothing at all,
22:47a topical one.
22:48What prevented Henry VIII from marrying Lord Pembroke?
22:51Oh, yeah.
22:54Lady Pembroke.
22:57Very good.
22:59Yeah.
23:01Oh.
23:01Oh.
23:02Yes.
23:06Because gay marriages were illegal.
23:08Oh, sorry.
23:10No.
23:14No.
23:14No, the fact is,
23:15he actually did marry Lord Pembroke, eventually.
23:17He married Lord Pembroke?
23:18Yes, he did.
23:19Was Lord Pembroke a nickname for...
23:21A lady.
23:22A lady.
23:23Lord Pembroke was certainly a lady,
23:24but absolutely, it was Anne Boleyn, in fact.
23:26Oh, right.
23:26She was married to Catherine O'errigan at the time,
23:28and the, the, uh, was not head of the church.
23:29She disguised herself as a man
23:31to sneak into the King's Chamber.
23:33No.
23:33She was just very miffed at not being able to marry.
23:35You sound like you're in a school play, then.
23:38LAUGHTER
23:39She disguised herself as a man.
23:41Really?
23:42You're not supposed to be an actor.
23:44Have you never seen Jonathan Cree?
23:46Um, no.
23:50She disguised herself as a man
23:51to speak into the King's Chamber.
23:54LAUGHTER
23:59Yes, what happened was, he was married to Catherine O'errigan,
24:02the Pope was head of the church in England
24:04and elsewhere in Europe,
24:06and Anne Boleyn was very annoyed,
24:08so he, to shut her up, he offered her a title,
24:10and he, at first, he offered an ordinary title.
24:11He said, no, I want a proper title,
24:12so he gave her the Marquisate of Pembroke,
24:15so she became the Marquis of Pembroke,
24:16which is a male title, of course.
24:18But then, eventually, he did overcome it
24:19and declared that his marriage to Catherine O'errigan
24:21was null and void and separated from Rome
24:23and married Anne Boleyn,
24:24and then cut her head off, of course.
24:26Anyway, from Marquis's to mammals,
24:28I'm one, you're one, Lord Pembroke.
24:30She was one as well.
24:31We're all mammals.
24:31We come in a wide variety of colours,
24:33white rhinos, black panthers, brown bears...
24:35Whales.
24:36...red kangaroos, blue whales, pink elephants, ha-ha.
24:39But no, there are...
24:40Name a green mammal.
24:43Frog, frog.
24:46Now name a green mammal!
24:53I hate some green cow.
24:58Yes, Jim.
25:00A budgie.
25:01Now name a green mammal.
25:04I'm getting loud to it.
25:05OK, a rotten badger.
25:10Excellent.
25:10Excellent.
25:10We've all saved them.
25:12Yes, good one.
25:13Green mammal.
25:14There are none.
25:15Is that a mammal?
25:16Comedian's a lizard.
25:17A reptile.
25:18A really, really jealous shrew.
25:22No, there are none.
25:23They're very common to birds, reptiles, fish,
25:26but there are no green mammals.
25:28There is a sloth that looks green,
25:29but it's actually the algae that grow in its fur,
25:31but that's the only one that's biting.
25:32Well, because it's so slow-moving,
25:34the moss grows over it.
25:36There's so much of sloth.
25:38Exactly.
25:39Lastly, we come full circle
25:40to the mad, mad world, Alan,
25:43of ancient Greece.
25:48Why wouldn't an ancient Greek baker mind
25:53if you told him where he could stick his baguette?
25:58Sure.
25:58Because they were a bit like that.
26:03Do you know what I mean?
26:05Do you know?
26:05I think we all know.
26:06I'm not going to say it.
26:08Because you can't these days.
26:09Oh, very hot water.
26:11I always thought it was Bertrand Russell
26:13talking then for a minute.
26:16As a pleasuring device?
26:17A bread dildo.
26:18A dildo.
26:19A bread dildo is the right answer.
26:20They made their dildos out of bread in Greece.
26:23I know that most women would have gone
26:24for the eating option.
26:28Did someone write that down?
26:30Is that written down in ancient Greek?
26:32It's only discovered in 1987, actually.
26:34It's a very recent discovery.
26:36Who discovered it?
26:37It was a Greek baker frozen in a glacier.
26:39With a...
26:44LAUGHTER
26:50He was handing the baton of ancient Greece to modern people.
26:54LAUGHTER
26:55It's time for the final reckoning.
26:58I shall give scores.
26:59Now, just in last, fourth place.
27:02Just with minus 22 is Alan Davies.
27:05But a brilliant performance and we thank you for it.
27:08In third place with minus 20 is Joe Brand.
27:11LAUGHTER
27:12In second place with a huge plus 7 is Bill.
27:16But way up in front with 17 is Sean Lock, ladies and gentlemen.
27:20APPLAUSE
27:28Well, my thanks go to Bill, Sean, Joe and Alan.
27:31I'm going to leave you with two quite interesting remarks
27:33on the subject of colour.
27:34The first is from Frank Borman, the Apollo 8 astronaut.
27:37My experience helped me to see how isolated and fragile the Earth really is.
27:42It was also beautiful.
27:43It was the only object in the entire universe that was neither black nor white.
27:48And the second is from former US President Gerald Ford.
27:51Ronald Reagan doesn't dye his hair.
27:53He's just prematurely orange.
27:55LAUGHTER
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