- 6 hours ago
First broadcast 20th October 2006.
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
Clive Anderson
Sean Lock
Andy Parsons
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
Clive Anderson
Sean Lock
Andy Parsons
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, and welcome to QI.
00:13Coming to you tonight from the other side.
00:20The hilly-born whence no traveller returns, the darkling plain, the place we go when we are.
00:31Dead.
00:33But before we descend into darkness, it's time to meet the panel.
00:37The bucket-kicking Clive Anderson.
00:42The clog-popping Sean Locke.
00:48The mortal choral off-shuffling Andy Parson.
00:54And our very own Alan pushing up the Davies.
01:03And tonight the buzzers are suitably dolorous.
01:08Clive goes.
01:11Sean goes.
01:18Andy goes.
01:23And Alan goes.
01:26Always look like a spider.
01:33So let's start with something terrifying.
01:36This is a marmot.
01:38What?
01:39A pot-bellied member of the squirrel family is about the size of a cat and squeaks loudly when anxious
01:45or alarmed.
01:47Ritz.
01:47They're eating Ritz biscuits.
01:48They seem to be, don't they?
01:49Given the right conditions, it's a dangerous, a deadly, merciless killer of humans.
01:55How?
01:59Clive.
02:00Lead piping in the billiard room.
02:04Curdled marmot.
02:06Are these the ones that live in the Gobi Desert?
02:09They're Mongolian and Russian stuff.
02:11I've seen loads of these and I did a railway journey for the BBC all enough.
02:14They scurry around.
02:15None of them killed any humans in front of me while they're doing that.
02:18No, and yep, they're more responsible for death than any other animal.
02:21Do they get caught up in machinery somehow?
02:23No.
02:24The Maxim or the marmot.
02:27Is it to do with the Ritz crackers?
02:29They sort of spit on the Ritz crackers, put them all back into the packet.
02:35Do you know, oddly Andy, the spitting part is good.
02:38When they spit and cough, billions die.
02:42Well, millions.
02:42Are they carriers of TB, like badgers?
02:45Slague.
02:46Plague is the right answer.
02:47They've got the plague.
02:48They are the actual original animal source.
02:52Not the rats?
02:53No, they cough and spit onto the fleas to catch the disease which then goes to the rats,
02:58which then came to Europe and wiped out half the population of Europe in the 14th century.
03:02The problem with them coughing is obviously the fact that they've got those dry crackers.
03:07Just give them a drink of water next to it, have the biscuit, little water, no coughing.
03:14Do you know why it's called bubonic?
03:16Do you know why those big round things come up under your...
03:19The buboes, aren't you?
03:20The buboes.
03:20But the buboe itself actually comes from the Greek bubon, which is...
03:23Groin.
03:24Groin.
03:24One of the areas where you get a big swelling when you get the bubonic plague.
03:28How often?
03:29Yes, sorry.
03:31Not as often as I used to, I'm sorry.
03:35Given that's all they've got to do is just paint that red cross on, they've not done a great job,
03:40have they?
03:42What's wrong with that?
03:43Well, it's well to the left, isn't it there?
03:44You know, if all you've got to do all day is go around doing a red cross, you'd have more
03:48pride in your work.
03:49You're not...
03:50You're not hanging around doing it, are you?
03:51There's plague in here.
03:52Let's...
03:53Oh, I'll just...
03:53Yeah, right.
03:54Really long stick, they do.
03:57You're just waiting for a marmot to come flying out...
03:59Knock on the door and spit at you.
04:01Anyway, yes, almost a million Britons fell victim to the Black Death.
04:04But, what illness do British doctors now treat more than any other?
04:11The widest disease in these sequels is normally dental caries, but I suppose dentists treat that rather than doctors.
04:17Rather than doctors, yes.
04:18This is doctors specifically.
04:19Is it cancer?
04:20Oh dear, no, it's not cancer.
04:22No, no, no, no.
04:24Flu.
04:25Nor is it flu.
04:31Is it a little niggle that you're not quite sure what it is?
04:37But you think it'll be enough to keep you off work for the rest of the world?
04:433,100,000 people in Britain every year.
04:47Pregnancy?
04:49Pregnancy isn't a disease, Alan.
04:51It would be if Alan got it.
04:54I would be surprised.
04:57I'll give you a clue, then. It begins with D.
05:00Death.
05:01No.
05:02Doctors don't treat death.
05:05Dermatitis.
05:05Dermatitis.
05:06Not deafness, not dermatitis.
05:07Give us a second letter.
05:10That's going to be a vowel.
05:11It sounds like.
05:14It sounds like, forgive me father for I have sinned.
05:18Dinned.
05:18No, no, no.
05:21Don, confession.
05:22Don, confession.
05:23It sounds like confession.
05:24Don, confession.
05:25Depression.
05:26Thank you very much indeed.
05:30Well done.
05:35Between seven and ten percent of women suffer from depression and about three to five percent of men.
05:40This is what they call unipolar depression, i.e. not manic depression.
05:43If you're going to be depressed, you're luckier if you get manic depression than if you just get plain depression
05:49because you get the upside of mania.
05:50I can conquer the world.
05:52That kind of feeling.
05:52Exactly.
05:54But now you can't say manic depression, can you?
05:55You've got to say bipolar disorder now, haven't you?
05:57Isn't that right?
05:58Actually, the best people on the subject, Kay Redfield Jameson in America, for example.
06:03That's a brilliant book.
06:04An Unquiet Mind.
06:05An Unquiet Mind is a fantastic, she calls a manic depression or madness.
06:09She's seriously manic depressive, takes a lot of lithium.
06:12She's also a professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University.
06:15Do depressed people mind what you call them?
06:17Generally speaking, not to be honest, one of the greatest advantages of certainly manic depression is a sense of humour.
06:22It kind of keeps you going because of the loony things you do when you're manic.
06:24There was one person who took apart a car, bit by bit, on a hue era, laid out a sheet,
06:30took apart the engine,
06:32sort of did outlines around each part, numbered them, named them, everything was fantastic.
06:37Then, of course, you got the mood swing and was depressed and kicked it all the way down.
06:41The whole thing went to pieces, and so no car, basically.
06:46Bits everywhere.
06:47But that's bipolar depression.
06:48What about just generally feeling miserable and sad about life?
06:51Does that count as depression?
06:52It's arguably because of a very, very difficult condition to diagnose.
06:56And people who are cynical about it and think, oh, just walk it off, you know.
07:00There is, of course, some truth in that, in as much as exercise is shown to be incredibly helpful for
07:04depression.
07:05Is that the theory with the, you know, you go into a chemist and you can only buy a certain
07:09amount of paracetamol,
07:10because they're worried that you're going to take too much of it.
07:13You could always walk down the street, obviously, and then go to the next chemist and buy another option.
07:17Are they hoping that that little walk will make you think, oh, actually, life's not that bad.
07:23You could pass an off license and a strip club.
07:26I'd hope we could cheer you up.
07:27You see someone fall in the canal.
07:31Swimming with dolphins?
07:32That's apparently a very good treatment for depression.
07:34Not if they reject you.
07:44That takes you to another level.
07:47The problem is often the other way round is severe bruising because the dolphins get too interested in you.
07:51And because their penises are a foot long and S-shaped, you can be in serious trouble.
07:56And that's just the ladies.
07:59But while on subject of depression, what is the saddest song you know?
08:03Otis Redding's sad song.
08:06That's going to be sad.
08:07I've always saw something.
08:08That song, Labour used it, but D-Room, things can only get better.
08:13Because if you're in a situation where things can only get better, you're seriously screwed up, aren't you?
08:18Well, there is a song which has caused suicide.
08:21Oh, I know what it is.
08:22A bit of holiday, isn't it?
08:23Say it, you know it.
08:24I know, but...
08:25She sang it.
08:25She didn't write it.
08:26It sounds like a new order.
08:27Say that again.
08:28Strange Fruit.
08:30Not Strange Fruit.
08:30That is a great song, Strange Fruit.
08:32She said it.
08:33Gloomy Sunday.
08:34Well done.
08:35And what is it?
08:35Two points.
08:38Yeah.
08:42Uh, Gloomy Sunday.
08:46If you promise not to hurl yourself off the edge of the set, I will allow you to hear
08:51a little of Gloomy Sunday sung by Miss Billie Holiday.
08:58Sunday is gloomy.
08:59Oh, jeez.
09:03Hours are snumberless.
09:10You've always got the answer to.
09:13There you know what to do, isn't it?
09:15I have to say, I've just been looking at the scoreboard at the moment, the audience is winning.
09:22Monday is supposed to be the most depressing day of the week.
09:24Imagine you'd had a Sunday like that, and you had Monday like that.
09:28No, but this is a song written by one Resho Suresh in 1933, a Hungarian, inspired by the
09:33end of a relationship.
09:34It became an instant hit, and so flush with success, he went to his girlfriend and suggested
09:39they get back together.
09:40A day later, she poisoned herself, leaving a two-word suicide note.
09:45Gloomy Sunday.
09:47Oh, really?
09:47Yeah.
09:48A hundred suicides, apparently, have been linked to the song.
09:50The New York Times had this great big headline, hundreds of Hungarians kill themselves under
09:54the influence of a song.
09:55Soon Americans were joining them, and the ghoulish reputation of the Hungarian suicide
10:00song touched almost every country where it was played.
10:03Victims included teenagers and octogenarians.
10:06One man heard a beggar humming the song, immediately gave him all his possessions, jumped to his death
10:10off a bridge.
10:12That's great busking, isn't it?
10:16The composer himself ended it all by throwing himself from his apartment window in 1968,
10:20at the age of 70.
10:22Well, that was a horrible mess, wasn't it?
10:24A 70-year-old hitting the pavement.
10:27Why is that worse than anyone else?
10:29Well, you know, the young person's got a bit of fatten on them, but there's something
10:32to cushion the splats, but this would just be the bones and skin just drunk.
10:38Like a flag of crisps hitting the pavement.
10:42You don't do that at 70, that's not right.
10:45There was one bloke, wasn't there?
10:46He was on the first floor, split up with his missus.
10:48She left him, went downstairs, walked out.
10:51He jumped out the window to commit suicide.
10:53He lands on her.
10:54She dies.
10:54He lives.
10:55But you think, great.
10:56And he went on, didn't he?
10:57That was a famous case.
10:59I know.
11:01I think the word is result.
11:05A lot of people come by throwing themselves off of a beachy head.
11:08There are dozens of other cliffs, but people, they're like lemmings, almost literally like
11:12lemmings.
11:12They want to just go somewhere famous to do it.
11:15So it's either the Northern Line or beachy head.
11:18I went to beachy head.
11:19I went to beachy head very early in the morning.
11:20Right?
11:21Not to commit suicide.
11:22No.
11:23I'd gone to a fishmonger's, which wasn't open, in east form.
11:26Funny enough, you'd think the fishmonger'd open early.
11:28It didn't open until 10.
11:29What's going on?
11:31Anyway, listen round.
11:35Yes.
11:38All right, Alfred.
11:39Nice to see you in.
11:41So I thought I'd go out to beachy head, just see what it's like.
11:44And there was these two guys, sort of sentinels.
11:46One of them had a guitar, and the other had a flute.
11:48And I was wandering along, and they sort of went, hi, hi, like this.
11:52And I went, all right.
11:54I'm not cheerful.
11:55Grumpy solter.
11:56And eventually they sort of go, hi, and they sort of beckoned me over.
12:00And they said, everything all right?
12:00And I said, yeah, fine.
12:01And they said, you're not thinking of...
12:04Not exactly that, but they were there to prevent people.
12:07Bless them.
12:08Yeah, but they get this.
12:09This is it.
12:10I said, well, how often are you here?
12:11They said, are we once a week?
12:13I said, no, no.
12:14Even better.
12:15Even better.
12:16I said, how long are you here for?
12:17They said, about an hour.
12:20This man, Ceres, anyway.
12:21The BBC banned the song until the year 2002.
12:25It's only just been allowed to be played.
12:27That is how seriously people take this suicide song.
12:30Anyway, that's probably enough gloom.
12:32Let's play a game.
12:34Time for killer mushroom roulette.
12:37You wonder what the skull and crossbows cards on your table were for?
12:41Yes.
12:42I'm going to show you on screen four types of mushroom.
12:46Numbered one to four.
12:47All you're going to do is write down the number of the one you may safely eat.
12:51Is it one, death cat?
12:53Two, peppery milk cat?
12:55Three, destroying angel?
12:57Or four, trumpet of death?
13:00One of them is safe to eat.
13:03Highly nutritious and very pleasant.
13:04The others will kill you!
13:06Can we try them all first?
13:08You get one each.
13:09Somebody told me there are very, very few killer mushrooms.
13:13There are very few.
13:14And we're so ludicrously scared of these.
13:16We are.
13:16There are 3,500 species of mushrooms in the UK.
13:20About 100 are poisonous and only 15 of those are lethal.
13:23One of them I'm sure I've seen in Carluccio's.
13:26That's very possible.
13:27So I've gone for that.
13:27Alright, so what have you written there?
13:29I've written number one.
13:30So you think death cat number one you can eat?
13:32The reason being, am I allowed to give you a reason?
13:33Please do.
13:34It looks a bit, I think, like a penis.
13:39And you can safely eat a penis, can't you?
13:42Well, that wasn't going to be my logic, but yes.
13:48Well, I'm afraid I've come for the same answer, I'm afraid,
13:50but I thought the trumpet of death looked like a penis,
13:52but there it is.
13:55That's a worrying lie.
13:56What can I say?
13:57What have you got there, Sean?
13:59Number one.
13:59Number one as well?
14:00I've gone for number four.
14:02Well, the ten points go to Alan Davies.
14:08Very good.
14:11You all use the same kind of logic,
14:13knowing that the one that would sound deadly is probably good,
14:16but unfortunately you all went to the death cabin.
14:18In fact, it's the trumpet of death that is the one.
14:20It's also called a black moral, or a horn of plenty,
14:23and it's delicious and nutty.
14:24That wouldn't be on a menu.
14:25Trumpet of death.
14:28You're quite right, though.
14:29It's very, very rad.
14:30The last recorded death by mushroom in Britain is too long ago
14:33for anyone to basically be confident about.
14:36They are pretty nasty.
14:37They'll destroy your liver and kidney,
14:38particularly the death cap and the destroying angel.
14:41Do you have to eat a lot of them?
14:42Quite a few, actually, yeah.
14:43But the thing is, there's no known antidote.
14:45The peppery milk cap is more likely to be gastric.
14:47You'll have a really bad time, but it can kill if you have a lot of those.
14:50Despite its black color, the trumpet of death is very tasty
14:53and goes particularly well with fish.
14:55Italians call it the poor man's truffle.
14:58What did the Nazis use trumpets of Jericho for?
15:02Was it lift music?
15:05No, it wasn't.
15:07Did they come up with some foul weapon that was to bring down the walls of cities and towns and
15:12things?
15:12Oh, dear.
15:13I know, dear.
15:15I'm afraid...
15:15I kind of thought that was going to happen, but...
15:18Joshua in the Bible, of course, brought down supposedly the walls of the city of Jericho using trumpet,
15:22though apparently archaeologists say Jericho had no walls, but then why?
15:27So it was pretty easy job.
15:30Who knows?
15:31No, this is the JU-87.
15:33Does that help?
15:34The Junkers.
15:35Junkers absolutely known as a particular kind.
15:38The Stuka.
15:39The Stuka.
15:40Oh, yes.
15:40The siren.
15:41The whistling siren when they dive in.
15:43The whistling sound.
15:44That's right.
15:45They had a...
15:48I still go back as a kid.
15:52No, but then the Stuka start coming...
15:54Yeah.
15:55Do you want to hear them?
15:59It's that noise.
16:01That noise was a propeller driving a siren.
16:05Just deliberately put on to scare the Jesus.
16:07Screaming siren.
16:08That's right.
16:08They called it the Trumpet of Jericho.
16:10Yeah.
16:10And it destroyed more shipping and tanks than any other aircraft in the whole World War II.
16:14Including kamikaze pilots.
16:15It was extremely successful.
16:17Except when it was up against fighters and sent them over to the Battle of Britain to try and bomb
16:21air strips.
16:21But the old hurricanes and spits were far too nimble and they got 30 done in one day.
16:26Well, the Americans did the same by using Wagner in their helicopters.
16:30They still do.
16:30Do they still?
16:30They still play loud, extremely loud rock music.
16:33I've noticed that in their bedrooms.
16:35Cool.
16:37They play it to themselves in a tank during the Iraq War.
16:40I mean, you just want to go in and say, tell you what, lovely army, very nice vehicles and things.
16:44Do you have any grown-ups, anyway?
16:47Do they have charge of you?
16:48And don't shout, and don't think it's clever to wear sunglasses if you're a general.
16:52Ugh.
16:55Of all the objections to warfare, and...
16:57Oh, it's a flip.
16:58It's the use of sunglasses, isn't it?
17:00They're trying to be a light pattern.
17:02They think it's sexy and cool.
17:03If you think it's sexy and cool, you're just going to be a ghastly.
17:06That general who said to the troops, he got it all wrong, it's like he was trying to get in
17:10with the kids.
17:11And he said, when the order's given to attack, it's hammer time.
17:15Yeah, that's it.
17:16And they all looked at him, so he said it again, more serious, it's hammer time.
17:19Well, he thought they'd put on, like, big balloony trousers and go...
17:22Yeah.
17:22It's...
17:22I can't touch it.
17:25You can't touch it.
17:26You can't touch it.
17:29Right next to the ruins of Jericho, as it happens, there is more death than diving.
17:34What lives in the Dead Sea?
17:36Not much.
17:37Is there a fish that lives in it?
17:38It's really stingy.
17:39No fish, no.
17:39If you get it in your eyes, it really stings.
17:41Or it would...
17:42There must be a nematode worm, because nematode worms live everywhere.
17:44They seem to, don't they?
17:45No, it's not, actually.
17:46You've avoided saying nothing, which would've got a big raspberry.
17:48This rabbit's always going like that.
17:53Ah!
17:54Ah!
17:54Ah!
17:54Ah!
17:57No, the fact there are small little things called extremophiles, which are almost like
18:01bacteria, but much, much older life-form than bacteria.
18:03They look quite tasty.
18:05It's really piles.
18:07So, um...
18:08They do.
18:09So, what else do we know about the Dead Sea?
18:11It's below sea level.
18:12The lowest place on Earth.
18:13The lowest place in England is in Norfolk.
18:17But that's not the Dead Sea, it's just dead boring.
18:19It's the fennel.
18:21The fennel.
18:22The fennel aren't really in Norfolk.
18:23Cambridgeshire.
18:24Cambridgeshire more.
18:24Talking about lowest exposed areas, I've just had a look at that picture.
18:28Yeah.
18:29What's he doing with his hands there?
18:31He's strangling a rabbit.
18:33Yeah.
18:36That's an old, that's an old euphemism.
18:38More rabbits.
18:39I'm just going over there to strangle a rabbit.
18:40Ah!
18:41So, can you actually do that in the Dead Sea?
18:43You can lie around with that.
18:44Yeah, and toss yourself off.
18:45Yeah, it's fine.
18:48They've got so many problems with the Palestinians.
18:50They go, ah, you dick.
18:52Have a rank.
18:53We have a rank.
18:59They send people there on the National Hell.
19:02They do, they do.
19:03Quite a lot of conditions, it's supposed to be.
19:04The other thing is, despite the myth, people do drown in the Dead Sea.
19:07If you face the wrong way, people can't turn themselves around.
19:10There's too much resistance from the water, apparently.
19:12It's called natural selection, isn't it?
19:14Yeah, I think you might be right.
19:16You do know, there are about 250 drownings of people in Britain each year,
19:21of which roughly a third are intentional.
19:24Bearing that in mind, can you tell me what's interesting about this sad little rodent?
19:30It doesn't matter whether he's upside down or...
19:34He looks exactly the same.
19:36You certainly...
19:36No one cares.
19:37He falls on his back, nobody turns him round.
19:40So, is this a lemming?
19:42And he looks like the devil's arsehole in his mouth.
19:44I certainly wouldn't want a blowjob off him, no.
19:48Screepy experience.
19:49It is a lemming, it's a Norway lemming.
19:51They don't actually jump off cliffs.
19:54They don't jump off cliffs.
19:55It was invented by Disney or something.
19:57Oh, dear me, it was not invented by Disney, no.
20:01There were two myths about it, one that they commit mass suicide,
20:04the other that it was Disney who invented them.
20:06Ah, right.
20:06In fact, they didn't.
20:06As early as 1908 in Arthur Lee's children encyclopedia,
20:09he talks about them throwing themselves off cliffs into the water.
20:12They have done it.
20:13It was when their migratory path hit a cliff.
20:15They don't really migrate, but they're fantastic breeders.
20:18A mother can produce 80 in a year, and when the population swells,
20:22they have to move off to find places where they can eat.
20:24So, what are we saying?
20:25They do throw themselves off cliffs, or they don't throw themselves?
20:27They don't.
20:27They don't at all.
20:28The Disney film, though, you're quite right, was completely faint.
20:30I mean, they made this film called White Wilderness.
20:32They had to bus in lemmings from thousands of miles.
20:35They tossed them off the cliff today.
20:37They did.
20:37Well, they sort of dropped them in front of camera in a close-up.
20:40A rather pathetic attempt to do it.
20:42They're not any more suicidal than any other animal.
20:44He's actually trying to do his impression of Einstein in that picture.
20:48There he is.
20:48His tongue's stuck on both of his teeth.
20:50It's a rather sweet little tongue.
20:52Don't you think?
20:53It's a little pretty pink tongue.
20:57Watch out for the teeth, Stephen.
20:58Yes, sir.
21:00Anyway, this delivers us damp, but not downhearted, into the valley of general ignorance.
21:06So, fingers on trumpets, please.
21:08What was the curse of Tutankhamun?
21:11You have to queue up.
21:15The one that's going to lose me another ten points is that anybody interfering with his tomb would be forever
21:21cursed.
21:22So, the mere fact of...
21:23Death to all who enter here.
21:26The fact is there is no curse, there never was.
21:28There's no inscription that even comes close to being a curse of Tutankhamun, or of any Egyptian tomb ever.
21:34It looks like Tiger Woods eating a cornetto.
21:41You're absolutely right.
21:44Lord Carnarvon, who...
21:46Ah, that's the one.
21:46...was one of the people with Howard Carter, who first uncovered or excavated the tomb, died very, very soon afterwards
21:52from a shaving accident.
21:53It was probably an infected mosquito bite that he cut.
21:56And people thought, oh, it's cursed.
21:58There was one of the party that had excavated, who died in about 1978, aged 93.
22:02And the headline was, curse of Tutankhamun strikes again.
22:08Jane Louden Webb wrote a novel called The Mummy in 1828, about a mummy coming to life and chasing those
22:15who had desecrated its tomb.
22:17But the fact is that thorough research has shown that only six died within the first decade of the opening,
22:22and Howard Carter, surely the number one target as the chief of it, lived for another 17 years.
22:27None of these superstitions should be worried about Touchwood.
22:29Dave!
22:32Now, the Great Fire of London destroyed 13,200 houses, 87 churches, 44 livery halls, and over four-fifths of
22:43the city of London with a capital C.
22:45How many people died in that five-day conflagration?
22:50I think it's four people.
22:52Some very low figure of...
22:53I'm going to give you the points because it's five people.
22:56Five people, oh well.
22:56Yeah, very good.
22:58Very good.
22:59No, I...
23:03Only five are recorded.
23:05The maid of the baker who started the fire, Paul Lowell, a shoe-lane watchmaker, an old man who rescued
23:12a blanket from St. Paul's but succumbed to the smoke, and two others who fell into their cellars in an
23:16ill-fated attempt to recover their goods and chattels.
23:19The mayor, actually, Thomas Bloodworth, went back to bed on the first night saying a woman might piss it out.
23:25The previous great fire, in 1212, killed 3,000 people.
23:29When does the nursery rhyme, Ring-a-Ring-a-Roses, date from?
23:32Ring-a-Ring-a-Roses.
23:33Whence?
23:34Yeah.
23:35Oh, sorry.
23:371102.
23:39Wild stab in the dark.
23:41Not correct, I'm sorry to say.
23:42The plague.
23:43The bubonic plague.
23:45Oh!
23:45Dear me, no, I'm afraid not.
23:49It's nothing to do with the plague or the Black Death at all.
23:52It's a complete misconception.
23:54Apart from anything else, this ring, you know, supposedly would just be a ring of lesions.
23:57It doesn't happen.
23:58People don't sneeze when they have the plague.
24:01Oh, obviously.
24:03They do.
24:04It's the marmots sneeze on you.
24:06You told us to.
24:07Is that not the reason why people say bless you when you sneeze?
24:10No, that's because of the devil getting into you when you sneeze.
24:13Otherwise it's because you had the plague.
24:15No, no, it's the devil.
24:15People get quite testy sometimes.
24:17They sneeze and you don't say bless you.
24:18If you don't say bless you...
24:19You didn't say bless you?
24:20Oh, f*** off.
24:24That was one hell of a garden party of Buckingham Palace.
24:27It really was.
24:30You made quite a name for yourself.
24:34It's a very late 18th century American song.
24:37First recorded in 1881, but apparently written earlier.
24:40It has nothing to do with the plague whatsoever.
24:43So, what did the man who invented lateral thinking suggest as a solution to solve the Middle East conflict?
24:49Is that Edward de Bono in the middle?
24:50Edward de Bono is the man.
24:52He invented lateral thinking.
24:53Have a game of football, sort it out that way.
24:56Yeah.
24:56They could play in the old Gaza Strip, couldn't they?
24:59I'll give you 50 points if you get this, because it's so peculiar.
25:02I'm thinking laterally.
25:03Well laterally.
25:04I mean, so laterally.
25:05They're playing Monopoly.
25:06Off the scale.
25:07It's weirder than that.
25:08They all go to the Dead Sea, right?
25:11Yeah.
25:11They flip over the wrong way, and whoever can turn over quickest wins.
25:16No, this man, this premier thinker of our time, Edward de Bono, suggested sending Marmite to the Middle East.
25:24He reasoned thus, and I use the word reason quite loosely.
25:29He reasoned that on both sides of the conflict, there was a lot of unleavened bread being eaten,
25:34and unleavened bread is a shortage of zinc, and a lack of zinc causes aggression.
25:40So he planned, as the easiest way as he saw it, to restore the zinc levels to both sides,
25:45was to send them lots of Marmite, which is rich in the stuff.
25:47But the whole point about Marmite, they advertise on both sides,
25:49and some people love it, and some people hate it.
25:51He'd have solved the problem, then they'd have wars between the pro Marmiters and the anti Marmiters.
25:56He didn't think it through, did he?
25:58Where do you stand on Bovril?
25:59Do you like it?
26:00I never stand on Bovril.
26:01I thought it was a stupid thing to do.
26:03But I quite like the taste of it, I have to say.
26:05And did he put that forward as a serious suggestion?
26:07Or was it one of those days where he just really was taking the day off?
26:10Five to five on a Friday.
26:12I see.
26:13Oh, here's one.
26:14Yes.
26:15This was a foreign office committee he was talking to.
26:18It wasn't just something he said in the pub.
26:20He was on a think tank, and he was reporting to the foreign office,
26:23and they were listening to him.
26:24Marmite.
26:25Yes.
26:25They should have done it in Ulster.
26:29Yes.
26:29They would have made that the homeland for the Jews.
26:32Just for fun.
26:35Like a sort of problems theme park.
26:37All in one foot.
26:39Well, I think we've come to the end.
26:41That leaves the divertissement of the score.
26:44We're going to start with tonight's, I'm afraid, didn't do quite as well as anybody else, sir.
26:48And it's Clive Anderson with minus 24 points.
26:50Oh, it leaves.
26:51I got many more than that.
26:53Way down.
26:54And in a very creditable third place, Alan Davis with minus 15.
27:01Then comes Sean with minus 8.
27:07With a staggering zero, it's Andy Parsons.
27:12But that means tonight's shock winner with two points is the audience.
27:26Never happened before.
27:29Well, on that bombshell.
27:32The time has come to leave the shadow of the valley of death behind us.
27:36Thank you to Clive, Andy, Sean and Alan.
27:39And I leave you with this thought courtesy of the great Johnny Carson.
27:43For three days after death, hair and fingernails continue to grow.
27:47But phone calls taper off.
27:51Do be careful out there.
27:53Congratulations.
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