- 1 day ago
First broadcast 14th November 2008.
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
David Mitchell
Ronni Ancona
Sir Terry Wogan
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
David Mitchell
Ronni Ancona
Sir Terry Wogan
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Good evening, good evening, good evening.
00:03Good evening and welcome to the very special QI Children in Need special.
00:09Are you sitting comfortably?
00:11Yes!
00:13Excellent news, then I shall begin.
00:15Joining me in my fairy tale cottage tonight are, in the littlest chair, lovely little pudsy baby bear bear.
00:27And, in the medium-sized chair, Ronnie, mummy bear, Ancona.
00:38And, in the big chair, David, daddy bear, Mitchell.
00:47And, Alan, who's been sleeping in my porridge, Davies.
00:59Now, our theme tonight, appropriately enough, is families. Families, we all have them, we all want them.
01:05Come on, I must get on. I've got plenty to do here, I've got a programme to do.
01:09Oh, my Christ.
01:10And the other thing, I've got on, is, if I could ask you to make a chair, please.
01:18I've left a, I've left a large duck in a big studio down the road.
01:27Very well, well, well, well, well, well.
01:31Oh, shucks.
01:35Five minutes to have you all the way from BBC One.
01:37Oh, for goodness sake, no. I've, I've come to this poor little place just to make my contribution to a
01:42humble little programme.
01:44Meanwhile, you, I want to continue to make your contributions. Keep that money rolling in.
01:49Well, now, you all know the rules, you all have buzzers.
01:52Ronnie goes like this.
01:54Sisters, sisters, there were never such devoted sisters.
02:01Family theme, you see, David goes.
02:03Daddy, daddy cool.
02:06Daddy, daddy cool.
02:10Cherry goes.
02:17That was lovely.
02:18And Alan goes.
02:20Oh, my old man's a dustman.
02:22He wears a dustman's hat.
02:24He wears gold blimey trousers.
02:26And he gets in the house of bed.
02:28Everyone started clapping a lot.
02:31You see.
02:32People want knees up.
02:33People, they do.
02:35They don't want, they don't want information-based panel shows.
02:37They just want a knee.
02:38It's twisted.
02:39This crowd looks to me like they could do a Mexican wave in a minute.
02:42Oh, no.
02:43Oh, no.
02:44Oh, no.
02:45Oh, no, no.
02:46Well, let's start with some family wisdom.
02:49I want some old wives' tales.
02:50Do you know any old wives' tales?
02:51Tell me some dubious tales of your grandmother's.
02:54Well, my granny always had a tale or two to tell.
02:56You know, I remember her saying,
02:58Love flies out the window when poverty walks in the door.
03:02Ah.
03:03And then the other one was,
03:04It doesn't matter whether you're rich or whether you're poor,
03:06as long as you have money.
03:11Cheese gives you bad dreams.
03:13Cheese gives you bad dreams.
03:14My, my granny had,
03:15she had so many,
03:16they've kind of become a blur in my head.
03:18They're all kind of things like,
03:19Oh, the higher cows build their nests up trees.
03:21The redder a shepherd's face will be,
03:23Effie likes butter,
03:24unless the wind changes direction.
03:27In which case he'll turn blind and catch the cold,
03:29unless he puts vinegar on it.
03:30Yes.
03:31There's so many that involve catching a cold and going blind,
03:34don't they?
03:34Well, going blind, definitely.
03:36Yes.
03:37Whack whack makes you blind.
03:39But you know, I have contact lenders,
03:41so I can see fine.
03:42Yeah.
03:42So essentially, contact lenders are the whack whacks charters.
03:47Is there much to see?
03:55What about a crow follows a busy squirrel?
03:59Eating your crust.
04:00Oh yes, eating your crust puts hairs on your chest.
04:03Yes.
04:03That's what my granny used to tell me and my two brothers.
04:06But then why would she tell me?
04:08As a woman.
04:09The fact she was called the Wolf Woman of Wick,
04:12may have something to do with it.
04:13Is she?
04:14Well now,
04:15here's a burning contemporary issue,
04:17and a constant niggle.
04:19What have artists and composers ever done for children in need?
04:23Lots.
04:24Lots.
04:25Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev did a sponsored skip across the Volga.
04:30Dressed as Tweedledee and Tweedledum.
04:32Manny sat in a bath of snails for a week.
04:37Ragmaninoff ate 48 pies in 68 hours
04:41while playing his second piano concerto.
04:43And he did it go on.
04:45Well, it's a damn good start.
04:47Do you know, in some ways,
04:49the original children in need for London
04:52was the creation of an extraordinary institution in the 18th century.
04:55Do you know what I might be referring to?
04:57It was a foundling hospital.
04:59There was a foundling hospital.
05:01There was a foundling hospital.
05:01There was a man called Thomas Coram,
05:02who was one of the great benefactors of the age.
05:04Because we're talking about an age in which 75% of all children died before the age of five in
05:12London.
05:1390% of all children who were born in workhouses died before they were five.
05:18So this man Coram, who was a successful merchant, badgered people.
05:22And two of the most influential people who allowed this place to be built were Hogarth,
05:27the great artist of the day, and Handel, the composer.
05:30And they did extraordinary work for this hospital.
05:34It was hugely successful.
05:36And there were so many at the founding hospital that they had to have a lottery.
05:40They literally had a lottery.
05:41And there's a ball taken out of a bag.
05:43If it's a white ball, the child goes straight in.
05:45If it's a red one, they're on a waiting list.
05:47If it's a black one, sorry, we can't take your child.
05:49And then in 1756, the government said,
05:52no, we'll guarantee that every child can go into this hospital, every child.
05:56And that sort of worked pretty well.
05:58But what's in a sense phenomenal is that we have lived,
06:02and our parents have lived probably, and for most of us, our grandparents even,
06:05have lived in an age in which such a thing is inconceivable.
06:08But we are a minority of the human race.
06:10Most of the human race has lived with unspeakable suffering, especially for children.
06:14There's still unspeakable suffering from children all over.
06:17There is.
06:18All over this country.
06:19And that's why children in need comes in.
06:21Exactly.
06:21I mean, we raised, what was it, 35 million last year.
06:26We'd need to raise 150 million to make a real difference.
06:30Yeah.
06:30To the kind of suffering that goes up.
06:32Hear, hear.
06:33Thank you very much.
06:35Excellent.
06:40So we are.
06:41The artist Hogarth and the composer Handel helped to establish the Foundling Hospital,
06:45the 18th century's answer to children in need.
06:47Now, which of these ladies is more likely to bite off a baby's head?
06:54David.
06:55I think it's Anne Widdicombe because she's a Catholic.
07:01I'm not actually saying that Catholics are more likely to bite off babies' heads, but I imagine that might have
07:07been the sort of thing that was once said.
07:08I think that originally, of course, Margaret Thatcher was known as the milk snatcher, taking the pinter out of the
07:15innocent babies' mouths.
07:17But I don't think it was her.
07:18I agree.
07:18I think it was Anne Widdicombe.
07:19But I think she's misquoted.
07:21Right.
07:21Because one time somebody said to her, Anne, are you hungry?
07:24And she's a good little trencher woman.
07:26And she said, hungry, she said, I'd eat a baby's arse through a wicker work chair.
07:34And that, that is how it grew up, from arse to head, you know, so that's an easy enough mistake.
07:42It's so easily done.
07:43What was the reference of the wicker work chair?
07:46Off and on, sort of.
07:48Not only would I eat a baby's arse, I'd do it under awkward circumstances.
07:52With, with chuck sticks.
07:53So a wicker work chair.
07:55It shows, with one hand tied by my back.
07:57It shows how little you know of roughage, lad.
08:00He's a stranger to the lavatory, I see.
08:04The reason that we have these two, these two women.
08:07I think I know.
08:08Yes, tell.
08:09I think it's something to do with jelly babies.
08:11Oh my dear, you're so completely right.
08:14Because, women who have had children will basically take a jelly baby and will check it for nappy rash and
08:22cradle cap.
08:23And attempt to get it into a good school before eating it.
08:27And then, women who haven't had children will obviously, can enjoy the benefits of jelly babies.
08:34Knowing that they can give them back at the end of the day when they've had enough.
08:37Ronnie, Ronnie, it is about jelly babies.
08:40But, the odd thing about the research is that it's mothers who've had children who bite off the heads.
08:47And women who don't.
08:49Who don't.
08:50So, lots of points for knowing it was about jelly babies.
08:53It's an extraordinary mentality, isn't it?
08:55That you, you actually acquire into which part of the jelly baby you bite off first.
08:59No, it just seems straight.
09:01Well, a lot of universities are short of funding.
09:04So, they have to investigate stupid things.
09:06Come on boys.
09:07Ah, of course.
09:09I'll have a black one if I may.
09:11There you are.
09:12There's more and I get a whole bowl of myself.
09:15Three million of these you're eating every week, you know.
09:18No.
09:19No.
09:20What's the powdery substance?
09:23Cocaine.
09:24Ah.
09:25That's it, yes.
09:26Enjoy it.
09:28Well.
09:29The powder, of course, is starch.
09:30It's so you get the jelly out of the mould.
09:32That's what the powdery is for.
09:33Now, back to family relationships.
09:35Ronnie, what do newborn babies like best?
09:39Well, as a mother of a newborn, I'd like to say, crying.
09:43Crying?
09:44The thing is about babies crying, is you just think, what have you got to cry about?
09:50You haven't got any financial problems, you've got no relationship problems,
09:54you're not haunted by mistakes that you've made in the past.
09:57You know what I mean?
09:57We should be crying on an hourly basis.
10:00You don't have to get out of bed to go for a poo.
10:02You just lie back.
10:05You're going to have to put you as quick, you're adored.
10:10Make the most of it.
10:11What is your problem?
10:12Make the most of it, because you'll look back at this and it'll be the happiest days of your life.
10:15Maybe they're stressed about all the stuff they've got ahead of them.
10:19Yes.
10:19Maybe they can pick up on the stress of all the adults.
10:22Sort of going, oh my God, this is a nightmare.
10:24I mean, it's okay now, but this is going to get worse before it gets better.
10:29One day, if I'm not careful, they're going to say,
10:31I'm going to get in my bed and just...
10:33Just go forward.
10:35They'll dress it up as growing up or something.
10:37But in fact, it's the first stage of a long surrender.
10:41Have you ever stopped soiling yourself?
10:44And I've been much better for it.
10:46If you've got an ounce of self-respect, keep soiling yourself.
10:51Someone told me that 90% of the attention you garner in your life, you receive under the age of
10:58three.
11:00That's a thought, isn't it?
11:02Not for us who are on television, surely.
11:05Surely not us.
11:06No, I could be right.
11:08That's an interesting point, because a lot of mothers have been led to believe that it's incredibly important at the
11:12moment they give birth that there's a bonding process.
11:15But the interesting thing is that babies don't bond with their mothers, particularly, in the very first days.
11:20That actually, they respond apparently as much to the cries of a rhesus monkey as to the noise of their
11:25mother.
11:26Well, all that hard work!
11:27Yeah!
11:29Later...
11:29Get a rhesus monkey in!
11:31Later, they get used to you.
11:33They get used to your smell after a few weeks, and they do like you.
11:37Now, that child's clearly not going to bond with them.
11:41If you're urging crawl towards the age where you can again soil yourself with impunity, surely...
11:48Say it!
11:48What's that?
11:49What do you mean crawl towards it?
11:51Oh, no!
11:53I'm just...
11:53Oh, no!
11:56Get myself comfy!
11:58I'm lucky I have the incontinence pads.
12:01Yeah, I'm so pleased.
12:03Is there a ten a gentleman?
12:04Is there only ten a lady?
12:06That's a thing.
12:07Generally...
12:08Why is it, in those ads, what is it about laughter that makes women wet themselves?
12:14I mean, you have the ads, they're jollying about...
12:17Ha-ha!
12:18And then...
12:24It is odd.
12:25I like it when babies saw my nephew and he sawed himself.
12:28He put his hands on the high chair like that.
12:29Ha-ha-ha!
12:34Ha-ha-ha!
12:35Ha-ha-ha!
12:36Ha-ha-ha!
12:38Ha-ha-ha!
12:39Ha-ha-ha-ha!
12:39Ha-ha-ha-ha!
12:39Ha-ha-ha-ha!
12:39Ha-ha-ha-ha!
12:40Ha-ha-ha-ha!
12:40Ha-ha-ha-ha!
12:41Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!
12:41They get great concentration on their face.
12:44While mothers may form an immediate bond with their baby until they're three months old,
12:48babies respond equally well to the call of rhesus monkeys, as a matter of fact.
12:52Now...
12:52What am I describing here?
12:54You have to listen carefully.
12:55Sustain.
12:55Followed by allolation, followed by sustain,
12:59but at a higher frequency,
13:01followed by allolation
13:02and followed by sustain at the starting frequency.
13:06The Arctic monkeys.
13:08Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!
13:10Very good!
13:11It not handles water music, is it?
13:13It's a-
13:14No, it's a sound and it's associated with the jungle.
13:16It's associated with the jungle...
13:18Morse code for, I'm stuck in the jungle, please save me.
13:21No. Think films.
13:24Oh, I know what it is.
13:25Yes, yes.
13:26It's the noise Tarzan.
13:27Yes, well done.
13:29Let's hear the real one.
13:33Oh, Johnny, there you are.
13:35I could have just opened my mouth and you could have dubbed that on later.
13:39The thing that's noticeable about that is that it's actually the same forwards and backwards.
13:43We can hear the same backwards now.
13:48So it's a kind of simian palindrome.
13:52And it was done by the MGM sound technician with Weissman always claimed it was his voice anyway.
13:57But that was his yodel.
13:58That was his Tarzan.
13:59When you hear it now, as distinct from your memory of it, it's a lot more savage and difficult, isn't
14:07it?
14:07It's obviously no human voice, rather an ape man.
14:12Yeah, exactly.
14:13One who's been raised by apes.
14:15What's the most famous line from a Tarzan film?
14:18That one.
14:18Oh, me, Tarzan, you, Jane.
14:20Yes, except, of course, it never happened.
14:23What?
14:23Why do these films always forget to put their most famous line?
14:29No, yeah, exactly.
14:30No, play it again, Sam.
14:31No, you dirty rat.
14:32It's just one of those odd things.
14:34Now, we all know about the good work done by children in need and, of course, Terry's morning show.
14:40But how has the Eurovision Song Contest made Europe a better place?
14:45How has it made it a better place?
14:47Because it has, as you can see, the dove.
14:50Yeah.
14:50It has brought together the nations of Europe.
14:52Has it?
14:53Ah, it's divided East from West.
14:59I mean, it has brought together the nations of Europe on wings of song.
15:08Whether they like it or not.
15:11You only have to listen to my commentary to realize how much I believe them.
15:15Oh, yeah.
15:17Absolutely.
15:19Oh, yeah.
15:22One of the few Eurovision Song Contest I remember incredibly well because the winners are one of the most famous
15:27pop groups in the world there's ever been.
15:30That was ABBA.
15:31And that was in the year...
15:321974.
15:321974, Brighton.
15:341974, exactly.
15:35With the song...
15:36Waterloo.
15:36Waterloo, a great song.
15:37But there happened to be a song that Portugal provided that year.
15:42They came second from bottom.
15:43They only got three points.
15:44It was called Paddington.
15:47But it was one of the most important Eurovision songs ever written for an extraordinary political reason.
15:53Are you saying that that was the signal for the Portuguese Revolution?
15:58Yes, I am.
15:59It was called E de Pus de Deus, After the Goodbye, sung by Paolo de Cavaglio.
16:05I have to tell you that I think you got the year wrong.
16:07It was the following year when it was being held in Sweden after ABBA had won that.
16:13That was the Portuguese Revolution.
16:15And they came out with guns with carnations in the barrels of the guns.
16:20Yes, because it was called the Carnation Revolution, wasn't it?
16:22We yield to you.
16:23None knows better than you.
16:24But isn't it wonderful?
16:25It was that that song was used because a man called Salazar, or at least his party,
16:29had run Portugal for years and years.
16:31He didn't technically style his regime a fascist one, but he certainly gave three days national mourning
16:37when Hitler died, for example.
16:39So I think you can call him right wing.
16:41He wasn't quite Franco, but he was pretty well there.
16:43He was pretty close.
16:43Bizarre leader, because he had a stroke.
16:46And after his stroke, he was relieved of his command, and a man called Caetano became prime minister.
16:51But they never told Salazar.
16:54He went to the grave thinking he was still running the country.
16:57They just took his power away from him, and he still thought he was running with signing
17:00things, but it was of no importance whatsoever.
17:03Isn't that nice?
17:04That's such a lovely way of doing it.
17:06Yeah, that could be a fantastic scheme.
17:09So many dictators, they don't get out much.
17:12All you need is a noise of some crowds playing on a tape outside.
17:16Big office, lots of things to sign.
17:18Well, I hope when I go mad, that someone pretends I'm in charge of a large country,
17:23rather than just sedates me and sticks me in front of a window.
17:30So, how long do you have to have lived in the country to represent them by singing the song?
17:34Hey, you don't, because Celine Dion represented, I think.
17:38Switzerland?
17:39She's obviously not Switzerland.
17:40She's Canadian.
17:41It's the competition between songwriters, isn't it?
17:43Supposed to be anyone.
17:44It doesn't matter who sings, is it?
17:45So, it was an Australian called Johnny Logan, who won twice for Ireland.
17:49That's right.
17:49His father was an Irish tenor.
17:51Oh, was he?
17:52Yeah, Patrick O'Hagan was Johnny Logan's father.
17:55Used to sing at a very high voice like that all the time, while winking roguishly.
18:02How totally distressing.
18:09Well, the one thing we rule in, of course, is language, at least.
18:13Twenty and a half, if you count some songs that are sort of bilingual, of the 55 winners, have been
18:18in English.
18:19The French were furious this year, that their singer chose to sing in English.
18:23I know, they, I love it.
18:24Because they love, you know, it used to be the lingua franca.
18:28And it isn't anymore.
18:29No, it isn't.
18:29The world is Anglophone.
18:31But isn't it just disgusting?
18:32They give us such a bad time, and they use our language.
18:34They should be taxed.
18:45It's a very good source of revenue for us, potentially.
18:49All these countries that are so nationalists, I mean, look at America, US, Australia, they're all so glorious nationalists.
18:55It would make up their own bloody language if they want to borrow art.
18:59Now, the 1974 Portuguese entry, Ais de Pouche, or Aduche, was used as a signal to start the military coup
19:07that overthrew the 42-year-old dictatorship of Antonio Salazar in 1974.
19:13So, one of the few...
19:15Five.
19:17One of the ignore him.
19:18So, from one of the few grim regimes without a general involved, to an absolutely beastly experience with one in
19:24the iron grip of general ignorance now.
19:28So, can you name the family in Swiss family, Robinson's?
19:31Yeah.
19:32Robinson.
19:33Oh!
19:36No, indeed.
19:37No, there is no family called Robinson in Swiss family.
19:39Robinson, no.
19:40Oh.
19:41In Swiss family, Robinson's is a book by a man called Weiss, a Swissman.
19:45Is it a reference to Robinson Crusoe?
19:47It's a reference to Robinson Crusoe, they're a Swiss Robinson team.
19:50Yeah, that's what it is.
19:50They don't actually have a surname, they're called Ma and Pa and Ernst and France and names like that.
19:55But the weird thing is, there have been films in which they're called the Robinsons, it's just a misapprehension.
19:59Are they even Swiss?
20:00Well, they are Swiss, they are Swiss.
20:02When it was translated by William Godwin, he called it the family Robinson Crusoe, because that's the idea, it was
20:08a Robinson Crusoe family, as it were.
20:09A family undergoing a Robinson Crusoe experience, it's a good title.
20:12And that got mysteriously changed in 1818, four years later, to the Swiss family Robinson.
20:18A third of all the film and TV adaptations have them as being called Robinson.
20:22I think they need a better title altogether.
20:24Yeah.
20:24It's just like a sort of shortening of the pitch.
20:26It is, isn't it?
20:27Swiss family like Robinson Crusoe, it's a Swiss family meets Robinson Crusoe.
20:31Exactly.
20:31The two most entertaining things we can think of, Robinson Crusoe and a Swiss family.
20:37This is dynamite, as long as we can come up with a good title.
20:42There you are.
20:43Now, what do you call a boomerang that won't come back?
20:46A Kylie.
20:48Yes, a Kylie is exactly what it's called.
20:51A Kylie.
20:51A stick.
21:01Yes, a Kylie is exactly what it's called.
21:03Yeah.
21:04And people say, well, hang on, surely which case, well, are they called Kylie's after Kylie Minogue,
21:08or whatever, but Kylie was a fairly common girl's name in Australia before Kylie Minogue,
21:13and it is named after that, the boomerang that doesn't come back.
21:16They use them to throw them at things, but it turns out they throw them behind birds,
21:21and they think it's a hunting bird, and it drives them towards them with the spears.
21:25It drives them towards nets.
21:26You're absolutely right.
21:26For some reason, birds are spooked by this thing sort of going near them.
21:30They think it's a hawk.
21:31And don't try and catch it when it comes back, because it will take your hand off.
21:35Oh, no, you don't.
21:36A boomerang that won't come back is a Kylie.
21:38Most Aboriginal tribes had both returning and non-returning throwing sticks.
21:42While we're on the subject, who knows where the word kangaroo comes from?
21:46I do.
21:47When Captain Cook first went to the antipodes,
21:51nobody had much of an idea what the natives were talking about, you see.
21:55And one of the chaps who worked for Captain Cook, he said,
22:00what is that animal called?
22:03And the Aboriginal, he said, kangaroo.
22:08And it was only several years later when they learned a bit more of the Aboriginal language
22:12that they found that kangaroo means, I don't know.
22:15No, it's not true.
22:19It's not true.
22:20Look behind you, though.
22:23I'm so sorry to get you through that.
22:25Because we knew that you thought that was the case.
22:29It is a commonly held fallacy.
22:31It's sadly not true.
22:32So, the problem is, this story got twisted and, in fact,
22:35kangaroo is the Gugu Imithir language and it means a large black or grey kangaroo.
22:411,400 miles inland, when the Captain Cook's party got,
22:45they asked whether there were any kangaroos of a tribe who were, as I say, 1,400 miles away.
22:50There were 200 Aboriginal languages at this point.
22:53And they had no idea what the other language of kangaroo meant at all.
22:58So, it got confused and this story arose that it actually was, I don't know.
23:02But I'm afraid it isn't true.
23:03Well, I prefer it.
23:04I prefer your story.
23:06We started with old wives' tales.
23:07Let's end with that old feast of family fun, maths homework.
23:12Hmm, what does this prove?
23:16You may notice it's not written in usual mathematical language.
23:20Yes, it's not a message from the Al-Qaeda.
23:23No, it's not.
23:24It's written in symbolic logic, if that's everything that helped you.
23:28Have you got something about the Portuguese coup starting in 75?
23:31Not about that.
23:32Who is the great logician of the 20th century, the great master of logic and mathematics?
23:37Sorry?
23:37Derek Trotter.
23:41He was also a great campaigner against nuclear weapons.
23:44He was Bertrand Russell.
23:45Bertrand Russell, Lord Russell.
23:46There he is, Bertie Russell.
23:47He wasn't a barrel of laughs, was he?
23:51They say that his breath was not good.
23:53I mean, that's in the biographies of Keynes and his contemporaries.
23:55He had very bad breath.
23:56But he was a remarkable man.
23:58He wrote Principia Mathematica, which was a book determined to reinvent maths,
24:02could set theory, produced all kinds of paradoxes,
24:05which seemed to suggest that nothing could be proved or complete or consistent
24:08in mathematics, which was a huge shock.
24:11And so he had to set out to prove mathematics worked from the very first principle.
24:15He was very, very good at Sudoku.
24:17He was, oddly enough, he was said not to be that good at mental arithmetic.
24:22So in order to prove mathematics from the very beginning,
24:25you have to establish the first principle of arithmetic.
24:27And that piece of symbolic logic was proving that one plus one equals two.
24:32It's a bit late, the 20th century, to prove that.
24:37I'd say.
24:38A bit late.
24:39We've got quite a lot riding by the 20th century of one plus one being two, you know.
24:43There is.
24:44Quite a lot of engineering happening.
24:46Quite a complex international economy.
24:48If you find out that it doesn't equal two, what are we doing?
24:52Just burn everything.
24:54Because God knows anything could fall on our heads.
24:57Money, you might as well eat it.
24:58Forget civilization.
25:01Well, there is a general thought that if what were considered to be the sound foundations
25:05on which all mathematics rested were proved to be rocky,
25:07that it may mean that some of the ultimate answers of the universe will never be answered.
25:11But it's rather splendid to think you would give so much effort into proving one plus one.
25:16What an extraordinary achievement.
25:17It is.
25:17You just have to bring up his halitosis.
25:19I know.
25:20That was silly of me, but I love that.
25:21You know, it comes to something where you think you've achieved that.
25:24Can you imagine meeting him at a party now?
25:26Old stinky Russell.
25:29I met this bloke at a party.
25:31He's stank.
25:32And when I asked him what he did, he said he proved that one plus one equals two.
25:40I know.
25:42But it's very important.
25:43It's a very important principle to understand is that you can be gossipy about someone's
25:47private hygiene and think they are one of the greatest and most towering intellectual
25:51heroes that you could ever worship at.
25:53The two don't rule each other out.
25:55Similarly, you can say that someone has very nice breath who is an idiot.
25:58Exactly right.
25:59Precisely the point.
26:01But Bertie was a great man and we should be proud of him.
26:03Bertie to you.
26:04Bertie to you.
26:05Bertie Russell.
26:06Bertie.
26:06So, anyway, there we were.
26:08We were looking at Bertie Russell's proof that one plus one equals two.
26:11And let's see if our scorers know that.
26:14Because as our collective grandmothers almost certainly warned us, all good things must come
26:18to an end.
26:19So, it's now time to add up the final scores.
26:22My word, my word, my word, my word.
26:23This week's big bag of jelly babies, as it happens, with plus five, goes to Ronnie.
26:29Ronnie Ancona, darling.
26:32Thank you very much.
26:35We offer a consolatory sherbet dab to David Mitchell with plus three.
26:47And with minus six points in third place and licorice bootlace to Alan Davis.
26:56Oh, dear.
26:58But I'm afraid, boys and girls, that on the QI naughty step tonight, with minus nine, Sir
27:05Terry Wogan.
27:15Is this because I pointed out the error in 1975?
27:22Oh, ha, ha, ha, ha.
27:24We wouldn't be so mean or so low.
27:26So, children, that's it.
27:28Before we all climb the wooden hill to Bedfordshire, it's goodnight from Terry, David, Ronnie, and
27:32Alan, and me.
27:33And we leave you with a final piece of homespun wisdom from George Burns.
27:36Happiness is having a large, caring, close-knit family in another city.
27:42Goodbye.
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