- 1 minute ago
First broadcast 9th January 2009.
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
Rob Brydon
Andy Hamilton
Charlie Higson
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
Rob Brydon
Andy Hamilton
Charlie Higson
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Ahoy, ahoy, ahoy, ahoy, ahoy, ahoy, and ho, ho, ho, me hearties, welcome aboard the good ship QI, where tonight
00:09we're scouring the oceans of interestingness in search of flotsam in a programme that's more or less a ragbag of
00:17bits and pieces beginning with F and helping me to separate the facts from fiction and the flim from flam
00:22are the effortless Charlie Higson.
00:32The effervescent Andy Hamilton, the ineffable Rob Brydon, and the sweet F in Sweet FA, Alan Davies.
00:57But, um, before we slip anchor and catch the tide, Mattelos, let me inspect your bell buttons.
01:04So, uh, Charlie goes...
01:10And he goes...
01:16Rob goes...
01:18Oh, I do act like science inside...
01:24Oh, and Alan goes...
01:29What is it, lad?
01:30He's calling me the buzzer!
01:33There we go.
01:35Oh.
01:37So, uh, now, for your convenience tonight, if you have anything nautical or nice to tell me, you can actually
01:42catch my eye, as one was using your buzzer, by waving your international maritime flag, which you should have somewhere
01:48under your desks.
01:49There you go.
01:50Charlie, yours is R, R-Romeo in the MCC colours there, and that means...
01:55It looks like...
01:56I think it's a kind of nautical bumper sticker.
01:59Yeah, yeah.
01:59It's like, my other ship is a destroyer.
02:01Oh, very good.
02:02It actually means you can feel your way past me.
02:06That's what it's meaning there, but I'm going to be pretty...
02:08How do you mean that in...
02:08That's not a proper nautical term?
02:10No, well, it is...
02:11It's...
02:11The way is off my ship, you may feel your way past me.
02:15And yours is a Z, Z Zulu.
02:17It actually means that I require a tug.
02:20Absolutely.
02:22Come and see me in my cabin.
02:24I'll see what I can do.
02:26No, I think I won't be needing that.
02:30And yours, Rob, there?
02:32It's actually Jay, or Juliet, Jay Juliet, and it means I'm on fire.
02:36How strangely...
02:37So you can come to my cabin as well.
02:39That's a second meeting, which is I'm leaking.
02:44So, Alan, yours is...
02:46Coming up behind?
02:52No, it's...
02:52It's D Delta, and it actually means keep clear of me, I'm maneuvering with difficulty.
03:01Well, mine is you.
03:02And it means uniform, it means you're running into danger.
03:06That's a good one, isn't it?
03:07There's another sign language which is akin to this, which is semaphore,
03:10and I just wonder, you get very good points.
03:12If you can tell me, do you know any semaphore symbol that...
03:16Can you tell me what it means?
03:17There's one incredibly familiar one that I didn't know until today was actually...
03:21Alright, this one.
03:21Semaphore.
03:22This one is, welcome back to the arrivals lounge.
03:26You see that at airports all the time.
03:28Where, what's that?
03:30It's, I'm drunk and I'm having a piss.
03:36Very good.
03:37This is, this is...
03:38This is stand and deliver.
03:40Oh, yes.
03:41That's very good.
03:43If I were to tell you that two arms down like that is N, and up here is D.
03:49Yeah.
03:50ND, standing for nuclear disarmament in a circle.
03:54Oh, C and D.
03:55Is the burn the bomb symbol?
03:57We did news quiz, the radio show with a signer quite a few times, and it always intrigued me
04:02because you're mentioning topical characters, and it's amazing how quickly they come up with,
04:07like, Prince Charles is that.
04:08Yes.
04:09And we were doing material about Bill Clinton, and I waited to see what the signer would do.
04:15And, er, he just did his zit.
04:18Wonderful.
04:19That's really.
04:19In America, the American sign language slightly different than R, is, er, just to put your finger like an R.
04:26And so Ronald Reagan was...
04:28Like that.
04:29Two R's, Ronald Reagan.
04:30That makes sense, because a lot of girls that I've been out with, my name is Rob, of course, they've
04:34made that sign to me.
04:40I'm sure they have, but I can't believe it.
04:43Right.
04:43Now, can you guess what these flags mean, and what will that stand for?
04:49A, B, C, D, E.
04:52That's O, actually.
04:53And it means overboard.
04:55Oh, right.
04:55It's not just to generally express interest in something another ship has said.
04:59It, it, it, it, you know...
05:00Oh!
05:00Oh!
05:02They, they, they, they say something all...
05:06Oh, what?
05:07Also, if someone's fallen overboard, is there really time to put a flag up and...
05:13There's a bit of a lack of urgency.
05:15No, never mind...
05:16I'm going through the flag box.
05:17Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
05:20Oh, God, I can never find the one I want.
05:22It's drowned by now!
05:24Overboard!
05:26And the next one is...
05:29I think that's actually N, which means no.
05:33So that, after the one before, is...
05:36Oh, no!
05:40I've, I've spilt something on these trousers.
05:42Oh, no!
05:45You've got a third one.
05:47That's a pyramid reflected in a link.
05:51Oh, no, it's rather sweet one to F, actually, and it means I'm disabled.
05:54Communicate with me.
05:57That's a rather patronizing view of the disabled, eh?
06:01That they have to have a flag to...
06:04To be communicating.
06:05I was, I was going to speak to him, but a little fella didn't have a flag, so I didn't...
06:11They only wave a flag if they want you to talk to him, yes.
06:15Oh, Lord.
06:16Is there a flag we can use to say, does he take sugar?
06:20Oh, heavens.
06:20Well, there you are. You've found a whole new use.
06:22I think it's a magnificent...
06:23The science of flag communication.
06:26It's more or less fallen as it is used these days, obviously, but they used it most famously when...
06:30What's the kind of famous signal that was sent in 18...
06:32The Battle of Tafal.
06:341805, exactly. And what was that, do you remember?
06:36Well, it's commonly quoted as...
06:37England expects every man shall do his duty, but...
06:40They reckon that was a slight mistranslation. They said something slightly different.
06:43Well, actually, Nelson instructed his signal master to say,
06:48Nelson confides that every man shall do his duty.
06:51Confide meant in those days, has faith in the fact that, as it were.
06:55And neither Nelson nor confide were flags, there was no flag for...
06:59But there was one for England and there was one for expects.
07:01So it became England expects that every man shall do his duty, yeah.
07:04Why couldn't they do Nelson, if there's a flag for N and a flag for E and a flag...
07:08You could have done it letter by letter, obviously, you can do that.
07:10They'd have been shot by the French before they finished it.
07:13But it's lucky they had flags for do their duty.
07:16Yes.
07:16You know, if they could only use the flags they had.
07:18Yeah.
07:19Say, sorry Nelson, we've only got go home now.
07:21Yeah, yeah.
07:22It's Nanny's flag for have a poo.
07:24Make sure you've done your duty.
07:26Yeah, we are all...
07:27Anyway.
07:29Sorry.
07:30It's awful when you make a sort of observational comic remark, you realise you're the only person in a room...
07:37...to whom that means anything.
07:38Now, all the audience were nodding in recognition.
07:41Yes, my name is.
07:42Yeah, anyway, fair enough.
07:45One more question on the subject.
07:46Who burns the most American flags?
07:50Yay.
07:51Americans.
07:52You're absolutely right.
07:53We were hoping you'd say Iranians or something like that.
07:55It's absolutely right.
07:56But more than that, it's a particular group of Americans, oddly enough.
07:58The worst American flag company.
08:01Because they get them, they put the stars down the wrong clock.
08:05Like, God damn it, they'd say.
08:07They would.
08:07I was going to say bloody hell, but they would say...
08:10Oh!
08:10I think it's...
08:12It's not a flag.
08:12No, no, it would be...
08:13It's not the KKK.
08:14Do they burn the flag?
08:15No.
08:15No, no, they don't.
08:17Would it be launderers?
08:18People who iron flags for a living, would it?
08:23Oddly enough, it's the Boy Scouts of America.
08:26And the American Legion.
08:28Because the Americans, as you know, have an almost religious view of their flags.
08:31And if they get dirty and tatty, you have to dispose of them.
08:34And it's advised the best way to dispose of it, with dignity, is to burn it.
08:38I was a Boy Scout, and we went to an international jamboree in Sweden.
08:44And we were given the place next to the American Boy Scouts, who were squeaky clean.
08:49And got up at like half seven in the morning for this almost, like you say, religious running up of
08:54the flag.
08:55You know, and we found this quite irritating every morning.
08:58You know, we're having breakfast, trying to drink our lager and stuff.
09:02And we had a kid with us called John Pennington, who was fantastically fast.
09:06He was like Billy Whiz.
09:07And John went, phew, across, and stole it and ran off into the woods.
09:12And it caused a sort of minor international incident.
09:15We had this delegation of the organizers came to see us and said,
09:19the Americans are saying, if you don't return their flag, they're going home.
09:24We thought, result?
09:26That's right. So in the end, grudgingly, we returned their flag.
09:30But it was a very good early insight into American foreign policy.
09:34Well, because we have a royal family, we don't have to invest our sense of patriotism and statehood and everything
09:41into something as odd as a flag.
09:43Whereas Americans don't have that, they have to sort of use the flag.
09:46And they really are very sensitive.
09:47Nobody cares about the Union Jack particularly.
09:49I mean, it's sometimes flown upside down.
09:51As we're being very dull and pedantic, which is what one does on this show.
09:56Are we not supposed to call it the Union flag?
09:58It's a very good point. It's only the Union Jack.
10:00I mean, that was boring.
10:01It is the Union Jack, though, when...
10:03When what?
10:04When flying from a...
10:06Flying...
10:07From a boat.
10:07From a boat.
10:08Yes. It's a what?
10:09It's a Union Jack, then.
10:10It's only a Jack when it's on a boat.
10:12There is one state flag in the United States of America that has our Union flag, what we would wrongly
10:18call the Union Jack, as part of it, a quarter of it.
10:20Do you know which state it is in the Union?
10:22Tennessee.
10:23No.
10:24Ohio.
10:25Alabama.
10:26No, it's Hawaii.
10:27Hawaii.
10:29Anyway, yes, the Boy Scouts of America burning an old, worn-out flag is considered the most dignified way of
10:36disposing of it.
10:37Right.
10:38While we're all at sea, what's the difference between flotsam and jetsam?
10:43One floats, and one sinks.
10:46No.
10:47One is spelt with a J.
10:50What's it?
10:51There are four kinds of wreckage.
10:53Flotsam is something that's fallen off a ship because it's got wrecked or something, and jetsam has actually been thrown
11:00off by someone.
11:01Yes, correct.
11:02Jetsam has been jettisoned.
11:04Very good.
11:05Very good.
11:06How do we have that?
11:08Thanks.
11:09Did you really work that out?
11:11Yeah.
11:12Well, it's delayed.
11:12From jeté, the French to throw is pretty good.
11:14Some of us paid attention at school, Alan.
11:18Not that one again.
11:19That seems to be the root of all my problems.
11:24I can also tell you that laggan is what's on the bottom of the sea.
11:29Yeah, absolutely right.
11:30And there's only one...
11:31You said there's a fourth one.
11:31There is a fourth one.
11:32What's the Jetsam?
11:34Laggan is cargo that is lying at the bottom of the ocean, sometimes marked by a buoy, which can be
11:38reclaimed, but there's another one which lies at the bottom of the ocean which no one has any hope of
11:44reclaiming.
11:44That's derelict.
11:46Derelict.
11:46So they're the four classes of wreckage according to the 1995 Act, which covers these things.
11:52But the odd thing is if you find such a piece of wreckage from a ship and you decide to
11:57keep it, you can be fined £2,500.
12:01You have to pay twice the value of it to the owner of the original ship.
12:06Absolutely.
12:07You have to have salvage rights.
12:08Yeah, it's very, very strict.
12:09But does that date back to the days when all the West Country earned its keep-off luring people onto
12:16rocks?
12:17That's like if you run over a pheasant and pick it up, then that's a crime.
12:22But if you're following someone and they've run over the pheasant and you just find it...
12:26I found this out because we did some filming once for Jonathan Crete and we were filming on a big
12:30estate and there were pheasants everywhere
12:32and all the crew had to drive into this house every morning and the pheasants...
12:37Stupidly, the way they fed the pheasants was from a truck.
12:40Oh, no!
12:41So any time a vehicle came past, pheasants would come and run towards the road.
12:48And on about the fourth morning, Billy, the best boy, had just had enough of slowing down for every pheasant.
12:55And did about six of them.
12:58And then the people behind picked them up.
13:01Why do you think it is, then, when you're in Australia, you see so many dead kangaroos at the side
13:06of the road,
13:06when in the outback there is lots of other space? Why would they be at the roadside?
13:12Because water gathers on the road surface and they come to drink there.
13:16Ah, that's interesting. Certainly not. No, that's good.
13:20I've seen it.
13:21Did you want that not to be an answer?
13:22No, I knew the answer and I was hoping you were going to say, I don't know, I was going
13:25to say the answer.
13:27Thanks for that.
13:30Now, from flotsam to fan clubs, you'll remember that famous double act, Batman and Robin.
13:37What did the boy wonder use to sign his autograph?
13:42Well, that boy wonder, from the television series, was played by Burt Ward.
13:50Ward, yes.
13:50And ironically, he was Bruce Wayne's young Ward, Dick, wasn't he? Dick Grayson.
13:55And he went on to a career in pornography.
13:58So I'm wondering, therefore, if this is a novelty question and if he signed it with his...
14:05He used to see a young lady and say, quick, to the back pole.
14:08He wrote an autobiography called something like A Life in Tights and it was...
14:14Very good, Charlie.
14:16Sex on every page.
14:17He wrote an autobiography called Boy Wonder, My Life in Tights.
14:20And he revealed in that that he did send autographs to thousands of women using what he called bat sperm
14:26to sign his name.
14:30Was it actually bat sperm?
14:34Which makes it, which is another degree of awfulness, isn't it?
14:38The fiendish plan.
14:39Hand those bats.
14:40Come on.
14:42He called it the ultimate autograph and apparently Batman watched.
14:48According to his book, he watched which part of the procedure he didn't watch.
14:52Can I watch Bert?
14:55Sure, Adam.
14:58How many times would you want to watch something like that?
15:00I mean, I can see a certain kind of morbid fascination.
15:03Can you?
15:04Well, yeah.
15:08I'm just getting a message here.
15:09I'd rather misunderstood about Bert and his bat sperm.
15:21It turns out he didn't actually write his name in the sperm.
15:25It was his euphemism for shagging them.
15:28He gave them the ultimate autograph by shagging them.
15:31So I prefer the original explanation.
15:33Yeah.
15:35So imagine if someone comes up to him in the street and says,
15:36Could I have your autograph?
15:37And before you know it...
15:39Whoa, wait on!
15:41Yes.
15:42Would you mind if Alan Davis watched?
15:46So that's what Adam West was watching.
15:47He was watching them having sex.
15:49That goes on a lot in show business.
15:51I think to the average man in the street, the idea of watching another person having sex is a bit
15:54odd.
15:55But I think within the world of show business, present company excluded,
15:58you do hear stories of that sort of thing going on, don't you?
16:02Do you?
16:02Dad's army were famous.
16:04Dad's army!
16:05Stop it!
16:06Stop it!
16:08Oh, Dad!
16:09Yeah.
16:09Will do!
16:13They don't like it up a bit.
16:16Oh, dear, dear me.
16:19My sister tell me what.
16:22Oh.
16:26In 1968, they cancelled Batman and he found it hard to get work again, sadly.
16:30So his life...
16:31I think how that should read is, and he then found work getting hard.
16:37You're a very bad man.
16:39I'd just like to say, I've got his autograph.
16:43Hey!
16:44My word, you should be very, very proud.
16:48Anyway, according to his autobiography, that's what he did.
16:51Anyway, where would you find the world's biggest flasher?
16:55Ugh.
16:57Is it going to be about a lighthouse?
16:59Well, oddly enough, one of the answers is about something that is called a lighthouse but isn't a lighthouse.
17:04The other one is the biggest flasher in nature.
17:07Right.
17:07Is it the Statue of Liberty?
17:09Is that a lighthouse?
17:10No.
17:11It's not a light?
17:12It's not a light at the top of the Statue of Liberty.
17:14Well, I feel like a lot of tall structures, it has to have a flashing light on top of an
17:17aircraft.
17:18Rather than...
17:18Don't look so contemptuous, Rob.
17:21Well, I go, look, Big Ben, is that a lighthouse?
17:25He's got a torch.
17:27There's a light up.
17:29No, yeah.
17:29I mean, I've got a light on my top floor but I don't have a lighthouse.
17:33Is it Big Ben, then?
17:37You're leading the poor boy astray.
17:39No.
17:39Well, there's an organic one.
17:40There's an animal that is probably the...
17:43Electric eel?
17:44But you're in the right ballpark, is it?
17:46One of those fish that they have in Finding Nemo.
17:49They have a...
17:50Well, it dangles a light in front of it.
17:52Well, it certainly uses what is known as...
17:55The angler fish.
17:56Phosphorescence.
17:56It's phosphorescence.
17:57They call it bioluminescence, yes.
17:59Oh, right.
17:59Glowworms and fireflies.
18:01Fireflies.
18:01But under the water, 90% of marine creatures give off light.
18:05Is it a squid?
18:06It is a squid.
18:07It's a seven-foot squid.
18:08It's called the Dana squid.
18:09It's an amazing creature.
18:10There it is.
18:11The Dana squid?
18:12No, not Dana.
18:15Dana octopus squid.
18:16Well, you can take him without being drowsy, isn't it?
18:18The long drowsy formulation of the North Pacific,
18:21like Dana octopus squid.
18:23And it's really bright.
18:24It dazzles and disorients its prey with its light.
18:27Does it need to do that if it's seven-foot long?
18:29Yeah, well, it's just an added weapon in its arsenal.
18:32It's pretty impressive, isn't it?
18:33It's in it.
18:34Where is it?
18:39You're all to behave.
18:41Bios, meaning living, and lumen is Latin for light.
18:43Of course, it's bioluminescent.
18:45There are all kinds of, you know, jellyfish and things that wander around like, oh, there,
18:48you see, that give off light.
18:49Very beautiful.
18:50You're a diver.
18:51You've probably seen some.
18:52At night, all the ugly fish come out.
18:55Of course.
18:56It's really interesting.
18:57You don't need to be pretty, I don't know.
18:58You go, that's right.
18:59You go to the Red Sea, and in the day, the fish are beautiful, colourful fish.
19:04And then at night, they're all bug-eyed.
19:09They limp around, and most of them have whiskers, and they've got spines on, and you're
19:12not allowed to touch them, and they'll kind of look at me like that.
19:16Oh, no.
19:17And they shine around, and they go, no, no.
19:21Don't look at me.
19:22Don't look at me.
19:28Well, now, that's the answer to the greatest flasher amongst the animals, is that North
19:31Pacific Dana octopus fish.
19:33But in nature, also, it is an extraordinary effect that takes place in Venezuela.
19:39For 10 hours a night, up to 280 times an hour for 180 days of the year.
19:45The mouth of the Catatumbo River in Venezuela.
19:47What's so extraordinary about this phenomenon is that it is the greatest source of ozone,
19:53we think, on Earth.
19:54It actually helps mend the ozone layer.
19:57It gives off an enormous amount of ozone, all this electrical storm activity.
20:00Is it a tourist attraction?
20:01People do go to see it, yes.
20:03Is there anything when you book for two weeks?
20:04There'd be nothing.
20:06Oh, that would be true.
20:06It's actually been a last week.
20:08Oof!
20:10Yeah, yeah.
20:11180 days a year is almost exactly half of the year, isn't it?
20:14So the chances are good.
20:16I think I might go there.
20:17Yeah.
20:17It looks well worth it, doesn't it?
20:18I'll report back.
20:20Go now.
20:24Lightning goes up as well as down.
20:27Yes.
20:28People don't realise.
20:29No, that's right.
20:30Which is why they sometimes find these dead parties of tourists.
20:35And they find their cameras and they work out how they died.
20:38Because all their last pictures are of each other.
20:40All standing there like this with a hair standing on it.
20:44Oh, yeah.
20:44As they're just about to be discharged with a massive jolt of electricity from the top.
20:49Yeah.
20:50I mean, it is phenomenal, the power of this.
20:52It is.
20:52You smell it, of course.
20:53I mean, there's a big electrical storm like that.
20:54You can smell it in the air.
20:56Have you ever seen the Aurora Borealis or the Northern Lights?
20:59Seen it in Canada.
21:00In Canada, yeah.
21:01But only faintly, not like that.
21:04No, that's a very impressive.
21:05How far south do you think they've been recorded?
21:08Basildon.
21:10Very specific place.
21:12Actually, further south, Rome.
21:14Rome?
21:14Rome, yeah.
21:15In the 1850s, they had a huge amount of this.
21:17Do you know what causes them?
21:19Radiation from solar winds from the sun.
21:21Yeah, these magnetized particles on the solar winds hitting the atmosphere and lighting up in that way.
21:26And when you have particularly heavy activity, they're almost the whole earth,
21:29because the southern lights, the aurora...
21:32Auraris?
21:36Aurora Australis.
21:38Yeah.
21:38That is almost what I said.
21:39It is.
21:39I don't know.
21:40That's spooky, wasn't it?
21:42The Aurora Australis almost meets the Aurora Borealis.
21:44Almost the whole world is...
21:45I was at Edmonton in Canada and then...
21:47And it's right in the middle of the prairies.
21:49And a thunderstorm was coming towards Edmonton.
21:52And the Edmontonians I was with sat out in the gut and watched it.
21:56And they said, we've got about half an hour.
21:59Because you can see that far, flat.
22:02Gosh, yeah.
22:02And so you can watch the lightning and the whole thing, getting nearer and nearer and nearer.
22:06And then they say, right, we'd better go in now.
22:08Yeah.
22:08And you go in, it's torrential downpour, crashing lightning and then it passes, you'll come out.
22:14Extraordinary, isn't it?
22:14It's fantastic.
22:15It's really entertaining.
22:16I do, I do like a good thunderstorm.
22:18I went to Ayers Rock, Uluru, in Australia.
22:22And there was an electrical storm while I was in a helicopter, flying around Uluru.
22:27And there was a fight in Australia, so I was like, right back.
22:31It started getting a bit noisy.
22:32You couldn't see anything out of the glass bubble because of the rain on it.
22:34Yeah.
22:35And then he just said, I think we'd better land.
22:38Oh, God.
22:39I was in a light aircraft in Sydney when the big storm came in.
22:44They took us up the river and they'd take you and they'd leave you for a day with, you know,
22:48a picnic and everything.
22:49And they'd come and pick you up.
22:50And this storm was coming in and we couldn't make it.
22:52We didn't make it all the way back.
22:53And I remember now you saying that has sparked this memory.
22:55As is.
22:56Oh, I'm so pleased it did.
23:00No, it's great.
23:01No, no, that's lovely.
23:03Let's all sit on the sofa and look at your slides as well.
23:06No.
23:08I take it from that you don't want me to get the mouse.
23:10No, I do.
23:11I think we can move on.
23:12It's been lovely hearing about your holidays.
23:14So it's fine when he's in a helicopter, but me in a light aircraft suddenly, when he told you, it
23:19was fascinating.
23:20You just had the bad luck to be the one that was the straw that broke the camel's back.
23:23It was already creaking when we were getting towards the end of his story.
23:26It's not Paul, I'm sorry.
23:26Yeah.
23:27Well, all I'll say is this.
23:28Yeah.
23:28We had to land and get a bus back to Sydney.
23:31And we were three quarters of an hour late for a Rod Stewart concert.
23:36That's a thing we might have missed that.
23:41I hope you were in time to have him kick the footballs into the audience.
23:44Yes, we were there for that, Steve.
23:46Oh, good.
23:46That's obviously the climax of an exciting evening.
23:48So, Talubia danae, species of squid, is the largest creature to use bioluminescence.
23:55However, an even bigger flasher, of course, is the lightning show in Venezuela at the mouth of the Catatumbo River.
24:00Moving on now to a question of fragrance.
24:02Why did the East German secret police steal people's underwear?
24:06Besides the seaside.
24:09Yes, we are.
24:09So that they could say to them, you may now go.
24:12You are no longer under a vest.
24:15Oh, I say.
24:17That's very good.
24:18It's not bad, isn't it?
24:19It's very impressive.
24:20It's a sort of play on words.
24:21It almost is.
24:22You get an accent in there.
24:24There's something for everyone, really.
24:27Excellent.
24:28Did they want to see how frightened people were of them?
24:31That would certainly reveal that.
24:34Do you remember what they were called?
24:35Stasi.
24:36The Stasi, yeah.
24:37Was it to see if people were in contact with the West?
24:40Well, it was a way of trying to keep track on their dissidents, almost literally, really.
24:45What they wanted was a sort of database of the smell of all their dissidents.
24:50So that their dogs would recognize them.
24:52Oh, my God.
24:53Really?
24:53So everyone they thought was a danger might escape, might need tracking down.
24:57They started off by swabbing them with yellow sort of rags and, well, asked them to swab their underarms and
25:03their groins and put them in a jar.
25:05Yeah.
25:05And then they invented a chair, which sort of, there you see some of the collected ones there.
25:11And then they invented a sort of chair that would collect the sweaty bits and the...
25:14The only people in the Stasi, surely, that would want that job would be the major pervs, wouldn't they?
25:20Seriously.
25:21When they go for the interview, so what do you think you could bring to the Stasi?
25:23I'd like very much to be the guy that goes out and swabs all the dissidents under their arms.
25:29I'm thinking I would enjoy this ever so much.
25:33Oh, and they did it for years.
25:34I mean, it is most peculiar.
25:36It does sound like a new perfume ring, though, doesn't it?
25:39Dissidents from Calvin Klein.
25:42It does!
25:43Dissidents!
25:44Brilliant!
25:45And we know where a huge store of dissidents' mouths lives.
25:48And, in fact, the very day the war came down, the sort of, the jolly revelers burst into the east
25:52and broke into the Stasi headquarters.
25:54And they found these jars and jars and jars and boxes and boxes and boxes.
25:58And it became underwear afterwards because, tiring of doing this, they actually would raid dissidents' houses and, amongst other things,
26:05would take away their underwear for their smell collection.
26:07But the odd thing is, there's something very German about this because, only last year, the unified German government started
26:14doing the same thing.
26:16With suspects, with people they thought would be violent, anti-G8, anti-globalism protesters, they started collecting their smells.
26:24But, you see...
26:24I mean, we locked them up for 42 days.
26:26The day he took us off.
26:28Let's press on, now, to feasts.
26:30How did the Borgia Pope, Alexander VI, celebrate the Feast of the Chestnuts?
26:35There is Alessandro Say.
26:37He had someone stuffed with chestnuts.
26:40Oh!
26:40Oh, that's horrible, isn't it?
26:41That's a pun.
26:41No, he was pretty...
26:43This is a pope we're talking about.
26:44His Holiness the Pope, actually, no.
26:47He had prostitutes, naked prostitutes.
26:49He would throw the chestnuts on the floor and they would grovel after them, picking him up with their teeth.
26:54Oh, of course, that's because he was a pope.
26:56He wouldn't stuff people with chestnuts.
27:01He was a pope.
27:03I thought it was going to be something salacious, but that's right.
27:07Why can't we have pokes like that again?
27:09Yeah, we have these pokes.
27:11They may be like that.
27:12Yeah, they may be.
27:13Maybe they are, we don't know.
27:14There was one, Formosus, who made such an enemy of his successor, that when his successor was Stephen VI as
27:21pope, had him dug up and put on trial.
27:24His body was put on trial.
27:26And he spent most of the trial yelling at the corpse.
27:28And someone behind it had to move his head.
27:31I'm kidding.
27:32What do you not say to that?
27:33Exactly.
27:33As I thought, nothing.
27:34When they could get a word in, someone standing behind it would say, you know, like a ventriloquist would say
27:38that he denied the charges.
27:39Anyway, he was then condemned...
27:41To death.
27:43His three fingers he used to do paper blessings with were cut off his skeleton.
27:48Did the man behind go...
27:50Ow!
27:51Ow!
27:52Not my fingers!
27:53Ow!
27:53Ow!
27:54And he was condemned to be reburied in a common grave.
27:57But then...
27:58No, not a common grave!
27:59Yes.
28:01But then...
28:01Come back in the box!
28:02But then Stephen...
28:04Get back in the box!
28:05No, get me out of the box!
28:06Get back in the box!
28:06Get back in the box!
28:07Get back in the box!
28:08But Stephen, who had done this to him, he was deposed, imprisoned and then strangled.
28:13And then another pope called John the Ninth, he brought Formosus back.
28:16His body had been rescued from the common grave.
28:18He was reburied as a pope again.
28:19So it was all well.
28:20Was he found innocent?
28:22Yeah, he was found innocent, exactly.
28:24That's a TV series, probably, isn't it?
28:27Pope trial.
28:27It's a long-running...
28:28It's certainly a long-running West End show.
28:31Who bought him?
28:31Who bought him?
28:32Who bought him?
28:34Even as I say that, there's a Channel 4 executive out there going...
28:37Ooh, yeah.
28:37Do you know what?
28:39I could see Ray Winston as a corrupt pope, couldn't you?
28:42Oh, brilliant.
28:54Anyway, the Borgia Pope celebrated the Feast of the Chestnuts with an evening of prostitute racing in the Vatican.
29:00Now, lastly, once again, to F4 forfeit.
29:05It's general ignorance, so fingers on those buzzers, if you please.
29:08Name the inventor of rugby football.
29:11He called him the worker!
29:12Yes.
29:14And it was invented at rugby school when a boy picked the ball up and ran with it.
29:18Yeah, except it wasn't, oddly enough.
29:20I thought you might know his name.
29:21William Webellis.
29:22William...oh, thank you.
29:26That was like a Captain Oates job.
29:28I just threw him yourself.
29:30You sacrificed him, so you threw yourself on the grenade.
29:31The Rugby World Cup?
29:33The Webellis Cup, yes.
29:35The odd thing is that they have this little memorial saying that, with a fine disregard for the rules that
29:40the game has played,
29:41he first picked up the ball and ran, as if they'd all been playing football.
29:45But football wasn't co-defined until after they're claiming this rugby game happened.
29:49Rugby is an older game.
29:50And there were lots of ball-handling games like that, so no one really believes it.
29:54The story was first told three years after Webellis died.
29:57And in the original Football Association rules, you were allowed to catch the ball, weren't you?
30:01Yeah, I believe you were until it was.
30:03Can we see the picture again that was up before it?
30:05The one of...
30:06You look at that and you think, my God, prison life gets easier.
30:11I know those old Victorian team photos.
30:13I know they're lounging about casually.
30:15Quite often they'll be lying down.
30:18But when did those team photos start?
30:20When did people start?
30:21When was it something to do with the war?
30:22When they had something that's all in lines?
30:24Rigid lines, hands on the...
30:26But all the Victorian ones are great.
30:28They are.
30:28They are.
30:29Sometimes they're just draped over one another.
30:33Yeah.
30:34Why are they...
30:34When did it change?
30:35Because you'd think, if anything, they'd have been more rigid in that.
30:38You know, they'd have been more likely to be nicely in rows and all together.
30:42And less so as the years have gone.
30:43If you absolutely had to, which one would you?
30:46Oh, I'm not going to give that away.
30:53Which one would you first?
30:54Oh.
30:57Just so bad.
30:58Your stamina is...
30:59Oh.
31:00Alright, let's move on.
31:01Yeah.
31:03Yes, William Webb Ellis died unaware of his apocryphal role in sporting history.
31:07Although the modern game certainly does have its roots in the 19th century public school system.
31:12From rugby to Eton, what was James Bond's job?
31:17Here's a secret agent.
31:18Ah!
31:21Is that what you want?
31:22Yeah.
31:23No, in the British Secret Service, an agent is an informant to what Bond was, which was an intelligence officer.
31:29You know how he got the job, Sean Connery?
31:31He went for the audition and then he walked away and the producers watched him out of the window.
31:35And Fleming.
31:36Fleming was present.
31:37And Ian Fleming, I was about to say that.
31:38Ian Fleming was present.
31:39And he walked away.
31:41And they said he walked like a panther.
31:42Yep.
31:43Which, when you think about it, would be on all fours.
31:45Yeah.
31:46That would make him look like a ruddy lunatic.
31:49Not the sort of man you want botching up the schedule on an expensive field.
31:53Oh, look at him, he's doing it again.
31:54Sean, please, get up.
31:56There are no chestnuts down there, Sean, baby.
32:00But, no, he does have a fabulously lithe walk, didn't he?
32:03What's the difference between your walk and your gait?
32:05Is it the same thing?
32:07Not exactly, is it?
32:08The gait is the sort of picture, the angle, it's the signature of your walk.
32:14You can recognise someone by their gait.
32:16Can your gait be when you're stood still?
32:18They can be still.
32:19Yeah.
32:19I recognise her by her gait.
32:24He's a bad boy.
32:27Do you know who's got the funniest walk, I think?
32:30It's Liam Gallagher.
32:32Oh, yes.
32:32He's got that walk that you do, you know when you're 17,
32:34and you're out with your mates, and you do that.
32:37Down the way, maybe you don't.
32:39I would do it slightly.
32:40But he still does it, and he's, what, about 47?
32:43No.
32:44You know, well Mick Jagger still does his...
32:47Struts.
32:47Whatever you want to call it.
32:49He grew up in a house, a very narrow doorway.
32:53What's not?
32:56No, Gallagher's house was all French windows.
33:00They had it all knocked through.
33:01Yeah, yeah, yeah.
33:04Yeah, yeah.
33:04For Mick, had a lot of those funny little half-opening doors.
33:09Thanks, Mick.
33:10Well, there you are.
33:11That's it, you see the security services.
33:14Still enjoying it.
33:15It's all good.
33:16No, it's good.
33:18He's virtually arseless, isn't he, Mick Jagger?
33:20He has no bottom.
33:21It's really odd.
33:22Apparently someone else is arseless.
33:24Is it Ian McShane?
33:24She asked us.
33:26Told and quite good authority by a costumed person.
33:29It came back in conversation, someone's saying,
33:31Oh, Deadwood's very good.
33:32Have you seen Deadwood?
33:32And then someone says, no bum.
33:35He must have, mechanically, he must have something.
33:39He folds himself.
33:40He's got an anus.
33:41I'm sure he's got an anus.
33:42They have to.
33:43Oh, all right, yeah.
33:45No buttocks.
33:45Fascinating.
33:46That's the point.
33:47It's a nightmare for a dresser.
33:49They keep falling.
33:50They have to staple his trousers.
33:52A little dress would go behind him with all the scenes just holding them up.
33:57A little helmet across there and just bang them from then.
34:00You could.
34:01Ask helmet.
34:03So, the security services actually call their staff officers, agents or informants who are
34:09not members of staff.
34:10Why is Bedfordshire quite like Uzbekistan and Liechtenstein?
34:15Bedford's not got some claim to it being independent or something.
34:19It's not.
34:19No.
34:20Think about it on a map.
34:21Same size?
34:23No.
34:24No.
34:26No coastline?
34:27There, not only is there no coastline, but.
34:30There's no rivers.
34:31There are what is known as doubly landlocked.
34:34No rivers that connect to the sea?
34:35No, no.
34:36It's, it's, if you look at.
34:37Ah, you've got to go through someone else.
34:38Yeah.
34:39You have to go through two countries to get to the coast, not one.
34:42And that's very rare.
34:43Hang on, if you're in Bedfordshire, what are the two countries you go through here?
34:46The coast of Bedfordshire is counties, of course.
34:48Okay.
34:49So it doesn't really work.
34:50That's, that's a type of error.
34:51That's not a...
34:52You can be a landlocked county, a landlocked country, or in case of Nebraska and Kansas,
34:56a landlocked states, for example.
34:58We might even have a look at, er, at Uzbekistan as well, on the map.
35:01And as you see, you have to get through two countries, in this case, Turkmenistan and
35:05Iran to get to the sea.
35:07So it's very doubly landlocked, that's the point.
35:09Which makes it very difficult for a country to get, obviously.
35:11Are we going to see Bedfordshire, Stephen?
35:13Oh, will you both see Bedfordshire?
35:14You shall see Bedfordshire.
35:16There it is.
35:17There we are, okay.
35:17Now I know for sure.
35:18Northamptonshire would be doubly landlocked if it didn't have a tiny 19-yard boundary with
35:24Lincolnshire.
35:25Yeah.
35:26Amazing, isn't it?
35:27Otherwise it would be...
35:28Yeah, well, not that amazing.
35:29All right.
35:30Okay.
35:31But the West Midland county, if you can call it a county, I never really accept these
35:34as counties, the metropolitan county of the West Midlands is also doubly landlocked,
35:38you could argue, I think.
35:39You don't accept the West Midlands?
35:42Well, I don't see anyone as a shire, you know, as a county.
35:45He's in denial, it's really sad.
35:48I mean, lovely in place, but why not, you know, Warwickshire and things, so much easier
35:51if they're all shire.
35:52Now here's an easy one for you.
35:54What's the maximum amount of times you could fold a piece of paper in half?
35:58Seven.
36:01Seven.
36:02Seven.
36:03Yep.
36:04And you had an answer too?
36:05Eight.
36:06No!
36:10Would there be a maximum?
36:12Yeah, have you never tried it?
36:14Strangely not now.
36:15Try.
36:15Here's some.
36:16Oh, paper.
36:17Pass one along to the boy next to you.
36:21Come on.
36:22Come on.
36:23Start folding.
36:24Two.
36:26Is it a race?
36:27Three.
36:27Eight.
36:28Eight.
36:29Eight.
36:29Twenty-four.
36:30Five.
36:33I'm struggling on six, Stephen.
36:34Yeah, you will be.
36:35They've got some very exciting ideas for TV programs.
36:39Paper folding, live!
36:44I can't do seven, I'm out at six.
36:46One, six.
36:47Yeah, that's that particular piece of paper, the A4 size.
36:51But an extraordinary thing, an American school child developed a formula for determining the folding of paper.
36:58And we have that formula for you, you can examine it.
37:01There it is.
37:02She was very impressive.
37:03Her name was Brittany Gallivan.
37:05And what it shows is, if you feed the various variables into it, W is width, T is thickness of
37:11paper, L is length of paper.
37:13That what you need is length and thickness in order to get the right number.
37:23That's them.
37:24That's them.
37:25That's the audience.
37:26That's them.
37:27Yeah.
37:28You're running into danger.
37:30Yeah.
37:31That is just going to be slipped out.
37:33Yes.
37:33That's straight on YouTube.
37:36It's going to be a ringtone.
37:38It'll be everything.
37:39What you need is length and thickness.
37:40Are you flirting with it?
37:45Damn you all.
37:47You want to.
37:48And that'll be for text messages.
37:50Now, your T to be a low number, so thickness is, if I'd finished, thickness low, length long, right?
37:59She demonstrated this by using a long period of lavatory paper, in fact, which was very thin, and she managed
38:04to fold it 12 times.
38:06And finally, what does it mean when the Union flag is flying over Buckingham Palace?
38:12Yes, young Andrew.
38:14I'm going to regret this.
38:16It means the Queen's on.
38:18Come and have a cup of tea.
38:19That's what it means.
38:20The Queen's in.
38:20No, it does not mean the Queen's on.
38:24It means...
38:26It means the Queen is about to get home, put the electric blanket on.
38:36They fly the Royal Standard when the Queen...
38:38When the Queen is home, they fly the Royal Standard.
38:42Since 1997, when the Queen is not home, they fly the Union flag.
38:48Beside the seaside.
38:50It was Princess Diana.
38:51Princess Diana died.
38:52The Queen was in Balmoral, being played by Helen Mirren at the time, if you remember.
38:58And what happened was, there was no flag to fly at half-mast.
39:02You couldn't fly the Royal Standard at half-mast because it was against all protocol.
39:06It was such a mess, the whole thing, that they then decided, all right, in future,
39:11just in case the Sovereign is not at home, instead of there being, as you say, a bear flagpole,
39:16we will have the Union flag, so that then, when someone dies at the Nations decides it's very fond of,
39:22they can go half-mast with that.
39:24That was a great movie, but there was one moment in that that I just did not believe at all,
39:28which was, she was out in Sandringham, I think, or somewhere, Balmoral, out in the moors, you know,
39:33with a Land Rover, and a stag.
39:36That was a great scene, though.
39:37Well, it was a great scene, but she says, oh, shoe, all the beauty, or whatever.
39:41She's a member of the Royal Family, she'd have blown it to bits.
39:44They should have dumped on Philip Rude, but keep it there!
39:51Talking to Betty.
39:52Come on.
39:54He called her cabbage in the film, didn't he?
39:56Rather oddly.
39:58She smells like a cabbage.
40:03Imagine if you look round, and I just wasn't here then.
40:10Good Lord.
40:12When David Walliams met the Queen after swimming the channel,
40:14he took his mum with him, and the Queen came along, and then Prince Philip,
40:18and the Queen said, no, you swam the channel, didn't you?
40:20He said, yes, well.
40:22And he goes, that's not all you do, is it?
40:23And he said, no, I'm in a comedy show.
40:25Oh, very good.
40:26And then off she went, and then Prince Philip came, and he said to David's mum,
40:30are there any more nutters in your family?
40:37Good.
40:38Anyway, the Queen's flag sergeant hoists the Union flag
40:42when the Queen is not in residence at Buckingham Palace.
40:44It's the royal standard that flies when the Queen is at home.
40:47And so we've circumnavigated the QI world and come all the way back to flags.
40:52But let's see who's been flying high with the wind in their sails
40:56and who's been flagging behind.
40:58Oh, my word, my goodness, he wordington.
41:00Tonight, our jolly Roger with eight points is Charlie Higson.
41:10And, er, well, pretty ship-shaped with minus eight, it's Rob Brydon.
41:17Yay!
41:21But, er, sailing rather close to the wind with minus 15 points, Andy Hamilton.
41:32And, er, finally, walking the plank with a report card that's all Fs,
41:37Alan with minus 19.
41:46Whoa!
41:47All that remains for me is to thank Andy, Rob, Charlie and Alan.
41:50And as we lower the QI flag, we raise a glass to curiosity.
41:54For, as Dorothy Parker once said,
41:56the cure for boredom is curiosity.
41:57There is no cure for curiosity.
42:00And, as Steve Wright added,
42:02curiosity killed the cat.
42:03But for a while, I was a suspect.
42:05Good night.
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