- 9 hours ago
First broadcast 13th February 2009.
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
Rich Hall
Clive Anderson
Reginald D Hunter
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
Rich Hall
Clive Anderson
Reginald D Hunter
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:01Good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, and welcome to QI, where tonight we are victims of
00:08fashion and prey to every passing fad, and sashaying up the catwalk this evening are the daringly see-through Clive
00:16Anderson.
00:20The beautifully cut Rich Hall, the topless and strapless Reginald D. Hunter, and an old pair of corduroys we found
00:39in the potting shed, Alan Davis.
00:47Of course, fashion is something that goes in one year and out the other, and predictably, predictably, ladies and gentlemen,
00:56our buzzers tonight are about as fashionable as a saber-toothed tiger wearing flared trousers.
01:01Clive goes, but I'm always true to you, darling, in my fashion.
01:08Rich goes, because he's a dedicated follower of fashion.
01:15Reg goes, I'm too sexy.
01:19Oh, I can't complain.
01:25And Alan goes, he looks a proper now, he's a great big hot now, he's got such a job to
01:33pull them up, but he calls them Daisy Red.
01:35Oi. Oh, well, excellent. Your challenge tonight, gentlemen, is to start a trend, as it's Fashion Week on QI. After
01:43six years' struggle, this show has never managed to instigate any kind of a catchphrase.
01:49And we think it's time we change that. So, you have in front of you, I hope, a list of
01:5419th century catchphrases, as it is QI. You can use one of those, if you like. They are genuine 19th
02:02century catchphrases.
02:03Has your mother sold her mangle. Say that again. Has your mother sold her mangle. Has your mother sold her
02:13mangle. That was a genuine catchphrase.
02:15Who are you? Ah, that's your catchphrase. Yes, it is. This is one of the biggest catchphrases in the 19th
02:21century, was who are you.
02:21Yeah. I thought, who are you, would be a nice, easy catchphrase to get going. It's hard to, who are
02:26you? It's got to get quite a bit of a sold her mangle.
02:30Well, yeah. It was used in all circumstances, apparently. If someone walked into a pub, for example, if you caught
02:34someone picking a pocket, you'd go, who are you?
02:36But it's still a catchphrase. Catching on. At football grounds, if you support, as Alan and I do a big
02:41club, and you're playing a slightly smaller club, you often say, it's not who are you, but it's who are
02:46you, who are you?
02:46So, you know, you're so inferior. When Norwich, famously. Norwich would be exactly the club, you'd say it. When Norwich
02:52went up to the premiership, said we were sold out for every game, and the Barkley and the fans would
02:56point to the new fans who'd suddenly arrived and said, where was you when we was crap?
03:03Which is a reason. Well, they can get the answer again now, can't they? Yeah, exactly.
03:07I remember going to Norwich, as an away fan, and then we sang a song about sheep shagging or something.
03:13And they responded with a kind of nine verse spectacular about sheep shagging.
03:20Are you into these? Yes.
03:21Which really, really put us in our play. The best one I ever heard was, I was in Brighton, the
03:28days when there was a Brighton and Hove Albion, and Norwich were playing there, and I just happened to be
03:31there, so I thought I'd go and watch them.
03:32And the Brighton fans had a brilliant chant, which was, you're better than us. You're better than us. We're crap,
03:42we're crap, we're crap, we're crap, we're crap, we're crap.
03:45And the Norwich fans were going, how do we respond to that? No, thank you. No, we're not. Oh, no.
03:50Thank you very much, please. Not much, surely.
03:54Now, let's turn to our American Prince.
03:56Catchphrase is a big thing in America?
03:57Oh, of course. Yeah.
03:58My grandfather used to say, you're dumber than a bag of wet mice.
04:05Very good.
04:06Yeah, it's funny, the first time I heard it, but you know, my whole life.
04:13I didn't see any on the list that was appropriate for me, but I have one, do what you do
04:18best, and that comes from, I was back home recently, and I was visiting my cousin, 40, he's got four
04:23or five kids that we know of from different people.
04:27And we were watching TV, and there was a woman from Washington, D.C., talking about women's rights, and it's
04:31a woman's right to be able to have children without a man, in fact, they don't need men to be
04:34around, and just sire a child and leave.
04:37And I looked at him, and I said, get to D.C., and do what you do best.
04:43Excellent.
04:44So we've got, do what you do best, dumber than a bag of wet mice.
04:48That's your mother sold a man, I'm losing it.
04:51I'm losing enthusiasm.
04:53That's your mother sold a man, and...
04:55Who are you?
04:55Who are you?
04:56All right.
04:57If you can work these intelligently, charmingly, and brilliantly into the show, I will be awarding huge bonuses at the
05:02end.
05:04So, let's start at the very top.
05:05What was the most disastrous haircut ever?
05:09Yes.
05:12Some examples for you there.
05:16I've got two answers, I'm going to get the screen going up there.
05:19What is my last haircut?
05:21No, or...
05:22Samson's haircut.
05:23Samson's haircut, done.
05:24Yeah, Samson's haircut's a very good answer, actually.
05:26That's me.
05:27Yes.
05:27Yes.
05:30You've just noticed.
05:32Well, you must remember posing for these, or...
05:35Has this been...
05:35I remember the one in the middle.
05:38The other two I have no memory.
05:41I know for a fact that, in 1928, the New England tool and dye manufacturing company was looking for a
05:51new screw that wouldn't slip out of the notch.
05:53Yeah.
05:55And a man named Phillips worked for him, who had one of the most disastrous haircuts ever.
06:00It was parted in four...
06:05That would be an example of a disastrous haircut that went good.
06:08This one...
06:09Well, I mean, of course, there are many candidates, and Samson is one, but do you know anything about Louis
06:13VII of France?
06:14There is on the left.
06:16We're talking about the 13th century.
06:17His queen became queen of a more famous king to us, being British.
06:22Aquitaine.
06:22She was Eleanor of Aquitaine, absolutely right.
06:24Yes, yes.
06:25The point is, Louis VII was very religious, and the monks got to him, and he cut that hair off.
06:31He looks rather good there, but apparently he cut his hair off, and she was furious at it.
06:35Oh, right.
06:35So cross, that eventually she divorced him.
06:37I mean, there are other things too, probably, but the hair is mentioned by historians as one of the things...
06:42He also cut his cock off.
06:46Maybe, I don't know, his mother may have sold her...
06:48Has your mother sold her mango?
06:51Maybe that had happened, yeah.
06:53I divorced you.
06:55But the consequences of the divorce were enormous, because she then went over, she was incredibly rich, she took her
06:59kingdoms with her married Henry II, and it began the Hundred Years War.
07:03Yeah.
07:03So essentially, it was the haircut that began the Hundred Years War.
07:05Yeah, but that's just something you say in polite company, that when you tell the people you're breaking up with
07:09your partner, you go,
07:10yeah, well, I ain't like what he did with his hair, so I love.
07:13You can't really say about the king, he keep farting in bed, or...
07:17I just don't like his haircut.
07:18Yeah.
07:19You're right.
07:20What is interesting about this poor king is he definitely wouldn't have had sexual relations with Eleanor's mother, because he
07:29was very abstinent indeed, and he became ill, and the courtiers suggested it was because he hadn't had sex.
07:35Yeah.
07:35And so he consented to have the queen sent for, and they said, no, no, she's too far away, if
07:41you don't have sex immediately, you will die.
07:45But genuinely being told that he had to have sex, or he would die, he actually said he would rather
07:50die chaste.
07:51Yes.
07:52Than live an adulterer.
07:53See, that leads you to believe that he had a bad sexual experience as a child.
07:57Yes.
08:01And just, you know, because most men wouldn't really, like, face death than have sex.
08:06So something happened when he was a kid, maybe a teenager, maybe his wee-wee got caught in the zipper.
08:12Or...
08:12Or...
08:13The mangled.
08:13The mangled, or...
08:14Hey!
08:16Yes, the mangled.
08:17Or he said, I'm not ready for this yet, maybe just let me lick your elbow.
08:22And the woman just said, do what you do best.
08:24Yes.
08:28Very good.
08:32The Simpsons make a reference to the Hundred Years' War.
08:35Oh, dear.
08:35Do you know what they call it?
08:36No.
08:37Operation Speedy Resolution.
08:41Anyway, so, we've all had bad hair days, but the one which helped start the Hundred Years' War takes some
08:46beating.
08:47Louis VII's haircut seems to have been a bit of a faux pas.
08:50So what's the worst faux pas that you can think of?
08:54Follow the world of fashion.
08:57I reckon if you wore Calvin Klein to Yves Saint Laurent's funeral.
09:01Whoa!
09:08That would be a faux pas.
09:09It would.
09:11There's a famous one with the Queen and some other king or potentate in a carriage being driven along.
09:18And so the horses are in front of them and there's this ghastly sound of this horse.
09:24And the Queen sort of says, oh, I'm terribly sorry about that.
09:26And whoever this king or potentate, they said, oh, never mind, Mum, I thought it was the horse.
09:33So that's a famous faux pas.
09:36No, this was an engagement faux pas.
09:39It was a very famous one in its day.
09:40It was in the Guinness Book of Records.
09:41Right up until a few years ago, it was the worst, if there is such a category, worst engagement faux
09:46pas.
09:46Well, get engaged to the wrong person?
09:49No, it wasn't that.
09:50It was a man called James Gordon Bennett.
09:52It was a...
09:53Well, the!
09:53The James Gordon Bennett.
09:54Actually, he...
09:55Yeah, the phrase Gordon Bennett was named after.
09:58I think his father, who owned a lot of newspapers.
10:00And anyway, this one was very rich, this young Gordon Bennett, and he was engaged to a young New York
10:05socialite.
10:05And one night, he was very, very drunk, and he went to the house of his fiancée, where there was
10:12a full party of stiff New York socialites.
10:15And he went into the room with an enormous fireplace, and he went into the fireplace and peed in it,
10:19thinking it was a laboratory, and walked out again.
10:23And it ended his engagement, it was a huge scandal, and the brother of the girl fought a duel with
10:27him, which he lost.
10:28And he went out to spend the rest of his life in Europe, almost.
10:30Just because he peed in the fireplace?
10:32Because he peed in the fireplace.
10:34I mean, in Europe, it's positively encouraged.
10:37I would say.
10:39This man, Gordon Bennett, was extraordinary.
10:41He was one of the most profligate men of his age.
10:43In terms of his money, he once tipped a railway porter £341,000.
10:50And he burnt a huge sheaf of money that he had, because he...
10:53If he'd only gone on a super saver, off-peak, he could've got that...
10:58He'd probably lit it on fire, and says, I could piss on that and put that out, can you?
11:01Yeah, exactly.
11:03No, he would burn money because it was uncomfortable in his pocket, he said.
11:07I mean, he was obviously complete twice.
11:09Yeah.
11:10But there were other faux pas.
11:12Who said this?
11:13We also do cut glass cherry decanters, complete with six glasses on a silver-plated tray that your butler can
11:19serve you drinks on, all for £4.95.
11:22People say, how can you sell this for such a low price?
11:25I say, because...
11:27It's crap.
11:28Yes.
11:28That's Gerald Ratner, isn't it?
11:29It was Gerald Ratner, yes.
11:31He destroyed his company, or...
11:33£500 million was wiped off the value of his shares after that remark.
11:37Yeah.
11:38He was trying to be amusing, and he had...
11:39Just some of those jewels...
11:40The jewellery he was selling, saying it was cheaper than a Marks & Spencer sandwich.
11:44Yeah, it was rubbish, and that's why...
11:46Yeah, he said these earrings were cheaper than an M&S prawn sandwich, probably won't last as long.
11:51Does it say half a billion pounds wiped off them?
11:54Yes.
11:54Yeah, he was caught doing a funny.
11:57Yeah.
11:57A funny didn't turn out well.
12:01Many faux pas are just Freudian slits.
12:04Slips!
12:06But, what outrageous item of clothing got the Duke of Wellington thrown out of a club?
12:13Yes.
12:15I'm going to suggest he wore his Wellington boots in the club.
12:19Oh!
12:20I'm just not going to, but I think it's...
12:22I think it's so fantastic what a career he had, because not only was he a great general,
12:27winning one of the most important battles of all time, and a few others,
12:30plus he was Prime Minister, and he had Wellington boots named after him.
12:34Pretty stunning, isn't it?
12:35And they were...
12:35Oh my shit, I know.
12:37I think I know.
12:38Yes, go on.
12:39I know exactly what happened.
12:40Now, he showed up at this situation, and it was supposed to be all formal and nice,
12:44but he was a bit of a cook.
12:45And he came in and he said, look at this wonderful dish I made with beef.
12:49And it was inappropriate to be trying to introduce your cooking at a social occasion like that.
12:55And his wife tried to say, don't do it, just, you know, save it and invite some people back,
13:00and we can eat, have a smoke, and then it'll all be good.
13:03But he was like, no, I know this is good, boo!
13:06And so he took it there, and he was just, people were like, oh, we're just drinking here,
13:10and just, oh, he's general, he should know better.
13:12And just, this is what I believe happened.
13:15I might have read it somewhere, I can't remember.
13:16You reminded us of another thing to chalk up to Wellington.
13:18Yeah.
13:19Not just the boots, not just the battle, but the beef in pastry.
13:21Put in pastry, point us here on beef.
13:23Yeah.
13:24Actually, this happened to be just about my favorite club.
13:27If you were to ask me if I could get in a time machine and go anywhere,
13:30this is one of the places I would go.
13:32It was called Allmax.
13:33It was the club that determined whether or not you were in society.
13:37And it was run by these fierce women, the Lady Patronesses.
13:40And it didn't matter who you were, if you didn't get a voucher from them,
13:43you couldn't enter Allmax.
13:45So we're looking for an item of clothing that Wellington turned up in.
13:48Yeah, because what must, a properly attired gentleman in the evening,
13:52what should he wear?
13:54A hat.
13:55You'd have that, but what would he have down here?
13:57Hot pants.
13:59Close in as much as...
14:02Breaches.
14:02Knee breaches.
14:03Yeah.
14:03Knee breaches.
14:04And Wellington wore...
14:06Long trousers.
14:07Trousers.
14:08He wore...
14:09Trousers.
14:10He wore trousers.
14:12And so he was...
14:13So, he said, I won the Peninsular War, for goodness sake,
14:15I would come with any trousers I like.
14:17You could think.
14:17Or did they make him roll them up?
14:19That's my catchphrase.
14:20I can come in any trousers I like.
14:22Sorry.
14:23That's true.
14:29Sorry.
14:29I do apologise.
14:31Yeah, I sure enjoyed that long whining story so we could get to that.
14:34That was...
14:36The trousers was considered absolutely shocking and not to be worn in smart society.
14:41And the breaches of etiquette.
14:43Exactly.
14:44The breaches, that's good.
14:45Good.
14:46You know, we like it.
14:46I bet when they told him he couldn't come in, he looked at him and he went, pants to you.
14:50Ah.
14:51The point is, the Duke of Wellington was thrown out of a club for wearing trousers.
14:55On the subject of trousers, as a matter of fact, what's the best way of dealing with a wartime shortage
15:00of trousering?
15:03Wow.
15:04They ran out of trousers.
15:05I think that's just a serving suggestion there.
15:06I don't think that...
15:07They ran out of trousers?
15:09Well, they...
15:10Obviously, in the war, there was a shortage of material and how did they deal with it?
15:13What's the first thing you would do to save material with trousers?
15:16Put them in trenches.
15:18Yeah.
15:20You try and use less cloth in each trouser.
15:23Yeah, exactly.
15:23One legging trousers.
15:24In Scotland, you'd wear kilts to...
15:26Or you take them off dead guys.
15:28Yes.
15:28I mean, yep.
15:29The enemy.
15:30Yeah.
15:32But no, generally, the first thing that...
15:34They banned...
15:36Oh, pleats and things like that?
15:37Turn-ups.
15:37Turn-ups?
15:38That saves about an inch of...
15:39Out of a million?
15:41Come on.
15:41That's a lot of material.
15:43And they were so serious about this and if a tailor...
15:46Sold someone extra long trousers, longer than they needed...
15:49Yeah.
15:49Knowingly, really, so that the wife would then make him turn-ups...
15:53The tailor would go to prison.
15:54What about older gentlemen who pull their trousers right up...
15:58Yes!
15:58They do, up to the nipples, yeah.
16:00Up to the nipples there.
16:01Yeah.
16:01First of all, what's going on there?
16:04Why don't they stop somewhere on the way?
16:07They've got no pleasure in life left except to give themselves a wedgie every time.
16:12Why don't they just pull their trousers right...
16:15Right up to the...
16:16Just under their eye.
16:18Then they would save...
16:19They would save on shirtings.
16:21They could have a really long fly like that.
16:26You must have enormous fly.
16:28The fly must be about two feet long.
16:33What?
16:33The time you've undone, you've forgotten where you were...
16:35Oh, didn't you?
16:36This is it there.
16:37The...
16:38Oh...
16:39Nurse!
16:41Also, boys under 12 couldn't have long trousers, they had to have shorts.
16:45And, of course, women couldn't wear stockings, so they...
16:47What did they used to do?
16:48Oh, they used to draw a seam on the...
16:49Oh, there they are.
16:50There you are.
16:50A seam on the back of their leg.
16:51Yeah.
16:52Because they felt that if their legs were bare, it was considered that made them look available.
16:56Why?
16:56I don't know if the boys in the shorts thought the same.
17:00It was...
17:02Firstly, they would stain their legs to make them look tanned, with gravy browning and things
17:06like that.
17:06And then they would draw a line down the back, which looked like the seam on nylons.
17:11I mean, it seems crazy, but...
17:12Why didn't the soldiers just draw pictures of trousers, weren't they?
17:18Exactly!
17:22I mean, pinstrikes.
17:23Yes, pinstrikes, all kinds of things like that.
17:26Well, anyway, during World War II, it became acceptable for women to wear trousers, but men
17:30weren't allowed to turn up, and boys were made to wear shorts.
17:33Now, as a fashion accessory, what would you rather have on your head?
17:38Would it be a cauliflower, a rhinoceros, or a pigeon's wing?
17:44Clive?
17:45No, I have some friends in Scotland, and this was their expression for older women with sort
17:50of white hair, that sort of curl, you know, very tight perm.
17:54They used to call them cauliflowers, because they thought their hair looked like a cauliflower.
17:58So, working from that, I'm saying that's a hairstyle, a cauliflower style.
18:03Yeah.
18:03Pigeon wing could be a sort of swept back look.
18:06Yes.
18:07I can't work out whether rhinoceros, because the rhinoceros is only famous having a huge
18:09horns, so I can't quite make that into a hairstyle.
18:11Well, not a hairstyle, exactly, but you're very close.
18:15In the 18th century, all your clothes put together, the expense of them, wouldn't add
18:20up to what you spent on this part of your fashion.
18:23Well, your sort of wig.
18:24Your wig, yeah.
18:24Your wig is the right answer, in fact.
18:26So, it is your hair, but they used to have ships.
18:29I mean, literally, their hair done into huge sailing ships.
18:32And you could have a rhinoceros horn.
18:33And a rhinoceros horn, and pigeon wings, and you see there, these preposterous creations
18:37people had.
18:38Where do you think the idea came from?
18:40Because they got nasty hair, lice, and things like that, so they tended, unless you happen
18:45to lose your hair naturally and effectively, you used to chop your hair off anyway, and
18:50then replace it with fake hair, false hair, a wig.
18:53It's an element of that.
18:55Generally speaking, it became enormously fashionable in the reign of Louis XIII.
19:00And what was it you were saying about trouser turn-ups?
19:03Oh, it was set by the Prince of Wales, so this king must have decided to wear a wig,
19:07so everybody else.
19:08Why did he wear a wig?
19:09Because he was bald.
19:10Exactly.
19:11He went bald quite early on and was annoyed by it, so he wore this expensive wig, and
19:15the rest of the court is to flatter him and imitate him.
19:18They wore wigs too, and from then on, for the next 200 years almost, wigs became more
19:22and more fat.
19:22It was really the French Revolution that ended wig wearing.
19:25Well, once you had your hair chopped off, there was no real need for a wig.
19:27It was a wasted accessory.
19:29It's a pretty drastic haircut.
19:30Well, it still hasn't gone away quite in the law court.
19:32Everywhere apart from criminal courts, they're going to get rid of wigs for judges and barristers.
19:38But in the criminal courts, they're deciding to stick with wigs on the basis that the judges are more anonymous
19:43if they wear a wig, which...
19:45So why not just have the judges wear a mask?
19:47In fact, that'd be kind of cool, really.
19:48Wouldn't they?
19:49I think they wouldn't want to look stupid.
19:52Yeah.
19:52That's the answer.
19:53They wouldn't want to look silly.
19:54Why can't they be concealed bashally behind a fan?
19:59I don't know about that.
19:59I've sent them to you for 25 years in prison.
20:02When you come out, you'll never find me.
20:08Because everyone assumes that in court people wear long wigs, but they don't.
20:11They always wear little wigs, as did barristers and QCs.
20:14But when they're sort of formal, becoming a QC or those formal procedures, you wear this sort of long wig,
20:19but they never wear them in court.
20:20And they have to wear two pairs of tights.
20:21You don't have to, but it's an option, you know.
20:24Apparently there is a tradition, because Queen Victoria was offended by seeing the hairs poke out.
20:27So they were told to put two on, so there were no hairs, I'm sorry.
20:30And they're black because the court went into mourning when Queen Anne died, and they never quite got round to
20:35changing it.
20:36So that's why barristers, robes, and judges...
20:39What kind of country do we live in?
20:40A wig wearing, faux pas wearing about tea drinking.
20:45Fire.
20:45You said it. You said it.
20:52I was at a party here, and this guy was telling me the story about when he wore corduroy.
20:56And he says, you're American, do you know what corduroy is?
21:00And I said, no.
21:04And then he went in just trying to explain it.
21:06And eventually four or five people were around me, drunk, trying to explain to me what corduroy was.
21:13And eventually this girl who we didn't notice left the room, and she went upstairs to her apartment,
21:17and she just dashed in the room with a corduroy jacket.
21:20Here! This is what it is! This is what it is!
21:22And, you know, it's just... I went along with it because...
21:27That's very sporty.
21:27There's nothing like the warm look on white people's face when they feel like they're teaching you something.
21:35Oh!
21:36Dear me.
21:39There had to be a king once upon a time to wear corduroy.
21:41He was restricted to kings.
21:43Cord of the king?
21:43Yes.
21:44Cord du roi.
21:45Sumptuary. Rules of.
21:46Yeah.
21:47But now we have needle cord and jump...
21:49Jumbo cord, we have needle cord, we have all...
21:51Yeah.
21:54Yeah.
21:55Exactly as the looks.
21:57That's my formal look, it's my P.O.I. look.
22:00The cauliflower, the rhinoceros, and the pigeon's wing were all 18th century wigs.
22:04All very good form, no doubt, but here is the most interesting form I have played with.
22:08I just wanted to show you this.
22:10This item here is a very extraordinary item.
22:15It's the only mono-monostatic item in the world.
22:19It's self-writing, whichever way you put it, it will always write itself like this.
22:26And...
22:26What about weebles?
22:28Yeah, it's like a weeble.
22:29And there's a glass one here.
22:31Here's one made of transparent material to show that it's not weighted in any way.
22:35It's much more extraordinary than it looks, as it were.
22:38When you get the hang of it, it always ends up like this.
22:43Be careful with it, because it's so...
22:46It's...
22:46Well, I think it's extremely valuable.
22:49We're very honoured, because we actually...
22:54We actually have...
22:56Have you dropped it?
22:57You haven't.
22:59You put it under your hat.
23:02Lift your hat.
23:03Oh, you're...
23:04Yeah.
23:05I thought it was that kingdom there for me.
23:07No, listen, we are actually very...
23:09You're way ahead of me.
23:11Great.
23:17We have Gabor de Mokos, the inventor, here with us.
23:21Gabor, good evening.
23:23Hi.
23:24It's very good to see.
23:25He's from Hungary.
23:26And he and his colleague, Peter Varkony, invented this.
23:30Can you explain to me exactly what it is?
23:33Well, this is like a weeble without a weight.
23:37It seems like a weeble.
23:38You've got a point, you see?
23:40It's just the shape.
23:42Yeah.
23:42But you have to get it right.
23:44The tolerance of the shape...
23:45Yeah.
23:46...is about one hundredth of a millimetre.
23:48Do you mean to say, if these edges here were one hundredth of a millimetre out, it wouldn't write itself?
23:54It wouldn't.
23:55You'd actually be able to keep it in one position?
23:57Right.
23:57That's correct.
23:57Hey, Gabor.
23:59It always goes back to its own...
24:00It always goes back to its own...
24:00You thought I'd been making these into salt and pepper shakers.
24:05That's a brilliant idea, Gabor.
24:06Then you might make some money off of it.
24:08Maybe.
24:09Yeah, Gabor.
24:10Dragon's Den.
24:11Come on!
24:17Good choice.
24:19You're actually scientists, mathematicians, yeah?
24:21Engineers, yeah.
24:22Engineers.
24:22Yeah.
24:23How did you come to build it?
24:25What gave you the idea that this could be done?
24:27We got the question first.
24:28First we got the question for the mathematician.
24:30Yeah.
24:31Then we thought about it.
24:32And then we thought we should build it.
24:34Yeah.
24:35But after we built it, we realised it's already there.
24:38In what way is it already there?
24:40Well, some turtles seem to have similar shapes.
24:44So, you're saying evolution got there first?
24:46Evolution got there a couple of million years earlier, yeah.
24:51So do you feel like you've wasted your life?
24:57You have.
25:00You have.
25:00You so have not.
25:02Well, Gabor, thank you very much for coming all the way to Hungary to explain this.
25:05Thank you very much, thank you.
25:08Personally.
25:11It's called, it's called a gombok or a gumbo.
25:15Does it have a practical application?
25:17No, I don't think it does have a practical application, but that's what's so beautiful about it.
25:21Didn't they invent the Rubik's Cube?
25:22Rubik's Cube is a Hungarian invention.
25:24In Hungary as well.
25:24And the biro?
25:25The biro.
25:26That's now a biro invented the biro, didn't he?
25:40Absolutely.
25:41It doesn't weight it in any way, but whichever way you place it, it will always turn itself
25:44up the right way.
25:46Now, I'm not a great follower of fashion myself, as you can probably tell.
25:49Oh, Steve.
25:50No, BFF.
25:51Something of an old fossil, as it happens.
25:54But, what would you say if I told you that this was the first fossil ever identified?
26:06Well, is it?
26:08I'd say, is it?
26:10Thank you for not falling into a trap, and you wouldn't say, bollocks.
26:13Of course.
26:15It does look like a handsome pair of human plums, but it isn't.
26:20Robert Clott, who was the first keeper of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, he recognised
26:24it to be a thigh bone, but it's huge.
26:26You can't quite tell its scale here.
26:28So, he assumed it was a thigh bone of a Roman elephant, or of a giant race of humans.
26:33But, he also, as I say, recognised its shape being, as it is, called its scrotum humanum,
26:39because that's pretty much what it looks like, let's be honest.
26:42But, it turned out to be a megalosaur.
26:45That there is one?
26:45A real one.
26:47It's a shame they're not still about.
26:49It is, isn't it?
26:51Up and down the end one.
26:54It's very hard to try and get a grip on how old life on Earth is, but if life on
26:59Earth
26:59began on January the 1st, and we are now literally the very end of the year, when did the dinosaurs
27:05appear?
27:06Yeah.
27:07Hang on, look, I've got lost in this.
27:08Tuesday.
27:10The dinosaurs of 200 million years ago, about mid-November.
27:17Not bad.
27:17A little later, December the 5th.
27:19Yeah, not bad.
27:20It's a focus for England.
27:21So, when, and we come at sort of 5 to midnight on December the 31st or something, do we?
27:25We come a few minutes before midnight on December the 31st.
27:28But they became extinct on December the 24th, on Christmas Eve.
27:31So, December the 5th, December the 24th.
27:33Oh, no.
27:33If they became extinct on December 24th.
27:36Then that's saying that the human race got, what, about six days before, you know, clocks
27:41go back or something?
27:42What, what?
27:42Well, here's a year.
27:45Okay.
27:45And that year represents the totality of time that's been life on Earth.
27:49Totally.
27:49That's the beginning.
27:50That's the beginning over there.
27:51And this is now.
27:52Assuming that time is the linear.
27:53Yeah, exactly.
28:01So, let's suppose that it's a long pair of trousers, China.
28:07Man appeared at the top of the fly.
28:11Don't think your trousers are a dinosaur.
28:13Yeah, basically.
28:14That's sort of what happens, isn't it?
28:16Oddly enough, sorus was ancient Greek slang for penis.
28:20Was it?
28:20Sorus means lizard, yeah.
28:21And they would call it your lizard.
28:23Your knob.
28:25Just thought you'd like to know that.
28:26I do.
28:27I'm pleased to know that.
28:28Why thesaurus, then?
28:30Is that Latin?
28:31That's not ancient.
28:31That's a different word.
28:32Thesaurus means a treasure house.
28:33Or a repository.
28:35In this case, a treasure house of words.
28:37You might refer to your backside as a thesaurus.
28:42I'd like to say, my bottom is a treasure house, yes, darling.
28:51The bottom is a treasure house is a really good catchphrase.
28:58That would be my bidding matter on my post.
29:00Stephen, my bottom is a treasure house prize.
29:03Yeah, I don't care with that.
29:04All right.
29:05So, the megalosaurus, it's deader than the dodo, but, name a living fossil.
29:11Name a living fossil.
29:14Yes.
29:15The ginkgo tree is a living fossil.
29:17Ah.
29:17The ginkgo is a type of tree which is a very, there's only one type of ginkgo.
29:22It belongs to its own family of trees.
29:24And they used to rule the earth, like the dinosaurs.
29:27They used to be about 100 million, maybe 200 million years ago.
29:30Ginkgo's lived everywhere.
29:31Now they're down to these...
29:31So, you're saying that there was a time that these trees just walked around the countryside.
29:37They might...
29:37Kill the gin and just kill it.
29:39I think so.
29:39I don't think they walked around much.
29:40They just stayed where they were, but there were lots of them.
29:42As in ginkgo biloba.
29:44Yes, and that's it.
29:45That's the...
29:45I don't think you even find it in the wild anymore.
29:47It's planted a lot.
29:48It's quite an attractive tree, but it's a very ancient kind of tree.
29:51It's produced enormously and extensively by herbalists, isn't it?
29:54Supposedly as a memory enhancer.
29:56Ginkgo biloba?
29:57I've forgotten that, but...
29:59How can anything be a living fossil?
30:01Well...
30:01Because a fossil has to be dead, doesn't it?
30:02It's a phrase term by Darwin, reference to the duck-billed platypus.
30:06And it's applied to crocodiles and cedocanths and things like that.
30:09But there are very few species that are identical to their fossilized predecessors.
30:13Literally identical.
30:14That have not...
30:15And you're not...
30:15You're not going with me...
30:17I'm...
30:17I'm going with Lomatia Tasmanica.
30:20Tasmanian Devil.
30:21The...
30:21Not that...
30:22No, the King's Holly.
30:23It is from Tasmania.
30:24And it's a plant.
30:25It's a very extraordinary plant.
30:27We've got a picture of it.
30:27Looks a bit like a crocodile.
30:28Oh, no, there it is.
30:29It doesn't look extraordinary, but that plant there...
30:31Yes.
30:31...is 43,600 years old.
30:34And it is genetically identical to a fossil that is near it.
30:39A genuine fossil, which is a Pleistocene, which is millions and millions of years old.
30:44And it is exactly the same.
30:46So it's just stuck...
30:46You know, they decided on a design that worked for it.
30:49It has three...
30:49Exactly right.
30:51It has three X chromosomes.
30:52It's sterile, and it just basically doesn't do what other life forms do, which is, you know,
30:57to try and vary itself and change...
30:59It just stays like that.
31:00All the other plants around, they go, look at the house, we've got oranges now.
31:04But they might...
31:05They might provide the answer to eternal life.
31:07You might think, well, they...
31:08They virtually have it, because they've got no need to age.
31:11Is that a good idea, though, eternal life?
31:12It depends when it starts, isn't it?
31:14Because if it gets to the point where your trousers are just under your nipple,
31:17and then you live forever from there.
31:19Yeah.
31:20The point is, this is simultaneously a fossil and a living thing, which is pretty astounding.
31:24Now, how did the canals on Mars get there?
31:29Oh, that's one of the canals on Mars.
31:30No, it actually isn't.
31:32I think that's in Little Mars.
31:35It's in Western London, isn't it?
31:37This is when, if they ever had...
31:40The temperature changes and the...
31:42The surface has expanded and contracted and left sort of little ridges like that.
31:48I mean, the short answer is there aren't any canals on Mars.
31:51Oh, no water on Mars.
31:52There...
31:53They discovered some water recently on Mars.
31:56They was happy as hell about that, too.
31:58And there's a bottle of Evian that no one can...
32:02Well, the point was most fashionable to believe in life on Mars.
32:05Well over a hundred years ago, there was an Italian astronomer called Schiaparelli,
32:09who called these things Canale, that he saw...
32:11He thought he saw a number of long straight lines on Mars,
32:14which he named them after rivers on Earth.
32:16But then one of the greatest astronomers of his age, Percival Lowell,
32:20after whom an observatory telescope is named,
32:23and actually after whom Pluto is named because they chose that planet because it begins with PL.
32:28But he drew amazing maps of Mars looking through his powerful telescope,
32:34showing all these straight lines and connecting these things.
32:36But you're saying they're not there?
32:38They're not there.
32:39So what...
32:40And yet he was...
32:41Was he looking through a fishnet stockings or something at the time?
32:44Well, you've almost got it, because he was a great astronomer.
32:47He was not an idiot.
32:47He had a dirty lens.
32:49He kind of had that, but in his head.
32:52Ah.
32:52He had a condition which is named after him.
32:54It's called Lowell's Syndrome.
32:56In which the various blood vessels and things, and the nodes where the blood vessels meet,
33:02seem to become straight lines.
33:04It's a thing that comes and goes, but it's particularly on the small surface of Mars.
33:08On the big surface of the moon, you'd see that it didn't make sense.
33:11And he drew all this, and it's all absolute nonsense.
33:14And so we arrived, fashionably late, at the bring-a-bottle staircase party of general ignorance.
33:21Fingers on buzzers, please.
33:22In deference to our two American guests this week, Yankee Doodle put a feather in his cam to look fashionable.
33:30But why did he call it Macaroni?
33:32Follower of fashion.
33:34He was dumber than a bag of wet mice.
33:36No!
33:38Ha, ha, ha, ha!
33:40Well, oddly enough.
33:44Crazy enough, you're kind of right.
33:46Well, it's about a kid travelling to see General Washington's troops.
33:49The song.
33:50There was General Washington upon a silver stallion.
33:53Given orders to his men, there must have been a million.
33:55Yeah.
33:55That's the next verse.
33:56So I think he was conscripted, and he was purposely trying to look insane.
34:01Well, it was a British song.
34:03It was an insult to the Yankee.
34:04The idea is a macaroni...
34:06It's just to be Italian, just to be fashionably Italian, wasn't it?
34:09Well, there was a macaroni club in London at the time, which was full of dandies.
34:12A macaroni was another word for dandy.
34:13Yeah.
34:14For someone who took exquisite trouble over the dress.
34:17Are you telling me that a Brit wrote Yankee Doodle?
34:19Yeah.
34:20The idea was that the Yankees were so dumb...
34:22Well, I guess we are, because we play it all the time.
34:25No, no, you take something that's supposed to be an insult, and you make a virtue of it.
34:29You throw it back in the oppressor's face.
34:31That's how you show them that they can't hurt you.
34:33Exactly.
34:35Exactly.
34:36My mama taught me that, boy.
34:38Just look at them and just laugh at them.
34:40Just take their insults, and they don't show them your pain.
34:44That's what we did.
34:45That's why we beat you.
34:48So, the point is, at the end of the 18th century, a macaroni was a dandy.
34:52The song was a British attempt to make fun of unsophisticated Yankees.
34:55What rhymes with month?
34:58Month.
34:59Dun.
34:59This word, I'd say, is probably not known to you.
35:01Jump.
35:01Right.
35:02Sikhism.
35:03It's what the Quran...
35:04Sikhism does not rhyme with month.
35:05No.
35:06I'm telling you, I'm taking you into the world of Sikhism.
35:08What the Quran is to the Islamic faith, this thing is to the Sikh faith.
35:13It's their text.
35:14Ah.
35:15And it's called the Grunth.
35:17Ah.
35:17There, you see.
35:18Well, I didn't know.
35:19Well, we should know.
35:20Except Gunth.
35:21Yeah.
35:22Well, we should know that.
35:23I mean, that's not that obscure.
35:24No, it isn't.
35:24That's what I mean.
35:25It's perfectly reasonable.
35:26Oh, yeah.
35:26So, loads of Sikhs watching this program.
35:29Gunth!
35:30For goodness sake, it's Gunth!
35:31Gunth!
35:32No.
35:32It's Grunth.
35:33Ah.
35:34Garunth.
35:34Not Garunth, just Grunth.
35:36There are a lot that supposedly don't have rhymes.
35:38And month was one such, and we thought we'd tell you there is Grunth.
35:41There you are.
35:41So, the holy text of Sikhism is the Guru Grunth Said.
35:45Which city has the most Michelin stars?
35:50Paris.
35:51Oh.
35:52Oh!
35:53Oh!
35:54Where is it?
35:54That don't count.
35:55Because I said Paris, before I put the bag.
35:59So, I get a free, I get a free guest.
36:02Hey, I'm, I'm, I'm black.
36:05Oh!
36:05Oh!
36:06Don't you try that.
36:09I, I ignore the fact that it ain't London.
36:11It's not in France.
36:12It's not in France.
36:12New York, then.
36:13Ned Neville.
36:14Oh, New York's gonna say his people.
36:15Wait a minute, a minute.
36:18Oh, no, no, no, that's...
36:20That's all.
36:20Who said London?
36:22Oh, I didn't say London.
36:23Oh, I said London.
36:25Sorry, sorry.
36:25Oh, Rhett said London.
36:26I didn't say anything.
36:27He didn't say a word.
36:29And frankly, you should be sad.
36:31Who, who, Rhett said London?
36:32Who said London?
36:33No, I would never say London.
36:36No.
36:36What I did say, I said definitely not London.
36:39That's what I said.
36:39No, I did.
36:40I actually said...
36:41I did!
36:42I will believe you.
36:44I will believe you.
36:45I will believe you.
36:45Okay, let me tell you why I said definitely not London.
36:48Yeah.
36:48And I'm not just trying to offend London.
36:51I'm just trying to offend the UK in general.
36:55But I feel like any country that can produce Marmite, they started later than everybody else
37:01and trying to make food taste good.
37:04This is from a country that has spray on cheese.
37:14No, you're right.
37:14It isn't bricky.
37:15No, man, you can cut me off.
37:16You gotta give me a chance and sold you back.
37:18Oh, right.
37:18Sorry.
37:19Yeah.
37:21Marmite tastes like there's a naked man with hairy legs in your kitchen.
37:25Yeah.
37:26But it has...
37:26And every now and again, you take a plate with some toast and you walk under his butt and
37:30you go, okay, Fred.
37:32Yeah.
37:33You want what you do best.
37:40Very good.
37:43Now, the place that has the most Michelin star...
37:46Germany, Holland, Hell, Tokyo.
37:48Tokyo is the right answer.
37:49Oh, yeah, man, yeah.
37:51I should have thought that.
37:51I should have thought of it.
37:52It went straight to number one.
37:54It was only put in in 2007 and it leapt to 2007 with 150 stars amongst its different restaurants.
38:00Yes.
38:00Which is two more than London and Paris combined.
38:03And I could also point out, too, if you put spray on cheese on top of Marmite, you still
38:08got something that tastes .
38:12That's all I want to say.
38:13Yeah.
38:13In fact, you can take your favorite food and if you put Marmite on it, it's .
38:18Why don't you just keep away from Marmite?
38:20Yeah.
38:21Hey, look, man.
38:22When you were talking earlier, I didn't say, hey, why don't you stay away from Ginkgo
38:25trees?
38:25I ain't say nothing like that, too.
38:27I just let you talk about trees, man.
38:30Well, nobody else talking about trees but you.
38:33I seem to play on this program, but...
38:35To be fair, Fred.
38:36Who are you?
38:37To be fair.
38:43All right, moving on to Tokyo has the most Michelin stars, twice as many as Paris and
38:48three times as many as New York.
38:50What color is a nicotine stain?
38:54Yellowy-brown.
38:55Oh, ooh.
38:58Yellowy-brown, eh?
38:59Yellowy-brown, yeah.
39:00Yeah.
39:00Not yellow.
39:01Just...
39:04You're going to tell us that the stain comes from the tar.
39:07The yellow or brown is from the tar.
39:08Nicotine itself is green or something.
39:10The nicotine stain has no...
39:12No stain at all?
39:12No, it's completely colorless.
39:14So it just kills you quietly on its own.
39:15It's very, very poisonous.
39:17Yeah.
39:17But it is...
39:18It's colorless, odorless, and more or less invisible and untraceable.
39:21It's a brilliant poison.
39:22Do you know why it's called nicotine?
39:24Nicotine, just one puff on your mind.
39:26I remember that at school.
39:28Yeah.
39:28He was.
39:28He was the cigarette devil.
39:29He's like the Irish cigarette devil.
39:31Why is it called nicotine?
39:32Oh, it's a Frenchman called Nico, was the sort of Walter Raleigh of France.
39:36Ah, Nico.
39:37To the French.
39:38Nico spelled N-I-C-O-T.
39:39Wow, I sure didn't know that.
39:41Yeah.
39:42From now you did.
39:43I do remember.
39:44Which dictator definitely only had one ball?
39:50Oh, well...
39:50Well, it's not...
39:51It's...
39:51Well, I'm not going to give my points away on that.
39:53Because I know that was...
39:54It was made up about the one we mustn't say.
39:57So we're looking for another dictator.
39:59Yes, you're quite right.
40:00It wasn't Adolf Hitler.
40:01Pol Pot.
40:02Wasn't Pol...
40:06Starling...
40:07Oh, yes.
40:08Oh, yes.
40:14German Mao.
40:15German Mao is the right answer.
40:17He's only got one ball.
40:18Yep.
40:19But he's have lots of girls.
40:20He was proud of it.
40:21One orchism, it's called.
40:22One orchid.
40:23Yes.
40:23Yes, only one flower display and also...
40:26Exactly. Orchid is the same root as the same word as the Greek for testicle.
40:28Whose testimony?
40:30Another word which...
40:30His doctor.
40:31His testimony, yes.
40:33Dr. Lee Jisui was his doctor.
40:35In his memoirs he describes how Mao had an undescended testicle and was infertile.
40:39Had the neural disease from the late 50s and then in the 60s he contracted herpes, 67.
40:45He never brushed his teeth, he rinsed his mouth with tea, so his teeth were green.
40:50He also slept on a wooden bed and used a bedpan.
40:54That's just convenient, no, that's just convenient.
40:57Yes, yes.
40:58No, Hitler's reputation for being uniglobular is apparently has no justification at all.
41:06But Mao most certainly was.
41:09And that, that, ladies and gentlemen, brings us to the scores.
41:12And first, after a fashion with a plus score, four points, Rich Hall.
41:20Just action!
41:30danse
41:31In second place, with minus five and is slightly passe, Clive Anderson.
41:35Those playing to lose.
41:43Oh, and doing what he did well with minus six, Reg the Hover, ladies and gentlemen.
41:54And positively paleontological in his outmodedness is tonight's living fossil on minus 35, Alan Davis.
42:12And so, it's goodnight from Rich, Reg, Clive, Alan and me and we leave you with this thought from Oscar
42:18Wilde.
42:19Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.
42:25My name is Stephen, my bottom is a treasure house fry. Thank you and goodnight.
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