- 8 hours ago
First broadcast 10th December 2009.
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
Sean Lock
Phill Jupitus
Liza Tarbuck
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
Sean Lock
Phill Jupitus
Liza Tarbuck
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:04Good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, and welcome to Games Night at QI. Let's meet the
00:11players. And game for a laugh, it's Phil Jupiters!
00:19And at the top of his game, Sean Locke. A game girl, Lisa Tamak. And thinking about going on the
00:38game, Alan Davies!
00:45And tonight, the bells are all well hung and fairly gamey. Phil goes...
00:52Gladiators ready! Sean goes...
01:02Lisa goes...
01:11Alan goes...
01:13Oh, the game, the game. Excellent. Well, let the games then begin. Picture this, Alan. It's a little complicated, but
01:20I think we'll get that.
01:22Phil, and yourself...
01:24Aye.
01:24...and Sean...
01:25Aye.
01:26...are...
01:27...in love...
01:28Right.
01:29...and why shouldn't you be...
01:30...with Lisa?
01:32You've noticed?
01:32Yes.
01:34Now, you're going to have a truel, which is a three-way duel.
01:39Right.
01:39Now, the problem is, Sean's a really good shot. He hits 90% of the time he hits the target.
01:45It's amazing, looking at me eyes.
01:46Yeah.
01:48Phil hits the target 60% of the time. You, unfortunately, are not a very good shot, and you sh...
01:53only 10% of the time.
01:54Right.
01:55You get the first shot, but you've only got one. You can shoot one of them. Yeah.
02:01They will then each have a shot afterwards. The question is, what would your best strategy be?
02:08Shoot myself.
02:11Oh!
02:12Oh!
02:14Oh!
02:19What's up here?
02:20Yeah, what's up here?
02:21Shoot these up.
02:23There you go.
02:26Yeah, there's something terrible at all out there, you know?
02:29Oh, then you have a gay three-way.
02:31I want to say...
02:31What to you?
02:32I say, there's something... Sean, can you look?
02:34Phil's got something on his back of his shirt, and then I shoot through Phil into Sean.
02:38Yeah, like, we're going to fall for that.
02:41And, like a bullet, is going to make its way through my body.
02:46Anything other than a quarter of an hour. Sean will be the other side of me, going, any minute now.
02:51I'll do it the other way around.
02:52I'll do it the other way around.
02:53Also, I appear to have been eating cocoa out of the jar by just ramming my face in it.
02:58What's going on?
03:00No expense has been spared.
03:01I have done two series of QI without the beard, and yet they still persist on the photo of me
03:07where I look like...
03:08...the fat Carlos the Jackal.
03:11Are you all worried about that? Look at my hair!
03:15That is...
03:16That is more of a dog turd than a hair.
03:18Yeah!
03:19Sorry to say.
03:21Well, surely the only...
03:22My best option is to try and shoot the one who's a better shot than the other one.
03:27You've got a 90% chance of not hitting them.
03:29Yeah.
03:30Even if you went for Sean, even if you actually did kill him...
03:33Yeah.
03:33...then obviously Phil would then aim at you.
03:36So that's a bad option.
03:38Yeah.
03:38Even worse if you shoot Phil, because then you've got a 90% chance to hit him.
03:41Yeah.
03:41But, supposing you just miss.
03:45You deliberately miss.
03:46Oh, and then run away?
03:47No.
03:48Stay where you are.
03:49What's in their interests?
03:51Oh, yeah.
03:51Yeah, shoot the one who's a better shot.
03:52If Phil...
03:53If Phil shot you...
03:54You're no threat to him.
03:55He could shoot you.
03:56But then, he would have no bullet.
03:58You'd have no bullet.
04:00And Sean would have a bullet.
04:02That's brilliant.
04:03Get the guns out.
04:03Yeah.
04:04There you go.
04:06There you go.
04:07Hang on.
04:09There you go.
04:09Pass them on.
04:10Pass them on.
04:10Oh!
04:11Brilliant.
04:12I have another one.
04:12Damn it!
04:14I have another one.
04:15There you are.
04:16They do unload these.
04:17Lee, Lee, it's not worth it!
04:19There you are.
04:19Have you got girls that...
04:20Oh, I don't have one.
04:21Actually, you've got a new one.
04:21Yeah.
04:23Presumably, my gun going off early is one reason that Lee's is probably quite lucky.
04:27I'm going to lose.
04:29Lose the jewel.
04:31What we're dealing with here, while you're refolding your ammunition, is something called
04:36game theory.
04:37Does that ring a bell with you at all?
04:39No, we didn't do that.
04:40Have you heard of game theory?
04:40Game theory?
04:41No.
04:42No, no.
04:42It was invented by a couple of people, particularly von Neumann and Morgenstern in America, but
04:47most famously by a man called Nash.
04:49Does that mean anything to you?
04:50He won a Nobel Prize and then suffered terribly from the awful effects of being played by Russell
04:57Crowe in a film.
04:58Gladiator.
04:59Not gladiator, no.
05:02Oh, the mathematician, a beautiful mind.
05:04Yes, a beautiful mind.
05:05That's right.
05:05He won a Nobel Prize for his work on game theory, which was this kind of thinking, which
05:09has been applied to economics, to business.
05:11For example, a very good example, is advertising.
05:14Now, if you have two companies, if they both advertise, they're both spending an enormous
05:17amount of money and, as it were, cancelling each other out.
05:20But if neither of them advertised, they'd keep the money and the market would remain the
05:25same.
05:26So, what it resulted in is the bizarre situation that when they banned tobacco advertising,
05:31it was to the benefit of the tobacco firms, because they were suddenly saved money that
05:35they were sort of wasting anyway.
05:37Hmm.
05:37Another example, was it an episode of Big Brother, do you remember?
05:40There were two finalists, and they would get 50,000 was the prize money, right?
05:45They were going to be asked separately.
05:46If they both say they'll share it, then they'll share it, they'll get 25k each.
05:51If one of them says, I'll take the lot, right, and the other one says, I'll share it, the
05:56one who says, I'll take the lot, wins the lot.
05:58If they both say, I'll take the lot, neither of them gets anything.
06:01Have you got that?
06:02Yeah.
06:03Yeah.
06:04If one says, I'll share it, and the other one says, I'll take the lot, he gets it.
06:06So, what do you do?
06:08You're in separate rooms, and they say, make your decision now.
06:11I came here with nothing, Stephen.
06:12If you...
06:13That's it.
06:14I've had a lovely day.
06:15Everyone's been so nice.
06:22But your best strategy, I mean, the point is to say, I'll share it.
06:25Is it?
06:25Yeah.
06:26And they both did say, I'll share it.
06:28And they both probably regretted, they both went, I should have said, I'll take the lot.
06:31Yeah.
06:31Because he said, I'll share it, so I should have done it.
06:33Or they should have probably studied at school.
06:40Not gone into some last chance saloon, hoping to get washed up on the shores of fame.
06:45Many people, many people believe that altruism amongst human beings is a genetic development
06:51that is a playing out of precisely this theorem.
06:54That, in a sense, the fact that it's good for us to do things for other people for our
06:58own benefit, rather than be entirely selfish, is one of the principles of game theory.
07:02It's the best thing you can do for yourself, is to be altruistic.
07:06Well, that's, but that, then again, I said, that's why I was offered first aid lessons.
07:09And I thought, how's that going to help me?
07:15You're a sweetheart, aren't you?
07:17What about the bloke who had to cut his arm off, because it was stuck in the rock?
07:20He only knew how to get it off, because he'd done some fundamental first aid.
07:23Yeah.
07:24It was stuck in what?
07:25It was rock climbing, and he had a fall, and his arm got wedged between two rocks,
07:30he couldn't get it out.
07:31And the more he pulled it, the more it swelled up, it got worse.
07:35He knew no one was going to come, he only had a certain amount of food.
07:37He thought, I'm going to have to cut my arm off.
07:40Wow.
07:40So what you have to do first, in case this ever happens to you, is you have to break the
07:45arm, because you can't...
07:46Oh!
07:47There's no way you can cut through the bone with a small knife that you had.
07:51It's not in the time you had.
07:52They knew that, so you had to break his arm, and then he had to cut through the flesh,
07:56and through the gap where he'd broken it.
07:59Nice.
07:59And presumably, you remain completely compass-mentous, otherwise you couldn't do it.
08:03Not scream, yeah.
08:03Yeah.
08:04Does this hit at a particular age?
08:06For example, do kids have this game's mentality of sharing, or does it hit later on in life?
08:11There's a program about sharing, about anger the other day.
08:15And it said that, they got some children, who I think were two, and they said that they
08:19need to be taught to share, shown how to share, supervise, and in doing so, their brains
08:24will actually grow differently as the brain develops.
08:28Yes, they'll make new connections and bridges.
08:30And that's so that your actual personality will change according to how you love it.
08:33Well, that's a good question of Lisa's then, isn't it, is to what age this happens?
08:36I don't know.
08:37Interesting.
08:38I keep staring at the image behind your head, and I'm just drawn to it.
08:41No, you can see, because you're not looking where you're shooting.
08:43Are you?
08:45Alan's probably looking in a mirror, by the way.
08:49He's practising where he goes now.
08:51I'm on the job.
08:52I'm focused.
08:52You are, aren't you?
08:56I'm taking Lisa home with me.
08:58Yeah, but you've got grade one action man hands that don't even grip a gun.
09:04How'd I just shut myself?
09:07I'm not going home with you.
09:09No.
09:10Listen.
09:10So, good.
09:11Well done, everybody.
09:12The point is, in the truel, in the three-way duel, Alan's best plan is deliberately to miss
09:16and hope that the two hotshots kill each other.
09:19It's an example of game theory in action.
09:21Now, which popular game traditionally ends with all the players being thrown into a lake of fiery sulphur?
09:28Well, I hope it's show jumping.
09:34Nice.
09:35I hate show jumping.
09:37Oh, God.
09:39I'd have one of those after every jump.
09:43Before and after every jump.
09:45Yeah.
09:46It's not show jumping though, it would certainly liven it up.
09:49It sounds biblical to me.
09:52I don't think it's the humans, does it?
09:53It's pieces.
09:54Wouldn't it be pieces?
09:55Well, I'll tell you that it's a game that went dramatically out of fashion in 1972.
09:59Early 72, it was more popular than Monopoly.
10:02But by the end of 72, it had almost completely gone out of fashion because of a film.
10:07Mousetrap.
10:10Mousetrap.
10:11No.
10:12There is no film about that.
10:13Because of a film, is it drafts?
10:15What about that film?
10:17Drafts.
10:19The film shows the strength about drafts.
10:22Drafts makes you go bored.
10:24No.
10:24Don't play drafts.
10:26The film is not a game.
10:27There's a game in it.
10:28There's a game in it.
10:28This game is played in it and it's scary.
10:30Oh, is it a seance?
10:31Yeah, it is a seance using a Ouija board.
10:34Okay.
10:35And what film has there a Ouija board?
10:36Oh, The Exorcist.
10:37The Exorcist is the right answer.
10:39Yeah.
10:39One of the truly great films of the 20th century.
10:41Is a Ouija board really a game?
10:43I don't remember ever seeing Ouija board scenes in a film and at the end going,
10:45right, who won?
10:48I'm nearer, not dead.
10:50Well, the odd thing about Ouija, it was a board, it still belongs to Parker Brothers.
10:55Get out!
10:57Ouija is a propriety name, it's a trademark.
10:59Is it Ouija?
11:01Interesting point.
11:03That is some people's theory of the name of it is, yes, two words for yes.
11:06Ouija the French and Ouija the German.
11:07But no one's quite sure about where the name came from, except that it's a game that was invented.
11:12The board was invented and it was sold and people played it.
11:15I mean, it's weird to say that, but they enjoyed the fact that it nearly always works in as much
11:20as, you know,
11:21people spell out words and they don't quite know how they're doing it.
11:24It's clearly not dead people.
11:25Yeah.
11:25And in fact, it was not originally supposed to be dead people.
11:28It was supposed to be that you contacted yourselves, a part of yourselves that automatically wrote.
11:34It was not about seances.
11:36Dead people just joined in.
11:38Okay, this is the one for us.
11:41Even when recently asked, only a third of the people who still use Ouija boards say they do it to
11:46contact dead people.
11:47And in the First World War, it was used to contact your troops abroad.
11:51So, so, hold on, are some dead people trying to communicate with living through Monopoly?
11:57Yeah.
11:58There was a court case in the nineties, I'm sorry to say, in Britain, a murder case, quite an important
12:04one.
12:04And the jury had to be dismissed because in their hotel overnight, they used a Ouija board to try and
12:09contact the murdered person.
12:12And apparently the murdered person said, the guy in the dock is guilty, convict him.
12:17And so, the judge heard about it and dismissed the jury quite rightly, you may say.
12:22But the awful thing was, if they'd done it in the jury room, the judge couldn't have dismissed them.
12:26Because the judge has no right in law to know what goes on in the jury room.
12:31The deliberations must be private.
12:32Unless he's dead.
12:34Oh.
12:34Yeah.
12:35Yeah, that's really complicated.
12:36Was the guy guilty?
12:38Unfortunately, he was retried and found guilty, which is really irritating.
12:43So, maybe the most of the murdered person did.
12:47Where's the competitive element?
12:48Suppose you just have a go.
12:50Yeah.
12:50Who are you trying to contact, right, it's your turn.
12:53Yeah, exactly.
12:54Or you contact two dead people, and then they box.
12:58And then they tell you how it went.
13:00Ghost boxing.
13:02Ghost boxing.
13:04And Sky Sports 2.
13:07Live ghost boxing from our team Vera's parlour.
13:12I see people in sheets.
13:14Yeah.
13:15He's a hitless man, he's already down.
13:18He's just going like that, he's trying to punch him.
13:21Do you know there's an Elvis...
13:24There.
13:25There we go.
13:25Go on.
13:26Hit me.
13:27Hit me.
13:28Hit me.
13:32There's an Elvis seance website.
13:35Of course, sir.
13:36I bet there's more than one of those.
13:37Yeah.
13:38Where you contact Elvis.
13:40Online?
13:40Yeah, but in cautions...
13:42In cautions, if you wish to repeat this experiment, please be considerate.
13:46Many people may wish to contact Elvis, and we're sure he's quite busy.
13:51Please...
13:52Please treat this information...
13:54For eternity.
13:55Yes.
13:55Please treat this information the same as you would if he were alive, and you had his email
13:59address with respect.
14:01It's a terrifying thought, isn't it?
14:03It's a sort of posthumous Twitter and things like that.
14:06That would be hell, I have to say.
14:08Have you just thought of that?
14:09Yeah.
14:10You're in it up to your neck.
14:11Oh, God.
14:13Horrifying.
14:29Horrifying.
14:30Wee-wee...
14:31You're off.
14:32I think it's loneliness the punishment for them.
14:38Long night, sitting alone.
14:43Actually if we had a Ouija board, we'd probably contact me at a few gigs I did in the middle
14:47of the...
14:48You've never died on stage.
14:50Royal Albert Hall ...
14:51Oh, my God!
14:52When Roger Dehltrie is carrying you off going, don't worry, son,
14:55don't worry you KNOW you've died at a gig.
14:58Well, you weren't coming the whole evening, were you just as a guest?
15:00No, no, I just, they put the Who on, the Who did, er, er, some songs, just, but, like, massive
15:06hits, and they just did Won't Get Fooled Again, which finishes, you know, bam, bam, wah, and then some went,
15:12ladies and gentlemen, I feel tupeless, so I really didn't think it through.
15:14No, that's not.
15:14The first, the first squeak of those balloons, because he's, I've lost them.
15:25These acoustics weren't built for this sound.
15:27It goes puppy, giraffe, then funny hat, and then that's the close-up.
15:34Then I'll make hats for other people in the audience.
15:37There you are.
15:37It is interesting, of course, that although a lot of people have gone to Ouija's things, they said, well, words
15:42are spelled out, of course, it isn't dead people, because dead people are dead, so they can't do that, and
15:48if they did want to do anything, it wouldn't be helpful.
15:50Spelling out words, but if you blindfold people, they still move around and do things, but then you turn the
15:56board around without them noticing, they just spell out gobbledygook, surprisingly, which I think kind of proves the point, doesn't
16:01it?
16:02So, yeah, in my use, games which conjured up the spirits of the dead were a popular gift for children,
16:06it's a weird thought.
16:07If they didn't like it, they could go to hell, essentially.
16:09So, during the Second World War, who were the scallywags?
16:13Did that ring a bell? The scallywags?
16:15Not them, that's just a little suggestion.
16:17I have a blur, gin types.
16:18I'm fairly sure it wasn't the SS.
16:21Well, that's the odd thing.
16:24It's the SS?
16:25No.
16:29They were the scallywags, scallywags.
16:32Well, what I'm saying is...
16:34The cheekiest men in the war.
16:35Despite the cheeky name, we're talking about something really dark and violent.
16:40That's why I'm going well.
16:42Sniper.
16:42Well, no, what was the cutest, cuddliest, sweetest part of the British forces, probably, if you think of...
16:48Firolin.
16:49Yes.
16:50Or Dad's Army, for example.
16:52Er...
16:52The Home Guard.
16:53Okay.
16:54But, there were plans afoot, that if, and probably when, right, that's a man dressed as a woman, doing a
17:01practice there, if and when the Germans invaded, there would be a guerrilla section of people who were not mainstream
17:08military...
17:09I almost wish they had invaded, but that was out of it, and that was what it was.
17:13There were people in reserved occupations like...
17:15Hands up, Chris.
17:16Yeah.
17:17Think about that picture, the baby's the best shot.
17:21It's a trule.
17:22But clergymen and doctors were secretly trained, given money and supply dumps of ammunition and explosives, and a gallon of
17:30rum in each one.
17:31And their job would be, when the Germans came, not only, not only to shoot Germans, but there was a
17:36general view that Churchill would be killed or removed, and someone like Lord Halifax would go in.
17:41And Michael Foote was one of these, scallywags, as they were called, they were the secret auxiliary part of Dad's
17:47Army, and he and George Orwell and J.B. Priestley and others, all were trained to assassinate anyone who collaborated
17:53with the Nazis.
17:54And there would be an underground resistance, and Michael Foote said, I would have killed Lord Halifax.
17:58I was quite prepared, too, and I would have killed him.
18:01So they were pretty violent.
18:02It was not an easy, cosy thing.
18:04Quite, it's a good story, isn't it?
18:06It's a terribly clever thing, though, isn't it?
18:07Because if somebody did come over and collaborate, anybody who might otherwise have caused trouble or ructions of a different
18:13kind would be automatically on the side of good.
18:16Yes.
18:17If you know what I mean.
18:18That's the way, you're exactly right.
18:19It's that a group of radicals and left-wingers had an uneasy alliance with the military who trained them against
18:25the possibility of anybody who collaborated with Nazis.
18:27That is a double-mind Jedi.
18:29It is.
18:29I think they are.
18:30What I'm interested in is how Michael Foote's changed his image over here.
18:35He has a little eye.
18:36If he'd worn that beautiful outfit on Armistice Day, there wouldn't have been all that fuss.
18:40It's Spike Milligan.
18:41Well, yeah.
18:42Also, they were trained on night duty of stealth, but they only had two weeks' worth of rations in the
18:47thing, because essentially the belief was that they wouldn't survive any longer that.
18:50They were basically suicide squads.
18:53They were a terrorist suicide squad, which we now call them, essentially.
18:56That's what they were trained in.
18:57It was a cellular structure like terrorist.
18:59They didn't know who the others were.
19:01They only knew their own band.
19:02And they were tasked to do specific things.
19:04Do you suspect that such an organisation exists today?
19:06Really?
19:07I wonder.
19:08I wouldn't.
19:10I'm not allowed to tell you.
19:11Have you been trained to kill?
19:12The unofficial motto was terror by night.
19:16Even in the ordinary, if you can call it that, home guard, there were some pretty tough things being taught.
19:21Boy Scouts, aged 12 to 14, were giving demonstrations at Austerley Park, where the training camp was for the home
19:26guard, of how to decapitate motorcycles by stretching wire across the road.
19:30That's 12 to 14-year-olds.
19:30That's the kind of scouting I wanted to do.
19:34Following the twigs around effing for it.
19:37Harry Lee, who was the British roller-skating champion, demonstrated how to use roller-skates to knee someone in the
19:43groin.
19:45You're going to slip over there.
19:46How are you going to get the other foot anchored?
19:48Yeah, I think you'd rather have thought it through.
19:51You may be right.
19:52Anyway, there you are.
19:53During the Second World War, guerrilla fighters from Dad's army were trained as underground scallywags.
19:57They must have been pretty tough customers, but who, team, who were the toughest of all vegetarians in history?
20:05That's a sort of a bit of a, what's it called, an oxymoron, that isn't it?
20:08You'd think, what is it?
20:10There are whole swathes of Asia where there are a lot of vegetarians, I'm sure their armies would be quite
20:15fearsome.
20:16Some sort of Shailin monk, ninjas, kung fu, are we orient here, are we oriental?
20:21Yeah, well, I mean, you may be right, but who are the toughest, well, not the toughest.
20:24Bulls.
20:25Bulls.
20:25Yes, well, of course, that's true, the strongest animals on earth are all vegetarians.
20:28They're tough as anything, they're not carnivores.
20:30But no, I'm thinking of in history, group...
20:32Hitler, he was quite tough, I suppose.
20:33Ah, yes, but Hitler was not a vegetarian.
20:36Were they?
20:36No, oddly enough.
20:38For some reason people want to think of him as a vegetarian, I mean, it's certainly true that he didn't
20:41smoke or drink much, occasionally he had glasses of wine, but, I'm not saying he was wonderful, but then, by
20:48saying he's vegetarian, I'm not saying he's ghastly either.
20:51Think of a film in the last 15 years...
20:55Cowboys.
20:55There was a very successful film, an Australian actor starred as a...
20:59Gladiators.
21:00Gladiators, is the answer.
21:01Yeah.
21:01They're vegetarians, were they?
21:02They were, they were not, they were vegans, in fact, or vegans, however you like to say it.
21:06Relatively recent discoveries in Ephesus, where there's a mass grave of gladiators, showed that they gave all indications that they
21:12didn't eat meat.
21:13And, in fact, they were known as barley men, hordiarii, meaning eaters of barley.
21:17It was thought that they basically ate barley and beans and a bit of dry ash, which was supposed to
21:22be good for the mussels, but it was important that they were quite fat.
21:25And they're always shown as stocky in art.
21:27Right.
21:27How can they find out that they're vegetarian from an archaeological dig?
21:31Well, I think it's teeth.
21:32Shopping list.
21:32Oh, okay.
21:33Teeth.
21:36You've got it all there, there, waitrose.
21:38Carb.
21:39Carb with flint on slate.
21:43Beans.
21:44No, just loads of toilet paper.
21:48Do you know what?
21:49I thought, beyond teeth, how would they know?
21:51Well, actually, chemicals in the bone, and so on, and levels of zinc and things like that, that indicate very
21:56strongly.
21:57If it's low levels of zinc, it indicates they didn't eat meat.
22:00See, I have a problem with all this sort of prehistoric science, is the fact that they do, they get
22:05the bones, and they go,
22:08I'm seeing that's what, something like that.
22:11And they've got to find something, haven't they?
22:13They go, oh, well, these chemicals suggest they only eat vegetables.
22:16They can't go, that hasn't been very used to us whatsoever.
22:21I've wasted the last three bloody years of my life!
22:26That is so precisely what scientists do do.
22:28Yes.
22:29They say constantly, all the time, this is not indicative of anything.
22:31We don't know.
22:32We don't know.
22:32If there's any group of people who says, we don't know a lot, it's scientists.
22:36Unlike religionists.
22:37And isn't it weird that scientists are the ones always accused of being arrogant?
22:40It's so ridiculous.
22:41But that we don't know is the default position on science.
22:43Until you absolutely know something.
22:45No, it's actually, we just don't know.
22:46We just don't know.
22:48We just don't know.
22:48We just don't know.
22:49Don't get me started.
22:50I admit it.
22:51Yeah.
22:52Anyway, the fact is, it seems, at the moment, that Roman gladiators were strict vegans.
22:57Now, what kind of contest might end in either a checkmate or a knockout?
23:02Well, by the look of it, choxing.
23:06I'm going to give you the points.
23:08They're called choxing?
23:09It's not called choxing.
23:10It's called chess boxing.
23:11Choxing?
23:12There is a sport called chess boxing.
23:14Yeah.
23:14I know.
23:15It's weird.
23:16You play and fight one another at the same time?
23:18Well, you have a lot.
23:19You don't get up and...
23:19Tonight, yeah.
23:20In purple Wembley, Henry Cooper meets Garry Kasparov.
23:25No, you have to be good at both.
23:26It's like a pentathlon or something.
23:27What, I tell you...
23:28You box a round, then you do some chess.
23:29Yeah, basically, you've got 12 minutes only chess boxing.
23:31You've got four minutes of chess, then three minutes of boxing, and back again.
23:36And between rounds, players have one minute to remove or don their gloves,
23:38because obviously boxing gloves and chess doesn't work very well.
23:41You win by either checkmate or knockout,
23:44or failing those by retirement or exceeding the time limit on the board.
23:47Do you know who the Ukrainian WBC heavyweight champion is?
23:50Vladimir Klitschko.
23:51Yes.
23:52And his brother is...
23:53Klitschko.
23:54His brother is Vladimir.
23:55No, Vitaly is the WC and Vladimir is IBF.
23:59They're brothers.
24:00And Vitaly's a PhD and plays chess very well.
24:03And his brother is also a chess player.
24:04So they could probably play.
24:06And Lennox Lewis is a very keen chess player.
24:07In fact, when Lennox Lewis played Klitschko, he beat him, in fact, didn't he?
24:11They would be the ideal, but it does exist.
24:13It took place firstly in the Netherlands in 2003.
24:16You could do it with other sports, couldn't you, then?
24:18Yeah.
24:18Go on.
24:19I don't know.
24:22Chugby.
24:22Chugby.
24:24Chess and rugby.
24:25Chess and rugby.
24:25Chugby, I like it.
24:26Darts and swimming.
24:28Ooh.
24:29Swats.
24:30Swats.
24:31Or dimming.
24:32Or dimming, yeah.
24:34Underwater darts.
24:34Would that work?
24:35Oh, yes, I like the sound of that.
24:36Or darts at swimmers.
24:40I went to the Olympics in Athens.
24:41I went to the swimming.
24:42I go to the swimming.
24:43That would be fantastic.
24:44It would be very exciting.
24:45It's rubbish.
24:46Oh.
24:46You have no idea what's going on.
24:48You're just sat looking at a pool.
24:51People with us going up and down.
24:52You have no idea who's in the lead, who's won.
24:55Television's best.
24:56Which one is which.
24:57Yeah.
24:58200 euros.
24:59What?
25:00You'll never get them back.
25:01Don't bother.
25:01When we have it in 2012, we'll be everything but.
25:05What about?
25:05Fuka.
25:06Same to you.
25:08All right.
25:08Football and snooker.
25:09What about ping swing ball?
25:13Say again?
25:14Ping swing ball.
25:15Ping swing ball.
25:16Very good.
25:16Ping pong with one hand, swing ball with the other.
25:19Superb.
25:19Trivial winks.
25:25Trivial winks.
25:26Trivial winks.
25:27Trivial winks.
25:28Trivial winks.
25:28Trivial winks.
25:30Excellent.
25:30Well, there's a thing called Calcio Fiorentino.
25:33All right.
25:33It's a form of football and martial arts together.
25:36Played in Florence, in which the rules permit head-butting,
25:38punching, elbowing and choking.
25:41This year, there was a new rule that banned...
25:43It's another game in Wimbledon.
25:45This year, there was a new rule that banned people with criminal records.
25:51And one team lost 20 of its players.
25:54That's a bit unfortunate.
25:56Suspicious.
25:57There's slam ball, which is an American game, which is a sort of basketball where they have trampolines on the
26:03court.
26:03So you can use them to block and to bounce.
26:07Have you seen that?
26:07Wow.
26:07I've seen that.
26:09There's a channel that shows nothing but that.
26:11Is it good?
26:12These games are really for people who couldn't get in the football team, are they?
26:15Well, you didn't make the team squad, but you can play Chefflington or whatever.
26:21I didn't even try there, did I?
26:23No, I didn't.
26:25Well, anyway, chess boxing is a quite interesting hybrid sport.
26:29What was the first prize in the annual Mayan, right, ball game tournament?
26:36Goal!
26:36Yes.
26:37He hadn't had one, so I thought, an avocado.
26:40It comes from there, doesn't it?
26:42It comes from that area.
26:43Trousers.
26:43Some trousers.
26:47They are.
26:48A pair of trainers.
26:49A pair of trainers.
26:50It looks good though, doesn't it?
26:52Why have spectators got all the clothes on?
26:55Fat people in clothes.
26:56What else do we know about Mayans?
26:59Sacrifice, blood sacrifice.
27:00Yes.
27:00Your life?
27:01Was the prize your life?
27:03Basically, yeah, your life was taken.
27:05If you were the captain of the winning team, you were killed and your heart was taken up and burned.
27:11Which, seems odd.
27:12What's that going to do at the post-match interview?
27:15Well, I've got so broken up all the legs.
27:17Very well!
27:18Oh, my God!
27:19My heart!
27:20My heart!
27:21Ah!
27:22Ah!
27:24Thank you, Dave.
27:30Excellent.
27:34What was the incentive, though?
27:35Why would you want to win?
27:36Well, this is the logical problem, isn't it?
27:38They played the game for 3,000 years from 1400 BC.
27:41It wasn't until 700 AD that a king known as 18 Rabbit decided that it made better sense to sacrifice
27:47the captain of the losing team.
27:49Yeah.
27:50As you say, it would incentivise each side to play better.
27:53Not a minute!
27:53It's a long time to work it out, isn't it?
27:54I wonder the games have been so rubbish all year.
27:56Yeah, yeah.
27:57Another own goal!
27:58I get it!
28:01It's an 86 own goal!
28:05Who knows why?
28:06That's kind of interesting, then.
28:08Because I was thinking, well, if they went along to that slaughter willingly...
28:12I think that's...
28:12That's it.
28:13It was an honour to die.
28:14It was an honour to die.
28:14Mindset, yeah.
28:15I don't agree.
28:16But then the fact that the guy changed it, that's clearly...
28:18That doesn't make sense at all, does it?
28:20No, no.
28:20You can say it safely now, even with all the problems of the BBC and what's politically correct,
28:25I think you can safely say the Mayans were...
28:30They were really...
28:32Stupid.
28:33If I'd known this about those terrible, terrible Mayans,
28:36I wouldn't have enjoyed my Aztec bars back in the 70s.
28:39With such abandon.
28:40They were from the Aztecs.
28:41Good.
28:42Aztecs?
28:42Oh!
28:45Aztecs is Mexico.
28:47Mayans, Belgium.
28:51Now, Mayans is Peru, isn't it?
28:53Well, no, that was the Incas, really.
28:54Oh!
28:54The Mayans...
28:56The Mayans did share the same land as the Aztecs.
28:59I mean, it was Central America, really.
29:00Yeah.
29:00Honduras all the way through it.
29:02Oh, I see.
29:02I said, do you want to take that urgh back?
29:04Yeah.
29:04Yeah.
29:05You would sing the urgh.
29:08Oh!
29:09No, no.
29:10Sure.
29:10No, no.
29:11That's...
29:11That's a complimentary.
29:12Take it back.
29:14Very good.
29:14Well done.
29:15Well done.
29:16Yep, there you are.
29:16Yeah, the winners of the Mayan Championships at the beginning were sacrificed to the Sun God
29:20until, erm, one year, the king known as 18 Rabbit decided to change the rules and sacrifice
29:25the losers instead.
29:26Now, where might you see a boat like this here?
29:30Las Vegas.
29:32Oh, she's good.
29:34Yeah.
29:34It just stopped you from saying, that water is too clean.
29:39Yeah.
29:39It just stopped you from saying, that water is too clean.
29:39Much too clean for the place that we set the bells off.
29:41That whole wall isn't rotten and...
29:45Those people in that gondola clearly still have some money left.
29:50It was, let me tell you, if you go in the gondolas in Venice, kiss goodbye to the rest
29:55of the holiday.
29:56You're going to be coming on Italian social services.
29:59He's just paid 50 euros for that hand job.
30:01Oh, hello.
30:04It's more like the Italian guy is leading over and asking her for her room number.
30:08Very likely.
30:10Now, but there's another reason why that could not possibly be Venice.
30:13That's the gondola itself.
30:14What's wrong with it?
30:15Just too bling.
30:17Well, it is too bling, actually.
30:18But that's because...
30:19Have you been to Venice?
30:20Have you noticed gondolas?
30:22Yes.
30:22Yeah, very expensive.
30:23They're very expensive, yes.
30:24They're black.
30:25They're all black.
30:26It's an ordinance from 1633 onwards.
30:29They have to be black.
30:30A sumptuary law that says they will be black.
30:33They're allowed little bits of ornament and bling, as you can see.
30:36They're allowed a little curly prow and a few other such things, but they must be black.
30:40And since we're in Las Vegas, let's go to the casino.
30:42We've talked about them a bit, but how can you win money from a casino?
30:47Magnets.
30:48Counting cards.
30:49Prostitution.
30:52Card counting.
30:53Card counting, that's right.
30:54And they can spot that you're doing it.
30:55They have people that watch and know that you're doing it.
30:56They do know.
30:57And it was a chap who wrote a book.
31:00Ben something?
31:01No.
31:01Nevis.
31:04Awfully good.
31:05No, I interviewed the dude.
31:06Well, you interviewed him.
31:07He's a maths teacher at a college and he gets some students.
31:09Was it MIT students, was he?
31:10Yeah, yeah.
31:11And they went as an experiment, kind of.
31:14And he's been banned from the casino.
31:15It's not against the law.
31:17You're not cheating.
31:17Actually, all you're doing is playing the game extremely well.
31:19Now what happens is that they have this amazing face recognition technology that all the casinos in the world buy
31:25into.
31:25If you went into a casino in Phoenix, say, and did some card counting and they said, excuse me, so
31:31can you leave?
31:31They can't really take your winnings away from you.
31:33They just make you leave unless they're criminals.
31:34They're trying to beat you up if they really dislike you.
31:37And you were to go into one in Macau, flew over the next day, they'd spot you as you came
31:41in.
31:41Their computers would pick you up and face recognition and say, he's a card counter.
31:45Because they would have been...
31:46As if they haven't got enough advantages.
31:47I know, but that's the thing.
31:48Yeah.
31:48They're just there to make money.
31:50And how do they spot that you're card counting unless you sit there and go, a seven!
31:55Five!
31:57A deck!
31:59Bust!
31:59A deck!
32:02A deck!
32:02A deck!
32:02A deck!
32:04A deck!
32:05And if you did do that, I would go, excuse me, so can you...
32:10I got a picture bun!
32:11I got a picture bun!
32:14Well that's maybe the way you disguise it.
32:16Yeah.
32:17Well of course what they do is they do it in teams and they have very clever ways...
32:21You're doing that, the guy at the other end is counting the cards, the perfect...
32:24Yeah.
32:24Yeah. Well, you're right. That was the system that Ben Campbell, the guy you interviewed. Ben Campbell, remember him?
32:30Yes.
32:30Yes.
32:33That was his system. But oddly enough, they've tried to do it with roulette. How would you do it with
32:38roulette?
32:39Count the spins.
32:41You stop it.
32:42Count the ball.
32:43Stop it. Stop time.
32:45And then you only can move. Everyone else is frozen in time.
32:49Yeah.
32:50And then you get the ball and put it exactly where you want.
32:52Yeah.
32:53And then go, everyone back in the room.
32:56Why not just to help yourself with all the money in the place while you've stopped time?
33:02Because, because, because, when you're eventually, you'd have to stop time and bring them back in and they'd know, they'd
33:08go, something's missing.
33:11If you won, they'd go, wow, you've done it again.
33:14I know how you win.
33:15And I feel my pants are on.
33:18I know how you win.
33:19Well, you would, wouldn't you? You'd take all the money and you'd fiddle with people.
33:22Whoa!
33:23Whoa!
33:24Whoa!
33:25So, whoa!
33:27Whoa!
33:28Whoa!
33:29Whoa!
33:29Whoa!
33:29Whoa!
33:30Whoa!
33:30What you gotta watch out for? You just gotta watch. You don't play one of the tables where the croupier,
33:35once he spins it, goes like this with his hand.
33:39yes they just go place your bets and then he goes only a few years ago a group of people
33:46won 1.3 million at the ritz casino here in london using a laser scanner inside a mobile phone linked
33:52to a computer that measured the speed of the roulette ball as the croupier released it and
33:56it would predict approximately where on the wheel the ball would land and the police were called
34:00decided that they hadn't broken law because they haven't interfered with the spin at all
34:04so they were betting the last seconds yeah the last thing possible yeah and that's obviously
34:10alerted the suspicion oh god that must be fun yeah trying to keep cool mind you every time they
34:16use a scanner it went did you do did you do do not now on gambling it seems that the
34:27only honest way
34:27to win money from a casino is by playing blackjack extremely well in candy but if you do that they'll
34:31probably kick you out now i i tell you all this but maybe i'm bluffing and how would you know
34:35if i
34:35was bluffing while we're still with gambling games how do you know when we know your tell ah that's
34:41the word isn't it a tell is what they're called what are tells um when you go to cars you
34:48go come on come on
34:51all that we're just blinking a lot blinking a lot yeah yeah it's said to be one folks fast cars
34:56it's all
34:56gonna be mine now if you were quite good at poker you might then reverse that mind you and if
35:04you've got a
35:04really bad hand do that yeah so that's the problem i'll go on i'll go in anyway but what's the
35:08point
35:09yeah oh come on apparently poker legend amarillo slim once said to somebody if you can tell my poker
35:16hand from looking at me i'll let you shit in this hat which seems behind
35:23why that's oh right now i can sit in the hat i've always wanted to do that
35:28that's not what you call a prize no but it was just where it's better in a texan drawl which
35:34is where
35:34saying poker is about is that's what that's not really about reading faces mind reading if you could
35:38read people's minds that would be good wouldn't it if you had a mind reading hat that would come
35:43eventually make poker pointless won't it yeah this is jade game is stupid let's wrestle
35:51you can't ruin that yeah well great i'm gamblers tell you that weak is strong and strong is weak
35:59they basically try and bluff the other thing as it were they double bluff there may be triple bluffing
36:03who knows but now we enter the end game gentlemen lady with your chance to take a wild gamble on
36:09a
36:09few hands of general ignorance so fingers on buzzers what color is this hound
36:17oh you're good how did you know that i'm mad for dogs oh you like dogs don't you yeah what's
36:23the name of the breed
36:23it is a miniature it's a greyhound it's a greyhound but the greyhounds are not grey
36:31the word grey is actually from greg or is it was a greek hunt and greek means bitch yeah yeah
36:37early in the same bit so it's a bitchhound basically and as you say they're called blue that color is
36:42called blue there you are yeah what do we know about greyhound racing is it flourishing at the
36:46moment or is it down in the dolding i know greyhound racing uk tell us it's the second most popular
36:51spectator sport in the country after football 2.5 billion wagered every year i think a lot of the
36:57greyhounds though they've gone off it they're more interested in football and how fast does the
37:02hair go around the little 40 miles an hour up to 100 really yeah max speed 70 actually with greyhounds
37:11isn't it between 40 and 70 miles per hour the dogs themselves who would win out of a race between
37:17a
37:17cheetah and a greyhound i would who would win cheetah cheetah well the cheetah would just have lunch
37:25you wouldn't worry about that yeah yeah brilliant well someone did try actually a man called
37:33kenneth gander dower and the trouble is that the cheetah just wasn't interested let me just sit down
37:38it wouldn't race especially with this little monkey jockey they're interested rabbits so they have to
37:44have something that the cheetah would like they're not going to think that a little bit of rag racing
37:48around an electric so funny i should say that yeah because i did this documentary about a place in
37:54namibia and it's a big cat reservation and they had a baby cheetah that had been found at the roadside
38:01and brought to them so with an in an effort to try and return it to the wild they set
38:05up a motor
38:06with a long bit of cord and pulleys that zigzagged around this field and attached a rag to it
38:13and then this thing would fly around and this that was the cheetah would would chase it and they
38:18were trying to get it to keep it or you know it's hunting instinct oh well maybe then they would
38:24go
38:24around the right i agree to feed them horse meat and we're driving in a like in a pickup doing
38:30about
38:3030 miles an hour and they're just jogging along next to you at 30 that's really really amazing and
38:36they only eat fresh meat leopards will eat rotten maggots strewn stuff they'll take up a tree and leave it
38:41for days they do that so the cheetahs has to be dead fish or steamed fish fussy or steamed fish
38:48yeah peel all their apples well that was very i didn't want if you haven't got a big curly bit
38:55they won't eat the apple that's right that's the bit they're interesting that bouncy curly bit
39:01i'll eat the apple but i want that they are pretty much they're fussy they are fussy animals indeed
39:06anyway greyhounds are not grey and even the ones that are are in fact blues
39:10now what should you do with muscles that don't open when you cook them
39:15oh leave them well alone really yeah
39:17what is what should you do with them don't eat them
39:21well yeah that's good advice no it isn't no it's terrible advice
39:25clearly yeah
39:27as good as you didn't say throw them away though then you would have been a forfeit
39:30oh no it's odd this is a woman called jane greekson and she wrote a very fine book on seafood
39:35in which
39:36she said if they don't open then they're bad throw them away and this was in the early 70s and
39:41by the
39:4190s 90 of all books said it in fact the australian seafood commission say if anything it's the reverse
39:48is true that actually one that doesn't open it may be better for you and certainly one that's open
39:52before you start cooking you should throw away yeah because that'll be dead yeah i love seafood i was
39:57in barcelona and i had some clams and my wife said oh they don't smell right i went to be
40:04fine that's it
40:06and i know i was very it's not a really good story though i'll tell you i was really ill
40:10well i was so ill i was so sick it's the sickest i've ever been i couldn't bend over a
40:14toilet
40:14oh i had to stand in the shower go like that
40:21it's horrendous and uh and i've never been ill with them before so about two weeks later
40:27i thought you know get up get back on the horse yeah i had some rays of clams
40:33uh-oh and they're like the delay was about an hour and i was back up in the shower
40:41wow and i'm really frightened that i'll have an allergy for life oh that would be yeah it's the
40:45most horrendous thing food poisoning but the fact that your body just does this mass eject yeah i
40:51think it's great i don't want to see it thanks but i think it's great well it's fine to eat
40:57closed
40:58muscles in fact they're probably fresher than the open ones what did gladiators say incidentally at the
41:03beginning of a tournament we who are about to die salute you oh
41:11come on that's what it's there yeah you're right no not the face
41:18very good no they didn't say that like a bean salad
41:23yeah i want a steak there was a thought that it was morituri te sedutamos or whatever which would
41:30be in the latin and they said it to the emperor claudius but they weren't actually gladiators they
41:35were just prisoners who were going to be killed no gladiator was ever recorded as saying it that's
41:39the point so there's no reason to believe it was ever said by a gladiator what do they say
41:43but they say something like come on let's just all try to have a laugh yeah yeah yeah absolutely
41:49and so once again we find ourselves at the end of the game and it's fascinating actually
41:53our winner a clear winner with five points is lisa tarbuck
42:02in uh in second place with two points phil jupiters
42:14in third place sean with minus seven
42:22but yes minus 17 ellen davis
42:33hello that's it thanks to phil sean lisa allen and me and we'll leave you with this self-evident
42:39truth from james hetfield out of off of metallica who said it's all fun and games until someone loses
42:45is an eye then it's fun and games that you can't see anymore
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