- 7 hours ago
First broadcast 26th March 2010.
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
Bill Bailey
Danny Baker
Jeremy Clarkson
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
Bill Bailey
Danny Baker
Jeremy Clarkson
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:05Good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, and welcome to QI, where this week we'll be recycling
00:11some old rubbish as we're going green. Joining me tonight on our solar panel we have the sustainable Bill Bailey.
00:22The recyclable Denny Baker, the impossible Jeremy Clarkson, and the equal vegetable Alan Davis.
00:44And in the interest of reducing our carbon footprint, we've switched off the electric buzzers. We've given our panel, yes,
00:53a selection of fully renewable wind and calorie-powered woodland whistles to attract my attention.
00:58Bill goes, excellent, thank you, very good, very good. And Danny goes, I've got less.
01:14Oh, thank you very much, everyone.
01:21Oh, that's pretty good, this is an abandoned ship. You'll get a constable in no time.
01:29And Alan goes, eh.
01:33Of course.
01:37So, stand by to offset your emissions as we venture into question one.
01:42Nice, easy starter. What colour was Frankenstein?
01:47Yes.
01:49Green.
01:50Oh!
01:51Oh!
01:54Frankenstein was a baron in a novel who was a scientist who made a monster.
01:58Yes, I know, and the monster's name?
02:00The monster's name?
02:01The monster's actual name in the book. He does have a name.
02:03Go on, go on, go on, tell us.
02:04Adam.
02:05Adam, of course he's called Adam, because he's like the first man, isn't he?
02:08So, yes, what colour, obviously, was Frankenstein's monster?
02:11Oh.
02:12Er...
02:13Whoooo!
02:14Yep.
02:15Green.
02:16Babel in...
02:17Oh, no, purple, purple!
02:20Well, I'm just going to say it's sort of grey colour, but that's because I only ever saw him in
02:23black and white.
02:25I don't really know what colour is.
02:26She didn't write a black and white book, except in the sense the print was black and the paper was
02:30white, but she used coloured words.
02:31And she did describe Mary Shelley, who wrote the novel, of course.
02:34Yes.
02:35In 18...
02:36In 1818.
02:37Dawn is yellow.
02:37Yellow is the answer.
02:38His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath.
02:42Oh, okay.
02:42His hair was of a lustrous black and flowing, his teeth of a pearly whiteness.
02:46When she says it's scarcely covered, does she mean there were gaps?
02:48Yeah, because he was like a dead body had been brought back to life.
02:51Bits of them.
02:51So it was like, yeah.
02:52Like the mummy, you remember when the mummy gets, in the movie, gets...
02:56Bits...
02:56Yeah.
02:57Imhotep.
02:59Imhotep.
03:00Imhotep.
03:01Imhotep.
03:01Imhotep.
03:02Imhotep.
03:03Imhotep.
03:05So, yeah, yellow skin, apparently.
03:07Amazing, the novel, Mary Shelley's novel, sold, how many copies do you think, when it came
03:11out?
03:11Twelve hundred.
03:12Million.
03:12No, just five hundred.
03:13It wasn't considered a success.
03:15Really?
03:15One thing made it a success, a few years after it was published.
03:18Theatre.
03:19Oh.
03:19People realised it would make really exciting theatre.
03:22And T.P. Crook played the monster, made him famous as the Boris Karloff of his day.
03:26And over the next four years, 14 separate productions in London, Bristol and various other cities
03:30took place.
03:31And then the book just took off and it became so famous that by the time cinema was invented, of
03:34course,
03:34it was one of the earliest subjects for cinema.
03:36It suited it very well.
03:38And then when colour cinema came out, for some reason he got a bit green in the face.
03:41Around the gills.
03:42But when the Incredible Hulk was created, what colour was he?
03:46Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, you see...
03:48But he was green when he was a Hulk.
03:49He was...
03:50Not originally.
03:51Wasn't he a purple-y colour?
03:53No, he was grey, oddly enough.
03:55Stan Lee created it and his monster wasn't green when he first appeared in 62.
03:59He was grey because he wanted him not to suggest any ethnicity.
04:02But green doesn't suggest any ethnicity anyway.
04:05Is it Japanese or Korean or the director of the movies?
04:09What's his name?
04:10Oh, the Hulk movie.
04:12Ang Lee.
04:13He did all the movements, did you know that?
04:15No, I didn't know that.
04:16They CGI'd the Hulk in.
04:18Yeah.
04:18So every time he goes,
04:20Oh, he put on one of these suits with lots of points on this.
04:22Oh, like anti-circus.
04:23Yeah.
04:23And then they had him doing lots of Hulk stuff.
04:26Wow.
04:26But he wasn't really very Hulk-like.
04:29He's about five foot four, quite narrow-hipped.
04:31Yeah.
04:32So when the Hulk leaps out the bullying, he kind of went,
04:34Heee!
04:38In fact, when Hulk comes out, if you go,
04:41I saw!
04:42It really, really, really, really works.
04:45And he jumps and he kind of goes,
04:46Heee!
04:46Heee!
04:47In the first three Superman comics, he can't fly.
04:50How lame is that?
04:51He ran to his destination.
04:53Yeah.
04:54Faster than Superman.
04:55Superman couldn't fly in the initial comics.
04:58He became flying after a while when they realised,
05:00this is a bit, you know, him waiting for traffic lights to change.
05:02It's all a bit pedestrian.
05:04He began flying after that.
05:06Goodness.
05:06Along with Beppo the super dog and the super horse and,
05:09is it the stable?
05:10Yes.
05:10And Super Tramp.
05:12And Super Tramp!
05:14Was it, of course, no, it couldn't have been a cost thing in the comic, could it?
05:16No!
05:17It didn't find it!
05:18Because it's Star Trek, they had to invent beaming
05:20because they couldn't afford to land the shuttle on the planet every week.
05:22Oh, is that why they did it?
05:23Yeah.
05:24Because otherwise they'd have to have the model going wobbling down on cotton and...
05:27Sorry, sorry, sorry, Jamie, you're saying it's a model.
05:30What do you mean?
05:30You're saying it's not...
05:34Oh, dear.
05:35Oh, dear.
05:35Oh, dear.
05:35Energised, isn't it?
05:36You know who made Star Trek?
05:37Lucille Ball.
05:38I love Lucy.
05:39Well, it was her studio designated.
05:41Yeah, but even so.
05:41Ambition impossible, too.
05:43Ambition impossible.
05:43Lucille Ball met her husband on the set of RKO,
05:46and what a great story.
05:46Five years later, they bought the studio.
05:49Chucked out the name RKO, called it Desilu, made Star Trek.
05:52Lucille Ball.
05:52I love Lucy.
05:53Yeah, I love Lucy.
05:54Invented, and therefore invented teleporting.
05:56So, Lucille Ball invented teleporting.
05:58So, we've just discovered.
06:00Yeah, well, Frankenstein's monster was, in fact, yellow in the book, anyway.
06:03Now, where is the best place to mine gold in the UK?
06:08Oh, who got there first?
06:10Underground.
06:11Go on.
06:11Underground.
06:12Well, underground.
06:14You think, wouldn't you?
06:16Right.
06:17You'd think it was underground.
06:20Yeah.
06:20But that's not the answer.
06:21Probably the dentist.
06:23That was a very interesting thought.
06:24Jimmy Savile's toilet.
06:27That's where he keeps it stuffed under the ring.
06:32You get from a ton of...
06:34From a...
06:35From a...
06:37From a...
06:38Toilet.
06:39Melvin, there's my rings.
06:45All his furniture's got drawers in it.
06:50Where did I put that thing?
06:52Where did I put that thing?
06:56Sorry, jealousy.
06:57That's fine.
06:58For a ton of mineable ore, you get five grams of gold.
07:02Yeah.
07:02Whereas a ton of what I'm thinking of will yield 150 grams.
07:07There's bodies.
07:08No.
07:09No.
07:10Mobile phones.
07:12Mobile phones, of which we throw away 1.5 million a year.
07:16And so much gold can be got from them.
07:18And in Japan in particular, where there's not much natural resources of any particular kind,
07:22they have the sort of corner of the market in eco-recycling.
07:25And mobile phones is a bigger...
07:27And they get it from sewage plants as well.
07:29What?
07:30Little tiny specks of it from industrial effluent.
07:33Gold.
07:34Used in so many processes and little bits of it waste and they can be recovered.
07:38Oh great.
07:38Isn't that amazing?
07:39It is.
07:39And from a ton of mobile phones, you may get 150 grams of gold, but how much copper?
07:46300.
07:47A hundred.
07:48A hundred kilograms.
07:49A hundred kilograms of copper.
07:50I raise you.
07:52That's pretty good, isn't it?
07:54Yeah.
07:54That's pretty good.
07:55And three kilograms of silver.
07:57Is there anything in a mobile phone that isn't a precious metal?
08:01Mine's mostly plastic.
08:02I know.
08:03It seems that way, doesn't it?
08:03But inside, look at that.
08:05There's a lot going on.
08:06A little bit of cold tan as well.
08:07A little bit of fondant.
08:08Right in the middle.
08:09Fondant, there is.
08:10A lot of fondant.
08:11Just in the middle.
08:12Isn't it supposed to be that if you've got all the gold in the world,
08:14it only forms a cube like the size of that screen?
08:16It's a bit bigger than that.
08:17I believe it's 55 feet side to side.
08:21All the gold ever mines?
08:22Yeah, a cube of 55 by 55 by 55.
08:25And coffee?
08:26Of course, a gold blend.
08:28And you're not counting gold blend there.
08:29No, no.
08:31I'll bring the bad news to you later.
08:34In all of human history, the amount of gold that has been gotten out of the land amounts
08:40to 3.3 billion ounces.
08:44Just a heck of a lot.
08:46Well.
08:47But in the oceans, they reckon there's 25 billion ounces.
08:52Ah.
08:52What's the way?
08:52There's more.
08:53Just in the seawater.
08:55It's like 10 parts per trillion.
08:58Gusting.
08:58Isn't it?
08:59Yeah.
09:00Something a Bond villain should be getting onto.
09:02Yeah.
09:03I am stealing the oceans, Mr. Bond.
09:06All of them.
09:07And there's nothing you can do about it.
09:09I have the biggest sieve in the world.
09:13Of the 1.5 million phones that are thrown away each year in the UK, most of them go to
09:19China, to a place called Guiyu, the largest electronic waste site on earth.
09:23There are an estimated 150,000 e-waste workers.
09:27Wow.
09:27There they are.
09:28Well, some of them.
09:29Earning an average of $1.50 a day.
09:33Yeah.
09:33Which is like, what, $10.50 a week?
09:35If they work seven days a week?
09:36And more than 80% of local children suffer from lead poisoning.
09:41So, it's nice to recycle, but that's clearly not the way to do it.
09:44But they are very useful, mobile phones, aren't they?
09:47That's what we mustn't forget.
09:48No, they are.
09:49This is obviously very bad, but there is an upside.
09:53You wouldn't know.
09:54You haven't got one.
09:54No, I haven't.
09:56But they are, I like mobile.
09:57He hasn't got a mobile telephone, really.
09:59No, no, it's extraordinary.
10:00People think it's some kind of...
10:01Have you never had one?
10:01I've never had one, no.
10:02I can't think of anything worse than being contactable all the time.
10:05The easiest way is to have a mobile phone and no friends.
10:07That's what I do.
10:11I find that very easy to believe.
10:14You do.
10:16That just shows the price we pay, though.
10:18We do.
10:18It's pretty astonishing.
10:19I've got no conscience about it, of course.
10:21Have you got a computer?
10:23Have I?
10:23No, no, I know.
10:24Oh, yes.
10:25Oh, there's computers there.
10:26Yeah, there are lots of computers.
10:27Not mine.
10:32Now, cars, of course, is something you know a bit about.
10:35Catalytic converters, as you know, all new cars have to have them.
10:38What do they give the atmosphere?
10:40Well, carbon dioxide in huge quantities.
10:42They do that.
10:43They're not very green in that sense.
10:44But also, some people, I think, they give off so much of this element
10:47that quite soon we may be able to harvest it from the roads.
10:52It's dust that comes out of the exhaust fumes.
10:54Platinum.
10:55Platinum is the right answer.
10:56Yeah.
10:57The UK roads are now 100 times richer in platinum than they were before the catalytic converters.
11:01And if it continues to rise like this, people think it will be worth harvesting the platinum.
11:05And do you know how they would do that?
11:06It's really weird.
11:07Were they Hoover?
11:08No.
11:09No, they use us.
11:10Mice.
11:11Oh, well, it is biological.
11:12Yes.
11:13Not mice, but much smaller.
11:15Insect.
11:15Incy-wincy, even smaller.
11:18Bacteria.
11:18Bacteria.
11:19Bacteria is the right answer.
11:20E.coli.
11:21E.coli.
11:22E.coli.
11:23Yeah.
11:23No, it's not the dangerous E.coli.
11:25It's perfectly...
11:25Yep.
11:26It refines the dust.
11:28This particular lady I'm about to tell you about was in the same business, there she
11:32is, as her mother and her grandfather before her.
11:34Now, what you have to do is stop me, alright, when you know what it is that they sold in
11:39their business.
11:39I'm going to give you some clues, alright?
11:41We all want more of it.
11:44Some of us keep it better than others.
11:46It's invisible.
11:48Yeah.
11:49Time.
11:50Yes, it's the right answer.
11:52Time.
11:52They invented time.
11:53No, no, they sold it.
11:55I'm going to say, I think I remember what William Hartnell looked like.
11:58No, they sold it.
12:00Oh, they sold it.
12:00How would you sell time?
12:02How could you make a living selling...
12:03What period?
12:04They started in the 19th century and went all the way up to 1940, four generations of the
12:08fact.
12:09Time shares.
12:10You get a flat in Malta for two weeks, you know.
12:12No.
12:13Is this something to do with Bristol being 11 minutes behind London?
12:16It's not exactly to do with that, but it's to do with the fact that in the 19th century
12:20it started to become more important to keep time, and there was only one clock, the Greenwich
12:25clock, that keeps the official GMT, Greenwich Mean Time, and this woman would go with her
12:32pocket watch, which is a very fine pocket watch, and she would, once a week, put the time
12:37right, and then wander around London, and people would pay to have a look at her watch.
12:41Oh.
12:42And she made money giving people the time.
12:44A businessman had a subscription to her business.
12:46It sounds very, very much like a scam, some sort of a euphemism.
12:51And what is going on here?
12:52Hey, just look at my watch, officer.
12:55Please stop, Ali.
12:57You'd think, wouldn't you?
12:58People would stop her to look at her watch.
12:59Yeah, her name was Ruth Belleville.
13:01Her what?
13:01It was a John Arnold pocket thermometer, number 485786, and they cornered the market in
13:07it from 1836 to 1940.
13:09There were only three of them ever did it, so one person at a time.
13:13Yeah.
13:13He'd be lucky if he could find them.
13:14Well, that's the thing.
13:15I mean, people could buy an annual subscription, and I guess they would go round and visit them
13:19in the same way that a, you know, a sandwich company goes round to a, to a firm.
13:23What, like an alarm clock?
13:23Yeah.
13:24Or they'd go round with the clock and say, it's now exactly this.
13:27And the firm would settle their watches by it.
13:29When did they, hour, er, why did they decide on an hour?
13:33What, what, what was that?
13:34What was the reason?
13:35An hour?
13:36Why not just, you know, half an hour?
13:38And make that an hour.
13:39Because 24 is divisible in so many different ways.
13:42It's very factorisable.
13:43Divisible by two and three and four and six and eight.
13:46Exactly.
13:46No, ten is only divisible by one, two, five in itself.
13:49Only, only, only one.
13:50That's like 24.
13:52You could go into another dimension.
13:54You could, uh, have anything.
13:56What?
13:57What if you weren't in another dimension?
13:58Oh, I'm sorry.
14:00I, I, I, but why was it important to divide 24 by eight?
14:05Yeah.
14:05Well, no, to have as divisible a system as possible.
14:08Why wouldn't it be a hundred?
14:09Why wouldn't it be a hundred?
14:09Why don't I have a hundred?
14:10Make it all up to ten.
14:11If you want to do that, then you can have a plan to decimalize time, if you like.
14:14I can't change again.
14:14In fact, I'm going to live my own.
14:16I won't make my own.
14:17Yeah.
14:17I'm going to cross two of these off.
14:20I don't know, let's have a vote.
14:23I'm going to get rid of three.
14:25Three and eight.
14:26Yeah.
14:27Well, last night you joined the show.
14:28You can't do one to ten, because then we'll never have elevenses ever again.
14:32So, no, I'll leave the nineses.
14:34So, can I just, can you just.
14:35Ninesies.
14:36Ninesies.
14:37So, what is your system?
14:38How many hours are in your day?
14:40Twenty.
14:40Twenty hours of daylight.
14:41Simple.
14:42We'll call it, er, a hurrah.
14:44Right?
14:44Okay.
14:45A hurrah.
14:46A hurr.
14:47A hurr.
14:47A hurr.
14:48A hurr.
14:48A hurr.
14:48A hurr.
14:49A hurr.
14:49A hurr.
14:49A hurr.
14:49A hurr.
14:49A hurr.
14:49A hurr.
14:50The price is a horse, I think.
14:52Twenty strumpets.
14:53All right.
14:56Well, there are a number of objections obviously...
14:58i'm not the one to make them it originally was 12 hours because the babylonians were the first
15:02yeah well what do they know well they they had a base 12 counting system yes the french did try
15:08decimal time after their revolution did they did they ah do you see yeah it didn't work why did
15:13it i don't know it maybe just didn't work because the rest of the world just cocked to snook them
15:17and didn't like the idea is it not like beta max and vhs they all went with 24 but the
15:21french should
15:21have gone with 20 and nobody well the french when is the what is the french ever worried about what
15:25the rest of the world thought oh absolutely we have 10 fingers and 10 toes and then you could
15:32count off the bits the sections of time by each one of your digits what time is it one two
15:40three and a
15:41half two minutes past four what would that be then about six by six yeah well good luck there could
15:49be an interesting line in merchandiseable metric clocks yes yeah it's the bill bailey qi
15:55metric clock metric clock yeah yeah that's fine that blew me anyway we've just done an hour on that
16:00topic yes
16:01i think i'll find it um an hour and a bit
16:08let me give one thing the time to move on yes oh the bellevilles gave people a good time by
16:14selling them a look at their watch and the bellevilles never went to this place but what time is it
16:18at the
16:19south pole it's still on time it's no time at all isn't it it's every time every time it's every
16:24time
16:24it's no time it's the penguin public enemy tribute band
16:35yeah because all the time zones obviously which are like that way meet at the south pole don't they
16:41yes they do and it's not true about the compass that's the most you know it's a magnetic north pole
16:46well you don't know nobody knows what quite where it is but i wanted the compass to do that thing
16:49where it can't find south or anywhere and it doesn't oh how boring oh yeah it is boring that
16:55there's a red and white striped barber pole sticking out no there's nothing nor a shaft of light there's
17:00nothing no but i'm into the south pole so maybe it works a lot chillier of course but it's always
17:03noon or midnight really yeah why do you have to have north south east west oh hello hello oh he's
17:11drunk
17:11with power
17:17all the time zones converge at the poles but the default time in antarctica is gmt is the one they
17:22use there but now it's time to eat up your greens now this is very important according to the vegetarian
17:27society why are people who don't eat meat called vegetarians so we can identify them as fools and
17:34madmen i don't know
17:37what does the word come from well presumably the word vegetable
17:46that's not why they're called vegetarians what what when people who only eat vegetables
17:51yeah is it a star sign
18:04very good are they named after dinosaurs no they know
18:10kind of an enthusiast or a practicer of veggie i know why when you think that was it's because
18:17if you said you had a herbivore coming around for dinner the children would be frightened
18:22so they've called themselves vegetarians to make themselves seem normal and not pallid
18:27i know what you mean but the surprising point perhaps to most people is that the original word
18:32from which vegetarian comes in the opinion of the vegetarian society is not the word vegetable
18:36that's the point because vegetable is it's nothing to do with vegetable no we're talking about the
18:41root word the fruit word oddly enough it's really bizarre i grant you it is the word vegetus which is
18:47nothing to do with vegetation oddly enough it's a it's a latin word meaning whole sound fresh or lively
18:52of course i don't call them vegetable i have a totally different system
18:55the official uk vegetarian society the vs uk which is the oldest vegetarian society in the world
19:08they say that's the origin of it the word vegetus not the word vegetable so name some famous
19:13vegetarians for me well hitler oh dear he is in my mind oh right napoleon
19:27my tortoise died the other day and i honestly considered having its leg on some toast
19:33yeah and i just thought i don't know how it tastes like do you know you obviously don't think like
19:37that no yeah i know it's the same we had a tortoise once and it had a very very bad
19:42uh arthritis in
19:43its leg and uh they said we can we can actually operate and replace it with a wheel
19:49they do that don't they yeah actually cast us so they can go in all directions oh we thought about
19:54we thought about taking all these legs off and just putting wheels on all of them yeah that would have
19:58been wrong and then a little engine on the top
20:02sending down a shop an aerial on a spring
20:12i bet you couldn't do that i bet you someone would object if you motorized a tortoise
20:33it could keep its legs i'm thinking of some slight like a bigfoot truck in america
20:38big wheels that could be detached so that it could be a tortoise and run around eat weeds
20:42and then let's go on you could when he wanted to go shopping you could just send it off to
20:47the
20:47shop a transformer tortoise yes yeah there's great big ones in the galapagos islands oh they're
20:53terrific they could bring quite big substantial pieces of furniture back for you
20:57they are they could take off they could yeah you could get those wheels his tongue
21:06anyway that's good good talk mad but good and the vegetarian society claims that the word vegetarian
21:12comes from vegeta's everyone else thinks it's because they eat vegetables but why are vegans
21:17called vegans or vegans if you prefer from the planet vegas aha well that's a bit from the from the
21:23root
21:23vague vague vague what do you eat um probably the least vague eaters there are though aren't they
21:32they're very specific vegans well vegans are different from vegetarians well they are how well vegans don't eat
21:38eggs or cheese or anything very dairy isn't it and or yeah or anything dairy anything from an animal
21:43yeah anything oh look at peter tatchell at the end there there's the advert i'm afraid he's not much
21:48with these are vegans can you recognize them yeah tom york tom york from it's not bob anderson no it's
21:55benjamin zephaniah yes yes benjamin zephaniah on the left the pneumatic lady pamela anderson pamela
22:00anderson she's a vegan vegan or vegan yes and peter tatchell yeah they're all vegans vegans yeah they're not
22:06healthy her breasts are made of plant matter yeah otherwise you can't feed your children
22:12stuff with pulses and beans how do you know that pulses they must be she's a vegan possibly can't be
22:20made out of leather can they i don't think they actually remove their own flesh from their body and
22:26replace it with plant material i think they're allowed to have their own flesh you could have a
22:29couple of cows udders but anyway how did the word arise how did it arise
22:35what's it from what's its origin an anagram or something is it a mnemonic of some sort and not
22:40a mnemonic no it's actually the first three letters of vegetarian and the last two of a deterrent
22:45because it's the beginning and end of vegetarian is oh yes vegans knew that they'd stop calling each
22:52other vegan well mark bolan did that of course with bob dylan's name yes mark bolan yeah bob dylan yeah
22:58just cut it up yeah and he was a vegetarian was he yes he was he took cocaine but he
23:03was a vegetarian
23:04which comes from a bit of a blast it comes from a leaf i suppose and he's normal so there
23:09that was the worst ever time that a hero's death was broken to me my dad told me i was
23:14a huge t-rex
23:15man massive t-rex man and the night he died tragically over in barnes i went to bed early and
23:20i was
23:20woken up by next morning by my dad who didn't have a lot of time for your pop stars and
23:24stuff but equally
23:25he was a fairly you know straightforward fellow i don't think he knew how much he hurt me when
23:30he came in my cup of tea the next morning to get me up here's your tea oh who's that
23:35bloke you like
23:36who the one with the stars on his face mark bolan yeah gone dead
23:43that was how i heard of the passing of mark bolan it's like how my neighbor broke the news of
23:48our
23:48cat dying to me it was really it was so insensitive he was trying to be friendly and he said
23:54uh
23:54he said i think oh he goes you you got your cat one with the uh the colored collar i
23:59mean yeah he
23:59goes oh i think i think it's dead i think he got hit by a car i mean oh well
24:03why do you think that
24:04and he goes well it's completely flat
24:09all right good well done
24:12so it was woodwork teacher donald watson who coined the word vegan in 1945. now all four of you are
24:18obviously babe magnets but what's a cow magnet old with a big horn sorry sorry
24:28uh a hedge a hedge hedge yeah cows they gravitate towards the hedges
24:35i've got a friend who's afraid of cows yeah a lot of people are quite really afraid of them yeah
24:39he
24:39said to me they can rear up
24:43they can't rear up and i said you've been ridiculous he goes rambling he says up there's
24:49no attack i've never had some people he's afraid of horses i've got a bull rear up
25:11out and landed in the field scared them all off and he was lying there he had broken bones and
25:15ribs
25:15it was a terrible pain they're going up on you there's no doubt about this happened to me in
25:19the field funnily enough in norfolk uh were you being herded by cattle
25:22it would be no we would they tried to melt my land rover hunted they all tried to i've got
25:27a black
25:27land rover and there was a about 50 or 60 around and they were all over the car thought the
25:33top
25:33was going to come and it was terrifying you're thinking of lions no no i'm thinking of cows
25:39i'm thinking of cows bill and these cows surrounded the car and i tried everything i would
25:44i tried everything i put on show tunes and opened the sunroof
25:48i don't know a londoner tries to clear some cow
26:02it was defying gravity from wicked no they respond to galvanize by the chemical brothers
26:08yeah that's what you should have played well whatever it was i couldn't do it and in the end
26:11you know my wife quietly said get out of the car i said i can't the cows won't let me
26:16i know the
26:16answer danny baker is a cow magnet
26:26but here here is a real car magnet have a look jeremy pass it back everyone can have a look
26:31how would that work that is a car magnet made in denmark it's just a magnet it basically is a
26:38magnet but
26:38this is happens to be a particular is a green green magnet with cows with the bells around their
26:43neck this is something to do with the practice made in denmark not particularly i don't think no
26:47is it a cow as we know it or is a cow no no it's a real car
26:59that was weird we'll have to call you buffalo bill
27:05don't find buffalo bill
27:10no this goes inside the cow oh that goes in the cow yeah not the way you're thinking
27:22is it when you want the cow to come to the milking shed yeah if you just turn on the
27:28magnet in the
27:28milking shed and that's in it that's what about the abattoir no it is simply it is simply that a
27:35cow
27:35in the course of its daily grazings will often pick up bits of metal in fields there things like that
27:40bits of wire and tires that are used to weigh down the tarpaulins on the silage pits bits of barbed
27:45wire
27:45things like that and they can cause inflammations in the stomach bits of gold and so a magnet is put
27:50into their stomach and it attracts all the metal that they eat and then eventually the gastric juices
27:55in their stomach will cause that metal to dissolve funny enough bill mentioned over the very beginning
27:59you said something about they're all being attracted towards hedges but someone thought oh i wonder if
28:04cows actually have a sense of magnetism themselves and they thought how can we tell if cows face one
28:09particular way or if they're aware of it and he used that old standby google earth this was an
28:14academic from a german university and he studied eight thousand five hundred and ten cows he found
28:20they tended to face north or south that has a fact that's eluded mankind for thousands of years that
28:25only something like google earth would allow you to see that they're all look they're all looking that
28:28way early when the satellite was flying over well yeah true but over quite a large patch of
28:32earth i guess they factored that in huh who knows what were they looking at one way all all the
28:38other though north or south but not east or west not northeast or north or narth or swift
28:45anyway let's press on we should we should cow magnets sit inside cow's stomachs to attract stray
28:50bits of metal they've picked up while grazing all right let's be brutally honest what do you think
28:53the green revolution has achieved there are many many things they have done wonders for those
29:02expensive light bulb business yeah well of course it depends what you mean by the green revolution
29:08you're probably just thinking of the general fact that people are trying to be eco-friendly these days
29:11but there was something that was called the green revolution uh is it in africa well all over the
29:17world actually is a man you probably haven't heard of i have to confess his name didn't trip off my
29:21tongue norman borlaug probably because he's never been on britain's got talent or something so one
29:26wouldn't have heard of him but he won the nobel peace prize in 1970 and in the citation it was
29:31said
29:32dr borlaug has saved more lives than any other person who has ever lived oh probably a billion
29:39people more than fleming i was going to say a billion saved but you think a billion people are alive
29:44clean water something like that no a new type of wheat it simply tripled indians supply of wheat india
29:50suddenly in a short time 10 15 20 years became capable of sustaining itself do you remember
29:55something when i was young enormous starvation in india and bangladesh that's why you weren't
30:00allowed to not finish your tea yeah absolutely i was forever posting my mashed potato i hadn't eaten
30:05off to biafra yeah because they can always say biafras could eat that and i'd think they're right
30:11they're absolutely right i don't want it and i was any little so i'd post it off yeah so he
30:15invented the
30:16type of wheat which has saved a million lives or means that a million billion people are still alive
30:20now that wouldn't otherwise i think it's yeah a billion people are alive who would otherwise not
30:23be and would have died of starvation it's hardy and high yielding basically what this achieved was
30:30christened the green revolution and of course there are downsides it's a monoculture as you might say
30:35this is wheat and spread everywhere although enormous numbers of lives have been saved it has been a big
30:40threat to biodiversity uh-huh and the reliance on pesticides and things is not all good but it
30:46is pretty astonishing isn't it but how do you get wheat to mate
30:52combination i've never run yes well how does that happen you turn down the lights well it'd be
30:59barley to leave the room
31:05yeah but anyway dr norman borlaug is the father of green revolution may have saved as many as
31:10a billion lives but has never been on celebrity big brother so we no idea who he is but from
31:15little green shoots to little green men gentlemen imagine you've just received a signal from outer
31:20space what's the first thing to do phone sky news immediately so they can get a camera crew around
31:26no that's not the first thing to do don't tell anyone keep it to yourself there is seti have you
31:32heard of
31:32seti search for extraterrestrial intelligence very good points for bill
31:37do you think we found him
31:43indeed seti the same here's our finest example you never will get a message from outer space is that
31:49the answer no no no it's that there is a why shouldn't you phone sky news well i'll tell you
31:53the crew around no because there's a declaration of principles concerning activities following the
31:57detection of extraterrestrial intelligence that seti have put out one one first thing i said one
32:02check it's real important important two tell all the signatories to the declaration and your national
32:09authorities not the press right you then tell astronomers online or via the central bureau of
32:15something or other and then the discoverer that you has the privilege of making the first public
32:20announcement but that's the fourth oh okay by the time i'm about to make the announcement the
32:24authorities that i've previously contacted yeah have put me in a dark basement somewhere under mi6
32:29building for life proving that they do yeah this gentleman's from america yeah but exactly did you
32:35hear sir there are reply protocols as well that's to say if you get the message how do you reply
32:42no one
32:43should reply before checking with everyone else first is the first thing
32:47fine thanks
32:50the united nations should finally decide if we reply we should reply on on behalf of all humanity not one
32:55country or corporation or company okay the message should be published before transmission plans
33:01should be put in place to create an institution to manage the conversation as replies might be a
33:05long time in coming centuries or millennia and uh somebody recommends the alien contact max clifford
33:13it's such a very very long way to the nearest place that it's well that's the point is you could
33:17spend really as long as you like planning all this there's no need to rush yeah who's made these rules
33:22anyway setting the search right they've got plenty of time on their hands let's be honest what we know
33:28from cinema is that there's a kind of beardy techie guy sort of doing this in the place where there's
33:34the computer screen and the stuff and he's like that and and he's got his he's usually got a take
33:38away
33:38coffee or a donut and suddenly somebody goes like that he starts oh my god oh my god oh my
33:43god
33:43he goes like yes i got i got it i got it like that and then the film starts and
33:46it's like
33:46gets up and whichever movie is indoor golf set yeah yeah exactly blows the dust of his telephone
33:51and calls the authority exactly and he calls well it's nothing wrong with him being a beard
33:57take it up with hollywood casting would the americans call the bangladeshes if they heard it there
34:03because that says if alan hears it when he's going shopping one day he's got to call seti in new
34:09mexico
34:10but i bet no no it says check it's real tell us signatories to the declaration all right well let's
34:15just
34:15assume for a moment bangladesh is one of the sick i bet you any money the americans wouldn't call
34:19up the bangladesh to say we've just heard from outer space they wouldn't they deal with it all by
34:24themselves you know why was lord hardwick's marriage act so good for the scottish tourist
34:29industry don't have something to do with kilts what are inside with gretna green the greens are
34:35right gretna green yes yeah what's gretna green where's gretna green it's just inside where you
34:40elope to to get married where people are just over the border yeah but the point is up until 1753
34:45in britain you didn't need your parents permission to get married there are only three conditions that
34:49have to be satisfied to get married you couldn't already be married obviously the girl had to be
34:5412 or over the boy had to be 14 or over there mustn't be brother and sister and that was
35:00it you didn't
35:01even have to have witnesses oh you just get married but after 1753 because of inheritance and various
35:07legal wrangles and things that happened because it was so hard to prove people were married uh the hardwick
35:11act came in but it didn't apply in scotland so young couples would elope and the nearest place
35:16on the main road to edinburgh on the border was gretna green and in gretna green as in england before
35:22this you didn't have to be a priest didn't have to be a mayor or anything like that and these
35:26blacksmiths
35:27they were called anvil marriages anvil weddings these blacksmiths would perform it thousands of them
35:31but 5 000 weddings a year are performed in gretna green still so still people think of romantic or
35:37whatever to go to a couple of rings while they're green it's not yeah so continuing our green theme
35:42now why are you wasting electricity i'm sorry why do you have two screens on yeah why do you turn
35:48that
35:48one off and then bill could come and sit next to me on my knee which is what i've been
35:53hoping
36:11i'm still far away from him yeah it always happens when you go to a restaurant and you want to
36:16sit next
36:17to someone they end up at the other end of the table you can gaze at him across huh yeah
36:22i love you
36:23pass it on
36:30you do come for the pass it
36:34three and four points are going to a dance yeah very good excellent excellent well this is rather good
36:40you're right we're saving saving power that whole screen now is exactly very very pleased good for
36:45we've got people say that you're an enemy of environmentalism well they don't understand
36:50we could take this further you people at home turn off your sex
36:58okay let's have a musical clue for this next question
37:06yes colonel bogey's why why the question is why did colonel bogey go one over par in 1925
37:12well the bogey is one over par well in golf the extraordinary thing was in britain when you
37:18play golf you the way you set your powers you imagined a perfect player that you were playing against
37:23who got an exactly perfect score without sort of dropping any shots and he was called mr bogey
37:30so that meant par not one over par it meant par bizarrely and in the united services golf club they
37:36thought we can't have a mr bogey that you play against so they call them colonel bogey
37:39so you imagined you were playing against colonel bogey and so you say well colonel bogey gets four
37:43on this particular hole and i got five so you're one over but if you got four as well that
37:47was bogey it
37:48was par but america which had newer courses because they'd only taken to the game more lately they used
37:54the word par and when they played on british ones they found ours were easier as it were so if
37:59they
37:59made a british one it was one over was bogey it's easy to get it yeah i literally have no
38:05idea
38:09in america they played it on large courses 18 holes over here you had to get it past the windmill
38:14you had to get it
38:17but essentially bogey meant par until we joined in with the americans in 1925 and then we agreed to use
38:23bogey to mean one over that's all all of which brings us rolling off the green and into the
38:28bunker of general ignorance so have you got your instrument still on my left you're on a tropical
38:33beach okay you've got a screwdriver in one hand rusty nail in the other and a cloud of huge male
38:38mosquitoes descends on you what are they after yes bill no drinks i was going to say ah sugar ah
38:47sugar
38:47they're not after anything only females bite you yeah that is true that is a fact that is correct so
38:54they're not after your blood is right they're after the there are in the orange juice orange juice in the
38:59screwdriver yes points yes orange juices the males sip juice they don't use blood at all right the the blood
39:07is only for the female when they're in egg it helps their eggs develop yeah female mosquitoes
39:12actually are attracted by moisture lactic acid carbon dioxide body heat and movement but the
39:17cocktails what's a manhattan red bull red bull and eggnog oh dear yeah i want that no it's a
39:25whiskey vermouth and bitters cuba libra cuba libra oh that's um ramen coke that will make you
39:32daiquiri that's the bar where it was invented where where it is in havana all right very good yeah
39:39i can't remember for the life of me what's in it but i can tell you it's fantastic and i
39:44could play
39:44the piano i thought afterwards very good run like it wasn't even a shadow it was a table
39:54margarita margarita salt yeah salt red edge yeah very unfair to taunt us with these drinks
39:59sorry as much as a glass of wine do any of us actually drink cocktails but is anyone outside
40:05yeah do you know i've only half out of ten or half or two in your time a banana daiquiri
40:10for breakfast
40:11is one of the greatest luxuries a man can have sex on the beach well whoa all right
40:20anyone know what's in sex on the beach no sex on the beach vodka peach schnapps orange juice and
40:25cranberry juice oh i like peach oh and a tiny bit a little bit of crab sweat
40:32the point is it's the lady mosquitoes who bite you the men who just sip fruit juice and nectar
40:36what harm can a wind turbine do oh oh kill a bird yeah kill a bird
40:45he's rocking out of bed now oh dear the world society for the prevention of birds recently announced
40:50that they can't kill birds it was all wrong yeah yeah well we spotted that good so but they do
40:55hum another flying creature a man in taiwan reported recently that he lost 400 goats because they
41:12could no longer sleep so have you ever heard one of them they make an unbelievable no they don't get
41:20hit by the blades it's it's the drop in pressure that is caused like that they have as mammals
41:25rather like humans rather soft lungs unlike birds which have harder lungs and the capillaries burst
41:30in their lungs and they die just by the pressure change near the turbines it's quite nasty which
41:36brings us to the schools oh my oh my oh my heaven really well yes now look at this oh
41:41dear me lord
41:43oh in first place with minus five is bill bailey
41:51so close so close so close doing really really well with minus seven is alan davis
42:01the man who usually souls into the lead on our show and usually gets enormous numbers of points
42:07he's only in third place with minus 13 danny baker
42:12but i'm sorry to say way off the base with minus 27 jeremy clarkson
42:26that's all from this edition of eco qi a special one-screen edition for your pleasure and
42:32entertainment so it's a good night from danny jeremy bill alan and me i leave you with this
42:36thought from an american comedian called a whitney brown i'm not a vegetarian because i love animals
42:41yes he said i'm a vegetarian because i hate plants good night
Comments