- 10 hours ago
First broadcast 12th November 2010.
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
Bill Bailey
Eddie Izzard
Danny Baker
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
Bill Bailey
Eddie Izzard
Danny Baker
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Hello. Good evening. Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello.
00:05Hello, and how do you do?
00:08We'll be staying in tonight, ladies and gentlemen,
00:10for a quite interesting look at house and home.
00:15So, let's see who's in da house, as my father likes to say.
00:20We have very much at home, Danny Baker.
00:28And hitting home run, Eddie Izzard.
00:36And a beautifully streamlined homing pigeon, Bill Bailey.
00:46And late with his homework again, my homeboy, Alan Davies.
00:57Well, um, should my house guests need to attract my attention,
01:01then they'll need to ring my chimes.
01:04Danny goes...
01:06And Eddie goes...
01:10And Bill goes...
01:14And Alan goes...
01:16Hello. How you doing?
01:19Yes.
01:20So, eyes down, please, for full house.
01:23Now, here's a lovely homely picture of a modern family.
01:27But, of course, they're all rather concerned about their ecological footprint.
01:32Now, how can they legally reduce it the most?
01:35What is the biggest thing they can do?
01:38Stop breathing.
01:39Stop...
01:40Uh, breathe, yes.
01:41Stop defecating.
01:43Are you using it?
01:45Oh, we know you.
01:46Come in.
01:48Hello?
01:49Yeah.
01:50What just happened?
01:51Stop pooing.
01:52Yeah.
01:52Yeah, but...
01:53They don't poo or pee, ever.
01:54But then they would die.
01:55I mean, legally, and if you like, biologically viably.
01:58All right.
01:59Biologically viably?
02:00Yeah, and legally.
02:02I mean, it's not biologically...
02:03How many more...
02:03Go vegetarian.
02:04...little things are you going to add on to this question?
02:08Well, if...
02:09Oh.
02:09Okay, I'll trigger the screen.
02:11Go on.
02:11Don't drive.
02:12Car.
02:13Oh, no.
02:16That is not the biggest way they could help the environment, that particular family.
02:20Insulating your home.
02:21That would be reasonable, but getting rid of the car would be better.
02:24Oh, I know.
02:24Eat the dog.
02:26Yes.
02:27Yes.
02:28Well, get rid of the dog.
02:29Get rid of the dog.
02:30The dog is by far and away the most ecologically...
02:33Never turns the lights off, leaves the telly on all night.
02:36No.
02:38Keeping it...
02:38A dog is the equivalent to two Toyota Land Cruisers.
02:43What?
02:43Yeah.
02:43Right.
02:44Because...
02:45Everyone in the audience is going, what?
02:47What?
02:47And there's a simple reason...
02:48I'm getting rid of both of my legs.
02:51And that is the meat it eats.
02:53It's that simple.
02:54Oh, yeah.
02:55It seems a little unfair to put it on the dog.
02:57I eat meat, too.
02:58Yes.
02:59But you can't get rid of a human being without being illegal.
03:01That's why I said legally.
03:02You can get rid of a dog.
03:04It may be unkind.
03:05Oh.
03:05But that's...
03:06That's the point of the question.
03:08Can you do it?
03:08Oh, you can just have it put down.
03:09Oh, yeah.
03:10Legally, not ethically.
03:12Not ethically.
03:13Definitely not ethically.
03:14But no, it was there to surprise you.
03:16It is a shock.
03:17Even a cat.
03:18A cat is...
03:19One cat.
03:20One little cat.
03:21Is the equivalent of a Volkswagen Golf.
03:24And I'm including the manufacturer of the car as well as the use of the car.
03:29Wow.
03:29Steven, I'm just going to just...
03:30I'm just on a purely technical point.
03:32I've got four dogs, right?
03:34Oh, you bust.
03:36What...
03:36How many...
03:37You're killing at all!
03:38How many...
03:39How many...
03:39Kill your dogs, really?
03:40I'm trying to breathe.
03:41I just want to know...
03:43I want to know...
03:44Yeah.
03:45What kind of fleet of vehicles I can now own?
03:50I'm really keen to...
03:52Eight land cruises.
03:53Eight land cruises.
03:55You can have a long land cruises.
03:56You can have a long land cruises.
03:57I...
03:57I...
03:57I...
03:57I...
03:57You can go across the desert.
03:59Okay.
03:59Quick, quick...
04:00You can have a cheap tank.
04:02If they eat veg, is it better?
04:03They are just born to eat meat, I feel.
04:06No, they...
04:06Well, our dogs...
04:07They eat rice.
04:08They will eat it, but...
04:09But not without meat.
04:10They'll eat it gradually.
04:11Leave out a Battenberg and that will disappear instantly.
04:15The whole two in Equality Street one Christmas and they took all the wrappers off.
04:19What?
04:20Yeah, I know.
04:21And did they...
04:22Unwrap the suite with the Alsatians.
04:23Did they look through the cellophane ones and go,
04:25Oh, look, that's a yellow one.
04:27That's how we caught them.
04:29They had a cellophane over their eyes.
04:30Yeah.
04:30A bit of green foil under the claws.
04:35Well, the thing is, I've got four dogs, two cats, birds, fish, rabbit, guinea pig.
04:39I could probably get, like, a jet or something.
04:43You probably are using the equivalent of a jet.
04:45No.
04:46I'm afraid so.
04:46Really?
04:47Well, I can give you the figures.
04:48It takes 43 square meters of land to generate one kilogram of chicken.
04:53Much more for other meats.
04:54But only 13 for a kilo of cereal, you see.
04:58So, someone worked out how much it took.
05:01And it's two Land Cruisers per dog.
05:02Much more for German Shepherds, for example.
05:04It's a lot more.
05:05If you kept two hamsters, that's the same energy footprint.
05:10At a plasma television.
05:13And unfortunately, no, hamsters going around on a wheel will not power the plasma television.
05:18Power the plasma television.
05:19Some kind of Dr. Doolittle deathless.
05:22How many pets have you got to get rid of to get a speedboat?
05:27They're not green shield stamps, you know.
05:29Well, that's what they are in my mind now.
05:31Nectar points.
05:33One dolphin.
05:34One dolphin.
05:35Oh, bless the dolphins.
05:39The ecological footprint is a measure of the amount of land needed to regenerate consumed resources and deal with the
05:46resultant waste.
05:47And current figures calculated by the United Nations are that we are using up 1.4 times more than the
05:53planet can restore.
05:54The thing is.
05:56Yes.
05:56We evolved from this planet.
05:58We did.
05:59We are of this planet.
06:00We live on this planet.
06:02So, can't we do what we like?
06:04Yeah.
06:05Absolutely.
06:05I mean, we are victims of our own evolution.
06:07I just happen to have come in at this point and now I have to turn the lights out and
06:10I can't see where I'm going when I'm fed.
06:13But we appear to be the first creatures to have evolved to have a knowledge of what we are doing.
06:19Consciousness.
06:20Consciousness of it.
06:20That's where we went wrong.
06:21Ah.
06:22We also kill each other in huge quantities.
06:25That's a good thing.
06:26Maybe we should figure ourselves up sometime.
06:30Yeah.
06:31Thousands of people were killed in wars.
06:32Thousands of people.
06:33That's right.
06:34But that's the ecological paw print and it's a bit of a shocker for us all.
06:39But having children is even more disastrous than having dogs.
06:42Oh, I see.
06:42Unless they start wars.
06:44Unless they start wars.
06:45I think they're killing, but as long as it's killing Nazis, then we're kind of cool with that.
06:49And Hitler had a dog.
06:51He did.
06:51Another thing.
06:52And he killed him.
06:52If you're going to have a war, use animals as weapons and that will get rid of a few ones.
06:57If you've got a mortar, chuck a few guinea pigs down a mortar.
07:03That's half a plasma screen already.
07:05Exactly.
07:06Yeah.
07:07Here's the one thing about evolution.
07:09Evolution has never developed an animal with a wheel.
07:12No.
07:13And you'd have thought, by now...
07:15Or a spring.
07:16They must have seen the car or the bike by now.
07:18And evolution, if it's...
07:20I know.
07:20No animal has a wheel.
07:22Exactly.
07:22The paw's better than the wheel.
07:24A what?
07:24A paw.
07:25Much better than a wheel.
07:27The Daleks prisoners.
07:27The Daleks couldn't go upstairs.
07:29That's true.
07:30They can't really fly.
07:31We invented the wheel and then, after the wheel, we had to invent the road and the railway line and
07:36things to put the wheel on.
07:37Oh, that's true.
07:37Had nature given us roads, then a wheel might well have been a good evolution.
07:39Where we're going, we don't need roads.
07:41Yeah.
07:42How come some fish fly and we don't?
07:45Yes.
07:46Yeah.
07:46So...
07:49What about a...
07:50What about a...
07:51Blu-ray player?
07:51What about a mouse or something?
07:52Or a...
07:55I think a Blu-ray player would probably be a gerbil.
07:58Gerbil, right.
07:58Yeah.
07:59Okay.
08:00Yeah.
08:01A gecko would be an iPad.
08:04Nice!
08:04Oh, yes.
08:06The most ecological of all would be the worm, because the worm eats us.
08:10Yeah.
08:11And you cut it in two and you've got four.
08:12No, two.
08:13Yeah.
08:16It's a conjoined worm, of course.
08:18Cut two in two, you get four.
08:20You're doing wonderfully.
08:21Thank you all very much.
08:22So there you are, yes.
08:22A medium-sized dog has a bigger ecological footprint than a large car, so draw your own conclusions.
08:28Now, many things can influence the value of a house, but what instantly reduces the value of a house in
08:34America by a third?
08:36It's not a third.
08:37OJ Simpson lived there.
08:40Third.
08:42Third.
08:43Third.
08:45Third.
08:46Third.
08:46Third.
08:47Is it Sornado cutting it into thirds?
08:50The two-thirds of it is on one side of the San Andreas fault.
08:56I may say that what it is, is nonsense.
08:58But it's the kind of nonsense that Americans, unfortunately, quite often seem to believe in.
09:10Haunted is the right answer. Haunted. Obviously it won't be haunted because
09:14there's no such thing as ghosts. Exactly. But the point is the stigma of haunting is enough.
09:21If it's merely mentioned or that people seem to believe that there are ghosts there,
09:25then it will... I told you about the haunting. Yeah.
09:28There should be ghosts everywhere. I mean, so many of them. There should be ghosts.
09:32There should be dinosaur ghosts. There should be cow ghosts. Sheep ghosts. Worm ghosts.
09:36Yeah, dinosaur ghosts. That's a brilliant idea.
09:39There should be stromatolite ghosts. Rocks that used to live in the old days.
09:42The most plausible thing I ever heard on the ghost front is the idea it can be the atmospheric
09:48thing like a lightning bolt or something. It's because of a peculiarity and a magnetic force.
09:52And these people are unaware that they're ghosts and that's why they appear to float or walk
09:56through doors because as far as they're concerned, the door isn't there. And I can kind of...
10:01I can kind of buy that.
10:03No, for...
10:03I can buy that people's brains are affected by magnetic fields and there are certain circumstances
10:08where it's quite common for people to feel chill and dread and to hallucinate and indeed to die.
10:16And this is quite common in houses. This is quite common. And that's carbon monoxide poisoning.
10:22Oh.
10:22From bad gas boilers and so on. And it causes all those symptoms. But as for dead people coming
10:29back, no.
10:30There should be dead cows. No one ever says.
10:32Exactly. I so agree with you.
10:33I'm with you.
10:35Yeah, why did you draw the line? Suddenly it's only human beings.
10:38Well, because if you're passing a field and you see a cow in it, you don't say, that's
10:40a ghost.
10:42By and large, you don't turn up a ghost.
10:44If you saw in your house, you would.
10:45Yeah.
10:45Yeah, if you saw in your house, but cows aren't going to be in the house.
10:48They are because they've been turned around in New York.
10:50What kinds of...
10:51Please tell me something.
10:52Please, I'm not advocating for the ghost party over here.
10:55No, okay.
10:56I don't have the idea of the ghost party.
10:58Whoa!
11:01Really?
11:02I love their parties.
11:02They're just scaremongering.
11:05Yeah.
11:05Yeah.
11:10Excellent.
11:11Excellent.
11:12The pipe in high definition for the first time.
11:14Oh, high left pipe.
11:14Yeah.
11:15What happened to pipes?
11:16Oh.
11:17That's where they went.
11:18I love pipes.
11:19Yes.
11:19Would you like to meet the last ever winner of the pipe smoker of the year?
11:23Yes.
11:25How do you do it?
11:26My answer didn't mean no.
11:28Did you affect a pipe for a period?
11:29The first cue I was about to start as a series, and I was asked to do some press for
11:33it.
11:33And I left the house to go to wherever it was this interview was.
11:36Yeah.
11:37And I said, anyways, I had no cigarettes.
11:38And in those days, I was a smoker.
11:40And I thought, oh, and I just saw a pipe and some tobacco.
11:43And I thought, I'll grab that, put it in my pocket.
11:45You just saw pipe just lying there in the street?
11:48No, in my house.
11:48As I was leaving.
11:49And two days after the independent article opened, I was asked if I would be the pipe smoker of the
11:55year.
11:55Did you accept it?
11:56I said, yes.
11:58I said, yes.
12:00Absolutely.
12:01Absolutely.
12:04It confers a kind of respectability, I think.
12:07Well, that's worthiness.
12:08Yes.
12:08I never think you can truly give directions without a pipe.
12:11And that's why I envy you that, Bill.
12:12Yes.
12:13No, no, really.
12:14Could you tell me what the station is?
12:15Oh, yeah.
12:16What do you do?
12:17Yes.
12:18Yes.
12:19Yes.
12:20And recognising a friend.
12:22Ah!
12:23Oh!
12:24That's a great job for them.
12:27I think...
12:28Ah!
12:29There you go.
12:30Now a good haunting can knock a third off the value of an American house
12:34describe the arrangements for moving a house in the fourth largest island in
12:39South America. The fourth largest island in South America. Look at your tats. I know I've got the meat covered
12:47up at the moment but they are. I can tell you the third largest. Go on then. Well they just
12:52get it in a van and go.
12:54What the hell is it? The fourth largest island. Well if I tell you its name is Chiloé. There'll be
12:57a boat. Ah. What? They're the people of Chiloé, the fourth largest island. It's off the coast of Chile. Obviously
13:03they get a yak first. Two yaks. Actually they call it a yunta which is like a team of cattle.
13:10The point is when they move house they literally move house. If they have a haunting for example there's a
13:18bad spirit rather than just leave the house and build a house somewhere
13:22else. They move the house thinking that the spirit will stay behind. And we can see. I think we've got
13:27VT. This is the. Isn't this. Of them moving the house. Look here they go. That's the yunta. Oh yes.
13:34And they've got logs. And there it goes. And that's because there's a ghost inside. There's a ghost inside. What
13:40if the ghost can travel with them? Apparently the ghost doesn't. Wow. I'm still here. I'll bugger. Put it back.
13:47Apparently it doesn't. Apparently the ghost gets left by and go what happened? You could shoot me. Does the cows
13:51have any idea where they could go?
13:54Or all the houses just at one end of the field. They're the best grassy. That. Possibly. That is an
14:01adventure movie isn't it? That just looks fantastic. It's Fitzcarraldo isn't it? Yeah. It's very Ritz Mall. Or. I think
14:07it's Die Hard with a Cow. Or. The guy in the window is going I want to stay here. The
14:12person at the door is going what the hell. And he just came down because there's a rumbling.
14:19It's quite a sight. Apparently tourists come from Chile to watch it. And the ceremony is called the Minga. Oh.
14:26And they have a great feast called the Coranto. And they dance. A waltz.
14:29So. Now. When the inhabitants of Shiloe Island have unwanted supernatural houseguests they just get their neighbours to pull the
14:39house with cattle and the bemused spirit is left behind. Even a ghost might turn its nose up at this
14:45property however.
14:45Have a look. Who on earth would live in a house like this? Um. Is it the British space program?
14:53Oh. So sweet. We just build our way up there. And as you could see it just opening up like
15:00a telescope. We'll get there eventually.
15:03Yeah. People like wedding cakes. Oh. Whoa. Whoa. That's pretty long. Yeah. We predicted that one I'm afraid. Yeah. It's
15:13deliberately unpleasant.
15:15What? Living there. To look at. Oh. So someone. An obstreperous neighbour.
15:22Kind of. Yeah. It's a class of building. Known as a spite building. A spite house. It is built to
15:28annoy your neighbours deliberately or your local authority. Deliberately to absolutely madden.
15:35It looks alright. This was. I know it looks okay. This. This is in Gaylordsville, Connecticut.
15:40Um. Yes. It was built. Yes. Oh. Yes.
15:45It was built in 1964 by Jan Pohl who was a Polish immigrant. Um. And. He was annoyed because the
15:53state had taken away a young girl he had adopted.
15:58Yes. You're right to give me that look.
16:00And he was so upset that he built this ugly house. It doesn't look ugly. That's the thing.
16:04It'll pop the front door being up in the air. I've seen worse. It looks like a lighthouse.
16:07It's an eyesore in the idyllic countryside to remind the world the little. And there's a plaque on it that
16:12says she was kidnapped away from freedom to the godlessness of Hitlerism.
16:15Oh. Hitlerism. Hitlerism is the way he put it. Oh. She regarded the state as being fascistic in his. So
16:22he built in basis of taking away of young girls from himself.
16:24He built it himself. Yeah, I'd like to live in the top bit. It's sweet. Granddad in Chitty Bang Bang
16:30lives in. Yes.
16:32A block of flats. Yes, I'm not so keen on flat D.
16:36I suppose over here we're used to it because they're follies.
16:39We have follies, but there's one in California called the Alameda Spite House.
16:44That's actually built, that's a shallow house built in front of the house behind it.
16:48To block out its light.
16:51So that really is spiteful.
16:53Yeah, nice. Yeah. Really?
16:55And people live in that?
16:56Well, yeah, what happened was the city of Alameda took most of Charles Froehling, who built this house,
17:00they took away most of his land to build the street, a kind of compulsory purchase.
17:04So he only had this ten foot strip, so he built that house there. It's still occupied.
17:08And the neighbour in the house behind was on the side of the city council, which is why he built
17:11it.
17:12Block out all the light.
17:13And then in Boston there's one called the Skinny House, which we can probably see.
17:17And that's very narrow. Perfect.
17:19And the house next to it, there was a plot of land left to two brothers.
17:23And one of them was away, and the brother left behind built a huge house on the land,
17:28leaving only a tiny strip for his brother, thinking, ha ha, I've got the whole lot.
17:32And then he was away, ha ha, you'll never get it.
17:33But his brother built on his remaining bit this thin house to ruin his brother's life.
17:40Anyway, so we've got spiked houses, but we've also got spiked fences and spiked walls, for example.
17:46So you can get some really nasty things happening amongst neighbours.
17:49Yeah.
17:49Where, like this for example.
17:51Ha!
17:54This, this household had built a house.
17:57She's taken a very dim view of it.
17:59She built a, she's not happy.
18:01She built a house right on the borderline of someone else's land.
18:05And that person said, when you open your window, you're trespassing.
18:08When that window opens, so, and so they decided to build a wall right on their part of it,
18:12so she couldn't even open the window.
18:14It's pretty tragic.
18:15It's not a, that's a, that's a studied face of utter content.
18:18You won't be surprised to know, Bill, that's in the West Country, that's in some sense.
18:22Um, um, are you inclined somehow?
18:23Feelings run deep.
18:25Ha, that'll, that'll sort, ha, that'll burn.
18:27Ha, ha.
18:28No, that is, that's how they, that's how they build them.
18:31That's, that's the first go in the West Country.
18:33Right, oh, I think we built it a bit closer to the wall, Fred.
18:36Hang on, wait.
18:37Turn it back a minute.
18:38They told me it'd be transparent bricks.
18:40Yeah.
18:42Poor thing, anyway.
18:43Well, it's easy.
18:43I just lent them up against the wall, seemed to go all right.
18:45Oh, you want to open it outside?
18:47Oh, right there, all right.
18:48Ooh, I'm from London, are you?
18:50All right, yeah.
18:53Ooh, you want fresh air, is it?
18:55All right.
18:56In, in China, they're called nail houses, in fact.
19:00We've got a picture of a nail house.
19:02It's pretty extreme there.
19:03That's a development all around, and they've kept their own land, as you can see.
19:08Wow.
19:08Moving ever so on.
19:09Yeah, well, spite houses and spite fences are built solely to annoy neighbours,
19:13or frustrate planning regulations.
19:15Talking of unhappy homes, when an amoeba splits up, who gets the house?
19:20Oh, I see.
19:21Who gets the house?
19:22I thought the whole idea was that they split, they get two houses.
19:24Some sort of perfect world of...
19:26Do you know what sort of houses amoebas can build?
19:29I mean, they're single-celled, and it's just part of the amazing nature of all living creatures,
19:34is that even incredibly simple ones, like an amoeba, you don't get much simpler,
19:38can actually build a protective house.
19:42They assemble grains of sand, and they make that, that protects them.
19:47Even to the spikes, those spikes are deliberate, they can...
19:50Isn't this incredible?
19:51Is that loads of grains of sand as they pull around?
19:52Yeah, each one of those.
19:53It's about the size of a full stop on an average newspaper.
19:56Wow.
19:57It's tiny.
19:58That's insane.
19:58We've never heard that before.
20:00No, that's...
20:00That is actually quite interesting.
20:02Hooray!
20:03It's actually...
20:05Holy...
20:07The most interesting about it is that the other amoeba has got a camera.
20:16You're right.
20:17That maybe is more astonishing than the house.
20:20No, what happens is the amoeba goes along as a single-celled organism,
20:23and the odd bit of sand, it absorbs and saves up,
20:26and some it uses to build this house.
20:29And then when it's time to split, it takes away the house,
20:32and the half it leaves behind has got all the building materials left,
20:35so it can quickly build its own house.
20:37So that's how they split it when they... when they have a split.
20:39Why have we never heard of that?
20:41I don't know, I suppose, really.
20:44They never mention that at school.
20:45It's been a conspiracy to keep this information from us.
20:49Your state agents come along and say...
20:51They do.
20:51This desirable piece of sand with spikes on the outside.
20:53In this increasingly popular part.
20:55But in terms of human splits and houses,
20:58in 2003 there was a Manhattan doctor
21:01who was so determined that his wife shouldn't get the house
21:03that he felt he had earned through his hard work
21:06that he blew it up with himself in it.
21:09Oh!
21:09That's a gesture, isn't it?
21:12But the really nice man, what a prince this guy is,
21:14New York surgeon Richard Batista.
21:17His lovely wife, she had kidney disease
21:20and he donated one of his kidneys
21:22and then a few years later they're divorced
21:24and he demanded it back.
21:26But being a real gent, he said he'd take one and a half million instead.
21:31But you'd be happy to know that the court ruled it was a gift
21:34and therefore none of them.
21:35A gift?
21:37A gift?
21:38What have you got me?
21:38What have you got me?
21:39What have you got me?
21:40What have you got me?
21:41What have you got me?
21:42What have you got me?
21:43Do you know what happens when couples in America who split up,
21:48do you know what happens when they have a dog?
21:50How do the courts decide who gets the animal?
21:52They take it outside and see which one it runs to.
21:55Yes.
21:56Do they?
21:56It's a calling competition.
21:57They have to be very careful about it.
21:59The animal is boarded overnight with a third party
22:01so that they don't have, you know,
22:03they're not trained to come to them in special new ways
22:05and there's a vet on hand because in the past people have cheated
22:08by rubbing their hand in sausage meat and things like that
22:11to attract the animal.
22:12Come to me, come to me!
22:14Like that.
22:14Putting a massive electromagnet in the dog.
22:22So there is a vet on hand to see fair play.
22:25There is somehow you feel a movie in this, I don't know.
22:28But anyway, eventually the one that the animal comes to.
22:31Yeah, with Matthew McConaughey perhaps.
22:34What kinds of divorces have been available for the last 10,
22:3710, 12 years?
22:38What kind of divorces?
22:39New kinds, a totally new kind in the history of the planet.
22:42What, you mean divorces?
22:43Yes, the kind that was never available, never possible.
22:45Animal divorces?
22:46No, they've always been possible when it just goes.
22:48Ghost divorces.
22:49This is technically never been possible till now.
22:51Gay divorces?
22:52No.
22:53Virtual.
22:54I'm talking about online.
22:56Yeah, I'm talking about Second Life, for example.
22:58A Cornish couple.
22:59We're in the West Country again.
23:01David Pollard.
23:02Oh yeah?
23:03I know, I know David Pollard.
23:06I don't know if you'd be careful what you say about it.
23:08I certainly will.
23:09He did my windows.
23:10So watch out.
23:12We met online and married in the world of Second Life.
23:15Oh yeah.
23:16Then they married for real, but then they subsequently got divorced also for real,
23:20when Amy's online avatar, Laura Skye, caught David's online avatar, Dave Barmy, ho ho, canoodling with another avatar.
23:32Right?
23:32It wasn't real.
23:33It wasn't real.
23:33It was just...
23:34People actually do this.
23:34Oh yeah.
23:35This was a piece of bad luck for David's avatar because he'd previously resisted the blandishments of an online private
23:41detective hired by Amy's avatar to operate a honey trap.
23:46Go figure.
23:47They don't deserve broadband, these people, do they?
23:51If it was dial-up, they wouldn't move very well.
23:54They hired a private eye avatar private eye.
23:57To trap.
23:58She wanted to trap him so she could prove that he'd been on paper.
24:01All avatars.
24:01And in fact, yeah.
24:02All avatars.
24:02In real life they were sitting there having sex while going...
24:04Yeah.
24:05Or just dully sitting at a computer, presumably.
24:08It's a bit strange, isn't it?
24:09These aren't the blue avatars at the film, are they?
24:12These are...
24:12No, no.
24:13An avatar is...
24:14Yes, an online presence.
24:16You can set yourself up as a private detective in this online world.
24:19Yeah, or you can do anything in Second Life.
24:21Could they have not hired an online assassin to kill all the people?
24:24Ah.
24:24We've come onto this now.
24:27This is an RPG, a role-playing game called Maple Story.
24:30An RPG is surely a rocket propelled grenade.
24:33Yeah, a rocket propelled grenade.
24:33Yeah, it's also...
24:34It's also a role-playing game.
24:35Oh, yeah, I'm sorry.
24:36Yeah.
24:37A Japanese piano...
24:38That's right.
24:39I'm not inviting you on any mercenary news.
24:42Right.
24:43Launch the RPG.
24:44Here we go.
24:45OK, you wear that.
24:46Oh, yeah, yeah.
24:46Oh, you're spat.
24:53You're useless!
24:55A Japanese piano teacher was arrested in 2008 after murdering her virtual husband,
25:00inside a role-playing game, after his avatar divorced her avatar without telling her.
25:06She hacked into the game, deleted the avatar, but she'd spent a year training to battle monsters,
25:11and the last time...
25:13She was looking at the possibility of a five-year stretch in real jail.
25:18Why?
25:18For killing an avatar, because an avatar is a valuable commodity, especially in the Far East, in South Korea and
25:23Japan.
25:24People spend years giving them qualities, values, and alternative bank accounts and everything.
25:30And if you kill it, or hack into it, or do anything like... or steal from it, it's considered genuine
25:35theft.
25:36In those countries.
25:37Does anyone do this?
25:37Oh, I'm afraid they do.
25:39I'm afraid they do.
25:40Do you do this?
25:40I do so not do it.
25:42Honestly.
25:42I'm going to go into it, and I'm going to be...
25:47Is it not a virtual court case or something?
25:50No, that's the point.
25:52It's real.
25:52It's real.
25:53You can really be arrested for...
25:55They go to prison for five years?
25:57For something that didn't exist?
25:58But it does have value because these things can be traded, so they have value like anything.
26:02Like a baseball card, like a Ming teapot.
26:05Anything.
26:05It has actual value.
26:07It has real value.
26:08Unless your phone's not working.
26:10Yeah, exactly.
26:10But then, you know, there are plenty of things that only have value according to the right conditions.
26:15Oh, like what?
26:17A concert ticket.
26:19If the concert's cancelled, it's no longer worth anything.
26:21But it could be worth a huge amount right up to the moment that the singer gets ill or something.
26:25So things have timelines.
26:26I would say a time-sensitive thing.
26:28Things can be time-sensitive.
26:29And in the case of a virtual thing, it's electric-current-sensitive.
26:32But that's not too big a push.
26:34Right.
26:34Yeah.
26:35Oh, right.
26:35I see.
26:37I'm all serious, though.
26:39As if I actually believe in them.
26:40I know, it doesn't.
26:41Sorry.
26:41But no, I was just making a point.
26:43Do they do anything else with their lives?
26:45Do they have comps and stuff?
26:46I don't think so, no.
26:47Do they have ghosts?
26:49They might well do.
26:50Yes, Avatar ghosts who aren't really there, but...
26:53Well, like the Neutron.
26:55Do they have religions and things like that?
26:56Who are these people?
26:56What are they doing?
26:57Are these people on directory inquiries?
26:58Is this what they're doing?
26:59They're the monster.
27:00Yeah, it's far...
27:01I don't know, yeah.
27:02It's particularly...
27:03I'm a monster!
27:04It's particularly popular in the Far Eastern, as we said.
27:08Yeah.
27:08Who knows why?
27:09There must be cultural reasons.
27:10Right.
27:11But to us, with our normal lives, going to cricket matches...
27:16You knew that when you could watch East End.
27:17Yeah.
27:20So, when...
27:21Yeah, we're going back to that amoeba, if you remember.
27:24When De Flugia Coronata, this particular amoeba, gets too big for its little house, it divides
27:29it in half.
27:30One half gets the house, the other half gets the building materials that it collected to
27:34build the new one.
27:34Yeah.
27:35Me-bye make their houses out of grains of sand, but what kind of person builds a house
27:40out of straw?
27:42Oh.
27:43Not...
27:44A pig.
27:48Damn you.
27:50Damn you for the not word.
27:52A pig!
27:52Hey!
27:55That was...
27:56That was...
27:57You just wanted to be spanked.
27:59I just wanted to hear the ooh-ooh sound.
28:00I've been making it myself, watching the program.
28:02Woo-ooh-ooh!
28:03That was...
28:04A fermented child.
28:06What kind of person would build a house out of?
28:08A straw person would live in a straw house.
28:10Like, for example, a scarecrow.
28:15When they weren't working out in the field.
28:17Somewhere where you could only get straw to make a house out of.
28:20Yeah.
28:21It has to be a person, not a bird.
28:23No, the fact is, it's an incredibly good building material for houses.
28:27Yeah.
28:27There's almost nothing not to find remarkable about it.
28:30I was astonished by this.
28:31This is your...
28:31It's more fire resistant than conventional buildings.
28:34Oh.
28:35Right.
28:35You'd think it was a fire hazard.
28:37But, in fact, the straw is so compacted, it just won't burn.
28:40There's no air in it.
28:42Um...
28:42It's structurally sound and strong.
28:44It's resistant to earthquakes.
28:45It's inhospitable to insects and rodents.
28:48More so than wood.
28:48So, particularly in America, where houses are all wood-framed, it's fantastically useful.
28:53A clean straw has no allergy issue.
28:55It's relatively cheap.
28:56It's a below zero carbon rating.
28:58It can be locally grown.
28:59Excellent insulation and soundproofing compared to conventional buildings.
29:03It's biodegradable at the end of the building's life.
29:06It's versatile, easy to work with.
29:07Necessary skills are easier to learn than bricklaying or any of the others.
29:10It sounds great.
29:11Yeah.
29:12Until it rains.
29:13Yeah.
29:14No, because that one on the right is that straw house.
29:17It's not left straw like that.
29:18You can clad it and plaster it in clapboard and everything else.
29:22Oh, wow.
29:22You would never know it was a straw house, but structurally...
29:24But you need a roof, though.
29:25You need a metal roof.
29:25Yeah, the roof is not made.
29:27The whole thing isn't made of straw.
29:28But it's straw where otherwise you would be using concrete or wood.
29:31Why are we just learning this?
29:33I know.
29:33It's weird.
29:34Well, it's a 19th century Nebraskan invention.
29:36Bale straw building in Nebraska were huge grasslands and they, as you rightly said,
29:41you'd start when it's the nearest material to you and there aren't that many trees and things for wood or
29:45it's a long distance.
29:46So, so how big can the structures get then?
29:49Well, I think as big as any.
29:50I mean, you know, you can have two floors.
29:52Big question.
29:53Can a wolf blow it down?
29:56It will huff and it'll puff and I think it will fail to blow it down.
29:59Yes, it will.
30:00If that wolf came back and saw that, it went, a hat, oh.
30:04The wolf would be there going, this is not what's supposed to happen.
30:07A whole brick one would come here.
30:09The wolf would be going, I love what you've done.
30:12It's great.
30:13The early Nebraskan settlers even tried them with balls of tumbleweed compressed.
30:17Oh, yeah, yeah.
30:18They blew away.
30:19I'm trying to think.
30:21There was a house built of hay.
30:23It was a schoolhouse, in fact, in Nebraska and it was eaten by a herd of cows.
30:28That was bad.
30:29That was bad.
30:30But they wouldn't eat straw.
30:31Well, if this information does throw everything into chaos, a man of straw is supposed to be weakened.
30:36Yes.
30:37And now we're learning it's right up there with concrete.
30:39Now the pigs have got a panic room anyway in this straw room.
30:43The straw is cheap, strong, warm and fire and earthquake resistant, making an excellent choice of building material.
30:49Now listen, the Queen is coming for tea.
30:51What should you do with your lavatory seat?
30:54Cover it with money.
30:57Wear it round your neck with pride.
31:00No.
31:01I mean, there is a sort of rumour, a myth, an urban legend, a nonsense, a fallacy that you have
31:05to get a new lavatory seat for the Queen's visit.
31:08Yeah.
31:09Superglue it.
31:11Put cling film over the bowl.
31:13Right.
31:14Ow!
31:15See if she can play.
31:17I don't know why that pleases me so much, but it really does.
31:24There was a rumour, but it's a nonsense that she had to, or that she carried her own calfskin one
31:29around, calfskin lavatory seat.
31:32Wow.
31:32But apparently Prince Charles did have his own, we'd give him one as a present and he liked it, so
31:37he used to carry it around.
31:38You say that Charlie's got his own seat and he goes round with it?
31:41No.
31:41He was given it as a present and he used to take it around as a sort of joke.
31:44As a joke?
31:45Yes.
31:46Yeah.
31:46Right.
31:47So, I mean, the people who deal with royalty, you know, they do say, well, of course.
31:52I know.
31:53And they would have bolted it on with it twice.
31:56They probably would.
31:57No one would take the joke.
31:58Well, we've made nine of them.
32:02I don't know what you do, how that works in a toilet.
32:07People powering the toilet.
32:10Jet-powered toilets?
32:11Yes.
32:11Oh, no.
32:12A royal flush.
32:13Oh, yeah.
32:15You can be sucked out of a jet toilet.
32:18Yeah.
32:19You can get wedged in it.
32:20Yeah.
32:21You can create a vacuum.
32:23If you create a vacuum, then the whole plane sucks in on itself.
32:25Yeah, like, like, um, like, uh, old jock.
32:28Yes.
32:29Well, Goldfing himself gets sucked out.
32:30He said, Goldfing himself goes out the window, doesn't he?
32:32Not out the loo.
32:33Yeah.
32:34No, no.
32:35I had to, oh.
32:36Isn't it funny how you just have to press the button, and then you think, oh, I'll have
32:40to press it again because it didn't, and then whoo!
32:42Yeah.
32:42Stand well back.
32:43Yeah.
32:44Maybe tide dangling over.
32:47What is, what is that statistic for, I don't know, I suppose you have it in hand,
32:51but people who are impaled, impaled by frozen spears of urine from overhead?
32:57I'm not sure those are.
32:58And then when you find them, they're just dead, and it looks like they've weeded themselves.
33:01And knowing that.
33:03They're in their head.
33:03They can't.
33:04Perfect crime.
33:05They've weeded themselves in their head.
33:07They've weeded themselves in their head.
33:08Someone's weed on their head.
33:09How cruel.
33:10And somehow do that to a bedpan.
33:12That's right.
33:12But that's the weed through their head.
33:13They've managed to shit themselves in their brain as well.
33:15Oh, stop.
33:17Right.
33:18Moving on.
33:19How did they do that?
33:21Yes, according to Buckingham Palace, the idea that the Queen requires a new lavatory seat
33:25is a complete myth.
33:26Though you might want to run a damp cloth over the old one.
33:28So, homing in now on general ignorance.
33:32Fig news on buzzers, please.
33:34When did slavery become a criminal offence in England?
33:37It was not in the 1960s.
33:37I'm afraid it was one of these odd little new labour laws in about 1996.
33:42Seven, eight.
33:43What an odd law to outlaw slavery.
33:45Yeah.
33:45Is political correctness gone mad?
33:48Oh, no.
33:49I had to be odd in the sense that it was a bit late.
33:51Yes, that's exactly right.
33:53It was 1807 when the slave trade was ended, and then finally in 1834, it was illegal anywhere
33:58in the British Empire to own a slave.
34:00It has never been illegal to have a slave in England until April 2010.
34:07I'm saying I could have had you as a slave legally.
34:12You mean this series I'm finally free?
34:14Yes.
34:20Absolutely.
34:23But you know what now?
34:24Maybe one of those slaves just goes back to the master.
34:26I don't know what to do.
34:28And I work for you anyway, please.
34:30One thing is that there are now estimated to be 27 million people held in, essentially,
34:35in bondage, in slavery on this planet.
34:37But the show will be over soon.
34:38You can go.
34:39Yeah.
34:39Right now?
34:40More than there ever were in the days of cotton picking and so on.
34:4327 million?
34:4327 million.
34:45In the world?
34:46Yeah.
34:46Yeah.
34:46That is the estimate.
34:47It's a pretty grim problem still, slavery.
34:50The point is, it was never illegal in England because it was never recognized as a state
34:54of being.
34:55I would have known that!
34:57There were laws against kidnapping and abduction and false imprisonment and sexual trafficking
35:05and all the other things that we might associate with slavery.
35:07But it was not illegal for one human to own another human, which it now is.
35:12So this isn't one of those laws where they thought, oh, that needs to be clearing up.
35:15It's a loose end from history.
35:16It kind of was.
35:17In 1967, there were a number of obsolete crimes that were taken care of.
35:22Barretry had been illegal right up to 1967, which is vexatious lawsuits.
35:28Oh, vexatious lawsuits.
35:30What they call a vexatious litigant.
35:31Somebody would just keep...
35:32Dorothy Squires?
35:33Yes.
35:34Dorothy Squires.
35:35The singer Dorothy Squires, towards the end of her life, when she did have a mania,
35:37but she was probably the last person to be done for vexatious litigant.
35:42And if you kept prosecuting someone for it, you'd be prosecuting them.
35:46Yourself?
35:46Yeah.
35:47Anyway, there's scolding.
35:49Scolding was a crime in 1966, but not in 1967.
35:52With hot water, you mean?
35:53No, not scolding.
35:55Scolding.
35:57Scolding!
35:57That was a crime.
35:58You!
35:58What time of the night do you call this Eddie Izzard?
36:0012?
36:01Yes.
36:02Well, we'll give you a good scolding.
36:03And that was illegal?
36:04That was illegal.
36:05Illegal.
36:05And now it's legal?
36:06Eavesdropping was illegal.
36:08Challenging someone to a fight was also illegal until 1967.
36:12What about going round and round about more than three times?
36:16It certainly wouldn't be the medieval law, would it?
36:19Well, I don't know.
36:19Have you had a horse and cart and a couple of hours spare?
36:23On a medieval roundabout.
36:24On a medieval roundabout?
36:25Yes.
36:26Anyway, there you are.
36:27Due to a quirk of English law, it only became a criminal offence to keep a slave in
36:31the year 2010.
36:32So you've just missed your chance.
36:34Who lives in the tiniest houses in Europe?
36:37Oh.
36:39Germans, Belgians, French, Italian.
36:41Whoa, yeah.
36:42Slovenia.
36:43Slovenia?
36:43Whoa, interesting.
36:44No.
36:45Okay.
36:47Turkey.
36:47Albania.
36:48No.
36:48France.
36:49Estonia.
36:49Latvia.
36:50Lithuania.
36:51Ireland.
36:51Czech Republic.
36:52Wales.
36:53Wales.
36:55Well.
36:56The Welsh.
36:57The Welsh.
36:58The Welsh.
37:00Britain.
37:01Britain.
37:04Britain.
37:05Britain.
37:05Great Britain.
37:06Britain.
37:06UK.
37:07We've got that easy.
37:08Our country.
37:09Where we live.
37:10Yes.
37:10We have.
37:11In Britain.
37:12We have the smallest, by quite a way, it's rather embarrassing.
37:15Easily the pokiest accommodation in Europe.
37:17Yeah.
37:18Look at that giant man.
37:19In terms of overall floor space, that's where we live.
37:21Isn't that tragic?
37:22Oh.
37:23Compared to America.
37:24Yeah.
37:25We have a miserly 76 square metres on average.
37:28We're quite crammed together, aren't we?
37:29We are.
37:30But even given that, our houses are jolly titchy, it seems.
37:34Until you told us.
37:35We weren't that bothered, but now.
37:39But where does the phrase, there isn't wrong to swing a cat, come from?
37:42Cat swinging.
37:43Nine tails.
37:44Cat of nine tails?
37:45Whips.
37:45No, it's not, oddly enough.
37:46You'd think it was.
37:48It's the kind of thing people think.
37:49It's when they used to flog people with an actual cat.
37:51The phrase is older than the cat of nine tails.
37:53Well, no, they wouldn't flog them.
37:54Literally, it means what it says.
37:56It's just a kind of common folk expression, meaning to swing a cat around.
38:00But the first use of cat of nine tails is 1695 in the English language.
38:03And at least 40 years earlier than that, there are references to not being able to swing a cat.
38:08It's so disappointing when you find that out.
38:10I think it's good.
38:11I quite like the cat one.
38:12Do you know where the whole nine yards comes from?
38:15The whole nine yards?
38:16The whole nine yards.
38:17No, is it?
38:18Alan's doing cat stuff.
38:19It's an American sporting, isn't it?
38:21How would you swing it, though?
38:22I mean, it is that way, but then there's also that way, up and down.
38:27Round and round.
38:29One thinks by the tail, definitely, whatever.
38:31Do you do it in a big loopy swing, or do you get some speed up?
38:37It would be nice to find a room where there was enough room to swing a cat in.
38:41Just.
38:42The cat constantly goes, oh!
38:46By a whisker.
38:47By a whisker.
38:48Literally.
38:48The whole nine yards, I believe, is not a sporting thing.
38:52It's the Americans in the B-52s going over Nazi Germany, and they shot the whole nine yards of bullets
38:58out.
38:59Oh, right.
38:59It's a nine yard...
39:00It's ten yards in American football.
39:02Everyone thought it's something to do with American football.
39:04Well, nice.
39:04If that's true, I believe...
39:06There will be points in it for anyone.
39:07I believe that's quite interesting.
39:08Yes.
39:09I'm excited.
39:10All right.
39:11So, yes.
39:11Turns out the British build the meanest houses in Europe.
39:13Why don't any bleaches claim to kill 100% of all germs?
39:18They get sued if you find a living germ left.
39:20They don't know a germ.
39:24They get sued?
39:25No, it's not that.
39:27It's...
39:28Because they don't kill 100%.
39:30Because the 1% are good germs?
39:31They probably do kill 100% of all germs.
39:33It's just almost impossible to prove.
39:35But when...
39:35What's left behind is...
39:36We just don't have the technology to inspect whether or not there are any germs left.
39:40The fact is, it's...
39:41Certainly you can prove 99.999 of germs are killed by bleach.
39:45And logically, when you wipe up afterwards, you put more germs back in.
39:48You...
39:49You often do.
39:50Because everyone pees on their hands and then goes and gets mints.
39:54Looking like that when they do.
39:56If I save time, I just take the mints in the loo.
40:01Those are...
40:01Those are those things in the...
40:02Are you right?
40:03You can't eat them.
40:05I thought they were then me.
40:07Good.
40:07So...
40:08No bleach claims to kill 100% of germs because some microbial remnants left after the standard test
40:15are just too small to measure.
40:16They come pretty close though.
40:17And so we end our weary journey homewards and it's time to look at the house of cards
40:24that represents our scoring system.
40:26Home and dry.
40:28In the lead.
40:29With an astonishing, plus three, Bill Bailey.
40:32Oh!
40:36Oh my God.
40:38Very well played.
40:40And just about keeping the home fires burning with minus 16, Eddie Izzard.
40:47I'm second.
40:48I'm second.
40:49I'm second.
40:50I'm second.
40:51I'm second.
40:51I'm second.
40:53And with home in sight at minus 17, Danny Baker.
40:5855 minus points.
40:59Yeah.
40:59It's a minus point.
41:01Yeah.
41:01How do you do that?
41:03And...
41:04It's a terrible shock but finally home alone with minus 19, Alan Davies.
41:17So that's all from this homely edition of QI.
41:21So it's goodnight from Eddie, Danny, Bill and Alan and myself.
41:24And now it's time to bolt the door, drink up your cocoa and then off to bed with a lot
41:28of you but not before I snuggle down with this thought from a recent survey.
41:3230 years ago 65% of men on leaving their house kissed their wife goodbye.
41:39Today 88% of men when they leave their wife have to kiss their house goodbye.
41:44Goodnight.
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