- 11 minutes ago
First broadcast 14th January 2011.
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
Rob Brydon
David Mitchell
Sandi Toksvig
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
Rob Brydon
David Mitchell
Sandi Toksvig
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Hello! Welcome, welcome, and close welcome to the home of highbrow know-how, where we call QI.
00:09Tonight we'll be groping down the back of the great sofa of history
00:13to find those tasty morsels that other historians have so carelessly discarded there.
00:18And to accompany me on my quest, I have the postmodern Rob Brydon.
00:28The pre-classical, David Mitchell.
00:36The Pleistocene, Sandy Totsvig.
00:43And our very own bowl of primordial soup, Alan Davis.
00:53Now, each panelist is, of course, equipped with a suitably historic buzzer.
00:58Sandy goes...
01:01Oh, and David goes...
01:09Quite long.
01:10And Rob goes...
01:14Ah, and Alan goes...
01:18Of course.
01:20So, as we stroll off into the mists of time, let's start with something nice and easy.
01:24Name a henge.
01:27Now, look.
01:28No, no.
01:28Ah, jeez.
01:31Sea henge.
01:32Oh!
01:34There is a sea henge, but it's not a henge.
01:37Oh, right.
01:38It's a word with the word henge in it.
01:40Oh, I see, yes.
01:41Oh, right.
01:42A spigot has got the word pig in it, but it isn't a pig.
01:44Right.
01:44You see?
01:46So, the word henge in it, that's wrong.
01:49I think you're wary enough for good reasons.
01:53A henge is a specific thing.
01:55What is a henge?
01:56You normally have two of them on the side of a door, or on the top hung on the ring.
02:01Oh, it's still your nice henge, sir.
02:03Yes.
02:05A hedge bent on revenge, that's what it is.
02:08Oh, good.
02:09Is it a very old form of economic investment?
02:11It's a henge fund.
02:12Hey!
02:14Good.
02:14No, it's not that either.
02:15It's one of those archaeological words.
02:17There's a specific meaning.
02:18It's an embanked area outside with ditches on the inside.
02:23Are you right?
02:24And Stonehenge is the other way around, so it's not a henge.
02:26Even though the name henge comes from Stonehenge.
02:31A henge is a word for something that's like Stonehenge, but not including Stonehenge.
02:36Basically.
02:38What's the word Stonehenge?
02:38It was just Stonehenge, named after Stonehenge.
02:41Yes, the stone, you're safe with the stone.
02:44Maybe Stonehenge was just a noise they came up with for Stonehenge,
02:48which luckily gave them a word for two common sorts of things.
02:52Probably the noise they made when they put those top ones up.
02:59People just, right up until the 20th century, were quarrying it.
03:02They would actually set fires on the lintels, the top bits,
03:04to crack the stone and take it off and build things.
03:07Nowadays, it's cordoned off.
03:09Yes, it is rather, isn't it?
03:10The Druids, they get...
03:11Oh, the Druids, they can do what they want.
03:12How long have Druids been celebrating at religious services?
03:16Oh, 1970.
03:17Basically, since the beginning of the 20th century,
03:19there's no evidence that Druids had anything to do with Stonehenge at all.
03:22So why did they get all these concessions so quickly of access to Stonehenge?
03:26It was in 1905 when they started doing it, Stonehenge was private property.
03:29It was on somebody's land.
03:30It didn't belong to anybody except the owner of it.
03:32And then Chubb in 1915, who went to a lunatic asylum nearby, bought it...
03:38He bought it for his wife.
03:39For his wife, you're quite right.
03:40Yes, he bought it for his wife at auction.
03:42Yeah.
03:43And three years later, she gifted it to the nation.
03:45Yeah.
03:46Yeah.
03:46Re-re-gifted.
03:47Yes.
03:48Re-gifted, exactly.
03:49Well, it must have been hell to clean.
03:51Top bits.
03:52Top bits.
03:52Top bits.
03:52So the Druids have access to it, so presumably...
03:55I mean, they can't all have parked miles away.
03:57They must have little stickers in their windows with a little Druid sign on it.
04:02Which also gets them into Klu Klux Klan meetings.
04:05Yeah.
04:05They've just got to straighten out their headdresses.
04:08They can park near the burning cross.
04:10Yeah.
04:11There was a mention you made there of Seahenge.
04:14What is Seahenge?
04:15Yeah, that's not a proper henge either.
04:16No.
04:17Seahenge, isn't it?
04:18It's sort of some bits of very old and knackered wood.
04:21Yes.
04:21That occasionally become visible when the side is inside.
04:24So essentially...
04:2555 bits of old oak in Home Next to the Sea in the North Norfolk coast,
04:28which was only discovered quite recently.
04:31Carhenge, does that mean anything to you?
04:32Yes, I do know what that is.
04:34Well, I'll guess.
04:36It's that...
04:38You started really confident.
04:40Yeah, and then suddenly...
04:41Just slid away from you there.
04:42It's probably not right.
04:43I'll give it a go.
04:44Is it?
04:44I know, I think I know it is.
04:45And it was featured on the inner liner notes of Bruce Springsteen's album The River,
04:50in particular reference to the song Cadillac Ranch.
04:52It's all these Cadillacs that have been...
04:54It's not, is it?
04:55Yes, it is.
04:56It is, it is.
04:57There it is, yeah.
04:58All these cars have been stuck in the ground.
04:59And sprayed with grey paint, yeah.
05:01Yeah, it's in Nebraska.
05:03Yeah.
05:04That obviously looks quite a lot like Stonehenge, considering it's made of cars.
05:09Yes.
05:10But you can't help feeling it...
05:12He could have made it look more like Stonehenge if he'd used something else to make it with.
05:16It was a memorial to his father.
05:17Was he killed in a car accident?
05:21Does the name Alfred Watkins mean anything to you?
05:25He wrote a book called The Old Straight Track in the 1920s.
05:30And he posited something that he called leys.
05:33Those sort of spiritual lines, as it were.
05:35Yes, yes.
05:36People apparently wrongly call them leylines.
05:39They're wrong.
05:40Yeah, apparently.
05:41Whereas people who are leys, they exist, aren't wrong to do that.
05:44Yes, but we can show you some leylines in Britain, which may make you think again.
05:48Each one of those letters represents...
05:50Yeah.
05:51...something.
05:51Certainly challenging my scepticism.
05:54Well, it isn't...
05:54If each one of these letters represented a stone circle or a henge of some kind,
05:59it would be quite a coincidence, because you would need to get above the ground to get them in shape.
06:03But actually, this map was drawn by someone who was deliberately poking fun at leylines,
06:10because this is nothing less than a representation of Woolworth's stores in Britain.
06:17As he says, you can't rule out the possibility that Woolworth's used aliens to get so exact and perfect a
06:23geometrical shape.
06:24It does look like if you folded it one more time, you'd get a frog.
06:26Yeah.
06:28It looks certainly quite origami-y.
06:30Surely there are more or were.
06:32There are 800.
06:32There were more.
06:33Yeah.
06:34So he's been very selective in his choice of all those stores.
06:36Whereas people who believe in leylines aren't.
06:40So, well, that's your henges for you.
06:42According to archaeologists, Stonehenge isn't really a henge at all.
06:45So, I have a thing that I want to show you.
06:47This might help in decision-making.
06:50You have a look at one there.
06:52There we are.
06:52Pass one along.
06:54There you go.
06:55There's a bowl.
06:56It's a replica of an original ancient British bronze bowl that was discovered in Northern Ireland.
07:02It's very like a bronze bowl.
07:03It's very like a bronze bowl.
07:04It's got a hole in it.
07:05Ah.
07:06Has yours got a hole in the bottom?
07:07Yes.
07:08They've all got holes in the bottom.
07:09How would they...
07:12Oh!
07:13That's a very ancient British use that must be said.
07:16You know what I'd use this for, Stephen?
07:18Tell me, tell me.
07:18If I were enjoying some salted pistachios at home, while watching the Emmerdale Omnibus, I would use this to deposit...
07:30Kill yourself.
07:30To kill yourself.
07:37Oh, I'm joking, of course.
07:38I would...
07:39I would use it to deposit the shells.
07:42Oh.
07:43And what...
07:43Would the salt run out of the bottom holes?
07:45Yes, it would.
07:46And I would use that to encourage slugs.
07:49I would make a trail of the salt.
07:52Right.
07:52To encourage them to their death.
07:54Yes.
07:55Do you think that's what ancient Britons used to use it for?
07:57I think I'm close.
07:58Yeah.
07:59Except it would have been Crossroads rather than Emmerdale Farm.
08:03Of course it would, yes, yes.
08:04Do you like me to demonstrate?
08:05Yes.
08:06I have...
08:07I have one here.
08:08It's a big, slightly bigger one.
08:10I have a large...
08:11Where's the fish gone?
08:13And if I put it in here, what's going to happen?
08:16Yeah.
08:17Great, it's going to sink.
08:18It's going to sink.
08:19Yeah.
08:19But the point is, it takes a set amount of time to fall to the bottom.
08:23And you could call that time a minute or something.
08:26You could give it a name and make it a time unit.
08:28Suddenly, you've got a way of repeating a consistent length of time.
08:33And almost all civilizations have developed different ways of measuring a unit of time that they can predict.
08:40Not necessarily to tell the time of day, which is, you could say when it's noon, but it's, I will
08:44see you in two...
08:45So let's call it a bowlington.
08:47When it hits the bottom, bang.
08:49So are you playing hide...
08:50Go!
08:51Yeah, go, exactly.
08:52So if you're playing hide-and-seek, you'll say, I'll give you a bowlington, okay?
08:57And then you just drop it like that and then...
08:59It's called a water clock or a water thief.
09:01It's called a...
09:02Ah, that's slightly different.
09:04Yeah, that's a Greek thing.
09:05That's a klepsidra.
09:06Klepsidra, yeah.
09:06Yeah, which is a water thief.
09:08And they actually used it the other way around, which is, so they had a bowl with a hole in
09:11it,
09:11but they perched it above and they measured out the amount of water that dropped out through the hole.
09:17Yeah, what other forms of early clock do you know about?
09:19That candle's marked off.
09:21Yes.
09:22Do you know who was said to be the inventor of the candle?
09:25It's a legend.
09:26Yeah, there you are.
09:27Alfred the Great, they say.
09:29Oh, really?
09:29They're not very reliable, to be honest.
09:31Well, no, he burnt those cakes.
09:32Yes, exactly.
09:33You see?
09:34Very difficult to strap to your wrist as well as a...
09:37Other kinds of sundials.
09:38Do you know about explosive sundials, you might call them?
09:41No?
09:42The sundial alarm clock.
09:43It uses a lens so that when the sun hits the lens, it points a beam...
09:49And then you add a fuse, which tracks all the way to a cannon and fires a gun at exactly
09:54noon.
09:55Oh, that's...
09:55Can you get one of those things?
09:56You could, you could make it.
09:57That's a fantastic way to wake the children.
09:59Is it?
10:00In a hail of bullets.
10:03You're already in school.
10:04Yeah!
10:06Dance!
10:07Yeah.
10:08Yeah.
10:08That would do it.
10:09We've got time telling by looking, by seeing something.
10:14The sun's shadow, for example, on a dial.
10:17And by listening to a drum or a gun going off.
10:20But the Chinese, God bless them, they managed to use another sense.
10:23Is it something that goes off in a certain amount of time when it starts to stink?
10:28Sort of.
10:29They just had gradated incense sticks, joe sticks, that said that it would burn for an hour.
10:34And it would smell of sandalwood.
10:36And then it would go through another band which smelt of rose or something.
10:40So you could tell what time it was by, oh, it's the rose smelling time.
10:43It's that hour, you know.
10:44That's rather sweet.
10:45Oh, it's cinnamon.
10:46I must collect the children.
10:47Yes!
10:47Exactly!
10:48You talked about the lepsydra, the Greek one that was like a bowl, but it was a much
10:53more subtle Greek machine.
10:54Have you ever heard of a really remarkable Greek computer?
10:58Sort of.
10:59It was much more than a watch, though.
11:01It was discovered in 1901 by sponge divers.
11:05It's known as the...
11:05SpongeBob.
11:09SpongeBob, SquarePants and Antikythera.
11:13And the Antikythera is an extraordinary device.
11:15Yes.
11:16I mean, look at it.
11:16I mean, that's ancient Greek.
11:18And do you know what it can tell you?
11:20It can determine the course of the sun, the moon, and the known planets.
11:24When you entered the date, it calculated the positions for you.
11:27An achievement made all the more remarkable by the fact that they believed that the solar
11:31system was geocentric rather than solar-centric, as it were.
11:33Steve, you've been watching QVC again.
11:36It does look like it.
11:37It's rather beautiful.
11:37It does look like something you would get on there.
11:39It subdivided the year into 365 days, including a leap year every fourth year.
11:44It was able to predict eclipses in the moon and the sun, as well as the appearance of
11:49zodiacs.
11:50And this is from the Greeks.
11:51From the ancient Greeks, around 180 BC.
11:54And it kept track of the ancient Olympic Games, you know, which year was an Olympic year.
11:57It was discovered by sponge divers.
11:59Sponge divers.
11:59I find it odd that there's just as much water where sponges grow as there is anywhere else.
12:05It is odd.
12:09You weren't a guest on that particular show.
12:10It was an early QI.
12:11Do you know a peculiar property of sponges?
12:13No.
12:13It really is amazing.
12:14You put a sponge in a liquidiser, it will obviously just turn into a sort of hideous coloured
12:19mess, and then settle down.
12:21It will reassemble itself into a sponge.
12:25But more amazingly, put two sponges in, and it will settle itself into its two original sponges.
12:30Isn't that cool?
12:31So they're essentially like Terminators.
12:34Yeah.
12:34Exactly.
12:36Exactly.
12:37But Terminator 2.
12:38It's evil, isn't it?
12:40It's definitely evil.
12:41Yeah.
12:41Which is definitely, I think, destroy all sponges, isn't it?
12:45That's only natural sponge, not the one you get at Halfords.
12:48No.
12:49No.
12:50Proper real sponge from the body shop sort of sponge.
12:52Yes, that kind, yeah.
12:53Oh, I'm going to do that as soon as I get home.
12:55Yeah, I think they have to be alive, though.
12:56I think the dried out ones you get at the body shop probably won't count.
12:58So where would I go?
12:59They've lost the will.
13:00You would dive in the Adriatic or the Aegean Sea would be a good place.
13:03Well, what time is it now?
13:04Well, that's your problem.
13:07They probably pay you to go to Greece, given their economy.
13:09Had the sponges stolen that clock.
13:14What were they doing with it?
13:16Well, I think it had been dropped off a ship or it was in, it was just undersea.
13:19No, if they've got these powers, we don't need them to have access to our technology as well.
13:25You said the divers found that.
13:27Sorry, I missed it.
13:28I genuinely thought you said they were kind of creating that from the sponges.
13:33No!
13:34They found sponge divers.
13:35I've been sitting here going, how the hell did they do that?
13:39Yeah.
13:40Well, you thought in ancient Greece the greatest sort of timekeeping technology was possessed by the sponge divers.
13:47That's how it appeared to me over here.
13:50But moving on to more modern timekeeping pieces, every deal with the recent discovery or recent invention, I suppose you'd
13:57call it, of the most accurate clock yet devised.
13:59Is it the atomic?
14:01It's a new optical clock, accurate to one second in 3.7 billion years.
14:06But what is the point of having an incredibly accurate clock?
14:09Well, you'd have to know when SpongeBob SquarePants is going to start.
14:12There are some ready meals that you need to time, exactly.
14:15Yeah.
14:16Well, how does GPS work?
14:19Well, I don't know.
14:20Satellites, various satellites.
14:21You send a signal from your GPS device to, you've got to be at least three, usually four or five
14:26satellites that receive your signal.
14:28And the difference in time it takes to get from one satellite to the other, the other, the other, which
14:34is milliseconds.
14:35Ah, right.
14:36It allows them to calculate your positions within ten metres.
14:40So they've built this clock so your tom-tom will work, basically.
14:43No, no, this one, this one, you'll be within a metre, and if not less, you would be able to
14:48have aeroplanes landing without human,
14:50you'll be able to have traffic on motorways without humans driving because it's so accurate.
14:53But also email or any transaction over the internet uses what's called packet switching,
14:58which means that the information is broken up into packets and they're reassembled the other side.
15:03But each side has to be exactly synchronised, otherwise the message is nonsense.
15:07So the cesium atomic clocks are not just for, gosh, look how accurate, I know it's exactly fit, but it's
15:13in fact in order to make all this technology work.
15:14It's rather pleasing, isn't it?
15:15I prefer it when it's a bit more relaxed.
15:17Who was the king that had Sandringham time? Was it Edward VII?
15:21You used to have, all the clocks were set half an hour earlier so that everybody got up for hunting.
15:25And I read this once, and I thought, what a marvellous idea.
15:27And on New Year's Eve, for years, I used to reset the clocks during the day,
15:32and at nine o'clock we'd all go, it looked like it was midnight,
15:35and I'd say to the children, look, you've stayed up, isn't it? Marvellous, well done.
15:41And put them to bed, it was marvellous, fantastic.
15:44Yes, well there is accurate time and there is Bergsonian internal time, isn't it?
15:49It's the time in which things can seem to take a lifetime in your own head and things can go
15:54fast.
15:55Don't they say that the amount of time something seems to take is in terms of a percentage of how
16:00long you've been alive?
16:01Time speeds up the older you get.
16:03I mean, I had an aunt in her nineties and she said it can't be breakfast again.
16:14The Queen Mother, everything after 1964 was just a sort of blur.
16:20She must have thought, my horses are definitely getting quicker.
16:25So, yeah, it was an ancient British clock.
16:27One of the ways we told the time in the days when being accurate to a billionth of a second
16:30didn't seem quite so important.
16:32Talking of time, it's time for a picture round. Here's a very famous image, so you can bank a few
16:38points.
16:39How was it made? What is it?
16:41It's not a tapestry.
16:43Right, thank you. You've learnt.
16:44Firstly, it wasn't made by you. I was in France. This was probably in Kent. Do we know who by?
16:49Well, the Normans commissioned it, but the sort of Saxon embroidery ladies did it.
16:55Yes, absolutely right.
16:57Well, it's one of the great examples of why women's history has completely disappeared, Stephen, because women tended to make
17:03things like this phenomenal piece of work, which is embroidery, but they didn't sign it.
17:06And so we don't know the names. We know the name of the man who commissioned it, but we don't
17:09know the names of the women who made it.
17:11Yes, true.
17:11The lack of signature is one of the classic reasons why women's history has completely disappeared, because it's an astonishing
17:16piece of work.
17:17It is remarkable. You're quite right to say it's an embroidery, which is absolutely not a tapestry.
17:21The tapestry is all one material with the different colours woven in at the weaving stage, whereas this is a
17:26woven piece of cloth that is then embroidered.
17:29Well, that's so typical. The women do all this embroidery and the man goes, oh, nice tapestry, thanks very much.
17:33Yeah, I know. It's very absurd, isn't it?
17:36Couldn't make us a cup of tea now, could you?
17:40My hands are raw!
17:42Is the word tapestry named after the Bayer tapestry, but they decided to make it mean something?
17:52Yes, what else? Can you tell the British from the French in that picture?
17:56Er, are the British the four-legged ones at the top?
18:01I should say English rather than British, of course.
18:03The English would be the ones not on horses.
18:06That's pretty much true, but also the other giveaways is moustaches.
18:09Some of our English fighters were on horses, but the British, or the English, I'm allowed to say English,
18:14I'm so unused to being allowed to say English, because they were English,
18:17had the moustaches, the Harold's housecarls, plus they tended to have battle axes rather than the lances and things.
18:23Great comedy hats, aren't they?
18:25They're rather extraordinary.
18:26They are little sort of party hats, they've got a little bit of elastic under the chin.
18:30It was done by the same person that did Mr. Ben. It's a very similar style, isn't it?
18:36Yeah.
18:37Suddenly the shopkeeper appeared.
18:39They're actually specific blokes, the women doing the embroidery new.
18:42What are you doing? I'm doing Reg.
18:45It's a nice thought.
18:46That's the only way he held his axe, it was lovely, before they cut him to bits.
18:51They're sort of male, as it's called, those suits of reinforced defensive clothing.
18:55Harold Hadrado had a long one, which apparently couldn't be penetrated by a spear, and was known as Emma.
19:01Is that based on a particularly aloof woman who also couldn't be penetrated?
19:11One's bound to wonder.
19:13Yeah.
19:13Well, I could just know, and someone told me this recently, that quite a lot of the names that we
19:19use, or Christian names, we call them, came from the Normans and that invasion.
19:25They completely changed the country.
19:26Well, yes, including William, obviously, and the first few kings, John, and Richard, and lots of them.
19:32It wasn't just the names, is it not when we start to change the language completely, is it not when
19:35we get beef instead of cow?
19:37Well, because we had two words each time, exactly, so we could use the English word for the animal, cow,
19:43and we could use the French word, birth, for the food.
19:46And the British word, sheep, and mouton, mutton, can become what you eat, so you eat the mouton, you eat
19:52the beef, but the animal is the cow.
19:54But why would that be?
19:55Well, the Saxons herded them and knew them as animals, and the Normans just feasted and ate them, because they
20:00were the upper class, so we'd use their word for it.
20:02The only time they ever saw a cow's was when it was cooked on a plate in front of them.
20:07So, quite a lot about what we know about the bio-tapestry we don't know, because it's not from Bayonne,
20:11it's not a tapestry.
20:12But how can you tell Harold which one Harold is in the bio-tapestry that isn't a tapestry, or from
20:18Bayonne?
20:18Well, isn't there a bit of dispute about whether he's the one with the arrow in his eye or someone
20:24else?
20:24Is it like on Facebook, when you run the cursor over it, you get tagged?
20:30And it says, you are also in this photo, and the other people.
20:34It is not dissimilar, the tagging is above, but there are three tags, all meaning him.
20:38Harold, Rex, Interfectus Est, which means Harold the King, is killed, and they tell the story narratively from left to
20:46right.
20:46So, they could all be Harold, or only one of them could be Harold.
20:50It's actually almost impossible to tell.
20:52We don't really know that he had an arrow in his eye, it's a much later story.
20:56So, is it like a cartoon? It kind of goes, it's like one of those books used to flick, like
21:00that.
21:00Although not successful in embroidery, I think.
21:02No, not so.
21:03I think it's a cross between that and Where's Wally, isn't it?
21:06Yes, there's a hint of Where's Wally.
21:07The hint of Where's Wally.
21:08The one with the blue shield, that's, he's got an arrow in his eye.
21:12He has, and people have always assumed that was Harold.
21:14That's him, so if it's a journey, it's, oh, I've got an arrow in my eye, I'll just get on
21:17this horse for a rest.
21:19It's good.
21:19To your team, where's my shield?
21:21And then, oh, the horse has disappeared.
21:23I'm dying.
21:24And they've cut his head off on the right.
21:26Yeah.
21:27I can't see the arrow in the eye there.
21:28It's not come out very well, I blame bad embroidery.
21:31Yeah.
21:32You can see it's holding the end of it.
21:34He can't have been that ill, though, because he seems to have had time to change his socks.
21:37Yes.
21:39Probably is different people.
21:40I'm dying.
21:40Get the, get the death socks.
21:43Steven, can I, can I point out, can I, can I give the seal of approval to his wonderfully long
21:48socks?
21:51Oh, Rob long socks.
21:52Yeah.
21:53Oh, dear.
21:54They are long socks, Rob.
21:56I thought that ability, yes, it's probable that it's not the same person repeated, but there, there was one theory.
22:00The other theory is that he's only one of those, and then maybe he's the last one.
22:04Yeah.
22:04Under the horse, almost.
22:05Because that's where Interfectus S is, is killed.
22:08I mean, the point is, we just don't know.
22:10Uh, well, that's good, yes.
22:11So, we know how we spot the Englishman by the moustaches.
22:13The Bayer tapestry isn't a tapestry, it isn't for Bayer.
22:16Uh, and you shouldn't believe anyone who tells you they know how Harold died.
22:19However, you can spot the Englishman by the moustaches.
22:22As we're on the subject of English gentlemen with moustaches, could you give us your impression
22:27of the average World War II British...
22:30LAUGHTER
22:32Oh, dear.
22:34The average British World War II fighter pilot.
22:36You know, hilarious on the end.
22:38LAUGHTER
22:42That is a character.
22:43I'm gonna...
22:44Someone's got...
22:45Someone's got to write a sitcom around Dave Mitchell's character.
22:49You've got it.
22:49You look...
22:50You look like you're posing with a very successful team of kind of novelty, uh, Air Force,
22:56and you've just agreed to have your photograph taken with them for your birthday.
23:00LAUGHTER
23:00I know you're not, but if there was such a...
23:03If they'd invented gaydar instead of radar...
23:05LAUGHTER
23:06I'm sorry to say, that would mark high.
23:10LAUGHTER
23:12I'm ordering these helmets for my wife's birth.
23:15LAUGHTER
23:16See, I think in this war film, I think I die about two-thirds of the way through.
23:22LAUGHTER
23:22It breaks the heart of the audience.
23:24Oh, yeah, yeah.
23:24And inspires the hero.
23:26Yeah.
23:26Everyone goes and kills a load of Germans as a revenge for my death.
23:29And I'm the old First World War hero with a gammy leg who runs and watches them come back and
23:34cries because...
23:35Yeah.
23:35I don't think Alan dies.
23:36I think...
23:37No, Alan's...
23:37I think you make it through...
23:38I think I die.
23:39You think I'm gonna live.
23:41You're dead.
23:41And then right near the end, I die.
23:43I like Von Ryan's Express as I'm running towards the train.
23:45Oh, the train.
23:46Yeah.
23:46I get shot at the end.
23:48Right.
23:48I'm the plucky woman who was just supposed to do the radio.
23:51Who's been forced to fly one of the planes.
23:53Yeah.
23:54You look as if you could do it.
23:54You've got your sergeant stripes there.
23:56I look rather fine.
23:57How did the pilots talk?
23:58That's the thing.
23:59Um...
24:00Ah.
24:01Red beater, red beater.
24:02The bus.
24:04You've got a lovely team today who will be furnishing you with the easy kiosk.
24:11Stretch cards.
24:13Castrols.
24:14Like that.
24:15That's right.
24:15Clean up in aisle three.
24:17Yes.
24:18What should we do there?
24:19That's what we're...
24:20Well, I...
24:21What sort of people?
24:22Yes.
24:22Posh.
24:23Posh.
24:24They're always pox.
24:25That's right.
24:26No.
24:27I think you're right.
24:29That's the odd thing.
24:30They so weren't.
24:31Really?
24:32Only 30% of all British fighter pilots in the Battle of Britain went to public school.
24:36And in fact, of that 30%, they were mostly minor public schools.
24:39And of the Eton, Harry, Winchester or the top 13, there was only 8%.
24:42It's just the actors that played them were posh then.
24:45That's the point.
24:46In the war films during and after the war, it's your Kenneth Moores and your David Nivens and so on,
24:51who were, you know, a spoke like that.
24:52I don't know, God.
24:52Did the Germans know we were sending up the lower classes?
24:58There we go.
24:59There we go.
24:59There comes someone who has got no manners whatsoever.
25:10There's your Richard Todd on the left, who, of course, is paying a...
25:13Your actual, your actual Richard Todd.
25:15Yes, paying Guy Gibson there, I think.
25:16And there's, of course, David Niven from A Matter of Life and Death by the look of it.
25:20And that's how people thought of them, with a moustache only, obviously, Robert.
25:22I mean, 30% of them having gone to public school, that's more than the percentage of the population.
25:28Yes, which was only, yeah, absolutely right.
25:30So they're a bit posher than...
25:31But the idea that it was, you know, that posh is the first word that comes to mind,
25:34when 70% were state-educated.
25:37Right.
25:37Not privately-educated.
25:38I mean, they didn't speak like Jordan or something, did they?
25:41No, nobody did then.
25:43No.
25:44Believe it, there's no way we're going to drop the bums over that lot.
25:48It's a real bloody mess down there.
25:52Right, let him go.
25:53Look at that!
25:58Oh, dear.
26:02Yeah.
26:0420% of all the pilots were, in fact, not even British.
26:10Oh, Polish, not Polish.
26:11Well, quite a few of Polish and Czechs, but also from the Dominions and the Empire of the Commonwealth,
26:17Canada, New Zealand and Australia in particular, of course, and South Africa also.
26:21I'm sitting on the plane at the end there, he's obviously hoping for a ride, yeah.
26:27Is this right?
26:29Is this where you go?
26:30I'm ready!
26:32I find you get a better view from here.
26:35What about modern pilots?
26:37Is it any advantage for them to posh up their accents?
26:40Yes, because I...
26:41Isn't it something that it's more reassuring for people?
26:45Yeah.
26:45A classic British Airways pilot is that sort of...
26:48I mean, nowadays, you've got your verge and your buzz and your go.
26:52Yeah.
26:52Those guys sound like they're on Radio Topshop.
26:54They do!
26:56It's true!
26:57You want to see your lady?
26:58He's going to get this little baby airborne as soon as I can.
27:01Let's all check out Lily Allen.
27:03Yeah.
27:04They tell you the Christian names of the others.
27:06Oh, I hate it.
27:07Well, you don't need to know that.
27:08I was on a British Airways flight.
27:10It was just after, about six weeks after 9-11.
27:12Everybody was a little bit tense and I was flying out of New York.
27:14And very tragically, the plane directly in front of us took off and crashed.
27:19I don't know if you remember, there was a flight going out to the Dominican...
27:21Oh, yes.
27:21...and it crashed.
27:21Anyway, we all de-planed.
27:23And after about 12 hours, we were allowed back onto the flight.
27:30Anyway, the pilot came on and he said,
27:31Oh, good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
27:33This is a delayed flight to London.
27:36I know many of your seasoned travellers and you probably don't watch the safety briefing,
27:40but perhaps today.
27:44Wow.
27:49Usually, Australians get it right.
27:51I was on an Ansett flight from Perth to Adelaide and he started off by saying,
27:54Oh, we're on our way to Adelaide.
27:56Adelaide is not your final destination.
27:59Now would be an ideal time to de-plane.
28:02And then he started talking about the safety.
28:04He said, but that's enough yakety-yak for me.
28:05He said, it's time to push some service down the aisles and some scenery past the window.
28:12It was very good.
28:14Australians are good at that kind of thing.
28:16Now, accents we were talking about there.
28:18You're absolutely right.
28:18People do like what they consider to be an authoritative and reassuring voice from a pilot.
28:2472% of people interviewed felt it is if a pilot had a what accent?
28:27People like Scottish accents.
28:29You're right.
28:29Edinburgh in particular.
28:30I don't think that would be very good.
28:33But a nice, respectable Edinburgh would make you feel...
28:36Christine Brody.
28:37That's right, yes.
28:38That would be fine.
28:38You could sit down the plane, it would go ding-dong and go,
28:41This is not the one about the aeroplane.
28:46That crashes in the river.
28:47It's not that one.
28:49What about a Geordie accent?
28:5065% of people said a Geordie accent would make them feel more or less comfortable.
28:54He can serve the drinks.
28:56He can serve the drinks.
28:58I don't want him flying the plane.
29:00Well, funnily enough.
29:01Very, very friendly.
29:0365% said they're okay.
29:04They're not chatting too much and then they'll just crash at work.
29:0765% said they don't mind a Geordie, they'd like a Geordie.
29:10Yeah, they like that because they have any call centres, don't they?
29:12Yeah.
29:12What about Brummies?
29:1376% said they would or would not lie.
29:16Oh, no, no.
29:16I'm afraid to say that they would not lie.
29:18You just sort of think, sounds like a victim.
29:21Yeah.
29:22Doesn't sound incompetent, sounds unfortunate.
29:27I don't want a skilled pilot, I want a lucky pilot.
29:30Exactly.
29:31The posh voice people, it could be an idiot.
29:33But he's lucked his way through life.
29:38But he screws all the stewardesses and his wife never finds out.
29:43Yeah, I want him flying.
29:4683% of men and women polled said they'd be more likely to trust a male or a female pilot?
29:51Male.
29:51Male, I'm afraid so.
29:53Yeah, I'm sorry to say.
29:54There we are.
29:55So that's your flying done for the moment.
29:57Despite the stereotype of the Battle of Britain, pilots being posh young chaps, fresh from the
30:01better public schools and varsities, the great majority of them were in fact state-educated.
30:04Now we're engaged in mortal combat.
30:08Perhaps you can tell me which side Yorkshire was on in the Wars of the Roses.
30:12Well, there's the White Roses, Yorkshire.
30:15Well, it's not the counties though, is it?
30:17It's just the royal houses.
30:20That's the point exactly.
30:21Yorkshire has no more to do with the House of York than Kent or Norfolk.
30:25So Duke of York versus the Duke of Lancaster.
30:28Yes, exactly.
30:29The point is, in fact, most people who lived in Yorkshire were the Lancastrians.
30:32In fact, they favoured the Lancastrian cause.
30:36But now, of course, people in Yorkshire very much associate with the White Rose and the
30:40Yorkists.
30:40Well, because it's become the symbol of the county and the cricket match between the two
30:44counties is known as the Roses match and so on.
30:46But you're right.
30:47And talking in Yorkshire, there are other things that are called Yorkshire that aren't particularly
30:50Yorkshire.
30:50Can you think of one?
30:51Pudding.
30:52Yorkshire pudding is not a thing that was invented in Yorkshire.
30:55Although, people from Yorkshire...
30:57Oh, hello.
30:57Oh, yes.
30:58Yes, this was really annoying.
31:00They're trying to say that, like, you can't make champagne outside the champagne region
31:06or Stilton outside a certain region, that you wouldn't be allowed to make something and
31:11call it a Yorkshire pudding outside Yorkshire, which is basically an idea cooked up entirely
31:19by people who manufacture those horrible frozen Yorkshire pudding.
31:22You're right to be angry.
31:24You're right to be angry.
31:24Yes, it's called a protected designation of origin, a PDO.
31:28And champagne, as you rightly say, has it.
31:30Palmer Ham has it.
31:31You can't call it Palmer Ham unless it comes from Palmer.
31:34But making Yorkshire pudding, one of those things, would be like making a sandwich.
31:38Yes, I know.
31:39You had to come from Sandwich in Kent.
31:41Yeah, you had to go to Marks and Spencer's in Sandwich for the other authentic sandwich.
31:46But give me some other British PDO-detected foods.
31:48There's one, I think, Stilton is one.
31:51Stilton, where must it come from?
31:52But it can't come, for example, from Stilton.
31:55No, that's quite right.
31:55The area, the town of Stilton, which the cheese is named after, the cheese is named after it
31:59because that's where the cheese was sold, not where it was manufactured.
32:02Exactly.
32:02So the area, the designated area that you make it in was bits of Leicester, I don't know.
32:07Anyway, Stilton's not in it.
32:08It's mostly round the Melton Mowbray area.
32:11Well, what about pork pies, Melton Mowbray pork pies?
32:13I guess you can't call it a Melton Mowbray pork pie.
32:15I don't know if that's a PDO.
32:16Do you know that the German of the Pork Pie Association is vegetarian?
32:21He didn't know.
32:22I didn't know that.
32:23Seriously.
32:23I interviewed him, and I said, because he brought pork pies for us to try.
32:26And I said, go on, then, tuck in.
32:28He said, oh, no, no, thanks very much, I'm vegetarian.
32:31That's very peculiar.
32:32Yeah, that's what I did.
32:33Yes, what?
32:34What?
32:36He's angry now.
32:37No, I'm absolutely...
32:40Sure, how was this man done with his life?
32:44You can't, on the one hand, say it's wrong to eat animals
32:47and then dedicate your professional life to the marketing of ground-up pigs.
32:53It's like...
32:54You've got a point.
32:55It's just a sort of pacifist nuclear weapons manual.
33:00But not all vegetarians are vegetarians because they don't agree with the slaughtering of animals.
33:06Some do it because they just don't like the taste.
33:07Maybe he thought it was a job being chairman of pork pie hats.
33:11Yes.
33:13Or of lying.
33:15Or of lying.
33:15Yes, telling porkies.
33:16He thought he's being a spy.
33:18Yeah.
33:18I've got to tell porkies.
33:20I've got to tell pork pies.
33:20I'm going to destroy the pork pie business from the inside.
33:25Well, there you are.
33:26In fact, there's more Yorkshire folks supported the Lancastrians than the Yorkists.
33:30Scott's whiskey.
33:32The question will...
33:37Any minute now.
33:39Yeah.
33:39On the subject of making a bit of noise, what might you use these for?
33:43Oh, those are fantastic.
33:44Aren't they great?
33:46They're mobile.
33:47Yes.
33:47They look like giant tubers.
33:49In fact, tubers is a word that was used.
33:51They were called war tubers, you can see.
33:52Sirens?
33:53Sort of air aid warning?
33:54No.
33:55Is it an over-large hearing aid?
33:57Yes.
33:58What?
33:58Oh.
34:03Where is it the hearing enemy aircraft?
34:06It's like an ear trumpet.
34:07Wow.
34:08And you can hear enemy aircraft coming towards you.
34:10And by setting the angles, they could determine not just the distance, but the direction.
34:14You wheel it down to Dover, you can hear them in France.
34:17That's the idea.
34:18Like the sound mirrors.
34:19They had sound mirrors as well, which are not actually made of metal, but usually of concrete.
34:23These are Japanese, as it happens.
34:25The Japanese use them to detect aircraft coming in.
34:28We had nothing quite as enormous as that, but there had been things like yokes where you
34:32put them on your shoulders.
34:33There.
34:33There.
34:33Look at that.
34:36And it's extraordinary how much they did give you a slight advantage.
34:39It looks silly, but I find myself more and more, as I enter my 30s now, doing that.
34:46Yes.
34:47You see, and then it makes a hell of a difference.
34:49Take them away, David.
34:50Take them away.
34:51Now, here I am.
34:51Hello, David.
34:52We're not yet.
34:54Hello, David.
34:55It's lovely to see you.
34:55Now try them.
34:56Now try them.
34:57Sorry, what?
34:59Put them there.
35:00Okay.
35:00Yeah.
35:02Hello, David.
35:03Oh, so, so.
35:05You see?
35:06Practical proof.
35:06It's a misunderstanding for comic effect.
35:08But it's, it's, it's true.
35:11You know.
35:11Hello, David.
35:12Lovely to see you.
35:13It does make a difference.
35:14It does make a difference.
35:14It genuinely makes a difference.
35:15It is, yeah.
35:16So that's, we think.
35:16It sounds different.
35:17It sounds much better.
35:19If you do it, now I, that's very disorienting.
35:21That's quite nice.
35:22When you talk yourself with them, you almost fall over.
35:25You and me either.
35:26So don't, don't talk yourself like this.
35:27No.
35:27Also, you look like an idiot.
35:29Yeah.
35:30I feel like I'm in front of myself.
35:32Yes.
35:32I think what's nice is it also has a nice warming effect on the ears.
35:37It's really a win, win, win, win, win, win, win, isn't it?
35:40Yes.
35:40Yeah.
35:40I find it very comforting.
35:42And also, it means you can't hear all the horrible things people behind me are saying.
35:46That's true.
35:46You have to reverse it like that.
35:48Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up.
35:51Oh, you bitch.
35:54Get me out.
35:56Get back in the knife drawer, miss his shot.
35:58Perhaps the really clever thing is the fact that you can get the range and the elevation
36:02from the slight difference in time, like what we were saying about clocks.
36:06Our own ears receive the same sound but at slightly different times because one is nearer
36:11than the other.
36:11I mean, it's miniscule.
36:12It's enough for the brain to process it and know that the sound is coming from there,
36:15not from there.
36:17And some animals, like the barn owl, have this to an extraordinary degree.
36:20Their ears are actually inside a kind of sound dish.
36:23That's what that round shape is in the owl's face.
36:26And they've got one high looking down and one low looking up.
36:30And they're able, therefore, to tell with extraordinary precision something they hear
36:33exactly where it is.
36:35So nature always gets there first.
36:37So, yes, Japanese war tubers were mobile acoustic locators that helped to find enemy
36:42aircraft in the days before radar.
36:44And so time's winged chariot glides us gracefully towards the crack of doom.
36:48That is general ignorance, or in this case, generals ignorant.
36:52Because let's see what we really know about some of the greatest military leaders from history.
36:57Fingers on buzzers.
36:58What animals did the Carthaginian general Hannibal use to defeat King Eumenes of Pergamon in 184 BC?
37:05Elephant.
37:07No.
37:08No.
37:10Do you defeat who?
37:12King Eumenes of Pergamon.
37:14Right.
37:15Him.
37:16Him.
37:16There he is.
37:17Is he defeated?
37:18Horses.
37:19Not horses.
37:20Leopards.
37:21Mice.
37:21Bacteria.
37:24Snakes.
37:25Snakes.
37:25Put lots of snakes in earthenware jars.
37:27I don't think of that as an animal or anything.
37:29Well, put them in earthenware pots, threw them at the enemy and onto their ships.
37:33Really?
37:33Yeah.
37:33What a great idea.
37:34Snakes on a Plane.
37:35Almost the first example of it.
37:38How did Snakes on a Plane come about?
37:40Do you know?
37:41Snakes on a Plane?
37:42Yes, the film.
37:43Have people had more money than sense?
37:47Maybe.
37:48No, supposedly it was a group of script writers sitting around trying to think up the stupidest
37:52name.
37:52Like a pub game.
37:54And someone said, Snakes on a Plane.
37:56And they said, you know, that's so crap, it's good.
37:58It would be scary to be on a plane with lots of snakes though.
38:01I mean...
38:02Yes, it would.
38:03I like the film.
38:03It's quite scary.
38:04The key would be whether the mechanism, the plot, that leaves the snakes being on the
38:08plane is believable or not.
38:10Well, they get out of a thing in a hold.
38:11Oh, well, that sounds all right to me.
38:13And there's snakes so they can get through tiny gaps.
38:15They come up the loo.
38:17Whoa!
38:17Well, they'll do.
38:19Ooh.
38:19Anyway, yes.
38:21Hannibal defeated the Pergameses by bombing them with pots full of snakes.
38:25Now, who succeeded Harold as King of England in 1066?
38:30Is there a trick to it?
38:31No.
38:31It's just you need to name the person who succeeded Harold as King in 1066.
38:36Well, was it the bastard?
38:37Don't trust him.
38:38I know.
38:39The trick is to know the answer.
38:40I don't trust you.
38:41At all.
38:42Oh.
38:43Is it the bastard then?
38:45Well, who's the bastard?
38:46Oh, dear.
38:47See?
38:48See?
38:50Did England cease to exist in some way or has it changed in name?
38:54There was another Saxon claimant who was nominally king for 45 seconds or something.
38:59Well, for a few months.
38:59Yes.
39:00Yes.
39:01Edgar Adeling.
39:02He was a king.
39:02Ah.
39:03And he was 15 years old.
39:05But Saxon kings were...
39:07How did you...
39:08How did you become a king if you were Saxon?
39:09Did you have to be sort of nominated?
39:11You had to be one of the five or six families and then you'd be elected.
39:16Yeah.
39:16By what?
39:17By votes?
39:18Yes.
39:19They would vote for you.
39:19Yes.
39:20Edgar the Adeling.
39:22He was 15 years old.
39:23But, of course, William had won the battle and so he came after him and he tried to fight.
39:27He couldn't raise an army.
39:28He went abroad and, you know, didn't really live a very successful life.
39:31Well, he's 15 so he wouldn't have been able to do anything, would he really?
39:33Edgar the Adeling was proclaimed king by the English after the death of Harold and reigned
39:37for two months before William was crowned.
39:38Why did Julius Caesar wear a laurel wreath?
39:43Was it because he was bald?
39:45Yes, is the right answer.
39:46Absolutely right.
39:47He was very vain.
39:48According to Suetonius, his baldness was a disfigurement of which he was deeply ashamed
39:52and so he chose the laurel wreath as one of the things he had a right to wear and wore
39:58it all the time, which others wouldn't.
39:59They said the laurel wreath is going to do wonders for you, Julius.
40:03What it's going to do is it's going to take attention away from the laurels.
40:07They come in a variety of colours and styles.
40:10We're going to start you off with a very simple traditional one.
40:13He was also supposed to have invented the comb over because he, Suetonius also...
40:17Invented the comb over?
40:18Yeah.
40:18He combs his hair forward.
40:19I should quote you Suetonius in translation.
40:22He used to comb forward the scanty locks from the crown of his head
40:24and of all the honours voted for him by the Senate and people
40:27there was none which he received or made use of more gladly
40:29than the privilege of wearing a laurel wreath at all times.
40:32He's going to look really obvious.
40:33He looked like a sixties footballer who'd come through a hedge.
40:38It would be like leaving your Christmas cracker hat on all year.
40:44So, with that display of general incompetence, we reach the end of recorded history.
40:48All that remains to see is who has learnt its lessons and who is condemned to repeat its mistakes endlessly.
40:53On Dave.
40:54And taking their place in history tonight with a magnificent plus two points is Rob Brydon.
41:07And happily dancing to the music of time in second place with minus four, it's David Mitchell.
41:20Hanging grimly on to past glories with minus 27 is Sandy Toksvay.
41:30And finally, sadly, no more than a forgotten obscure footnote with minus 29, Alan Davis.
41:38Congratulations.
41:45So, that's all from this historic edition of QI.
41:48So, it's goodnight from Sandy, Rob, David, Alan and me.
41:50I leave you with Winston Churchill's remark to Stanley Baldwin in the House of Commons.
41:53History will say that the right honourable gentleman was wrong, he remarked.
41:57I know it will, because I shall write the history.
42:00Goodnight.
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