- 6 hours ago
First broadcast 23rd September 2011.
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
Sean Lock
Frank Skinner
John Bishop
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
Sean Lock
Frank Skinner
John Bishop
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:01Good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening,
00:05good evening and welcome to QI, where we have an ill-assorted imbroglio of interesting items initiated by I.
00:13Here for your immediate inspection are the inestimable John Bishop, the inimitable Frank Skinner.
00:30The incomparable Sean Locke, and Alan Davis is also in.
00:40Hooray!
00:45Now, this evening their buzzers are intentionally irritating.
00:51John goes...
01:01Frank goes...
01:14How can I ask, how long is this show?
01:18It depends how often you use the buzzer.
01:21Sean goes...
01:23Oh!
01:27And Alan goes...
01:38Well...
01:39Now, as John and Frank have never played the game before,
01:44I should explain that each of you has a nobody knows placard.
01:48You might just like to show it to question marks.
01:50Nobody knows.
01:51That's it.
01:52There will be a question tonight to which nobody knows the answer.
01:56And if you think, when I ask that question,
01:59that this is the question to which there is no known answer,
02:01you wave your card and you get extra points.
02:04It looks like they had Strictly come dancing one night
02:06and someone did a dance so experimental.
02:13You consider it that way.
02:15Now, to warm up the new boys, here's an easy one to begin with.
02:18What's the French for innuendo?
02:22Is it double entendre?
02:24Oh!
02:28Now, just remember that double entendre is French for big tits, isn't it?
02:33No, double entendre means nothing to a Frenchman.
02:36You could say double entendre.
02:38Entente is like a...
02:40Two-man tent.
02:44Good.
02:46Or double sense, double sense, but they don't say double entendre.
02:50So it's a French phrase that the French don't use.
02:53Yes.
02:53So it's not French.
02:54Exactly.
02:55And that's precisely what this round of questions is about.
02:57There are other examples of that.
02:59Suppose you're at a performance, someone is very brilliant,
03:02and you want them to perform again.
03:04Encore.
03:04You'd shout encore.
03:05What would they shout in France?
03:06More.
03:07No.
03:08It's a good thought.
03:10But, encore is a French word meaning more,
03:13but they don't shout encore when they want.
03:16They shout a Latin word, which means twice.
03:19Mmm.
03:20Mmm.
03:21Anyone?
03:22Anyone in the audience?
03:24B-I-S.
03:26B-I-S.
03:26B-I-S?
03:27B-I-S?
03:28B-I-S?
03:28That's what they shout.
03:29That's crap.
03:31You'd hate to do a show, wouldn't you,
03:33and at the end everyone goes,
03:34B-I-S!
03:35B-I-S!
03:37It's like that!
03:38B-I-S!
03:44Well, there are other phrases which we use,
03:47which sound French, but again mean nothing to a Frenchman,
03:50cause célèbre is not a French phrase.
03:53Like en suite for a bathroom, the French would,
03:55they'd go, what?
03:56Yeah.
03:57What about bidet?
03:58B-I-I-I do indeed have, though it's easier really,
04:02to do a handstand in the shower, to be honest.
04:05And if you want the expense of a bidet, yes.
04:11Easier.
04:12As nimble as I am.
04:14I'd pay good money to say that.
04:17I'd like to see you, doing that, with a camera going,
04:20tweet this.
04:28It's hilarious with the handstand in the shower, though.
04:31Yes.
04:31It's like, you know when you see a mountain stream
04:33and you think, the water looks alright,
04:34but it's, I don't know where it's been further off?
04:37When you're upside down
04:38and this water is pouring across your face,
04:41lodging in your nostrils,
04:43and you, you know that it's been...
04:47Oh, that's a worry.
04:48I had a friend who, he, he had read somewhere
04:51that if you slept upside down, it made you more intelligent
04:55because the blood went to your brain.
04:58And I became obsessed with the idea
05:01that he would have a wet dream and die.
05:08Oh, that's so, in so many ways, a horrific image.
05:13He, he also, this is, this guy also told us
05:16that a Chinese burn, you know a Chinese burn?
05:19He's called a Chinese burn because in China, it's a form of torture.
05:23Yeah. I've just sold that at school.
05:25Sort of thing people, school children.
05:26So, so a student in Tiananmen Square, he stopped
05:30and the soldier says, you, come here, come here, arm out.
05:35Yeah, be careful.
05:36And next time, they'd be dead leg.
05:39Exactly.
05:41I like the way you resisted the opportunity to go, dead reg.
05:44Oh.
05:46Yeah, we're not, we're not ready for those jokes.
05:47Oh, no, no, no, no.
05:49So, yes, there are words we use, décolletage, for example,
05:52we use for that.
05:53The French has used décolleté for that, not décolletage.
05:56Excuse me, when you say we, you mean you.
05:58Well, it is, it's not a common phrase, but is it?
06:02No, it's not.
06:03No, it's never said, look at the décolletage on that.
06:06Could you put...
06:07You never stop learning.
06:09I've already learnt how to say to my teenage sons,
06:12look at the knockers on that, without the mum getting annoyed.
06:16And now you can say décolletage.
06:19Décolletage.
06:19I don't know.
06:21Also, en suite, which is used commonly these days
06:23for a bathroom that's connected to a bedroom.
06:26In, in France, they didn't use the phrase en suite.
06:28And, of course, the en suite.
06:29Exactly.
06:30In fact, do not.
06:31That's commonly used.
06:33There's a Greek phrase.
06:35The Greeks say kata tria staieftika, I think it is.
06:38And it means, who gives a shit?
06:41No.
06:41But literally, it means, there is trouble in the gypsy village.
06:47I like that.
06:50I don't know.
06:51It's true.
06:52It depends on how you are on the social calendar.
06:55It's right.
06:56It is, you know, posh people wouldn't give a shit at this.
07:02Anyway, that's the point.
07:03You can ask a Frenchman for a doublon tendre if you like,
07:06but you'll be lucky if he gives you one.
07:08Now, now to some...
07:09Hey!
07:11Thank you very much.
07:12Now, to some iTunes.
07:15Who wrote the songs,
07:17I'm leaning on a lamppost and when I'm cleaning windows?
07:25Definitely not, George Formby.
07:27Even though his wife, Beryl, insisted that George had a credit
07:31so that he'd get money.
07:33Yeah, absolutely right.
07:34I have to know you're a bit of a fan of George Formby, aren't you?
07:36I am indeed, yeah.
07:37Yeah.
07:37I'm leaning on a lamppost was one of his big hits,
07:40as is when I'm cleaning windows.
07:41When I'm cleaning windows,
07:42is that the one that's really a bit dodgy?
07:43Well, there was a phrase in here.
07:45The blushing bride, she looks divine.
07:47The bridegroom, he is doing fine.
07:49I'd rather have his job than mine when I'm cleaning windows.
07:53The BBC banned it.
07:55However, George Formby was invited to do a performance at Windsor
07:58in front of the royal family in 1941
07:59and some troops during the war, obviously.
08:02And the Queen Mother insisted he sing the song properly,
08:05not with any cut verses.
08:06And she liked it so much,
08:07she asked him to sing it another two or three times.
08:09But the BBC still banned it.
08:11There's a George Formby lyric,
08:13my favourite, Du Blond,
08:14and he says,
08:15I wonder who's under her balcony now?
08:18Who's kissing my girl?
08:20Does he kiss her under the nose
08:22or underneath the archway where the sweet William grows?
08:25Whoa!
08:27Now, you're a special group, George Formby fans,
08:29and it's usual amongst George Formby fans, I believe,
08:34that they teach themselves the banjoleli.
08:37And as you are one, we have a banjoleli.
08:40Can you delight us with some Formby?
08:43Am I on the spot?
08:44I don't know if it's tuned or not,
08:44but, I mean, just do it.
08:46Oh, don't worry about that.
08:46We'd be very happy.
08:47My dog has fleas is what you need to remember.
08:50My dog has...
08:51Well, this one doesn't have fleas,
08:52he has distemper.
08:57That, um...
08:58When I'm cleaning windows has got another bit that goes, um...
09:028 o'clock, a girl awakes at 10 past 8,
09:05about she takes a quarter past my ladder breaks
09:07when I'm cleaning windows...
09:09Oh!
09:11Oh!
09:13Oh!
09:14Oh!
09:17Oh!
09:18The bit that goes at.
09:19There's a famous movie queen,
09:21she looks a beauty on the screen,
09:23she's more like 80 than 18.
09:26When I'm cleaning windows,
09:28she takes her hair down or behind,
09:30then takes down her never mind,
09:32and finally takes down the blind,
09:35we're now cleaning windows!
09:37Cheeky!
09:39Brilliant!
09:45Thank you very much, I'm very...
09:47So what is it about George Formby that was...
09:50He was one of the biggest film stars of his time in Britain, wasn't he?
09:53I went to his grave,
09:56and there's a massive, great white stone,
10:00and the big face,
10:01and it says George Formby,
10:03and it's a massive monument,
10:05and when you get closer,
10:06you realise it's his dad.
10:09Because he was junior, wasn't he?
10:10His dad was a massive musical star,
10:12and at the bottom it says also George Formby, OBE,
10:16blah, blah, blah.
10:16So he got terrible billing,
10:18even on his own grave.
10:20And the wife you alluded to, Beryl,
10:22was fanatically jealous,
10:23and wouldn't let him...
10:24I mean, if a make-up girl on a film so much as smiled at him,
10:27she'd have her sacked, wouldn't she?
10:28She was very...
10:29I do, but I think George got away with quite a lot of saucy behaviour.
10:33Turned out nice again.
10:34Exactly. It turned out nice quite a lot.
10:36Yes.
10:37George used to say that Beryl only gave him five bob a week pocket money,
10:41but his brother claimed, after George died,
10:45that that was something that George came up with.
10:47So when he was in the bar, he'd say,
10:48I'd love to get around him,
10:49but Beryl only gives me five bob a week pocket money.
10:52But there is a tradition,
10:54I don't know how much it exists in other languages,
10:56whether it is a peculiarly English thing,
10:58of the tradition of Frankie Howard, carry on, and so on.
11:01It must exist in other languages. It must.
11:04I guess it must.
11:05Even in America, it doesn't really.
11:07They just don't seem to set the same story.
11:09They seem a bit more mature, maybe.
11:11Maybe they are more mature than me.
11:12More sophisticated. They've gone over it.
11:16Yeah, that did us till we're about eight.
11:18Yeah.
11:19In other countries, that kind of symbolism is terribly sad
11:22and portentous and awful.
11:24All of Ibsen's plays are about...
11:26Yes, true.
11:28The master builder is about towers and erections
11:31and it just means the man's sad.
11:33That's right, it's misery, isn't it?
11:34And lusts after women he can't possibly have.
11:36And everyone sits in the theatre and,
11:37oh, God, this is awful.
11:38Well, in England, are we Benny Hill going...
11:43They can be very clever, though, those in the US.
11:45Oh, yes.
11:46Do you remember that?
11:46There used to be a form of joke,
11:48and it used to be, she was only a so-and-so's daughter.
11:50She was only a road manager's daughter,
11:52but she liked having her asphalt, or whatever it was.
11:56That's it.
11:57She was only a fishmonger's daughter,
11:59but she could lay it on the slab and say fill it.
12:02Yes.
12:10Does anyone recognise the photograph behind you, then,
12:12where that's from?
12:14That's from Round the Horn.
12:15Round the Horn.
12:16A hugely successful radio series of the 1960s.
12:19That's Kenneth Horn in the middle,
12:20and they pushed the boundaries of innuendo
12:22probably further than they'd ever been pushed in British comic life,
12:25especially with the two characters on the left,
12:27Kenneth Williams and Hugh Paddock,
12:29who played a couple called Jules and Sandy,
12:31who basically used gay slang in the 1960s,
12:34lunchtime Radio 2 comedy at a time when millions listened.
12:38They were doing, I mean, extraordinary stuff.
12:40I mean, really quite.
12:41But that was the great thing,
12:42is they'd got that Polari thing.
12:44Yeah.
12:44They had their own language.
12:46With their own language.
12:46So they could say,
12:47oh, God, my lally's are so tired and all that,
12:50and people literally had no idea, but it sounded funny.
12:53That's right, yeah.
12:54I know.
12:55And as long as you go,
12:56every now and again.
12:59I know.
13:00So, anyway.
13:00There you are.
13:01So there's rudery around.
13:03Anyway, the point is,
13:05that's probably enough innuendo.
13:06If I see another double entendre,
13:07I'll whip it out,
13:08and probably stick a blue pencil through it.
13:11Now,
13:12now to an initiative test.
13:15I want everybody here,
13:17everybody here,
13:17and I'm giving the audience,
13:18I love the audience,
13:20I want you to think of your favourite colour,
13:22alright?
13:23And on the count of three,
13:24I want you to shout it out as loud as you can,
13:28alright?
13:28You'll vote everyone in the room, okay?
13:31So,
13:31one, two, three.
13:33Hooray!
13:34Okay.
13:35So,
13:36Frank, what did John shout?
13:41I was mainly listening to me.
13:43Yes.
13:44Do you know what Frank shouted?
13:47Pink.
13:49Did you shout pink?
13:51No.
13:51No.
13:52Do you know what Alan shouted?
13:54Red.
13:55Do you shout red?
13:56No.
13:57Do you know what Sean shouted?
13:58Blue.
13:59I thought he shouted yellow,
14:00what did you shout?
14:00Blue.
14:01Oh, you shouted blue.
14:02That was a guess,
14:03that was a guess, wasn't it?
14:04Oh, you say,
14:05shade blue.
14:06Oh, you did, well, you didn't know.
14:07Really loud.
14:09The fact is,
14:10of course,
14:10it is very common,
14:12and these are used in strange sort of tests for teamwork and things,
14:15it's very common for people simply not to listen to other people when they're speaking,
14:19perhaps not.
14:20It's not unusual,
14:22if you're making a noise yourself,
14:23to be, frankly,
14:24only a what?
14:25Sorry?
14:27Sorry, I wasn't.
14:28Oh, I beg your pardon.
14:30And there are,
14:31as you know,
14:32people who make money out of paying management people to take courses in teamwork,
14:37and it seems it's very, very important,
14:39that even when you're shouting loudly,
14:40you should hear what the other person is saying.
14:43Oh, the bother.
14:46You should have seen me when I first saw this,
14:48because if there is a profession,
14:50it is that of people who basically get management people to pay them,
14:56to tell them the art of the soap.
14:58Obviously, it makes your nose green.
15:00When you're speaking,
15:01it's really important that people hear what you're saying.
15:04You know, we do a four-week course on this.
15:06The one I like is the people who come around to your house and give you advice on what to
15:10do to it,
15:10so it will sell.
15:12Oh, really?
15:13Especially when you don't want to sell it.
15:15I went in the toilet,
15:17put the toilet seat, the lid down,
15:19and said,
15:20lid down when showing.
15:21Oh, really?
15:22So, no floating solids?
15:25I always tell my clients that.
15:27Flush it first.
15:28I would stop the family doing handstands in the shower.
15:33It's a living bidet.
15:35Pay the full price of Kalani get a kitchen.
15:37Don't do anything.
15:39I'll tell you something.
15:40We're being very critical here,
15:41but the next time I'm in a situation where I have to shout out a collar,
15:46simultaneously with a lot of other people,
15:48I'm going to pay a lot more attention.
15:50That's good to know.
15:51You're advancing.
15:52I said blue, but really I meant red.
15:57That's really difficult.
15:59I also don't think that works,
16:01because I think there's parts of your psyche that means if you're making a noise,
16:04you can't hear a noise.
16:05I think that would make choral singing an impossibility,
16:08if that were true.
16:09That's true.
16:10That's the end of the world.
16:13It is.
16:16Especially when they do that,
16:18I can sing a rainbow song.
16:20Yes.
16:20You know, my surprise,
16:22I've not been in a lot of choirs.
16:25No, that's a good point.
16:27But I've lived that life where we've had,
16:29because I used to have a normal life in a corporate world,
16:32corporate sector,
16:32and I've been on training days.
16:34Oh, you've actually been on these bloody things?
16:36Oh.
16:36And were they all...
16:38They just...
16:39I mean, there's some parts of it that you think,
16:41this could be good, this.
16:43Yeah, I can see what's going on here,
16:44where they say,
16:44look, you know, there's an issue within the company,
16:47you've all got different views.
16:48Why don't you draw a picture?
16:50All get together.
16:51Instead of talking about, let's draw a picture,
16:53you go, what are we going to draw a picture?
16:55Just anything that comes into your mind.
16:57Not a cock.
16:58Apparently that's...
17:02It's getting to the bottom of a corporate infrastructure,
17:05cock-drawn and saying,
17:07that's you, doesn't really help.
17:09And we had all these things,
17:11and honest to God, you do get to it,
17:13and you start looking at these people and think,
17:15you live your life like this.
17:17You can see them going home to the kids saying,
17:19come on, you know, I could make your tea,
17:21but wouldn't it be better if you made your tea?
17:23Oh.
17:23Wouldn't you feel better as a team if we made tea together?
17:26Oh.
17:26In fact, wouldn't it be better if tea didn't exist?
17:29Let's all think, draw your tea.
17:34Unless you move it as an issue.
17:36Well, it's just becoming rapidly more clear,
17:39there are many people on earth who need to be killed
17:40and nearly all of them are management consultants.
17:44Hopefully...
17:49Hopefully that classic piece of management school trickery
17:52will have taught you all a valuable lesson
17:54about the importance of listening.
17:55So listen to this.
17:57What is an interrobang?
18:01Is it the way you ask a question
18:04and some people, like the Australians,
18:05finish all their sentences like it's a question?
18:08Oh, but...
18:08You mean they speak as if everything's a question?
18:10Yeah.
18:11Yeah, it goes up at the end?
18:12Yeah.
18:12No, it isn't that.
18:13They sometimes call that the AQI,
18:15the Australian Question Intonation,
18:16but that's not it.
18:18It's a punctuation mark that had a brief vogue
18:22and it consisted of a question mark,
18:25which is the interro part,
18:26and a bang is a printer's name for an exclamation mark.
18:30And there it is, that's how it looked.
18:32And it was...
18:33I love it.
18:34It's rather good, isn't it?
18:35We should use it,
18:36because you know that sometimes when you're typing a letter
18:37and you want to go, what the heck, you know,
18:39and it's sort of not really a question,
18:42but because it begins with what though,
18:44you think maybe it should be a question.
18:45And that's the symbol that they would use it.
18:47Well, people do it.
18:47You do see people, they'll put a question mark
18:50and then an exclamation mark.
18:51Yes.
18:52To kind of make that point.
18:54Precisely.
18:55And there were, in the 1960s,
18:56at a brief vogue,
18:57there were typewriters that had it as a character.
18:59And it does exist as a Unicode character in the ASCII set.
19:03What does that mean,
19:04when sometimes you see a question mark upside down on a text?
19:07What does that mean?
19:08Well, in Spain, of course, they do that.
19:10But one at the start.
19:11Is that what it is?
19:11It means someone's in the shower.
19:13Just getting...
19:21In Spain, a question begins with an upside down
19:23and ends with a right way up one.
19:25And indeed, they did an upside down in Terribang,
19:27which was known as a Gnabaretni,
19:29which is just in Terribang backwards.
19:31A Gnabaretni?
19:33Gnabaretni.
19:33Yeah.
19:34Do, do, do, do, do.
19:38There was the Sarcastrophe,
19:42which is a little like a circumflex accent the French used to have,
19:46what's called a carrot, you know,
19:47a little sort of hat shape.
19:49And you'd put that,
19:50oh, that is really funny outside the really,
19:53would indicate that you were being sarcastic.
19:56I'll tell you what has always frustrated me,
19:58and that is that on a standard typewriter keyboard,
20:03that when you hit the semicolon,
20:07it's just, you just have to hit the key.
20:09But to get the colon, you have to press that other key.
20:13Yes.
20:13If I was a colon,
20:14I'd think surely I'd take precedence in this.
20:17You're, you are nearly a semi version of me.
20:20I should be the one that just needs one key.
20:22I share your pain, Frank.
20:24Yeah.
20:25Yes.
20:25Yes.
20:26I'd stay up till dawn with whiskey going,
20:29why?
20:31No, but I'll tell you what,
20:32it's led me to an overuse of the hyphen.
20:35It's fine.
20:36Because now instead of going all around the houses to the colon,
20:39I think, oh, I'll put a hyphen, they'll know what I mean.
20:41Don't, don't go down that track, Frank.
20:43Yes.
20:43Get off the hyphen now, sir.
20:45There's people here for you.
20:46You don't have to go hyphen, innit?
20:48We can support you too.
20:50We're friends here, Frank.
20:55You know, you know your hyphen will just wear out.
20:59Unless you regularly put some cream on it.
21:02The alternative is to use...
21:03It'll be hanging down by your knee before you know it.
21:06I don't want to be using a semi-colon
21:08instead of what should be a colon, just out of laziness.
21:11To be honest, I wouldn't know when you should use a colon or a semi-colon.
21:15No one uses a semi-colon.
21:16That's why you don't have a semi-colonic irrigation.
21:20I believe that's the technical term for standing on your head in the show.
21:26Yes, the interrobang might be a useful new punctuation mark.
21:30And now, let's play...
21:33How ironic is that?
21:36Yes, I'm going to outline some situations
21:39and all you have to do is to tell me how ironic they are and why.
21:46OK.
21:47Is it out of a hundred?
21:49No, you can just give me a sort of sense of just exactly how ironic you think they are.
21:54I'm just worried about how we grade the irony.
21:57Oh, so...
21:57Oh, so shiny?
21:59Shall I tell you...
22:02Down to rusty.
22:04Shall I tell you what the shades of irony supposedly are?
22:07Because I think what we're getting at is the word irony is often weirdly misused.
22:10People say, ironically, he wasn't there.
22:12Or something.
22:13You know?
22:14You mean, unfortunately...
22:15Invisible man?
22:16Yeah.
22:16So...
22:18There's verbal irony.
22:20Verbal irony.
22:21The opposite of what's as clear as mud or, oh, this is a fine state of affairs or whatever,
22:25which is slightly less than sarcasm.
22:27That's verbal irony.
22:28There's comic irony.
22:29Dr. Strangelove, gentlemen, you can't fight in here.
22:32This is the war room, for example, is a kind of ironic remark.
22:36That's considered generally ironic.
22:37Dramatic irony.
22:39Little does he know that I'm about to...
22:41Yeah, the audience knows Oedipus is the very murderer that he's hunting, as it were.
22:45It's a dramatic irony.
22:46As in dive thoughts down to my soul.
22:49Here Clarence comes.
22:50That's just the kind of thing with Richard III and others.
22:53Sid...
22:54Yes.
22:55Very good.
22:57Sidney, gentlemen, an all-round entertainer.
23:00Yeah.
23:02And then there's Socratic irony, which is pretending to be dumber than you are, like a sort of...
23:06Like Socrates, or like Columbo.
23:08Lieutenant Columbo, the greatest ever detective.
23:12There you are.
23:12God, I...
23:13Isn't that the greatest ever show?
23:14Like Socrates or Lieutenant Columbo.
23:18Yeah.
23:18Well, I would be hard put to say...
23:20I know he both did that.
23:21Yeah.
23:21But beyond that.
23:22I would be hard put to say which was greater.
23:25I do happen to think Columbo is the greatest television series ever made.
23:28I'm absolutely worth it.
23:29You know, Stephen, I absolutely agree with that.
23:31I'm glad to hear you.
23:31I once spent a long night with David Baddiel, having an argument about whether Columbo had one eye or not.
23:41Well, Peter Fogg, yeah.
23:42Well, no.
23:42This was the debate.
23:44My argument was that Peter Fogg does indeed have one eye, but in Columbo, that eye plays the part of
23:51a real eye.
23:51Yes.
23:53I think there's truth in that.
23:55Yeah.
23:55I absolutely agree.
23:56Columbo has two eyes.
23:57That's how good he was.
23:57I agree.
23:58And what...
23:59How did this argument go on for so long?
24:02Was it like Women in Love?
24:03Dave wasn't having it.
24:04He wouldn't have it.
24:04He wouldn't have it.
24:05No.
24:05Were you wrestling naked?
24:06He wouldn't have a fire.
24:08We really love.
24:09He wouldn't...
24:09That was how we had to decide it in the end.
24:11We couldn't find a coin.
24:12No.
24:13So what is this ironic?
24:15John Kendrick was an American sea captain who put into Honolulu Harbor in 1794 and was killed by the cannon
24:23which was fired to salute him.
24:27Now, we have this down a situational and arguably comic irony though there was, the audience was very sympathetic I'm
24:33going to say.
24:34That's fairly ironic.
24:35It's pretty ironic isn't it?
24:36I think it's almost spangly.
24:38That's almost up in the spangly section.
24:40Yes.
24:41Well now what about Clement Vallandigham who was an Ohio lawyer who died in 1871 while defending a man who
24:48was accused of murder during a bar and brawl.
24:50Now, in order to show the jury how the pistol might have gone off accidentally, this lawyer grabbed a gun,
24:57put it in his pocket and re-enacted the events as he imagined them.
25:02And sure enough the pistol went off.
25:04He was shot by a cannon?
25:04No, the pistol went off and he was killed by the gun in exactly the way that he was describing.
25:11So, just before he died from his own wounds, his client was acquitted.
25:17And the good thing is his client didn't have to pay?
25:19No?
25:20Exactly.
25:21It's kind of perfect.
25:22Situational irony I think that would be called.
25:25Yeah.
25:25But now what about this Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln was shot while sitting in Ford's theatre while Kennedy was shot while
25:32sitting in a Ford Lincoln.
25:33Now many other coincidences like that.
25:35But that's just simply coincidence, not irony.
25:39Reagan was shot in Washington and Washington was shot with a ray gun.
25:44If only that were true.
25:46Oh.
25:48It would almost be worth inventing a time machine and going back with a ray gun just to do that.
25:55It's true, but nobody knew what a ray gun was then.
25:57No.
25:58So they just went, what's that?
26:00There you are.
26:01Now I have a picture, is this ironic?
26:03Tell me if this pic, is there something ironic about that?
26:07Yeah.
26:08That you basically cut all the wool off a sheep and then knit it together again and put it back
26:11on.
26:12Yeah.
26:13It's more ironic that we look at it and go, ah, and then go, ah, nah.
26:18I don't know.
26:20Mint sauce.
26:21I saw an advert from a meat supplier and it says, it said, caring for pork from farm to fork.
26:31And I just thought, there's a certain point where you just go, you're not really caring.
26:36You're not really caring.
26:37I wouldn't call that caring when you're just going,
26:38.
26:43That's amazing.
26:44With the eyeballs to make sausages.
26:47.
26:50I'm going to come across another ironic, this is rather ironic.
26:54In 1989 in America, convicted murderer Michael Godwin had his sentence reduced to life imprisonment
27:00after five years awaiting the electric chair.
27:03But he was then accidentally electrocuted while sitting naked on a steel lavatory seat.
27:08.
27:08In his cell in Colombia.
27:10He was trying to fix his television set.
27:11He bit into a wire and was electrocuted.
27:14.
27:15That is a kind of cosmic irony.
27:16.
27:16Yeah, yeah.
27:17That's not irony.
27:18That's God's will.
27:19It's God's will.
27:20I think you may well be wrong.
27:21That's irony for you.
27:23The things we call irony often really aren't that ironic.
27:26Ironically.
27:26Or not.
27:28Now, for some inside information.
27:31What's inside this?
27:34Anyone can tell me?
27:36It's a natural thing?
27:38Well, it looks like a coconut.
27:39It could be an elephant turd, couldn't it?
27:41It could be.
27:42It isn't.
27:45This thing is actually a nut, weirdly.
27:48The things inside it are not nuts.
27:51But the things inside it are familiar to all of us as nuts.
27:55This is how these grow.
27:59Here they are.
28:00Oh, Brazil nuts.
28:01Brazil nuts.
28:02They grow inside.
28:03These are actually seeds, but we call them nuts.
28:06Biologically, these are the seeds, and they grow inside this, which is the nut.
28:11They grow on top of the tree.
28:12They're very heavy.
28:13They fall down.
28:13They've been known to kill people.
28:15But it's a very strange life cycle they have, because this tree cannot be cultivated.
28:19So they're only wild.
28:20So it's only wild trees that produce these nuts, inside which are the Brazils.
28:27And they can only be pollinated by a very particular bee.
28:31And that bee will only be able to pollinate it if there is, in the area, a very particular orchid.
28:36So there's a really strange kind of chain of necessary life situations in order for us to get our purple
28:43quality street, essentially.
28:44There is something unique as well about the Brazil nut.
28:48As you probably know, there are people who are allergic to nuts.
28:51But the Brazil nut uniquely, amongst all the nuts, this is really unfortunate, is you can sexually transmit Brazil nut
29:02to a partner.
29:03That is to say, if a male has eaten a Brazil nut, and they inseminate a person who is allergic,
29:11that person's allergy will be affected by it.
29:16Oh, that's a good murder plot.
29:18Isn't it?
29:22It is amazing.
29:24I actually feel right in the middle of an episode of House now.
29:30Because that is, how on earth has that been found?
29:34Surely the woman would feel the Brazil nut.
29:40I think you may have slightly misunderstood.
29:43The man would do, really.
29:44Is it like...
29:45May contain nuts!
29:48We must ask the QI audience, both the physical one here and those watching the television, to be our experimental
29:54cohort.
29:55And I want you all to eat Brazil nuts and then make love to your...
29:59I'll eat the nuts.
29:59Yep.
30:02Sean is volunteering on that side.
30:06You line up, I'll eat the nuts and let's check it out.
30:09Nice.
30:10There you are.
30:11Let's do this.
30:12Let's do this thing for science.
30:15Yeah.
30:16Incidentally, does anyone know, in a packet of mixed nuts, why do the Brazils always rise to the top?
30:23Surely nobody knows that.
30:25You're right.
30:27You're right.
30:30You're right.
30:30I'm very impressed.
30:33It is a known and observable process.
30:36We're in bags of muesli and nuts.
30:39The Brazil nuts do seem to go to the top.
30:41And scientists have worked hard to try and understand why.
30:44At first they thought it was because the little ones settle down through and leave the big ones at the
30:48top.
30:48You may say, oh, why should they waste their time?
30:50There are all kinds of extremely good reasons.
30:52For example, sorting rubble after earthquakes and things like that.
30:56I've got to be honest.
30:57I've never heard of an earthquake victim being crushed by a load of nuts.
31:01No.
31:02Nor have I.
31:03I'm talking about the science behind the lodgement and the dislodgement of solid objects.
31:07What about it?
31:08Sorry?
31:08You'd think because they'd be the heaviest nut in the bag.
31:10I know.
31:11It seems quite intuitive.
31:12Because in the box of muesli, it's the larger items.
31:15For example, the currents go to the bottom.
31:18Yeah.
31:18You get a lot of currents in the last portion.
31:20You do, don't you?
31:21No.
31:21The fact is nobody knows precisely what happens.
31:24But it does seem to be an observable phenomenon.
31:26But if you get almonds in mixed nuts, I find they rise to the top above the Brazil nuts.
31:34And I'm starting to think it could be alphabetical order.
31:41Almonds, Brazil's, potatoes, dates maybe.
31:46And so?
31:48Walnuts at the bottom.
31:49Walnuts right at the bottom.
31:50Yeah.
31:51Yeah.
31:51Good.
31:52You're all doing extremely well.
31:53What do the signal bars on your phone mean?
31:57Well, it means how much sickloic.
32:05Don't be scared.
32:07Well, they mean how well you'll see in the sky and it come through and then it not there all
32:15gone.
32:15You're getting it.
32:16I need it in English, I'm afraid, in order to be able to give points.
32:19You've got a lot.
32:19Talky, talky power all gone away.
32:22A sky no fly down in here, here.
32:26Big bird in sky.
32:28Yeah.
32:29You're not connected.
32:30You're not connected.
32:30Go away, be talky no fly.
32:32Basically.
32:32So, levels of connectivity are a bit relevant.
32:35Yes, the fact is really, again, I would have accepted a Nobody Knows card too late now.
32:39Me hearing not now.
32:40Because, basically, there's no standardisation between manufacturers and different handset makers
32:45have different ways of showing what is apparently a false signal.
32:48And we're all apparently really thrilled because, oh, look, I've got five bars going up.
32:52Absolutely meaningless.
32:54Yeah.
32:54How many Nobody Knows questions are there in this tonight?
32:57Ahhhh.
32:58Nobody knows.
32:59What I find really annoying is when you're talking to someone on the mobile phone and it
33:03cuts out, and then, when they call you back again, they say, oh, don't know what happened
33:08then.
33:09In the past, I've always said, well, it must be you because I've got five bars, but now
33:14you know.
33:15Exactly.
33:16I'm afraid that is, it is unfortunate.
33:18You've pulled the rug from under me, Stephen.
33:20I'm sorry to do that, but that's one of the things we do on this show.
33:22Nobody knows quite what the signal bars on your phone really signify.
33:27And now we sink our claws into the soft underbelly of knowledge and tear out the fetid entrails
33:33of general ignorance.
33:35So fingers on buzzers, please.
33:36What use is an inflatable anchor?
33:41Yes.
33:42Is it for hot air balloons?
33:48That's a very smart answer.
33:51No.
33:52That isn't.
33:53Yes.
33:54Is it to stop submarines from going too low?
34:06That's so sweet.
34:09When the surface is incredibly sandy and a standard claw anchor would have nothing to catch
34:15onto, you send down an inflatable one.
34:18It's a spike.
34:19It goes into the sand and you then inflate it with fluid, not with air, in fact.
34:23And then it lodges in the sand.
34:25And that's what they're used for.
34:27Now you know.
34:28Good.
34:29Which animal did Richard I have three of on his shirt?
34:33Now, can I suggest that at this point in history, no one in England had ever seen a lion.
34:39Is that possible?
34:40So, it's not a lion.
34:43What did Richard I spend most of his time doing?
34:46I don't know.
34:47Crusades.
34:48There weren't any lions in Arabia, were there?
34:50There were lions all over Africa.
34:51Bloody everywhere they were.
34:52So you saw a lion and pressed around wasps.
34:55The Tower of London had a menagerie.
34:57It was a little later, I grant you.
34:58You had a picnic in those days.
34:59Not wasps.
35:00Lions.
35:01Millions.
35:02Fill up me sandwich!
35:04What?
35:05Point is.
35:06Decent lions!
35:09The swans are the bastards.
35:11He looks like, you know what he looks like?
35:13He looks like he's going, ooh, get you in your suit of armour.
35:16Doesn't he?
35:17He looks like he's doing a sort of, ooh.
35:18This is the badge of English royalty that was first used by Richard I.
35:23And it's three...
35:25Well, I'm saying not lions.
35:27You're right to avoid the word lions.
35:30I'm avoiding that.
35:31They were known as leopards.
35:32They called them leopards.
35:34They were not particularly familiar with the difference between a leopard and a lion.
35:38A leopard really just means a bearded lion.
35:40Leopard.
35:41And it's a heraldic thing.
35:43If they were in that shape, sideways on, those were leopards.
35:46So, there was a song, wasn't there?
35:49There was a song.
35:50Wasn't there, Frank Skinner?
35:51And that would have caused me a lot of scanning problems.
35:53Yes, it would, wouldn't it?
35:54It was based, however, on a lie.
35:57Three lions on my shirt.
35:58No, it was based on a lion.
35:59Three leopards on my shirt.
36:01Were they rampant or couchant?
36:05Good question.
36:08It's got a big sign of the century.
36:09Yes.
36:11They were actually passant gardant.
36:14But the rampant lion is the sign of the kings of Scotland.
36:17Very hairy knees, the Scottish ones.
36:19Yes, they have.
36:21They would be called lions in heraldry.
36:23Whereas the three lions on the shirt would, in fact, be known as leopards.
36:27So, which years did your song chart, Frank Skinner and David Baddiel's Three Lions?
36:34It was number one in...
36:3596.
36:36Yeah.
36:37And then again in 98.
36:38Yeah.
36:39It charted in...
36:40And then it charted in, er, 2000.
36:45And two.
36:45It missed out 2000, I'm afraid.
36:47Yeah.
36:482002, 2006 and 2010.
36:50That's quite impressive.
36:52I must check my platinum discs.
36:54Oh!
36:55Yes, it was, er...
36:57I think we can safely say we milked it.
37:00I think you milked those leopards.
37:02Poor God.
37:03You milked those leopards.
37:04Can I ask, was it big in any other country?
37:06It got to the top ten in...
37:07The Germans adopt...
37:09When they...
37:09The Germans actually won Euro 96, which is what the song was originally written for.
37:13They figured that they'd won the song as well.
37:17So, er, they were on the balcony in Berlin, leading the crowd in, er, three lines on a shirt, yeah.
37:23My God.
37:24Now that's irony.
37:27Very good.
37:31The, er, the fact is you can, anyone can get a grant of arms, er, you only need 4,225
37:37pounds, which is cheaper than some, you know, cherished number plates.
37:40Er, Sir Christopher Frayling, the former chairman of the Arts Council, which is something of an expert on Clint Eastwood
37:45movies, took a motto, which is pergei scellus diem perficias.
37:51Yes.
37:51Go ahead, punk, make my day.
37:53Yes!
37:55Very good.
38:00In heraldic, proceed, Violet, and render perfect the day.
38:04On my coat of arms, it says, cathatrea stieftica.
38:08There is trouble in the duty.
38:09There is trouble in the duty.
38:10There is trouble in the duty.
38:10There is trouble in the duty.
38:11Right.
38:12Yeah, the animal-
38:13What's the Latin for knick-knack, knocky-noo?
38:17Frank Skinner's career as a pop star is, in fact, built on a lamentable, terminological inexactitude, or lie.
38:24Um, now, name-
38:31If you can, see if you can name, er, a living animal whose scientific name is the
38:37It's exactly the same as its common name.
38:41Is it a gorilla called Gorilla Gorilla?
38:44Yes, unfortunately-
38:46I'm afraid that's right.
38:48Unfortunately, it's called Gorilla Gorilla, but the common name for it is just gorilla.
38:51There's only one animal we can think of where the common name for it is exactly the same as its
38:56Latinate-
38:56Does it sound a bit Latin-y?
38:58Sort of does, in a way.
39:00Is it rhinoceros?
39:00No, that's Greek, but it's not that, no.
39:03That doesn't sound very Latin at all.
39:04Horse?
39:05No, that's equus.
39:06Yes.
39:07No, no, it's not a mammal, okay?
39:09Right.
39:09It's not a mammal.
39:10Not a mammal.
39:11No, it's not.
39:12It's herpetic.
39:14It's ophidian.
39:15It's long and it's narrow.
39:17A couple of words-
39:17Snake.
39:17Snake.
39:18It's a kind of snake.
39:19Oh, it's a kind of snake, not snake.
39:22No, no.
39:23Species we're after.
39:24All right.
39:25I speak, because they don't-
39:26You know about them.
39:27You don't go, look, snake.
39:29Yes, yes.
39:29You go, ah, it's snakus camoncinus.
39:32Yes.
39:32Exactly.
39:33There is one where precisely that-
39:35Boa constrictor.
39:36Boa constrictor is the right answer.
39:38Oh, I was thinking it.
39:38Oh, I was thinking it.
39:43The scientific name for the boa constrictor is boa constrictor.
39:48And as far as we can tell at QI, there is no other animal where that is true.
39:51There are some plants where it's true.
39:53Aloe vera or whatever.
39:54But no living animal, as far as we know, except the boa constrictor, has the same common name in English
39:59as scientific name.
40:00Now, what's wrong with these bananas?
40:05They're upside down.
40:06Yes, is the right answer.
40:07So they're upside down.
40:09Bananas do not grow like that.
40:10They grow like that.
40:12Yeah.
40:13They grow upwards.
40:14That's my area of expertise.
40:15I'm impressed.
40:16Yeah, yeah.
40:17I'm very impressed.
40:18Well done.
40:18You probably know something else about bananas, which is quite interesting.
40:22They have a quality, you might almost call it a negative quality, which some other foods have, including these.
40:29And that is, they are faintly radioactive.
40:33Not that there's any harm in eating bananas, because the isotope in question for potassium is K40 is present in
40:39our bodies in any case.
40:40Especially in men in our little naughty areas.
40:44Is that why they look like bananas?
40:47No.
40:48No.
40:49Actually, within the epididymies, these...
40:51Speak for yourself!
40:53Actually, yes.
40:54I'm waiting for mine to stop being green.
40:56Oh, no!
41:00I'm more in the line with the Brazil nut.
41:01Yeah.
41:04How long is the half-life of the radioactive component of a banana?
41:08I'd say six hours.
41:091.25 billion years.
41:13That's the answer.
41:13You only bit out then.
41:16You were just to spot out there.
41:18But Brazil nuts contain radium and are a thousand times more radioactive than other foods.
41:23We're told that if you walk into a nuclear power plant with a pocket full of Brazils, you're liable to
41:29set off the radiation leak alarm.
41:32Liable?
41:32True story.
41:34And get a bit of a reputation.
41:36Ah, yes.
41:37Definitely get a bit of a reputation.
41:38Here he comes, cheeky chappy, with his pocket full of Brazil nuts.
41:42And an easy one to end with, which country is the world's largest producer of Brazil nuts?
41:48Yes, Sean.
41:50Costa Rica!
41:52No.
41:53Ah.
41:53Nice idea.
41:55Brazil.
41:56Brazil?
41:57No!
41:59Brazil is the second largest export.
42:01Bolivia.
42:02Bolivia is the right arm.
42:04I was thinking it.
42:05You were thinking it.
42:07Sorry.
42:07I suspect you were thinking of Bolivia Newton-John, which isn't quite the same.
42:12However, Bolivia is the world.
42:14Surely, with all that radiation, it should be a Bolivia neutron bomb.
42:18You'd think.
42:20It brings me to the nutty scores.
42:23Well, my goodness, my gracious, and my word.
42:26We have a tie for first place.
42:29And would you believe...
42:31not Harry Hill here, wonderful as he is.
42:35Would you believe that our two winners are tie for first place, our first-time players, Frank Skinner and John
42:41Bishop.
42:42Four points!
42:48And in third place, with minus 14 points, it's Sean Locke.
42:53APPLAUSE
42:56But I'm afraid that the current that settled at the bottom of the box with minus 21 is Alan Davis!
43:04APPLAUSE
43:11Well, that's your lot for this week.
43:13My thanks to John, Frank, Sean and Alan.
43:15And I'll leave you with these wise words from Groucho Marx.
43:17He may look like an idiot, he may sound like an idiot, but don't let that fool you.
43:22He really is an idiot.
43:24Good night.
43:25APPLAUSE
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