- 14 hours ago
First broadcast 28th October 2011.
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
Clive Anderson
Sandi Toksvig
Henning Wehn
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
Clive Anderson
Sandi Toksvig
Henning Wehn
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening and welcome to QI,
00:08where the composition of our panel is intentionally international. From Denmark, Sandy Toksvig.
00:19From Germany, Hennig Wain.
00:25And from Scotland, Clive Anderson-ish.
00:32And from God knows where, Alan Davies.
00:40Now, tonight's show is all about inattention and ineptitude. Alan, what is tonight's show about?
00:48Inattention and ineptitude.
00:53That's ten point off for starters because, actually, tonight's show is all about inequality and injustice.
00:59Oh, of course. Yeah.
01:00And so we unjustly took ten points away from you. Yes.
01:03Because this is a show in which nothing will be fair from top to bottom.
01:08So let's get it over with and go straight to the scores.
01:10In first place, with minus 54, it's Sandy Toksvig.
01:14Thank you, sir.
01:16Thank you, Mr Bob.
01:20Congratulations.
01:21In second place, with plus seven, is Clive Anderson.
01:24Objection, my lord.
01:26In third place, with minus 60, is Hennig Wain.
01:33And lastly, obviously, with minus one gazillion, is Alan Davies.
01:40There we are.
01:46So that's how you've done the scores already done.
01:48The scores are already done, but we've still got questions to ask.
01:51Yeah.
01:51And don't forget your Nobody Knows Joker.
01:56Nobody Knows.
01:57There is a question tonight, or maybe two, or three, to which the correct answer is Nobody Knows.
02:02And if you wave your Nobody Knows Joker, you get extra points.
02:05Or maybe you lose them.
02:06Or maybe you don't because the scores have already been given.
02:10It's an unjust game tonight.
02:13And the first question is an easy one, so I'll give it randomly to my old friend Sandy.
02:17What can you tell me about this chap behind you?
02:21Oh.
02:23Well, do you think that the words give it away, or is that going to be unfair?
02:27The fact that it says the Puritan.
02:30Well...
02:34That seems unfair.
02:35It does seem unfair.
02:36It seems a horrible start to think.
02:37Because what it is, is the 19th century idea of a Puritan.
02:41And in fact, the 19th century idea of a Puritan, which we retain to this day, is completely inaccurate.
02:45The steeple hat, and those sort of clothing.
02:48Absolutely no evidence whatsoever.
02:49They wore a beanie hat.
02:52They wore ordinary clothes like anybody else.
02:54But if they were having their portraits taken, they usually wore their Sunday best.
02:57Which tended to be black.
02:59So he's not a Puritan at all?
03:01No, he's a 19th century idea of a Puritan.
03:03You were right to say he's a Puritan, because it says on it, the Puritan.
03:06I was merely reading it.
03:07And I was being unjust, and you've lost ten points.
03:09But it doesn't matter, because you've already won.
03:11Do you know, I'm quite relaxed about the whole show.
03:14Exactly.
03:15Now, what can you tell me about the Puritans in America?
03:18Er, they went over on the Mayflower?
03:22No.
03:22I keep expecting the thing to go off again.
03:24They didn't go on the Mayflower.
03:26The great American myth, if you like, is the Puritans arrived on the Mayflower.
03:31Yeah.
03:31And they came to avoid religious persecution.
03:34In fact, they came in order to be able to persecute.
03:37Yeah, but they hated the Quakers.
03:38What they objected to was the religious freedom in England, that meant that you could have all kinds of ranges
03:45of religion.
03:45I guess, and in 1660, they hanged a woman just for being a Quaker.
03:49Yeah, married Diane.
03:50That's right.
03:51Yeah.
03:51The very one.
03:52Obviously, many people did come to America to avoid persecution in other lands, but the idea that Puritans came to
03:57avoid persecution is they came to persecute.
04:00They wanted to build a country in which there could be no dissent from Puritanism.
04:05Puritans, they regarded luxury as sinful, didn't they?
04:08Yes.
04:08And some of them sent off to America, and the others opened B&B's in Britain.
04:13Hey!
04:14There you go.
04:15Yes, thank you.
04:16B&B's, breakfast until seven, don't call it B&B, just call it B.
04:23If you've got no intention of serving breakfast, don't call it B&B.
04:27Do you know, I once did a trip, I sailed all the way around Britain, and we finally got to
04:31Northumbria,
04:32and on the coastline there was a house that had paint on the side that said,
04:36bed and breakfast, hot and cold water.
04:39I thought, only in this country would you feel you must advertise that you have both.
04:43Oh, yeah.
04:44Tried.
04:45No, it used to be hot and cold running water, is there?
04:47Yes, sir.
04:47There's not just a bucket of it lying there.
04:49No, there's pipes and everything.
04:51In this painting, did the native there on the left, did he bring that tree to hide behind?
04:56Look.
04:59He doesn't look happy.
05:00He doesn't look happy.
05:00He doesn't look the wrong way round, no.
05:02He can see which way the wind is blowing.
05:03I think he knows what's coming, doesn't he?
05:05So none of it's true, Stephen, that the Puritans went on the Mayflower,
05:09they always say they landed at Plymouth Rock, but in fact it was Provincetown,
05:11so none of it is actually true.
05:12I'm afraid, though, yeah, it's a myth.
05:15Every country likes to build up a sort of legend of its own foundation.
05:19That's a really ugly baby.
05:23It is a rather ugly baby.
05:25It is a rather ugly baby.
05:25It's a tiny person standing behind that woman.
05:27It's not any use, doesn't it?
05:29Don't learn that expression.
05:31Really ugly baby.
05:32There's never an opportunity to use that in real life.
05:35A little tiny diamond enjoying this painting.
05:38They've come all the way over and brought one pickaxe and a hat between them.
05:43There's no basis on which to build a country, is it?
05:45The guy on the right brought a girl.
05:47Yeah.
05:48And yet, 300 years later, it was the mightiest nation on earth.
05:51Extraordinary.
05:51No thanks to him with a hat.
05:52I don't think the man with a hat has much to do with it.
05:54Anyway, that was our first unfair question.
05:57Puritans didn't really dress like that.
05:58What key role did a Puritan pig play in the trial of George Spencer in 1641?
06:05Is that the actual pig?
06:06No, that is not the actual pig, because that's a photograph of a modern pig posing as a 1641 pig.
06:13A rather similar picture of myself at a spa.
06:17Oh, no.
06:19You've got too few nipples.
06:22Well, certainly the nipples were a surprise.
06:27But that look of contentment, I'm sure.
06:29Absolutely.
06:30It's a happy pig.
06:31That's a pig in clover, isn't it?
06:33A pig in clover, absolutely.
06:34George, when did you say, what year did you say?
06:36Uh, 1641.
06:37Aren't we talking about witchcraft?
06:39We're still in New Haven, Connecticut, the centre of the Puritan...
06:41Is this a bit like that monkey they hanged in Hartlepool?
06:45Well...
06:45Because they thought he was a Frenchman, didn't they?
06:47Yes.
06:47That's right.
06:47The monkey in Hartlepool was hanged because they thought he might be a French spy.
06:51They knew French people spoke a different language and were small, and cartoonists had gone out of their way to
06:56make them more diminutive and nasty, so they see a little monkey.
06:59What's more?
06:59They buy the propaganda.
07:00When the monkey was in the dock, it was thoroughly evasive.
07:03Yes.
07:04Exactly.
07:04Didn't get a straight answer to any question.
07:07This, on the other hand, is a Puritan world, and I would remind you of Leviticus 2015.
07:12Not eating pork, presumably?
07:13No.
07:14If a man lie with a beast, he shall surely be put to death and he shall slay the beast.
07:20He laid with a pig.
07:21George had his end away with a piece of book.
07:24He just planted a bit of crackling.
07:25That's all.
07:27It's even unfairer than that.
07:29It so happened that George was a rather ugly fellow who was bald and had one eye.
07:34And one day, a sow farrowed, I think is the right word, a litter of piglets, one of whom was
07:41strikingly similar to George and had one eye.
07:45And so George was immediately put in front of the Puritan court and accused of having lain with the pig.
07:52He didn't have the chance to get a super injunction before.
07:55No.
07:56Disgraceful.
07:57He denied it strenuously, as you might.
08:01And typically, Puritans, they then said that there shall be mercy shown should you be open and honest.
08:07So he thought, well, that means if I say yes, they'll let me off.
08:10So he said, well, yes, all right, I laid with a pig.
08:12And they said that the mercy will be shown by the Lord, but not by us.
08:15But in order for there to be a capital offence, there had to be two witnesses to it.
08:19So they included the pig.
08:21So they brought the pig into the trial to speak against itself, or squeak against itself.
08:27Yes.
08:28And both George and the pig were executed.
08:30Both got the job.
08:31Both got the job.
08:32That was dreadful.
08:33Did the pig then sort of shyly look at George and kind of, I remember that night way?
08:39Or...
08:39I think the whole thing was just...
08:41The pig came in and said, that bastard.
08:43Yeah.
08:44He never rang.
08:45Yes.
08:46He just used things.
08:47Some 50 years later, there was the very famous sort of mass hysteria in Salem.
08:52The Salem witch trials, yeah.
08:54But this was before even then.
08:55There were the bestiality obsessions as well.
08:58Who's the other witness, though?
08:59George.
09:00The pig.
09:00George said yes.
09:02Oh, so his confession was...
09:03His tricked confession was counted as a confession.
09:06If you'd have been there, he'd have got off.
09:08Yes, of course.
09:08I'd like to think so.
09:10But these days, you convict people just on the confession.
09:13You don't even need the pig.
09:14No, you don't.
09:15There was a man caught in an intimate situation with a donkey in 1710 in France.
09:21He was caught in the act with a female donkey.
09:25And character witnesses appeared, this was so sweet, on behalf of the donkey.
09:31See?
09:32This was an honest donkey, and a modest donkey, and a decent donkey.
09:36So the man was executed, and the donkey got off scot-free.
09:40The law is an ass.
09:41Yes, indeed.
09:42It seems very unfair to execute the pig.
09:45Oh, totally.
09:46If the sin is lying with a beast...
09:48No, Leviticus, I remind you, 2015.
09:51If a man lie with a beast, he shall surely be put to death, and ye shall slay the beast.
09:55Ah.
09:55Does anyone know, incidentally, why did the New Haven Puritans abolish trial by jury?
10:00Well, the Bible has stuff about, um, judge not, that ye be not judged.
10:05Which I think is, I think is in the Gospels.
10:07So, does that go on to say, oh, and don't be on a jury either?
10:11No, but oddly enough, you're in the right area.
10:13Yeah.
10:13It's simply that juries are not mentioned in the Bible.
10:16Yes.
10:17And so they thought they had, basically, they had no place in life, because they didn't
10:21have them in Biblical times.
10:22Well, what about a propelling pencil?
10:24They wouldn't have that either.
10:25Well, quite a bit there are in communities of Amishies and various other, uh, El Brethren
10:29who don't use things.
10:30It's a sin to use a propelling pencil.
10:33It's very hard, I agree.
10:34It's a very peculiar world, the world of the Puritan.
10:38America's full of those strange rules.
10:40Did you know that it's still the law in Alabama that it is illegal to wear a fake moustache
10:45in church that causes laughter?
10:49LAUGHTER
10:50They've got Groucho Marx on that, don't they?
10:53Because I love lies, apparently.
10:54Yeah.
10:54It's okay if it's serious.
10:56Yeah, if people take it seriously.
10:57If it causes laughter in the church, you're out.
10:59Wow.
11:00I think under Thatcher, or maybe just after, under John Major, there was a Lord
11:04Chancellor called Lord Mackay of Trashfern.
11:07Oh, yes.
11:07Do you remember?
11:07Yes.
11:08Find that.
11:08And he was a member of the order known as the Wee Frees.
11:11They were a very extreme sect of Presbyterians.
11:15And he was actually expelled from the Wee Frees for attending the wedding of a friend
11:21who was a Catholic.
11:22No, it was a funeral.
11:22Oh, it was a funeral.
11:23It was a funeral of a judge who was a Catholic.
11:25It was a funeral of a judge.
11:26And that's consorting with the Antichrist, unfortunately.
11:28Just go into the funeral of a friend.
11:30And he was an elder of the Kirk and he spent his whole life in the church
11:33and he had to go.
11:35And he was expelled just for going to the funeral of a friend.
11:37Yeah.
11:37There was a good story about him.
11:38He was, I'm not saying any Scottish mean jokes, but he was apparently quite a frugal man.
11:42And apparently he held a tea party for various lawyers and procurators, fiscal or whatever
11:46they call themselves in Scotland.
11:48And there was a little tea, but there was tea.
11:50And there was a tiny pot of honey and some toast.
11:53And someone had the toast and this little pot of honey.
11:56And one of the lawyers looked at it and said,
11:57I see your lordship keeps a bee.
12:03Very good lie.
12:04He's a fine man though.
12:05And a good lawyer, no doubt.
12:07He wouldn't have risen to his eminence if he had been.
12:09We have odd flashes of Puritanism, don't we?
12:12Because I was listening to Radio 5 the other day and had an actress on,
12:15not Angelina Jolie, but the one who's Lara Croft in the latest Tomb Raider film.
12:19Oh, right.
12:20Yes.
12:20Cut a long story to what.
12:21They airbrushed her nipples out of the poster.
12:25Oh.
12:25Her nipples were showing through her costume, just the two little...
12:29Yeah.
12:29But this was radio.
12:32Not just for the radio.
12:35And she had complained about it and said,
12:38why have you airbrushed my nipples?
12:39That's ridiculous.
12:39Why don't you just leave them?
12:41And they said,
12:41and the presenter said,
12:43well, perhaps they thought they weren't suitable for children.
12:47Nipples don't be suitable for children.
12:50She said,
12:50are you being serious?
12:52They are expressly designed.
12:54For the purpose of the continuation of our race.
12:58I did a sitcom for Channel 4 with the lovely Mike McShane.
13:02And he played a sex expert.
13:04And we decided that his apartment would have lots of sex things in it.
13:06And he would have a coat rack made entirely of penises.
13:11And this went to the Channel 4 lawyers.
13:12And they said,
13:13you can have the penises as long as they're not erect.
13:16And I said,
13:16well, how will it work as a coat rack?
13:18And I said...
13:25It's not my specialist area, but nevertheless...
13:28You have to excite your peg before you can hang your coat rack.
13:32Right, Royal Unfairness.
13:34Now, who got the blame when the Prince of Wales misbehaved?
13:40Well, seeing me in Britain, usually the Germans.
13:42Yeah.
13:44Well, they are Germans, so...
13:45Well, they are Germans, so...
13:46Is it this Prince...
13:48Is this, er...
13:48It's not actually this...
13:49Is it another Charles?
13:50Well, no, it's not actually.
13:51It's all Princes of the Blood, er...
13:53Edward...
13:53Edward VIII was always in trouble as Princess of...
13:55Queen Victoria, so if I'm getting the right...
13:57And indeed, earlier ones were often in trouble.
13:59He was...
14:00What I'm really talking about here, I suppose,
14:02is the business of corporal punishment.
14:06OK.
14:07Until very, very, very recently in human history
14:10has it become unfashionable and indeed considered wrong
14:13to strike a child for a misdeed.
14:16It's now illegal to do so.
14:18Is it?
14:18I believe so.
14:22But it used to be...
14:23Just on the way here, a small urchin annoyed me.
14:26It used to be considered...
14:27It used to be considered, not only empirically,
14:30but in every other sense, a good thing, er...
14:32How is he holding that child up?
14:34He's got his thumb wedged in his...
14:36He's given...
14:37That's exactly the only way of holding him up.
14:38It's like a bowling ball.
14:39I don't know whether that's, er...
14:41Dickensian, er...
14:43Do the boys hold from Nicholas Nickleby
14:44or something similar.
14:45But generally speaking, almost everybody was agreed
14:47that it was good for children to be beaten.
14:49There was the Bible.
14:50He who spareth the rod, hateth his son,
14:54withhold not correction from your child,
14:56beat him with the rod,
14:57and thou shalt deliver his soul from hell.
15:00Apparently.
15:00Children were always beaten.
15:02Really, we are the first generation.
15:03I mean, I'm not.
15:04I was beaten huge about when I was a child.
15:06Were you?
15:07Practical. God, yes.
15:08From the age of seven till 13,
15:09at least twice a week.
15:10I was a bad boy.
15:11Yeah.
15:11And I was always being thrashed.
15:13What for?
15:14Stealing, lying, cheating,
15:17being cheeky, being a nuisance, evading games.
15:19Bit of a smart-ass way.
15:21Yeah, being a smart-ass way.
15:22Yeah, being a smart-ass way.
15:22Too clever if you're ongoing.
15:24Always telling everybody what was going on.
15:26All the things that annoy people about.
15:27Well, they certainly beat that out of you, didn't they?
15:28Yeah, they did.
15:29Exactly.
15:30Exactly.
15:31And I was beaten a great deal.
15:32And it didn't be no harm at all.
15:33Oh, man!
15:35And, um...
15:36But it was common practice.
15:37But it was outlawed in state schools when?
15:40When was it actually made a law
15:42that you were not allowed to strike a child?
15:44It's probably later than you think.
15:45I'd guess under New Labour, I would guess.
15:47Er...
15:48No.
15:4970s?
15:49In the 70s?
15:50It was 1986.
15:52Wow.
15:531986 when it was made illegal in state schools
15:55to beat children.
15:56And it was a very close vote.
15:57Under Margaret Fatter.
15:59231 to 230.
16:01In state schools?
16:02It was by one.
16:03And it was only...
16:04Do you know whom the state schools children have to thank
16:06for the fact that they were not beaten from that day forward?
16:08It's rather odd.
16:09Michael Howard or something?
16:10No.
16:10It's even weirder.
16:11Erne Whittgen.
16:12It's just too weird to be believed.
16:15Fergie.
16:15Fergie.
16:16Fergie.
16:16Dear Duchess of York Fergie.
16:18The manager of Manchester United?
16:19No.
16:20Dutchess of York Fergie.
16:22Like IPs?
16:23What do you mean?
16:24That...
16:24I will repeat.
16:25Dutchess of York Fergie.
16:27Until you understand which Fergie I mean.
16:29I haven't finished my Fergie material.
16:31A tractor.
16:34A massive Fergie, yes, you could say.
16:37Why?
16:38Well, because it so happened that the vote was on that day that she was marrowing...
16:43Marrowing...
16:43Marrowing Prince Andrew.
16:45Yes.
16:45And...
16:46He loves to marrow Prince Andrew.
16:49I think marrowing...
16:51I think marrowing...
16:51Yeah.
16:53Thank you for that.
16:54What a great expression.
16:55And...
16:55There's some time for some marrowing.
16:57I'm going to Google that one.
16:58Apparently the traffic...
17:00The traffic held up enough Tory MPs who were likely to have voted to keep beating for the anti-beating
17:08measure to go through.
17:08Was this a whipped vote or not?
17:10Oh, hey!
17:11I didn't think it was.
17:12Well, I thought you meant she campaigned for it.
17:14No, no.
17:14It just so happened that the vote was...
17:16No, it happened...
17:17It was entirely inadvertent.
17:18She did something useful.
17:19It was totally inadvertent.
17:19By mistake.
17:20By mistake she held.
17:22But...
17:22And when was it...
17:23Or is it indeed illegal in private schools?
17:25In a private school?
17:26Well, you have to pay extra though, don't you?
17:27Yeah.
17:29I think it isn't now, but it's...
17:31It isn't.
17:31Must the Human Rights Act must...
17:33Yes, in 1999, basically.
17:35That's when that stopped being legal.
17:36But until then, children were beaten.
17:39And they were beaten for making mistakes.
17:41They were beaten for...
17:41Beaten out for all kinds of different reasons.
17:44But there was this idea also that you learned better.
17:48That things literally could be beaten into you.
17:50Knowledge could be beaten into you.
17:52So what happened when you came to a prince?
17:54You can't have a commoner, even their tutor, beating a prince because he's made a mistake in his algebra.
18:00So you beat his teddy, did you?
18:02Well, you appointed someone.
18:04A child, a friend of the prince, who when the prince made a mistake, you whipped him.
18:11And that phrase, which is in common currency, is whipping boy.
18:15Why would you want to be?
18:16That's what a whipping boy.
18:16And they become a peer then later on, don't they?
18:18Yes, that's the point.
18:20It was actually a much sought-after post.
18:22Yeah.
18:22Fathers would want their sons to be the whipping boy.
18:24They would get close to the royal family.
18:25Charles I, for example, had a whipping boy when he was a prince.
18:29And he raised him to the Earl of Dysart, a title that still exists.
18:33And they became quite powerful people.
18:34So the idea was, of course, that there would be friends, that the prince would like his whipping boy,
18:39so that he would try hard, but obviously sometimes they might think,
18:43I don't bloody care, he gets whipped.
18:45Yeah.
18:46It's the most peculiar idea.
18:47But that is where the phrase whipping boy comes from.
18:49And is there an official title as well?
18:50Because there are those titles like silver stick in waiting.
18:52This could be crimson bottom.
18:55Gentleman of the Stool.
18:58Gentleman of the Stool was an existing one, as you know.
19:01It was the one who had to wipe the king's bottom under Henry VIII.
19:05They did anything themselves.
19:07No, they seem not to be able to do anything themselves.
19:10Oh, fuck.
19:11You were...
19:11There's a part of...
19:13LAUGHTER
19:16I'd assume you'd have a long stick.
19:18Yes, I see.
19:19A long stick with a rag on the end, do it from a distance.
19:23There's a part of Germany called...
19:26LAUGHTER
19:28Sorry for all the mime.
19:30I've always wanted to be a mime.
19:31Yeah.
19:32That's the only opportunity I guess.
19:34It's a lot more fun than walking into the wind.
19:36Or...
19:36I suppose you might be, I don't know.
19:39You may think British schoolmasters are amongst them.
19:41It's most sadistic, but it's to Germany we turn
19:44for really good examples of how to treat children.
19:48Swabia in West Southern Germany.
19:49There was a headmaster there
19:51who logged all his punishments in a book.
19:54And over his career as headmaster at this school,
19:56he logged 911,500 canings,
20:02121,000 floggings,
20:05as well as numerous other punishments
20:06during a 51-year career.
20:09That's nearly 400 chastisements a week.
20:13Some of them must have been delegated.
20:14You may be exhausted.
20:16Other punishments he logs include
20:17700 boys made to stand with peas in their shoes.
20:21Not too bad.
20:22And 6,000 made to kneel on the sharp edge of a stick.
20:27This was not a nice man.
20:28It's not about the education.
20:30It really isn't though.
20:31There's something more going on.
20:32Yeah, and Eton College had a famous headmaster
20:34called Dr Keats, there's a Keats Lane in Eton,
20:37who was known as Flogger Keats.
20:39He once flogged the entire Eton cricket team
20:42for losing to Winchester,
20:44but including the scorer.
20:48So that was the whipping boy,
20:50and there's a kind of religious equivalent, isn't there?
20:52So if you take this poor boy who takes the sins of the prince,
20:55what was there in the Jewish faith that was the equivalent?
20:58Well, you've got the lamb or the goat, haven't you?
21:00The goat, famously known as the...
21:02The sacrificial...
21:02The scapegoat.
21:03The scapegoat, exactly.
21:04I was expecting the thing they got.
21:05No, no, no, that's exactly what they were.
21:06A scapegoat.
21:07There's the famous Holman Hunt painting of the scapegoat.
21:10And this was during the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur.
21:13The goat would be sent out, as it were,
21:15to carry the sins of the people for the people.
21:17It bore the sins of the people.
21:19And then, of course, Christianity is just a refinement of that,
21:21where Christ bore the sins of the people.
21:24And it happens in a lot of religions.
21:26You offload your own wickedness onto something else.
21:30But, yeah, so it is a...
21:32They're from whipping boys to scapegoats.
21:33And they exist in the language, still,
21:36this idea of offloading one's own guilt.
21:39In the Isle of Man, they had corporal punishment until 1976.
21:43And what type of wood did they administer it with?
21:47Well, it's...
21:48I know I'm going to get a buzz on this,
21:49because it's normally called birching,
21:51but it wasn't a birch.
21:52Yay!
21:53It doesn't matter, because the question of anything...
21:55Injustice is anyway...
21:56So, did it depend on how bad you'd been?
21:58So, if you were really bad, it was holly.
22:00And they left the...
22:01They left the leaves.
22:03Ooh!
22:03And if it weren't so bad, it would be like sort of willow fronds.
22:07But balsam wood.
22:07Or balsam wood for...
22:09Hazel.
22:10Hazel.
22:10Hazel.
22:10Yeah, these... Hazel.
22:12In Britain, birching, as it was known, was banned in 1948.
22:16But they didn't stop it until the 1970s in the Isle of Man,
22:19even though they tried to keep it by saying,
22:21all right, well, okay,
22:22what about if we let them keep their trousers on?
22:25In America, there is still the tradition
22:27in some parts of birthday spanking.
22:30So...
22:31Really?
22:31Yeah, where you go to school, and then because it's your special day,
22:34and then there's a special treatment,
22:36the teacher takes the pedal out,
22:38and then you get a few,
22:39and some people say,
22:41oh, we have to ban it.
22:43It's cruel.
22:44And another says, no, we can't.
22:45It's a tradition.
22:46Yes.
22:47And they have to carry on trashing the kids.
22:50That's something weird.
22:52It's a bit like family Christmas.
22:54No one likes it still.
22:55Because it's a tradition.
22:56Everyone has to go through it.
23:00We get the idea of bringing a tree in to the...
23:03That's your idea?
23:04That's a German idea, wasn't it?
23:04Yeah, I don't know.
23:05We...
23:06Did we...
23:06Did we invent Christmas?
23:07Well, a lot of elements of it.
23:09Obviously.
23:10No, I say, come on,
23:10either we invented it or we didn't.
23:12Yeah.
23:12It's like a terrible joke,
23:14which I'm sure you must have been told,
23:15about the couple who adopt a German baby.
23:19You know it, yes, don't you?
23:20You must know it.
23:22Is there only one joke that involves a German baby?
23:25You know, and...
23:27It doesn't speak.
23:28It doesn't speak at all.
23:28No, the one where he doesn't speak.
23:29He never speaks.
23:30Until he's about five.
23:32Five.
23:32They go, they're taken to be tested.
23:34Because they think,
23:35is he stupid?
23:35Is he deaf and dark?
23:36Everything functioning normally?
23:38Yeah, yeah.
23:39And then one day...
23:40One day.
23:44They give him...
23:45Yeah.
23:46Then he goes...
23:47He has some apple strudel.
23:48Yeah.
23:48And he says...
23:49This apple strudel is a bit tepid.
23:52And they say, Wolfgang.
23:54You've never spoken before.
23:56After all these years,
23:57now you finally speak,
23:59why haven't you spoken before?
24:00And he says...
24:01Up until now,
24:02everything had been satisfactory.
24:09It's a great joke.
24:14Very good.
24:15It's like a relay joke.
24:16You know, what was that?
24:17This is the most fun a Danish person has had with a German since 1940.
24:24Don't mention the war!
24:26Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
24:27Well, there you go.
24:28It's funny, the war.
24:29I mean, I have to chip in now.
24:31I mean, the war.
24:33The war.
24:34It's always World War II.
24:35Yeah.
24:36Yeah.
24:36Do you have any of the more current ones?
24:37No, that's true.
24:38They go, the war,
24:39and everyone in Britain takes personal credit for Britain winning it.
24:43Even people that weren't born at the time of World War II,
24:47they still take personal credit for Britain winning it.
24:50Personally, I've been a lot more annoyed
24:52by the Brits that are now in their 70s
24:54and they bang on about how they helped win the war.
24:57I mean, let's quickly do the maths.
24:58If you're in your 70s now,
24:59how old were you at the end of World War II?
25:02That's true.
25:03Maybe 10 years old?
25:04Yeah.
25:04How did you help win the war
25:06when you were just 10 years old?
25:09You did not help win the war.
25:10By not eating bananas.
25:11Yeah.
25:12Yeah.
25:12You were nothing but a drain on British resources.
25:18You've got to admire his guts, haven't you?
25:22Effectively,
25:23effectively, every 70-year-old Brit
25:25effectively fought on the side of Nazi Germany.
25:30And lost the war every little bit as much as we did.
25:35Yes, well, moving on.
25:37Manx...
25:38Manx birches were actually made from hazel ones.
25:41Now, for a bit more international injustice,
25:43name a French book
25:44that can never be translated into German.
25:48Hmm.
25:48This book was written with the express orders
25:51of its author
25:52that it was never to be translated into German.
25:55And let's be honest,
25:56if that book originally was from France,
25:58there will be a very, very small market in Germany
26:00for that only...
26:02They might translate it all they want.
26:04They will just not find anyone who buys it.
26:07Is that somebody who hates the Germans?
26:09He particularly hated Prussians.
26:11Oh.
26:11That might date him better.
26:13Why would a Frenchman hate Prussians rather than...
26:15It's because of the Franco-Prussian War.
26:16The Franco-Prussian War.
26:17Another war, I'm afraid.
26:18Another war, which...
26:19Well, at least it's a different one.
26:21Yes.
26:21At least it's a different one.
26:22Yeah, at least it's a different one.
26:23And we weren't involved.
26:24No, we weren't involved.
26:25We wouldn't have wanted had we been involved.
26:26Had we been?
26:27Had we been born?
26:27Had we been old enough?
26:29Yes.
26:301870.
26:311870s is exactly the year of the Franco-Prussian War.
26:33Very good.
26:34I remember that from his school.
26:35And the Commune and everything.
26:36Absolutely.
26:36Yes.
26:37Very good.
26:37He was a scientist.
26:39A great scientist.
26:40Pasteur.
26:41Louis Pasteur is the right answer.
26:43Who is responsible, of course.
26:44Well, he actually didn't invent pasteurization,
26:46but it's named after him.
26:47Why did...
26:48Do you hate the German?
26:49I think it was really...
26:50It was the occupation and the attack into French territory.
26:52He just...
26:53He was very patriotic.
26:54Just narrow-mindedness.
26:55And narrow-mindedness.
26:56But after the war, the Germans discovered a new form of yeast
27:01that allowed them to store beer extremely well.
27:05And the German for to store is...
27:07Lagen.
27:07Lagen.
27:08And so they called the beer Lager.
27:10Beer.
27:11And it became hugely successful.
27:13And this annoyed the hell out of Pasteur,
27:17that the Germans, that he so hated,
27:19had basically started to conquer the world of beer.
27:22So he'd set about studying...
27:24He needed to move on.
27:25I know...
27:25Well...
27:26He said about studying how brewing worked.
27:31The science of the yeasts and the whole business of making beer.
27:34And he came up with some really, really, really good yeasts
27:38that made even better beer.
27:40And he took them around the world.
27:41He took them to America.
27:42He took them to Belgium.
27:44He took them to the Whitbread Company.
27:45He took them to the Carlsberg Company in Denmark.
27:47But he refused to take them to Germany.
27:50And he wrote a book all about it.
27:52Instructing that it must never be translated into Germans.
27:55The Germans must never get their hands on the secrets
27:57for this new, better beer.
27:58And of course, the German beer industry collapsed.
28:01Yes.
28:01Unfortunately.
28:03Unfortunately, it didn't work that well.
28:05It turned out nicely for the Carlsberg people.
28:07There is an irony about the whole Pasteur thing
28:10because when France wanted to get rid of its bouillon
28:13during the Second World War,
28:14in case the Germans got hold of it,
28:16It was taken...
28:16It's bouillon, not it's bouillon.
28:17Bouillon, yes.
28:18It's gold.
28:19Not its chicken stock.
28:20No, not its chicken stock.
28:21That went as well.
28:23It all went to Canada on a single ocean liner.
28:27It was called the SS Pasteur.
28:28Oh, really?
28:30Good.
28:31So, he kind of got his own back, didn't he?
28:33He did.
28:34Yeah.
28:34Back home to Britain now.
28:35From 1875 to 1956,
28:38what was the next best thing to a first-class train ticket?
28:42Second-class train ticket.
28:44Ah.
28:46That's the problem.
28:47You weren't to know, being a cursed foreigner and all.
28:52There was no second-class.
28:54There was first and third.
28:55But there were ladies-only characters.
28:56There were ladies-only characters.
28:58That would be quite nice.
28:59Yes.
29:02There was-
29:03And there were no smoking carriages,
29:05but mostly there were smoking ones.
29:06She's got no idea where she's going.
29:07She has no idea.
29:10How it came about was that Gladstone insisted there be a third-class service
29:15for the poorer people,
29:16and the train companies hated it,
29:17and so they ran these useless services that were third-class only,
29:21which were known as parliamentary trains,
29:23that were no good to anybody,
29:24just to apply the law.
29:25And then they had an even smarter idea,
29:27and they said,
29:28oh, we'll upgrade the third-class to second-class,
29:33but call it third-class and get rid of the second-class,
29:37so we're obeying the law by having a third-class,
29:39but it'll cost what second-class used to cost.
29:42It's a very bizarre British solution.
29:43They had an influence,
29:44I found this out when I was making a documentary,
29:46they had an influence on the way suburban housing developed in London,
29:51because the train companies wouldn't sell third-class tickets in the outer suburbs,
29:58because they didn't want the trains filling up with poor people.
30:01They didn't pay as much money as the first-class people,
30:03so they wouldn't sell the tickets.
30:05And that's why London's developed,
30:07and that's why there are bigger houses on the outside and smaller houses on the inside.
30:11I thought it was going to smoke.
30:12Well, the big selling point for the trains was you could move out of London and get away from the
30:18dirt.
30:18Yeah.
30:19So people wanted to do that,
30:21but all the development was along the line of the railways,
30:24and you couldn't get,
30:25they didn't bother building cheap housing further out,
30:27because no-one could get into London,
30:29because the trains wouldn't let you on.
30:30Yes.
30:31They had clever ways.
30:33How do you think they used chimney sweeps?
30:35What, on the railway?
30:36Yeah, strapped to the front of the train,
30:38keeping the rails clean.
30:40No, it was a very naughty trick.
30:42They would sit in a third-class compartment.
30:44Yeah, what the train companies hated
30:45were the genteel people,
30:47who were kind of, you know, clerks,
30:49who didn't have much money,
30:50but had to be well-dressed,
30:52and so what they would do is,
30:54they would put chimney sweeps in,
30:56and put soot all over them,
30:57so the third-class carriages were so dirty
31:00that these poor people thought,
31:01oh, God, I've got to play the first-class fair.
31:03Oh, don't say this out loud,
31:05because I'm sure Ryanair would have an idea
31:07what a lot of these love is.
31:10It's brilliant, yes.
31:11Brilliant.
31:12Or EasyJet, since you're in EasyJet's colours.
31:14But, yeah, I'm sure it didn't happen all over,
31:18but these were some of the tricks
31:20they resorted to, apparently.
31:22Yeah.
31:22Which one's Dick Van Dyke?
31:24They're really happy.
31:26They do look happy.
31:27They do look happy.
31:28Happy and lucky sweeps.
31:29Now for some sporting iniquity.
31:31What did cricketer Thomas White invent in 1771?
31:36The Yorker.
31:37The Yorker?
31:38Yeah.
31:38To hear a German say the Yorker...
31:41I don't know what it means.
31:43It's a fully-pitched-up ball,
31:45but it's a...
31:45Well, great to hear a German say...
31:47What's a googly, then?
31:48A googly is a...
31:51It's a...
31:56A googly is a leg-spinner's off-spin.
31:59It's disguised...
32:00It's very complicated.
32:01And how does the Duck vs. Lewis method work?
32:03Oh, nobody knows that.
32:05It's far too complicated.
32:06No, he didn't invent any particular type of bowling or of batting,
32:10but he looked at the laws of cricket
32:11and he noted that there was a rather glaring omission,
32:14and he thought he could...
32:15He thought splendid.
32:17Oh, with a big bat?
32:17Did he have a big bat?
32:18Yes, he came with a bat that was wider than the wicket.
32:23This enormous bat.
32:26It was Chertsey vs. Hambledon,
32:29which is the equivalent of Surrey vs. Hampshire.
32:31So, after 1774, they incorporated a law that said
32:34a bat must be no wider than four and a half inches.
32:37Do you know there were special golf rules for the Second World War?
32:40Oh, no.
32:41In Kent,
32:41because the Battle of Britain was happening,
32:43and, um...
32:43I can't remember exactly what it is, but this...
32:45I'm sorry, Hemming,
32:45the war's come up again.
32:46I'm sorry, I don't know.
32:47End the bunker.
32:48End the bunker.
32:48End the bunker.
32:50The rule was,
32:51if a player's stroke is interrupted by the simultaneous explosion of a bomb,
32:58or by machine gun fire,
33:00they may take the stroke again.
33:03Oh...
33:03But there's a penalty of one stroke.
33:06Oh, that's so interesting.
33:07They may take it again if they're still there to take it.
33:11I did a play with, um, Paul Eddington,
33:13and, um, he had a much-treasured thing from a hotel room in Bristol during the war,
33:18uh, which was just a card with a little bit of cord,
33:21and it said,
33:21please hang outside your room if you wish to be awoken during an air raid.
33:25It was splendidly, splendidly phlegmatic.
33:28Do you know about that?
33:29There was a game, I think it was on St Helena,
33:31um, and they were playing on a pitch,
33:33which was by Cliff Edge,
33:34and a gentleman ran back to catch the ball,
33:37and did catch it, and then fell, unfortunately,
33:39and it was, it was put down as,
33:41caught, brackets, dead.
33:45That's gotta be a six, because it's...
33:49There was a game in Norfolk played,
33:51and this is, uh, towards late summer,
33:52it's very, uh,
33:53people who play village cricket would be very familiar with the sight of late swooping swallows,
33:57and, and a batsman played a shot,
33:59and, and a field leapt to his right and caught a swallow.
34:03Fantastic.
34:04Ah, dear.
34:05But, um, this fellow Thomas White,
34:06I suppose you could call him a cheat,
34:07but he was within the laws of the game as they were at the time,
34:10and there were others,
34:11there was an American footballer called Lester Hayes,
34:13does that ring any bells with you,
34:14of the Oakland Raiders,
34:15who had such success as a catcher,
34:17in the late 70s,
34:18that he was the defensive player of the year,
34:20but the reason was that he covered his hands and gloves
34:23with an adhesive called Stick'Em.
34:27And he, he actually admitted, he said,
34:29without Stick'Em I couldn't catch a cold in Antarctica.
34:32But they're so clearly cheating,
34:34they must have spotted that.
34:35Well, there was no rule against it.
34:36There was no rule against it.
34:37They had to introduce one,
34:38which there now is.
34:39There's a very good, um,
34:40PG Woodhouse story about cheating at boxing.
34:43There was a chap called,
34:43I think he was American,
34:44he was called McCoy.
34:46And, er,
34:46his opponent was stone deaf.
34:48And the opponent said,
34:49I won't hear when the bell goes,
34:50will you tell me?
34:50And the man said,
34:51oh, yes, absolutely.
34:52Erm, and so they were boxing away,
34:53and he went, the bell's gone!
34:54And the guy went, oh, okay, like that,
34:55and he's punched him.
34:58Well, that's taking advantage as well as cheating.
35:01Erm, and in 1951,
35:03the St. Louis Brown's baseball team
35:05brought a three-foot, seven-inch tall player
35:08called Eddie Guidel out to bat,
35:11and crouched over at the plate.
35:12His strike zone,
35:14which as you know,
35:14the pitcher has to hit,
35:15was one and a half inches high.
35:18The poor pitcher couldn't get anywhere near.
35:20So, four balls,
35:21and he walked to first base
35:22where he was immediately subbed.
35:23Yeah.
35:23Which is kind of like cheating,
35:24but it isn't.
35:25Oh, no, that's not cheating, is it?
35:26Because you can scarcely have a rule that says...
35:28Quite, it says you can't have
35:29people with restricted growth.
35:30It's all very tricky.
35:31There was a jockey at Belmont in New York
35:36who, in 1923, died of a heart attack
35:38when on a horse,
35:39and won.
35:41The horse won.
35:42Oh, right.
35:42And, of course, the bookies
35:43didn't want to pay out,
35:44but there was a rule that said
35:45the jockey had to be in the saddle.
35:46There was no rule that said
35:47he had to be alive.
35:49Well, he was a brilliant jockey,
35:51then, if he's economic
35:52even though he was dead.
35:54Exactly.
35:54It's pretty amazing.
35:56Keep going!
35:57So, the lucky punters were paid out.
36:00And so do that part of the show
36:02that's always unfair at the very best of times.
36:04It's general ignorance,
36:04so fingers on buzzers, if you would.
36:06Here is the old Bailey.
36:08What is the Statue of Justice on top looking at?
36:12Oh, God.
36:13I feel like...
36:14Yes?
36:14Nothing.
36:15Why is that?
36:16She's blindfolded.
36:17Oh!
36:18It's definitely not that.
36:19No, she's not.
36:21No, that's...
36:22It's an odd thing.
36:23But no, you can see there.
36:24No blindfold.
36:25Sometimes, that particular statue is not blindfolded,
36:27but sometimes it's shown as blindfolded.
36:29Yeah, absolutely.
36:29So, people often at the old Bailey would say,
36:31Oh, if you...
36:32Members of the jury, if you look up,
36:33there's a blindfold.
36:34I think the people would go,
36:35Well, he wasn't even telling the truth about that.
36:36Yes, right.
36:38There are many statues of Lady Justice,
36:41some of which are blindfolded,
36:42and some of which aren't.
36:43What can you legally do
36:45if you come across a Welshman in Chester
36:47after sunset?
36:49These are laws that got abolished 300 years ago.
36:53It's legal to shoot a Welshman in Chester.
36:55It's just always repeated.
36:56You cannot shoot them.
36:58Yes, it is one of those, as you rightly say,
37:00one of these nonsensical things
37:01that people cling on to with great sort of pride,
37:05which are nonsensical.
37:06Beautiful city, Chester, by the way, of course.
37:08And there was an edict under Henry V
37:10at the time of Owen Glendower
37:12that presumably he gave out,
37:14which is a wartime command.
37:15It's not a law.
37:16And in any case,
37:17any subsequent laws on manslaughter
37:20and, you know, offensive weapons in public,
37:23cancel out any such edict.
37:24How would you know it?
37:25I know this because...
37:26When I did a documentary on it,
37:27going around America,
37:28one of the ideas we had before we started was,
37:30should I maybe break a law
37:33in each one of these stupid laws in each state?
37:35And the more we investigated them,
37:36the more we were found
37:37they were absolutely without foundation.
37:39So you just watched people, I'm sorry.
37:41Help!
37:42Yeah, because I thought,
37:43oh, I'll do that.
37:44I'll go and wear a silly moustache
37:45and make someone laugh in a church.
37:46I said, no, that's just nonsense.
37:48I don't know how that got in there.
37:49You know,
37:49it was made up by Mark Twain
37:51or somebody at some point.
37:52And one hates to disappoint,
37:54but a lot of these things are nonsense.
37:55The idea that you could
37:56shoot arrows down Petticure in Cambridge
37:59and things like this,
37:59as long as you're wearing Lincoln Green or something.
38:02The idea that an ancient law
38:03has to be repealed,
38:05even if it allows you to do murder,
38:07is nonsense, isn't it?
38:08Yes.
38:09In law.
38:09What's the principle called there?
38:12What's the principle called?
38:12I think we're talking
38:13leges posteriori,
38:14prioris contraria subrogant, aren't we?
38:16Yeah, absolutely.
38:17Had you forgotten that?
38:18It was on the tip of my tongue.
38:20If putting things on the tip of your tongue
38:22weren't illegal.
38:23It's an ancient statute.
38:25It's a well-established legal principle
38:27that to the effect of a subsequent statute
38:29has the effect of contradicting an existing law.
38:31The existing law is repealed by implication.
38:33God, I'm glad I wasn't a lawyer.
38:35Yeah.
38:35Well, recently,
38:36they've tried to get rid of
38:37all these Latin things as well.
38:39Oh, really?
38:39It's confusing to people, so...
38:41But isn't that the point?
38:42Yes.
38:43That has been the argument of the lawyers.
38:45We'd quite like it
38:46if nobody knows what we're talking about.
38:48Where are the enemy in this picture?
38:54It's a good question.
38:55The guy on the right's definitely not sure.
38:57He's puzzled.
38:58He said, why are you pointing over there?
39:00I'm with the reds.
39:01I read law at university
39:04and I'm lucky enough to be taught by Lord Denning
39:06and I helped compile the index to his last book.
39:10It was really dumb.
39:10Oh, wow.
39:11I remember saying to him,
39:11I said, why is it so complicated to look up legal cases?
39:14And he looked at me over his glasses, he said,
39:16well, we don't want just anyone doing it.
39:21Why did lepers start carrying bells?
39:25Well...
39:26Don't mention the war!
39:27I forgot about that.
39:30We have.
39:34I don't know, probably it wasn't their choice
39:36to wear the bells.
39:37Probably it was more the other people
39:39telling them to wear bells
39:41so that they could escape.
39:43There's a warning, you mean?
39:45Yes.
39:45No.
39:46To keep people away.
39:47It was to attract people, to give them alms.
39:49Oh, like an ice cream?
39:50Not to give them alms in that sense.
39:52To give them money.
39:54I've lost my arms.
39:55Please give me some alms.
39:56No, to give them money.
39:57Come here and give me money.
39:58Yes.
39:59After the Black Death
40:00and the extraordinary sort of decimation
40:02of the population of Europe,
40:04sickness became obviously something people
40:06were much, much more worried about
40:07and then the bells were used as a warning
40:10that they were originally used to attract people.
40:12People were not that frightened of lepers
40:13and for good reason
40:14because leprosy is nothing like it.
40:17As infectious as people think it is,
40:18for a start, 90% of the human race is immune to it.
40:22Most of us are unlikely ever to catch it
40:24even if we were to lick a leper.
40:26Yes.
40:28Now there's a game show.
40:33Why do I see Noel Evans?
40:38The wish is father of the thought.
40:40It's quite hard to catch.
40:42It's nothing like what, you know,
40:43the jokes of, you know, bits falling off and so on.
40:46You can get nerve damage which, if not attended to,
40:49can lead to a sort of necrosis of the ends of the fingers
40:52but the idea that bits fall off you and whatever
40:53is good for jokes but it's not true.
40:56Unpleasant jokes.
40:57Unpleasant jokes.
40:58Unpleasant jokes.
40:59Of a mediocre joke.
41:01Exactly.
41:01Of a mediocre joke.
41:02Exactly.
41:03Right.
41:03Now, which of you has the fewest hairs on your head?
41:07Well, may I just volunteer myself?
41:11I would have to, but so it's me
41:13and I'm going to lose ten points
41:15and even more hair being annoyed about ten points.
41:19It's one of the weird, strange things.
41:21There's a splendid man called Dr George Kotzer Ellis
41:23of the Department of Dermatology at the University of Pennsylvania
41:26and he has determined that actually
41:28you have the same number of hairs on the scalp as everyone else.
41:32Yeah.
41:32It's just that some of them are only visible under a microscope.
41:35Right.
41:36That's roughly like not having them.
41:38No.
41:40By the same token,
41:42humans may look less hairy, for example, than chimpanzees
41:44but with the same number of hair follicles,
41:47about five million, on our bodies as chimpanzees.
41:50But the whole thing of hair is very annoying.
41:53Yeah.
41:53I mean, if I'd never bought a pair of tweezers,
41:54I'd have a beard down to here.
41:56It's just a...
41:57You've got hair that grows in the places you don't want it
41:59and then hair that doesn't grow where you do want it.
42:01Hair that doesn't stop, like on your head.
42:03I mean, it keeps growing.
42:04Yes.
42:04So you get it cut every three months or two.
42:05And then your eyebrows, if you're a man...
42:08Yes.
42:08...know when to stop until you get a bit later in life
42:10and then it stops knowing when to stop.
42:12That's nice.
42:12Then you can comb them up over your balls.
42:15Yes.
42:15Yes.
42:18I've tried that.
42:19I've tried that definitely.
42:20It's a little odd, but you know, it's an option.
42:23Well, you never know.
42:24And so we come to the scores.
42:27Well, now, these are very interesting
42:28and it would be very unfair of me not to share them with you.
42:31So, that's all from Sandy, Henning, Clyde, Alan and me.
42:35Because, as William Goldman said,
42:37life isn't fair, it's just fairer than death.
42:40That's all.
42:41Goodnight.
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