- 9 hours ago
First broadcast 14th December 2012.
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
David Mitchell
Sarah Millican
Richard Coles (as Rev Richard Coles)
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
David Mitchell
Sarah Millican
Richard Coles (as Rev Richard Coles)
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Good evening to the QI Job Centre.
00:09Scanning the situations vacant tonight are retired civil servant Sarah Milligan.
00:18Former colloquium attendant David Mitchell.
00:25Unemployed pianist and saxophonist the Reverend Richard Cole.
00:32And ex-Epping Flea Market sandwich board man, Alan Davies.
00:41By their buzzers shall ye know them.
00:45And Sarah goes...
00:47Ooh.
00:49And Davy goes...
00:52That's a joke from being attended.
00:55Richard goes...
00:59Oh, bless you. I've heard you on Waterloo Bridge.
01:01And Alan goes...
01:02Sandwiches. Sandwiches.
01:04That's what you mean by sandwich board, is it?
01:07I'd like to say the cloakroom I attended was for actual cloaks.
01:11It wasn't a euphemism.
01:12It really was a cloakroom.
01:13It was for when people left their coats and bags and I suppose the occasional cloak.
01:17But it being in the 20th century, it wasn't very cloak-heavy.
01:21No.
01:23I'd say I actually do have a cloak.
01:25It's standard issue for clergymen.
01:27Oh, yes, you would have one, wouldn't you?
01:29Has it got pockets?
01:30It's got deep poacher's pockets, so you can keep things like holy water in there if you wish to.
01:35Just in case you need to.
01:35In case you happen to meet a girl who's possessed by the devil.
01:38Exactly.
01:38Exactly.
01:39But also, it's a practical garment.
01:41There's sort of bits, special tapes and bits you can hang on to and wrap around yourself.
01:46I'd recommend them.
01:46They're lovely.
01:47And is it true, do you kiss your stole before putting it over your shoulder?
01:50Yes, you do.
01:50There's a special prayer when you're getting kitted up.
01:53So you kiss the cross and you say a prayer as it goes over your neck.
01:55I'm just thinking of Max von Sydow going, the beast will say many things.
01:58The power of Christ compels you.
02:01The power of Christ compels you.
02:02And then the green vomit comes out.
02:04Have you done with those?
02:05Which, in fact, I have done a couple of...
02:08Let's just forget all the questions.
02:09I'm going to get down to them.
02:12Exorcisms is more interesting.
02:13Well, we don't call it, we call it deliverance now.
02:15Rather like the takeaway man on the moped who comes to the...
02:20I was in a parish where there was a major drug problem.
02:23And so quite often you'd be called out to people who'd just done a lot of speed.
02:27Right.
02:27And they would describe what had happened.
02:29You realise they were talking about the horror film that was on in the pictures the week before.
02:33Oh.
02:33I had a friend who was a...
02:35I don't know if you remember Dom Sylvester Hurdahl.
02:37Oh, yes.
02:37Pretty jabby.
02:38And he was called in to do an ex...
02:40Not an exorcism, but a man said he was Napoleon.
02:43And Dom Sylvester said,
02:45Well, that's unfortunate for you because I am Wellington.
02:50There was a friend of mine who had a psychiatric unit in his parish.
02:55And there was a gentleman there who thought he was God.
02:57And we sort of followed Donald round the unit asking him hard questions about the hypostatic union and things like
03:03that.
03:03Oh, my God.
03:03And so one day Donald got a bit impatient with him and turned to him and said,
03:06Look, actually, if you are God, would you kindly settle once and for all the exact nature of the relation
03:10of the three persons of the Trinity?
03:11And the man said,
03:12And the man said,
03:41And the social media world, as you know, is called the cloud.
03:44Sandwiches.
03:44Yep.
03:49That's only going to be a bit funnier, isn't it?
03:51I don't know.
03:51Yeah.
03:52A ripper is a murderer.
03:57Well, obviously, yes.
03:58A highly skilled murderer.
04:00Yes.
04:00In Whitechapel, usually.
04:02Yes, yes.
04:02Sometimes, yes.
04:03I knew that was right.
04:04These days, most murderers are amateur, though, aren't they?
04:06It's very difficult to make a living out of it.
04:09That was a job, yeah.
04:11That's a good point.
04:12A ripper, actually, you might know, there is a word, it's the kind of word, a crossword, fiend might know.
04:17So, riparian, r-i-p-a-r-i-a-n, riparian.
04:22Does that mean anything to you?
04:23I feel it should.
04:24Yes.
04:25It comes from the Latin rripa, riverbank.
04:27So, the riparian means of the riverside, of the riverbank.
04:31It's a fish seller who sells fish off the banks.
04:33Oh, this is like a 3-2-1 clip.
04:35I know, I'm sorry.
04:36I thought we were getting someone.
04:37It was going to be someone who repairs the banks of rivers.
04:39Okay, I can have a...
04:40No, we sell fish now!
04:43I'm so sorry.
04:45Um...
04:46Burgrayla?
04:47Is that...
04:47Is that presumably someone who grills burgers?
04:50LAUGHTER
04:51Just the general spelling in the average burger joint.
04:55You know, a burgrayla was someone who removed burrs from the teeth of combs in a cotton ball.
05:01Oh, I thought it was going to be from the Queen Mother.
05:04LAUGHTER
05:07And we have a willier, which comes from the same profession.
05:11Oh, I think...
05:11Is that someone who was both in the Black Eyed Peas and the Wurzels?
05:15Oh, Will I are.
05:17Will I are.
05:18Oh, very good.
05:21APPLAUSE
05:24Excellent.
05:26You see, your years working with Jimmy Somerville and the Communards have not dulled the edge of your wit, I'm
05:33glad to see.
05:33It's actually a willier, it's also called the willier, but willier is a more common name for it.
05:38And it's again, we're back in the world of the loom, operating a willying machine, which simply...
05:42After that.
05:43Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.
05:45LAUGHTER
05:46A wharfinger, you might be able to work out, there's an odd thing that we do in English, which is
05:51that we add a letter N where one isn't necessary.
05:53So, for example, if someone is on a passage, on a journey, we don't call them a passenger, we call
05:58them a passenger.
05:59If someone sends a message, we don't call them a messenger, we call them a messenger.
06:03It's a very odd English thing, adding this N. And a wharfinger is someone who might...
06:10Wharfage?
06:10Yeah, own a wharf.
06:12Basically, a wharf owner is a wharfinger.
06:14Do people own wharfs now?
06:16These days, you don't meet many people.
06:17I've never met a wharf owner.
06:18I'm in the wharf business.
06:19Yeah.
06:19Actually, you might have wharf on it.
06:21Got a lovely wharf.
06:22Star Trek, the second generation had a character called Wharf, didn't he?
06:25He was a Klingon with a big nose.
06:27Oh, yes.
06:27And no sense of humour.
06:28You do surprise me with the moments when you dip into popular culture, which ones you choose?
06:32LAUGHTER
06:34I am secretly a bit of a Trekkie, I have to say.
06:37Make it so.
06:39Could you play Vulcan chess?
06:41Oh, no, that's very difficult.
06:41Do you remember Vulcan chess?
06:42Oh, I remember Vulcan chess.
06:43Very, very difficult.
06:45And T'Pau, do you remember there was a pop group called T'Pau?
06:47I toured with T'Pau.
06:48That took their name from an episode of Star Trek.
06:50You toured with T'Pau.
06:52Well, when you're on tour, if you're in a band, you tend to be on the same circuit as
06:55other bands, and we used to bump into Carol Decker, who was the singer from T'Pau.
06:59You'd be in a hotel with T'Pau and Public Image.
07:02So you'd be having your breakfast between John Lyton and Carol Decker.
07:06Lovely story.
07:07I'd like to see you party with Sean Ryder from...
07:10But there was no party, because actually, if you're on tour, you're so busy,
07:14everyone is in bed by ten, it's the people around.
07:16No.
07:17Maybe they didn't tell you about the parties.
07:20I once stayed in a hotel in America with Black Grape, which was the band that Sean Ryder formed
07:26after he left, you know, Manchester.
07:28And it was so rowdy on the floor of the hotel.
07:31Rowdy.
07:32When I woke up the next morning, I opened the door, and there was a bottle of extremely high-quality
07:39brandy
07:40with a little note saying, hope you won't disturb, love Sean.
07:43And I looked all the way down both sides of the corridor, and there was a bottle of brandy.
07:47We did have a bass player who came down one morning as we were checking out and said he'd trashed
07:52his room last night.
07:53We were quite pleased, because no-one had ever done that in our band at all.
07:56But it turned out that actually what he'd done was tear up a copy of The Guardian.
08:01And we made him go and tidy it up again.
08:03All right.
08:05A nut steamer.
08:07Yes.
08:08Is that somebody who works in a spa?
08:13Sounds right.
08:14Does sound right.
08:17Flong maker.
08:18Yes.
08:19I have a theory that this might be a gentleman who makes foundation garments for ladies,
08:23and it's those very thin things which are crossed between a thong and dental floss.
08:30Oh, you're just what you mean.
08:31Yes.
08:32An arse floss.
08:34Oh, yes, horrible, yes.
08:36The person cleaning it is the one you feel sorry for.
08:39No, flong actually is a corruption of the French word flan, as in flan.
08:44It means a heavy bass.
08:46Oh, that's interesting.
08:47And it's actually from the word printing.
08:50What the flong made was actually, it was because it was solid.
08:53The Greek for solid is stereo.
08:55And it was known as stereotyping.
08:58Because you were making the same thing each time.
08:59You made a stereotype.
09:01And oddly enough, the noise the ink made was rendered as cliché.
09:06The noise.
09:07The noise that made when you rolled the ink.
09:09So both stereotype and cliché, which sort of mean the same thing,
09:13are both printer's terms.
09:15So literally a cliché is made by stereotyping.
09:19Yes, exactly.
09:20Which is very interesting.
09:21Yeah.
09:21And we're only here to be quite interesting.
09:23We don't expect to be rolling on the floor, barking like a seal,
09:26vomiting with laughter at that thought.
09:27But I do hope you will take it home, wrap it in a little parcel of lavender paper
09:32and store it in the bottom heart of your drawer.
09:34I'm worried I'll get it wrong.
09:35Yeah, okay.
09:36I'm trying to slightly misremember it.
09:38Oh, yeah.
09:40In 20 years time.
09:41So, the one we can't help you with is a macaroni loper.
09:45No one seems to know.
09:46We think it may be simply some sort of pasta job of twisting macaroni into it.
09:51Making necklaces out of macaroni, that's what it is.
09:54But the reason we know all these are all jobs is the 1891 UK census.
09:59People had to put their profession, and these are just some of the professions.
10:02So we just know that someone in the 1891 census, or probably more than one person,
10:07said, oh, I'm a macaroni loper.
10:08Yes.
10:09And no one's ever explained.
10:11No, unfortunately.
10:13Because nowadays in the census, some people, they put that their religion is Jedi.
10:17Oh, yeah.
10:17That's a sort of joke.
10:18Maybe the macaroni lopers are having a laugh at our expense.
10:22Yeah, yeah.
10:22We've always had to have a discussion about that when I was involved in prison chaplaincy,
10:26because one of the prisoners wanted a Jedi chaplain.
10:29No!
10:30Yeah.
10:30In the end, we found a shaman in Lincoln who did the job.
10:34And did he come with a little lightsaber?
10:35No, he had a shaking stick, but we thought that was as near as we could get.
10:40Yeah.
10:42Wow.
10:43That's pretty impressive.
10:44Star Wars would outlive all the major religions, I'm sure.
10:47Do you think?
10:47Yeah.
10:48Maybe it will.
10:49Maybe it will.
10:52That's what's up there.
10:54That's what's up there.
10:55You want that Lee walk at the back.
10:58Anyway, there we go.
10:59That's question one over with.
11:01How does snake farming work?
11:04You plant them in the ground.
11:08Unless they're doing the actual farming.
11:09That might be quite tricky.
11:11Just put them on a tractor and watch them go.
11:13Yeah.
11:14Well, there was one great snake farmer, called Bill Hust, who lived from
11:181910 to the year 2011.
11:20And he died 100 years old.
11:23And he specialised in handling snakes, venomous snakes.
11:27And how do you think he protected himself from being bitten?
11:31Cut the heads off?
11:32No, he kept them very much alive and made a lot of money out of them.
11:36Can you sort of get used to it?
11:38That's the point.
11:39In fact, he got himself bitten so much, he became immune.
11:42He was bitten over 120 times.
11:44First time when he was 12.
11:4520 times almost fatally, he said.
11:48You may say, well, he was just a dick.
11:49He was just someone who wanted to show off.
11:52But actually, he did it for a reason.
11:54And that was to save other people.
11:56His blood was so rich in the antibodies.
11:59Interesting.
12:00I mean, there's snake handlers, of course,
12:02religious people in America, in some of the southern states.
12:06Oh, yeah.
12:06You have to drag religion into everything.
12:11Sorry, the bishop's watching.
12:16They, because they take rather at face value a text from the Gospel of Mark,
12:20in which says that, you know, you shall not be hurt by a serpent
12:23if you are kind of in our club.
12:25And so they go around picking up serpents.
12:27And, of course, most of them die hideously of snake bites sooner or later.
12:31But they don't seem to develop a...
12:33No, I think the poison is you have to build it up.
12:36Well, there you go.
12:37You might also know of a king of Pontus.
12:40Northern Turkey is where Pontus is.
12:42And there was a king there, Mithridates.
12:45And he was very much an enemy of Rome.
12:47And he was convinced he was going to be poisoned.
12:49And he was one of the first people we know of
12:51who made himself immune to poisons by taking small amounts of them.
12:55And, sure enough, he was indeed cornered by the Roman General Pompey.
12:59And he took poison at a really, really strong dose.
13:01And it was too... still didn't kill him.
13:03So he had to get his servant to stab him to death.
13:05So...
13:06I went to India on holiday.
13:08And there was a bit of food going on.
13:10And there was some green chillies in a glass.
13:11Now, some green chillies are quite chewable and dippable.
13:14And some are so not.
13:15And the one... and I picked this one up and I could see
13:17three Indian ladies peering round the...
13:19They were actually nudging one another.
13:23Because they clearly put these out as a trap.
13:26And then nibbled the very end of it.
13:28And then I was numbed on the side of my face for quite...
13:31You know, for several minutes.
13:32Terrifying.
13:32But while I was there, there was a story about an Indian woman
13:35who could eat...
13:36She set a record that's in the Guinness Book of Records or something.
13:38I mean, there are dozens of these things.
13:40Same principle, I suppose.
13:42Building up intolerance.
13:43Yes, you do.
13:43Have you been to Iceland?
13:44No.
13:45Oh, the smelly fish.
13:46Hakurl.
13:47Have you had Hakurl?
13:48Never had it, no.
13:48They give you this dish and it's got these little cubes of foul-smelling
13:51strong cheese on it.
13:53And you sort of take this cheese and you eat it and it's
13:54absolutely disgusting.
13:55And they go, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho.
13:57And you go, that's the worst cheese I've ever tasted.
13:59They go, it's not cheese.
14:00What is it?
14:01And Hakurl is they kill a shark and then they bury it in sand on a beach
14:05so it putrefies in its own urine.
14:07Yes.
14:08They do.
14:09And then they dig it up and they cut it into cubes and give it to tourists.
14:14And we're supposed to feel sorry for their financial crisis.
14:19Yeah.
14:19That's yours, Bjork.
14:23Were they worried that tourism was going to get out of hand on that?
14:28How bad do things have to be that putrefied urinous sharp meat is your delicacy?
14:33It's true.
14:35Gracious me.
14:35I think we should move on.
14:37So, what might an inspector of nuisances do?
14:43Did nuisance used to mean something else?
14:45Was it like nuisance meaning a noise or a party?
14:48Well, yes, it would include a noise, yes.
14:50It was basically kind of an equivalent of today's environmental health officer.
14:55They were appointed by the local authority, a sanitary and health assistant.
14:59What man's nuisance is another man's rowdy evening in the hotel, isn't it?
15:02Yes, but...
15:03Who decides what a nuisance is?
15:04Well, this is like, you know, if your neighbour is a hoarder.
15:07Or they're smelly.
15:08This is in days before the more common sanitation that we expect.
15:12So, if it was really smelly, very noisy.
15:15They would also disinfect houses that had had smallpox.
15:18They were also responsible for the scavengers.
15:20And what were the scavengers?
15:22Were they people who made a living through going through the leavings of others?
15:26That's what you would think, wouldn't you?
15:27Like the mud larkers going through the beaches.
15:30It actually had a more specific and unsavoury meaning originally.
15:33Waste.
15:34Waste.
15:34Waste.
15:34Night soil men, they used to be called.
15:37Night soil.
15:38They stole poo.
15:39Well, not stole, but...
15:40Just what you've done in the night.
15:41People had...
15:43People had outside jacksies that were not connected to any system of...
15:50They were just a hole.
15:51They were just a hole.
15:52And so there would be a pile of poo.
15:53And the night soil man would come with his spade.
15:56And he'd take your poo away.
15:58And that was a job.
15:59Not a pleasant one.
16:00They were known as scavengers.
16:02And it was a deeply unpleasant, but a deeply necessary job.
16:05What do you have to tip your scavenger?
16:07You know, like, you have to do, like, milkman and porcelain at Christmas.
16:10It's a very good question.
16:11You leave a Christmas box.
16:12You leave a Christmas box.
16:14Especially perfect varnished stool.
16:17The best stool you produce.
16:19You save it up for you.
16:21I had a thoroughly good dinner that day.
16:23And I think that's quality.
16:24That's right.
16:25You can't spot a nut or a crack in it.
16:29Lovely.
16:30Lovely.
16:30That's what you do.
16:31It doesn't remain in that...
16:33I know this because I was a chaplain for a bit in Uganda.
16:36And they have scavengers, night soil people there.
16:39But I only saw it once, and I shudder to recall it,
16:42but it was sort of mulched down, if I may put it that way.
16:46Ah.
16:46It loses its...
16:47So it's not in its shape and form.
16:49It's slop.
16:50Slop.
16:50The same thing happens with squirty cream.
16:52Exactly.
16:54Comes out a lovely shape.
16:55Yes, you might.
16:56But leave it for a few minutes and it's all gone.
16:58It loses its form, doesn't it?
17:00And no-one likes a stool that's lost its form.
17:02Yeah.
17:03Absolutely.
17:04Point deducted.
17:05Points deducted for a sloppy stool.
17:08Anyway, enough.
17:10I'm ready.
17:10I'm ready.
17:10Let's move on.
17:11Now, what is it about software engineers that drives people to violence?
17:16I've got a theory about software engineers,
17:18although the problem with software engineers is that they're all really into computers.
17:24Yes.
17:25And they say, why not have a little twiddly bit that does that when you do that?
17:28That would look pretty.
17:30Well, you say, well, the upside is it would look pretty.
17:32The downside is that's another thing that doesn't work.
17:34It takes up processing power or speed.
17:37Do they call them twiddly bits?
17:39Do they call them twiddly bits?
17:40They've probably got some technical name even for twiddly bits.
17:43The usual word is future.
17:44Yeah.
17:45Well, that's certainly one thing that is annoying.
17:47I don't like software which anticipates needs I don't have.
17:50The sort of spellchecker thing which corrects your spell, but you didn't want to spell.
17:54I've got RSI now from correcting the corrections on my phone.
17:58If I want to type the C word, and I do some things, it comes up with Cynthia, and that's
18:05my mother-in-law's name.
18:08She's lovely.
18:09It seems so unfair.
18:10Let's hope it doesn't work the other way around.
18:14Well, unfortunately, in the original Greek, it is cunthia.
18:22Is it?
18:23There is no letter Y in Greek.
18:24It's an Upsilon.
18:25That's alarming.
18:25It is cunthia.
18:26Now, I'm going back to the very first software engineer that ever was.
18:32Babbage.
18:33Well, Babbage owed an enormous debt to this person.
18:36Ada Lovelace.
18:36Ada Lovelace also owed a debt to this person.
18:39I'll get a clue.
18:39Ada Lovelace wanted to use the same thing.
18:41You've done very well.
18:42Ada Lovelace was the daughter of...
18:44Mr Software.
18:51So disappointing.
18:53You know Mr Baker, don't you?
18:55Yes, you do.
18:56Mr Booker.
18:57Mr Cooper.
18:59But it's so much more interesting now.
19:02She happened to be the daughter of Lord Byron.
19:04And she was one of the great mathematicians of her age.
19:07And she was a woman we should celebrate.
19:09And she was a colleague, as you say, of Charles Babbage.
19:12And they had got their difference engine.
19:13And they wanted to steal the idea of a Frenchman who'd come up with the idea.
19:18That's the software idea.
19:19It was for automating something.
19:21As a little boy, he used to sit on a particular type of machine
19:24and watch it working and thinking, I could make this better.
19:27And he invented a punch card system for it.
19:30And he has...
19:31Its name is...
19:32It's not those pianos that play themselves.
19:35No pianos use the same system.
19:37But this is before that.
19:37It's much more useful because it made something everybody in the world wanted to buy.
19:41Which is clothes.
19:44And textiles.
19:45Oh, is it for like a pattern on the cloth?
19:48A loom.
19:48It's a loom.
19:49And it's a particular kind of loom.
19:51Jacquard.
19:51Jacquard is the name.
19:53Joseph Marie Jacquard.
19:54And he was an extraordinary man.
19:56Born in 1752.
19:58And these looms were used right up until our lifetimes.
20:02There you are.
20:02Look at that.
20:03That's what he invented.
20:04Now you look at those punch cards.
20:05You think, now what can that do?
20:07Babbage correctly saw.
20:09This couldn't just make a loom and a tapestry and a picture.
20:13But it could also possibly do calculations.
20:16And other such things that mathematicians were interested in.
20:18And so we have a portrait of Jacquard himself.
20:22Which is done in woven silk using a Jacquard loom.
20:27That is done by punched cards.
20:29Isn't that astonishing?
20:31The depth.
20:31The tone.
20:33Look at the knees there.
20:34The way the cloth is.
20:35It looks almost like a photograph.
20:37It almost looks like a photograph.
20:38You think you'd be happier, wouldn't you?
20:40Well, that's true.
20:43Smiling in photographs is a very recent thing.
20:45Oh, really?
20:45It was never considered normal.
20:47It was considered weird to smile.
20:49But the question was, why did he drive people to violence?
20:53Oh, because he, was it like Luddites?
20:56Did they come and smash his machinery?
20:57They did because it took so much work away from us.
20:59These are the shoe throwers.
21:01The saboteurs.
21:02And what's the, what's the French for a wooden shoe?
21:03The sabot.
21:04A sabot.
21:05A sabot is a, is a clog.
21:06Yeah.
21:06And they would throw their clogs into the looms to break them up.
21:09And this, a sabot, is known as sabotage.
21:11And that's where we get our word sabotage.
21:14They would sabotage his machines.
21:15And actually Luddites in Britain were nothing like as violent as the saboteurs of France in
21:21Lyon and places like that.
21:22Different footwear, I suppose.
21:23Different footwear.
21:24You're doing more with a clog, can't you, than a conventional shoe.
21:29We had an outbreak of it in my parish.
21:31Did you?
21:31Yeah, I'm afraid so.
21:33It's a shoe area, so when the automation of the shoe trade came in there was a bit of smashing
21:37up of machines.
21:38That's a, that's a nightmare though, because if the people are destroying the machines with shoes, if the machine's still
21:43going, they're just making ammunition.
21:47For their own destruction.
21:48I don't think they use shoes.
21:49That's so true.
21:51As they come out, chop them back in the machine.
21:54You don't have to use shoes to make a, to make a machine break.
21:59It's just, the French wore wooden clogs and those sabots.
22:03But it is fascinating, isn't it, to think.
22:05Where would we be without trees?
22:07Well, so true.
22:12You're right.
22:13Anyway, the first automated looms caused rioting by French weavers.
22:17Name as many famous butlers as you can.
22:21Jeeves.
22:22Jeeves.
22:27Jeeves was not a butler.
22:29No.
22:29He was a man.
22:30He was a valet.
22:31He was a gentleman's personal gentleman.
22:34Sorry.
22:34What about Hudson from upstairs downstairs?
22:37Hudson would certainly count, yes, absolutely.
22:39A butler has to be head of a household.
22:41A valet is a personal attendant.
22:43A gentleman's personal gentleman.
22:45Oh, Christ.
22:55I mean, this was, you got away with this, didn't you, really?
22:58Because what, you were quite young to play the role.
23:00Yes, I was young.
23:01I mean, you in particular, because he was quite a bit older, isn't he?
23:05Well, in Carry On Jeeves, which is the very first appearance of Jeeves in Woodhouse,
23:08a darkish, youngish chap stood in the doorway is the only physical description you get of Jeeves.
23:14Oh, is it?
23:14But as Bertie Worcester said of him, although he is not a butler, if it comes down to it, he
23:19can bottle with the best of them.
23:21And so, but a butler was literally a bottle.
23:24I looked after the seller.
23:25John Gielgert in Arthur.
23:27What was that character?
23:28Well, was he a butler or was he a valet?
23:29I think he was.
23:30A gentleman.
23:31A man, my man.
23:32They used to say, my man.
23:34That the fifth Duke of Portland was so relied on his valet that when the doctor visited, the doctor would
23:39stand outside the room.
23:41The valet would do the rummaging around and call out what he saw.
23:45He was like, I'm just inserting my finger into his grace now.
23:49I would say it's a sort of yellowy-blue colour.
23:52The doctor would say, that's a very bad sign or a very good sign.
23:57All five of his grace's testicles are in order.
24:02It is the most bizarre thing.
24:04Many years ago, I was asked, as I'm sure you've been asked, to address the Oxford Union.
24:10They have asked me, but I always imagine that they just asked me along just so they could go...
24:14No!
24:15They would love you.
24:16They would love you.
24:18They would also just...
24:19We have an entertainment.
24:22Ask him something.
24:23Take the clown down.
24:26He doesn't know.
24:28Take my cloak.
24:30No.
24:31I went, and I remember this quite, even for Oxford, astonishing young man, in a winged collar,
24:39who was very, very extraordinary man.
24:41And whose name was Jacob Rees-Mogg.
24:44And he was the son of William Rees-Mogg, who had, for a time, been the editor of Times.
24:48Oh, he's an MP now, isn't he?
24:49And he's now an MP.
24:50And he's...
24:52We may have a picture of him.
24:53There he is.
24:54You're never going to mistake him for an Essex chav, are you?
24:58And, um, surprisingly...
24:59He's river dancing.
25:01He's very tall, isn't he?
25:02He's bigger than the houses.
25:03He is very tall.
25:04He is.
25:05That may be a parallax effect, I'm not sure.
25:07But anyway, he was infuriated when leafleting the streets of Central Fife, but the fact that
25:13he was mocked because he was assisted by his nanny.
25:16Um...
25:17What was so extraordinary was his response.
25:19His response was, well, I do wish you wouldn't keep going on about my nanny.
25:24If I had a valet, you'd think he was perfectly normal.
25:30Man of the people.
25:31I've had a tweet relationship with Jacob Rees-Mogg.
25:34Is he a Twitter friend?
25:35Well, I think he...
25:36I don't know if it's actually him, but he quotes to me, uh, Anglican Psalms.
25:41That's very like him.
25:42I can't think there would be anyone who wasn't him who would want to do that.
25:45It does seem a very strange pastime, I have to say.
25:49He's not talking to me now, though, but he did for a while.
25:51Well, he's very busy running the country with his nanny and his valet.
25:53Well, I think that he was doing the treating for him.
25:55Mary Poffins and Jeeves are helping him out.
25:57That's all we need worry about.
25:59Thank goodness. All is well in the world of Jacob Rees-Mogg.
26:01I'm sure he's a lovely man.
26:03Anyway, Jeeves was a valet, not a butler.
26:06Uh, what use is a sheep in a gold rush?
26:11Yes.
26:12Can be cold and lonely on those prairies.
26:17Yes, that's the first thing that would come into a man of God's mind.
26:19Huddle for warmth, Stephen. Huddle together for warmth.
26:22Huddle for warmth, no.
26:22Well, the gold rushes aren't always in cold countries, but, um...
26:26Is that what...? Hang on, the Lord is your shepherd?
26:29If I let one plant on his own, he might shaft you.
26:34I believe his rod comforts you.
26:39They didn't teach me anything at Theological College about this.
26:43Oh, sorry, I do apologise.
26:45Would you filter stuff through wool, thereby extracting the gold and water?
26:50The man is right on the money quite literally.
26:52It's exactly what you do.
26:54Exactly what you do.
26:56You take the fleece and the water runs through it,
26:59and it leaves behind the flecks of gold, and then you dry the fleece and shake them out.
27:04It's as simple as that. It's a very good way. Better than panning.
27:07And there are people who believe...
27:08Indeed, there's one man who wrote a book about it.
27:10Uh, his name is Tim Severin.
27:12He wrote a book called The Jason Voyage.
27:13He's one of those people who believes that a lot of Greek myths,
27:15a lot of myths generally, are based on originally true stories that have become exaggerated.
27:19And he believes the golden fleece may be one such an example.
27:23Jason may well have taken a golden fleece that someone had been using for panning for gold.
27:28So, now, what are the Swiss planning to tidy up next?
27:33Those good old Swiss. Yes, sir.
27:35The arm... Oh, army knives. That's what I was going to say.
27:38Are they going to tidy them up because there's loads of useless things on them?
27:40Yeah, I know what you mean. To reduce the number of stuff on them.
27:43Yeah, just to make it just a knife.
27:45But they do actually have a plan to do some really serious cleaning,
27:48which will cost millions, but is, I'm afraid, very necessary.
27:53Is it in space? Yes.
27:55Well done, Alan Davis. What's the problem in space?
27:59Too many old satellites. Debris. Space debris.
28:02As soon as we started going up there, we started leaving crap everywhere we were.
28:05It's so human, isn't it? Even if...
28:07It's like a festival. Even if it's a chip of paint,
28:10you have to remember it's orbiting at 18,000 miles an hour.
28:14Well, that's in your eye. So, it hits something else, they shatter.
28:16So, it's more and more shatter into smaller and smaller pieces,
28:19which makes it harder and harder to clear them up.
28:22So, we're with the Swiss in space.
28:24They're attempting, technically, to find ways of clearing up this debris,
28:27which is a serious worry. A Dyson. You need a Dyson.
28:30Well, you need one hell of a Dyson.
28:32Dyson would think of something. Why the Swiss?
28:35It's interesting, isn't it?
28:36They've taken it upon themselves after years of not joining in
28:39and stopped piling Nazi gold. Do you know?
28:41Why now?
28:43I've got a horrible thought. It might be for profit.
28:47Oh.
28:47They're not just a bit all CD.
28:49I don't think...
28:50Well, it could be a mixture, though.
28:52You've been to Switzerland. It is a very clean and tidy country.
28:55It was the first country I ever went to years ago.
28:58I was tiny.
28:58Which had photoelectric cells in the urinals.
29:01And so, when I left, it flushed.
29:03And I thought...
29:04And I heard a little click.
29:05And so, I just went back and forth, back and forth.
29:08And someone came in and saw me doing this.
29:14That means, basically, that urinal,
29:16if it consents when you've gone to flash, it's a robot.
29:19Yes.
29:20It's like that debris in space.
29:21As soon as we create artificial intelligence,
29:23we abuse it sexually.
29:27Anyway, moving on. Sorry.
29:28Let me give you the information on this.
29:30The fact is, after 50 years now of space exploration,
29:33the Earth is surrounded by junk from old satellites
29:35and spent rocket casings and so on.
29:38All down to small pieces of wire and chips of paint.
29:40All hazardous to current satellites
29:42on which our lives are beginning to depend.
29:45GPS and so on and peacekeeping and all kinds of things.
29:48Grinder.
29:48Oh, grinder.
29:49God, yes.
29:50What would we do without grinder?
29:52There are apparently 480 million copper needles
29:55because there's some bloody stupid thing
29:58called Operation West Ford,
29:59which was an American project from between 61 and 3
30:02to create an artificial ionosphere out of copper
30:06that they could bounce radio signals off.
30:08They actually wanted to seal the Earth.
30:10I mean, how mad is that?
30:11So, that's left all that junk.
30:13Anyway, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne
30:16has a project called Clean Space One.
30:19There they are in the snow looking.
30:20Actually, that's Teleservalus' hideout in
30:22On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
30:24Anyway, they will have a series of janitor satellites.
30:28They will manoeuvre alongside the unwanted object,
30:31grapple it with a claw.
30:32There you are.
30:33Then dive into the atmosphere.
30:35So, it's going to first of all grapple it with its claw.
30:39Ta-da!
30:40Oh, you can do this on Brighton Pier.
30:42Yes, exactly.
30:44There it goes.
30:45The problem is that the actual janitor thing is also destroyed.
30:48They both burn up in the atmosphere.
30:49So, for every speck or needle, they have to send up a separate little old lady with a claw.
30:55Which costs £27 million each one of their righties.
30:56Well, that's really...
30:57That's what I mean by saying that.
31:00You just need a shovy thing that shoves it into the atmosphere.
31:04What about some sort of...
31:06I mean, I've admittedly haven't given this much thought,
31:08but some sort of hoover.
31:12You know, some sort of sucking thing.
31:14A giant funnel.
31:14You'd think a giant funnel.
31:15I mean, does sucking work in the other atmosphere?
31:17There are two directions.
31:19There are two directions you want them to go in.
31:20You either want them to stop being in orbit and come in and be burnt up in the atmosphere,
31:24or you want to push them out into space, which is a bit loutish.
31:28That's even more literary, isn't it?
31:29Frankly, it is.
31:29It is loutish.
31:31We Brits have come up with a different solution at the University of Surrey,
31:34and that's a nano-satellite the size of a shoebox,
31:36and it contains a 25-square-meter solar sail.
31:41So, when unfolded, this cube sail, as they call it,
31:43it is driven along by photons from the sun,
31:45and it carries any junk and takes it out into outer space.
31:48In due course, devices like these may have to be built into anything
31:52that's ever allowed up into space again,
31:54must have on it something that will help with the problem.
31:58But that's the problem.
32:00The moment the Swiss have their $27 million machine.
32:03So, there you are.
32:04Now, what would be the best planet in the solar system
32:07to take your annual holiday in or on?
32:10Yes?
32:10Earth.
32:12Absolutely the right answer, frankly.
32:14I don't think there could be a better answer.
32:17Well, the great advantage of Earth is that you can survive on it.
32:20Yes!
32:22It's so lovely on a holiday, isn't it?
32:24Yeah, it is.
32:25To just live through it.
32:27To breathe air again.
32:27Yeah, exactly.
32:29Hello?
32:30Uranus.
32:31Why Uranus?
32:32Because it would be much longer.
32:35Ah!
32:36Now, there you're getting very interesting.
32:37It's about how long a year is or a season is.
32:40How long is a Uranian year?
32:41A Uranian year is 84 Earth years.
32:45But each day is only 17 hours.
32:47So, again, it spins faster than us.
32:49So, how long would a fortnight be?
32:58Very good question indeed.
33:0017 times 14 would be a fortnight.
33:02Would be a fortnight.
33:03How long is a year on Jupiter then?
33:05A year is about 12 of our years.
33:07But it spins very quickly.
33:08So, a day on Jupiter is only about 10 hours.
33:11Ah.
33:11So, you might not get a longer holiday.
33:13No.
33:13The further away from...
33:15And I think I'd need those things that go around your wrists,
33:17so you don't get travel sick if it's spinning like that.
33:19That's right.
33:20Jupiter is also entirely gas, which is not really very nice.
33:24The shopping and the sightseeing opportunities are amazing.
33:26A layer of black liquid hydrogen, 27,000 miles thick,
33:31crushes carbon into diamonds that are literally the size of the Ritz.
33:35So, you could really get some serious bling from Jupiter.
33:38Try to deal with that.
33:41Yeah.
33:42A diamond the side of a hotel.
33:44And another thing that's rather exciting is that it precipitates neon
33:47rather than water in the atmosphere, which creates brilliant bright red rain.
33:52It's fabulous.
33:53That would be so pretty.
33:55It would be lovely to go, wouldn't it?
33:57That's the...
33:59You don't want rain on holiday though, do you, even if it's Bonnie?
34:01That storm, that eye as they call it, which is in the middle of Jupiter,
34:05it's about four times the size of the Earth, so that's, you know...
34:08So, essentially, Jupiter is a nightmare.
34:10Because your annual holiday, not only is it a shorter fortnight,
34:13it only happens once every ten years.
34:15Yes, right.
34:16That is true.
34:18Very bad.
34:19Venus, on the other hand, rotates incredibly slowly.
34:22Oh.
34:22A fortnight's break on Venus would last over 15 years.
34:26Oh.
34:26That's how long the days are.
34:28But you need factor 980 then.
34:30Oh, the weather is awful.
34:31It's clouds of sulfuric acid.
34:34The surface is hot enough to melt aluminium, so you'd need really thick flip-flops.
34:41And the atmospheric pressure is equivalent to being half a mile under the sea on Earth.
34:45The air isn't very fresh.
34:48It's mostly carbon dioxide.
34:50So, it really is a bit...
34:52It's a bit like being in an Ibethan club at about six in the morning.
34:56But you'd only want a week there, wouldn't you?
34:58You'd only want a week.
34:59You'd only want a week on Venus.
35:00You'd only want a week on Venus.
35:00I think you're right.
35:01So, now I have a dubious theory about Alice in Wonderland for you, if you're quite interested.
35:08A dubious theory from Stephen Fry.
35:12Yes.
35:13Alice in Wonderland isn't a wildly imaginative children's fantasy after all.
35:18It's a bitter satirical attack on Victorian mathematics.
35:22Dubious or not, visit aliceshmallis.co.uk to review the evidence and decide for yourself.
35:30A dubious theory from Stephen Fry.
35:34I like that one, I like that one a lot.
35:36It's an interesting theory and there's a book written about it.
35:39The fact is, as you know, Alice in Wonderland was written by...
35:42Lewis Carroll.
35:43Who was in real life...
35:45A dog.
35:45Charles Dodger.
35:46A dog.
35:48It's so right, the last letter was wrong.
35:50It was a don.
35:50A don.
35:51A don.
35:52A don, that's what he meant.
35:55In other words, he was a fellow of a...
35:56Autocorrect, autocorrect, damn the autocorrect!
36:00He was a mathematician at Oxford.
36:03Oh.
36:04And he was a very conservative classical mathematician who believed in Euclidean geometry and things
36:09like that.
36:10And there was a new world coming into maths that would resolve in David Hilbert's famous
36:14questions and the Poincaré conjecture and Riemann's hypothesis and all the things that
36:19Alan Turing and later mathematicians devoted themselves to.
36:22The French design, of course, is very controversial.
36:26The invention of it was...
36:27I've never taken to it myself.
36:29You squeezed it in between seven and ten, and...
36:32No, no, eight and ten.
36:36Eight came even later.
36:37Eight came later, that's right.
36:39They needed it for the war.
36:40That's right.
36:42They needed it for bingo, I think.
36:44No, but the fact is, he didn't like the way that maths was becoming so extraordinarily abstract
36:49and pure and less to do with either symbolic logic, which was his particular subject, or,
36:55as I say, the beauty of plane geometry, which he loved.
36:58And so, this particular author, Melanie Bailey, argues that the scenes, particularly the Madhatter's
37:04tea party, the encounter with the hooker-smoking caterpillar, and the meeting with the Duchess,
37:10his baby turns into a pig.
37:11All that sort of absolute nonsense, he thought, typified modern mathematics.
37:16And most of all, he added in the latest story, the Cheshire cat, who disappears leaving only a grin.
37:21It's a humorous way of making a serious point about the futility of abstraction.
37:25How can the cat leave a grin behind?
37:27The cat was brilliantly played in the Tim Burton film by...
37:31Who did the voice of the cat?
37:32It was super...
37:33Oh!
37:35Oh, God.
37:36Hugh Laurie.
37:36Hugh Laurie, that's right.
37:37I knew it was someone good.
37:43Minus 2,000 points.
37:48Anyway, Melanie Bailey, the author of this book, reminds us that his other works are painfully dull and moralistic,
37:53or very technical works.
37:54In fact, Queen Victoria read Alice and loved it so much, and said,
37:58I do hope, Dr. Dodgson, that you will dedicate your next book to me.
38:02So he wrote a book called Something Like Problems in Symbolic Logic.
38:06And to her, Her Majesty for Victoria, you must have read it and thought, what the fuck is it?
38:12Queen Victoria bumper book of boring man.
38:16Happy Christmas, you had to be.
38:19She says, this lady Melanie Bailey, that Dodgson was most witty when he was poking fun at something.
38:24And only then, when the subject matter truly got him riled.
38:28Whereas we think of him as just an absurdist, a kind of surrealist, as a nonsense, a master of nonsense.
38:33Anyway, it's nice to have dubious theories on our J-series, and that's one of them.
38:37You can make your mind up yourself.
38:38Now, it's time for a Johnny Jape.
38:40This time involving lasers and balloons.
38:43What could be coming next?
38:45Here we are.
38:46And I've got my laser.
38:48This is one of these things they use.
38:50You know, I'm going to point it behind me.
38:53And we're using the smoke, because it shows up the laser line.
38:57Can you see it there?
38:58Yes.
38:58Yeah.
39:00I'm deliberately, obviously, I keep shouting in my ear, don't point it at people's eyes.
39:03I'm not.
39:04I'm not.
39:04Don't point it at their fucking eyes!
39:09Fucking dangerous!
39:11The thing is, he knows he's the one who's going to be fired.
39:16There you are, you can see reasonably well that there is a laser light there.
39:20The lighting may not go, ah!
39:24All right, this is an ordinary laser light with the kind it used to, you know, conferences
39:28to point on maps and all the rest of it.
39:30And I'm just going to press the laser here, and...
39:32Oh!
39:34And...
39:34Oh!
39:36And...
39:36Oh!
39:37And...
39:38And...
39:39Green!
39:39Wow, cool!
39:41Nothing.
39:42It's not popping, though.
39:44So, the black ones pop, and the white one doesn't.
39:47Alan...
39:47Racist.
39:47You should have...
39:48You should have a...
39:50LAUGHTER
39:52It didn't make sense.
39:56LAUGHTER
39:56I want you...
39:58LAUGHTER
39:59Take your black marker, please.
40:01Ah.
40:01And can you make a black target roughly in the centre of the balloon?
40:04And I'm going to let you press the button as a reward, if you do it sensibly.
40:08LAUGHTER
40:09It's a temptation to draw a cock and balls, isn't it?
40:13A big black spot, so it'll work.
40:16So, just there, and fill it in as black as you can.
40:19Talk about yourself.
40:20That's right.
40:21You could.
40:21If you'd work for Blue Peter, you'd know how to do that while presenting to camera.
40:25Oh, yeah, sorry.
40:25Yeah, there you see, exactly.
40:28LAUGHTER
40:29I haven't done a cock and balls, and I know you're disappointed.
40:33LAUGHTER
40:33This is the back of Stephen Fry's head.
40:35LAUGHTER
40:36It is actually not unlike.
40:38OK.
40:38Did that do it?
40:39I reckon that's black enough.
40:40Is that black enough?
40:40Yeah.
40:40We know that black absorbs light and heat, and white we know reflects it.
40:45And we saw that the laser had enough energy to burst the black balloon.
40:50So, all you have to do, just leave it in.
40:51It should be pointing in the right direction.
40:54Oh!
40:54Yay!
40:58Oh, wow.
40:59Well done.
41:00Very incredible.
41:01So, literally.
41:03So, what was Darth Vader thinking?
41:07LAUGHTER
41:08You see, the dark side will always lose.
41:11Absolutely right.
41:12Well, that brings us to the scores!
41:14Amazingly.
41:15And finally, Adam, there is no minus score.
41:18Ooh.
41:19Ooh.
41:20In first place...
41:22In first place...
41:23He's patronising bastards.
41:25LAUGHTER
41:30I've had quite bad points before.
41:33In first place...
41:34In first place, aided by a first-class brain, and of course, divine assistance, with 23 points, is Richard Coles.
41:46APPLAUSE
41:46Yeah.
41:48So, I'd like to give my points to the poor.
41:51Oh!
41:52What a holy man of God.
41:54We're all known.
41:55Booze from the atheists.
41:56We know he's only teasing.
41:57In second place, with plus 13, is David Mitchell.
42:01APPLAUSE
42:05In third place, with eight points, is Sarah.
42:08Well done, Sarah.
42:13And it's not minus...
42:15In last place, with zero, is Alan David.
42:18In last place, with zero, is Alan David.
42:20APPLAUSE
42:25Well, there you are.
42:26Not enough.
42:28That's all from Sarah David, Richard, Alan, and me.
42:32Thank you, good night, and be excellent unto each other.
42:35Bye-bye.
42:35Bye-bye.
42:36Bye-bye.
42:36Hello.
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