- 23 minutes ago
First broadcast 18th October 2013.
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
Jo Brand
Jimmy Carr
Graham Linehan
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
Jo Brand
Jimmy Carr
Graham Linehan
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, and welcome to QI, where tonight we're doing the knowledge.
00:07Please welcome the well-educated Jimmy Carr.
00:13The well-informed Joe Brand.
00:19The well-read Graham Linehan.
00:25And the well, you know, it's Alan Davis.
00:33And if you want to call me, you know what to do.
00:37Jimmy goes...
00:37Knowing me, knowing you.
00:42Graham goes...
00:43I don't know about us.
00:47Joe goes...
00:48I know him so well.
00:52And Alan goes...
00:53No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
00:58no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
01:00There's a spelling issue there. I know what you want to know. Once and for all, how many moons does
01:08the Earth have?
01:10Nobody knows.
01:13We're not doing that this year. No, we're not.
01:16Three.
01:18What a pity.
01:20What a pity.
01:22One.
01:24What a pity.
01:26Just if it's called the moon doesn't mean it's the only one it turns out.
01:31The moons it would be called.
01:35Oh, shit.
01:39You're not doing yourself any favours early doors. Two.
01:42Oh.
01:44Now, this could go on.
01:45It could.
01:46So let me stop you right here. The point is, very, very odd in the A-Series, we said there
01:51were two.
01:51Are you taking that back?
01:52Yes.
01:53What do you mean?
01:54Ah.
01:54I rely on this show. This is all I know.
01:57This is the whole thing we've found in fact.
02:00Facts are not permanent.
02:01We thought there were two, and then we said, oh, no, it's either one or five, we said in the
02:06B-Series,
02:06because we were acting on the latest info that we had from the scientific community.
02:11And this has changed.
02:12Now, NASA describes them as mini-moons, but we have about 18,000 moons.
02:18I thought it was the same moon.
02:22A bit of it, you mean?
02:24No, I thought the ones that we keep seeing was the same one over and over again.
02:30That is wrong.
02:31No.
02:31Are you talking about the mini-moons? There was, like, one extra mini-moon?
02:34No.
02:34Oh, just that.
02:36The actual moon.
02:37So every night you're saying it's a different moon?
02:40There is that.
02:42Are you saying that there is a celestial body that we call the moon, which is obviously
02:46the one that's recognized and that rises every 28 days?
02:58I'm not saying that.
03:02That's our team's decision.
03:04That's the same moon as in this bottle as the same bottle is...
03:08It's the same bottle as it is.
03:10Have you explained this?
03:12That's another one, exactly.
03:13Well, it looks pretty similar.
03:14They're not the same.
03:15They're not the same.
03:15That's my point.
03:16Yeah, well, they still...
03:18You see, suddenly we've got three.
03:19I'm not getting mine out, but can I just say...
03:23If there's so many, why haven't we noticed them before?
03:26Well, the reason is that they are actually tiny.
03:28It's only recently they've run computer simulations to show 18,000.
03:32One of those has been observed.
03:33It's been given the exciting name RH120, which orbited the Earth four orbits in 2006 and 2007.
03:39They're also known as temporarily captured objects.
03:42They're captured into an Earth orbit, perhaps for a short amount of time.
03:45But as satellites of the Earth, non-man-made, they are moons.
03:48That's what a moon is.
03:49But the man-made satellites are satellites, right?
03:50Yes, they are.
03:51But to be a moon, you have to be a celestial body rather than...
03:54Well, that makes me a moon, then.
03:56Yes, exactly.
03:58That's what you are.
03:59Precisely.
04:00And you orbit my life journey.
04:01You have to be in orbit for at least five years before you can claim benefits.
04:07But the quite interesting thing about this is the point that raised Jimmy Carr's tremendous eyebrows earlier,
04:12which is that facts don't remain stable.
04:15Things we know, or think we know, will be...
04:18untrue.
04:22Very good.
04:23Will be untrue in the number of years' time.
04:26Yes.
04:27Appropriately, you look a bit like...
04:28You want to do a Mexican boy?
04:29Yes, you do.
04:32We just...
04:33We just don't know.
04:34We just don't know.
04:36So, I...
04:36I...
04:37I did a...
04:37I did a course at university called...
04:40Shut up.
04:42I bloody did.
04:43I bloody did.
04:45And it was called The Sociology of Science.
04:47And yes, I got a grant for it.
04:49It was a complete waste of time.
04:52But what I learnt during that course is there's no such thing as a fact.
04:56Yes, this is precisely our point.
04:57Indeed, at medical colleges, they usually teach that half of what the medical students are going to learn
05:03will be considered untrue in about 10 or 20 years.
05:07And this is known by academics as the half-life of facts.
05:10That's to say, you know that half of it will be untrue.
05:13Unfortunately, you don't know exactly which half.
05:14And on QI, an estimated 7% of the things I tell you this evening
05:19will be shown to be untrue in a year's time.
05:23And if you're watching a very old repeat on Dave, a much bigger proportion.
05:27It's probably untrue, isn't it?
05:27It's probably the whole area...
05:28Even what I'm saying now is untrue.
05:30I'm not even saying it.
05:31I'm not on the show.
05:32We actually have a chart showing the rate of decay of QI facts.
05:36And you can see there's a series A on the right,
05:39and plotted against it is the 10th series, J.
05:42J.
05:42And so, as you can see, the further you get away,
05:46the greater the number of untruths.
05:4760% of things in the first series are now untrue.
05:49Yes, are now untrue.
05:50If that's true...
05:52We do talk a lot of bollocks, in fact.
05:54Yes.
05:55But the most important thing we'd be excited to know is that that means over the years,
06:00cumulatively, you must be owed a lot of points.
06:02And going according to this theory...
06:05Things we have said are wrong, a proportion of them are likely to have been right.
06:10Therefore, we have actually calculated how many points we owe you.
06:15Um...
06:16This is...
06:16Suddenly this has gone brilliantly.
06:17Suddenly this is...
06:18Yeah.
06:19Well, Alan is going to be way out in front.
06:21Jimmy...
06:22Jimmy, we owe you 43.58 points.
06:25Joe, 84.73.
06:28Can I use them in Sainsbury's?
06:31I'm giving you permission.
06:32If you work at Sainsbury's and she tries to claim them, yes, you can.
06:35The audience are owed 23.24.
06:39Well done.
06:40You haven't done anything.
06:45Alan, you are owed 737.66.
06:51There you are.
06:52Oh!
06:57And, um...
06:58Are those...
06:58Are those transferable?
06:59If I went on to...
07:01Have I got these for you?
07:02Could I use...
07:03Yes.
07:03I've got 24 points that I could use here.
07:05You can take this.
07:06Yes.
07:06I could just use them.
07:07Oh, they're fabulous.
07:08Yeah, yeah.
07:09Mastermind.
07:09Can I have it on...
07:11I don't think you'd slip that in.
07:14Someone's going to have to answer a lot of questions to beat that.
07:18Of course, unfortunately, Graham, you get nothing.
07:20Yes.
07:20Yeah, no.
07:21That's really unfair.
07:22You're playing it the first time and you get a huge disadvantage.
07:25Yeah.
07:26Well, you needn't have pointed it out.
07:29I'll try and find a way to make it up to you in some way by giving me a random
07:33600 points.
07:34I'll give you some examples of facts that we gave in good faith on QI.
07:38So, in the i-series, we said nobody knows how to tell the age of a lobster.
07:42Wow.
07:42Well, that was only a few years ago.
07:43Ask it.
07:45That's what you said all the time.
07:47That's right.
07:47We should have had a klaxon.
07:48Is that now right?
07:49No, it isn't now right.
07:50Now, now, now...
07:51We've made one day...
07:52I'm going to go, Graham.
07:54One, two, three, four, five, five, ten, six, nine, ten, hold, eleven, nine, ten...
08:03Everyone knows that!
08:04Yes.
08:05Um...
08:06But in the i-series, we said no-one could tell the age of lobsters, but...
08:09Since then, Canadian scientists have discovered the way you do,
08:12that if you dissect their eye stalks and count the rings, you know how old they are.
08:17What?
08:17That's not a very kind thing to do.
08:19You mean, you know how old they were?
08:21Yeah.
08:25I think that's...
08:26I still think you should ask them first.
08:31Eye stalks.
08:32Another moment, in the g-series, we said giraffes and necks may have evolved for fighting each other,
08:36which was commonly held by quite a few zoologists,
08:39but it now seems that this hypothesis is not believed.
08:41They used to like wading across deep rivers.
08:44Yes, that...
08:47Very, very deep.
08:50As the river got higher, they evolved.
08:56That might prove to be correct.
08:57It might, you see.
08:58Who am I to say it isn't?
09:00In the A-series, we said that the best-endowed millipede had 710 legs.
09:05Soon afterwards, a millipede with 750 turned up, but that's still the greatest number we know.
09:11Is there someone checking them?
09:12Yes.
09:13I like the idea of counting a millipede's legs.
09:15You'd lose...
09:16You'd have to keep going back.
09:18Yes, you would, exactly.
09:20One, two...
09:21It's the same thing.
09:22It's the same thing.
09:22Many times.
09:23It's the same thing with all these things.
09:24Before they count the legs, they kill it.
09:28It's killing them.
09:29So the legs are very still.
09:31Cut them off.
09:34One...
09:35Two...
09:37Three...
09:39It might still be alive.
09:40They might think it was dead, but then they just go, ah!
09:44Ah!
09:46Ah!
09:46You know, that's an interesting fact.
09:47That's how they, uh, it's how they make worms.
09:52Who's trying?
09:53Brilliant.
09:54Yeah, a worm would come along.
09:55Are you not doing anything with these legs?
09:57You've only counted them off the millipede.
10:00Can I have four?
10:02Only a species is born.
10:04Yeah.
10:04And that's how sausage shops are made.
10:06That's the Daxons, exactly.
10:08We've discovered a lot of new science here, none of which is likely to be disapproved,
10:12or possibly may come round again to be proved.
10:14Now, how much do you know about Scotland's Mr Smelly?
10:18Is he...
10:19Was he one of the...
10:19One of the Mr Men that was dropped?
10:22It's a wonderful quote.
10:23Erm, I'm telling you, William Smelly.
10:26Nineteenth-century gentleman.
10:27He came from a family...
10:28Billy Smelly.
10:29We know very little about him, actually, because he came from a banned Protestant sect,
10:34who were so persecuted that they didn't keep any documents about their births, deaths and marriages.
10:38I do think he was fairly persecuted at school, as well, with a name like that.
10:41Being called Smelly.
10:42I am stinky Smelly.
10:44Oh, original, thanks.
10:45But, erm, anyway, he rose from relative obscurity, and then he got paid £200 for heading up the team on
10:54something that has a thistle as its emblem,
10:56but has in its name something that means British.
10:58The...
10:58Oh, of course, the British.
11:00Yes, see it, see it.
11:01Encyclopedia Britannica.
11:02That's the right answer, the Encyclopedia Britannica.
11:04Which is...
11:04That surely worth nothing, really?
11:06Oh, great!
11:10Thank you very much.
11:11Surely it was easier to do that in the days before the internet, though?
11:15Yes.
11:16If you tried to research now, you'd get sidetracked.
11:19You'd get very sidetracked very easily.
11:22Yes, I'd just get to...
11:23I'd just get to...
11:23B for bras.
11:24Oh.
11:27It's a day lost.
11:30I hate Encyclopedia Britannica, because I had very aspirational parents, and everyone else in my class was reading Jackie magazine.
11:40Oh.
11:40And I had to read bloody Encyclopedia Britannica.
11:42It was such a symbol of that, wasn't it?
11:44Oh, my God.
11:45It's like a dictionary that sort of just won't stop.
11:47It won't.
11:48You get the word and then go, and another thing, here we go.
11:51It is discursive, that's very true.
11:53Another of its early editors was called Andrew Bell, who was four and a half feet tall,
11:57and had a very big nose, as you will see.
11:59Oh.
12:00He looks slightly like me, right?
12:01Disturbingly.
12:02I'll be honest with you, I think that's a regular-sized nose on a tiny man.
12:07He had a great sense of humour, though.
12:08If anybody pointed out or laughed at his nose, he would rush off into another room,
12:11and come back with a bigger one made of papier-mâché.
12:13I bet he could tell when Mr Smelly was coming.
12:17I'll tell you what I know about that guy.
12:19Yep.
12:19Very little.
12:20Hey!
12:23That is quite good, I had to think about that.
12:25Uh-huh.
12:25Anyway, the first edition of Encyclopedia Pretendica, it took three years to write,
12:29crossed £12 for three volumes.
12:31Three volumes?
12:31The world's knowledge?
12:32Yes, but the first volume is A to B.
12:35You obviously thought, oh, sod this.
12:38Don't A to B, I would've got one volume.
12:40Do C to Z in one volume.
12:43The deadline was looming.
12:45Yeah, exactly.
12:47The decay of facts, I presume it's all bollocks.
12:50Yeah.
12:51Exactly.
12:52That's a good test for that.
12:53What facts are in there?
12:54One is K to Kensington.
12:56See if you can come up with a good definition of Kensington.
12:59Kensington.
13:00Borough in London.
13:01A place, an area of London town.
13:04No, nowhere near.
13:05A pleasant village two miles west of London.
13:08Oh.
13:09Which is what it was then, is he?
13:11Wow.
13:12And California here is spelt with two L's, and it's called the Large Country in the West Indies.
13:17Possibly an island or a peninsula, it's not known.
13:21That's pretty well, isn't it?
13:22Well, what the...
13:23I mean, there must come a point where he went, is this...
13:25I mean, we don't know anything about this.
13:27Shall I put it in?
13:28Yes.
13:29California, it could be a place or a thing.
13:31No one knows.
13:32Might be a person.
13:33Good luck.
13:34If you look at me...
13:35What does encyclopedia mean?
13:37Is it sounds like a kiddie fiddler on a bike.
13:50There's a big trick, getting to be P-A-E and P-A-I, but paidos and paidos.
13:55It is very tricky, I grant you.
13:57You could get an idiot into trouble.
14:00That's...
14:06In that way...
14:07You know what? You're laughing.
14:10The entry for woman in the original version just says the female of man see homo
14:17He will tell you everything you need to know because he's their best friend
14:25Applause is defined as following an approbation of something signified by clapping the hands still practiced in theaters
14:33In 1960s in America called dr. Harvey Einbinder who so hated inside the Peter Britannica he wrote a book
14:39Exactly, he wrote a book where he listed all the things that were wrong in it
14:43390 pages long. Oh, I like the sound of myth of Britannica. What's his name Harvey? I'm binder
14:51Does he only have one we meet at last
14:5552
15:11You might have pronounced it. I'm binder for all
15:17William smelly was the first editor of the encyclopedia Britannica. What did the inventor of the thermometer spent 30 years
15:22measuring? I'm gonna say temperature, okay?
15:25Oh
15:35It's about nurses and thermometers
15:37It's a bit about a rectal thermometer. Go on. What is that nurse finds a rectal thermometer in a in
15:43a pocket and goes are some ourselves got my pen
15:51Oh
15:53Oh
15:53Oh
15:53Oh
15:53Oh
15:54Very fun.
15:56One very old nurse that we've said was that a nurse comes running in and says to the
16:00matron, oh dear, I think I've got something the wrong way round.
16:04You asked me to prick someone's boil.
16:07LAUGHTER
16:10Very good.
16:11I do know a quite interesting fact about thermometers.
16:13The difference between an oral and rectal thermometer.
16:17I hope you do know the difference, yeah.
16:19Taste.
16:20LAUGHTER
16:23His name was Sanctorius Sanctorius, at least that was his Latinised name.
16:27He was from Padua, and there you can see him.
16:29Right.
16:30He's weighing himself.
16:31That's a special balance he had created.
16:33Every single day he'd weigh himself, and the food he ate, and indeed the faeces and urine
16:40that he expelled, he excreted.
16:42Was that some sort of weird Weight Watchers thing?
16:44Well, what he discovered is that his urine and faeces weighed only a fraction of what he'd
16:49eaten and drunk.
16:50But despite that, he stayed the same weight, which is amazing, he thought.
16:55He thought, why is it?
16:56I put in, say, £100 of food, but I poo out only £30 of faeces.
17:03For 30 years, does it not work out that there's a fuel thing?
17:07It is easy to look back at the past generations and say, how can you not have known?
17:11But, of course, none of them knew.
17:13And really, before people like him, who's almost one of the world's first scientists,
17:17they hadn't measured and calibrated things.
17:19You're absolutely right about all of those things.
17:21Well, as right as we know.
17:22However, 30 years, I mean, really, after three years with the same...
17:27He had a theory, but his theory was wrong, that's all.
17:30His theory was that the rest came out of your skin, so it was very dangerous to cover most
17:34of your skin because you wouldn't let the poison out.
17:36He knew that faeces was poisonous, at least toxic and bad for you, with smell as a big warning,
17:41obviously.
17:41Sorry.
17:42Your faeces smell.
17:45So, palmer violence.
17:48Yeah.
17:48Timmy's making noise.
17:51They're quite unusual.
17:53They emit a totally difference.
17:56Very unusual.
17:57It's one in a million people who have noisy teeth.
18:04Very good.
18:06He co-invented with his fellow at Padua, a much better known scientist.
18:11Who would that be?
18:11In the same period.
18:13Co-invented?
18:14Da Vinci.
18:14It's co-inventor.
18:15Not Da Vinci, no.
18:16Is he going to be Mark Coney?
18:18Centigrade or...?
18:19Galileo.
18:20Galileo.
18:21Galileo is the right answer.
18:22Oh, I nearly said Galileo!
18:27I was going to say Scaramucci or Fandango.
18:31Galileo, Galilei.
18:32He could do the Fandango!
18:34Yes.
18:35You could, darling.
18:36That's right.
18:36Eh...
18:38A placement of truth.
18:38Something brought to be Cargate.
18:40Strange.
18:41потреб fik I thank you.
18:43What You do, his poo sounds like.
18:46Go on and loose, go on and loose.
18:48All right?
18:48Are you all right in there, Jimmy?
18:51Look around a minute, reading a very interesting article.
18:54His puissance is made up is 70% liquid.
19:01It just takes a bit of separating out, not that I would urge you to do it when you get
19:05home.
19:05When they get home, why wait?
19:08I don't have the same refuse in my dressing room.
19:12Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
19:13Of that dry weight, 30% is what?
19:19All on the coal.
19:23More than 30%.
19:29Do you know, when they go into space in a weightless environment, they poo into the wall?
19:34What do you mean, into the wall, like in a hole in the wall?
19:36A hole in the wall, yeah.
19:37Sorry, on the space station, I just hear it on the wall.
19:41It turns out the best way to relieve yourself in a weightless environment is through a hole in the wall.
19:47It's easier to do that than to go down or up.
19:50I do that with the shower.
19:52You've admitted it, but many people wouldn't.
19:54Who doesn't poo in the shower?
19:55Oh, poo!
19:58A big bad man.
20:00That's what he does.
20:02Everyone would know if Jimmy pooed it.
20:04You'd be the good boy of the classes.
20:06So the space station is built with a little glory hole thing.
20:11I wouldn't call it that.
20:12You're too much slightly in the know.
20:14Didn't know what that is.
20:15Like in a welcome break services.
20:16We all know what that is.
20:18On the second junction.
20:20What?
20:21What's your problem?
20:22Everyone knows that.
20:23Never on a Tuesday.
20:26It's a glory hole on a space.
20:32There's also about three people on the station at any one time.
20:36You know, by a process of elimination, it's only going to be one of two other people.
20:41That's true.
20:42This is John.
20:43He's had a lane.
20:45You'd recognise him.
20:46I just thought that was the fourth one.
20:48And that was their role in the mission.
20:51I mean, if you're going to Mars, it's going to take five years.
20:55I'm sorry, Dave.
20:56Your job is a very important job.
20:58To go in this room with a hole in a wall.
21:02And people guess your name.
21:05No, but the other thing that happens when you go to space is you don't snore, I believe.
21:09Do you know this?
21:10I didn't.
21:10That's a beautiful little fact so far.
21:12As you sleep in these...
21:14Well, because there's no gravity, it doesn't affect your voltage.
21:17That must be...
21:18That's an extreme cure.
21:19I'm going to try the little things first.
21:22That's the next step.
21:24It's quite expensive to go to space in Galactic.
21:25After watching this going, yep, it's going to have to be space.
21:29Even then, I think he might wake me.
21:33Anyway, what can you find out by hiding under a student's bed?
21:40I've got to go for this.
21:41Is it a massive pile of porn mags?
21:44That's probably true.
21:45No, I think it's highly...
21:48I think now you've got the internet.
21:49I'm afraid, yeah, you wouldn't really.
21:50Broadband are doing a terrific job.
21:53Terrific.
21:53I think that's a bit sad, though, in a way.
21:56It's not, yeah.
21:56For mags.
21:57Not for men.
21:58They don't look personal.
22:00Yeah, they did this in the 1930s.
22:03It was extremely unethical, but we're in pursuit of knowledge,
22:05which is our thing today.
22:06Oh, so they were researching.
22:07They were researching.
22:08And the only way to find out what people are saying
22:11without knowing they're being overheard
22:13was to hide somewhere and take notes while they were talking.
22:17And they wanted to know what sort of thing students spoke about.
22:19So they used to hide underneath the beds?
22:21Yeah, and take notes.
22:22It sounds to me, Stephen, I don't want to, you know,
22:24throw stones at these lovely scientists,
22:25but it sounds to me like a cover story.
22:27You wait.
22:28You wait till I get to some other unethical scientists.
22:30You hold that back, because it gets worse.
22:32Well, tell me more.
22:32We're on the subject of unethical research.
22:34And basically this is the only way you can have of being sure
22:37that you know what people are talking about with absolute clarity,
22:40because people change what they say when they know someone's listening,
22:43someone outside their circle.
22:44But the idea was to discover what the main subject was
22:47that people spoke about.
22:48They just thought, they'll never look under the bed.
22:51Why would you look under a bed?
22:53There's nothing interesting down there.
22:56Well, where they could overhear them.
22:57And they discovered that 40% of their conversation was devoted to.
23:00The opposite sex.
23:01No, it wasn't. It was themselves.
23:03It was a study in egocentricity.
23:05They spoke about themselves.
23:06I would never do that.
23:09Any car would never let that happen.
23:11No, don't.
23:11That's the worst thing in the world you can do.
23:13So, the other dodgy experiments.
23:15There was a personal space invasion in the men's restroom,
23:18a study of 1976.
23:20Someone hit a camera under the partition,
23:23under the sort of floor space.
23:24Someone, Stephen. Someone.
23:28You seem to know a lot about this, Stephen.
23:31I've got a couple of questions.
23:33You like technology, don't you?
23:36And there's a camera in the men's room.
23:38Oh, I'm just doing a study.
23:40If are you.
23:41It was...
23:41Apologise, Stephen.
23:43It was to see how they filled space.
23:46When, if there was one person that, say, the third one in a row of six,
23:49where would the average person go?
23:50Would it be as far away apart?
23:52Would that look too obvious?
23:53Excellent.
23:53It's very interesting when you go in there,
23:55because I used to be, and I don't have it anymore,
23:56I don't know why it's gone, but I used to be quite a shy peer.
23:59You aware of shy peeing as a thing?
24:01Oh, I have a technique for that.
24:02What's your technique for shy peeing?
24:03My technique for shy peeing is,
24:05I think of the most embarrassing thing I can do.
24:08I just think of doing something like saying,
24:10I think I love you, or just something like that,
24:15and then, it's all go.
24:17When you say I love you, you automatically pee.
24:20Have a little wee.
24:21I don't need to say it, I just need to think.
24:23Oh.
24:24And I always have to imagine it very, very realistically.
24:27I imagine the guy going, what did he really say?
24:31And then the next thing, it's just, you know,
24:33no longer a problem.
24:35It is very maddening when you've been absolutely bursting to go,
24:37and then, hello.
24:38Come on!
24:39Come on!
24:40I find men's room.
24:41There's a story about Bono going into a men's room,
24:44and standing up there, and the guy standing beside him,
24:47and long silence, and then eventually the guy saying,
24:50bit of stage fright, Bono!
24:56And in 1942, and this is the one where you're going to go,
24:59yeah, right, a psychologist called Laurence LeChan,
25:02tried to use sleep learning at a summer camp
25:05to cure some boys of nail-biting.
25:08What?
25:08He recorded the phrase,
25:10my fingernails are terribly bitter, on a phonograph,
25:13and then played it 300 times a night in the boys' tent or room,
25:16or whatever it was.
25:16And they all went on to kill and kill again.
25:19One boy appeared to respond positively,
25:21but then, after five weeks, the phonograph broke.
25:24So, to keep the experiment running,
25:27he stood in the boys' dormitory through the night
25:30and repeated the phrase himself,
25:32my fingernails taste terribly bitter.
25:35This seemed to work, and he claimed it as a success.
25:38It's thought generally these days that the boys were awake
25:39and just freaked out by the experience.
25:41They stopped biting their nails to make the nasty man go away.
25:45It's all very peculiar.
25:46Anyway, moving on.
25:48How did the Romans tell their Keiths from their Kevins?
25:53Keith and Kevins there, in case you don't know what they are.
25:55Kevin Bacon.
25:56Kevin Keegan.
25:58Kevin Keegan.
25:58Keith Lemon.
25:59Well done, that's enough.
26:00That's all. You won't get any more.
26:02The other ones don't look real.
26:03No, they don't.
26:04I think they're the actual Romans.
26:05I think on the far left, that's Burger King, isn't it?
26:10They couldn't.
26:11Because in Latin, they both mean the same.
26:14No, it's not that.
26:15It doesn't have to be Keith from Kevins.
26:17It means how did Romans know people's names?
26:19How did they know people's names?
26:20Yeah.
26:21Because we all forget them.
26:22Do they remember them?
26:22No, that's the point.
26:24They'd forgotten.
26:25Badge. They had a badge.
26:26No.
26:27You have a special servant.
26:28A servant to say your name?
26:30A nomenclator.
26:31No, not to say your name.
26:34I'm assuming you'll remember your own name.
26:36This is the answer.
26:38The point is when you forget other people's.
26:40So you come in and the person whispers, Alan Davis.
26:42You go, Alan, how lovely to see you.
26:43Because otherwise you've forgotten.
26:45That's the point.
26:45Like a politician.
26:46It's very useful.
26:47It's absolutely right.
26:48I have a technique for names.
26:50Yeah?
26:51If I've forgotten someone's name, I just say,
26:53excuse me for a second, and then I go home.
26:56LAUGHTER
26:58LAUGHTER
27:00LAUGHTER
27:00Yes, happy parents.
27:04You're the nomenclator.
27:06Yes.
27:07And you keep saying, this is Steve.
27:10Yeah.
27:10This is Fiona.
27:11Stevious.
27:11After I go, I know, I know that one.
27:13Yes.
27:14You're allowed to tell them.
27:15How many of the ones I don't know?
27:16She now thinks I've forgotten her name.
27:19LAUGHTER
27:19And I just really thought I was in there.
27:23You've just gone, it's Fiona.
27:24That's as if I didn't know it was...
27:26Look at her face now!
27:28LAUGHTER
27:28He's going to go over there and say,
27:29he knew...
27:30I was just doing my job.
27:31He wants you to know that he knew you were Fiona.
27:33Plus, this is your wife, Susan.
27:36LAUGHTER
27:36You've been married 15 years.
27:38I actually do have a system involving my wife,
27:40which is we go over to someone whose name I don't know,
27:43and I just stand there in total silence,
27:46and then eventually my wife says,
27:47I'm sorry, my name's Helen.
27:48And the guy says,
27:49oh, I'm Gary.
27:50And I go, I'm sorry, this is Gary.
27:52Should I...
27:53I didn't introduce you?
27:53I thought I...
27:54Yeah.
27:55Just as soon as they say it,
27:57you go...
27:57Is that a system, per se?
28:01LAUGHTER
28:01That sounds like you being awkward at our party.
28:04LAUGHTER
28:05So, moving on to self-knowledge.
28:07How do you know when you've had enough?
28:10Someone always tells me.
28:12LAUGHTER
28:13It's really...
28:14It's a tap on the shoulder, isn't it?
28:16Yeah.
28:16I think, Jimmy...
28:18It's the cold steel round both wrists.
28:20LAUGHTER
28:22And the clanging of the door.
28:24And the one phone call.
28:26LAUGHTER
28:27I've had enough.
28:30LAUGHTER
28:30Who am I speaking to?
28:33LAUGHTER
28:35LAUGHTER
28:35LAUGHTER
28:36Oh, dear.
28:38Are we talking food here?
28:40We are talking food, yeah.
28:42Um...
28:42I...
28:42I don't really.
28:44LAUGHTER
28:44No, the fact is that this...
28:46This is about knowledge.
28:47And it's, um...
28:48You think you're full...
28:49As it were, you know you've had enough,
28:51which is obviously not knowledge, it's memory.
28:53You can test this on people's short-term memory loss.
28:56I... I mean, amnesiacs,
28:57who immediately forget what's just happened.
28:59And...
28:59I'm sorry, what were you saying?
29:01LAUGHTER
29:01Exactly.
29:02Thank you very much.
29:03So, there are people who have this condition.
29:05They forget that they've eaten,
29:08uh, say, 20 minutes, half an hour afterwards,
29:09and you ask them if they'd like to eat,
29:11and they will eat three or four heavy meals,
29:13when they're obviously completely stuffed,
29:15because they don't remember eating.
29:17That sounds great.
29:17They literally don't remember it.
29:18And there's a trick you can do with a bowl of thick soup,
29:21which has got a clever little mechanism on it,
29:23so that, while people aren't looking,
29:25it fills itself up again,
29:26or empties itself ahead of time.
29:28So, people think they've had the full bowl of soup
29:30when they've actually had less,
29:32or they've actually had a lot more.
29:33I've got a similar device for desserts,
29:36which is...
29:36it's my girlfriend.
29:38She won't order one, but I'll order one,
29:40and then it just goes missing.
29:42LAUGHTER
29:43It works for chips as well.
29:44Very good.
29:46She hasn't had a dessert in ten years.
29:48No.
29:49I've had enough half-desserts.
29:51Anyway, that's enough about that sort of thing.
29:54Diet.
29:54We feel for, after a meal,
29:56not just because we are,
29:58but because we think we are.
29:59A question about kiss and kin, now.
30:01What's the best way of avoiding talking to your mother-in-law?
30:06Yes, Karen?
30:07Removing her vocal cords.
30:10LAUGHTER
30:10With some flyers.
30:12That's the best way of avoiding her talking to you.
30:14That's...
30:15What, lean in for the kiss?
30:17Oh!
30:18Oddly enough,
30:19you're in the right hideous area.
30:21Really?
30:21Charles' hair is being stealthily removed
30:24from his head.
30:26Like Camilla's hair-grabbing,
30:27hair-eating hat.
30:31And she's operating it slyly with her hand.
30:36And her hair is being sucked into that hat.
30:39She's looking down at the towel.
30:41And how devours it.
30:43Like, if you don't like your mother-in-law,
30:45what hope is there for you?
30:47I view the mother-in-law as its Christmas future.
30:50Yes, that's true.
30:51If you don't like your mother-in-law,
30:52you're in all kinds of trouble
30:54twenty years down the line.
30:55That's...
30:55that's what you're running into.
30:56Yeah.
30:56My mother-in-law makes
30:59absolutely no sound when she moves.
31:02LAUGHTER
31:04It's remarkable.
31:05Like Jeeves.
31:07She is the stealthiest person.
31:09You've got a stealth mother-in-law.
31:11Honestly?
31:11She sprayed glass.
31:13She could be a brilliant spy, you know.
31:16She might be in a room and you're looking at a thing or something
31:19and then suddenly she goes,
31:20Hello, Paul!
31:22What?
31:23Come from?
31:23Where did you come from?
31:25It's a long way from the door.
31:27Anybody would have got him.
31:28Made a little noise.
31:30Nothing.
31:30Oh, that's terrible.
31:32It's like the famous story of the boy who was,
31:34you know, having a play with himself in his bedroom.
31:36And his eyes closed.
31:37By the way, I was not doing...
31:39I was not playing the story.
31:40No, no, no.
31:41But it does...
31:42Before you conflate the...
31:43No, that's true.
31:44What was that story on that thing where Anandas and his brother in that?
31:47LAUGHTER
31:49Let's just separate those two things.
31:51Right, of course.
31:52But he closes his eyes in bliss and when he opens them afterwards
31:55he just finds a cup of tea next to him.
32:00LAUGHTER
32:00Is that so horrible?
32:01It's not.
32:02Well, your father always likes a cup of tea after.
32:06LAUGHTER
32:07And the biscuit.
32:10LAUGHTER
32:10Oh!
32:11Oh, for gracious.
32:13Oh.
32:14Great.
32:14Because Les...
32:15Les Dawson gets a hard time for mother-in-law jokes.
32:18They are the best mother-in-law jokes.
32:20Remind us of some, then.
32:21Well, I...
32:22Copyright Les Dawson.
32:23A copyright Les Dawson was the...
32:24Walking down the street with my wife.
32:26I saw my mother-in-law, she was being beaten up by six men.
32:29And my wife said,
32:30Aren't you going to help?
32:31I said, six should be enough.
32:32LAUGHTER
32:33LAUGHTER
32:33It is.
32:36It is.
32:37It is.
32:39It is.
32:39It is.
32:40It is.
32:41When I was growing up, when I was sort of starting a comedy,
32:43it was like, he was like,
32:44oh, yeah, he just tells mother-in-law jokes.
32:45I know, he was ground on them.
32:46He was sort of a genius.
32:47He was a complete genius.
32:48He was a genius.
32:48The mother-in-law came around.
32:50Yeah.
32:50The mice were throwing themselves on the traps.
32:54LAUGHTER
33:02And also, that piano-playing act is one of the greatest things...
33:05Oh, his piano-playing act.
33:06Which is very difficult to do.
33:07Yeah, so I believe that.
33:08It wasn't really quite good.
33:08He'd do the blue down.
33:09He'd do the blue down.
33:11He'd do the blue down.
33:11He'd do the blue down.
33:12He'd do the blue down.
33:13Enough.
33:13We haven't even begun to answer this question yet.
33:15It's about sexual taboos with mother-in-law, which you kind of...
33:18Sexual taboos with mother-in-law?
33:19...sort of taboos.
33:19And there's this particular language where you have a special language...
33:23...in which to speak to your mother-in-law.
33:24It's called an avoidance language.
33:26Oh.
33:27So you have your own...
33:28The natural language.
33:29I think we've got one of those, haven't we?
33:30It's called small talk.
33:31But that's...
33:31Yeah.
33:32It has a different vocabulary.
33:33It's absolutely different.
33:34So a whole language where you can talk to your mother-in-law is just safe subjects.
33:38Yeah.
33:38You also have to avert the eyes and look at the ground, which is part of using that language.
33:41And there are certain words that don't exist in that language.
33:44Most notably things like pubic hair and sweaty smells.
33:47Because there is taboo and a sense of respect that is given by the male to the mother of his
33:51wife.
33:53It's in Australia.
33:54There's some Aboriginal peoples who have these avoidance languages.
33:58And it's really fascinating, isn't it?
34:00I mean, in Japan they have a special language when talking about the royal family, for example.
34:03Is there a phrase for, you've spilt the Tippex?
34:09Someone needs to address that.
34:10You're so bad.
34:12You're so bad.
34:12Now, what did this bird bring to the German city of Klutz?
34:18Chlamydia.
34:19Chlamydia?
34:21Chlamydia stork?
34:23That sounds like a desperate man back from a business trip in Holland going,
34:27Ah, ah, the thing is storks.
34:31Is that a particular, like a giant stork?
34:34I'll show you a picture of it. It's been stuffed and is in a museum.
34:37How big is it really then?
34:39Well, it's hard to sell the scale, but storks are quite big, but that's an arrow through it, or spear
34:43rather.
34:44They call it an arrow in German, which is pfeil, and it's known as the pfeilstork, which is just literally
34:49arrow stalk.
34:50Now, you may say, what's odd about that? Nothing particular.
34:53But what they recognised was that the arrow was not German.
34:58Indeed, it was not even European.
35:00But they recognised straight away that it was African.
35:03What on earth would a bird be doing with an African spear in its neck?
35:07They thought.
35:07My God.
35:08So they puzzled out the possibility that birds, rather than disappearing at winter...
35:13Oh, went to Africa.
35:14Yes.
35:15Are you saying it flew back with that?
35:17Yes.
35:18It survived.
35:19No way.
35:20I mean, no way.
35:22It flew to Germany going, well, I'm never going back there.
35:28Worst holiday ever.
35:30That's right.
35:34I can't point out with the survival of that bird, I find extraordinary.
35:37It is, but you hear stories of bullets piercing people's heads without somehow managing to...
35:42No, narrow, tracking the length of its neck through its head.
35:45It somehow managed to...
35:46I know, it is astounding that it flew.
35:48During the...
35:48Something's different.
35:50Yeah.
35:51Do you think it was originally from Germany, or it got kind of...
35:53It was from England, and somehow, whoa, we're going right a bit.
35:57It might have slightly tilted to the right.
35:59We don't know.
35:59It was in 1820.
36:00In the Spanish Inquisition, they used to put people on spikes.
36:03They put the spike up your bum hole.
36:05Oh, don't.
36:06And right up through you, and it would come out your shoulder, and it would miss all the
36:11vital organs, and you'd be alive.
36:12That's not nice.
36:13And then they'd put you out...
36:14But you would...
36:15I'm beginning really to think less and less of the Spanish Inquisition, as well.
36:19350 years it went on.
36:21I thought it was, you know...
36:22Oh, no.
36:23A couple of weeks.
36:24A couple of weeks.
36:24It was...
36:26Then it was safe to go back.
36:28Back to Marbella.
36:31It wasn't always as torturous as it was.
36:33They did some terrible things.
36:34They did it, but not for 300 years solid.
36:36When it wasn't torturous, what would they do?
36:38Well, they would test your faith, but they wouldn't punish you by...
36:41There was a lot of tickling.
36:43It was a hundred years before it was mainly Chinese burns.
36:46They would go, you do believe in God.
36:48Yes, you do.
36:49Yes, you do.
36:51Yes, you bloody do.
36:52Anyway, until that time, people had observed birds disappearing, and they had assumed all
36:56kinds of things.
36:57That they went under water, that, you know, they changed into other animals.
37:00I mean, but there was no particular evidence, anyway, except they disappeared.
37:031820.
37:04This was the first kind of clear evidence, as it were, that the bird had been to Africa.
37:08And so things began to get put together.
37:10Samuel Johnson wrote that swallows certainly sleep in the winter.
37:14A number of them can globulate together by flying round and round, and then all in
37:18a heap throw themselves under water, and lie on the bed of the river.
37:21Well, that's what he thought, because they'd swallows disappear in the winter, and he assumed
37:24they hibernated, like other animals.
37:26And butterflies, of course.
37:27They migrate thousands of miles, but we never see them.
37:29Why don't we see butterflies migrate?
37:31They're invisible.
37:33Because they're caterpillars, they migrate as caterpillars.
37:37They migrate like super, super slowly.
37:39It's a long time together.
37:40Yeah, they're very, very hungry.
37:42I read a book about it.
37:43And the reason is that they are actually a kilometre up.
37:46They're incredibly high.
37:47Oh, eh?
37:47Yeah.
37:48It's really astonishing.
37:49These fragile, delicate creatures manage to get the height, and then when they're in
37:53there to orient themselves in such a way that they know they're all facing the right
37:57direction, and get thousands of miles.
38:00They're all going like, whoa!
38:00Oh!
38:03It is astonishing, isn't it?
38:04Genuinely incredible.
38:05Well, I remember being on the school bus once, there was a beautiful butterfly on it,
38:08sort of fluttering around, trying to get out, and they caught it in my hands.
38:11I went, go free, and I let it out the window, and a bird swooped.
38:15Oh, no!
38:16That's a metaphor for life.
38:18It is, isn't it?
38:19Completely exact.
38:20Now, get this right, and you can have your weight in points.
38:24Ooh!
38:24I'd like you to add these numbers up.
38:25Look at the screen.
38:26Add up the numbers.
38:27Hang on, hang on.
38:2810.
38:29Oh.
38:30Oh.
38:31Silly.
38:32999.
38:34Nope.
38:35431.
38:36No.
38:37I'll let you have, which the winner of this competition did not have, the opportunity to
38:41see it again.
38:42All right?
38:42Yeah, it's a two-second burst.
38:45Add that up.
38:46Oh, it was about, about eight, eight, nine, seven.
38:49No.
38:50I mean, it would be astonishing if you got it, but in Japan, where else, they have this,
38:53it's called Flash Anza.
38:54And actually, the world record holder had a shorter time than that.
38:57You have to correctly add 15 three-digit numbers, and he did it in 1.7 seconds.
39:04Now, there's a particular reason Japanese people are very good at this.
39:06I think I know the reason.
39:07Yes.
39:07It's in Malcolm Gladwell's book.
39:08It's because of how they process, how the language processes numbers.
39:12There is a strange thing in Chinese and Japanese, in both languages, with the number,
39:17if you say the numbers together, it automatically adds them up, sort of linguistically.
39:21Yes, but there's a really interesting addition to that, which is that what they're doing,
39:25and you could, their fingers are the giveaway.
39:26They do this.
39:27What do you think that is?
39:29That.
39:30That is a living one of those.
39:31I don't know!
39:34There's no one.
39:37I learn a life song.
39:38Aww.
39:40Oh, it's a savant.
39:42Oh, it's a...
39:43...ah 읽 of those.
39:45I read that book, and didn't there...
39:48Matt's Malcolm Gladwell book called as outliers. Oh, yeah, but the thing about it is they use fewer syllables in
39:55Numbers so that they have a great act that might be up more quickly as children that might help them
40:02and the answer is instead
40:04It was
40:051966
40:06But the secret actually is in the Chinese Japanese abacus are they actually doing the action of the abacus?
40:13I'm the more amazing thing perhaps is that at the same time they can have a conversation with someone
40:19Because it's another part of the brain that's being engaged and they'll say the answer
40:23But they won't remember a single one of the numbers they added up
40:26And actually I thought about this is just crazy
40:29But I'm gonna compose a friend who came on to my house and I had a I'm have a full
40:32orchestral score of Don Giovanni
40:33The piano and he yes, don't
40:41Anyway, you've just opened it like that and he started playing it at sight reading it like that on the
40:45pen and
40:47And we're talking to me about it. It's a dissipate when it does that and they suddenly took apart what
40:50he was doing
40:51It's not written out as a piano score. It's written out as violins oboes flutes
40:55Corong late, which you have to transpose in your head while you're doing it
40:59Because it's written in a different key from the rest of everything else
41:00So he's doing that and playing a beautiful transcription of an organ and talking to me all the people that
41:06do that. They're slightly magic
41:07Yeah, and that's a spell they're saying yeah, yep
41:10I know conductors train musicians 10,000 hours 10,000 hours. That's it the Beatles Mozart all of them as
41:19we know we think it's a very convincing them
41:21I've done 10,000 hours of this
41:24Very
41:31Which brings me to some very complicated adding up of my own as a matter of fact
41:35Oh my gracious goodness heavens
41:37The scores are unusual because arm we have of course been giving scores to make up for our errors on
41:44account of the half-life of facts
41:46So in last place, I'm afraid it's a magnificent for a first appearance minus 19 grand
41:51No, none
41:57In fourth place with 23.24. It's the audience
42:10Yes
42:17I'm so sorry and in third place with plus thirty three point five eight is Jimmy Carr
42:29In second place with plus eighty five point seven three Joe Brand
42:39And today's out and out winner with six hundred and eighty nine point six six is Alan Davis
42:57And so it's thank you and good night from Graham, Jimmy, Joe, Alan and me. Be useful and lovely to
43:03yourselves. Good night
43:03Good night
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