- 12 minutes ago
First broadcast 5th December 2014.
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
Sue Perkins
Ross Noble
Kathy Lette
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
Sue Perkins
Ross Noble
Kathy Lette
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:04Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to QI, where this week we're looking at ladies and gentlemen, and we have a pair
00:16of each.
00:16A decorous Cathilette, a disc and gay Sue Perkins, a dashing Ross Noble, and a adorable Alan David.
00:51So let's listen to the ladies.
00:54Cathy goes three times a lady.
00:59Aww.
01:00That's Lionel.
01:01That was two old ones.
01:02He's also libelous.
01:03Yeah, I like this.
01:05Sue goes.
01:06Oh yes, it's ladies.
01:08Oh yes, it's ladies.
01:12And lo, the gentleman.
01:14Ross goes.
01:14I'm a man, I spell M, A, N.
01:28Good blues harping.
01:30Oh no, that was me adjusting me dentures.
01:31Alright.
01:33And Alan goes.
01:35Boys and girls come out to bed, the moon is shining its brightest day.
01:42Aww, that's sweet.
01:43Now don't forget our L series, Spend a Penny Joker.
01:53So, if you play your Joker because you think that the answer to the question is something to do with
01:58the lavatory, you'll get extra points.
02:00Right, now.
02:01Ladies first.
02:03Smoothie.
02:04Oh.
02:05Why shouldn't you have the vote?
02:08That was very shy, wasn't it?
02:11Finally your true colours.
02:13We'll find out the size of your election.
02:15No.
02:16Are you talking about, are you talking about in suffragette days, what they do?
02:20Yes.
02:20I don't care.
02:21What were the reasons advanced for women not being given the vote?
02:24Well, I mean, it's unnecessary, isn't it?
02:26I imagine it was the aristocracy that were the most, er, fervently against.
02:31Oddly enough, in the days of the suffragette movement, possibly, you could argue, it was socialists who had the most
02:36objection, because the suffragette movement only asked for votes for property-only women.
02:43And the socialists regarded that as deeply wrong, because they said, well, that would just stuff parliament with even more
02:49bourgeoisie.
02:50Yeah, we wouldn't want that.
02:51Yeah.
02:51And in fact, a lot of the enemies of the votes for women were...
02:56Were women.
02:57Were women, exactly.
02:59There you are.
03:00These are the women against it.
03:01And they didn't want to...
03:02That's the one behind going.
03:05I'm not...
03:06I'm late!
03:06I'm late!
03:07But we look watery!
03:09The woman has a hammer, which is, I'm obviously trying to suggest...
03:13But there was sort of the Stockholm Syndrome, wasn't it?
03:15That they were, they were brainwashed, they'd been brought up to be decorative and demure.
03:19Yeah.
03:19And they had this idea they had to be home looking after the children and being domesticated and doing the
03:23home cooking.
03:24Home cooking, that place where a husband thinks his wife is.
03:27Yes.
03:28So, and also I think they were, the women who thought that way, obviously they were also a bit brain
03:32-dead because of the corsetry.
03:33Their corsets were so tight, it had cut off all circulation to the brain.
03:38Do you know where Constance Wilde, Oscar Wilde's wife, comes into this?
03:42No.
03:42She was a very, very leading figure in a movement which was a precursor to votes for women.
03:47Yes.
03:47Which was called the Rational Dress Society.
03:50Oh, yes!
03:50Oh, why?
03:51Because women in Victorian eras, as you rightly say, were corseted to within an inch of their life.
03:55They were barely green.
03:55And they wanted to loose it out.
03:56And that's why they would faint so often, in hot dinners and parties and things, balls.
04:00But, but what you could do is, as the blood was cut off, you could turn them upside down.
04:05It would rush their legs and you could have a lovely egg.
04:08Yeah.
04:10The three minute lady.
04:11Yeah.
04:12And Constance Lloyd then, wild as she was, very intelligent, splendid woman.
04:16She was one of the first to say, well, we should wear a rational dress, you know.
04:19Straight, loose clothing that doesn't constrict us.
04:22And that kind of was symbolic of a wider constriction that existed in society in terms of what they were
04:27allowed to do.
04:28And it was a self-fulfilling prophecy because women were not in engineering, were not in politics, were not in
04:33anything involving the colonial system.
04:35And therefore it was said, well, they know nothing about politics, they know nothing about, therefore they shouldn't vote.
04:41But it's because they weren't.
04:42There should have been something, when she sort of, you know, brought this up as a thing, rational dress.
04:47She should have gone, but in the future, leggings must be approached with caution.
04:53Because there's certain people who I think, if you're not fighting crime, no thanks to the Spanish.
05:00Oh, look at Spanx. Spanx are back-like corsets, aren't they?
05:05Spanx are lifesavers, they just move it around.
05:08What's a Spanx?
05:08It's basically an anatomy roulette, it's like put them on, who knows where it'll end up.
05:12What is a Spanx?
05:13They're these tight pants that some women wear to hold all their little bits of flesh in.
05:18But I mean, honestly, they're contraceptive, because once you get them on, you can never get them off again.
05:22But the best thing about Spanxes is if you go to a wedding, and at the start of the night
05:26there's these loads of women just looking amazing.
05:28Then they get a few drinks in them, have a bit of a dance, and then just boobs start appearing.
05:34And they go, have you got leg boobs?
05:37I didn't know you could have leg boobs.
05:38It doesn't move.
05:39It just, whoop, there's one.
05:41And then you, I've got a side boob.
05:43And then push that, and boom, right there.
05:45Look at that.
05:46My shoulder tube.
05:48So what is it?
05:49Is this like a body tube?
05:51Yes.
05:51Wow.
05:52So anyway, just to sort of sum up what's happening here.
05:58Are you referring to what's happening in my Spanx right now?
06:02The true suffrage movement was divided against itself.
06:04There was the suffragists who followed the Liberal Party, and then there were the suffragettes, as you can see there.
06:10This is Pankhurst being the most famous.
06:12And they believed in smashing windows, chaining themselves to railings, and in the worst possible case, Emily Davidson, we don't
06:18know whether that was deliberate or not, throwing herself in front of the king's horse and dying.
06:21It looked pretty deliberate.
06:22I don't suppose she intended to die.
06:23Well, I don't think she intended to die.
06:25I think she intended to stop the horse.
06:26The saddest thing, at the British Library, they've got her purse, and in her purse is a return ticket.
06:32Yeah, it's a return ticket.
06:32Was she just being female and thinking, oh, it's cheaper to get the return ticket?
06:38I don't know if this is true, but pre-suffrage, would women have been seen as sort of goods and
06:42chattels?
06:43So if they did something wrong, then would the husband be liable?
06:48What a fabulously good idea.
06:49No, no.
06:50Speaking as criminal stock, you know.
06:52They'd just be burned.
06:53Well, burned, that's going a long way back.
06:55They would be burned or ducked.
06:57That's going a very, very long way back.
06:58Or tried as a witch or something like that.
06:59But actually, Stephen, I don't think, it's amazing women got the vote.
07:02It's amazing they actually went out to protest, because women weren't supposed to go out without a chaperone.
07:06If you did, you were seen as a prostitute.
07:08We're a couple of slappers just for being here.
07:10I suppose the most amazing thing is those women who existed before the vote, who managed to achieve things.
07:15I mean, the trouble is you could name them almost on the fingers of a pair of hands.
07:19The women who managed to break through what was not a glass ceiling, but basically a rock ceiling.
07:23Yeah.
07:24And they had crazy ideas.
07:26See, there was one professor who said that women shouldn't be educated and shouldn't vote, because it would mean their
07:32brains would grow.
07:33And if their brains grew, their wombs would shrink.
07:36And they wouldn't be able to give birth.
07:37And he based that evidence on the fact that women who were educated didn't have children.
07:40Yeah.
07:41Mainly because we were smart enough to know that, you know, our careers would end.
07:44He clearly didn't foresee the Katie Price scenario then.
07:48Well, we seem to cover that very well.
07:50The fact is, strange as it seems to us today, many women were against votes for women.
07:56When did women first get the vote in Britain?
07:59Do you know?
07:59Either of you?
08:00Either side?
08:011921.
08:011921.
08:031921.
08:031921.
08:031922.
08:0420, I think.
08:0520.
08:06Oh, the 20s generally.
08:08I'm very good for Claxton.
08:10Oh dear.
08:11Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
08:12It's actually rather surprising.
08:14You may think, of course, they were enfranchised more or less by the 1920s after the contribution
08:22they clearly gave to the First World War.
08:24It was no longer possible to doubt that they had earned the right.
08:26But the first was in 1867.
08:29The first woman to vote, so far as we know in the entire United Kingdom, was one Lily Maxwell
08:34in Manchester and she was a ratepayer and the law then was that ratepayers were allowed
08:39to vote and it never occurred to the Good Burgers of Manchester that a female ratepayer would
08:45take it up and vote because there just wasn't a rule.
08:48It's like saying rabbits cannot vote.
08:50If a rabbit turned up and voted, you'd have to say, oh, God, there's no law that says rabbits
08:54can't vote.
08:55That's what it was like to the Victorians.
08:56They closed that loophole very quickly but a few women snuck in under the wire and voted.
09:021867.
09:03So when did the law that prohibited women from doing that come in?
09:06So very shortly afterwards?
09:08It was the following year, 1868.
09:10God, that is quick.
09:11They really stand out.
09:12Oh, yeah.
09:13And they burn them.
09:14Yeah.
09:17Get on the pyre.
09:18Is that fellow there in the blue shirt, is he wearing a false beard by the time?
09:22You can see the stats there.
09:24Yes!
09:25That's a woman.
09:26He's there going, yeah, yeah, now you can have the vote there.
09:31Don't tell anyone, have a woman under here.
09:34It must be a woman because he's got a box of chocolates next to her.
09:38We can't go to the polling station without a contraction leader.
09:42Absolutely.
09:43Who said this?
09:44Nothing would induce me to vote for giving women the franchise.
09:49Said in 1905.
09:50I bet it's a woman.
09:51Election, Valerie.
09:52Who?
09:52Churchill.
09:53Is the right answer.
09:54Oh!
09:55Yeah.
09:55I mean, great show.
10:02Yeah, he did say that.
10:03He was not, let's face it, the most liberal and progressive man when it came to empire and
10:07things like that.
10:08Marvelous as he was in all kinds of ways.
10:09So the we will fight him on the beaches was originally something he said about women.
10:12And he just modified women.
10:13We'll fight him on the bitches.
10:14We'll fight him on the bitches.
10:15Yeah.
10:17Supposedly he did not say golf is a good walk spoiled.
10:21That was somebody else.
10:21Mark Twain?
10:22I've always heard that.
10:23Apparently not Mark Twain either.
10:25It's usually, it's what's known as Churchillian drift.
10:27It's all these witty remarks get attributed to people like Churchill No Coward, Oscar Wilde,
10:33Mark Twain.
10:33Steve Fry.
10:34Marilyn Monroe.
10:35George Bernard Shaw.
10:36Yeah.
10:37But it's always, it's always like the, it's always the real highfalutin ones, isn't it?
10:41The real amazing bits of wit that then get attributed to somebody else.
10:45It's never like cannon and ball, is it?
10:47No.
10:48I think it was Churchill that once said, oh Tommy, you've got me skin.
10:54I've got me eye on you.
10:56You've got me eye on you.
10:57You've got me skin, Tommy.
10:58Rock on.
10:59Right.
10:59I believe that was Churchill, wasn't it?
11:02I believe it was.
11:03So there you are.
11:05Now, I've got some little toys for you to play with.
11:07What would you use them for?
11:08Oh, hello.
11:11Even though the blue one.
11:15Well.
11:16Hello?
11:17Hello?
11:18Hello?
11:19It's a salami.
11:21Ah.
11:22You press the button.
11:24That's a very good start.
11:25It's the world's worst rape alarm.
11:29It's a million.
11:30It's a microphone and it sounds like a million bowls having a heart attack.
11:33Now you can hold them away from the mics because you're sending the audience mad.
11:37I can't turn it up!
11:38No!
11:39Yes, you can't.
11:40It's a tiny stadium audience in a box.
11:44You just go, goodies in with me.
11:45It seems to be white noise.
11:47This is what it's trying to do.
11:49Oh, God.
11:51Oh, that's better.
11:54That's on the toilet.
11:59That's on the toilet.
12:02Wherever you go.
12:03More to the point, why has Steven got an app on his floor?
12:08Because there is nothing I wouldn't do to make things clear for you because of my love for you.
12:13Is it to make people urinate after an operation or something?
12:15Yes.
12:16It's not exactly to make people urinate.
12:18It's designed by the Japanese for the Japanese.
12:22Oh, to cover the sound of yourself in the toilet.
12:25You put it on.
12:26Yes, I bet that's it.
12:27You could have played your spender pennies here.
12:29Oh, we could have done.
12:30It's to cover the noise of peeing.
12:32Because Japanese are traditionally rather pee-shy.
12:36And it's called a sound princess.
12:38Sound princess?
12:40Oh, that's marvellous.
12:42They're actually built into some lavishes in Japan.
12:44But these are the ones, if you don't have a built-in one.
12:47This clever little keychain gadget from Japan solves a real problem for those that are shy.
12:53Namely, the embarrassing sounds of our noises as we go to the bathroom.
12:57Push the button and 25 seconds of continuous sounds of a running, refilling toilet
13:01permeate the room in a natural, unobtrusive way.
13:07Masking the sounds you make.
13:09Of course.
13:09It's going to finish and then you hear...
13:10Yeah.
13:12Do they do...
13:13Do they do another one for sort of number two?
13:15Is the sound of sort of an avalanche?
13:16You think so?
13:18I'm not...
13:18Bless it again!
13:19Bless it again!
13:22I've dropped it!
13:23I've dropped it!
13:26You mean the cubicles, didn't you?
13:27I thought you had to hang it off your downstairs.
13:30No!
13:30And then...
13:31And then...
13:32And then you stood at the urinal, just weighing...
13:35No.
13:35The fella next to you hears...
13:36Why is the cheering coming from the...
13:41We will rock you!
13:46Imagine that!
13:47Whacking off your plums!
13:48Oh!
13:49Oh!
13:50Oh!
13:50It comes in three colourways.
13:52We've got two.
13:53It comes pink with a cute little heart.
13:55Yeah.
13:56For the inner girl in every woman.
13:57But this is what I don't want...
13:58Do you have an inner girl?
13:59Well, not with that in it, no.
14:00No, you don't.
14:01Baby blue with a ribbon for that free and fresh feeling.
14:04Oh, that's...
14:04Yeah.
14:04And a white save-the-earth unisex model for both men and women.
14:08But it's an eco-otomayor because it saves you having to flush the loo to disguise your noise.
14:13So you're saving water, in theory.
14:15Ah.
14:16Why don't you just go into the cubicle, close the door, you hear somebody come in, just go,
14:21Rest yourself!
14:23Ha ha!
14:24And they'll just go, oh no, I'm not having this.
14:26And leave.
14:27Leave immediately.
14:28Yes.
14:28But also the sound of that.
14:30You turn that on, and you hear...
14:32Ha ha ha ha!
14:34The person...
14:35It's Japan, isn't it?
14:36What's the first thing they're going to think of?
14:37Hang on.
14:38I can hear Godzilla in the distance.
14:41And that person might be halfway through their business.
14:44Oh my God, Godzilla's here.
14:46And then runs out.
14:47The floor gets slippery, they fly over, smash their head, and it leads to all kinds...
14:52It's a health and safety nightmare.
14:54It is.
14:54It is.
14:54This should be banned.
14:55It should be off the shelves.
14:57I'm right into it.
14:58Watch, dog.
14:59I took my children to the toilet today.
15:01Ha ha ha!
15:04They're 18, 19.
15:05We're all in a cubicle together, like you do.
15:07They're two and four.
15:08Right.
15:09And then someone went into the next door cubicle and started going about, obviously, some quite serious business.
15:15After about four minutes of this, my little girl started to say,
15:18Ah!
15:19Ah!
15:20That stinks!
15:23Ah!
15:24That's terrible!
15:25It's really smelly in here!
15:27Oh!
15:28That's awful!
15:30You've had this!
15:32You've had this!
15:32You've had this!
15:33Princess!
15:33And I can hear the person in the next keeps all laughing.
15:42Oh, no!
15:44Oh, no!
15:45It was me!
15:48I'm not a very one.
15:50There's only one other thing that's vaguely connected to this, and that's the architect,
15:54Sir Edmund Beckett, the first Baron Grimthorpe.
15:57And he was considered the best locksmith of the century.
16:01And he hated it when people didn't pull the flush in his lavatory.
16:05So he set it up such that if you went into his loo and locked the door, then if you
16:10didn't flush, you couldn't get out.
16:12It was locked.
16:14Only when you flushed did it unlock the door.
16:17Isn't that brilliant?
16:18That is quite brilliant.
16:19And maybe, for the ladies' sake, it would be the same if you lifted the seat, or lowered it, rather
16:24than lifted it.
16:25Which is it you like?
16:25I always forget.
16:26Well, we like it where you do the wee in the hole bit.
16:28Oh, really?
16:29That would never occur to me.
16:30As opposed to, woo, way round!
16:33Just the rest of the toilet.
16:34Anyway!
16:36It takes all the fun out of it.
16:39I suppose we could try that, couldn't we?
16:40Now, the difference between the sexes here is that men seem to think sitting on the toilet is a leisure
16:44activity.
16:45Which, women just don't get that, do we?
16:47So you're quite quick about it?
16:49Yes!
16:49Who wants to stay in there?
16:50Well, maybe if you weren't outside the door, giving it all away.
16:55Well, no.
16:56I am joking.
16:57I am joking.
16:58I am joking.
17:01Who made the latest toilet? Was it George Bernard Shaw?
17:04I think he definitely was the one who pushed for it, as it were.
17:07Because, previously, there had been lots of public conveniences for men, but never for women, because it was thought rather
17:14inappropriate.
17:14Women, didn't we?
17:15Well, we were women to go, you know, outside their own home.
17:17Well, the building of theatres, of course, in the 19th century did not take women into account, did it?
17:22And to this day, you can see it at the intervals of plays, women having to queue up.
17:26While men are just peeing all over the place.
17:28Just one, one bog and a tannoy bellowing.
17:32You've got one minute till the, you know, till view from a bridge starts, and you've got a bladder the
17:36size of a spaceship, and then you just do it on the seat and cry.
17:40You can go and have a little wet bottom on the night bus.
17:42Oh!
17:46That's the title of your autobiography already.
17:50Wet bottom on the night bus.
17:51Yes, I love it.
17:53Anyway.
17:54Next question.
17:55What can you catch from a lever to seat?
17:57A tennis ball.
17:58Sure.
18:00If you position it right, so that they're just serving through a slightly open window, you can just get it.
18:05Very good.
18:06Nothing.
18:07Nothing.
18:08No, that's not right.
18:10It's so not right, you get a catch in something.
18:14Everything.
18:14Not good enough.
18:15Everything looked right over.
18:17There are quite a few diseases.
18:18Gonorrhea.
18:21Syphilis.
18:22Is it the crabs?
18:23Is it the tiny crabs?
18:24Well, there are a number that are very much known to be caught.
18:29Hepatitis, dysentery, fungal infections, puerperal fever, viral gastroenteritis, but the only way you catch it from the loose seat is
18:38from the loose seat to your hand, to what is nicely known as a soft entry point.
18:43Oh.
18:44Which says to be the nose or the mouse.
18:46Right.
18:46So as long as you wash your hands, you're perfectly safe.
18:49You don't get it through the thighs and bottom.
18:51Yes.
18:52That would be weird.
18:53That would be weird.
18:53Surely the bottom is something of a soft entrance.
18:56It is.
18:57And if you're doing it very, very wrong, it should be hovering over a nice hole in between the seat.
19:02What, you just stand up?
19:03I tend to slide off on the floor.
19:05Do you?
19:06No, I invite you from now on not to.
19:09That, that is why they have a gap under the door.
19:12So your feet go through.
19:15What I do is...
19:15That's brilliant.
19:16So you leave all your doings and then get out with the door locked.
19:20What's happened there?
19:22Oh my God, he didn't even flush it.
19:24I don't need to flush it.
19:26It will not unlock the door.
19:27Whoosh!
19:28And sometimes if you time it right...
19:30Don't you catch your testicles?
19:31As they go on.
19:33It's a sort of a reverse limbo.
19:35You pull them in like a sumo.
19:36Oh right, okay.
19:37What you do is you time it, you time it right so that when the fella or the lady is
19:41mopping the floor,
19:43I slip out from under the door.
19:44It's like the curling.
19:46And then somebody opens the door all the way down.
19:49What are you doing?
19:50I'm fine, I'm fine.
19:51And then as you're moving, it pulls your trousers up.
19:54That should be an Olympic category, I guess.
19:56It should be an Olympic category.
19:58That is superb.
19:59Yes.
19:59Never do it on the ice though.
20:01Never on the ice.
20:02Those of us who use navities in a more, shall we say, normal, usual, conventional way tend not to do
20:09that.
20:09We tend to keep the soft entry points of our bottoms.
20:13That's why I'm riddled with disease.
20:15Yes.
20:16I'm riddled with disease.
20:17Good explaining.
20:17Yeah, absolutely.
20:18But who is responsible for the myth that you can catch sexually transmitted diseases from levity seeds?
20:24It's, um...
20:24Brian Blessed.
20:26Yes!
20:27No, you can't!
20:28No, I don't think it...
20:29My soft entrance has been violated!
20:33Yes!
20:35I can't believe it!
20:40It's scarier than the rest of me!
20:42Oh, yes!
20:44Who put it?
20:45My grandmother, I think.
20:46Your grandmother made it.
20:47It is a pharmaceutical company with profits to be made.
20:51No, it's actually doctors.
20:52Oh?
20:53Doctors suggested that you can catch it.
20:54I love that show.
20:56They suggested you can catch it from lavatory seats.
20:59There's something very, very wrong with her.
21:02I think she's past hope.
21:05Is it a she or a the?
21:06It's really hard to tell.
21:08It's Tilda Swinton.
21:09It's...
21:10It's beautiful Tilda Swinton with gangrene of the upper rib.
21:14Your head is much too small for your body.
21:17That's not a usual...
21:18It's not a usual soft opening part that he's poking his tube into.
21:22I don't know what he's draining it, presumably.
21:24He's harvesting tit juice.
21:27He's harvesting tit juice.
21:28Dangerous tit juice.
21:28No, it was doctors.
21:29Doctors suggested it because they thought it would make more people come forward with STDs
21:35because they would be less embarrassed to say they caught it from a lavatory seat
21:38than that they caught it from a horse, trumpet, harlot.
21:42Or parents.
21:43Or parents.
21:44Or parents.
21:45Or parents.
21:47Don't make me repeat things without thinking.
21:51It's all wrong.
21:52This is a thing that's happened to me.
21:55I'll share because I feel like my mom's friends.
21:57I went to the doctor.
21:58I had terrible, like a sort of a...
22:00It was almost like welts in a sort of a...
22:02Did you say welts?
22:03Welts.
22:04Welts.
22:05No, welts with a T, not with a K.
22:07I thought you said welts.
22:08I thought you said welts.
22:08There was a welts.
22:10Oh, I was bothered by cockneys.
22:12And all the time a chimney sweeps around me.
22:16I'll find them all.
22:17Feed the birds.
22:19Erm...
22:20Went into the doctor.
22:20And I thought I've got some sort of...
22:23Yeah.
22:23I thought I had a...
22:24I had a...
22:25I had a...
22:25I had a...
22:26I had a...
22:26I had a...
22:27I had a disease.
22:28Went into the doctor.
22:29He went, pants are too tight.
22:31That's what he said.
22:33He had his face on.
22:35That was what?
22:35So you were kidding yourself that you were a medium and in fact you were an extra, extra large.
22:39I've...
22:40I've done it.
22:41I've been there.
22:43Well, you do get welts.
22:44You get awful webbing marks.
22:46You get the...
22:46Webbing?
22:47Well, the web...
22:47You know, the webbing of the...
22:49You need to just loosen that banana.
22:50I...
22:51I...
22:52I got a lot...
22:53I went for the larger pant.
22:55And since...
22:56Trouble free?
22:56It's been simple.
22:57Yep.
22:57I know.
22:58What a wonderful, wonderful thing.
23:00So, there you are.
23:02Now, here's one for the gentleman in the class.
23:04Erm...
23:05How could your mother-in-law help you run things a tiny bit better?
23:09Am I mother-in-law?
23:10Yeah, no.
23:11No.
23:11Er...
23:12It's a rather classy version of deal or no deal going on.
23:17It's like Nick's special, isn't it?
23:18The wicker version, exactly.
23:20You're a Mason deal or no deal.
23:23Oh, Chutney!
23:25It's a hell of an episode of blind date, as well.
23:29Who would be number one, the older ladies?
23:31They don't like they've just emerged from them.
23:34So, anyway, they're two daughters-in-law with a mother-in-law,
23:37but that's just an example, obviously.
23:39Run things?
23:40Yes.
23:41What about running things?
23:42I mean...
23:43Taps?
23:43Runs companies and things.
23:45CEOs.
23:46CEOs is exactly what we're after, actually.
23:48A study of 6,753 deaths among CEOs and their families found they caused a statistically significant and economically large
23:59decline in the profitability of their companies.
24:02But, there was one exception.
24:04The death of a CEO's mother-in-law led to a positive effect on performance.
24:09Right.
24:10So you're now advocating that mother-in-law's of successful CEOs should just do the decent thing, ladies, and top
24:16yourself.
24:16It was marked as positive but statistically insignificant, which makes it rather sort of peculiar.
24:20But there is one feature that CEOs should have in America which will make them more successful.
24:26Do you know what that is?
24:27A face?
24:27Is it a face?
24:28It's not a face, but it is physical.
24:30It's rather good news for me.
24:32Height.
24:32A big...
24:33Height is the answer.
24:34Oh, right.
24:34Height is more important than race, sex, or ability when it comes to CEOs.
24:38Only 14.5% of US men are over six foot, but 58% of CEOs are, which is a
24:48hell of a difference.
24:48This is going to piss on Jeanette Crankin's attempt to leave father.
24:52Do you think it would be a towering intellect they would need?
24:55I mean, because I always think the only important organ in a man is the big throbbing organ, you know,
24:59between the ears.
25:00The only place where size does count.
25:02You know, Stephen has a big throbbing organ.
25:03Oh, listen, darling.
25:04And in the US is also the issue of the pay differential between large company CEOs and their average employees.
25:11But the fact that I haven't yet given you is that CEOs anyway, no matter how much they're paid, have
25:18absolutely no effect on the performance of a company.
25:21So they just...
25:22So the idea that they're worth what they're paid, which apparently only applies to them and not to average workers
25:27anyway, is complete nonsense.
25:29And there are perfect examples of this, which you can give you.
25:31A report in 2013 found that during the years 1993 to 2012, 40% of the highest paid CEOs in
25:39the US had either had their companies bailed out by the taxpayer,
25:43or had their companies charged with fraudulent activity, or been fired for poor performance, or overseen the death of their
25:50companies.
25:50These are people paid millions a year.
25:53Millions.
25:53So the fact is, 40% of them have been shown to have a disastrous effect on their companies.
25:58In the UK, women get 58p for every pound that men get.
26:03I know.
26:03A hundred years since Emily Pank has tied us over the railings, and we're still in heavy trouble.
26:07She never called for equal pay, of course.
26:08They only arrived in the 70s.
26:10Shall we do a riot?
26:10Do a riot.
26:12Do a riot.
26:13Do a riot.
26:13Do a riot.
26:13There's three people that are ready to stick on.
26:15Do a riot.
26:15Do a riot.
26:17So the death of a CEO's mother-in-law helps businesses a little bit.
26:21Now, staying with lady relatives for a moment, can you finish these real suggestions from agony aunts?
26:26Here they are.
26:26There is no more harm in a kiss than...
26:29Shaving a monkey and pretending it's a woman.
26:34I don't know where that's coming from or where it's going from.
26:38I'm sorry.
26:39I'm so sorry.
26:39Is it a common cold?
26:41It's actually a loaded revolver.
26:44Oh.
26:44It's from Ali Sloper's Half Holiday of 1911.
26:47Next one.
26:48Kidney troubles, coughs, colds, toothache and neuralgia.
26:51Diarrhea and stomach guitar are frequently brought on by...
27:09Paddling, rowing.
27:10Paddling is the right?
27:10Yes.
27:11Bizarrely.
27:12It's mother and home, 1910.
27:14And finally, if your friend is too fat, she should...
27:17Try presenting Bake Off.
27:20No!
27:21No!
27:21No!
27:23No!
27:24Well done!
27:27Well, well.
27:29It should not live in glass houses.
27:33This is a very strange 1928 cure for obesity, which is she should try doing rolling exercises on the floor.
27:41For the amusement of the family.
27:44The world's first agony aunt was actually a man.
27:47He was called John Dunton.
27:48He started a twice weekly periodical called the Athenian Gazette.
27:52Lately changed to the Athenian Mercury.
27:55How could a man with hair like that give advice to anybody?
27:57Everybody had a proof in those days.
27:59And what kind of advice did the agony aunt give?
28:02Well, quite interesting.
28:03Mostly it was literary, political, scientific or religious.
28:05Never believe.
28:06He got a letter from a lady.
28:08And he was rather surprised.
28:09And she asked if she could submit questions.
28:11So this led to a spin-off.
28:12A reasonable question sent in to us by The Fair Sex.
28:15And the spin-off was called The Lady's Mercury, not surprisingly.
28:18The first women's magazine.
28:20Yeah.
28:21Its mission was to answer all the most nice and curious questions concerning love, marriage, behaviour, dress and humour of
28:26the female sex.
28:26Whether virgins, wives or widows.
28:29Is there any other type?
28:31No other types.
28:32There is no other type.
28:32No.
28:33No.
28:33No lady will ever touch you or hurt you.
28:36It only lasted a month but things would never be the same.
28:40He was asked at one point by a woman saying she was lonely.
28:42He advised her to go down to the docks and find a roundy sailor.
28:47He didn't use the word roundy sailor but said there will be sailors plenty to oblige.
28:52Another asked player blinds me with the opinions you have met concerning the capricious and extravagant humours of women.
28:57And he replied the word capricious is used to signify the extravagant humours of most women because there is no
29:02animal they resemble more than a goat.
29:05Aww.
29:06Which is pretty odd because he actually dressed up as a woman in order to avoid tax and debt.
29:11Really?
29:12Yeah.
29:12Gary Barlow didn't think of that one.
29:13No he didn't.
29:15Did he look like a goat when he dressed up as a woman?
29:18Presumably.
29:19How shall I do it?
29:20Because they look like this, don't they?
29:22Horns and four who's and going up a mountain.
29:25But that's fascinating that he gave such ribald advice.
29:29I mean because in the Victorian times agony aunts were so, they were sort of dipped in penicillin.
29:33Well they were.
29:34But telling her to go down and look for a sailor.
29:37A horny sailor just wants anything with a hole in a heartbeat.
29:41You know it's quite...
29:42It is.
29:42Very impressive.
29:44That's the second volume of my autobiography.
29:45Oh!
29:46Yeah.
29:48They're all collected in a book.
29:49Never kiss a man in a canoe.
29:51Words of wisdom from the golden age of agony aunts by Tanith Carey.
29:55Collected them all for your pleasure and enjoyment.
29:57So now let's man the lifeboats.
30:00What was the seventh most common cause of death among German submariners in World War One?
30:06Was it banging heads on low doorways?
30:09Bulk heads I believe they're called them.
30:11Being shot.
30:12What?
30:12Well shot.
30:13Yes kind of.
30:15But shot caught in a particular way.
30:16Can I do one?
30:17I think.
30:18Toilets.
30:19The water coming in rather than flushing out maybe?
30:22Toilets.
30:22How am I willing to die of an overflowing toilet in a submarine?
30:25Unfortunately it's not the case.
30:26Being fired out of a torpedo tube?
30:29Well not friendly fire.
30:30Very unfriendly fire.
30:30And deeply unsporting unfriendly fire.
30:33Putting soft tissue access.
30:35So communicable diseases.
30:37No.
30:38I'll tell you what it is.
30:39The Germans are very sporting and gentlemanly.
30:41They used what were called cruiser protocols which meant that if they approached a merchantman,
30:46in other words it's not a warship, what they would do is they would rise to the surface
30:51and they would give an opportunity for everyone on board to get into their lifeboats and sail away to safety.
31:01Then they would sink the ship with its supplies because that was a legitimate war target.
31:06So what the Royal Navy did was they got these ships that they disguised as merchant marine ships.
31:12And they got their sailors to dress up in drag and walk up and down as if they were women.
31:16Like goats.
31:17Like goats.
31:18Exactly.
31:19As if they were perfectly natural civilians.
31:22And the German U-boat would approach and call out and say, you know, man your lifeboats.
31:28The captain of the merchant marine thing would pull a lever, reveal all the weapons and shoot down and destroy
31:34the U-boat.
31:36And it was mean.
31:37That was beastly.
31:38That's not Marquis of Queens.
31:39It's not cricket.
31:40No.
31:41So did they learn a lesson and perhaps disguise themselves as a sort of hen party on a sort of
31:45thing?
31:46They should have done.
31:47But 14 German submarines were felled that way.
31:50Making cross-dressing sailors the seventh leading cause.
31:54That's hilarious.
31:55It's amazing isn't it?
31:56In 1927 the HMS M2 was a submarine which was the very first to carry aeroplanes.
32:02Carry aeroplanes?
32:03Yeah.
32:04Not only carry them but they had a deck.
32:05Slightly flawed plan.
32:06Yeah, well, obviously it would only allow them to land and take off when it had risen to the surface.
32:12It was the first submarine aircraft carrier.
32:14A small specially designed seaplane.
32:16It took off in the water next to the sub and could be winched aboard and stowed in the hangar.
32:20Unfortunately they once opened the hangar too early and the whole thing was sunk.
32:23Oh.
32:25Very sad.
32:25Now, ladies should be covering your ears because you're very sensitive, I know.
32:30Can you name an Anglo-Saxon swear word?
32:32Oh.
32:33Oh.
32:34I would say.
32:35Oh.
32:38Oh.
32:39Oh.
32:39Oh.
32:42We've covered all bases there.
32:43In for a penny.
32:44What a**ometer swo Morp.
32:48Keep it alive.
32:50Oh, that's good.
32:51Noob gobbler!
32:53Noob gobbler.
32:55Noob gobbler!
32:56Noob gobbler!
32:56Noob gobbler!
32:57Now a knob gobbler is Anglo-Saxon!
32:59He's also a delightful, weirding bird.
33:01The amount of times Bill Hoddy's gone after a knob gobbler.
33:06He does spend a long time on Hampstead Heath, it's certainly true, that's where he comes from.
33:10Ooh, look at the plumage on that knob gobbler.
33:13This isn't rude, it's a type of bird.
33:16You know, who wouldn't want to stroke a knob gobbler?
33:19But no, you see, the fact is, we have no knowledge whatsoever of Anglo-Saxon swearing,
33:25because the only Saxons we know of are those who wrote.
33:27And those who wrote were in holy orders and tended not to swear.
33:33They must have been swear words.
33:34But we have no evidence for them.
33:35But we do know that Vikings swore, because we actually know there's a particular word,
33:39and this is ras-rigar.
33:41It's such an appalling word that if one Viking called another Viking ras-rigar,
33:47the Viking who was called it would be entitled to kill the man who called him that.
33:53And indeed, if he didn't try and kill him, he would be expelled from the community,
33:56and indeed be proved to be a ras-rigar.
33:59I've been told what ras-rigar means, but I just cannot tell you.
34:01Is it?
34:02I just can't.
34:03Is it ras-ras-rigar?
34:05Ras-rigar.
34:05Is it to do with colouring?
34:07I just can't.
34:08My mind has got the idea of it in its head, and I will never be the same again.
34:12I think we all want to know, right?
34:14No.
34:15Anyway, the fact is there are no known Anglo-Saxon swear words in the sense that Anglo-Saxon peoples
34:20use them.
34:21Let's say it's time for a maths test, and it's ladies versus gents.
34:24Which team will let itself down?
34:28Oh, Lord.
34:28What's happened to your face?
34:31Oh, right.
34:32It's very disturbing, isn't it?
34:34So which team will let itself down?
34:37If it's the pair of us, we will lose because I'm really bad at maths.
34:40Yeah, well, that's because women are always told that that's ten inches.
34:42We know that.
34:45That isn't ten inches?
34:47No, exactly, yeah.
34:47And also, on our team, the little boy at the back has had a severe head injury.
34:56Look at him, he's concussed.
34:57He's sat there, he's going, are they doing maths?
35:00Well, I've been smashed in the face with a ruler.
35:04This is the gender-fulfil...
35:07It is self-fulfilling prophecy.
35:08Yes, because women are told we're bad at maths and bad at those things.
35:11And we just did it, because actually we just said...
35:13We did, immediately.
35:13We'll never be able to do it because we're rubbish at maths.
35:16Yes, and it's been tested because there's a general feeling that seems to be, again, self-fulfilling,
35:22that Asian people are very good at maths.
35:25So if you take a group of Asian women and say,
35:28now you're women and you're going to do a maths test and the men are going to do a maths
35:32test,
35:32they tend to say to get 60%.
35:36And then you take a group of Asian women and say,
35:41you're Asian and you're playing against a group of European men,
35:45they will tend to get the same level of difficulty, 80 or 90%.
35:49Right.
35:49So it's really about being told what you are.
35:52Yeah.
35:52And the very fact that you're told you're a woman,
35:54it makes you think, oh, God, I'm no good at this.
35:56Yeah.
35:56Because your self-esteem's lower than Lady Gaga's bikini line.
35:59Because I'm rubbish at maths.
36:00But when I go, you're an Asian woman.
36:02Boom!
36:03Honestly, I'm on countdown for next week.
36:08I'm just going to sit there.
36:09Now, some might say that's borderline racist what I've got planned,
36:12but, you know, I'm going to win.
36:14That's all I should have.
36:15So it's about your tribal affiliation.
36:18So if you are reoriented to affiliate with a more successful...
36:23Yeah.
36:23So, you know, whether you're...
36:24You could be a woman, or maybe a redhead,
36:26or you could be a European, or an antiquity, or whatever,
36:29until you find the right one.
36:31Yeah.
36:32Well, similarly, some retailers have tried to make their toy displays gender-neutral,
36:36but they have a toy toolbox and a toy handbag,
36:39and one is blue and the other's pink.
36:40I mean, how is that in any way neutral?
36:42Lego has a pink brick box...
36:44Yes.
36:44...that has everything young girls need
36:46to create a world of building fun, apparently.
36:48Yeah, and includes a female minifigure.
36:51And teenagers also...
36:52Female minifigure?
36:53Minifigure.
36:54Minifigure.
36:54What would you do?
36:55Just got a slightly smaller version of your own finger?
36:59This is a shit-shit gift.
37:02I've got five, and I've got just a really small one.
37:05What?
37:06Okay.
37:07Women who are reminded they're women do worse at maths.
37:10And now, hold your horses, ladies.
37:12Fingers on buzzers, gentlemen.
37:14Because it's time for a bit of general ignorance.
37:17Right.
37:17What did Lady Godiva do?
37:19Lady.
37:20Yes.
37:21Well, of course, she rode naked through the town,
37:23because she wanted to...
37:25I forget what was the...
37:26Well, she had...
37:27She wanted...
37:28No.
37:28Whoa.
37:29No.
37:31Which town was it that she didn't ride naked through?
37:33Birmingham.
37:34Birmingham.
37:36Coventry is the one that people suppose...
37:38Coventry.
37:39She owned Coventry, interestingly.
37:41Did she?
37:41Yeah, she owned it.
37:42And the first story of her riding naked is the early 13th century.
37:46But actually, that's some 200 years after she lived.
37:49And this story was a fellow called Roger of Wendover, who was a notoriously unreliable purveyor of anecdotes and gossip.
37:57In fact, the story that he gave was that her husband, who was the Earl of Mercia, had put large
38:04taxes on the citizens of Coventry.
38:06And she thought this was unfair.
38:08And she said he must get rid of these taxes.
38:09He said, I'll do it if you ride naked through Coventry.
38:13And so she thought, alright, I like the people of Coventry.
38:15I'll ride naked.
38:17And they all obediently closed their arms.
38:20But there's no evidence for any of this.
38:22All this is later.
38:23Do you think that would work today if we suggested that to Boris Johnson if we rode naked through the
38:27town?
38:28To the street of London.
38:29The bicycle on a Boris bike through the street.
38:32Yeah, yeah.
38:32Naked.
38:33The story of Lady Godiva is horse shit.
38:36So what did Mary Magdalene do for a living?
38:39Mary Magdalene, what did she do for a living?
38:41Oh.
38:42Oh.
38:42Oh.
38:44I just want to hear that again because I'm so in the groove with that shit.
38:49Um.
38:50She was a sex worker.
38:52A sex worker.
38:54We call her sex workers now.
38:56Sex workers.
38:57Sex workers.
38:58No.
38:59In as much as we know anything about her or anything about anybody in the Bibble.
39:03She's got jaundice.
39:04That's what we know about her.
39:06I think we've taken faces from some sort of C&E school rendering of her.
39:10But she's mentioned in each of the four Gospels, Mary Magdalene.
39:13And not one of them said she was a prostitute or even a sinner.
39:17All you need to do is to have sex once.
39:19If you're a girl.
39:20Right.
39:21But it's not mentioned that.
39:22But it did say that she spent a lot of time on the docks.
39:25Wink, wink.
39:27At some point, she became confused with two other women in the Bible.
39:31Mary, the sister of Martha.
39:32Yeah.
39:32And the unnamed sinner from Luke's Gospel.
39:34Uh, Gospel.
39:36Gospel.
39:37Both of whom washed Jesus' feet with hair, if you remember.
39:40That's the third chapter of your book.
39:42Yeah.
39:42The unnamed sinner from Luke's Gospel.
39:44Luke's Gospel.
39:45In the sixth century, Pope Gregory the Great made this confusion official
39:49by declaring in a sermon that these three characters were of the same person.
39:52This remained the official line for over a thousand years until the Catholic Church
39:55finally ruled that Mary Magdalene was not the penitent sinner in 1969.
39:59That was sweet.
39:59And the whole world went, ooh.
40:01Oh, I've been calling her a slag for 2,000 years.
40:04Can I just ask, right?
40:06I'm no art historian, but why is there a severed baby's head?
40:13With, with no body attached.
40:15Just...
40:16It's like a, it's like a flying tray with a head on it, isn't it?
40:19Just the, just the wing ears.
40:20You will get, you will get these in Baroque paintings.
40:23Putty, as they're called.
40:24It, but how do we know that that is a cherub and not just like a fuck-faced bird?
40:30That's a hot gobbler.
40:31That's what that is.
40:33Well, it's, it's, uh, the Baroque did go rather crazy and there's no real excuse for it.
40:38Uh, it's overdone, to say the least.
40:41But, the one thing that we know about Mary Magdalene is that she wasn't a prostitute.
40:46What happens nine months after a blackout?
40:48Ah, many.
40:51Many, many babies.
40:53No, no, no.
40:54You've been doing so well.
40:57Is it the power company finally give you the cheque for a refund?
41:03Yes, you finally get your refund.
41:05No, there is no evidence, although it is a commonly held belief, absolutely no evidence whatsoever from demographers and other
41:11such people that this is true.
41:13There was a famous 1965 blackout in New York and everybody said, nine months later, including the New York Times,
41:18that there was a sharp increase of births.
41:20But they then, after it was proved to be inaccurate, issued an acknowledgement that they had made a mistake.
41:24I mean, lights do go out every night.
41:26I mean, it's, it's not like we're permanently.
41:29Precisely.
41:30It's sort of spotlights.
41:31No.
41:31So it's such a rare thing, we go, God, the lights are fine enough, we can have sex.
41:35Oh, telly's not working.
41:37Go on then.
41:39I, er, I always, er, go out to the main fuse box.
41:44Sorry, love.
41:46Clever.
41:46I'm like he's gone.
41:47That's your fault.
41:48Clever, clever.
42:03Clever, clever.
42:04In last place.
42:05And I'm sorry to say, because of her filthy mouth, in last place with minus 48, it's Sue Perkins.
42:12Oh, thank you.
42:14Oh, thank you.
42:17Oh, thank you.
42:18And, erm, hardly less Anglo-Saxon with minus 28 is Cathy Laird.
42:26Oh, well, how's it?
42:28Oh, well, how's it?
42:29Oh, well, how's it?
42:29Oh, well, how's it?
42:30Oh, well, how's it?
42:34Minus eight, it's Alan Davis.
42:42Second place.
42:43You must be very proud.
42:44It only means there's one winner.
42:46With plus two, Ross Noble.
42:56Well, all what's left for me to do is to thank Cathy Sue Ross and Alan, and I leave you
43:01with the last words of former British Prime Minister Pitt the Younger.
43:04I think I could eat one of Bellamy's meat pies.
43:07What greater last words could you ever have?
43:10Good night.
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