- 12 hours ago
First broadcast 23rd October 2015.
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
Jimmy Carr
Jeremy Clarkson
Sheila Hancock
Scott Penrose
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
Jimmy Carr
Jeremy Clarkson
Sheila Hancock
Scott Penrose
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:04And welcome to QI, where tonight we're on parade for all things military.
00:12Here to do battle are the flag-waving Jimmy Carr,
00:19the sabre-rattling Sheila Hancock,
00:25the warmongering Jeremy Clarkson,
00:32and the ambulance-driving Alan Davies.
00:40And their buzzers are suitably belligerent.
00:44Jimmy goes...
00:52Sheila goes...
00:57Jeremy goes...
01:06And Alan goes...
01:08Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!
01:12Nice.
01:14What was unusual about Britain's war with Finland in 1941?
01:22Well, not a shot was fired.
01:25Oh!
01:26That was the only time I think that two democracies have ever gone to war with one another.
01:34That's a hell of an alarm.
01:37It was.
01:37Does it know what we're thinking?
01:39Yes, definitely.
01:40How did you know that?
01:42Welcome to my world.
01:4411 years ago, Jeremy Clarkson, you said, on this very programme, that the 1941 Anglo-Fish War was the only
01:52one fought between two democracies.
01:53Yeah.
01:54Well, have we declared war since the show started in France?
01:58No, there had been others before.
02:00A viewer named Otto Lowe has written to us.
02:03Otto?
02:03Yeah, to point out that we were wrong.
02:06So we're retroactively taking points from you today.
02:08LAUGHTER
02:10You had a slightly bad start to the year, but now it's got terrible.
02:15LAUGHTER
02:15I'm really sorry.
02:16It is 11 years ago, I mentioned.
02:18There was the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War of 1780 to 1784.
02:22The Football War of 1969.
02:25Between El Salvador and Honduras.
02:27Football War?
02:28The Football War.
02:29Had Honduras kicked a football into their...
02:30Mm.
02:31LAUGHTER
02:32It only lasted 10 hours, must be said.
02:35Was there a half-time?
02:37There was a...
02:38LAUGHTER
02:38Well, I'll go back to my original answer, then, which was, not a shot was fired.
02:42I'm afraid that's not true either.
02:4513 people were killed in the Anglo-Finnish War.
02:48The British attacked a port called Petsamo on 30th July 1941.
02:52I still think it's the only proper war fought between two democracies.
02:56Well, you know, I...
02:57Give in, Jeremy, give in.
03:00LAUGHTER
03:01You should have gone home after the programme and looked it up and then you'd have known.
03:05I did look it up before I mentioned it, 11 years ago.
03:08LAUGHTER
03:09Well, Wikipedia has got more accurate since then.
03:13LAUGHTER
03:13But, um...
03:16The fact is, despite its reputation, the Anglo-Finnish War of 1941 is not the only time two democracies have
03:22fought each other.
03:23Now, if I can be serious for a moment, more than 100 million people were killed
03:27in wars during the 20th century and the total number of people ever killed by wars could be as many
03:33as one billion.
03:35Einstein described war as a cloak that covers acts of murder and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry called it a disease
03:43like typhus.
03:44With all that in mind, here is my question to you.
03:47Why did Hitler have such a silly moustache?
03:50LAUGHTER
03:52Thank God for that.
03:53I thought I was on the wrong show for a moment.
03:55LAUGHTER
03:55I thought very serious.
03:57I'm sure you'd agree with my description of war there, wouldn't you?
03:59I would, absolutely.
04:00This is a difficult show for me to be on because I'm a Quaker pacifist.
04:04LAUGHTER
04:04So I'm not an ideal person.
04:07Were you born a Quaker?
04:08No, I wasn't.
04:09I was a Quaker by convincement, as they call it.
04:12Is that what it's called?
04:12Yeah.
04:13Because my family, the Fry family, were very early Quakers.
04:15Of course they were.
04:16Of course they were, yeah.
04:17It's a very admirable thing.
04:18And the pacifism is taken very seriously, isn't it?
04:20Yeah.
04:21Well, it's a lovely thing until Hitler comes along,
04:23and then it's not what she is.
04:25Well, if we'd have done something about it before Hitler came along,
04:30then maybe...
04:31Shaved his moustache off.
04:32And I think the reason he had that moustache,
04:34he was probably a fan of Oliver Hardy.
04:37Ah!
04:37Well, it's certainly true that they were popular in the 20s
04:41and increasingly in the 30s among...
04:44Well, Charlie Chapman, of course, is best known.
04:46But, supposedly, Hitler changed from what was a relatively bushy moustache.
04:52You may have seen a famous photograph of him as a Gefreiter,
04:55a corporal in the First World War.
04:57There he is on the left.
04:58But there are a couple of stories.
05:00No-one's quite sure which is true.
05:01There was a fellow who served with him, Alexander Moritz Frye.
05:05Great Uncle Alexander.
05:08He was in the same regiment in the First World War as Hitler,
05:11and he said that Hitler trimmed it into the familiar toothbrush
05:14in order to fit into the gas mask properly.
05:17Oh.
05:17Frye's account is controversial, apparently.
05:19He went on to become a satirist and fantasy novelist,
05:22starting a family tradition.
05:24Um...
05:25So here's the point about Hitler.
05:26He's judged very harshly by history, but he did kill Hitler.
05:39I can't take that away from you, Jimmy.
05:41Credit when credit is due.
05:42No, it's true.
05:43Some historians believe they hit their only adopted attach in 1919,
05:47and his sister-in-law, who lived in Liverpool...
05:51Well, she had one as well.
05:53LAUGHTER
05:53She may have done.
05:55Do you know what her name was?
05:56Muriel.
05:57Almost, as it was.
05:59Gauss-Adolf.
06:00Bridget Hitler.
06:01Bridget Hitler.
06:02Yeah, that was her name.
06:03Bridget Hitler.
06:04Bridget Hitler?
06:04Yeah.
06:06Yes, she was married to Alois Jr.,
06:08who was Hitler's half-brother,
06:09and they had a son, William Patrick Hitler.
06:12Willy Hitler.
06:13William Patrick Hitler went to America
06:15and won a Purple Heart in the Navy.
06:18Changed his name, I presume?
06:20Eventually to Stuart Houston, I think,
06:22and he claimed he wanted to forget anything to do with his uncle,
06:26but he named his first son Alexander Adolf Stuart Houston.
06:30LAUGHTER
06:32Didn't really forget him that much.
06:33Aren't there still, in the American phone book,
06:34I know there's a weird fact, it's quite interesting,
06:36working on this show,
06:37where there's still, I think, nine people called Adolf Hitler.
06:40Really?
06:41That were obviously born before he came to...
06:44Oh, watch it, cos in 11 years,
06:46they're going to ask you a question.
06:48LAUGHTER
06:50You're really...
06:50You're simmering about that, aren't you?
06:53LAUGHTER
06:53I've got a sore loser.
06:55Yeah, I know, I know.
06:56Anyway, yes, Bridget, in her memoir,
06:58said that he came to visit Liverpool,
07:00and that she told him that he should trim the ends of his moustache
07:03to make it less bushy, but, as she put it,
07:05as in most things, he went too far.
07:09LAUGHTER
07:09Bridget in his place.
07:10Aye.
07:11Take it easy, Bridget.
07:13LAUGHTER
07:14Yeah, and speaking of things going a little bit too far,
07:16here's a question on mutinies.
07:19Everybody remembers the mutiny on the bounty,
07:21but give me the name and rank of the man
07:22who was overthrown and cast adrift in an open boat.
07:26Christian.
07:27Fletcher Christian, wasn't he the one that...
07:28LAUGHTER
07:31LAUGHTER
07:33LAUGHTER
07:33We were...
07:33Is this just the BBC still getting at me?
07:37LAUGHTER
07:38LAUGHTER
07:40APPLAUSE
07:41You were about to correct Sheila, weren't you?
07:43I was about to say, no, Fletcher Christian was the one...
07:46The mutineer.
07:46..who did the...the...the mutineering,
07:49but captain...was he a captain and was he called Bly?
07:52LAUGHTER
07:55He was called Bly. He was called William Bly,
07:58but he was a lieutenant commander.
08:00Oh. I thought it was Marlon Brando.
08:02Oh, come...
08:02LAUGHTER
08:04LAUGHTER
08:05Yeah, he was a commanding lieutenant on the bounty,
08:09and there was a mutiny.
08:11And what was the mutiny about?
08:12What was the prime cause of it?
08:14I couldn't get Netflix.
08:16LAUGHTER
08:18You'd think they could... Was it a shuffleboard incident?
08:20He could flick their net... He was being too strict.
08:22Bly was being too strict.
08:24Well, they'd been on Tahiti,
08:26where they'd enjoyed the hospitality of Tahitian women,
08:29and beautiful food and fabulous climate,
08:32and they just loved it so much,
08:33and Bly insisted that they all get back on the boat,
08:36to get back to their duties.
08:37Do you remember what the duties of the bounty were?
08:40Oh, they...they were collecting flowers or something.
08:43No, some food.
08:44Yes! It's breadfruit.
08:46Breadfruit, that's it.
08:47Breadfruit, exactly.
08:48Because they thought that may be the magical food for the British Navy,
08:51but they were really resentful at the idea
08:53that they had to get back to their duties,
08:54and they eventually cast him adrift in an open boat.
08:57And they gave him just a sextant and a pocket watch,
08:59and miraculously, he made it all the way to Timor.
09:01It was a remarkable feat.
09:02But Bly seems to have had problems commanding people,
09:06because he was made governor of New South Wales,
09:08quite a few years after the mutiny,
09:10and they mutinied.
09:11There was a military push to kick him out.
09:13He obviously had the knack.
09:14He had a bit of a knack.
09:15So this guy had a knack of upsetting people he worked with?
09:18Yeah.
09:18Yeah.
09:19What?
09:22Pompey.
09:25Um, yes.
09:26Other mutinies.
09:27Describe the mutiny of the monkeys.
09:31She needed a monkey.
09:32Seems to be one of the middles going to an England match.
09:35Peter...
09:37Peter Tork had had enough.
09:39Peter, oh, the monkey's very good.
09:41See what I did there?
09:42There, I do see what you did there.
09:44He wanted to go on the hat,
09:45and the one who always had the hat wouldn't let him have the hat.
09:49Anyway, the gig was cancelled.
09:52The one that had the hacky dolents.
09:54His mum invented post-it notes.
09:56Yes, which came about because they were bad stickers.
10:00Yeah.
10:01Yes.
10:01They were actually a failure,
10:03because they didn't stick properly,
10:05and then they thought,
10:05hang on a minute.
10:06They should have used super glue,
10:08because that never sticks anything to anything.
10:11I lost the thread of this conversation.
10:15You may not be alone.
10:16You may not be alone.
10:17Somehow, they were talking about, you see,
10:20the monkey was mutiny of the monkeys.
10:21They were talking about the pop group.
10:23They were talking about the pop group.
10:23I was there with that.
10:24One of them, who's the one who wear the hat?
10:26Mike Naismith?
10:27His mother invented post-it notes for three...
10:30Or was it Tipex?
10:31It was, in fact, Tipex.
10:32Was it Tipex?
10:33Yeah, but...
10:34Yeah.
10:34Yeah.
10:35Still, of course, you could wear that.
10:36Well, you got a free post-it note fact anyway.
10:39Yeah.
10:39It's very true.
10:40For nothing.
10:41So, no, we're in the world of primates here.
10:43We're actual monkeys.
10:44Mutiny of the monkey?
10:45Well, it was called the monkey mutiny.
10:47It was in 1890.
10:48It was a British vessel called the Margaret,
10:51which travelled from Durban to Boston.
10:53And it contained a consignment of 400 cockatoos,
10:5712 snakes, two crocodiles, some monkeys, a gorilla,
11:00and an orangutan to be delivered to an American zoo.
11:04Almost immediately, things started to go wrong.
11:07I think I've seen a documentary about this.
11:09Is it called The Life of Pi?
11:14More or less, yes.
11:15I mean, sorry, that actually happened.
11:16I think the tiger, yes.
11:18So, what kicked off?
11:19So, they're on a boat?
11:20Well, the rats ate the grain, which was intended for the cockatoos,
11:23so they all died.
11:24The cockatoos?
11:26400 cockatoos, dead.
11:27Food for the crocodiles.
11:28There was a...
11:28Yeah, there was a storm.
11:30The snake and the crocodiles escaped,
11:32so the crew barricaded themselves into their cabins
11:34and wouldn't go out.
11:36But then, fortunately, the crocodiles and the snake
11:38had basically fought each other until there was only one crocodile left.
11:41And eventually, some cargo fell on it and it was killed.
11:44So, the crew could then come out.
11:46And they all got new shoes.
11:48Yes.
11:50Then the monkeys escaped and climbed the rigging,
11:53and then they were swept off to sea and drowned.
11:57Where were the human beings while all this was happening?
12:00They'd hidden themselves in their cabins for a lot of it.
12:02They were scared.
12:04But by the time they did get to Boston,
12:06there was a gorilla, three monkeys and four parrots left out of that whole consignment.
12:10That is why Boston Zoo is shit.
12:15Your survivor's photo, though.
12:17Yeah, exactly.
12:19Anyway, so, a mob of monkeys caused a mutiny on the Margaret.
12:23What's a better way to get out of the army than shooting yourself in the foot?
12:27Putting your underpants on your head and pencils up your nostrils.
12:38And remember to say, a bibble.
12:41You must say, a bibble.
12:44Are we talking about now or in history?
12:48First World War.
12:49To say you were homosexual?
12:51Well, yeah.
12:52You know, after the war, there was the conscription.
12:55The war was over.
12:56Oh, for national service.
12:57You had national service.
12:58And I know one or two actors who pretended they were gay to get out of doing conscription.
13:02I've known more actors who pretended they were straight.
13:04But there we are.
13:06Yes, sir.
13:11No, well, you're right to be in the area of sexual behaviour, shall we say.
13:15Oh.
13:15Because there was this idea of a blighty wound where, in the First World War, you'd shoot yourself through the
13:20foot in order to be invalided.
13:22Chop your cock off.
13:24Any of those, if you were discovered doing them, would be a shootable offence.
13:27It was considered desertion.
13:29But chop your cock off.
13:29Cheese great, it's awful.
13:31So, sorry, if you...
13:32Oh!
13:34Hey, if you haven't tried it, don't judge.
13:38Sorry, so did people really shoot themselves in the foot then?
13:40Did that happen a lot?
13:41Not a lot, because they would just be accused of cowardice and desertion.
13:45So, there was another way?
13:46Running away.
13:48Fraternised?
13:48Well, fraternising a very particular kind of fraternising.
13:51Pursuing an officer.
13:54Would you get leave, even in Flanders?
13:56Exchange.
13:57Sorry.
13:57Oh, you don't have to go that drastic.
14:01Bestiality.
14:07Necrophilia.
14:07No, that would be all right.
14:08No!
14:10Look, come on, you're on leave.
14:13You go to Rouen, Le Havre.
14:14Oh, sexually transmitted disease.
14:16Brothel, don't you?
14:16Yes!
14:17Sexually transmitted disease, would you ask for that?
14:19You go to Brothel.
14:21Yeah.
14:23What did you have to get in a brothel?
14:25Well, venereal disease was usually, it was the pox or the clap.
14:29It was syphilis or gonorrhea.
14:30And you're five times more likely to have venereal disease than you were trench foot on the front.
14:35Well, then why didn't, forgive me for asking that.
14:37Why didn't everybody simply go to a brothel in the hope that they could get a dose?
14:40They just about did.
14:41That's my point.
14:42That's how they tried to get out.
14:43I mean, that would be tremendous.
14:43Well, the thing was, it was quite well treated and there didn't seem to be a very utterly terminal
14:48or terrible form of venereal disease, so it would get you a few months off.
14:52But that was, that was something for that war.
14:54But then you could go home and see the wife.
14:58All I love, nice to see you, but we've got to rest this up.
15:03There were 75,000 prostitutes in Paris alone, less than 10% of whom were licensed.
15:09According to one contemporary report, 171,000 British troops visited brothels in a single street in the Havre in just
15:16one year.
15:17Makes you proud, doesn't it?
15:18Yeah, it does.
15:20The German occupation was an offence for a prostitute to give a German soldier venereal disease.
15:24And the offending woman could be imprisoned to keep other men safe.
15:27But as soon as they started retreating towards the end of the war,
15:29they released all the women with venereal disease in the hope that the pursuing enemy would catch the clap.
15:37I mean, it really were marvellous times, weren't it?
15:42The war is such fun, isn't it?
15:44It's such a good...
15:45Robert Graves, who wrote probably the best memoir of the First World War, goodbye to all that, the poet.
15:49He said, there were no restraints in France.
15:51These boys had money to spend and knew that they stood a good chance of being killed within a few
15:56weeks anyhow.
15:57They did not want to die virgins.
15:59And that kind of says all of you.
16:01Oh, dear.
16:03So, er, yes...
16:05I was told this show would be fun.
16:08But he said, look, you are, it's fun.
16:11Well, you can't see the syphilis is fun.
16:13It's all the rest of it.
16:15It's proving your point about war.
16:17Yes, soldiers in World War I could get off by getting off.
16:22Which of these was originally used for military purposes?
16:25The bumper car.
16:27Not the bumper car, in fact.
16:29The Ferris wheel.
16:30Not the Ferris wheel.
16:31The merry-go-round.
16:32That thing that goes round for seasickness.
16:34No, the other one.
16:34Well, there we are.
16:35That's one...
16:35We've all gone for something different.
16:37That's rather pleasing.
16:38And the only one that's correct is the merry-go-round, which was originally used for that purpose of war
16:43training.
16:44You'd sit on the horse, and a servant would have a ring, and you'd have a lance, and you'd go
16:50round and round,
16:50and you'd try and get your lance through the ring to practice your accuracy.
16:55I mean, surely bullshit, no?
16:59That is really, that's what America, who was invented, a carousel.
17:02It was called a carousel, and that was sort of...
17:05So they were originally used for it.
17:06Sort of like a tennis ball machine.
17:07Yeah, kind of, yeah.
17:08Call of Duty's better, isn't it, really?
17:11But while we're on the 72 fairgrounds, there'd been a particular problem in the Burr War,
17:16where they'd noticed that the British were not very good at aiming and firing rifles.
17:21So they passed special laws.
17:22One of the basics, really, isn't it?
17:24Yeah.
17:25They passed special laws that allowed fairgrounds to have rifle ranges, so you could fire rifles.
17:29Live ammunition.
17:31Well, sorry, there's live ammunition in the fairgrounds?
17:33Yes.
17:33Have you never gone to one of those?
17:34I've gone to one of those, but it's always like a little...
17:36A pellet?
17:37Yeah, a pellet.
17:37I mean, mostly you get the pellets, but what is allowed in law, even to this day, is live actual
17:42ammunition.
17:43Proper ammunition.
17:44In a fairground?
17:44Yeah.
17:45Really?
17:46Gosh.
17:46Wow.
17:47Really?
17:47Yeah, really.
17:48What, a 7.62 millimetre up to 0.23?
17:52It is frowned upon if you bring your own gun.
17:54Oh, I was about to say.
17:56I just want to make it absolutely clear for Jeremy.
17:58If I turn up in my AK, I'd get all those balloons.
18:00But a 2-2 would work, so you could have that.
18:03It would be quite good to turn up at a fairground with an AK-47 and go, he'll be taking
18:08that bear home.
18:11Someone needs a cuddle.
18:14Have you ever fired an AK-47?
18:16Uh, not in anger, Jeremy.
18:18No, somebody put us onto automatic and quite literally stood me in front of a barn door and I missed
18:24it.
18:27And we all would.
18:28It just rides around like a mad thing.
18:30Of course, the man that did that isn't here to tell the story.
18:33Very unfortunate.
18:35Never breaks down and it never hits anything.
18:38And what, do you just find...?
18:38It just does that and then rushes about in your hands.
18:41Terribly dangerous mostly.
18:42Well, that explains all of the series of the A-Team.
18:45Yes.
18:47Finally, so it is actually realistic, the idea that, you know, no-one got shot ever.
18:51It really could possibly get shot with an AK.
18:53Not unless they weren't aiming at them.
18:55If I aimed at you, most of the audience would be hysterical.
18:59Well, that's you, not everybody.
19:02I mean, if they knew how to handle it.
19:04No, it's pretty much everybody.
19:06Unless you're a burly Russian shot put enthusiast, then you could probably hold on to it, but I couldn't.
19:11I fired a machine gun in Vietnam.
19:13Really? Did you?
19:14Did you hear anything?
19:16I hit the end of the field.
19:19A field, but they've got all these old weapons in the American war,
19:22and you go up and you buy bullets.
19:24How many bullets do you want?
19:26Oh, my goodness.
19:26I think I bought ten bullets.
19:27And they put it in, and then you squeeze the trigger, and they're gone.
19:31But you think, I wish I had more.
19:34That's the evil of guns, isn't it?
19:36They've done something.
19:37Julie, you're a Quaker pacifist.
19:38Have you got any good gun stories?
19:41LAUGHTER
19:41LAUGHTER
19:43Oh, no, it's a lie.
19:45LAUGHTER
19:45Oh, dear.
19:47It'd be so good, though, if you went, yeah.
19:49Has anyone ever had a go on a bazooka?
19:52LAUGHTER
19:52That was what we were told, that you could bazooka cows and things.
19:55I didn't get the chance to do that.
19:58You're a vegetarian!
19:59Yeah, you're right.
20:02You see, this is what guns do, isn't it?
20:05Oh, the vegetarian of the year.
20:07The other thing that I heard about was that they used cattle.
20:11Um, I know that was a stand-up routine I did.
20:14That's not true.
20:16LAUGHTER
20:23You're beginning to blur the lines, sir.
20:25It comes to something when I'm supposed to remember a fact,
20:28and it's actually something I made up myself.
20:29LAUGHTER
20:31Anyway, one important skill for a soldier is map reading,
20:35but why are maps so difficult to fold?
20:37Well, because now they're on your phone, so you've got a break.
20:40LAUGHTER
20:41Well, we've got some ones done on the phone.
20:44My father was a navigator in rallying.
20:47Oh, was he?
20:48He could phone one in the passenger seat of a Mini Cooper at dark at night.
20:52Did he pass that skill on?
20:54Of course it's torture, you know.
20:55And so whenever I try to phone it back...
20:57Generally, this is my idea of hell.
20:58Of hell?
20:59Yeah, it is hell.
21:00That's right, because there are severe problems!
21:04Yeah.
21:04Well, there they are.
21:06I mean, I'll tell you, probably the best idea is not to unfold it in the first place, Steve.
21:11LAUGHTER
21:12OK, well done!
21:16That's impressive!
21:18I can't lose 12 seconds.
21:20You got it?
21:21So, anything with maps, the father was a navigator.
21:25I don't know what all the symbols mean.
21:27Sheila, we've missed our turn.
21:28Oh!
21:29Concentrate!
21:30Right, I'll race you.
21:31Now, yes.
21:32Oh, oh, well, she's sort of doing what I do, though.
21:34No, no, no, no, no.
21:40Oh, Sheila!
21:44That car is just full of those!
21:47Pyongyang!
21:48Pyongyang.
21:49Haven't you got a sat nav?
21:50Where would we be without sat nav?
21:53Hey!
21:54Not, no, no, no, no, no!
21:56Probably at those studios, I don't know.
21:59Come on, everyone, make an effort.
22:01LAUGHTER
22:02The fact is, most maps have got nine folds one way and two the other,
22:06which means that there are 2048 different ways of folding them.
22:11Really?
22:11Two to the power of 11.
22:12Really?
22:13A man called Murrah, who's an aeronautical designer, was doing solar panel foldings,
22:18and he came up with this way of doing it, and all you have to do is that, and it
22:24folds.
22:25You just push the corners together, and it doesn't matter what you do.
22:30I bet you, and what's more, it doesn't get, it doesn't get, sorry?
22:33It wouldn't work if you gave it to me.
22:35Stephen, did you, well, give you one.
22:37The one that you've got there, is that a map of Mars?
22:40LAUGHTER
22:41You've got one there, so, and you just take the top right and bottom left corners,
22:46or any other way.
22:47That way?
22:47It's so folded, it just does it by itself.
22:49Take the corners and push them together.
22:51Oh, my God.
22:51That's it?
22:52Get on with it, don't you?
23:00This man is the greatest genius you've ever met.
23:03Isn't he?
23:03I know, he's fantastic.
23:05Who is he?
23:06He's called Murrah, he's a, he's a...
23:11God.
23:11Of course, what you don't realise, he was, he was trying to make a crane.
23:17LAUGHTER
23:17It's pretty fun.
23:18Corio Murrah, his name is, and they are very handy.
23:20I would have been so fucking pleased if I were.
23:25Well, there are other things you can do with folding.
23:27I've got some tissues here, and, uh, for you.
23:30Oh, what are we doing now?
23:31Oh, we've got on me, we're going to leave it.
23:33I'm going to give you each a tissue, all right, so pass...
23:36OK.
23:38There we are, pass down, oops.
23:40What are we doing with the, with the tissue?
23:42I'll have one here.
23:43OK, so what are we up to?
23:45Uh, what you're trying to do is scrunch it up.
23:47Oh, yeah, OK.
23:47Like this in your hands.
23:49You scrunch it up, and then...
23:51Take it right up your bum.
23:52No, you then punch it up, you try and think of an animal.
23:57Think of an animal.
23:57Don't think of an animal, like, I'm thinking of an animal.
23:58I'm thinking of a sort of swan or something like that.
23:59I've really scrunched mine now.
24:01I'm thinking of a swan, you see?
24:02Yeah.
24:03Like that, can you see my swan?
24:03Do I have to think of a swan?
24:05There you are.
24:16Tiger, I've got tiger.
24:19I've got absolutely nothing.
24:22Oh, well.
24:23I thought of a badger, but he got run over.
24:24He ran over.
24:27Excellent.
24:28Well done all.
24:29Now, an army is said to march on its stomach,
24:32but what's the most morale-boosting thing you can find in a meat pie?
24:38Cocaine?
24:39No.
24:41Well, motivation-wise, it would be a morale-boosting, perhaps.
24:43It would be a morale-boosting, perhaps.
24:44People.
24:44Greg Steakbake.
24:45People, people.
24:46Yes, people.
24:47People in pies.
24:48People in pies.
24:49I'll tell you the story, Violet, and you might think
24:51that there probably was never quite such a morale-boosting pie.
24:55It was Philip the Good.
24:56Oh.
24:57And Philip the Good was the ruler of Burgundy.
24:59Burgundy.
25:01And in 1356, probably, I wouldn't be surprised, 1454.
25:09He held a feast for knights and squires and pages and lords and so on.
25:14It was a piastan to promote a crusade that he wanted to hold against the Turks,
25:17and they'd taken Constantinople.
25:20Anyway, he had a feast.
25:22It was called the Feast of the Pheasant,
25:24and it included a meat pie which contained 28 musicians.
25:28Oh.
25:29Yeah.
25:29Alive?
25:30He played throughout the meal.
25:31It's alive.
25:32It's a fast pie.
25:33Mannequin piss, which was urinating rosewater.
25:37A castle that squirted orange punch into its moat.
25:41Oh.
25:42And a lion chained to a pillar.
25:44Uh-oh.
25:44That protected a statue of a nude woman who served mulled wine from her right breast.
25:49Is that a party at Elton John's house?
25:54Well, in this case, after this enormous pie, a giant came on with an elephant on a leash.
25:59The elephant had a castle on its back, and the castle had a disheveled nun whose hands were held
26:06in prayer, and she implored Philip to go on a crusade to save Constantinople.
26:11A disheveled nun?
26:12Apparently disheveled.
26:14He immediately leapt to his feet, made an oath to retake the city,
26:16and all his guests caught up in the excitement of the pie, which had so boosted their morale
26:20that they said they would go on the crusade too.
26:23And that's why it's always a good idea to invade the Middle East.
26:26Well, actually, they were very fortunate, because they didn't go on their crusade,
26:30despite the morale-boosting pie.
26:32They didn't go?
26:33No, they didn't, because Charles, Charles VII of France,
26:36who was the king, said that he thought it was a terrible idea.
26:40So they had the pie for nothing.
26:42I'm fascinated by this disheveled nun.
26:45Yes.
26:46Well, the word disheveled is used in Chaucer, you may remember.
26:49I don't remember Stephen.
26:51No, fine, don't worry.
26:52Did you know him at all, Sheena?
26:54No.
26:56He uses the word hevelled.
26:58Hevelled.
26:59Hevelled.
27:00Oh, so the man's head is cleanly hevelled.
27:02Dishevelled.
27:02Dishevelled means uncomed.
27:04So the nun was uncomed, it seems.
27:07Though it's often used in clothes as well now.
27:09Yeah, Philip the Good.
27:10He certainly knew how to throw a good party.
27:12What's the worst thing you can find in a Morrison sandwich?
27:16Well, Morrison was food minister during the war.
27:20Ah, he got straight to it.
27:22He was in charge of sandwiches, was he?
27:24No.
27:24Well, he was, in fact, in charge of home defence, and he came up with a home defence idea, which
27:35was a type of shelter.
27:36It was for the more deprived families, and they were given free.
27:41It was indoors.
27:42Indoors, as opposed to the Anderson shelter, which was outside.
27:45Exactly right.
27:45Which I spent my life in.
27:47And a dear friend of mine was in one of those, and the house took a direct hit, and she
27:52survived.
27:52Yes.
27:52One of the things we wanted to say is that it was actually not, as it might seem, a rather
27:56unsafe contrivance,
27:57but it actually worked really, really well it seems.
28:00Yeah, it did.
28:00But there was one problem, sometimes the top bit, which was solid metal, and the bottom was solid metal,
28:06sometimes the top bit just crashed down, and the person was caught in what was then called a Morrison sandwich.
28:11Wow.
28:11Oh, God.
28:12But it was considered safer, and it was also quite loved, unlike the Anderson shelter, which is pretty hated, is
28:16it right?
28:17Well, I quite liked it, actually.
28:19You used to be outside, and you could watch, you always had binoculars, and you could watch the dog fights
28:24going on, you know, in the Battle of Britain, and you felt kind of safe down there.
28:29The only thing was that you were frightened that you'd be trapped in the shelter.
28:32I sleep with my hand over my head, because there was an escape hatch at the back of the Anderson
28:36shelter with a spanner that you would use to get out,
28:39and I used to sleep like that on my bunk, and I still do, but I sleep with one hand
28:44over the hand.
28:45You could probably sleep somewhere else.
28:47There's the one on the right, and this, this one on the left, this one on the left.
28:54It's actually a weight test, it's being tested for how much it can take, and as you can see,
28:58it's a fair amount of weight.
29:00There was one in my uncle's garden, I remember.
29:02There was one, an Anderson shelter.
29:03There's one on my farm, and it's just full of pornography.
29:06What is?
29:07Pornography?
29:08It's just full of Men Only, Mayfair, all from the 70s.
29:11Is that where you keep your collection?
29:14That used to be a thing, though, didn't it?
29:16They used to, whenever you'd walk through woodland, I remember that as a teenage boy,
29:18there would always just be pornography lying around in the heads, in the days before the internet,
29:22there was just porn lying about in the woods.
29:25Do you always find something like that?
29:26Is that, does anyone else remember that?
29:27Is that just me?
29:29That's a thing, right?
29:30No!
29:31Yeah, it is.
29:32You used to walk through the woods, and there would be porn lying about.
29:35All, everywhere.
29:36I was never able to get to the sweet shop without encountering pornography.
29:40Well, this is very odd.
29:43Why in the woods, right?
29:45Why in the woods?
29:45I think that's when possibly people went and bought some pornography and thought,
29:49well, I'd better not bring that home.
29:50And then they drive home and leave a single shoe in the central reservation,
29:54which is the other thing.
29:55Yes.
29:55And unravel their cassette tape.
29:57There we go.
29:58That's done with that.
29:58That's everything done now for the day.
30:01Sette tape, single shoe, strong pornography in the wood.
30:06What a strange world you live in.
30:14So, anyway, yes, Morrison, Sam.
30:19Morrison's sandwiches, as opposed to Morrison sandwiches,
30:21which were people caught there.
30:22There's a Morrison sandwich, and of course, they're delightful and fresh and charming,
30:26and I wouldn't want to suggest anything about them that was unpleasant.
30:28Of course, I would.
30:28Well, they've never had one of them.
30:30You know, I will.
30:30Well, no, but I don't.
30:33I know they exist.
30:37So, yes, Morrison sandwiches could be deadly,
30:40but Morrison's sandwiches are, of course, delicious.
30:45How do all female military battles differ from all male ones?
30:49They will tidy up afterwards.
30:54Oh, that's so sweet.
30:57Female battles?
30:57Well, yes.
30:58The fact is, I don't think humans have ever had an all-female war.
31:01No, I wouldn't have thought of that.
31:02The Amazons are supposedly female soldiers, but they fought men.
31:05The reason there's never been an all-female war is
31:07because there's plenty of me to go round, I think.
31:10They've not had to bum out.
31:13Oh, nooks.
31:15So, we're not talking about human beings in that case.
31:18Oh.
31:18Oh, an animal war.
31:20Animal war, conducted purely by females of that species.
31:23Is it a pro-mentis?
31:24Not mosquitoes, but the right...
31:25Rabbits.
31:26No, you're right with insects.
31:28Bees.
31:29Bees.
31:30Bees wars.
31:30Bees went to war.
31:31Yeah, bees war on other hives and other colonies.
31:35Lady bees?
31:36Yes, Australian stingless bees.
31:38But the queen bee.
31:39The queen is the one who doesn't fight,
31:42but all the other females who are sterile...
31:44Are there other female bees?
31:45Oh, yes, there are, but they're sterile.
31:46And they launch a turf war against another colony.
31:49And the main attack method is to bite the leg or wing.
31:51But because they have six legs, they can keep going
31:54until, you know, they've got no legs left.
31:56They really fight gruesome.
31:57These are not British bees.
31:59No, they're Australian stingless bees.
32:01Oh, no.
32:01British bees wouldn't have better, wouldn't they?
32:03Yes, yeah, exactly.
32:04No, they're just reassured.
32:06No, they're making honey.
32:08British lady bees, exactly.
32:09British bees wouldn't bite legs off.
32:11Yeah.
32:13So, when the victory...
32:16There are some weird animals in Australia.
32:19There are.
32:20And the colony that wins, they install their queen,
32:23and they kick out all the others who are left to die,
32:26because they can't survive unless they're in a colony.
32:27Oh, charming.
32:28Yeah, yeah, it's all rather grim.
32:30In scouting for boys...
32:32Sorry, your hobby.
32:34It is a strange title.
32:36It is, of course, by the founder of the scout movement,
32:39the scouting movement.
32:40Ben Powell.
32:41Ben Powell.
32:42What does one think of a man who can say something like this?
32:44He said of bees that they're quite a mortal community,
32:48for they respect their queen and kill their unemployed.
32:52Oh.
32:55Hello?
32:56Did he say that?
32:57Yeah.
32:58Now, what begins with M that you could shoot with one of these?
33:04What do you mean?
33:05Those guys are tiny.
33:06M monkey.
33:07Well, M a mallard.
33:09A mallard is very good.
33:10Absolutely recognise what that is.
33:12It's a punt gun.
33:13It is indeed a punt gun.
33:17A few punters in.
33:18Yay!
33:20That's all your good old guns, aren't you, Jeremy?
33:23I shot one of those, but I shot a clay pigeon with it.
33:27And proved that a man can actually fly.
33:32So you don't tell me you weren't on a punt?
33:34No, I wasn't on a punt.
33:36And there's a sort of momentum thing that goes,
33:37and you get it going, and then you just can't stop it.
33:40And I was airborne for 20 minutes.
33:44That's one of the reasons they had them on punts is...
33:46I mean, the boat goes backwards.
33:48That's the point.
33:48You could fire that in Norfolk, and you would wind up in Stavanger
33:52three weeks later, going 3,000 miles.
33:55Well, that's true.
33:56But also, more distressingly, perhaps, if you like a waterfowl,
33:59one shot can destroy up to 50 at a time.
34:02So you're going to have...
34:03So is that shot like a shotgun?
34:04Yeah, it's just a huge amount of blast.
34:06No, but, I mean, I know you're a vegetalist, and just fine,
34:09but...
34:10What I don't understand about these is that if you actually hit a duck,
34:14it vaporised it.
34:16And apart from licking the lake or the grass,
34:20there's no nutritional value from an atomised lake.
34:23You're pretty much right.
34:28Seriously, why do they have such a great big gun for it?
34:31Well, it was used in the United States of America, of course,
34:34in the early part of the 19th century.
34:37But even the Americans realised they were going to deplete their water waste
34:40just too much.
34:41So by 1860, it was banned.
34:43You couldn't use it.
34:44And then they use hand grenades now.
34:46Yes.
34:46Do you?
34:47I got picked up...
34:48This is another gun story, and I apologise, Sheila,
34:50but I got picked up by a man once at an airport in Phoenix,
34:52and he was a big noise in the NRA.
34:55And we had very little in common.
34:57And he drove along in complete silence,
34:59and he just turned to me after about ten minutes and went,
35:01what is your personal preference of firearm?
35:04Was he slaughtered?
35:05That was slaughtered.
35:07I don't really have one.
35:07And you said, punk gun.
35:08Punk gun.
35:11I tried earlier with Sheila.
35:13We didn't really hit it off.
35:16I almost want to go to a rifle range with you
35:19to see you with one of these guns.
35:21You're obviously hopeless at it.
35:29The punt gun was used to massacre Mallards,
35:32Muscovy Ducks, and the Gansas, and other mother duckers.
35:36From Ducks to Drix, what was the name of the fleet of ships
35:40who got its arse kicked in 1589 during the Anglo-Spanish War?
35:44The Spanish Armada.
35:46Oh.
35:48Well, I knew, I knew that was...
35:51Yeah, that was 1588.
35:531889.
35:54The Spanish Armada.
35:55The next year?
35:55The next year.
35:56They came back in under the NRA?
35:57No, this is what's so interesting.
35:59This is the English Armada.
36:00And what's interesting is that we just don't teach this in schools,
36:02but it's a far worse defeat on the Indians.
36:05Was this Cadiz?
36:05No, Cadiz was singeing the king of Spain's beard as it was.
36:08Yes.
36:09It was a success.
36:09Cadiz is...
36:10Cadiz is pronounced Cardiff, by the way.
36:13Cadiz.
36:13If you say Cadiz.
36:15If you say Cadiz, you're much closer to the way to Spanish say it.
36:16Cardiff is the way to Spanish say it.
36:17As I found out.
36:18Oh, really?
36:19They say Cardiff, and they go, oh, he he he.
36:21That way.
36:22You walk to it!
36:23If you say Cadiz, they go, eh.
36:25But anyway, it's nothing to do with Cadiz.
36:27What was the one where we went and did too long?
36:28What's interesting about this is that the English had a plan,
36:32having seen off the Spanish Armada,
36:33Drake, filled with confidence,
36:35thought they would really defeat Philip II of Spain
36:38and we would really finish the job.
36:40Instead of which, we lost 40 ships and it was an utter disaster.
36:44They don't teach it in English schools.
36:47The Spanish Armada that is taught a lot and we celebrate
36:49was not really that much of a triumph, to be honest.
36:52We didn't sink their ships in the great battle.
36:55The fire ships that Drake's invented to send into them
36:58didn't destroy any Spanish shipping.
37:00So it was just not really that great a triumph.
37:03It was the wind that beat them, not really Drake,
37:05but what was the, I've forgotten what the question was about 1589.
37:08Yeah, what was the name of the fleet of ships?
37:10God, it's asking.
37:11Oh, it's the name of the fleet of ships, I don't know.
37:12It was the English, English Armada.
37:14Oh, was it?
37:15Yeah.
37:16Yeah, well, I don't want to learn about that.
37:18No!
37:20I learned about HMS Victory.
37:22Hmm.
37:23And they, they used 60,000 trees to make HMS Victory.
37:28And they would grow oak trees and when they were saplings
37:31they would tie ropes around them so that branches would grow
37:33into bends because they needed, actually, to make the hulls
37:37and the key, we needed oak in that shape.
37:41So actually the growing of the oak was an extraordinary.
37:43Amazing, isn't it?
37:44Extraordinary expertise, wasn't it?
37:46Yeah, the year after the Spanish Armada and English Armada
37:49was soundly beaten by Spain.
37:51We don't really like to talk about it.
37:53That was something that people are generally ignorant about
37:56and here are some more.
37:57Fingers on buzzers, if you please.
38:00I'll give you 100 points if you can name one of the countries
38:03where either the first or last shots of the First World War were fired.
38:08Well...
38:09It's worth it for 100 points.
38:10France.
38:13England.
38:14England.
38:15It's where that guy, the king, the man was shot in the carriage.
38:19Where was that?
38:19Well, that first shot in Sarajevo was not a shot of the war.
38:23It's what caused the war months or so later.
38:25Oh, you mean soldiers shoot.
38:26But once the war was underway, the first shot that was actually fired in it...
38:31The Isle of Man.
38:31Denmark.
38:32Jersey.
38:33No.
38:34I'll tell you.
38:34It was Togoland.
38:36That was the next thing I was going to say.
38:40Where's Togoland?
38:41Next to Disneyland.
38:43Yeah.
38:44It's now called Togo, but it was called Togoland then.
38:47It's in the middle of the Pacific, isn't it?
38:48I'm a long way away.
38:50No.
38:50Maybe thinking of Tonga or something.
38:51This is Africa.
38:52It was a German colony.
38:54And on the 4th of August 1914, the British Empire declared war on Germany.
38:58And three days later, it attacked Togoland, Germany's small but strategic colony there.
39:02Is that Namibia-y way then?
39:04No, no.
39:04It's a bit much further off.
39:05Near the Gold Coast and that sort of area.
39:08And regimental sergeant-major Al-Hajjid Grunschi was the first to shoot back when the German-led police force shot
39:13the preaching British forces.
39:14He was obviously better at it than Jeremy.
39:17So he became...
39:18Didn't actually hear anything.
39:19He didn't necessarily hear anybody.
39:21I've never hear a thing.
39:21He became the first member of the British army to fire a shot in the war.
39:25Because I'd be the perfect armed guard for a Quaker meeting.
39:28You were!
39:29You were!
39:30I'm loving everything that you're so bad with.
39:33Yeah.
39:33In Michigan, yes I have.
39:34But the war also ended in Africa, in fact.
39:37The last actual battle took place on a golf course in northern Rhodesia, which is now called Zambia.
39:43They stopped fighting eventually, but German troops fought on for ages in what is now Tanzania, Tanganyika as it was.
39:50And they surrendered on November the 25th, 1918.
39:52If you shoot someone on a golf course, is it considered polite to shout four?
39:56Do you think it would be the least you could do?
39:58Probably.
39:58So, yes, 14 days after the armistice was the last shot of the war that anybody can find, which was
40:03in Tanganyika.
40:04So, yeah, the first shots of World War I were fired in Togo, the last in Tanganyika.
40:10And finally, our last question, what happened to the last of the Mohicans?
40:15We had a haircut.
40:16Well, yeah.
40:18A Wild West show?
40:19Well, what is a Mohican?
40:22A hairstyle.
40:23Well, aside from a hairstyle, yes.
40:25Well, it's an Indian.
40:25Native American tribe, is it?
40:26Well, no way.
40:27Say what?
40:28I've gone and trodden on one of those landmines.
40:31Because you can't say Indian, can you?
40:33What do I say?
40:33Native American.
40:35Actually, you can say Indian.
40:36I found doing a documentary all over the reservations.
40:39I can say it.
40:39They called each other Indian.
40:40Sounds like they got fired for that one.
40:41AIM is the...
40:51The American Indian Movement is the premier political body fighting for the rights of
40:55American Indians.
40:56And they call themselves the American Indian Movement.
40:57AIM.
40:58It's a whole new world.
40:59Yeah.
41:00There are two sets of Native Americans and American Indians that have been known as Mohicans.
41:07They're the Mohicans, who live in Connecticut and run the Casino of the Sky.
41:11Yeah.
41:12Are they the Mohican Sun Casino?
41:14I've been there.
41:14It's called Mohican, is it?
41:15Mohican, yeah.
41:16And then the Mohicans, or Mohicans, also provide a gambling service for you at the North Star
41:22Mohican Resort in Wisconsin, known as the Midwest's Friendliest Casino.
41:26Yeah.
41:27The guy on the right there is rubbish.
41:30He is.
41:31The worst Native American ever.
41:33It doesn't work, is he?
41:35It's going, no-one told me we were supposed to dress as Indian.
41:40Are they ridiculous?
41:43So, the Mohican hairstyle, which you've alluded to, is only called that in Britain.
41:48What do they call it in America?
41:51Oh.
41:51Ridiculous.
41:51They call it Mohawk.
41:54Oh.
41:54Mohawk.
41:55Mohawk.
41:55Yeah.
41:56But, actually neither Mohicans, either the mohegan or the mohegan, whichever one you choose,
42:02have their hair like that, nor do mohawks have their hair like that.
42:06It's the poor knees who have their hair cut like that.
42:09Oh.
42:10But, for some reason, Mohawk and Mohican is there.
42:13So, we haven't seen the last of the Mohicans.
42:15They're still coining it in their casinos.
42:17Ka-ching, ka-ching, chingo, ka-choo, ka-choo, ka-choo, ka-choo, ka-choo.
42:20As Little Chamberlain said in war, no matter which side may call itself the victor,
42:26there are no winners, all are losers.
42:28And so it is with QI.
42:30But, let's see who is the least losing of them all.
42:33Oh, bless my blimey.
42:35Well, I have to say, it's a fantastic score for a first-time performance.
42:39Wow.
42:40Look at that.
42:41Quaking away at minus two is Sheila Hancock.
42:48In second place, with minus eight, it's Jimmy Carr.
42:52Minus eight is good.
42:56In third place, going great guns, it's Jeremy.
43:01Minus 13.
43:06And only just last is Alan on minus 14.
43:18The call from Sheila, Jimmy, Jeremy, Alan and me,
43:21and I leave you with this deep thought of American humorist Jack Handy.
43:25I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate,
43:28and I can picture us attacking that world because they'd never expect it.
43:33Good night.
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