- 1 day ago
First broadcast 22nd January 2016.
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
David Mitchell
Julia Zemiro
Matt Lucas
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
David Mitchell
Julia Zemiro
Matt Lucas
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00utet
00:04and welcome to QI
00:06Uhh, tonight, we are musing on the medieval and the macabre
00:12Joining me in the dark ages are King of the castle, David Mitchell
00:21Queen of the May, Julia Zemiro, Lord of the Manor, Matt Lucas, and a Knight on the Tiles,
00:34Alan Davis.
00:40And their buzzers are all very much connected with middle age.
00:45David goes, Julia goes, it's the middle ages alright, Matt goes, and Alan goes, dear sir,
01:06why oh why oh why must we always have endless monks chanting on the BBC?
01:16Which of these did they not have in the middle ages?
01:22Sweet, no.
01:24Iron Maiden.
01:25Well.
01:26They didn't have Iron Maiden.
01:28I'm aware there is a group.
01:32The most medieval thing seems that thing with the spikes that you put someone in.
01:36Yes.
01:36That'll be the thing they didn't actually have then.
01:38You are absolutely right.
01:46You are absolutely right.
01:48The Iron Maiden, as you say, that sort of sarcophagus with spikes, they weren't even thought of or imagined until
01:551793.
01:57Oh, I was going to say I thought they were invented by Paul Daniels or something.
02:01Spanish Inquisition.
02:02Must be the Spanish Inquisition.
02:04Well they weren't used in the Spanish Inquisition because they weren't invented until 1793, which was...
02:11My favourite one from the Spanish Inquisition was they put a pole up your anus and they do it in
02:18such a way that it avoids all of your vital organs and comes out by your shoulder and then just
02:23leave you there for people to look at.
02:27I like the first part of that.
02:34It's an actual pole, it's not a Polish gentleman, it's an actual pole.
02:39That's keen, that's keen.
02:41I thought an Iron Maiden was a chastity belt.
02:44No.
02:45I'd like it to be.
02:46They call that a chastity belt.
02:48Yes.
02:50So they didn't ever exist?
02:52Well, in 1793, an archaeologist by the name of Johann Siebenkais gave an account of one, which was a hoax.
02:59And then a hundred years or so later, a guy called Matois Pfau had one installed in Caibor, his Swiss
03:05castle, as a visitor attraction.
03:07And it became the prototype for all the other maidens that were used in museums and indeed in movies.
03:12Oh, so they haven't really been used as a method of torture, did they?
03:15No, that's what I mean.
03:15Exactly.
03:16They were just a hoax, essentially.
03:17Here's one for you.
03:18Here's one for you.
03:19What a weird hoax.
03:21It is.
03:22Actually, if you think about it, if what they wanted to do in the Middle Ages is find a way
03:26of killing people as gradually as possible.
03:29It's okay.
03:29Yeah.
03:30Because it's going to kill them immediately and you don't even get to see it happening.
03:33Yeah.
03:34And they don't recount their heresy or whatever it is that they were guilty of.
03:37Yeah, they hadn't invented perspex until 1974.
03:41It would be a dead giveaway they weren't medieval if they had a perspex front.
03:47Made by the people who brought you stripper heels.
03:51But if we go back to my little manuscript word cloud, maybe other ones didn't exist in medieval times.
03:58Well, there wasn't much cardboard about.
04:00So if there were greeting cards, they wouldn't have been...
04:03Not big readers either.
04:04Not many people could read.
04:05All right.
04:06Well, exactly.
04:06But in fact, there were single sheet woodcuts found from the mid to 15th century with pictures on them.
04:12Wishing the recipient a very good year, even.
04:15Oh.
04:15It seems a rather modern idea.
04:16Sorry.
04:17Yes.
04:20But there's banderoles, the little kind of bubbles, were very popular.
04:24They'd say things probably not, sorry, you've been unwell, but things like a very good year.
04:28So they did exist.
04:30What else might have existed or did exist in that era?
04:34Sweet and sour sauce, definitely.
04:35Yeah.
04:36But they called it sour sweet, in fact, egg-a-duce.
04:39And they used vinegar and sugar, cinnamon, orange, onions, whatever they get their hands on.
04:44Didn't they use onions to sweeten things?
04:47Yeah, well, onions do contain more sugar than sugar beets, as long as you cook them.
04:52Hence the caramelised, you know.
04:54And they're a bit onion-y, though, as well.
04:56Yeah.
04:57They can be sweet, but you wouldn't want too many puddings being that onion-y.
05:03No, do you know, it's true, they're not that sweet, because if you ever go to the freezer,
05:07and you go for a mini-milk, and you've left a bag of onion rings next to the mini-milks
05:12in the freezer.
05:15What an insight.
05:16What an insight.
05:17Yeah, the mini-milks taste a bit onion-y.
05:20I mean, the...
05:22What I do when I, you know, slow roast a belly, a pork, I take an onion, a large onion.
05:31Yeah.
05:31Mm-hmm.
05:32And the juices from the pork go down, and the onion roasts, and it is so sweet.
05:37It is so sweet.
05:38I swear you BELIEVE you're eating, um, Haribo.
05:43Haribo.
05:45Haribo.
05:46You can steal my receipt.
05:48Yeah.
05:48What do you possess at the moment?
05:53We'll find a medieval cure for it if you need to.
05:56During the Spanish Inquisition, they'd put a mini-milk up your arm.
06:03What is a mini-milk?
06:05What is a mini-milk?
06:07What is a mini-milk?
06:09What is a mini-milk?
06:10What is a mini-milk?
06:12I don't know what a mini-milk is.
06:12Well, do you think one of those sweets, it looks like a tiny bottle of milk?
06:15No.
06:16It's...
06:16It's ice cream on a steak, my son.
06:17It's basically what...
06:19When you want a magnum, and your mum won't buy you a magnum, you get a mini-milk.
06:23And you keep those with onion rings in the freezer?
06:25Well, no, I didn't.
06:27I have separate shelves.
06:29You've got to keep sweet and...
06:31Put me on camera!
06:32You've got to...
06:34You've got to keep sweet and savoury separate in freezers, guys.
06:37Come on!
06:39No, mini-milks are nice.
06:40They're like...
06:41I don't know.
06:42They're kind of...
06:42They're not really nice.
06:44You can't get a sparkle, get a mini-milk.
06:44I don't know.
06:45What's a sparkle?
06:46Oh, dear.
06:47What's your ice cream of choice?
06:49I used to like Miffies when I was a boy.
06:51When I was a boy.
06:52That's the point.
06:54Okay.
06:54Now I'm an adult.
06:56I eat olives, and I eat cheese.
06:58Right.
07:01It's all gone very weird, because...
07:03Have you started with that pork belly thing?
07:06Right.
07:06We're a long way for...
07:07I want to live in the Middle Ages now, because they seem to have grown-up food.
07:11Question, Mr Fry.
07:12Question from the floor, Mr Fry.
07:14Yeah.
07:14What is the prefab?
07:16Oh, don't you have those in Australia?
07:17I don't know.
07:18Tell me.
07:18It means a sort of modular building that is made outside the site...
07:22Brought to some...
07:22...and then brought to it and assembled.
07:24It's associated with low-cost health.
07:27The Duchess of Cambridge grew up in one.
07:29Did she?
07:30Did she?
07:30No.
07:33I think we could just...
07:34Because she grew up on an estate.
07:37I just like the fact that people think she was common as mad.
07:41You and the Conqueror had prefabs, didn't he?
07:44Did you?
07:45Didn't they bring prefab castles over?
07:47Yeah.
07:48With the Norman...
07:49Oh!
07:49Not the Normandy landings.
07:50The other way round.
07:52The Hastings?
07:52The Hastings landings.
07:54They brought...
07:55Yeah, because all the plug sockets are different here and they wanted their own.
07:59Yeah.
07:59They certainly...
08:00The example of prefab housing that we have is the Vikings, in fact.
08:04Who, when they invaded Orkney, found there was virtually nowhere to live.
08:07And so they came back with supplies on longboats of prefab little houses.
08:13And that's presumably where Vikings got the idea of flat pack...
08:18No.
08:20LAUGHTER
08:20Have you noticed though that the current Vikings have decided that it should be described
08:25as Ikea, not Ikea?
08:27It's ridiculous.
08:28Yeah.
08:28As in more icky.
08:30More icky.
08:30Yeah, Ikea.
08:31There's a voiceover now that goes on about Ikea.
08:34Ikea.
08:34That's strange.
08:34Oh, well they can fic off then.
08:37LAUGHTER
08:39APPLAUSE
08:43That leaves us, I think, with an official commemorative merchandise.
08:46Would that be if you went to sort of...
08:48They used to be very keen on seeing a rotting old bit of a saint?
08:52Very much so.
08:54If you were medieval, there was one saint who was more or less contemporary,
08:57who was a martyr.
08:58They would stop off at this cathedral where he was murdered, famously.
09:03Who would that be?
09:03Oh, Thomas Beckett.
09:04Thomas Beckett, exactly.
09:05Points!
09:06Points!
09:07Points!
09:08In the 12th century, Thomas Beckett was killed by Henry II.
09:11And they immediately tried to sell his blood and that ran out rather quickly,
09:15so they diluted it.
09:17Um, but also they sold little swords.
09:20A little simulacra of the swords that had stabbed him and you could buy one of those.
09:25And it was official.
09:26You know, it was, as it were, stamped with Canterbury.
09:28They've still got a shop in the cathedral.
09:30Whoa!
09:30Exactly.
09:31Yeah.
09:32The Middle Ages, in fact, featured lots of very useful inventions.
09:36But tell me, what has been called the wickedest, silliest, most insane and most disastrous book in world literature?
09:43Er, The Liar by Stephen Fry.
09:45Ah!
09:46It probably is.
09:48Mein Kampf.
09:49Yeah.
09:49That would be a very sensible guess.
09:51Yeah.
09:51And, in the interest of balance, The Da Vinci Code also.
10:03Um, these self-help books.
10:05Yeah.
10:06The books that say, if you just change the way you think, you'll be fine.
10:09I mean, you know, everyone's got a mood board for something.
10:13A mood board?
10:25Malleus Maleficorum.
10:26Malleus Maleficorum.
10:27Malleus Maleficorum, I beg your pardon.
10:27Because that's the point.
10:28If you know your Latin, that means Malleus.
10:31If you take the US off and put a T from Malleus.
10:34Malleus.
10:35Malleus.
10:35Malleus.
10:35It's hammer.
10:36Malleus is hammer.
10:37Timmy Mallet's autobiography.
10:40Sorry, I'm bringing the tone down.
10:42No, no, I am.
10:43No, you're not.
10:44Is it the, Malefica, is that like the, the, the bad doing hammer thing?
10:48You know?
10:49No, it's the, of the, that's genitive.
10:51Come on, boy, that's genitive.
10:53Come on!
10:53Um, it's a, it's the hammer of the bad doing people.
10:57But the, the arum, not aurum, tells it's bad.
11:00Doing women.
11:01Yes.
11:02Oh.
11:02The bad doing women and their hammer.
11:04No.
11:05The hammer of.
11:06I want to be the hammer of the hammer.
11:08I want to beat them down.
11:09The crazy witches of eighties.
11:10Oh, really?
11:11Witches.
11:11Oh, witches.
11:12You said it.
11:13You said we've got that.
11:15It's the hammer of the witches, is what that means.
11:18So it's not, they don't own the hammer.
11:19No.
11:19We own the hammer.
11:20No.
11:20And we hammer away at them.
11:22I am more confused than when I talked about mini-milk.
11:25I...
11:26So.
11:28We have a Latin parsing essay.
11:30In which the Malleus Maleficarum turned out to mean the hammer of witches.
11:35That.
11:36That was the way to beat witches.
11:38And this was a textbook about how to destroy and find witches.
11:43Now, it was strange because it was mid-15th century.
11:45In the mid-15th century, the church banned belief in witches.
11:50So this wasn't a time of witch burnings or anything of the nature.
11:53But the very nature of the success of the book meant that a slow movement grew, in which
12:00witches should be found and burned and tortured and so and so.
12:03And this book was therefore called The Silliest, Most Wicked book.
12:07Because it made appalling claims about women that, for example, that they dispossessed men
12:12of their penises.
12:14As if.
12:15They would put...
12:16They would take their penises, put them on a tray, and the penises would wander around
12:21with their own volition, eating...
12:24Eating...
12:24Eating...
12:24Eating oats and...
12:26And corn.
12:27Not corn, not maize corn.
12:29With a simple pecking motion.
12:31Yeah.
12:33Or, like, with a suction.
12:35How would they do it?
12:36There's a theory.
12:37Do you know the theory about the witch's broomstick?
12:40About how it might have developed?
12:42Yeah.
12:42So they put it up your anus, and it will actually show you.
12:45It's funny you should say that now.
12:49Because, yes, they put them up their anus.
12:52What?
12:52Now, you may say, why would a woman stick a broomstick up her body?
12:57I'm so glad we're having this conversation.
13:00But anyway, the point is...
13:02Yes.
13:03There is a substance that has been accused, if you like, throughout history, of
13:08being behind a lot of episodes of mass hysteria and hallucination and so on.
13:13And the substance is called ergot.
13:15Have you heard of ergot?
13:16No.
13:16Where can you get it?
13:18You can get it if you live near a field of rye.
13:21Oh, okay.
13:22Where rye grows, it is a fungus that grows on rye, and its spores can be breathed in.
13:26And it is not unlike lysergic acid, which is the L of LSD.
13:30And it causes weird trips.
13:32Now, with any drug, there are different ways of ingesting it.
13:36Intranasally, orally.
13:38Or on a broomstick, up your arse.
13:40Intervenously.
13:41Or in a suppository form.
13:43Right.
13:43So one way would be to take it and to grease up your...
13:49I'm not making this up.
13:51Grease up your pole with ergot.
13:53Grease up your pole and scatter it with bits of ergot and then...
13:56Whoo!
13:57Yeah.
13:58And you only...
13:59You feel like you're flying.
14:03That's basically what you then get your...
14:05Well, what does that mean?
14:06How much ergot are those kids at Hogwarts getting for?
14:12It's not appropriate to encourage that kind of drug-taking in the young.
14:16It isn't.
14:17And there is another theory that it was actually into vaginal rather than intra-anal.
14:22Lovely.
14:22So that it was covered on the broom and then it went sort of smoothly up.
14:26I can't see anything smooth about this at all.
14:29I don't know.
14:30Ow!
14:32Do another witch apply it to you?
14:34You'd do that yourself.
14:36You'd be a great gynaecologist though, Stephen, because you're very calm the way you're
14:39explaining everything.
14:42Let's...
14:42Let's get more decent here.
14:44What did old Mummy Pettigrew do?
14:48Oh.
14:48Wow.
14:49Is there a clue in the picture?
14:51No.
14:51The picture is there to deceive.
14:53The key isn't the M-word, this being the M-series.
14:56Was she a mother superior of a nunnery?
15:00No, she wasn't.
15:01Who, no.
15:01Was she a Morrissey fan?
15:04Could take a long time.
15:06Yeah.
15:07Madonna...
15:08Does she mean she wasn't a dead Egyptian?
15:10Ah!
15:11No.
15:12She wasn't.
15:13Mummy Pettigrew, not female.
15:16Oh.
15:16If I was very interested in beetles, you might call me Beetle Fry.
15:22If I was very interested in mummies, you might call me Mummy Fry.
15:25So, Mummy Pettigrew.
15:26Was a Mr. Pettigrew who was obsessed with Egyptology.
15:29On the mummy.
15:30Ah.
15:31Exactly.
15:32And there's a picture of him.
15:33He was quite well known.
15:35He was Thomas Mummy Pettigrew.
15:37He was a 19th century anatomist.
15:39And what he would do, he would issue invitations.
15:41Because this was a period in which mummies were coming into Britain from all over.
15:45Mostly Egypt, obviously, but North Africa too.
15:48And other places where mummification...
15:50We went and robbed the world.
15:52We robbed the world.
15:53It was a pretty awful kind of cultural violation that went on there, I'm afraid.
15:56Not like the British to do that through history, is it?
15:59Americans too.
16:00French also.
16:00There was a big deal in America.
16:02And France almost invented Egyptology.
16:03All right.
16:04Hang on.
16:05Well, all the countries of Europe, essentially the powers, as they were known in the 19th century,
16:10loved Egyptology.
16:11And these mummies would come in and rather than unrolling them carefully in the British Museum,
16:17these were public events and Pettigrew was the cheaper one.
16:21You would pay to see a mummy unrolled for the first time.
16:24You had no idea what you'd see inside.
16:26That'd be amazing.
16:26There were hundreds of them coming in.
16:28Yeah.
16:29And the more you paid, the closer to the mummy you got.
16:33And some of them were so popular...
16:34Betting, will it be a dead body, will it be a robot?
16:37Well, at last!
16:40There was an Egyptologist called George Glidden, who in 1850 proudly unrolled before his paying
16:46public a princess.
16:48He'd been able to read the hieroglyphs and tell that this was important.
16:52Princess unrolled the mummy.
16:54The great todger poked out.
16:56It was quite clear.
16:58He wasn't exactly right.
17:00It was clear that he wasn't yet dead.
17:03And there was one occasion where the Archbishop of Canterbury was pushed out because the
17:06press of people was so great that he couldn't even get a view.
17:09These were very popular events.
17:11One of the greatest fans of them was the Duke of Hamilton, who loved these things, became
17:16very obsessed, and asked Pettigrew that he might be mummified himself when he died.
17:22Although he looks younger in that picture than Pettigrew, I suppose.
17:24Was that him with his wife?
17:26LAUGHTER
17:28Well, anyway, when he died, he was duly mummified by Thomas Mummy Pettigrew.
17:34And they rather got the proportions wrong of the sarcophagus in which he was going
17:37to be placed as a mummy, and so they had to cut his feet off.
17:41LAUGHTER
17:42They put his feet in a little shoebox.
17:45LAUGHTER
17:46I like to be mummified.
17:48I mean, obviously, once I'm dead, but...
17:51LAUGHTER
17:51You could ask, I'd look like the Michelin man, cos, you know, it'd be nice.
17:55LAUGHTER
17:55Nice.
17:56See, we can guess where the northernmost mummies were found.
17:58That's not eccentrics like the Duke of Hamilton, who were asked to be mummied,
18:02but proper mummified creatures, according...
18:04Wigan.
18:05LAUGHTER
18:06A little further south than Wigan, but certainly north.
18:09Kent.
18:10No, north.
18:12Nottingham.
18:12Ian McNeice, I think I'm right in saying Michael Parkinson.
18:16Barnsley.
18:17Barnsley is right, that's right.
18:18Barnsley.
18:19Now, why would there be found ancient mummies in Barnsley, 300 AD?
18:23There was no room in the car park in Leicester?
18:26LAUGHTER
18:29No, who was stationed and garrisoned in Britain?
18:32Oh, was it...
18:33Egyptian Romans?
18:34North Africa, yes, who observed mummification.
18:37They are the furthest north of any mummied remains.
18:40They're in the Roman army.
18:40Yes.
18:40Stationed here.
18:41Absolutely.
18:42They mummified folk, either as conscripts or, you know, mercenaries.
18:46I don't know.
18:46Were there sort of British legionaries in Egypt who played bagpipes?
18:51LAUGHTER
18:51Maybe.
18:52Maybe.
18:53So we went all the way to Egypt and ransacked the pyramids,
18:55and we had some in Barnsley.
18:57Oh, yes.
18:59LAUGHTER
18:59It's a bit of a surprise.
19:00Can't ransack Yorkshire though, can you?
19:03LAUGHTER
19:04Was it a certain class of people only that were mummified?
19:08Was that the...
19:08No, actually, one of the most beautiful things you can see
19:10when you go up the Nile, if you do,
19:12is there's the Valley of the Kings,
19:14but behind it is the Valley of the Artisans and Artists,
19:17and they're the most touching and extraordinary ones
19:20because they were the artists and artisans
19:21who worked on the great tombs of the fairies.
19:24I guess if you had the art, you could do it yourself.
19:27Hilda, get to mummy.
19:28LAUGHTER
19:31Mummy Pettigrew was very much a mummy's boy.
19:34Now, for a mile-high question,
19:37how do you get a whole row of seats to yourself
19:40on a Virgin Airways flight?
19:42Oh, if you're really fat.
19:45LAUGHTER
19:45That would, yeah, I think they might be able to get rid of it on.
19:48But I don't think they'd let you on if you were any fatter.
19:50No, but, like, really fat.
19:51Oh, I see what you mean.
19:52Die is the right answer. You'd have to die.
19:55Die!
19:56Yeah.
19:57APPLAUSE
20:00You can't...
20:01I mean...
20:01You can't make people sit next to the dead.
20:04That's the truth, isn't it?
20:06Basically, I can't...
20:06That would be what it was.
20:07And if you're flying, say, London, New York,
20:10if you're near enough and someone dies,
20:12you'd turn around and all the other passengers go,
20:15really?
20:17That's some consideration.
20:19LAUGHTER
20:19But once you've passed that point of near return,
20:21as they call it,
20:22then there's nothing you can do about that
20:24except go on to New York.
20:25But what if the plane's full?
20:27Do they keep a row for the dead just in case?
20:30LAUGHTER
20:31In which case, if they keep a row for the dead,
20:33what if two people die?
20:35LAUGHTER
20:35There's always a row at the back
20:36and the crew use it for having a kip.
20:39What it means is the crew will then have to be awake.
20:42Yes.
20:42A dead bloke.
20:43That'll piss off.
20:44Does that happen a lot, though?
20:45Oh, now, this is what's interesting.
20:47British Airways have about ten deaths a year in flight.
20:50Well, that food is...
20:52LAUGHTER
20:5436 million passengers.
20:57So if you extrapolate out to the rather amazing
20:593.5 billion passengers that fly every year,
21:03that means there must be around 1,000 deaths a year.
21:06And different airlines have different ways of doing it.
21:09Singapore Airlines have a corpse cupboard.
21:12LAUGHTER
21:13I don't know why it's funny, but it is.
21:15So, no-one need even know there's a dead bloke.
21:17Oh, I'm sorry.
21:20But it's also faulty towers, isn't it?
21:23If I ever die on a plane,
21:24I should like to be stored in the overhead lockers.
21:27LAUGHTER
21:28For the rest of time.
21:32British Airways, you get a good deal if you die,
21:33because you go to first class.
21:35Yeah. Excellent.
21:36Yeah.
21:37One long-established steward said,
21:39many years ago, we used to give them a vodka and tonic
21:41at Daily Mail and eye shades
21:42and tell passengers they were fine.
21:44We don't do that any more.
21:45Yeah, I think...
21:46LAUGHTER
21:48It's bad enough being dead,
21:50but having to hold a Daily Mail!
21:53The Daily Mail!
21:54Holy crap!
21:56APPLAUSE
22:01Daily Mail and other newspapers,
22:03not just the Daily Mail,
22:04when they talk about their circulation,
22:07they are also including the newspapers
22:09that they give away for free.
22:11And so I don't think the airlines
22:13or any of those kind of institutions
22:15actually pay for the newspapers.
22:16Oh, really?
22:17Yeah.
22:17Mainly, the Daily Mail is mainly
22:19dead people on aeroplanes.
22:20Yeah.
22:21LAUGHTER
22:22The dead are very, very right-wing.
22:25LAUGHTER
22:26That's true.
22:28All right.
22:28When do you think,
22:29I'll give you five years either way,
22:31was the first airline stewardess?
22:33I think 200 years before the first aeroplane.
22:36LAUGHTER
22:37It was a weird, pointless scheme by a futurologist.
22:40LAUGHTER
22:40Just went up and down a field with a troll.
22:44LAUGHTER
22:44Asking the cattle,
22:46drink, sir?
22:47LAUGHTER
22:491962.
22:5062?
22:521958.
22:5258.
22:53I'm going much earlier.
22:54I'm going to say 1924.
22:56Ooh, you're so close.
22:57It's 1930.
22:59Ah!
22:59She is, Ellen Church.
23:00Aww.
23:01The very first.
23:02She wanted to be a pilot,
23:03but she wasn't allowed.
23:05She and her colleagues were all nurses
23:06known as Sky Girls in those early days.
23:09That was United, as you can see,
23:10United Airlines.
23:12Their duties included screwing down loose seats.
23:16LAUGHTER
23:17Not loose seats.
23:18Loose seats.
23:18Helping to fuel the plane.
23:20Wow.
23:21And pushing the plane into its hangar
23:23at the end of the journey.
23:24LAUGHTER
23:25All that, and flogging the perfume as well.
23:28Yes.
23:29Scratch cards.
23:30Going up and down with a bin liner saying,
23:32is that rubbish?
23:34LAUGHTER
23:34I don't think they sell scratch cards on aeroplanes.
23:36Not the ones you go on, Steve,
23:38but yes, they do.
23:39LAUGHTER
23:39I would say a lottery card on an aeroplanes.
23:43You do not want to sell something
23:44when your chances of winning
23:45are so much less than your chances of dying.
23:49LAUGHTER
23:51So, good.
23:52Now, how would this man make your mouth water?
23:56Oh, well, Captain Saliva.
23:59LAUGHTER
24:00Is the stick relevant?
24:03Well...
24:03Hmm.
24:04If I make...
24:04Hit you in the nuts for the...
24:06LAUGHTER
24:07Maybe if I told you his name might help.
24:10Hang on, now dogs have appeared.
24:12Walking sticks and dogs.
24:13His name was Ivan...
24:15Doggy stick.
24:17Petrovich...
24:17Pavlov has someone shouted in the audience.
24:19Oh, Pavlov's dogs.
24:20So, how would he make drool appear?
24:22A ring in a bell.
24:24DROOL!
24:24Oh, you said it.
24:26Thank you for saying it.
24:29LAUGHTER
24:30Your fault, Pavlov.
24:32Your fault.
24:32Would he make...
24:33Would he make...
24:34Would he make a pavlova?
24:36LAUGHTER
24:37Did he invent that as well?
24:39No.
24:40That was Anna Pavlova.
24:41Anna Pavlova, yes, exactly.
24:42So, they'd feed the dogs and they'd do something...
24:44Well, they'd ring a bell, wouldn't they?
24:45And then the dogs would think the food was coming...
24:48And then they would get all excited.
24:51And then they wouldn't feed them.
24:52What we think of when we thought of Pavlov and his dogs is that...
24:55They were trained to recognise particular bells.
24:58And when you rang the bell, they would start immediately to salivate...
25:00Because dogs salivate when they're about to eat.
25:03Because it helps them digest.
25:04But the weird thing is, he did everything except ring bells.
25:08I mean, he did things that showed the extraordinary sophistication of dogs' hearing.
25:12They could distinguish between rhythms of 96 and 104 beats per minute.
25:17So, if he gave 104 beats per minute on a metronome, there'd be no food.
25:2296, there'd be food.
25:24And then a day later, he'd go 96.
25:26Boom!
25:27He'd drool.
25:28He tried also ascending and descending musical scales.
25:31So, if the scale was going up, they could eat.
25:33If it was going down, they won't go to eat.
25:34All of that, and he could have just rung a bell.
25:36I know!
25:37His followers of Pavlov used bells, but he didn't.
25:40Is this a sort of victory of the journalist who reported it?
25:44So, it's like you rang a bell.
25:45No.
25:46No, there's a metronome.
25:49Basically, you rang a bell, and then they just reported it as a bell.
25:53But do you want to know the weird thing?
25:55Yes, I do.
25:56I want to know the weird thing.
25:57In 1904, he became the first ever Russian to win the Nobel Prize!
26:04No!
26:05No!
26:06No!
26:07No!
26:07No!
26:10I've always wondered what I've called that.
26:13He won it.
26:14He became a Nobel Laureate for his contribution to medicine,
26:18particularly to digestion and so on.
26:20And he decided to sell gastric juices of dogs.
26:24And I suppose his name was helpful.
26:26And he felt that these would help people as a digestive cure of some kind.
26:30So, you would drink the gastric juice of a dog to help your own gastric business?
26:35Yeah.
26:35He would stick a catheter in the poor dog up into its tummy and milk it of its gastric juices.
26:41And, yeah, he sold them.
26:43We've got a picture of a dog giving his all here.
26:47I mean...
26:48So you're drawing!
26:52So, if you think Pavlov rings a bell, you're barking.
26:55Now, Matt, what's dense, slimy, lives at the bottom of the sea and is called...
27:00David Walliams.
27:02LAUGHTER
27:06APPLAUSE
27:10He's a very strong swimmer, isn't he?
27:13He is a strong swimmer.
27:15Oh, dear.
27:17Matt, what's dense, slimy, lives at the bottom of the sea and is called Matt?
27:22David Walliams.
27:23Yeah!
27:24I'm called Matt.
27:26Er, is it just a Matt?
27:28No.
27:29Oh, yes!
27:30Well, yes, of some...
27:31It's a Matt?
27:32Yeah, so I am clever.
27:34LAUGHTER
27:34Is it some kind of sea vegetable?
27:38It's...it's sea life, sea matter that's...cohered.
27:42How big would it be?
27:43Huge, huge.
27:45Yeah.
27:45Hundreds of thousands of square miles.
27:48Certainly the biggest we know of, it's about the size of Greece.
27:50There you are, see?
27:52You are clever.
27:52It's not in Greece or near Greece, it's off the coast of Peru and Chile.
27:55Oh!
27:56Look at David Walliams.
27:59Well...
27:59Stop it!
28:01Erm...
28:02No, don't stop. Carry on.
28:03LAUGHTER
28:05It's microbial.
28:06It's a whole load of microbes, so many of them, that they can create this matter.
28:11Matt matter.
28:12Matt matter, exactly.
28:14Don't say anything bad about them, because we owe the photosynthesis
28:18and the oxygen-rich nature of our own atmosphere to these.
28:22We couldn't live without them.
28:23I've been served that in the motorway service station.
28:26LAUGHTER
28:27They eat hydrogen and they breathe nitrates.
28:30And they live in streams and lakes as well as the ocean.
28:34Very, very, very exciting.
28:36And here, I know you like wonderful information.
28:39The total weight of microbes in the ocean is equivalent to 240 billion African elephants.
28:47Oh!
28:48Oh!
28:49Thank you!
28:50That really, that...
28:51The good thing about that is that really helps me visualise that.
28:55LAUGHTER
28:55That sounds very, very helpful.
28:56Let me help you more, then.
28:5835 elephants made of microbes for everyone on the planet.
29:02So each of us have got 35 elephants made of microbes surrounding us now.
29:0735, that's a lot of elephants.
29:09The time has come to rule out lifting all that in one go.
29:13LAUGHTER
29:14I never knew, you learn a lot on this show,
29:16I never knew that the ocean was made up of 35,000 billion elephants.
29:22LAUGHTER
29:22I've really been educated.
29:24I wonder elephants are endangered when you think of the number who've been drowned.
29:29LAUGHTER
29:30To create a map for the woman in the sea.
29:32LAUGHTER
29:33That's probably why the trunks, they were trying to evolve snorkels.
29:39LAUGHTER
29:39LAUGHTER
29:39That's...
29:40That's...
29:41That's...
29:41That's...
29:43You could see.
29:44You could see.
29:45No idea.
29:46I can see that I've not really explained myself very well.
29:50LAUGHTER
29:51Another something slightly mucky.
29:52Alan, have you ever had your dirt hole burgled without your knowledge?
29:55LAUGHTER
30:03You know what, I'm...I'm...I'm not going to answer that.
30:07Fair enough.
30:09I'm actually writing to points of view now.
30:12LAUGHTER
30:13It's a question to do with the macabre side of human life, muck.
30:18Oh!
30:19Is this something like, in some context, excrement has a value?
30:24Yes.
30:24Like, people want it for...
30:25Yes.
30:26They need it for fertiliser or whatever, and so people would sell their, you know, their shit.
30:32And so, obviously, other people would steal it.
30:33Which gave it a value.
30:33And if something has a value, there will always be some who wish to steal it.
30:37Is this in medieval times or now?
30:38No, actually, it's not medieval.
30:39It's, er, 18th and 19th century.
30:42I think the question is flawed.
30:44How so?
30:44Because if I'd had my dirt hole burgled without my knowledge, I'd know about it.
30:48Oh, no.
30:51Touché.
30:52You're absolutely right.
30:54So, I don't know.
30:56It's the right answer.
30:57Possibly.
30:58Possibly, yeah.
30:59So, people kept their rubbish in holes that could be collected.
31:03It was a bin collection.
31:04The dustman and the dust cart were actually often collecting dust as well
31:08because it was simply dirt that people had swept up and poured into a little hole
31:13or into a bucket in a hole, the dirt hole, because everything was recycled.
31:17Even family pets, when they died, had a value.
31:19You know, a white cat, sixpence, a multicoloured cat, fourpence.
31:24In those days, the flying dustman, as they were called, the people who came to collect it,
31:28they were paid to get it rather than you paying rates to have it removed.
31:32There was hardware and software.
31:35The software would be things like a dead cat,
31:36and the hardware is broken crockery, oyster shells and things like that,
31:40which road builders could use.
31:41Anyway.
31:42From muck to mug shots, what heinous crime was committed by babyface Bertillon?
31:48He stole the faces of babies.
31:52Oh, that's strange for himself.
31:55I knew if you were Sherlock Holmes buff.
31:58I'm quite buff, but no, I'm not so much with Sherlock Holmes.
32:03Holmes talks about the Bertillon system at one point.
32:05It was a famous system, and it did involve really what you're looking at.
32:10Mug shots.
32:11Mug shots is the right answer.
32:13Oh.
32:14So Bertillon took a photograph of his young son, hence the babyface, Bertillon.
32:20Oh.
32:20And what he did there was he exhibited his technique, which may seem obvious to us,
32:25but what are we looking at?
32:27Oh, taking a front and side.
32:30He realised that ears were very, very good ways of identifying people,
32:33and so you couldn't just have a full-on, but a side view is very important.
32:38And over the years, the French police and the British got huge collections of pictures of criminals.
32:47And these became the rogues' galleries, the mug shot, the famous in films and TV shows
32:52where some witnesses, oh, I know him, if I saw him again, hey, show him, show him the mug shots,
32:56you know, and the witness would go through the book, and each book would be...
33:00Oh, God.
33:04That was days after I'd had me dirt-hole burgles.
33:07LAUGHTER
33:09Was it by Hugh Grant above you?
33:11Yeah.
33:12Hugh Grant's trying to look cross there.
33:15LAUGHTER
33:15And the crime that Bertillon's son had committed was nibbling all the pears in a basket.
33:22LAUGHTER
33:22Yeah, trying mine and putting it back.
33:25He nibbled all the pears in a basket.
33:28Which, to a Frenchman, is a grave sin.
33:30It is.
33:30Sorry, is it a euphemism?
33:32Yeah.
33:32Maybe it's a euphemism, have I missed something?
33:34LAUGHTER
33:34And then I nibbled all the pears in the basket.
33:37LAUGHTER
33:38And she bloody loved it.
33:40LAUGHTER
33:41That's terrible.
33:43Anyway, yes.
33:44François Bertillon was the notorious Paris Pernibla.
33:48And talking of delicious things to eat, one last medieval question.
33:52How many uses can you think of for a monk's earwax?
33:56Oh, it's endless.
33:58Oh, it's endless.
33:58Candles?
33:59Yeah, candles and beer.
34:00Polishing wood.
34:01That definitely sounds like a euphemism.
34:03But, er...
34:06Not much else to do in a monastery, is it?
34:10Well, that's a mother, no.
34:10And I'm just polishing their own wood.
34:11What have you handed down to us?
34:13Mostly.
34:13Bibles.
34:14Bibles, manuscripts, illustrated...
34:16In their lifetime writing...
34:17In scriptural...
34:18Doing lines, basically.
34:19Yes.
34:19There we are.
34:20There's a picture of a happy monk doing his illuminations.
34:23And that side of it, the painty side of it, is...
34:25They used a substance called glare.
34:28G-L-A-I-R.
34:29And it tends to get bubbled.
34:32But they found if they added earwax into it,
34:36they could get a really smooth, beautiful luster and sheen
34:39to the illustrations that they were doing,
34:41which have lasted us down for centuries.
34:44How do you think of that, though?
34:45To go, hmm, there it is.
34:47What the hell?
34:47What you might try at home is that you could take a pint of
34:50foaming beer and then pop a little earwax into the head
34:55of your foaming tankard and the bubbles should collapse.
34:59If you're watching TV, don't listen to this man.
35:05I think you're right.
35:07It would be better if it was the other way round.
35:09You had a sort of flat liquid and then you put a bit of earwax in
35:12and it went...
35:13Oh, okay.
35:14Chuck some sodium in your beer.
35:17Which orifice does sodium come out of?
35:22They left other little things for us.
35:24Little maniculi, little hands that pointed to certain sections
35:27of the text in the Bible.
35:29Oh.
35:29You can see one on the left there.
35:31Well, if you wrote the name of the rose, they left clues everywhere,
35:33but also...
35:33Yeah.
35:34And octopuses as well.
35:35You can see an octopus at the top there.
35:36Is that a person with a huge sort of trumpet up his bottle?
35:42It's something odd, isn't it?
35:44Yeah, it is.
35:44I don't know what they're doing there.
35:45They're praising the Lord.
35:47And above, they're not from having knights fighting snakes.
35:51It's so boring in those monasteries.
35:53Exactly.
35:54The old fart trumpet was the favourite thing I used to do.
35:57I was going to say on a Sunday, but perhaps not.
36:01Well, they used to leave a little...
36:03Do that!
36:07They used to leave little remarks like,
36:09Oh, God, it's cold in here, or I'm so bored.
36:11And around the Bible.
36:13Just like...
36:13Anybody would.
36:13Just like school kids on the desk.
36:14Exactly like that.
36:16So why are they fighting snails?
36:18No one's quite sure, but it's a common feature,
36:21knights versus snails.
36:23They seem to like...
36:24Some people may think it was a symbol of the struggle
36:26of the poor against the aristocracy.
36:28I think people shouldn't watch this show any more.
36:31LAUGHTER
36:31Do you think they had loads of snails,
36:35sort of, in these cold, damp monasteries,
36:37and there were snails everywhere,
36:38and they were hoping a gallant knight would come
36:40and help them deal with a snail infestation problem?
36:43That's a bit impossible.
36:46Which means...
36:48To place various intimate parts of you
36:50into the thumbscrew of general ignorance.
36:53Fingers on buzzers, please.
36:55Where are most missionaries positioned?
36:58LAUGHTER
37:01Matthew?
37:02I'm going to guess that most of them are in Utah,
37:06where the Mormons tend to kind of congregate,
37:10because they haven't yet been assigned their places to go to.
37:13Interesting, interesting answer.
37:15But I'm talking about which is the country
37:17that receives the most incoming...
37:19Well, I'm not...
37:19I'm not talking about that.
37:21No, no, no.
37:22LAUGHTER
37:22I'm not talking about them before they've gone.
37:25LAUGHTER
37:26So, I'm not asking where the most missionaries come from,
37:29I'm asking where...
37:29I know, but I am still...
37:31LAUGHTER
37:32Is there a point by you answering the question
37:35that I haven't asked?
37:37LAUGHTER
37:38My guess is China.
37:40Eh, it's a possibility.
37:41I mean, it's not a...
37:42Well, it is a possibility, but it's not a fact.
37:44LAUGHTER
37:44Is it in Africa?
37:45It's not Africa, no.
37:46Is it England?
37:47No.
37:47Is it South America?
37:49Is it South America?
37:50Not South America.
37:51Not South America.
37:52North America.
37:54North America.
37:54North America.
37:55United States, thereof.
37:56Utah.
37:56Well, I think you'll find Utah is in America.
38:00LAUGHTER
38:02LAUGHTER
38:05But I'll specifically say
38:07you were the most missionaries
38:09who've come from outside one country.
38:11I know, but I didn't choose to answer that.
38:14LAUGHTER
38:14I'm going to give you points.
38:16You deserve them for sheer tenacity.
38:18So, the fact is, we don't quite know why missionaries
38:20is something where they just want to go to a very rich country.
38:23Others think these missionaries believe America has lapsed into sin.
38:26LAUGHTER
38:27You're absolutely right in one way, certainly,
38:28which is that America produces the most missionaries.
38:31No, I've got...
38:33I've gone past it.
38:34LAUGHTER
38:34For me, it's gone.
38:35The moment's gone.
38:3632,400 missionaries went to the USA...
38:38No, you can't.
38:39..from other nations.
38:39No, not interested.
38:40Whereas, 127,000 go out.
38:43No, it's too late.
38:43Too little, too late.
38:45LAUGHTER
38:45And that one, I think, is a Mormon, though.
38:47No, we're not looking.
38:49LAUGHTER
38:51A Mormon.
38:53In...in 2003...
38:55LAUGHTER
38:56In 2003, the residents of a Fijian village...
39:00Don't listen to me.
39:01..apologised...
39:01LAUGHTER
39:03..apologised to the family of an English missionary
39:05who had, in 1867, been eaten by their ancestors.
39:10Well, again, too little, too late.
39:13LAUGHTER
39:13LAUGHTER
39:15It's not known why the missionary was killed.
39:17But they said...
39:17Because they looked bloody tasty, I suspect.
39:20LAUGHTER
39:20Well, the villagers said that they'd been suffering bad luck
39:23ever since eating the missionary
39:25and hoped it would change their fortunes to apologise.
39:28Oh, oh.
39:29A year later, there was an earthquake.
39:31LAUGHTER
39:32Maybe they should have.
39:33I wouldn't apologise for anyone my ancestors had eaten.
39:37I don't think it's my fault.
39:39No.
39:39LAUGHTER
39:40And I wouldn't expect a descendant of mine
39:42to apologise for anything I'd eaten, either.
39:45LAUGHTER
39:45I think what you eat, it's you to apologise, no one else.
39:48LAUGHTER
39:49Ridiculous as to having pan-generational responsibility
39:52for ancestors' diets.
39:54LAUGHTER
39:55But they thought it brought them bad luck, David.
39:58All right.
39:58They were superstitious.
39:59So they weren't really sorry at all.
40:01If they thought they'd bring them good luck,
40:03they'd probably eat another one.
40:05LAUGHTER
40:06OK.
40:07More missionaries go to the United States than anywhere else.
40:10Do an impression of someone in the stocks.
40:13Fuck off!
40:14Fuck off!
40:15LAUGHTER
40:17It's like that, isn't it?
40:19Points to Mitchell.
40:21Yes, absolutely right.
40:22That's the pillory.
40:23That's a pillory.
40:24Yeah.
40:24Or theuse, as they're also known.
40:26Right.
40:26But, yeah, putting them...
40:27That's stocks.
40:28Oh, stocks of fear, are they?
40:29I'm into public shaming, though.
40:31If you've done something bad,
40:32people can go,
40:33Oh, don't do it again,
40:34and then you go,
40:35Oh, that was awful.
40:35I won't have friends if I do this again.
40:37And then you go back into society.
40:39I don't think it's so bad.
40:40You're very right.
40:41They could be quite forgiving.
40:42Sometimes, you know,
40:43people had flowers thrown at them.
40:44If they...
40:45Daniel Defoe, when he was in the stocks,
40:47because he defended the church,
40:48people threw flowers at him.
40:50Those aren't stocks, so...
40:51No, those...
40:52He wasn't in the stocks, sorry.
40:54He was...
40:54He was pilloried, I think, is the safest way.
40:56If people threw horrible things at you,
40:58big, heavy things,
41:00it actually, you could die.
41:01Yeah, no, absolutely.
41:01And some people took great lengths to protect themselves.
41:05As a result, there was a gentleman here,
41:07Charles Hitchin,
41:07who was convicted of attempted sodomy,
41:10and he went into the stocks wearing a suit of armour.
41:12LAUGHTER
41:14I remember the successful ones.
41:16The ones that he managed to bring it off, as it were.
41:19LAUGHTER
41:22That...
41:23Presumably, you have to pay a lot for that when you were in the stocks.
41:26LAUGHTER
41:26The stocks weren't for your head and arms,
41:29just for your legs.
41:30And with that,
41:31our mosey through the medieval macabre must come to an end.
41:35We have scores.
41:37Mercy, mercy me.
41:39Well, in joint,
41:41first position,
41:43with minus six,
41:45Matt and Julia!
41:48CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
41:49CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
41:51That's right.
41:52That's right.
41:52Exactly.
41:53In third place,
41:54with minus ten,
41:56David Mitchell!
41:58CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
42:00CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
42:03With the which we shall be burning this evening,
42:05is Alan Davis,
42:07with minus twenty-five!
42:08CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
42:12CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
42:15CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
42:16CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
42:16Well, it only remains for me to thank
42:19Matt, David, Julia and Alan.
42:21And the last word on the middle ages
42:22comes from Bennett Cerf.
42:24Middle age is when your contemporaries
42:26are so grey and wrinkled and bald
42:28they don't recognise you.
42:30Good answer.
42:31I don't know!
42:31I love you.
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