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First broadcast 10th November 2017.

Sandi Toksvig

Alan Davies
Bill Bailey
Jan Ravens
Grayson Perry

Category

📺
TV
Transcript
00:00And welcome to QI.
00:05Tonight, we are completely all over the place.
00:08A feast of O's with scrambled ovar.
00:10Your ovations, please, for the overlooked Bill Bailey.
00:20The overexcited Jan Raven.
00:26The overwhelming Grayson Perry.
00:33And all over the shop, Alan Davis.
00:42Let's get their buzzers over with.
00:44Bill goes...
00:55Jan goes...
00:58Grayson goes...
01:07I didn't know how to tell you, Grayson.
01:09And Alan goes...
01:11Do you think it's on over?
01:13It is!
01:21It's finally one new line. I love that.
01:23So, my first question is about ova, spelt O-V-A.
01:27You can't learn to ski jump without breaking legs, and you can't make an omelette without...
01:35Breaking eggs!
01:37Yay!
01:40And we're off and running.
01:42But you're gonna show us how you can.
01:44You can make an omelette without breaking eggs.
01:46In Japan, it's called a golden egg, as we shall demonstrate.
01:49What you need to do...
01:51Get a chicken.
01:52An egg.
01:53It's in a pair of ties.
01:54Well, it's in a stocking.
01:55So, I'm gonna pass this to you.
01:56And what you need to do, is you need, basically, to break the membrane that is round the egg yolk.
02:02That is called the vitiline membrane.
02:04It's protein fibres.
02:05And what you do, is you spin it, like this.
02:08And you're trying to shake the egg.
02:11And actually, it's one of the good things when you let go, does that.
02:13I've got a very expensive suit on, at this point.
02:14Ah, okay.
02:15Just spin it gently, it would be the thing.
02:18Yeah.
02:21I don't think we've ever had anybody who's worn expensive clothing on this show.
02:30It's a really cheap children's toy, isn't it?
02:32Have you broken yours?
02:37You spin it, and you mix up the egg inside the shell.
02:41Right.
02:41It's actually quite tough to do.
02:42I'm gonna make it go any further, champ!
02:45And then you boil it, and it will, when you remove the shell, it will reveal that it is an
02:51omelette.
02:51It sort of looks like an old bollock, doesn't it?
02:53I mean, some people would say it's more of a scrambled egg than an omelette.
02:57But Escoffier's definition, in a few words, what is an omelette?
03:00It's really a special type of scrambled egg enclosed in a coating or envelope of coagulated egg and nothing else.
03:07So our version ought to qualify.
03:09That's what a man looks like.
03:10That's a boke, isn't it?
03:11In tights.
03:14So we could ask Grayson, is this what a man looks like in tights?
03:18Grayson, I'm so sorry.
03:19If my scar was any shorter.
03:22Yes.
03:24Let's have a look at the below-the-disc cam.
03:27Oh, there you go.
03:32Did you know it is also possible to un-boil an egg?
03:35No, I did not know that.
03:37So, essentially what you do, and I don't recommend you try this, you inject wee, really, urea, urine, into the
03:45solid white mass and it will turn it back into liquid.
03:47So would it then be a raw egg in terms of like a thing that a pregnant woman wouldn't be
03:51allowed to eat kind of thing?
03:53Oh, if it's been boiled and then injected with wee and then...
03:57You know, pregnant or not, you wouldn't want to go...
04:00You're on your own.
04:00You're on your own, no.
04:02You also need to stir it at high velocity to cause the pieces of protein to un-not themselves.
04:06I mean, it's quite a complex process.
04:07So, because we haven't got time to do it, here is one that we un-boiled earlier.
04:11Oh!
04:12Urine!
04:14There we go.
04:14Oh!
04:15Actually, can I be completely honest, we cut out the middle man on that one, we just didn't boil it
04:19in the first place.
04:22Saving money for the licence fee pair.
04:25I've now managed to get egg, and I've got way more eggs to deal with.
04:28There's a towel there.
04:29Oh, great!
04:33Are you so smashing?
04:37You've no idea how many eggs I'm going to bring forth.
04:39Are you making a cake?
04:40Have you got confused about what show you're on?
04:44When you break an egg at normal atmospheric pressure, as I did there,
04:47the membranes inside the shell, they all break at the same time,
04:50so they release the contents in a familiar way.
04:52Now, you are a diver, Bill, are you not?
04:54Yes, I am.
04:54A scuba diver, yes.
04:55Yes, if you break an egg under water, what's going to happen?
04:59Because the pressure is...
05:01Well, it's very difficult.
05:02Where are you going to put your cooker?
05:06Imagine you just wanted to break it and not cook it.
05:09The fish would come.
05:10The fish would just come immediately.
05:12Have a look at...
05:13Because we have some video of this.
05:14The external pressure...
05:16Right.
05:16...is actually sufficient to hold the whole package together.
05:20Right.
05:20And what you'll see is that the contents will remain egg-shaped.
05:25Oh, that's beautiful!
05:26Isn't that extraordinary?
05:27That's amazing.
05:28I've never done that underwater, but now I know there's one more thing I know not to do.
05:33Yeah.
05:36This guy is going to burst this egg.
05:38Watch this.
05:38Watch this.
05:40Wow!
05:41It's worth doing that, is it not?
05:43Who are you?
05:43There's so many time-wasting activities.
05:45I have a question for you all.
05:48Here is a bottle with an egg in it.
05:51How did it get in the bottle?
05:52It's one of those tricks you read about in old incitlopedias, isn't it?
05:56Yes.
05:57What do you think it is?
05:58So, you can't plunge that in a pan of boiling water and then somehow extricate the shell.
06:02So, if I have another bottle, you can see that the egg...
06:05Oh, I know how you do it.
06:07Yes.
06:07You take all the air out of the bottle and it sucks the egg in.
06:10So, the way you do that is you're going to light.
06:12Let me show you.
06:14She's good, isn't she?
06:16Oh, good.
06:16I've got such...
06:17Can you light that, darling?
06:17I've got such sticky fingers with bloody egg white.
06:20Do you want me to play some music, I think?
06:22Yeah, if you could.
06:23OK.
06:34Oh, let's do it.
06:36It's like trying to get into your jeans!
06:48That is what happens when you get Eric Pickles and you try and get him out of an aeroplane.
06:55We've never got the fright. You're going to have to actually know you this day.
06:58You've got to put some feet over the door.
07:02I've got one more trick. So this is a little bit hit and miss.
07:05Go on. But I will do my best. When it works, it's absolutely fantastic.
07:10What is this?
07:11I have to be more constant. Can you hit it the other way?
07:13I've got to be more constant. No.
07:16No. Bourne. Does it work?
07:18Yeah!
07:26OK, moving from eggs to bacon, what did pigs finally manage to do in the 1930s?
07:32Rye.
07:32Yeah.
07:37No.
07:39Become self-aware.
07:42Uncurl their tails.
07:43Become a metaphor for socialism.
07:46Yeah.
07:46According to the OED, pigs oinked for the first time in 1933.
07:53Before that, they just grunted.
07:55Well, a few...
07:56Yeah, exactly.
07:57A few went...
07:57You do all kinds of impressions.
07:58I do, I do. Animals, everything.
08:00Yeah.
08:00But it doesn't actually sound like oink, does it?
08:02No.
08:03There are other things.
08:04Rout, they went, apparently, in 1650.
08:06One went wick in the 18th century.
08:08But the practice of oinking is an American practice.
08:11The Washington Post on the 6th of June, 1933, mentions a small white pig oinking its disapproval of the effete
08:18city folk.
08:19So they didn't oink until the Washington Post decided that was the thing that they had to do.
08:23Right.
08:23In Denmark, they say, oof, oof.
08:27French might go, groin, groin, apparently.
08:29That's more like it, isn't it?
08:30I wonder if that affects how we view the animal.
08:32Because oop, oop sounds quite positive, even though, you know, in Denmark, they probably kill more pigs per capita than
08:37any other country in the world.
08:39And we have no problem with that.
08:41And they take real pleasure in it, Grayson. That's a tragedy about death.
08:45I've got nothing against that.
08:46You know, I think, in many ways, we should have videos of animals being killed in all restaurants that serve
08:51meat.
08:51Yes, constantly on the loop.
08:53Yeah.
08:53Have you seen that film by Simon Amstel called Carnage?
08:56It's a vegan propaganda film, but it's very funny, where they anthropomorphise the animals so that they speak.
09:01And the voice that they chose was Joanna Lumley.
09:06Please, please don't, you know, don't, it would be so lovely.
09:09It would be a perfectly sweet little calf.
09:11Please don't take it away.
09:13You know, it's a fascinating, I'm longing to have a little calf with me, you know.
09:16It's just so sweet, these little pigs with a little Joanna Lumley voice.
09:20You wouldn't eat them, would you?
09:21No, you couldn't kill them.
09:21But if it was Ray Winston, you would be like, come on, have a go.
09:26That's what I was kind of trying to say, then, really, is that if the pig is sort of saying
09:29something like, er, er, er, er, er, you know, you're more likely to give it the chop.
09:33But if he's going, er, er, er, er.
09:35Do any of them say poo?
09:37No.
09:38No.
09:38I just wanted to be sure of you.
09:40Yeah.
09:42Aww.
09:43Now eat a bacon salad.
09:47No problem.
09:48Yeah.
09:49Still fine.
09:50I smell that bacon.
09:52I'm on it.
09:53Erm, the very first pig to fly, in fact, came 24 years before the onset of oinking.
09:584th of November 1909, an English aviation pioneer called JTC Moore Brabazon, he thought for
10:05a laugh, he would attach a waste paper basket to a biplane.
10:09It took him on a three and a half mile flight over the Kent countryside.
10:13And he had to wait a hundred years for YouTube to be invented.
10:15Yes, I know.
10:17He went on to be the Minister of Transport, but he clearly liked a bit of a flight.
10:21Erm, When Pigs Fly is known as an adenaton.
10:23It's a figure of speech in the form of hyperbole.
10:26And they have wonderful examples in other countries.
10:28The middle one is France.
10:30When hens grow teeth.
10:31Yes.
10:32The one on the right is Hebrew.
10:34When hair grows on the palm of my hand.
10:37My favourite is the Russian one.
10:39When the crawfish whistles on the mountain.
10:43And we say, when the Lib Dems reform.
10:50Now, what makes the FBI say OMG?
10:55Hillary Clinton's emails perhaps?
10:58Is it Hillary?
11:00Yeah.
11:01Pointing and waving.
11:02Everywhere she goes, oh my god.
11:08She does do that, waving and pointing.
11:10Yeah.
11:15You never see who she's put.
11:17It'd be quite good to get cutaways.
11:18I know.
11:19She's going, what?
11:25I know.
11:26I know.
11:36It's going to be something else.
11:37It's to do with outlaws.
11:39Outlaw.
11:40Outlaw.
11:40Moving gradually.
11:43Outlaw.
11:44Moving fast, it would be.
11:45In fact, it's outlaw motorcycle gangs.
11:47Oh.
11:47Oh.
11:47They're known as OMG.
11:49Hell's Angels.
11:50Hell's Angels indeed.
11:52Oh fab.
11:52Do you know the term one percenter?
11:54Do you know...
11:54And they're the people with all the money.
11:55Yeah, so the Occupy movement and so on.
11:57And they talk about the top one percent to control the wealth.
12:00Because, you know, I've had motorcycles all my life.
12:01Yeah.
12:02And that used to be a badge you quite often saw on those collections on denim waistcoats.
12:06Yeah.
12:06So what it was was that full badge members were the one percent to show their outsider status
12:11because there was a claim by the American Motorcycle Association that 99% of their members
12:15were God fearing and family orientated.
12:18And so the one percent wanted to make damn sure everybody knew that they were the bad guys
12:21and they were not God fearing or family orientated.
12:23They're so hard nowadays because they look like kind of hipsters, don't they, basically?
12:26Yeah.
12:26Beards, tattoos.
12:27It doesn't look quite so scary, does it?
12:29No, not nowadays.
12:30OK, while we're on the subject of Hell's Angels, we're now going to play...
12:34Where the hell's the apostrophe?
12:38Could you pick that board up there, darling?
12:40Certainly.
12:40So what I want you to do, we have written on it for you, Alan, Hell's Angels.
12:44Hell's Angels.
12:45I want you to put the apostrophe in the correct place.
12:47OK.
12:48Is it going to be angels belonging to hell?
12:50Yeah.
12:51That's it, wouldn't it?
12:52No.
12:53No.
12:55It's bound to happen, wasn't it?
12:57I hadn't even done it.
12:58I know.
12:59You were so keen.
13:00After the...
13:01Yeah.
13:02Try that.
13:02Yeah.
13:04Go.
13:04Go for it.
13:13No.
13:15There isn't one.
13:16There isn't one.
13:17There isn't one.
13:17There isn't one.
13:18They don't want one.
13:18Oh!
13:19They don't want one.
13:20They don't want one.
13:20No.
13:20And who's got one?
13:20I don't want to argue with them, frankly.
13:21I've gone off them.
13:23Until recently, they had a note in the FAQs of their official website.
13:27Should the hells in hell's angels have an apostrophe and be hell' s angels?
13:31That would be true if there were only one hell, but life and history has taught us that
13:34there are many versions and forms of hell.
13:37Then people still carried on criticising them and saying it should be hells and apostrophe
13:41after the s.
13:41And so it's since been amended and it now says, missing apostrophe in hell's angels.
13:46Yes, we know that there is an apostrophe missing, but it is you who miss it.
13:49We don't.
13:51You know, that's the kind of punctuation-based rebellion.
13:56The time I put on my leather jacket, I think, yeah, to hell with punctuation.
14:02Took it to the man.
14:03One apostrophe at a time.
14:06Setting a poor...
14:06Us and the market stall traders.
14:08Setting a poor grammatical example.
14:10That's the way we roll.
14:12Hell's angels founded in 1948.
14:14Some of the gangs that amalgamated together, one of them was called the Pissed Off Bastards
14:18of Bloomington.
14:21Maybe too difficult to get on a jacket.
14:23That's a lot of studs.
14:24Really good.
14:25Anybody know where the name Hell's Angels comes from?
14:28Origin?
14:29Is it Paradise Lost or something?
14:31It's a film, actually, by Howard Hughes.
14:33Apostrophe!
14:34Apostrophe!
14:36Apostrophe!
14:36Apostrophe!
14:37The American air squadron's in World War II, which is probably where the
14:40motorcycle gang's got it from, but the pilot's got it from the Howard Hughes film.
14:44Oh, right.
14:44Jean Harlow.
14:46Jean Harlow, I know.
14:47Harlow knew Tam was named after her.
14:49Is that true?
14:50No.
14:51That's not.
14:51No.
14:52Plus.
14:53Oh, that's a different show.
14:54Oh, yeah.
14:55Oh, yeah.
14:55It's like Essex was named after Joey Essex.
14:58Yes, exactly.
15:00I met him once.
15:01Do you know what he said?
15:02He was going round the House of Parliament and he said, does the king live here?
15:04That's what he said.
15:05Does the king live here?
15:07No, no.
15:08We did.
15:09The royalty don't live there.
15:10And anyway, he's a queen.
15:11He goes, oh, I don't know anything about history.
15:13No.
15:16No.
15:17No.
15:17Or the present.
15:18Clearly.
15:18Not really at all.
15:20Um, Hell's Angels are fierce in the defence of their trademark.
15:23They've sued Disney and Toys R Us and so on.
15:25You can't wear...
15:26Back patches in general are frowned upon.
15:28If you're a motorcycle dude, if you're wearing a back patch, it's not an official registered
15:32one that you can get into trouble.
15:34Can you?
15:35Yeah.
15:53You can get good slogans.
16:00I was at the motorcycle show once and there's a T-shirt and it said on the back, if you
16:04can read this, the bitch fell off.
16:06Oh, no.
16:09Well...
16:11I'm starting a motorcycle game called The Fourth Wave Feminists.
16:16That's the way they go.
16:18Anyway, moving on.
16:19Can you name a female outlaw?
16:22Oh.
16:23Not Jessie James.
16:24No.
16:25Bonnie out of Bonnie and Clyde.
16:27Oh.
16:30Oh.
16:30Speaking, there is no such thing as a female outlaw in British law.
16:35Outlawry is when an individual was placed outside the protection of the law and females
16:40denied protection of the law were called something else.
16:42They were called waved women.
16:44Oh.
16:45Isn't that awful?
16:46So their right to any protection was said to be waved, so left out or not regarded.
16:51Can you name a male outlaw of the Wild West?
16:54Of the Wild West.
16:55Yeah.
16:55Billy the what's-it.
16:57Billy the kid?
16:58Billy the kid.
16:59Billy the kid.
17:01Billy the kids.
17:03Fuckgowns kid.
17:04What's his name?
17:05What's was he?
17:11brunch SKSIDEY.
17:15So again, there were no outlaws as such in the Old West, male or female, so in the original meaning,
17:23you didn't have to commit a crime in order to be an outlaw, no, that's a fantastic film, isn't it,
17:29so none the more outlaws, in order to be an outlaw, you have to be set outside, are you trying
17:39to hum the theme tune to the Magnificent Seven, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,
17:42yes, yes.
17:42That's not the theme, do you know the movie tune, no, that's Bonanza, oh that's Bonanza, I like Bonanza, Bonanza,
17:54yeah, yeah, I think I was right, I think we need, oh that's the Muppets, does anybody know the bloody
18:04theme tune tune tune tune tune tune tune tune tune tune tune tune tune tune tune tune tune tune tune
18:12tune tune
18:12Ddu-du-du... Come on afterwards.
18:14Ddu-du-du-du-du-du-du-du
18:16Anybody join in?
18:17Ddu-du-du-du
18:19D-du-du
18:19D-du-du...
18:21I mean, you son.hm...
18:39You won't
18:39join in in with High Chaparral? What's wrong with you?
18:43I'm going to Google it.
18:46Seriously? It's your problem. It'll take a while.
18:48My phone takes 15 minutes to turn on.
18:51Oh, I know the feeling.
18:58So, an outlaw is merely somebody who's been put outside the law,
19:02so denied its protection.
19:03So, Robin Hood, of legend, became a robber
19:06because he had been declared an outlaw by the king.
19:09He wasn't an outlaw because he was a robber.
19:11So, that meant that he could have been subjected to mob justice
19:15and nobody would have cared.
19:17So, in that sense, Jesse James and all those other outlaws
19:19of the Wild West aren't outlaws at all,
19:21because if you see a wanted dead or alive poster,
19:22that suggests people are still interested.
19:25Do you like that, Grace?
19:27I've always wanted to be an outlaw. Have you?
19:29No, I think that the people who sort of put great store
19:32in the rebellious pose are misguided.
19:35I think the counterculture is basically the R&D department
19:39for capitalism.
19:40Yes.
19:42Disgust.
19:46In England, an outlaw was said to have caput lupinum,
19:50so, a wolf's head, because he might be put to death
19:53by any man as a wolf, that hateful beast might.
19:56History's most famous outlaw? Probably Napoleon.
19:59Outlawed in March 1815 by the Congress of Vienna,
20:02when he had escaped exile, was marching on Paris
20:05in the weeks before Waterloo, he became an outlaw.
20:08And we still talk about outlaws.
20:10Every time the Queen's speech happens,
20:13the House of Commons then returns to its own chamber
20:15to debate not the content of the speech,
20:18but the outlawry's bill.
20:19And it's still the thing they talk about,
20:21even though it's not really a proper bill,
20:22and it's just to say, we can talk about what we like,
20:24we don't have to pay any attention to the Queen.
20:26What, you mean you don't pay any attention
20:28to what I'm saying?
20:30No.
20:31Firstly, I've been doing it all these bloody years,
20:33putting this very heavy crown on.
20:35Nobody's bloody listening.
20:37So, is this still happening? Is this still law?
20:39It is still the law.
20:40The idea was they wanted to stop
20:42what they called clandestine outlawries,
20:43which was declaring somebody an outlaw
20:45without giving them a chance to say,
20:46hey, hang on a minute, that's not quite right.
20:47So, back over to OVA over now.
20:51What is the secret ingredient of virgin boy eggs?
20:57Oh.
20:58Yeah, it's, oh, I promise you.
21:01Oh, that's horrible.
21:02Like taking it out with a syringe
21:04and sticking it in the eggs.
21:05Bustle.
21:06Done like a walnut whip.
21:11You see, I thought what I've got on the card is disgusting,
21:14but it's possible you've topped it.
21:16I think that's good.
21:17I wonder you could reverse acne by injecting wee into it.
21:19Wee into it, yeah.
21:22Well, stay with the wee.
21:23Oh.
21:24Stay with the wee.
21:25It's a Chinese dish called tong zidan.
21:28What?
21:28And it is literally virgin boy eggs.
21:30They are prepared by boiling hen's eggs
21:33in the urine of young boys.
21:36Oh.
21:36Oh, come on.
21:37It's a springtime delicacy in the city of Dongyang
21:40in Zhejiang province.
21:41Making this up now.
21:42No, no.
21:42So, they soak them in the urine
21:44and then they bring them to the boil
21:45and then they're simmered for a day with fresh urine.
21:47A few herbs.
21:49And then at the end of the process,
21:51they apparently look like that.
21:52The urine is from boys under the age of 10
21:54and what they do is they collect it in a bucket
21:56in primary schools.
21:58And each of the eggs are sold at about 20 pence a piece.
22:03According to one Dongyang resident,
22:04they taste a bit like urine but not too much.
22:08LAUGHTER
22:12It's like goat's milk tastes a bit of wee, doesn't it?
22:15Do you think?
22:17Well, it's sort of...
22:18It will from now on.
22:19Yeah.
22:20Well, if you wanted to wash your virgin boy eggs down,
22:23the best thing to do is baby mice wine.
22:26This is available in the Canton region of China.
22:28I'm afraid it does contain baby mice.
22:30Travellers who've tried it say it tastes a bit like petrol.
22:33LAUGHTER
22:36What?
22:37There are people who do drink their own urine for medical benefit,
22:39don't they?
22:40There are, yes.
22:42That is a horrible picture.
22:44LAUGHTER
22:45It tastes like sweet, a bit salty.
22:48A bit like a margarita, I imagine.
22:49Yes.
22:50As you normally have it in one of those glasses.
22:52No, there was salt round the rim.
22:54LAUGHTER
22:55Oh, no.
22:55Oh, no.
22:57Oh, no.
22:58Oh, no.
22:59He said salt round the rim.
23:01LAUGHTER
23:03That's a bit like urine, not too much.
23:05Not too much.
23:06There was a Mexican boxing champion called Juan Manuel Marquez
23:10and he rather famously showcased the practice of drinking his own urine,
23:14head of a fight in 2009 with Floyd Mayweather Jr.
23:17Um, but he lost.
23:20LAUGHTER
23:20Not a disgrace.
23:21Everyone loses to Floyd Mayweather Jr.
23:23I don't think it would do you any harm because,
23:25fundamentally, the toxins leave your body through the faeces.
23:27Can only do you harm if it's off.
23:30Yes.
23:30You've got to have it fresh and warm.
23:33LAUGHTER
23:33But if you drank some and then you urinated it out and then drank that
23:37Yeah.
23:37and then urinated that out and kept on going.
23:39Yeah, you probably...
23:40How many, how many sort of goes before you...
23:42Before it's completely nothing at all.
23:44Before just a cube, you know, like...
23:46LAUGHTER
23:47You've got a stock cube to use in your...
23:49LAUGHTER
23:49A new egg cone.
23:51You've got to go to the Chinese supermarket.
23:54You've got a small boy's wee cube.
23:56You've got me, er...
23:57LAUGHTER
23:57I've got a bucket of boys' wee.
23:59I haven't got time to go to the primary school.
24:00Can you give me some urine?
24:02You've got to use.
24:03I spent time with the Mundari people of South Sudan
24:06and they use the urine of their incredibly prized cattle
24:09to dye their naturally black hair orange.
24:13So during the morning ablutions, that's what's happening there.
24:14The men lower their heads into the urine stream of a tethered cow.
24:17And then they use the ash, you can see his body is white there,
24:20from burnt cow dung smeared all over the face and body.
24:22But it acts as a natural antiseptic and it stops mosquitoes.
24:24It's a mosquito repellant.
24:25If he stays there too long, he'll get a pat on the head.
24:29LAUGHTER
24:33Wow.
24:34Oh, now the audience are rebelling against him.
24:37LAUGHTER
24:38A little someone going, no, that was good.
24:40No, no, no.
24:41Don't encourage him. Don't encourage him. Don't do that.
24:44LAUGHTER
24:46The secret ingredient of virgin boy eggs comes from virgin boys.
24:50For whom was it all over because of it's over?
24:54Was it Edwina Curry?
24:56Oh.
24:57Did she not have some egg...?
24:59She had an egg-based scandal, didn't she, Edwina?
25:02Yes.
25:02She's actually morphed into hyacinth bouquet as I sit here, but...
25:06LAUGHTER
25:07She is from the same neck of the woods.
25:10Didn't she have an affair with John Major?
25:12She did, yes.
25:13They said you could tell by the curry stains on his underpants.
25:16LAUGHTER
25:18Oh, now you missed a pat on the edge.
25:20LAUGHTER
25:24LAUGHTER
25:24Sorry, I just got a call here.
25:261982, we've won the jokes back.
25:29LAUGHTER
25:30LAUGHTER
25:33OK, for whom was it all over because of it's over?
25:35We're in a Bill Bailey area of information.
25:37A bird, it'll be a bird.
25:38A bird, yes.
25:39Was this stealing eggs, was it?
25:41Well, yes, I suppose there's a bit of stealing involved.
25:43Let me show you.
25:45Oh, my Lord.
25:47So, I've got some eggs here.
25:48Oh, wow.
25:49So, this one is an ostrich egg.
25:51Is that some amazing?
25:52Yes.
25:52Wow.
25:53This is roughly the size of the egg that I am talking about.
25:58Now, you can't have a real one because they're worth an absolute fortune.
26:01So, this is a...
26:02Is this a prehistoric egg?
26:03It is the elephant bird.
26:05The elephant bird?
26:06The elephant bird.
26:07The elephant bird egg.
26:07This is a Heston Blumenthal chocolate egg.
26:10Wow.
26:10That is roughly the size...
26:11I know.
26:11It's got something in it.
26:12I don't know if we should open it and have a look.
26:14Does anybody have a draw?
26:15Oh, dear God.
26:16So, what happened is humans stole the eggs for food, Bill.
26:20Yes.
26:22Hey?
26:23Whoa!
26:25Wow.
26:25Do you know about the elephant bird?
26:27They were around until the 17th century.
26:29They were flightless.
26:29They were about ten foot tall.
26:31Oh, right.
26:31They weighed about half a ton and they lived on the island of Madagascar.
26:34They had a ferocious kick, so you wouldn't have been able to get near them.
26:37Human beings, I mean, imagine such a big bird.
26:39But the eggs of the elephant bird were a hundred times the size of a chicken's egg.
26:43So, it could have fed a family for several days.
26:44Yeah.
26:45So, you couldn't attack the bird to eat it, but you could probably get hold of the eggs.
26:49And so many eggs were taken that eventually the bird became entirely extinct.
26:53And we still find fragments of the shell of the elephant bird near where we know human beings lit fires.
26:57David Attenborough, didn't he reassemble one from pieces he found on the beach?
27:02Yes, he did, because they're incredibly valuable.
27:04The last one that was sold at Christie's, which was in 2013, sold for £66,000.
27:09And also, when they're found now, the Malagasy government claims them,
27:12and so anyone's in private ownership or in museums or whatever, incredibly rare.
27:16So, that's why we've got the chocolate ones.
27:17Yes, of course.
27:18What a shame it died out.
27:19Yeah.
27:20Easter eggs.
27:21Anybody know who thought of Easter eggs?
27:22How long have we been colouring Easter eggs?
27:24Well, chocolate ones or real eggs?
27:26Well, either.
27:27I mean, it's a really old form of art, people deciding to colour eggs.
27:31We have accounts from Edward I, so the accounts from 1307.
27:35There's an entry for 18 pence for 450 eggs to be boiled and dyed
27:39or covered in gold leaf and distributed to the royal household.
27:42So, a really long time back.
27:43The chocolate ones are a German invention.
27:45They start in the 19th century when they finally...
27:47There was a bit of a hoo-ha about them this Easter, wasn't there?
27:50Didn't Theresa May get involved in it?
27:53Oh, yes.
27:53The National Trust.
27:54It was the National Trust.
27:55They started saying, they left the word Easter off.
27:57Oh, yes, yes.
27:58Easter eggs.
27:58And she got very, you know, because she's the vicar's daughter.
28:01Yes.
28:01And a National Trust member.
28:03You know where she goes on all those walking holidays?
28:06And I'm going to get up for a minute.
28:07She's got a very funny walk, Theresa May,
28:10because she kind of walks like she's carrying a drip trolley.
28:16That's why she goes on this holiday, isn't it?
28:20She has to take those sticks with her.
28:22She wields those sticks,
28:24and it's like she's been sent into a minefield to clear it.
28:27Yeah.
28:27Yeah.
28:29You understand how all this is going to play on Dave in ten years' time?
28:35When we are ruled by Russia.
28:41Hello.
28:41Hello.
28:41Welcome to QI.
28:51Here is egg.
28:58Some facts about urine.
29:04The elephant bird went extinct because humans went to work on its eggs.
29:09There's been a report of a cyber attack at a power plant.
29:12Who's the most likely to be behind it?
29:15This Russian?
29:16The Russian?
29:22Yes.
29:23It was me, yes.
29:25Hands up.
29:26It was me.
29:28It is most likely to be squirrels.
29:32Oh, yeah.
29:32I was going to say that.
29:34Yeah.
29:34So there's a security researcher called Chris Space Rogue Thomas.
29:39Go Chris.
29:40What?
29:40Get the name.
29:41And he set up a spreadsheet of this measure every time there's been a cyber attack on a power station
29:45anywhere in the world.
29:46There's been more than a thousand since he started.
29:49The vast majority are false alarms but there have been 876 successful attacks against the infrastructure of a power station
29:56by squirrels.
29:59Russia has been blamed in recent years for two attacks on the Ukraine and everybody's assumed that Russian hackers were
30:03behind these attacks.
30:04But they've in fact been successfully attacked more frequently by frogs.
30:10So that is an example of Occam's razor.
30:12Does anybody know what Occam's razor is?
30:13Yes.
30:14Occam is kind of the more likely explanation is probably the one that is rather than looking for some conspiracy
30:20theory.
30:21Exactly that.
30:21Don't overcomplicate.
30:22Don't overthink it.
30:23Don't overthink it.
30:24So Occam, one of the major thinkers actually of medieval thought.
30:2714th century philosopher, friar William of Occam in Surrey.
30:30But the principle itself goes back much further.
30:32You can go back to Aristotle and so on.
30:33It is.
30:33It is known as Occam's.
30:34It's a lovely present for the man who has everything.
30:36Yes.
30:37I've got you an Occam's razor.
30:39A full range of men's toiletries.
30:40Yeah.
30:43Occam's aftershade bomb.
30:45Occam's beard oil.
30:46Yeah.
30:48I'd never go anywhere without the Occam's beard oil.
30:51So lateral thinking puzzles.
30:52OK, so here's one.
30:53Man goes to a restaurant and orders albatross soup, takes one mouthful, then rushes out and kills himself.
30:59You get in lateral thinking puzzles and get a lot of people to kill themselves.
31:02So what has happened here?
31:03I know this one.
31:04He's lost at sea.
31:05Yeah.
31:05And he's with these other sailors.
31:08Yeah.
31:08And they're saying to him, oh, we've got some food.
31:11It's albatross.
31:12So he eats it.
31:14And he thinks, well, I don't know.
31:15And then when he goes, the first thing he does when he gets to land, he says, can I have
31:18albatross soup?
31:19And he eats it and it doesn't taste like what he had on the boat.
31:22And that's when he knew he was eating human flesh.
31:25Oh.
31:26Yeah.
31:27So that is the really complicated answer.
31:29Much more likely, a man is on his way to kill himself and he happens past a restaurant which is
31:36serving albatross soup, thinks, I might as well try it.
31:38He doesn't like it because, you know, it's albatross soup, he has one mouthful and goes and kills himself.
31:42And he's locked.
31:43Yeah.
31:44It's not funny, though.
31:46It's not that likely, though, is it?
31:48But this Occam's razor is a real party killer, isn't it?
31:52He is.
31:53He's a kill joining.
31:54Is it a magical thing, Occam?
31:56No.
31:58Yeah.
31:59Was it a Russian conspiracy theory?
32:01No.
32:02Squirrel.
32:03Squirrel.
32:03Oh, Uncle Occam, you're such a boring storyteller.
32:08But clean shaven.
32:09But very clean shaven.
32:11According to Occam's razor, the simplest explanation is likely to be the most likely.
32:16Now, here's a simple question.
32:18Who spends all day fossicking in the mulloch?
32:21Yes.
32:22I do.
32:23You do.
32:25I feel like I'm doing that right now after I've eaten that egg.
32:28It sounds like you're sort of looking in the washing basket for a clean pair of pants, you know, the
32:32cleanest pair of pants, doesn't it?
32:33Well, you are looking through...
32:35For things.
32:35You're looking through dirt.
32:36Is it in between tides?
32:38Scavenging.
32:38Scavenging.
32:38Scavenging on the beach.
32:39Beachcombing.
32:40Beachcombing, yes.
32:41So, fossick is possibly from the Cornish, meaning to search out, and mulloch is a middle English for dust or
32:45rubbish.
32:46It's the business of grubbing around, that's the fossicking, in the spoil, the mulloch, of numerous mounds left by opal
32:52miners around Cuba Pedy.
32:55Cuba Pedy?
32:55Right.
32:55They call it noodling.
32:56It's a small town in the vast desert outback of South Australia.
32:59Have you been there?
33:00I've been there.
33:01Wow.
33:01And they have underground hotels.
33:02Did you have fossick?
33:03I did fossick briefly, yes, in the minibar.
33:06And, er...
33:07LAUGHTER
33:11What is it?
33:12It's the what capital of the world?
33:13The opal capital.
33:14The opal capital of the world.
33:15Provides about three-quarters of the world's opals.
33:17It's extraordinary.
33:17They're known as Vauxhall in this country.
33:19Yeah, I love you.
33:20LAUGHTER
33:21It gets so hot in the summer that they have to live underground.
33:25I met a bloke there who went there when he was 20, and he was digging around, just...
33:30Noodling.
33:31Noodling away, noodling away, and the bloke next to him found a $7 million opal.
33:37And that's it, he never left.
33:39And he was still there after all his time.
33:41Well, you can buy a permit for less than £40.
33:43Yeah, you could.
33:43So...
33:44You could.
33:44You could make your fortune.
33:45You talked about those underground places, because it's all sandstone.
33:48They built these astonishing...
33:49I stayed there.
33:50Look at these buildings.
33:50Did you?
33:51Yeah.
33:51Astonishing buildings.
33:53Serbian Orthodox underground church.
33:54It is.
33:55Half the town's residence.
33:56There's three and a half thousand people who live there.
33:57Half of them live underground.
33:59And, in fact, the name Kuba Pidi is an anglicised version of the Aboriginal Kuba Pidi,
34:03which means white man in a hole.
34:06LAUGHTER
34:08LAUGHTER
34:10Do you play golf at all?
34:11I do, yes.
34:12It's one of the top ten extraordinary golf courses in the world.
34:15I didn't play there, but it looked extraordinary.
34:18It's a unique golf course.
34:20There is no grass.
34:21So you get given a little tiny turf of grass if anybody plays golf.
34:24It's all bunker.
34:25It's all crushed rock.
34:27And the greens are made of sand mixed with sump oil so that the sand doesn't blow away.
34:31And to avoid the daytime sun, which can be incredibly hot, they often play at night.
34:35And they use these...
34:37It's eggs.
34:38Glow-in-the-dark balls.
34:41Can we turn the lights on and just see if these will actually function?
34:43I'm going to see if I can...
34:46Um...
34:46There's a glow.
34:47Oh, this.
34:48Wow.
34:50Wow.
34:51Do you know, it's the only golf course in the world that has reciprocal rights with the royal and ancient.
34:55So the home of golf.
34:56Of course it does.
34:56What happened was they wrote to the royal and ancient and they thought they'd try their lives.
34:59Would you mind giving us reciprocal plying rights?
35:02And they wrote back and said, would you mind giving us an opal mine?
35:05So they gave them a little tiny square of land which might possibly have opals in it.
35:10And so they did give them reciprocal rights.
35:12But what they gave them was they can have two rounds of golf a day for up to eight people
35:16only in January.
35:19In Scotland.
35:20Yes.
35:21It's an extraordinary place.
35:23And people do...
35:23I mean, it's mining.
35:24That's it.
35:25It's all there is.
35:25It's mining and...
35:26It's funny in Australia, though, because, you know, it's all kind of no worries, you know.
35:30And, yeah, great, no worries.
35:32And you kind of think, oh, it's great.
35:33They're such a happy-go-lucky, you know, lovely people.
35:35And by about a week in, you're thinking, can we actually worry about something now?
35:39It wasn't all that good weather.
35:41Because I was in Sydney and I was listening to the radio and they said, do now the weather.
35:45There's no weather today.
35:46LAUGHTER
35:49No, it's all just great.
35:50There's a great expression they have there, which is, too easy.
35:53You ask them, can I get a beer?
35:54Too easy.
35:55You know, it's a lovely thing.
35:57It's like, too easy, mate.
35:58Don't worry, you know.
35:59And, like, it gets annoying after a while.
36:00And I was in a hotel and this bloke found me and I said, Mr. Bailey, there's a package for
36:04you.
36:04I went, OK.
36:05She goes, do you want me to bring it up?
36:06I went, OK.
36:07And he went, too easy.
36:09All right, then.
36:10Well, fly it up, then.
36:13LAUGHTER
36:17There's Australians at this very minute on a panel show going, they always ask, how are you?
36:20But they don't want to find out.
36:22LAUGHTER
36:23And if you're in L.A., in L.A., you go down to breakfast and the waiter says to you,
36:29hey there, how's your day been so far?
36:31Do you think, I'm just coming down to breakfast?
36:34Yes, I have.
36:34Nothing.
36:34Nothing much has happened so far.
36:35I've drunk my own urine and now I want some eggs.
36:38Yeah.
36:41So I'd buy them in a bucket of boys' piss.
36:44LAUGHTER
36:45I once had a waitress in Los Angeles.
36:47Did you now?
36:49LAUGHTER
36:51APPLAUSE
36:55I didn't mean for that to get out.
36:57OK.
37:00LAUGHTER
37:02And that's time to go straight over to general ignorance, fingers poised over buzzers, please.
37:07What happens if you put a frog in cold water and then heat it up to boiling point?
37:13Yes, Bill.
37:15It turns inside out.
37:19No.
37:21Chris.
37:22It gets a little bit warm and it jumps out.
37:24It does jump out.
37:26The myth is that the frog will stay in the hot water.
37:29It's often used as a sort of political parable.
37:31Al Gore used it in The Inconvenient Truth about climate change.
37:34The idea that because it happens so slowly you don't notice and then eventually you're going to die.
37:38But frogs are not that stupid.
37:39No.
37:39They're just not that stupid.
37:41But if you took the other way round, so if you put a reptile in a warm tank and you
37:45gradually reduced the temperature,
37:47it might very well allow itself to freeze to death.
37:50That is because it's cold-blooded.
37:51It would respond to the dropping temperature by shutting down its system, basically.
37:55It would go to sleep and then it would freeze in it.
37:57He's a jolly chap on the left there.
37:58It is bad, isn't he?
38:01It is bad, isn't he?
38:02So...
38:02Yeah.
38:06You could get a dead frog to jump out of a hot pan.
38:09That is perfectly possible.
38:10Because frogs are cold-blooded, so...
38:12If you injected it with urine.
38:13No!
38:13The thing about it, they're cold-blooded and so rigor mortis doesn't set in as quickly as like a chicken.
38:18So what happens is, when they're being cooked, the fresh frog's legs twitch.
38:22And also, if you have fresh frog's legs on a plate, just the legs, not the rest of the frog,
38:26and you put salt on them,
38:28they will dance and twitch, they will jump about.
38:30And I know, isn't that unpleasant?
38:32It's a chemical reaction in the muscles.
38:34If a frog can't stand the heat, it gets out of the saucepan.
38:37OK.
38:38You see a baby bird that's fallen out of its nest.
38:40What is the one thing you should never do?
38:43Put it back in the nest.
38:49Phil?
38:51It depends.
38:53Well, it depends.
38:54If it's, you know, fledged, then it has just...
38:57Which means it's got...
38:58It's got feathers.
38:58Yeah.
38:59And, yeah, then it means it has fallen out and the parents won't be far away.
39:03If it's unfeathered, then you should put it back.
39:05Yeah.
39:05Because birds are not so clever that they'll notice the human having touched it.
39:09If it's got feathers, it's probably left the nest on purpose.
39:13And it won't thank you if it tries to put it back, or it's been rejected by the parents.
39:16And again, they won't thank you if you put it back.
39:19So it depends.
39:19Within five minutes, it'll be eaten by a crow, so don't worry about it.
39:21LAUGHTER
39:23But if you find a sea turtle washed up on the beach, do not put it back into the water.
39:28Because the ones that are stranded in our part of the world almost certainly are suffering from hypothermia.
39:32And if you put it back in the water, it will freeze.
39:34It will freeze.
39:35Yeah.
39:35But the opposite is if you find a desert tortoise, don't pick it up at all.
39:39Because the way they defend themselves is by emptying their bladder and badly to death by dehydration.
39:43So it'll piss all over you and then it'll die.
39:46LAUGHTER
39:48Just like any bloke on a Saturday night.
39:50Yeah.
39:51We got that fact from the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum.
39:55It's listed under fun facts.
39:57LAUGHTER
39:59And lastly, it ain't over until...
40:03Fat lady sings.
40:05BUZZER
40:08Yeah.
40:09Why do we say that?
40:10Opera, is it?
40:11And a fat lady comes on and sings and then when she's done that, it's over.
40:14Is it that...?
40:15The usual explanation is that it is Brunhilde in Wagner's Ring Cycle.
40:19Oh, the Ring Cycle.
40:20Look at those bosoms.
40:21Yeah.
40:22It requires a substantial surprise.
40:23Madonna's gone to sea, doesn't it?
40:25LAUGHTER
40:26Like a fudge, yeah!
40:29LAUGHTER
40:31Oh, the Ring Cycle.
40:33Oh, the Ring Cycle.
40:33Oh, the Ring Cycle.
40:34Oh, the Ring Cycle.
40:34Oh, the Ring Cycle.
40:35Oh, the Ring Cycle.
40:35Oh, the Ring Cycle.
40:36OK, that's it.
40:37Get out!
40:38She sings one of the longest operatic arias in history at the end.
40:42But her aria is not quite the final sung part of the opera.
40:46The last words go to the villain of the piece Hagen.
40:48He's an evil, scheming Burgundian warrior who sings Zurich vom Ring.
40:53Get away from the Ring as he's dragged by the Rhinemaidens to the river.
40:57MUSIC PLAYS
41:08I bet the queue at the loo is already forming.
41:11LAUGHTER
41:12Do you know that wonderful story about at the end of Puccini's Tosca,
41:15there's a marvellous moment when the soprano is supposed to leap to her death off the walls.
41:19And Eva Turner, who's a famous British soprano,
41:21was doing this at the Lyric Opera in Chicago,
41:23and she complained that the mattress she was supposed to fall on
41:26was not really springy enough, so they replaced it with a trampoline, and...
41:30LAUGHTER
41:32She repeat it three times!
41:35LAUGHTER
41:38There's an American saying,
41:39it ain't over till it's over, which is a sort of variant on the fat lady singing,
41:43and it's usually attributed to Yogi Berra,
41:45who was a much-loved catcher of the New York Yankees,
41:47but he was celebrated for his wonderful turns of phrase.
41:49He said things like,
41:51it's deja vu all over again.
41:52LAUGHTER
41:54The future ain't what it used to be.
41:56And the most famous thing he's supposed to have said is,
41:58it ain't over till it's over.
42:00But now it really is all over, barring the scores.
42:03Now, here's the thing, OK, because Jan and I have been friends
42:06for a really long time,
42:07and I know that Jan can do an impersonation of me,
42:11I thought...
42:12I've got a blonde wig.
42:14LAUGHTER
42:16And I'm going to give you my glasses.
42:18OK.
42:18Can I be you and you be me?
42:20OK.
42:20OK, marvellous, OK.
42:22OK, this is a marvellous thing.
42:23OK.
42:24OK.
42:24So I'm going to shift myself over the next to Grayson.
42:27OK.
42:27So, curiously, all you have to do with Sandy is,
42:30remember, the tune goes up and down a lot and...
42:32LAUGHTER
42:34So that brings us to the scores all over the place.
42:37It's Alan with minus 77 points.
42:39Slightly overwhelmed Bill with minus 7 points.
42:41Over a barrel, Grayson with plus 3 points.
42:44But, OMG, this week's winner...
42:46LAUGHTER
42:48Well, it's Jandy with 5 points.
42:52APPLAUSE
42:59So, it's thanks from Grayson, Jandy, Bill, Alan and me,
43:02and I leave you with this piece of advice from WC Fields.
43:04Start every day off with a smile and get it over with.
43:07Good night.
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