QI (2003) s03e03 Episode Script
Common Knowledge
(Applause) Hello, hello, hello, hello and welcome to Ql for another desperate paddle on the shores of the unknown.
And holding the buckets and spades tonight are Sean Lock.
Thank you.
(Stephen) Jimmy Carr.
- Rory McGrath.
- Thank you.
- And Alan Davies.
- (Applause) Thank you.
Well, we are concentrating tonight on common knowledge, so each of our panel has a common noise.
Sean goes (Pneumatic drill) Jimmy goes (Fire alarm bell) Rory goes (Police siren) And Alan goes (Crowd jeering, man shouts "Order, order!") That is of course the House of Commons.
But the answer to one question tonight is so extraordinary and difficult, l don't think you're going to get it right and if you do, l'll give you a hundred points.
So, with that in mind, Sean, name the commonest bird in the world.
- Uh - (Jimmy) Dave.
Well, obviously the temptation is to say somebody who's a bit of a slapper.
But l l rise above that, obviously.
- (Jimmy) l'll do it.
- ls it a duck? - lt's not a duck.
- (Police siren) lt must be the domesticated chicken.
Oh, he's absolutely right, well done! - Sorry, it's not very funny though.
- What a good start.
The Kinsey Report demonstrated that one in six men in lowa had had sex with a chicken.
ls it like, if they've got a chicken sitting next to you, - they've had sex with chickens? - With, against, inside one, yes.
You see, l don't know anything about this, is it like cock fighting, or is it different? l cannot speak from personal experience l don't know what the female chicken's, er, aperture, is that the right word, for this show? - (Alan) They can get an egg out of it.
- lf you can get an egg out - (Stephen) Good point.
- You'd be all right girth-wise.
(Jimmy) What a lovely thought.
Especially if you've got an egg-shaped cock.
(Rory) With a little lion on it.
Do you think he said, "have you had sex with a chicken?" And, like, one in six people go, "yeah.
Hmm.
Oh, you got me.
" Or did he catch one in six men in lowa? Do we know that it was actual proper, you know, sexual intercourse, or was it They definitely didn't get a blow-job.
Quick peck on the cheek possibly.
Um, l'm going to raise the tone now.
Why did the inventor of the decimal point encourage his servants to stroke his cock? - Well raised, Stephen.
- Yes, thank you.
ls it because if you've got servants, you would, wouldn't you? (Rory) That's precisely the point.
l'm interested in the decimal point - you said he invented it, so before they had it would they say something like, "well, 23 and, like, a bit?" They would say a half and a quarter and four fifths.
Was it a long time ago, the decimal point invention? Er, the dates of John Napier were 1550 to 1617.
- John Napier? - Did John Napier invent logarithms? Yes.
- So the cock is not his penis.
- Right, it's a cockerel, a rooster.
He was an extraordinary man, he wore black and his neighbours thought he was in league with the devil.
And he had this jet black cock as his constant companion.
- And when it became obvious - Did he do that purely for double entendre? No.
Have you seen my massive black cock? Et cetera.
A hit at dinner parties in Edinburgh.
- Wasn't he the Laird of Merchistoun? - He was, l'll give you five points for that.
He invented logs but at school you know that two and two equals four, OK.
When you do logs, invented by John Napier, two and two equals three point nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine recurring.
- How clever is that eh? - He was also Baron Merchistoun.
There were some thefts and he was certain it was a servant and he wanted to trap them.
Now we're talking late 16th, early 17th century, so they were quite gullible perhaps, and what he told them was that his rooster, his cock, could tell which one of his servants had stolen from him.
- Sorry, "quite" gullible? - Yeah.
No, all right.
He put the cockerel in a darkened room, you see? And the servants had to go in, and each one had to stroke it, like that.
And he told them that when it was stroked, it could tell which one had thieving fingers.
So they all had to stroke it.
So all the servants did this.
What they didn't know was, in this darkened room, he had covered his cockerel in soot, so all the innocent ones thought, l'll stroke it, l'm perfectly happy to.
But the thief thought, l'm just going to pretend l've stroked it, so he was the only one with clean hands.
That is quite clever, isn't it? - What a cunning plan.
- lt is genuinely cunning.
Could the Metropolitan Police use this? He also invented, supposedly, the machinegun.
An extraordinary man.
He liked a bit of rough as well.
No, but ssh.
- Piccadilly, what's the connection? - Peccadillo is the old name for a ruff.
They manufactured them in Piccadilly.
lsn't he good? lsn't he good? And a pigadillo is a cross between a pig and an armadillo.
lt tastes like shit but the crackling is fantastic.
- (Applause) - Very nice, very nice indeed.
Rory, while we're on you as it were, - thick, fat, coarse and lazy.
- Thank you! l'm going now.
No, what's the difference between a chevin and a chavender? Probably something to do with chav, is it? ls chevin a sort of portmanteau word for a chav, who's actually called Kevin? - (Alarm) - (Stephen) Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
- Oh.
- Oh, no! You've fallen into a slight trap.
No, it's not that.
A chavender l'm now frightened - l forgot about the forfeit thing.
The chavender was that episode of Eastenders where they all dressed in Burberry, and that's called Chavenders, you see, but l won't say that in case l get - (Alarm) - (Stephen) Ooh.
The chavender is a fish, isn't it? - He's awfully good.
- A roach or chub, a common fresh water fish.
Marvellous, it's a chub.
So is a chevin, it's another word for it, as well.
They're all types of carp, hence coarse and fat, it's coarse as in coarse fishing, they are chubs.
We get our word "chubby" from them.
- ls that right? - But no one knows where "chub" is from.
- Why is it called coarse fishing? - ls it the course of the water? - Coarse with an "A", dear.
- People can spell things wrong.
- lt's easily done.
- Not on my watch! Um Can you tell if l'm spelling things wrong when l say them? A character called Psmith, who spelt his name with a silent P, could tell when people said Psmith without pronouncing the silent P.
One of PG Wodehouse's first fictional characters.
But while we are reflecting on God's little chubsters, er Jimmy, how many burglaries are committed in the UK by koalas every day? - Every day? - (Stephen) Yeah.
Well, l'm guessing it's quite a low figure.
Now are we talking breaking and entering, or planning to deprive of property on a continual basis, because they're different charges.
The thing about koalas is, they are the most law-abiding of all the bears.
(Jimmy) But they're not bears.
(Crowd jeering, man shouts "Order, order!") Yes, Alan? - They're not bears.
- (Stephen) Thank you, yes.
They've got a very long intestine and sleep for 22 hours a day.
Tell you what though, all the indigenous mammals in Australasia are marsupials.
Are therefore not mammals.
(Sean) No.
- Yes, absolutely fantastic.
- Didn't you know that?! They're cats.
(Laughs mockingly) They're cats! All of them! Try and think of something clever, sorry, back to the knob gags.
Well no, no, fair point.
The things that are almost like furry but aren't.
lf l'd said almost like furry, l would have sounded like Alan.
That koala looks like he's waiting for the fire brigade.
He does.
Look at his paws though.
What's your favourite bit of a koala? Do you like the little hands? - l like the cock.
- Oh, stop.
- (Sean) l told you! - The fluffy ears? The little hard nose? - Concentrate on the paws.
- l like the lips, toasted.
- (Stephen) Concentrate - (Fire bell) Yes, Jimmy? Koala fingerprints are indistinguishable from humans.
- Fingerprints is right, Jimmy.
- (Applause) Let's see some human prints, some koala prints and maybe some chimpanzee prints.
Which is which would you say? (Alan) Human print is on the left.
- No, it's not.
lt's in the middle.
- Sorry? Human in the middle? - Yes.
- Right.
And chimpanzee? Chimpanzee is on the right, and that's a koala, unmistakable.
l wonder if you're right.
No, human on the left, koala in the middle and a chimpanzee on the right.
Even under a microscope, it's hard to tell between koala and human prints.
And a chimpanzee is very closely related.
That's extraordinary, because the koala evolved in isolation in Australasia.
Convergent evolution, where things that evolve separately come up with similar solutions.
- Or they were all made by God.
- (Stephen) Or they were all made by God.
Do you know the word, incidentally Oh look, l've got lots of interesting stuff about chavs.
l know something interesting about chavs.
When l first read the word in the tabloids, l hadn't l hadn't heard it out loud, and l thought it was "chaav.
" Oh lovely.
That's so unchavvy, isn't it? A "chaav".
How classy is that? " These chaavs, l must meet them, they sound lovely.
" So koalas have fingerprints almost identical to human beings and this was discovered by a Polish man called Henneberg, an anthropologist and paleopathologist but also a dermatoglyphic expert and the word dermatoglyphics means the study of fingerprints.
l'll give you ten points if you can tell me what's unusual about this word - it shares a property with only one other word.
Does it have all the letters of the word dermatoglyphic in it? (Jimmy) ln the right order.
The only other word that shares this property is the word uncopyrightable.
- Vowels in the right order? - They're the longest words, - Ah.
- All the letters are different.
- Fantastic.
- Simple as that.
My favourite word - the longest palindrome - is the Finnish word "saippuakuppinippukauppias" but the meaning is, a travelling salesman who sells caustic soda to the soap industry.
Excellent.
Now, what's the commonest metal in the human body? (Rory) Oh, that's a very good question.
(Alan) lron.
(Stephen) lron? - (Alarm) - Oh, dear.
Oh, dear, no, no.
(Jimmy) l'm l think it's mercury.
- (Alarm) - Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
(Siren) - l think it must be calcium.
- (Stephen) Oh no, he's got it! - He's got it, it is calcium.
Absolutely right! - £100.
(Applause) Because bones are mainly calcium phosphate.
- (Stephen) Yes.
- Yes.
Yeah(!) - (Pneumatic drill) - Wood.
Calcium, atomic number 20.
Last year l learnt all the atomic numbers of all the elements.
- (Stephen) Good Lord! - l was helping my son to revise.
l've tried to forget them, because it's just so embarrassing.
- Selenium? - Selenium, 30 something.
l've no idea.
l know it's close to arsenic.
lt's 34.
Selenium is 34, Arsenic is 33.
Very good.
lsn't he good? They should really put railings around you and have children come and stare at you.
Calcium phosphate is the main constituent of bones.
lndeed, calcium is, as a metal, is almost never found in nature.
Phosphorus is of course, l think, 15.
Let's move aside from lt's not really an autistic quiz, this.
You're doing atomic number wheelies now, aren't you? Waah! Do you pull up outside pubs and go, "Selenium, 32? Aah.
" Calcium comes from the Latin calx, meaning a stone or a pebble, from which we get calculus and calculation and recalcitrant.
And all kinds of words, there you are.
lt was discovered in 1808 by Sir Humphrey Davy.
Recalcitrant comes from calx meaning a heel, not calx meaning it's kicking back.
You're right, it is indeed from a heel.
This is a team game, isn't it? l'm on his team.
This is my teammate here.
We're killing them.
Eh? - Come on.
Do you want some? - (Rory) Yes, come on.
Yes, but later on, when we go out people will talk to us.
(Rory) Yes that's true, that's true.
Can you tell me how much calcium there is in the average human body? - A pound.
- (Sean) Yeah, a pound and a bit.
- lt's about a kilogram actually.
- We're 98% liquid, aren't we? - We're about 70% liquid.
- (Alan) Are we? l'll give you a percentage if you want one.
l've just said 70, l'm fine, thanks.
Something's 98% liquid, l know it is.
(Rory) A cucumber.
(Sean) ls it the sea? lt's got a couple of bikes and a shopping trolley, but mainly it's water.
No, the sea is only four percent water.
(Rory) Yeah, that's true.
The sea is mainly - (Jimmy) That's a happy face.
- Got away with it.
lf you took all of the fish and the whales and everything out of the sea - (Rory) They'd die.
- how far down does it go? My favourite Steven Wright joke - "lmagine how deep the ocean would be if there weren't sponges.
" That's very good.
So there we are, though non-metals are more abundant in nature, metals make up almost 75% of the periodic table.
Soft, silvery calcium is one of them.
There we are, now listen, who was Britain's first prime minister, team, panel, friends? - Wasn't it Walpole? - Walpole? - (Alarm) - Oh no! Shame on you.
No, it wasn't.
Lord Snooty.
Pitt? - (Stephen) Oh! Oh! - (Alarm) Pitt the Elder.
Pitt the Elder was a tree, wasn't he? Was it some sort of king that proclaimed himself the prime minister? - No, it was a politician.
- (Rory) Oliver Cromwell? - lt was a hundred years ago.
- (Sean) Disraeli? A hundred years ago.
Oh, well, never mind, no.
Er A hundred years ago would be 1905, wouldn't it? This show favours people who know stuff.
- l know, it's so unfair.
- Someone like Ramsay McDonald? - No, he was a bit later.
1905 to 1908? - (Rory) Campbell-Bannerman! Henry Campbell-Bannerman.
Well done.
Henry Campbell-Bannerman.
Not the best known of our prime ministers, but he ought to have been.
He was one of triplets as well.
He was a good prime minister, he introduced old age pensions, fought for the poor - What were they called before? - They were First Lord of the Treasury.
He was the first to be called prime minister.
First Lord of the Treasury? They're still First Lord of the Treasury, if they're prime minister.
But they were never called prime minister until 1905.
(Alan) What was Ethelred the Unready? - He was a king.
- Mm, mm Yes.
Um His last words, Henry Campbell-Bannerman, were, "This is not the end of me.
" Huh! The term prime minister was first officially used in 1905 five days after Campbell-Bannerman became one.
Sir Robert Walpole, generally recognised as the first prime minister, never used it.
Now the round where our guests display their lack of knowledge, General lgnorance.
Fingers on the buzzers, please.
What's another name for the common cormorant? - (Siren) - Yes, Rory? - The sea crow.
- Very good, it is, that's the right answer.
And the Latin name is Phalacrocorax.
- l was l was going to say shag.
- Shag, oh, no! - (Alarm) - (Jimmy) There's a poem, isn't there? A poem, by Christopher lsherwood, which goes, - "The common cormorant or shag" - "Lays its eggs in a paper bag.
" - Paper bag, yeah.
- The cormorant is Phalacrocorax carbo, shag is Phalacrocorax aristotelis.
lt doesn't have the white face and the - This is everything l've got written down.
- Do you get called tosser much? - Only - (Applause) Oh, now, poor Rory.
lt's a fair question, l only get called tosser by other people.
But do you remember anything he said? No, not a word.
He said something about calcium and there's a tree with a funny name, l don't know, koalas invented rice.
- And the robots.
- The actual word cormorant comes from corvus marinus, which is the Latin for sea crow.
Old swotty! ln the end, you are a lot less irritating than Bill Oddie, aren't you? lt's funny you should say Bill Oddie, because we decided to do a bird watching programme in which Bill plays the expert and l play the sort of keen, ignorant person.
And l was going to call the programme Panuri Biarmicus, which is the Latin name for bearded tits.
Oh very good, very good.
There's probably about six blokes in Oxford who've gone, "Hee hee.
- "You see that? Oh, no!" - (Applause) And Phalacrocorax graculus would be? lt's the crested cormorant, isn't it, because a Graculus is a jackdaw.
No, a jackdaw is corvus monegula.
(Stephen) Yes, but it's the actual Latin name, the actual Latin name for a jackdaw was graculus.
(Rory) OK.
Let's not fall out over this.
(Stephen) No, no, it's what No, l'm saying real Latin No, you might be interested.
Because Roman people actually called birds things before they were Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
There's something down there.
Ah! Ah! - Sorry about that.
- (Stephen) That's all right.
(Jimmy) Sean, Sean There's a portal into the underworld here.
One species of cormorant can't fly, do you know it? - The flightless cormorant.
- Sorry, can you go over that again? - Classicus - Phalacrocorax aptorus.
Nicotus nockotus.
lt sounds like a Les Dawson sketch.
You know how the show is called Quite lnteresting? - l think we've veered off.
- (Stephen) Have we? OK.
- l'm impressed with Rory - l'm impressed with you, Stephen.
l've got a feeling, Rory, that you have pulled.
(Applause) - All it takes is a cute mind.
- (Rory) Yes, indeed.
The common cormorant is not a shag, nor does it lay its eggs in a paper bag.
The two are related but not the same species.
The shag gets its name from the tuft of feathers on its shaggy head.
Now, next question.
How many cardigans does the Queen have? (Fire bell) - Yes? - She's got Cardigan Bay, that's hers.
She's got a couple of bits of knitwear, and then the Aren't her dogs? Ah, that's very very good.
There are Corgis are divided, there are two breeds of corgi, the Cardigan corgi and? She needs her roots doing there.
lf l say the answer in a different language, do l get more points? "Ocho! "Ocho cardigani c'est la Queen have ammore.
"Best ocho me noka parda pint obabelina.
" Do you get extra points for making up a language? (Stephen) Probably.
Jimmy Tarbuck did a Royal Command Performance, and he looked into the royal box and said, "that reminds me, l must buy a stamp.
" Quite a good line.
Yes, you're right, there is a Cardigan corgi, she has many corgis but all her corgis are not Cardigans, - they are actually Pembroke.
- (Rory) Ah, yes.
Hardy Amis, the designer, was invited to lunch at Buckingham Palace and was rather startled, as he was the only guest.
And a footman came in with a big glass with bread sticks in it.
And the Queen leant forward and took five of them out and put them on her side plate.
So he did the same, thinking, "l've got to do the same.
" And then throughout the she just sort of nibbled on one and about that much of it had gone by the end of the meal and then a footman came in with four corgis and she gave one to each corgi.
Then she turned to Hardy Amis and said, "So, Mr Amis, what are you going to do with yours?" Despite having a Welsh name, Pembroke corgis are in fact of Nordic extraction and are related to the Lundehund, a puffin-hunting dog.
Puffin, fratercula arctica.
Oh, ha ha, you are just beginning to try my patience now.
(Applause) (Pneumatic drill) Rory, shut the (beep) up! Just in time for the quick fire round.
Here we go, next question.
Why does the House of Lords smell faintly of urine? (Siren) - lt used to be a public telephone box.
- (Stephen) No, that isn't the reason.
- (Fire bell) - They've got those plug-in Glade things And it's taken the edge right off.
No, it's because there used to be more hereditary peers and what do peers usually wear? - Tweed.
- Tweed, tweed.
(Jimmy) Tweed is made with urine.
(Stephen) Yes.
- What? - ls the answer, yes.
ls it? Yes it is, yes.
Yeah, Rory, l told you! - (Rory) l know, yeah.
- The landed gentry - Where do you buy your tweed, Stephen? The landed gentry have always gone for tweed because of its strength and all the great estates have their own patterns, their own plaids.
And it was fixed using stale urine, whatever the colour would be.
But when it gets damp, this odour of urine tends to come off.
And so the removal of most of the hereditaries from the House and the introduction of chemical mordants has meant that the piquant aroma of eau de seigneur has more or less now disappeared.
- Next question, where did Mr Chicken live? - The other side of the road? - Very good.
- ln Kentucky, next to Colonel Sanders? - Oh, dear.
- (Alarm) No, it is a very famous address that we've sort of not exactly discussed - but tangentially - The House of Commons? - Downing Street.
- Who said that? He was the last private resident of 10 Downing Street.
Robert Walpole took it over and King George wanted to give it to Walpole, and Walpole said, "No, it must be for all Lords of the Treasury to come after me.
" lt's two houses - an ordinary terrace from the front, the mansion at the back, backing onto Horse Guards Parade.
lsn't it the only door in London that only opens from the inside? My door opens from the inside.
But it opens from the outside as well.
You can get in.
- lt's a house, yes.
- (Stephen) Not there.
- You can't get in? - Someone has to be inside to let you in.
- You can't get the key and push it.
- So when they've all been out - # There's always someone in there # - Why did you sing that? That was a little bit scary.
There's always someone in there! What was that? l wanted to frighten you.
l for one am frightened.
Someone might be under the desk now! - Someone's employed to open the door? - A doorman.
- That's a rubbish job.
- l'm sure they have other duties.
- Closing it again.
- (Stephen) For example.
Taking the coat hanger out of Cherie's mouth so she can get out.
(Applause) Excellent, excellent.
Sadly nothing else is known of Mr Chicken.
He was a philatelist, and he worked in a bank.
and he used to sail.
So there's three facts, so l should get some points for those.
Little known facts, but true.
- He also played the tenor banjo.
- Yeah, he had eleven knuckles.
And he was actually a chicken.
So the most biographed man in the 18th century.
Mr Ralph Waldo Peterson Arnold Chicken the lll.
We salute you for giving us And that's about it for us chickens, and so let's see what's in my little nest box.
ln last place it's Jimmy with minus 12.
But well played Jimmy, well done.
Fine.
Third is Alan with minus nine.
- (Sean) Hey! Minus nine! - Well, thank you.
And, for all his self-deprecation in a very good second place with nought, Sean Lock.
- (Applause) - Thank you.
But our runniest our runniest away winner ever, Rory McGrath - with 88 points! - Oh.
- (Applause) - How embarrassing.
(Stephen) Two fat ladies! (Chuckles) There you are.
Well, that's just about everything from Ql.
Thank you to Alan, Sean, Jimmy and Rory for being very game fowl indeed.
And l leave you with this piece of uncommon knowledge about calcium from Jack Handey - " Most people don't realise that large pieces of coral, "which have been painted brown and attached to the skull by "common wood screws, "can make a child look like a deer.
" Goodnight.
And holding the buckets and spades tonight are Sean Lock.
Thank you.
(Stephen) Jimmy Carr.
- Rory McGrath.
- Thank you.
- And Alan Davies.
- (Applause) Thank you.
Well, we are concentrating tonight on common knowledge, so each of our panel has a common noise.
Sean goes (Pneumatic drill) Jimmy goes (Fire alarm bell) Rory goes (Police siren) And Alan goes (Crowd jeering, man shouts "Order, order!") That is of course the House of Commons.
But the answer to one question tonight is so extraordinary and difficult, l don't think you're going to get it right and if you do, l'll give you a hundred points.
So, with that in mind, Sean, name the commonest bird in the world.
- Uh - (Jimmy) Dave.
Well, obviously the temptation is to say somebody who's a bit of a slapper.
But l l rise above that, obviously.
- (Jimmy) l'll do it.
- ls it a duck? - lt's not a duck.
- (Police siren) lt must be the domesticated chicken.
Oh, he's absolutely right, well done! - Sorry, it's not very funny though.
- What a good start.
The Kinsey Report demonstrated that one in six men in lowa had had sex with a chicken.
ls it like, if they've got a chicken sitting next to you, - they've had sex with chickens? - With, against, inside one, yes.
You see, l don't know anything about this, is it like cock fighting, or is it different? l cannot speak from personal experience l don't know what the female chicken's, er, aperture, is that the right word, for this show? - (Alan) They can get an egg out of it.
- lf you can get an egg out - (Stephen) Good point.
- You'd be all right girth-wise.
(Jimmy) What a lovely thought.
Especially if you've got an egg-shaped cock.
(Rory) With a little lion on it.
Do you think he said, "have you had sex with a chicken?" And, like, one in six people go, "yeah.
Hmm.
Oh, you got me.
" Or did he catch one in six men in lowa? Do we know that it was actual proper, you know, sexual intercourse, or was it They definitely didn't get a blow-job.
Quick peck on the cheek possibly.
Um, l'm going to raise the tone now.
Why did the inventor of the decimal point encourage his servants to stroke his cock? - Well raised, Stephen.
- Yes, thank you.
ls it because if you've got servants, you would, wouldn't you? (Rory) That's precisely the point.
l'm interested in the decimal point - you said he invented it, so before they had it would they say something like, "well, 23 and, like, a bit?" They would say a half and a quarter and four fifths.
Was it a long time ago, the decimal point invention? Er, the dates of John Napier were 1550 to 1617.
- John Napier? - Did John Napier invent logarithms? Yes.
- So the cock is not his penis.
- Right, it's a cockerel, a rooster.
He was an extraordinary man, he wore black and his neighbours thought he was in league with the devil.
And he had this jet black cock as his constant companion.
- And when it became obvious - Did he do that purely for double entendre? No.
Have you seen my massive black cock? Et cetera.
A hit at dinner parties in Edinburgh.
- Wasn't he the Laird of Merchistoun? - He was, l'll give you five points for that.
He invented logs but at school you know that two and two equals four, OK.
When you do logs, invented by John Napier, two and two equals three point nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine recurring.
- How clever is that eh? - He was also Baron Merchistoun.
There were some thefts and he was certain it was a servant and he wanted to trap them.
Now we're talking late 16th, early 17th century, so they were quite gullible perhaps, and what he told them was that his rooster, his cock, could tell which one of his servants had stolen from him.
- Sorry, "quite" gullible? - Yeah.
No, all right.
He put the cockerel in a darkened room, you see? And the servants had to go in, and each one had to stroke it, like that.
And he told them that when it was stroked, it could tell which one had thieving fingers.
So they all had to stroke it.
So all the servants did this.
What they didn't know was, in this darkened room, he had covered his cockerel in soot, so all the innocent ones thought, l'll stroke it, l'm perfectly happy to.
But the thief thought, l'm just going to pretend l've stroked it, so he was the only one with clean hands.
That is quite clever, isn't it? - What a cunning plan.
- lt is genuinely cunning.
Could the Metropolitan Police use this? He also invented, supposedly, the machinegun.
An extraordinary man.
He liked a bit of rough as well.
No, but ssh.
- Piccadilly, what's the connection? - Peccadillo is the old name for a ruff.
They manufactured them in Piccadilly.
lsn't he good? lsn't he good? And a pigadillo is a cross between a pig and an armadillo.
lt tastes like shit but the crackling is fantastic.
- (Applause) - Very nice, very nice indeed.
Rory, while we're on you as it were, - thick, fat, coarse and lazy.
- Thank you! l'm going now.
No, what's the difference between a chevin and a chavender? Probably something to do with chav, is it? ls chevin a sort of portmanteau word for a chav, who's actually called Kevin? - (Alarm) - (Stephen) Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
- Oh.
- Oh, no! You've fallen into a slight trap.
No, it's not that.
A chavender l'm now frightened - l forgot about the forfeit thing.
The chavender was that episode of Eastenders where they all dressed in Burberry, and that's called Chavenders, you see, but l won't say that in case l get - (Alarm) - (Stephen) Ooh.
The chavender is a fish, isn't it? - He's awfully good.
- A roach or chub, a common fresh water fish.
Marvellous, it's a chub.
So is a chevin, it's another word for it, as well.
They're all types of carp, hence coarse and fat, it's coarse as in coarse fishing, they are chubs.
We get our word "chubby" from them.
- ls that right? - But no one knows where "chub" is from.
- Why is it called coarse fishing? - ls it the course of the water? - Coarse with an "A", dear.
- People can spell things wrong.
- lt's easily done.
- Not on my watch! Um Can you tell if l'm spelling things wrong when l say them? A character called Psmith, who spelt his name with a silent P, could tell when people said Psmith without pronouncing the silent P.
One of PG Wodehouse's first fictional characters.
But while we are reflecting on God's little chubsters, er Jimmy, how many burglaries are committed in the UK by koalas every day? - Every day? - (Stephen) Yeah.
Well, l'm guessing it's quite a low figure.
Now are we talking breaking and entering, or planning to deprive of property on a continual basis, because they're different charges.
The thing about koalas is, they are the most law-abiding of all the bears.
(Jimmy) But they're not bears.
(Crowd jeering, man shouts "Order, order!") Yes, Alan? - They're not bears.
- (Stephen) Thank you, yes.
They've got a very long intestine and sleep for 22 hours a day.
Tell you what though, all the indigenous mammals in Australasia are marsupials.
Are therefore not mammals.
(Sean) No.
- Yes, absolutely fantastic.
- Didn't you know that?! They're cats.
(Laughs mockingly) They're cats! All of them! Try and think of something clever, sorry, back to the knob gags.
Well no, no, fair point.
The things that are almost like furry but aren't.
lf l'd said almost like furry, l would have sounded like Alan.
That koala looks like he's waiting for the fire brigade.
He does.
Look at his paws though.
What's your favourite bit of a koala? Do you like the little hands? - l like the cock.
- Oh, stop.
- (Sean) l told you! - The fluffy ears? The little hard nose? - Concentrate on the paws.
- l like the lips, toasted.
- (Stephen) Concentrate - (Fire bell) Yes, Jimmy? Koala fingerprints are indistinguishable from humans.
- Fingerprints is right, Jimmy.
- (Applause) Let's see some human prints, some koala prints and maybe some chimpanzee prints.
Which is which would you say? (Alan) Human print is on the left.
- No, it's not.
lt's in the middle.
- Sorry? Human in the middle? - Yes.
- Right.
And chimpanzee? Chimpanzee is on the right, and that's a koala, unmistakable.
l wonder if you're right.
No, human on the left, koala in the middle and a chimpanzee on the right.
Even under a microscope, it's hard to tell between koala and human prints.
And a chimpanzee is very closely related.
That's extraordinary, because the koala evolved in isolation in Australasia.
Convergent evolution, where things that evolve separately come up with similar solutions.
- Or they were all made by God.
- (Stephen) Or they were all made by God.
Do you know the word, incidentally Oh look, l've got lots of interesting stuff about chavs.
l know something interesting about chavs.
When l first read the word in the tabloids, l hadn't l hadn't heard it out loud, and l thought it was "chaav.
" Oh lovely.
That's so unchavvy, isn't it? A "chaav".
How classy is that? " These chaavs, l must meet them, they sound lovely.
" So koalas have fingerprints almost identical to human beings and this was discovered by a Polish man called Henneberg, an anthropologist and paleopathologist but also a dermatoglyphic expert and the word dermatoglyphics means the study of fingerprints.
l'll give you ten points if you can tell me what's unusual about this word - it shares a property with only one other word.
Does it have all the letters of the word dermatoglyphic in it? (Jimmy) ln the right order.
The only other word that shares this property is the word uncopyrightable.
- Vowels in the right order? - They're the longest words, - Ah.
- All the letters are different.
- Fantastic.
- Simple as that.
My favourite word - the longest palindrome - is the Finnish word "saippuakuppinippukauppias" but the meaning is, a travelling salesman who sells caustic soda to the soap industry.
Excellent.
Now, what's the commonest metal in the human body? (Rory) Oh, that's a very good question.
(Alan) lron.
(Stephen) lron? - (Alarm) - Oh, dear.
Oh, dear, no, no.
(Jimmy) l'm l think it's mercury.
- (Alarm) - Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
(Siren) - l think it must be calcium.
- (Stephen) Oh no, he's got it! - He's got it, it is calcium.
Absolutely right! - £100.
(Applause) Because bones are mainly calcium phosphate.
- (Stephen) Yes.
- Yes.
Yeah(!) - (Pneumatic drill) - Wood.
Calcium, atomic number 20.
Last year l learnt all the atomic numbers of all the elements.
- (Stephen) Good Lord! - l was helping my son to revise.
l've tried to forget them, because it's just so embarrassing.
- Selenium? - Selenium, 30 something.
l've no idea.
l know it's close to arsenic.
lt's 34.
Selenium is 34, Arsenic is 33.
Very good.
lsn't he good? They should really put railings around you and have children come and stare at you.
Calcium phosphate is the main constituent of bones.
lndeed, calcium is, as a metal, is almost never found in nature.
Phosphorus is of course, l think, 15.
Let's move aside from lt's not really an autistic quiz, this.
You're doing atomic number wheelies now, aren't you? Waah! Do you pull up outside pubs and go, "Selenium, 32? Aah.
" Calcium comes from the Latin calx, meaning a stone or a pebble, from which we get calculus and calculation and recalcitrant.
And all kinds of words, there you are.
lt was discovered in 1808 by Sir Humphrey Davy.
Recalcitrant comes from calx meaning a heel, not calx meaning it's kicking back.
You're right, it is indeed from a heel.
This is a team game, isn't it? l'm on his team.
This is my teammate here.
We're killing them.
Eh? - Come on.
Do you want some? - (Rory) Yes, come on.
Yes, but later on, when we go out people will talk to us.
(Rory) Yes that's true, that's true.
Can you tell me how much calcium there is in the average human body? - A pound.
- (Sean) Yeah, a pound and a bit.
- lt's about a kilogram actually.
- We're 98% liquid, aren't we? - We're about 70% liquid.
- (Alan) Are we? l'll give you a percentage if you want one.
l've just said 70, l'm fine, thanks.
Something's 98% liquid, l know it is.
(Rory) A cucumber.
(Sean) ls it the sea? lt's got a couple of bikes and a shopping trolley, but mainly it's water.
No, the sea is only four percent water.
(Rory) Yeah, that's true.
The sea is mainly - (Jimmy) That's a happy face.
- Got away with it.
lf you took all of the fish and the whales and everything out of the sea - (Rory) They'd die.
- how far down does it go? My favourite Steven Wright joke - "lmagine how deep the ocean would be if there weren't sponges.
" That's very good.
So there we are, though non-metals are more abundant in nature, metals make up almost 75% of the periodic table.
Soft, silvery calcium is one of them.
There we are, now listen, who was Britain's first prime minister, team, panel, friends? - Wasn't it Walpole? - Walpole? - (Alarm) - Oh no! Shame on you.
No, it wasn't.
Lord Snooty.
Pitt? - (Stephen) Oh! Oh! - (Alarm) Pitt the Elder.
Pitt the Elder was a tree, wasn't he? Was it some sort of king that proclaimed himself the prime minister? - No, it was a politician.
- (Rory) Oliver Cromwell? - lt was a hundred years ago.
- (Sean) Disraeli? A hundred years ago.
Oh, well, never mind, no.
Er A hundred years ago would be 1905, wouldn't it? This show favours people who know stuff.
- l know, it's so unfair.
- Someone like Ramsay McDonald? - No, he was a bit later.
1905 to 1908? - (Rory) Campbell-Bannerman! Henry Campbell-Bannerman.
Well done.
Henry Campbell-Bannerman.
Not the best known of our prime ministers, but he ought to have been.
He was one of triplets as well.
He was a good prime minister, he introduced old age pensions, fought for the poor - What were they called before? - They were First Lord of the Treasury.
He was the first to be called prime minister.
First Lord of the Treasury? They're still First Lord of the Treasury, if they're prime minister.
But they were never called prime minister until 1905.
(Alan) What was Ethelred the Unready? - He was a king.
- Mm, mm Yes.
Um His last words, Henry Campbell-Bannerman, were, "This is not the end of me.
" Huh! The term prime minister was first officially used in 1905 five days after Campbell-Bannerman became one.
Sir Robert Walpole, generally recognised as the first prime minister, never used it.
Now the round where our guests display their lack of knowledge, General lgnorance.
Fingers on the buzzers, please.
What's another name for the common cormorant? - (Siren) - Yes, Rory? - The sea crow.
- Very good, it is, that's the right answer.
And the Latin name is Phalacrocorax.
- l was l was going to say shag.
- Shag, oh, no! - (Alarm) - (Jimmy) There's a poem, isn't there? A poem, by Christopher lsherwood, which goes, - "The common cormorant or shag" - "Lays its eggs in a paper bag.
" - Paper bag, yeah.
- The cormorant is Phalacrocorax carbo, shag is Phalacrocorax aristotelis.
lt doesn't have the white face and the - This is everything l've got written down.
- Do you get called tosser much? - Only - (Applause) Oh, now, poor Rory.
lt's a fair question, l only get called tosser by other people.
But do you remember anything he said? No, not a word.
He said something about calcium and there's a tree with a funny name, l don't know, koalas invented rice.
- And the robots.
- The actual word cormorant comes from corvus marinus, which is the Latin for sea crow.
Old swotty! ln the end, you are a lot less irritating than Bill Oddie, aren't you? lt's funny you should say Bill Oddie, because we decided to do a bird watching programme in which Bill plays the expert and l play the sort of keen, ignorant person.
And l was going to call the programme Panuri Biarmicus, which is the Latin name for bearded tits.
Oh very good, very good.
There's probably about six blokes in Oxford who've gone, "Hee hee.
- "You see that? Oh, no!" - (Applause) And Phalacrocorax graculus would be? lt's the crested cormorant, isn't it, because a Graculus is a jackdaw.
No, a jackdaw is corvus monegula.
(Stephen) Yes, but it's the actual Latin name, the actual Latin name for a jackdaw was graculus.
(Rory) OK.
Let's not fall out over this.
(Stephen) No, no, it's what No, l'm saying real Latin No, you might be interested.
Because Roman people actually called birds things before they were Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
There's something down there.
Ah! Ah! - Sorry about that.
- (Stephen) That's all right.
(Jimmy) Sean, Sean There's a portal into the underworld here.
One species of cormorant can't fly, do you know it? - The flightless cormorant.
- Sorry, can you go over that again? - Classicus - Phalacrocorax aptorus.
Nicotus nockotus.
lt sounds like a Les Dawson sketch.
You know how the show is called Quite lnteresting? - l think we've veered off.
- (Stephen) Have we? OK.
- l'm impressed with Rory - l'm impressed with you, Stephen.
l've got a feeling, Rory, that you have pulled.
(Applause) - All it takes is a cute mind.
- (Rory) Yes, indeed.
The common cormorant is not a shag, nor does it lay its eggs in a paper bag.
The two are related but not the same species.
The shag gets its name from the tuft of feathers on its shaggy head.
Now, next question.
How many cardigans does the Queen have? (Fire bell) - Yes? - She's got Cardigan Bay, that's hers.
She's got a couple of bits of knitwear, and then the Aren't her dogs? Ah, that's very very good.
There are Corgis are divided, there are two breeds of corgi, the Cardigan corgi and? She needs her roots doing there.
lf l say the answer in a different language, do l get more points? "Ocho! "Ocho cardigani c'est la Queen have ammore.
"Best ocho me noka parda pint obabelina.
" Do you get extra points for making up a language? (Stephen) Probably.
Jimmy Tarbuck did a Royal Command Performance, and he looked into the royal box and said, "that reminds me, l must buy a stamp.
" Quite a good line.
Yes, you're right, there is a Cardigan corgi, she has many corgis but all her corgis are not Cardigans, - they are actually Pembroke.
- (Rory) Ah, yes.
Hardy Amis, the designer, was invited to lunch at Buckingham Palace and was rather startled, as he was the only guest.
And a footman came in with a big glass with bread sticks in it.
And the Queen leant forward and took five of them out and put them on her side plate.
So he did the same, thinking, "l've got to do the same.
" And then throughout the she just sort of nibbled on one and about that much of it had gone by the end of the meal and then a footman came in with four corgis and she gave one to each corgi.
Then she turned to Hardy Amis and said, "So, Mr Amis, what are you going to do with yours?" Despite having a Welsh name, Pembroke corgis are in fact of Nordic extraction and are related to the Lundehund, a puffin-hunting dog.
Puffin, fratercula arctica.
Oh, ha ha, you are just beginning to try my patience now.
(Applause) (Pneumatic drill) Rory, shut the (beep) up! Just in time for the quick fire round.
Here we go, next question.
Why does the House of Lords smell faintly of urine? (Siren) - lt used to be a public telephone box.
- (Stephen) No, that isn't the reason.
- (Fire bell) - They've got those plug-in Glade things And it's taken the edge right off.
No, it's because there used to be more hereditary peers and what do peers usually wear? - Tweed.
- Tweed, tweed.
(Jimmy) Tweed is made with urine.
(Stephen) Yes.
- What? - ls the answer, yes.
ls it? Yes it is, yes.
Yeah, Rory, l told you! - (Rory) l know, yeah.
- The landed gentry - Where do you buy your tweed, Stephen? The landed gentry have always gone for tweed because of its strength and all the great estates have their own patterns, their own plaids.
And it was fixed using stale urine, whatever the colour would be.
But when it gets damp, this odour of urine tends to come off.
And so the removal of most of the hereditaries from the House and the introduction of chemical mordants has meant that the piquant aroma of eau de seigneur has more or less now disappeared.
- Next question, where did Mr Chicken live? - The other side of the road? - Very good.
- ln Kentucky, next to Colonel Sanders? - Oh, dear.
- (Alarm) No, it is a very famous address that we've sort of not exactly discussed - but tangentially - The House of Commons? - Downing Street.
- Who said that? He was the last private resident of 10 Downing Street.
Robert Walpole took it over and King George wanted to give it to Walpole, and Walpole said, "No, it must be for all Lords of the Treasury to come after me.
" lt's two houses - an ordinary terrace from the front, the mansion at the back, backing onto Horse Guards Parade.
lsn't it the only door in London that only opens from the inside? My door opens from the inside.
But it opens from the outside as well.
You can get in.
- lt's a house, yes.
- (Stephen) Not there.
- You can't get in? - Someone has to be inside to let you in.
- You can't get the key and push it.
- So when they've all been out - # There's always someone in there # - Why did you sing that? That was a little bit scary.
There's always someone in there! What was that? l wanted to frighten you.
l for one am frightened.
Someone might be under the desk now! - Someone's employed to open the door? - A doorman.
- That's a rubbish job.
- l'm sure they have other duties.
- Closing it again.
- (Stephen) For example.
Taking the coat hanger out of Cherie's mouth so she can get out.
(Applause) Excellent, excellent.
Sadly nothing else is known of Mr Chicken.
He was a philatelist, and he worked in a bank.
and he used to sail.
So there's three facts, so l should get some points for those.
Little known facts, but true.
- He also played the tenor banjo.
- Yeah, he had eleven knuckles.
And he was actually a chicken.
So the most biographed man in the 18th century.
Mr Ralph Waldo Peterson Arnold Chicken the lll.
We salute you for giving us And that's about it for us chickens, and so let's see what's in my little nest box.
ln last place it's Jimmy with minus 12.
But well played Jimmy, well done.
Fine.
Third is Alan with minus nine.
- (Sean) Hey! Minus nine! - Well, thank you.
And, for all his self-deprecation in a very good second place with nought, Sean Lock.
- (Applause) - Thank you.
But our runniest our runniest away winner ever, Rory McGrath - with 88 points! - Oh.
- (Applause) - How embarrassing.
(Stephen) Two fat ladies! (Chuckles) There you are.
Well, that's just about everything from Ql.
Thank you to Alan, Sean, Jimmy and Rory for being very game fowl indeed.
And l leave you with this piece of uncommon knowledge about calcium from Jack Handey - " Most people don't realise that large pieces of coral, "which have been painted brown and attached to the skull by "common wood screws, "can make a child look like a deer.
" Goodnight.