QI (2003) s03e10 Episode Script
Cleve Crudgington
(Applause) (Cheering and whistling) Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the high-rolling, low-scoring casino of confusion that we call Ql.
Joining me at the craps table tonight are John Sessions.
Clive Anderson.
Mark Steel.
And Alan Davies.
Well, they may look like comedians to you, but they're actually double agents, working behind enemy lines, fighting to keep your world interesting.
Time to show off your gadgets, boys.
John goes (# James Bond theme) And Clive goes (# Mission: lmpossible theme) And Mark goes (# Hawaii Five-O theme) Ah, nice.
And Alan goes (# Z Cars theme) Well, let's start with the basics, and the letter C, our constant companion this season.
Who was C and how many legs did he have? ls it like a Q and an M thing, like in Bond? Ah, you're right on the right trail, yeah.
All heads of one of the services are called C, after the first and founding head, - The C Lord.
- No, no, no, because, stop it at once, no! - No, his name was Cumming.
- Yes.
- (Stephen) That was his name.
Stop it.
- Yeah.
- l said stop it and l meant it.
- (Clive) How did he get the job, then? He was called Sir Mansfield Cumming.
He got the job by founding the department.
Er, the War Office? Well, it was originally the Secret Service Bureau, the SSB.
What happened to Ml 1, 2, 3 and 4? lnteresting point.
l can't furnish you with all the details, because l would have to eat myself if l did.
Sir Mansfield Cumming was an early spy, he was born in the 1850s and he died in 1923, and his service came into its own in the First World War.
And did he write his name in small letters, like e.
e.
cummings? Well, oddly enough, what he did was, he signed every memo and every document with the letter C, the initial of his surname, in green ink, which is a practice still performed by all heads of Ml6.
Those little four-colour pens they all have.
- Did he have one leg, then, or something? - He had one leg.
He had a wooden leg and a real fleshy leg, as it were.
And the wooden leg he could use for all sorts of spying, couldn't he? Probably a telescope, poison darts, keeping things in.
He loved to stab himself in the leg at meetings, with a pen or a knife - He was barking, this bloke - Yeah, he was And he would take the leg for a ride on a scooter down the corridors while his other leg worked furiously on the ground.
- He was quite an eccentric.
- (Clive) But which came first? Did he stab himself in the leg and that's why he had to have a false one or Yes, he was in a car accident in France, and he hacked off his leg, which was trapped, with a pen knife.
- Oh, fantastic! - So he was a brave man.
Not only that, he went round Germany in 1911 spying on German war preparations, posing as a German businessman and unable to speak word one of German.
(Clive) Oh, no.
(Stephen) But he came back alive.
(Posh accent) "l was born in Dortmund, "and, um, l remember as a very small boy, "l was wearing those 'leader' hosen, yes.
" (Alan makes hacking noises) When did he have a car crash? Before cars? He was on his own? Did he hit a tree? - Lying there cold being nibbled by rabbits? - l'm looking at my information card here, because you're really pumping me, Alan, you're pumping me here.
He was born with two legs, apparently, but he lost (Clive) There's nothing very remarkable about that.
lf that's what you count as quite interesting (Stephen) No, no, it builds, you see, it builds from that.
He lost one after a car accident in France, that also killed his only son, Alistair, which is the sad part.
Do you know when Nelson lost his arm, he said it was so agonising, cos they didn't have any form of anaesthetic, he said the worst thing about it was that the saw was cold, so thereafter, the surgeon, just to make it a lot easier, warmed the saw.
The South Africans once picked for their cricket team a one-legged Norwegian.
lt was in the time of apartheid, so it was quite poignant, because you were more likely to get in the South African cricket team if you were a one-legged Norwegian than if you were black with two legs.
Do you know the name of the current C? - (Stephen) John Scarlet.
- Scarlet! - A bald man, erm - Do you know who he took over from? A rather wonderful name, l'd picture Alistair Darling with this one, - he's called Sir Richard Dearlove.
- (Clive) Oh, yes.
So, Dearlove, Darling, Darling, Dearlove.
So, Dearlove and Cumming, er, came together Just hope that Geoffrey Tissue is nearby to help.
Well, there we are, there's good old C.
Another curious C is Mr Cleve Crudgington of California.
Why don't you tell us about Mr Cleve Crudgington and what he does with corks.
ls his name Cleve? Or is this a mispronunciation of the proper name Clive, which no other nationality can pronounce? The French would call you Cleve.
"Cleve Onderson", yes, of course they would.
America, they tend to call you Clyde, cos they've heard of the name Clyde, but not - Do you know where it comes from? - Yeah, it comes from Robert Clive, Clive of lndia as he got known, though his actual title was Clive of Plassey, but for some reason he's got upgraded in the public memory.
There was a generation of television Clives, Clive James, Clive Anderson We're all the same, unfortunately.
No eyes, no neck, no hair.
Easily confused, we're all bald.
No Clive has any hair.
Clive Woodward, the rugby man, Clive James, Clive Sinclair, me, - l can't think of a Clive with any hair.
- Yes.
Anyways, back to Cleve Crudgington and his corks.
Did he insert them in his person? You will never know how thin the ice upon which you were skating was there.
We had a little forfeit all ready for you.
Oh, there it is! Because we know that's what you were thinking.
Does he make the hats for Australians? - Does he tie the corks - Oh, that's a beautiful thought.
No, he doesn't do that.
Erm, it's a very sad story.
He has a wife called Gloria who had an uncle, who who died at a wedding.
And he died because he was opening a bottle of champagne and the cork hit him in the face and killed him, unfortunately.
So, he determined that this should never happen again, no one should ever kill themselves opening a bottle of champagne.
So he invented a champagne-cork opener.
l thought the technique was just to hold the cork and twist the bottle.
- The twist is the key.
- Then it comes out in a dribble.
And it means you're gripping it so there's no danger of the cork flying, you know.
People who do that are barking, l mean, what Unless you're trying to kill someone.
(Stephen) Yes.
Or, you know, the Formula One thing of Why am l doing that? - l was always taught to do that, to twist it.
- (Stephen) Yeah, twist, exactly.
That's it.
- Where do you get taught these things? - Where did you go to school, Mark Steel? l went to Swanley Comprehensive, and that was every Tuesday morning, we did double champagne opening.
l know that l know that Veuve Clicquot - means Widow Clicquot.
And she was - (Stephen) lt does, yes.
Tell me what Krug means, then, as in Krug champagne? (Clive) lt means something Jeffrey Archer will serve you, for some reason He is famous for his Krug and shepherd's pie parties, isn't he? And his jail sentence.
- Good Fair point.
- (Clive) Yes.
lt means a kind of beer mug, actually, rather oddly.
Our word crock comes from the same word, kruke.
Dom PĂ©rignon was the man who invented it, wasn't he? - (Stephen) No, not really.
- No? One thing that is known of him is he spent his life trying to get this damn fizziness out of his wine, he thought it was a terrible mistake.
lt's gone off.
lt was really the British who seem to have invented champagne, or at least to have imported wine from the Champagne region and deliberately to have made it fizzy, and we also had the only technology that allowed bottles that would not explode.
Anyway, what makes bubbly actually bubbly? Carbon dioxide.
- (Alarm) - Oooh.
No.
Carbon dioxide is what the bubbles are made of, but it's not what makes them bubble, if you see what l mean.
lt's Tizer, they put a little bit of Tizer in it.
(Clive) lt's the release of pressure that makes them - Well, it's emerge from their dissolved state.
Condensation nuclei are what l wanted to think of.
- That was on the tip of my tongue.
- (Alan) l'd written that down But what it is, is that if in absolutely pure, say pure distilled water, the exact amount of carbon dioxide that, say, produces the supposed quarter of a billion bubbles per bottle of champagne, would just dissolve invisibly in the water.
But the impurities from the glass, bits of dirt, any flake, like a pearl from an oyster, it needs that, and it's called a condensation nucleus, and about those tiny, invisible specks, each bubble is formed.
(Mark) So if you had a really clean glass - (Stephen) Utterly clean glass.
- So you could in fact, if you got champagne and it was fizzing, you could say, "Well, that's evidence that this glass is filthy.
l'm not" You're absolutely correct.
You're absolutely right, because it's not glass itself.
They used to think it was grooves and indentations in the glass, but they've since discovered through new photographic techniques that's not the case.
lt is actually bits of dirt and things lf you prefer it more fizzy, can you put a lump of mud in it? (Stephen) l'm allergic to champagne, as a matter of fact, l can't drink it.
Last time l had some, l was in the hospital.
Maybe you're allergic to the condensation nuclei.
No, there is some terrible name-dropping.
What actually happened l didn't even touch the glass, Mark, that's the weird thing, l'm so allergic.
And the better the champagne, the more allergic l am.
But this was at a party given by their graces, the Duke and Duchess of Westminster, - and - (Alarms blaring, fanfare playing) Oh, no! Come on! No! Hey, no! Fair do's.
No.
And The richest man in the country, apart from Roman Abramovich.
l never penetrated his intimate circle, but, anyway Let's move away.
There is a small hill in Cumbria called Torpenhow, or "Trepenow", it's sometimes pronounced, but there you see it, Torpenhow.
Erm, l want to know why it's not only quite interesting, but it's twice as interesting as Mount Fujiyama.
Cos that's where all the heroines from Melvyn Bragg's novels get shagged.
- ls this Mount Fuji in Japan? - (Stephen) Yeah.
Permanently snow-capped monstrous volcano.
l would invite you to have a look at the word and have a think.
- What's the word made up of? - Three syllables, tor, pen, how.
- Tor is a hill.
- (Stephen) Yes.
So is pen, so is how.
lt's three hills.
So Torpenhow Hill, which l asked you about - And it's a tautology.
- ls four hills, it's a quadruple pleonasm, - a quadruple tautology.
- Just like Fujiyama.
the word mountain is included in the word.
Fuji is mount, so Mount Fuji That's why it's twice as interesting, because Mount Fuji is hill hill.
this is hill, hill, hill, hill.
- Which one is that? - (Stephen) That's mount Fuji.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if there was something like that in Cumbria that no one had noticed.
"Oh! Look!" Why is this Cumbrian peak Why is it named four times? Well, many, many are.
"Many, many.
" Well, it's like the rivers, like River Avon.
Avon is the Celtic word for river isn't it? Exactly, but the River Axe, River Esk, River Exe, River Ouse, River Tyne, River Humber, all mean river river.
But the Paraguay River means river, river, river, para-guay river.
Yenisei River is big river, river, river.
l sound like a frog.
Lake Nyasa means lake? - (John) Lake.
- Exactly, as does Lake Dal in lndia, means lake lake.
The Sahara Desert means the? - (John) Desert desert.
- Desert desert.
Well what does Boutros Boutros-Ghali mean? lt means Peter Peter Expensive.
(John) Here's a wee language thing for you, you might like.
Pidgin English for a piano is, "Old man in ma house, you hit him white teeth he laugh, "you hit him black teeth, he cry.
" (Clive) May be better off learning the word piano.
(Drowned out by laughter) Anyway, Celtic nations, but especially Caledonia, are rightly praised for their creativity, so name three Scottish inventions.
And you're gonna say they weren't invented in Scotland.
l don't know.
Depends what you say.
- Television is always the one that's - (Alarm) Cos John Logie Baird came up with one system, which wasn't used.
Alexander Graham Bell robbed the telephone.
Quite right, so certainly not Alexander Graham Bell.
- (Alan) Haggis.
- (Alarm) Not even haggis.
You'd think, wouldn't you? Haggis was invented in ancient Rome.
- Rubber tyres.
- Ah, rubber tyres you can have.
Dunlop, l'll give you Dunlop, yeah.
But just to get through things that weren't.
Kilts were not, they were lrish.
And the word kilt is a Danish word.
Hogmanay is a French word, did you know that? Yeah, hoguinané, it's a French word.
Whisky was ltalian, even before that probably Chinese, yeah.
lt's amazing.
Have you done anything in this bloody world, you may wonder.
l will now tell you what they've invented.
Scotch inventions and discoveries include, adhesive stamps, the Australian national anthem, the Bank of England, bicycle pedals, the breech-loading rifle - you notice l'm going in alphabetical order - Bovril, the cell nucleus, chloroform, the cloud chamber, cornflour, a cure for malaria, the decimal point, the Encyclopaedia Britannica, fountain pens, finger-printing, hypnosis, hypodermic syringes, lnsulin, the kaleidoscope, the lawnmower, lime cordial, logarithms, lorries, marmalade, matches, motor insurance, paraffin, piano pedals, the postmark, pneumatic tyres, radar, the reflecting telescope, savings banks, the screw propeller, the speedometer, the steam hammer, raincoats, Tarmac, teleprinters, tubular steel, typhoid vaccine, ultrasound scanners, the United States Navy, Universal Standard Time, vacuum flasks, wave-powered electricity generations and wire rope.
(Cheering and applause) Goodness me, thank you.
Well, you should be applauding the inventive Scots.
Yeah, and the population of Scotland has never been more than five million, so that's quite an achievement.
(Stephen) lt is a (Alan) Shortbread.
- Scotch eggs, Scotch pancakes.
- (Alan) Dundee cake.
(John) Scotch tape.
(Stephen) Yes.
Sitting in doorways, singing and crooning in a weirdly (Husky Scottish accent) inexplicably husky voice for some reason, l don't know why they do that.
Where's that come from, that voice? Aye, oh, l know you, you gobshite! (Normal) That's, er, sorry, for some reason, what they say to me.
But no, Alexander Graham Bell, for all that we've rather traduced him, he was involved in sonar and he developed a hydrofoil which travelled at 70 miles an hour in 1919.
He had a metal detector, it was used to find the bullet on Garfield, the President, after he'd been shot by an assassin's bullet, and unfortunately it didn't work, they didn't find it but he said it was confused by the bed springs.
So Garfield died.
So there we are, lots and lots of Scottish things.
Now, the word cat derives from the Latin catulus, catulus.
Erm, Clive? (Alan) That's the angriest-looking cat l've ever seen.
l want you to tell me what the word catulus means.
Well, it means "cat".
But it obviously means something else before that.
We took the cat from catulus and described cats with it.
The Romans didn't call their cats catulus, but - (Alan) Dogs.
- Yes, it's the right answer, catulus.
The clue was there in the picture, it was there.
(As Roy Walker) "Say what you see now, say what you see.
" That was The clue's in the picture there.
- Hang on, another one's appeared.
- (Stephen) A littler one.
What have you done to that cat, you filthy dog? The word rabbit is an interesting word, oddly enough Because that comes from the Latin for giraffe.
Well, there you are, no, cat, it comes from "kata" meaning "down" in Greek, as in all kinds of words beginning with kata.
So it was described for puppies first, because the little things that hit the ground were the catulus and became the word for a puppy, and then for a dog.
And we took the cat bit and called cats with it.
Do you know what cataglottism is? When you get a cat stuck in your throat.
lt's a very old word, a much older word than the word you might use for French kissing.
lt means to put your tongue down someone's throat, literally, put your tongue down, cata - down, glott - glottis, tongue.
Why is that cat so cross? - lt is, isn't it? - Really, really cross.
(Clive) Something is They've stapled it to that table.
Cos it's been made to pose for that photo, with those horrible dogs.
lt's said "l'll do a picture with two other cats.
"l'm gonna get onto my agent, l am not a dog.
"lt's the second time this week.
"l'll do this one more and then l'm going.
" lt's a wonderful theory, because the more you look into its eyes, the crosser it seems to get, doesn't it? Absolutely furious! "Puss" is actually from the ancient Egyptian, "pasht", meaning cat, or moon incidentally.
Why is pussy another word for a front bottom? l don't know, it's not my area of expertise.
We've covered, er Before Dear me.
Rich Hall was here the other week, and he said there was a bar near where he lived, and it has two rooms and it has a sign saying "Liquor in the front, poker in the rear.
" Now interestingly, the sound of the word "cat" is one of the most ancient and pervasive of all human noises, predating Latin and Greek and featuring in hundreds of languages.
How many other vowel sounds does English have? How many vowel sounds are there in English? - Eleven.
- Oh, is that how many? Oh, well done! Very good! Very good.
lt's not right.
(Clive) Well, l would say it's about 50.
Eeeeuuooomm Well, you've done three there you've never done before.
No, 33 according to the lnternational Phonetic Alphabet.
There's a Vietnamese language, you were there recently, called Sedang, which has 55, which seems to be the most we can find.
There's one which only has apparently one vowel sound, one language, it's a Caucasian Russian (Alan) The Klangers (Stephen) language.
No, it's called Abaza and Adyghe, though it makes you wonder how they call it Adyghe, cos their only vowel is "ah".
Hang on, what about the Welsh? Well, they've got their own Channel 4 there, but l always think they can't have Countdown on that, cos, er - l'll have a consonant and consonant.
- And another consonant.
- (Clive) Oh, look, l've got five Ls.
- Eleven consonants.
l'll get several words.
Nine consonants, 27 consonants and a consonant.
(John) Welsh for keep off the grass? - No.
- Welsh for keep off the grass is "ni chroeswch y lawnt.
" lt's a bit literal, isn't it? - No cross the lawn it means.
- (John) Yes.
And a daddy-long-legs is a "jac y baglau".
Oh, and an ironing board is a "bwrdd smwddio.
" Really.
Anyway, that's enough vowel movements.
Fingers on buzzers, please, for another round of General lgnorance.
What's the world's longest animal? (# Z Cars theme) - ls that me? - (Stephen) Yes.
Erm, lt'll be the blue whale.
(Alarm) - l think it's the giant squid.
- (Alarm, and Mission: lmpossible theme) - (Clive) l think - Giant squid, no, not a giant squid.
l think it's the tapeworm, which lives in whichever is the next longest animal in the world, because it has to curl around a lot inside, say, the blue whale or the giant squid.
(Stephen) lt's an intelligent thought.
- lntelligent, but that's wrong.
- (# Z Cars theme) lt's, er, one of those jellyfish that's got tentacles that are about 500 yards long.
- (Alarm) - No.
No, your worm is right, you're in the right family as it were.
But tapeworms aren't really worms, are they? - lt's not earthworm, it's a Jupiter worm.
- (Stephen) lt's an aquatic worm.
lt's called a bootlace worm.
And it does look like a bootlace, you must admit.
(Alan) How long? Longer than a blue whale? My arse! Why have you shown it as served on a pizza? l know, it's an unusual picture of it there.
No, it gets up to about 60 metres in length, which is a lot longer than a blue whale.
lt's almost twice as long as a blue whale in fact.
The largest lion's mane is about 40 metres, so it really is enormously long.
Charles Darwin became obsessed with worms, and he decided to dig up his whole garden and count how many worms were in the garden.
And he got thousands of worms, obviously, and he put them all on his snooker table, l think, inside, and counted them.
And then he decided that he didn't know enough about worms, so he got his son to blow a bassoon at them and recorded what the how the worms reacted to this bassoon.
Vibrations are very important to them, absolutely.
This will interest you though, actually, l have to say, Alan.
They're the simplest organism to have a separate mouth and anus.
(Stephen) l'm sorry, l just Hmm.
There we are, anyway, what l want you to do now is to name a berry.
Blackberry, strawberry, raspberry, blueberry - (Alarm) - (Stephen) Oh, that's fantastic! Just hold on for a moment, cos we've got a lot of catching up to do, blackberry, strawberry, raspberry.
(Mark) lsn't a banana, isn't a banana a berry? l will give you good points for that.
lt is a berry, yeah.
And what sort of bizarre definition of the word berry (Stephen) That of people who study fruits, essentially.
l'm afraid we of the speakers of English (Stephen) l know, but you know this is Ql, come on.
The berets, very good.
lt always strikes me as an unfair system you operate here.
Then don't come and join us ever again, but this is the way we do things.
So bananas are a berry, but strawberries are not a berry? Why is a banana a berry? A berry must be a fruit which contains stones, pips, things, - it must be more than one.
- (Alan) ls tomato a berry, then? Tomato is a berry, yeah.
What of raspberry and a loganberry and blackberry, they're separate little things called drupe sacs, rather pleasingly, and each one contains l know l wonder why you were forging ahead with it.
Each one, each drupe sac contains one little seed.
Yes.
So they're a collection of berries? They are a coll No, not berries, cos there's only one in them.
So an apple is a berry cos it's got lots of pips, but a plum isn't cos Banana's a berry, an apple's a berry? Tomatoes, oranges, lemons, grapefruit, watermelons, kiwi fruit, cucumbers, grapes - (Alan) Squirrel shit.
passion fruit, papaya.
Excellent! (Clive) Pomegranates.
(Stephen) Pomegranate is a very good one.
l mean, that's the berry par excellence! - (John) Gooseberry.
- Gooseberry is a berry.
So that's the only berry that has got berry in it.
- Blueberry actually is a berry as well.
- (Clive) Well, what is a strawberry, then? Cos that's got its seeds on the outside.
lf it's not a berry, what is it? lt is a kind of drupey thing, l believe, l know it sounds weird.
- But if l go into a greengrocers - lt's a drupe.
"Can you give me some drupey things?" is not a Strawberry is a mammal, surely.
Anyway, now, back to Bond, who was the second actor to play James Bond? Sean Connery.
- (Alarm) - (Clive) He was the second one because - (Stephen) No, he wasn't.
- The Blockbuster, the man who presents Blockbusters is famously the first person to play James Bond, then you had the who was in Casino Royale, it was probably David Niven, then.
- (Stephen) Oh! - (Alarm) - (Clive) Oh no! - (Stephen) No.
Who's the Blockbuster guy, cos his name's? - Ladies and gentlemen? - (Audience) Bob Holness.
- Bob Holness.
- Bob Holness, there they are.
No, he was the second, Bob Holness, he played him in 1956.
No, he did it on radio in South Africa.
Then who did it before then? - This is the most astonishing - lt happened in 1954 on television.
CBS, Climax Mystery Theater it was known as, and it was a production of Casino Royale and the first one, he was called Barry Nelson, and he played an American agent called Jimmy Bond, with Peter Lorre as Le Chiffre, the villain.
Anyway, there you are.
Now, listen, lastly, from the very beginning of a famous thing, Bond, to the ending of a rather obscure one.
Who can complete the phrase, "According to Buddha, a person should wander lonely as a?" You're having a double bluff with us and it's cloud.
- (Stephen) Oh! - (Alarm) Bless you, no, it's not cloud.
lt's an almost literal translation, is wander alone like, which you could say, wander lonely as - Caterpillar.
- (Stephen) No, but it's an animal certainly.
lt's a surprising animal, l might say (Mark) Cheetah.
(John) Tabloid journalist.
(Alan) Blue whale.
lt's big and it's quite dangerous.
(Alan) Tiger, elephant, rhino.
Rhino is the right answer! Wander lonely as a rhinoceros.
(Alan) There's one.
- (Stephen) Well, yeah, they are big.
- lt's not as angry as that cat, though.
- (John) No.
- lf that cat had a horn, we'd all be in trouble.
Apparently their non-violent nature and their tendency to solitude makes them an ideal role model for Buddhists.
Do they not chase Buddhists, l mean l think it's the African rhinos that are real chasers.
Asian rhinos, if they do anything, they bite, they don't charge.
My brother was chased by a crocodile in a circus.
lt's true.
Yeah.
- lt was a circus - (Alan) Three shows a day! lt was in lreland, it was in Londonderry, the man said, he said, "You know, don't worry at all, it'll be perfectly safe, it's just a crocodile.
"l know it looks big and everything, but it's perfectly safe.
" My brother and dad were in the front row, and this thing was completely dangerous.
So my brother nearly died in Londonderry killed by a crocodile.
So, was it part of the show or had it just gone in to watch the circus? (Alan) Bought a ticket.
His name was, the O'Doyle family, Croc O'Doyle, he was.
There we are.
Dear, oh dear.
Well, l think, like Buddha's rhino, we have come crashing through the tangled bush of unknowing for long enough to wallow in the muddied waters of the scoreboard now.
Well, what an interesting score it makes, may l say.
We've got to go in reverse order, we have a clear winner, with two points, Mark Steel, ladies and gentlemen, huge congratulations.
How did that happen? How could that have happened? ln second place with minus 16, John Sessions.
ln third place with minus 28, Clive Anderson.
Yes, James Bond did it for me.
But it's possibly a personal record for Alan Davies, with minus 84! (Cheering and whistling) Well, that's it for Ql for another week.
My thanks to Clive, Mark, John and Alan.
l leave you with this cautionary snippet about paying attention.
A radio interviewer from GLR radio, carried away with news of a possible discovery of a cross between an elephant and a woolly mammoth, asked a palaeontologist, "So it'd be like some sort of hairy gorilla, would it?" To which the palaeontologist replied, "Yes, pretty much, except elephant shaped, "and, er, with tusks.
" Good night.
Thank you very much.
Joining me at the craps table tonight are John Sessions.
Clive Anderson.
Mark Steel.
And Alan Davies.
Well, they may look like comedians to you, but they're actually double agents, working behind enemy lines, fighting to keep your world interesting.
Time to show off your gadgets, boys.
John goes (# James Bond theme) And Clive goes (# Mission: lmpossible theme) And Mark goes (# Hawaii Five-O theme) Ah, nice.
And Alan goes (# Z Cars theme) Well, let's start with the basics, and the letter C, our constant companion this season.
Who was C and how many legs did he have? ls it like a Q and an M thing, like in Bond? Ah, you're right on the right trail, yeah.
All heads of one of the services are called C, after the first and founding head, - The C Lord.
- No, no, no, because, stop it at once, no! - No, his name was Cumming.
- Yes.
- (Stephen) That was his name.
Stop it.
- Yeah.
- l said stop it and l meant it.
- (Clive) How did he get the job, then? He was called Sir Mansfield Cumming.
He got the job by founding the department.
Er, the War Office? Well, it was originally the Secret Service Bureau, the SSB.
What happened to Ml 1, 2, 3 and 4? lnteresting point.
l can't furnish you with all the details, because l would have to eat myself if l did.
Sir Mansfield Cumming was an early spy, he was born in the 1850s and he died in 1923, and his service came into its own in the First World War.
And did he write his name in small letters, like e.
e.
cummings? Well, oddly enough, what he did was, he signed every memo and every document with the letter C, the initial of his surname, in green ink, which is a practice still performed by all heads of Ml6.
Those little four-colour pens they all have.
- Did he have one leg, then, or something? - He had one leg.
He had a wooden leg and a real fleshy leg, as it were.
And the wooden leg he could use for all sorts of spying, couldn't he? Probably a telescope, poison darts, keeping things in.
He loved to stab himself in the leg at meetings, with a pen or a knife - He was barking, this bloke - Yeah, he was And he would take the leg for a ride on a scooter down the corridors while his other leg worked furiously on the ground.
- He was quite an eccentric.
- (Clive) But which came first? Did he stab himself in the leg and that's why he had to have a false one or Yes, he was in a car accident in France, and he hacked off his leg, which was trapped, with a pen knife.
- Oh, fantastic! - So he was a brave man.
Not only that, he went round Germany in 1911 spying on German war preparations, posing as a German businessman and unable to speak word one of German.
(Clive) Oh, no.
(Stephen) But he came back alive.
(Posh accent) "l was born in Dortmund, "and, um, l remember as a very small boy, "l was wearing those 'leader' hosen, yes.
" (Alan makes hacking noises) When did he have a car crash? Before cars? He was on his own? Did he hit a tree? - Lying there cold being nibbled by rabbits? - l'm looking at my information card here, because you're really pumping me, Alan, you're pumping me here.
He was born with two legs, apparently, but he lost (Clive) There's nothing very remarkable about that.
lf that's what you count as quite interesting (Stephen) No, no, it builds, you see, it builds from that.
He lost one after a car accident in France, that also killed his only son, Alistair, which is the sad part.
Do you know when Nelson lost his arm, he said it was so agonising, cos they didn't have any form of anaesthetic, he said the worst thing about it was that the saw was cold, so thereafter, the surgeon, just to make it a lot easier, warmed the saw.
The South Africans once picked for their cricket team a one-legged Norwegian.
lt was in the time of apartheid, so it was quite poignant, because you were more likely to get in the South African cricket team if you were a one-legged Norwegian than if you were black with two legs.
Do you know the name of the current C? - (Stephen) John Scarlet.
- Scarlet! - A bald man, erm - Do you know who he took over from? A rather wonderful name, l'd picture Alistair Darling with this one, - he's called Sir Richard Dearlove.
- (Clive) Oh, yes.
So, Dearlove, Darling, Darling, Dearlove.
So, Dearlove and Cumming, er, came together Just hope that Geoffrey Tissue is nearby to help.
Well, there we are, there's good old C.
Another curious C is Mr Cleve Crudgington of California.
Why don't you tell us about Mr Cleve Crudgington and what he does with corks.
ls his name Cleve? Or is this a mispronunciation of the proper name Clive, which no other nationality can pronounce? The French would call you Cleve.
"Cleve Onderson", yes, of course they would.
America, they tend to call you Clyde, cos they've heard of the name Clyde, but not - Do you know where it comes from? - Yeah, it comes from Robert Clive, Clive of lndia as he got known, though his actual title was Clive of Plassey, but for some reason he's got upgraded in the public memory.
There was a generation of television Clives, Clive James, Clive Anderson We're all the same, unfortunately.
No eyes, no neck, no hair.
Easily confused, we're all bald.
No Clive has any hair.
Clive Woodward, the rugby man, Clive James, Clive Sinclair, me, - l can't think of a Clive with any hair.
- Yes.
Anyways, back to Cleve Crudgington and his corks.
Did he insert them in his person? You will never know how thin the ice upon which you were skating was there.
We had a little forfeit all ready for you.
Oh, there it is! Because we know that's what you were thinking.
Does he make the hats for Australians? - Does he tie the corks - Oh, that's a beautiful thought.
No, he doesn't do that.
Erm, it's a very sad story.
He has a wife called Gloria who had an uncle, who who died at a wedding.
And he died because he was opening a bottle of champagne and the cork hit him in the face and killed him, unfortunately.
So, he determined that this should never happen again, no one should ever kill themselves opening a bottle of champagne.
So he invented a champagne-cork opener.
l thought the technique was just to hold the cork and twist the bottle.
- The twist is the key.
- Then it comes out in a dribble.
And it means you're gripping it so there's no danger of the cork flying, you know.
People who do that are barking, l mean, what Unless you're trying to kill someone.
(Stephen) Yes.
Or, you know, the Formula One thing of Why am l doing that? - l was always taught to do that, to twist it.
- (Stephen) Yeah, twist, exactly.
That's it.
- Where do you get taught these things? - Where did you go to school, Mark Steel? l went to Swanley Comprehensive, and that was every Tuesday morning, we did double champagne opening.
l know that l know that Veuve Clicquot - means Widow Clicquot.
And she was - (Stephen) lt does, yes.
Tell me what Krug means, then, as in Krug champagne? (Clive) lt means something Jeffrey Archer will serve you, for some reason He is famous for his Krug and shepherd's pie parties, isn't he? And his jail sentence.
- Good Fair point.
- (Clive) Yes.
lt means a kind of beer mug, actually, rather oddly.
Our word crock comes from the same word, kruke.
Dom PĂ©rignon was the man who invented it, wasn't he? - (Stephen) No, not really.
- No? One thing that is known of him is he spent his life trying to get this damn fizziness out of his wine, he thought it was a terrible mistake.
lt's gone off.
lt was really the British who seem to have invented champagne, or at least to have imported wine from the Champagne region and deliberately to have made it fizzy, and we also had the only technology that allowed bottles that would not explode.
Anyway, what makes bubbly actually bubbly? Carbon dioxide.
- (Alarm) - Oooh.
No.
Carbon dioxide is what the bubbles are made of, but it's not what makes them bubble, if you see what l mean.
lt's Tizer, they put a little bit of Tizer in it.
(Clive) lt's the release of pressure that makes them - Well, it's emerge from their dissolved state.
Condensation nuclei are what l wanted to think of.
- That was on the tip of my tongue.
- (Alan) l'd written that down But what it is, is that if in absolutely pure, say pure distilled water, the exact amount of carbon dioxide that, say, produces the supposed quarter of a billion bubbles per bottle of champagne, would just dissolve invisibly in the water.
But the impurities from the glass, bits of dirt, any flake, like a pearl from an oyster, it needs that, and it's called a condensation nucleus, and about those tiny, invisible specks, each bubble is formed.
(Mark) So if you had a really clean glass - (Stephen) Utterly clean glass.
- So you could in fact, if you got champagne and it was fizzing, you could say, "Well, that's evidence that this glass is filthy.
l'm not" You're absolutely correct.
You're absolutely right, because it's not glass itself.
They used to think it was grooves and indentations in the glass, but they've since discovered through new photographic techniques that's not the case.
lt is actually bits of dirt and things lf you prefer it more fizzy, can you put a lump of mud in it? (Stephen) l'm allergic to champagne, as a matter of fact, l can't drink it.
Last time l had some, l was in the hospital.
Maybe you're allergic to the condensation nuclei.
No, there is some terrible name-dropping.
What actually happened l didn't even touch the glass, Mark, that's the weird thing, l'm so allergic.
And the better the champagne, the more allergic l am.
But this was at a party given by their graces, the Duke and Duchess of Westminster, - and - (Alarms blaring, fanfare playing) Oh, no! Come on! No! Hey, no! Fair do's.
No.
And The richest man in the country, apart from Roman Abramovich.
l never penetrated his intimate circle, but, anyway Let's move away.
There is a small hill in Cumbria called Torpenhow, or "Trepenow", it's sometimes pronounced, but there you see it, Torpenhow.
Erm, l want to know why it's not only quite interesting, but it's twice as interesting as Mount Fujiyama.
Cos that's where all the heroines from Melvyn Bragg's novels get shagged.
- ls this Mount Fuji in Japan? - (Stephen) Yeah.
Permanently snow-capped monstrous volcano.
l would invite you to have a look at the word and have a think.
- What's the word made up of? - Three syllables, tor, pen, how.
- Tor is a hill.
- (Stephen) Yes.
So is pen, so is how.
lt's three hills.
So Torpenhow Hill, which l asked you about - And it's a tautology.
- ls four hills, it's a quadruple pleonasm, - a quadruple tautology.
- Just like Fujiyama.
the word mountain is included in the word.
Fuji is mount, so Mount Fuji That's why it's twice as interesting, because Mount Fuji is hill hill.
this is hill, hill, hill, hill.
- Which one is that? - (Stephen) That's mount Fuji.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if there was something like that in Cumbria that no one had noticed.
"Oh! Look!" Why is this Cumbrian peak Why is it named four times? Well, many, many are.
"Many, many.
" Well, it's like the rivers, like River Avon.
Avon is the Celtic word for river isn't it? Exactly, but the River Axe, River Esk, River Exe, River Ouse, River Tyne, River Humber, all mean river river.
But the Paraguay River means river, river, river, para-guay river.
Yenisei River is big river, river, river.
l sound like a frog.
Lake Nyasa means lake? - (John) Lake.
- Exactly, as does Lake Dal in lndia, means lake lake.
The Sahara Desert means the? - (John) Desert desert.
- Desert desert.
Well what does Boutros Boutros-Ghali mean? lt means Peter Peter Expensive.
(John) Here's a wee language thing for you, you might like.
Pidgin English for a piano is, "Old man in ma house, you hit him white teeth he laugh, "you hit him black teeth, he cry.
" (Clive) May be better off learning the word piano.
(Drowned out by laughter) Anyway, Celtic nations, but especially Caledonia, are rightly praised for their creativity, so name three Scottish inventions.
And you're gonna say they weren't invented in Scotland.
l don't know.
Depends what you say.
- Television is always the one that's - (Alarm) Cos John Logie Baird came up with one system, which wasn't used.
Alexander Graham Bell robbed the telephone.
Quite right, so certainly not Alexander Graham Bell.
- (Alan) Haggis.
- (Alarm) Not even haggis.
You'd think, wouldn't you? Haggis was invented in ancient Rome.
- Rubber tyres.
- Ah, rubber tyres you can have.
Dunlop, l'll give you Dunlop, yeah.
But just to get through things that weren't.
Kilts were not, they were lrish.
And the word kilt is a Danish word.
Hogmanay is a French word, did you know that? Yeah, hoguinané, it's a French word.
Whisky was ltalian, even before that probably Chinese, yeah.
lt's amazing.
Have you done anything in this bloody world, you may wonder.
l will now tell you what they've invented.
Scotch inventions and discoveries include, adhesive stamps, the Australian national anthem, the Bank of England, bicycle pedals, the breech-loading rifle - you notice l'm going in alphabetical order - Bovril, the cell nucleus, chloroform, the cloud chamber, cornflour, a cure for malaria, the decimal point, the Encyclopaedia Britannica, fountain pens, finger-printing, hypnosis, hypodermic syringes, lnsulin, the kaleidoscope, the lawnmower, lime cordial, logarithms, lorries, marmalade, matches, motor insurance, paraffin, piano pedals, the postmark, pneumatic tyres, radar, the reflecting telescope, savings banks, the screw propeller, the speedometer, the steam hammer, raincoats, Tarmac, teleprinters, tubular steel, typhoid vaccine, ultrasound scanners, the United States Navy, Universal Standard Time, vacuum flasks, wave-powered electricity generations and wire rope.
(Cheering and applause) Goodness me, thank you.
Well, you should be applauding the inventive Scots.
Yeah, and the population of Scotland has never been more than five million, so that's quite an achievement.
(Stephen) lt is a (Alan) Shortbread.
- Scotch eggs, Scotch pancakes.
- (Alan) Dundee cake.
(John) Scotch tape.
(Stephen) Yes.
Sitting in doorways, singing and crooning in a weirdly (Husky Scottish accent) inexplicably husky voice for some reason, l don't know why they do that.
Where's that come from, that voice? Aye, oh, l know you, you gobshite! (Normal) That's, er, sorry, for some reason, what they say to me.
But no, Alexander Graham Bell, for all that we've rather traduced him, he was involved in sonar and he developed a hydrofoil which travelled at 70 miles an hour in 1919.
He had a metal detector, it was used to find the bullet on Garfield, the President, after he'd been shot by an assassin's bullet, and unfortunately it didn't work, they didn't find it but he said it was confused by the bed springs.
So Garfield died.
So there we are, lots and lots of Scottish things.
Now, the word cat derives from the Latin catulus, catulus.
Erm, Clive? (Alan) That's the angriest-looking cat l've ever seen.
l want you to tell me what the word catulus means.
Well, it means "cat".
But it obviously means something else before that.
We took the cat from catulus and described cats with it.
The Romans didn't call their cats catulus, but - (Alan) Dogs.
- Yes, it's the right answer, catulus.
The clue was there in the picture, it was there.
(As Roy Walker) "Say what you see now, say what you see.
" That was The clue's in the picture there.
- Hang on, another one's appeared.
- (Stephen) A littler one.
What have you done to that cat, you filthy dog? The word rabbit is an interesting word, oddly enough Because that comes from the Latin for giraffe.
Well, there you are, no, cat, it comes from "kata" meaning "down" in Greek, as in all kinds of words beginning with kata.
So it was described for puppies first, because the little things that hit the ground were the catulus and became the word for a puppy, and then for a dog.
And we took the cat bit and called cats with it.
Do you know what cataglottism is? When you get a cat stuck in your throat.
lt's a very old word, a much older word than the word you might use for French kissing.
lt means to put your tongue down someone's throat, literally, put your tongue down, cata - down, glott - glottis, tongue.
Why is that cat so cross? - lt is, isn't it? - Really, really cross.
(Clive) Something is They've stapled it to that table.
Cos it's been made to pose for that photo, with those horrible dogs.
lt's said "l'll do a picture with two other cats.
"l'm gonna get onto my agent, l am not a dog.
"lt's the second time this week.
"l'll do this one more and then l'm going.
" lt's a wonderful theory, because the more you look into its eyes, the crosser it seems to get, doesn't it? Absolutely furious! "Puss" is actually from the ancient Egyptian, "pasht", meaning cat, or moon incidentally.
Why is pussy another word for a front bottom? l don't know, it's not my area of expertise.
We've covered, er Before Dear me.
Rich Hall was here the other week, and he said there was a bar near where he lived, and it has two rooms and it has a sign saying "Liquor in the front, poker in the rear.
" Now interestingly, the sound of the word "cat" is one of the most ancient and pervasive of all human noises, predating Latin and Greek and featuring in hundreds of languages.
How many other vowel sounds does English have? How many vowel sounds are there in English? - Eleven.
- Oh, is that how many? Oh, well done! Very good! Very good.
lt's not right.
(Clive) Well, l would say it's about 50.
Eeeeuuooomm Well, you've done three there you've never done before.
No, 33 according to the lnternational Phonetic Alphabet.
There's a Vietnamese language, you were there recently, called Sedang, which has 55, which seems to be the most we can find.
There's one which only has apparently one vowel sound, one language, it's a Caucasian Russian (Alan) The Klangers (Stephen) language.
No, it's called Abaza and Adyghe, though it makes you wonder how they call it Adyghe, cos their only vowel is "ah".
Hang on, what about the Welsh? Well, they've got their own Channel 4 there, but l always think they can't have Countdown on that, cos, er - l'll have a consonant and consonant.
- And another consonant.
- (Clive) Oh, look, l've got five Ls.
- Eleven consonants.
l'll get several words.
Nine consonants, 27 consonants and a consonant.
(John) Welsh for keep off the grass? - No.
- Welsh for keep off the grass is "ni chroeswch y lawnt.
" lt's a bit literal, isn't it? - No cross the lawn it means.
- (John) Yes.
And a daddy-long-legs is a "jac y baglau".
Oh, and an ironing board is a "bwrdd smwddio.
" Really.
Anyway, that's enough vowel movements.
Fingers on buzzers, please, for another round of General lgnorance.
What's the world's longest animal? (# Z Cars theme) - ls that me? - (Stephen) Yes.
Erm, lt'll be the blue whale.
(Alarm) - l think it's the giant squid.
- (Alarm, and Mission: lmpossible theme) - (Clive) l think - Giant squid, no, not a giant squid.
l think it's the tapeworm, which lives in whichever is the next longest animal in the world, because it has to curl around a lot inside, say, the blue whale or the giant squid.
(Stephen) lt's an intelligent thought.
- lntelligent, but that's wrong.
- (# Z Cars theme) lt's, er, one of those jellyfish that's got tentacles that are about 500 yards long.
- (Alarm) - No.
No, your worm is right, you're in the right family as it were.
But tapeworms aren't really worms, are they? - lt's not earthworm, it's a Jupiter worm.
- (Stephen) lt's an aquatic worm.
lt's called a bootlace worm.
And it does look like a bootlace, you must admit.
(Alan) How long? Longer than a blue whale? My arse! Why have you shown it as served on a pizza? l know, it's an unusual picture of it there.
No, it gets up to about 60 metres in length, which is a lot longer than a blue whale.
lt's almost twice as long as a blue whale in fact.
The largest lion's mane is about 40 metres, so it really is enormously long.
Charles Darwin became obsessed with worms, and he decided to dig up his whole garden and count how many worms were in the garden.
And he got thousands of worms, obviously, and he put them all on his snooker table, l think, inside, and counted them.
And then he decided that he didn't know enough about worms, so he got his son to blow a bassoon at them and recorded what the how the worms reacted to this bassoon.
Vibrations are very important to them, absolutely.
This will interest you though, actually, l have to say, Alan.
They're the simplest organism to have a separate mouth and anus.
(Stephen) l'm sorry, l just Hmm.
There we are, anyway, what l want you to do now is to name a berry.
Blackberry, strawberry, raspberry, blueberry - (Alarm) - (Stephen) Oh, that's fantastic! Just hold on for a moment, cos we've got a lot of catching up to do, blackberry, strawberry, raspberry.
(Mark) lsn't a banana, isn't a banana a berry? l will give you good points for that.
lt is a berry, yeah.
And what sort of bizarre definition of the word berry (Stephen) That of people who study fruits, essentially.
l'm afraid we of the speakers of English (Stephen) l know, but you know this is Ql, come on.
The berets, very good.
lt always strikes me as an unfair system you operate here.
Then don't come and join us ever again, but this is the way we do things.
So bananas are a berry, but strawberries are not a berry? Why is a banana a berry? A berry must be a fruit which contains stones, pips, things, - it must be more than one.
- (Alan) ls tomato a berry, then? Tomato is a berry, yeah.
What of raspberry and a loganberry and blackberry, they're separate little things called drupe sacs, rather pleasingly, and each one contains l know l wonder why you were forging ahead with it.
Each one, each drupe sac contains one little seed.
Yes.
So they're a collection of berries? They are a coll No, not berries, cos there's only one in them.
So an apple is a berry cos it's got lots of pips, but a plum isn't cos Banana's a berry, an apple's a berry? Tomatoes, oranges, lemons, grapefruit, watermelons, kiwi fruit, cucumbers, grapes - (Alan) Squirrel shit.
passion fruit, papaya.
Excellent! (Clive) Pomegranates.
(Stephen) Pomegranate is a very good one.
l mean, that's the berry par excellence! - (John) Gooseberry.
- Gooseberry is a berry.
So that's the only berry that has got berry in it.
- Blueberry actually is a berry as well.
- (Clive) Well, what is a strawberry, then? Cos that's got its seeds on the outside.
lf it's not a berry, what is it? lt is a kind of drupey thing, l believe, l know it sounds weird.
- But if l go into a greengrocers - lt's a drupe.
"Can you give me some drupey things?" is not a Strawberry is a mammal, surely.
Anyway, now, back to Bond, who was the second actor to play James Bond? Sean Connery.
- (Alarm) - (Clive) He was the second one because - (Stephen) No, he wasn't.
- The Blockbuster, the man who presents Blockbusters is famously the first person to play James Bond, then you had the who was in Casino Royale, it was probably David Niven, then.
- (Stephen) Oh! - (Alarm) - (Clive) Oh no! - (Stephen) No.
Who's the Blockbuster guy, cos his name's? - Ladies and gentlemen? - (Audience) Bob Holness.
- Bob Holness.
- Bob Holness, there they are.
No, he was the second, Bob Holness, he played him in 1956.
No, he did it on radio in South Africa.
Then who did it before then? - This is the most astonishing - lt happened in 1954 on television.
CBS, Climax Mystery Theater it was known as, and it was a production of Casino Royale and the first one, he was called Barry Nelson, and he played an American agent called Jimmy Bond, with Peter Lorre as Le Chiffre, the villain.
Anyway, there you are.
Now, listen, lastly, from the very beginning of a famous thing, Bond, to the ending of a rather obscure one.
Who can complete the phrase, "According to Buddha, a person should wander lonely as a?" You're having a double bluff with us and it's cloud.
- (Stephen) Oh! - (Alarm) Bless you, no, it's not cloud.
lt's an almost literal translation, is wander alone like, which you could say, wander lonely as - Caterpillar.
- (Stephen) No, but it's an animal certainly.
lt's a surprising animal, l might say (Mark) Cheetah.
(John) Tabloid journalist.
(Alan) Blue whale.
lt's big and it's quite dangerous.
(Alan) Tiger, elephant, rhino.
Rhino is the right answer! Wander lonely as a rhinoceros.
(Alan) There's one.
- (Stephen) Well, yeah, they are big.
- lt's not as angry as that cat, though.
- (John) No.
- lf that cat had a horn, we'd all be in trouble.
Apparently their non-violent nature and their tendency to solitude makes them an ideal role model for Buddhists.
Do they not chase Buddhists, l mean l think it's the African rhinos that are real chasers.
Asian rhinos, if they do anything, they bite, they don't charge.
My brother was chased by a crocodile in a circus.
lt's true.
Yeah.
- lt was a circus - (Alan) Three shows a day! lt was in lreland, it was in Londonderry, the man said, he said, "You know, don't worry at all, it'll be perfectly safe, it's just a crocodile.
"l know it looks big and everything, but it's perfectly safe.
" My brother and dad were in the front row, and this thing was completely dangerous.
So my brother nearly died in Londonderry killed by a crocodile.
So, was it part of the show or had it just gone in to watch the circus? (Alan) Bought a ticket.
His name was, the O'Doyle family, Croc O'Doyle, he was.
There we are.
Dear, oh dear.
Well, l think, like Buddha's rhino, we have come crashing through the tangled bush of unknowing for long enough to wallow in the muddied waters of the scoreboard now.
Well, what an interesting score it makes, may l say.
We've got to go in reverse order, we have a clear winner, with two points, Mark Steel, ladies and gentlemen, huge congratulations.
How did that happen? How could that have happened? ln second place with minus 16, John Sessions.
ln third place with minus 28, Clive Anderson.
Yes, James Bond did it for me.
But it's possibly a personal record for Alan Davies, with minus 84! (Cheering and whistling) Well, that's it for Ql for another week.
My thanks to Clive, Mark, John and Alan.
l leave you with this cautionary snippet about paying attention.
A radio interviewer from GLR radio, carried away with news of a possible discovery of a cross between an elephant and a woolly mammoth, asked a palaeontologist, "So it'd be like some sort of hairy gorilla, would it?" To which the palaeontologist replied, "Yes, pretty much, except elephant shaped, "and, er, with tusks.
" Good night.
Thank you very much.