QI (2003) s05e06 Episode Script
Everything
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello.
Good evening, one and all, and welcome to QI.
Tonight's show is as eclectic as an eclectic eel and our "E" theme is no less than everything, or everything beginning with E, anyway.
Let's meet every one of our guests.
Vic Reeves! CHEERING Clive Anderson! CHEERING Jeremy Clarkson! CHEERING And Alan Davies! CHEERING As we remember, every good buzzer deserves fun.
And Vic goes MUSIC: "My First, My Last, My Everything" by Barry White Clive goes "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You" by Bryan Adams Sometimes, there just isn't enough vomit in the world! Jeremy goes "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" by The Police - That's not bad at all! - And Alan goes "Everything's Coming Up Roses" by Ethel Merman That's my best-ever buzzer! The great Ethel Merman.
Don't forget our "elephant in the room" bonus.
TRUMPETING If you spot an elephant, sing out to earn a trunkful of extra points! Now, the first question.
What's this? It's gonna be Everything's It's gonna be an elephant's DNA.
Oh! What a pity! No, it isn't! If I were to tell you it's Methylenedioxymethamphetamine - MDMA.
- Ha-hey! It's the right answer.
- Ecstasy.
- Also known as E.
- "E" because it's Ecstasy.
- I knew that bit! - You knew? - Yes! - BARRY WHITE BUZZER - Yes, Vic? I'm under the impression that Ecstasy was invented by the Germans in the Second World War as a truth drug.
I'm going to give you a couple of points.
- No, they - They invented it much earlier.
It was the First World War.
It was a hydrastitine, or a hydrastatine if you prefer, which is a drug for binding wounds, drying blood, if you like.
That was its original purpose.
Not a truth drug.
It was to help wounds heal.
This was the time we've covered before, of "the great binge", the period from the 1880s up until the First World War when everybody was on drugs, all the time.
You could go to Fortnum and Mason's, at the beginning of the World War I, and order a hamper for your boys at the front which included heroin, cocaine, syringes.
- It was all legal and it was all - Fortnum and Mason hampers now are just pots of stuff you never eat! Exactly! Fantastic stuff.
Didn't do any harm, just led to the First World War! Slaughter of millions.
Didn't do any harm.
- And some of the greatest inventions the world has seen, and greatest literature.
- Indeed.
- And Modernism was born.
- So it's not all bad.
The First World War was a blemish.
But other than that I thought E was supposed to be given to old people who were depressed.
I thought it was to make music more bearable.
- You can only listen to that music when - You can only listen to that noise that's playing - unless you've had something.
- Two days later, on Suicide Tuesday, you can still hear it in your head.
- Tell me about Suicide Tuesday.
- Well, if you take Ecstasy, it's quite likely a couple of days later, you'll get So it's the downer you get after the weekend.
OK.
Very good.
- That's why I don't do it.
- What are the symptoms of taking E? Clive? I don't know.
I haven't taken it myself.
I've given ecstasy, but not - Oh, Clivey-wivey! - Occasionally in my legal world, I've prosecuted or defended people for it.
It keeps you awake and makes you drink a lot of water until you die.
Broadly speaking.
Broadly speaking, - that's what it says on the can.
- "Feelings of openness, empathy, energy, euphoria and well-being.
- "Tactile sensations.
" - Like touching people, yeah.
- Fabulousness.
- Fabulousnessness.
- Ecstatic.
- Which is to stand outside yourself.
- Loved up, man.
- Loved, as you rightly say, up.
Anyway, the answer was, as you discovered, E, or MDMA.
And so to explosions.
What happens if you get a chicken to look after a nuclear bomb? My everything Yes, Vic.
It could hatch the bomb thinking that it was a large egg and a member of its family.
- Yes - But near where I live in Kent, they invented some kind of nuclear bomb which they were going to plant around Germany and they had to keep chickens to keep it warm somehow You are 100% right.
Exactly right.
Brilliant.
Brilliant.
Absolutely.
Yes, the idea was, the British Army on the Rhine in Germany, in case Russia invaded Germany, as they saw them coming across the border, they would bury ten in different areas with an eight-day fuse in it and skedaddle, and by the time the Russians had taken over, they would blow them all up, but unfortunately, the electronics underground were too cold.
There was no way of keeping them working, so someone had the idea of putting chickens in there with a week's worth of food, sealed into the bomb, and just the body heat of the chickens would be just enough to keep the electronics working.
- CLIVE: I think the answer is free-range missiles.
- Hey! Very good! - I did a programme about chickens once.
- Go on.
And afterwards, I got so fond of them, - I bought quite a lot of them - Oh! We can talk at length! - Do you like chickens? - I've got lots.
- How do you cope with foxes? - Our foxes are Yeah, we shoot them.
We're not allowed to set the dogs on them any more cos we've got three dogs.
One dog would be fine, two dogs is illegal, three is absolutely I'd be in prison forever.
Foxes are like thingy, Charles Bronson, Great Escape.
They can get under the wire and in, and they'll savage the lot.
I've got a great idea for you.
If you've got a chicken hut, what about Your fox goes in there to look for the chickens, what about if you put a mirror at the back of the hut? So, the fox goes in, sees another fox, goes, "Whoa!" "Your territory.
I'm off!" That's a thought.
What I did do was I decided I was going to shoot the fox, - so I went to that spy shop in Mayfair, have you been there? - I love that place.
Brilliant.
So I bought these Russian night-vision goggles.
- Always Russian, or Israeli - Russian.
I went home, and thought, "Fox, you're gonna die!" I got the thing and the only way to occupy myself was with a rather lovely bottle of Merlot, waiting - I'm scanning the garden - That's how the British Empire was made! - Absolutely.
- People with big guns, on the piss! I thought, "Here it comes.
" Now, the drawback to a night-vision goggle is you can't attach it to a 12-bore - So I had to think, "It's about near that tree" - "There he is!" Exactly! Yes, I blew my wife's Scotts of Stow steamer chair to oblivion, which, through Russian night vision goggles, looks exactly like a fox! It was three o'clock in the morning, "Boof!" in the bedroom - What the - BLEEP - are you doing? I'm sorry, darling, I got a fox! And the chair was all over the garden.
I'm very shit at keeping chickens.
Yes, you might ask a chicken to look after a nuclear bomb to keep it nice and warm and cosy.
A small diversion into the future for a moment now, from E to F and G.
What use is a fainting goat? BRYAN ADAMS' BUZZER I've seen the TV version of this.
It's a breed or a variety of goat which falls over rather suddenly.
- When it's nervous.
- I can only think of one use for it.
If you were to dramatise some 19th-century novels, using animals .
.
when the heroine had to swoon, like that, you would cast the goat to do that.
It's an immediate and practical use for a fainting goat.
They're just a race of goats like an Anglo Nubian, only these are fainting goats.
They're in America.
That's all I know.
If they faint when they're nervous, that would alert you to danger on the perimeter of your farm.
Perhaps Nazis were rearing up.
Or wolves attacking or something.
Or next-door neighbours.
They're the Tennessee or myotonic goat.
You keep them with a flock of sheep and when the wolf comes, the goat, when it gets a fright, goes stiff as a board and goes over like that.
So the sheep escape and the goat gets eaten.
The goat is less valuable than the sheep.
- So it sort of warns the sheep.
- It's not much of a long life for the goat, though! - It takes one for the team.
- It takes the bullet.
So they do faint with fear.
Do they do that as they go down? It's Myotonia congenita.
It occurs in several species including humans.
It only lasts about ten seconds.
It goes stiff then returns to normal.
It's painless, according to humans that have it.
Apparently the older and more experienced fainting goats lean against things to stop themselves falling over! "Somebody hold me up!" It must be quite hard to become an older fainting goat! The wolves are generally biting your throat out.
That's is a problem.
But fainting goats protect your flock by swooning and being eaten while the sheep make good their escape.
From escapes to epidemics.
Tell me about the jumping French lumberjacks of Maine.
Are they jumping lumberjacks involved in the wood industry, from Maine? They jump in the oddest way.
The fainting goats are odd but this condition is seriously weird.
I did a programme in Oregon.
It was about wood and trees.
I called the people who were chopping trees "lumberjacks.
" They said, "No, we never call people lumberjacks.
That's Canadian.
" They're called tree-fellers in America.
- Maine is in America.
- The Irish call them tree-fellers, unless there are four of them! I'm doubting whether they're really lumberjacks.
Actually, they are French Canadian lumberjacks.
Moosehead Lake is in Maine on the border of Canada.
- Is it a condition? - It's a weird condition.
- Sufferers react abnormally to certain stimuli.
- Say "Timber", they jump! - Or "Timbre"! - No, this is so strange.
It really is odd.
There are two symptoms.
One is that they obey any order that is given unexpectedly.
Punch Jeremy! They would do it! They'd do it.
Anything you say to them suddenly, they just do it.
The other one is a need compulsively to repeat foreign phrases.
They're French, for goodness' sake! They're entitled to! These are lumberjacks? It only affects lumberjacks? It was noted amongst this community of lumberjacks first.
People thought it was hereditary, they passed it on through close families.
But it turns out it's psychological.
No-one's quite sure.
Gilles de la Tourette was so obsessed by this, he went into the whole field of discovering conditions and discovered the one to which his name is given, Tourette's Syndrome.
What are the symptoms of Tourette's? The first case of Tourette's that I ever came across was in Waterloo and every morning I'd hear costermongers shouting, "Apples, pears" and whatever costermongers shouted.
But one bloke would walk down going, - BLEEP - off! - BLEEP - off! - I'd never heard of it before.
- He was just head of British Rail PR! APPLAUSE Very good! - It's all kinds of involuntary tics and noises.
- You're right.
The most common are motor tics, the spasms, or whatever, and various utterances - "phonic tics".
But in the public mind, it's associated with saying rude words.
There's Echolalia.
Know what that is? - It must be repeating things.
- Repeating things.
- Repeating things.
- Repeating things.
- People do that.
- I've got a friend who does that.
- Does that.
It's so annoying! - Annoying.
- The thing is about it, - he says his mum does it and it drives him nuts! - Nuts.
But I've found with him I would deliberately not Not .
.
finish a sentence at the moment he thought I wasgoing to.
We ended up like a Two Ronnies sketch! Is it the same thing if you mouth the words while you're talking? That's weird when people do that.
And there's Palilalia, where you repeat your own words.
Where you repeat your own words.
Say things twice.
- Everything has to have a name, doesn't it? - Yeah.
- Is that bad? - Yes, it's just - Cos then everybody has a label.
"I've got a this.
" - Yes.
- I can't be doing with it.
- There's a lot of truth in what you say.
- It's something to object to.
- It is! Why can't we just have "things in general" around us? I have a bit of a twitch and now you're a copophiliac or whatever.
There are people who really dislike names and labels.
- It's called Clarkson's Syndrome.
- Yeah, normality.
I've just been told on my little screen here - there is a genuine thing called Clarkson's Syndrome.
- Ah! It involves leaking capillaries.
There you are! Jumping Frenchmen of Maine is a condition that has afflicted lumberjacks in Maine, but very few others.
My next question is about emigration.
From 1884 onwards, what was the first man-made object that was seen by immigrants arriving at New York? THE POLICE BUZZER The Statue of Enlightenment of Liberty, but it wasn't KLAXON SOUNDS - VIC: - I think it's Ellis Island.
- Not Ellis Island.
There's an island before you get to Liberty Island or Ellis Island.
It's QI Island, which was placed there Very, very famous.
And you've missed your chance because it's Coney Island and it would have been an elephant.
A vast man-made elephant was the first sight that greeted immigrants before - There it is, on Coney Island.
- We were never gonna get that.
It was a hotel with 32 rooms, built by a man called Lafferty.
So America knew what they were letting themselves in for.
- It was before the Statue of Liberty? - Two years before.
But even after that, you'd have seen it first.
So people are thinking, "We'll see the Statue of Liberty.
.
.
It looks different close up!" - The Elephant of Liberty.
- Doesn't even look female! - The observation tower is on wrong.
Lafferty was given a patent.
He was the only man allowed to make animal-shaped buildings for 17 years! He needn't have worried, really! It burnt down, then he had another one which has lasted and it's the largest elephant in the world.
But it was also a brothel.
- What, on Coney Island? - It gave rise to an expression, "Going to see the elephant" in New York, going to see a lady of easy virtue.
- Was it entirely a brothel? - Not entirely, but it was pretty sleazy.
- Coney Island is pretty sleazy.
- My family went over to America - in the 19th century.
- What was the first thing they saw? That elephant.
My grandmother moved directly in there onto the fourth floor.
But I went to Ellis Island, and the amount of names you would not believe there.
On that list.
I tried to find my relatives' names and it's impossible.
There are billions of names there.
So I fled.
Then, most interestingly, just around the bottom, there, by the Statue of Liberty, my wife had her hotdog ripped from her lips by a seagull.
She had it in for me for the rest of the day.
I never really understood that.
Like I was commanding the seagull! It's a man's job to protect his bitch from seagulls.
The first thing that immigrants saw in America was a giant elephant-shaped brothel which must have seemed promising on so many levels! Now, who invented the multiple choice exam? Perhaps I can help by giving you a multiple choice.
Was it, A Steve? Steve?! Steve.
Do you not like "Steve"? - Not very much.
- Can I have a 50/50, please? - All right.
Computer, take away two random wrong answers leaving the right answer and one random wrong answer.
- I think that's what he says, isn't it? - Yes.
- What do we think, then? - I have in my mind it was the American Army, but obviously the Ancient Greeks, if they got there first, they invented everything.
- So which are you gonna go for? - OK, - let's ask everybody.
- Ask the audience.
- Shall we - Hands up if you think it's A.
- A show of hands for Greeks.
- That's quite a lot.
- Show of hands for the American Army.
You're all going out to Iraq.
- You've just been conscripted! - The American Army beat the Ancient Greeks.
And the American Army is the right answer! - Yes.
- Well done, audience.
- The fact is, it was the American Army.
When, do you imagine? - 1940s.
- They were trying to recruit people for a war - The First World War.
They wanted to recruit people quickly and it was a speedy exam.
- Absolutely.
- "Do you like or dislike the Germans?" - "Like a lot", "Not very much".
- "Are you prepared to shoot people?" "Blow them up?" "All the above?" One of the genders is better at multiple-choice than the other.
Which would it be? Girls better than boys? - Yes, girls are better than boys.
- No! Boys are better.
We're all right, then.
We can't multi-task, drive, have sex, talk properly or anything, - but - We can choose! - But we can choose! APPLAUSE - I have it on - I guess we're just lucky.
.
.
on good authority that we're also shallow and insensitive.
- We choose to be shallow and insensitive! - A) Shallow, or B) Insensitive.
Chinese driving tests have a written exam in multiple choice format.
Here are some of the questions you might get asked if you apply Hai-tai-a-ho! Yes.
I don't know what I said, but I meant it! "Drivers should A) Deliberately underestimate each other? "B) Compete for road supremacy "C) Learn and help each other adopt one's strong point "while overcoming one's weak point and keep safely driving.
"If you come across a road accident victim whose intestines are lying in the road, "should you pick them up and push them back in? Yes or no?" Yes.
And other such questions.
And who are the most dangerous cars driven by in the world? - Men, women, children, babies? - No, nationality.
The most dangerous cars are green and driven by the Chinese.
They're called tanks! Very good! Anyway, multiple choice examinations were invented as a way of testing US Army recruits in World War I.
Now, that brings us rapidly to the place where everything is not what it seems.
The shadowy netherworld of general ignorance.
Fingers on buzzers.
Now, what is house dust mostly composed of? ETHEL MERMAN BUZZER Skin.
KLAXON No.
No, it's a myth, I'm afraid.
- It's a myth.
- Rust.
- Rust?! - Not mostly of rust, no.
- If you live in an iron house, like me, it's rust.
- JEREMY: - Animals, insects - A lot of it.
- Dust mites.
- Bits of smashed badgers - KLAXON - Smashed badgers is coming up? - No, dust mites.
You didn't really say that - I said smashed badgers! - Clive said dust mites! The camera was on Jeremy.
I said nothing.
- I said I said - You sneak! I said dust might be the sort of stuff you find in your house.
The fact is, what Vic said is pretty true.
It varies from country to country, house to house, room to room, as well as by season and in response to lifestyles.
If you have a pet, how often you clean, whether you open windows.
But generally, you will find soil, sand, soot, brick, concrete dust, clothing, carpet fibres, fungal spores, dried cells of animal hairs, skin and feathers, cigarette and wood smoke, dust mites, dead insects, rat and mouse droppings, industrial pollutants, pesticides, PVC, vinyl, flour and crumbs and good old-fashioned dirt.
- So no smashed badgers, then? - Not one! How much of it is skin? A small percentage.
Mattress manufacturers like to promote the idea that half the weight of a mattress is made of dead mites and skin and other detritus.
- Nonsense.
- They make it up? - Yep.
People trying to sell you things by making up stuff? Unbelievable! Very little house dust is made of human skin.
It's mostly dirt and grit.
Now, what would you find in the middle of a pearl? - Yes? - An oyster! - No! - You'd find an oyster in the middle of a pearl?! I got it the wrong way round.
- A - Nothing.
- A bit of grit.
Sand.
KLAXON So, no, not true.
There are strange things about oysters.
You get pearls from mussels, clams, whelks, conches, abalones and snails as well as oysters.
It's nearly always an organic thing like a nematode worm that's burrowed through the shell and died.
It's around that that the pearl is formed.
When they artificially do them, do they put in sand? - Or a nematode worm? - They put a polished fragment of shell, then a piece of tissue from another pearl oyster and it's the flap that covers its organ.
It's organic.
- The flap that covers its organ? OK, I'm with you.
- Its internal bits.
Now, there are fish restaurants in London that say if you find a pearl in your oyster, you can keep it.
What is the largest pearl that's been found in such circumstances? - The size of the World Cup? - No.
- The moon? - That big? - No.
None.
- None? - No-one's found one? - No edible oyster gives pearls.
- It's completely - Is it to do with an elephant? The kind of oysters you eat never produce pearls.
It's a completely different species.
So they put it there to excite you.
The world's largest pearl was found in what animal? Some sort of garden snail, I dare say! - It was a giant clam.
- Very good! It was a giant clam.
- I've seen a giant clam.
- Ever put your foot in one? - No.
- I did.
It's the stupidest thing I've ever done.
I said, "I wonder what'd happen if you put your foot in that?" It's a kind of velvety, soft, rather comfortable place to be stuck.
Doesn't it start ingesting it and squirting enzymes at your foot? I was more worried by the meter saying how much air I had left in the tank.
- Shouldn't you have had a buddy? - It was my wife.
She'd buggered off.
Pearls are normally the sarcophagi of nematode worms.
Pearl divers use glass-bottomed boats to hunt for oyster beds.
How would a glass bottom keep you out of the Army? BRYAN ADAMS BUZZER - I don't know the answer, but - I do! - I'm going to answer it! - It's something about the shilling in the tankard.
- Ah! The shilling in the tankard! What a shame! You were thinking that.
You were thinking of that.
Is it fragile arse syndrome? Yes, the glass-bottomed tankard.
There is a myth that they had glass bottoms to stop people putting the money in If you'd taken the king's shilling you had to be in the navy.
- It's just not true.
It's weird.
- It's unlikely - It's harsh.
- You could wangle out of that, just cos there's a shilling there.
Exactly.
Your lawyer's mind has got to the bottom of it.
It's not always that legal arguments would hold sway in the 18th century! If you recruited using trickery, you would be court-martialled and a signature or mark is required.
Plus there was a four-day cooling-off period.
So if someone felt impressed, they had four days to change their mind.
By which time they're in the Bay of Biscay! That's a possibility.
But this idea that just by taking a shilling, you could be forced into service So we haven't got the answer yet? No, there is no basis for it.
It was in order to trap Alan and I'm afraid we did.
Sorry.
It was cheap and wicked.
What's the best colour of clothing to wear in a hot climate? Yes? - Black.
- Black? - Yeah.
KLAXON Logically, it will come up that you want something light.
- It reflects the light.
- So what's the best colour? I'm gonna say white and you'll go KLAXON It's like being in with a Detective Sergeant! ETHEL MERMAN BUZZER Silver.
- He may be right.
- That's quite good.
- I'm going silver.
The fact is, all colours seem to be the same in the desert, from experiments.
- Black is not bad.
- The Bedouin.
- The Bedouin, as you say.
- They wear black.
They do.
Some people argue that black might be best because it's hottest round the bottom and convection causes cool air to rise.
No-one's demonstrated that.
The fact is, it doesn't matter what colour you wear as long as you look cool! Which brings us to the scores tonight.
Everything's coming up roses for Vic Reeves! On minus six, in the lead.
But everything's coming up an even cheaper brand of chocolates for Alan Davies on minus 24, in second place! In third place, just, with minus 25, Clive Anderson! But everything's going to Hel-ena Bonham-Carter for Jeremy Clarkson on minus 30! So, it's every good wish from Clive, Vic, Alan, Jeremy and me and I would go along with Stephen Wright who says, "You can't have everything.
After all, where would you put it?" Good night.
Good evening, one and all, and welcome to QI.
Tonight's show is as eclectic as an eclectic eel and our "E" theme is no less than everything, or everything beginning with E, anyway.
Let's meet every one of our guests.
Vic Reeves! CHEERING Clive Anderson! CHEERING Jeremy Clarkson! CHEERING And Alan Davies! CHEERING As we remember, every good buzzer deserves fun.
And Vic goes MUSIC: "My First, My Last, My Everything" by Barry White Clive goes "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You" by Bryan Adams Sometimes, there just isn't enough vomit in the world! Jeremy goes "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" by The Police - That's not bad at all! - And Alan goes "Everything's Coming Up Roses" by Ethel Merman That's my best-ever buzzer! The great Ethel Merman.
Don't forget our "elephant in the room" bonus.
TRUMPETING If you spot an elephant, sing out to earn a trunkful of extra points! Now, the first question.
What's this? It's gonna be Everything's It's gonna be an elephant's DNA.
Oh! What a pity! No, it isn't! If I were to tell you it's Methylenedioxymethamphetamine - MDMA.
- Ha-hey! It's the right answer.
- Ecstasy.
- Also known as E.
- "E" because it's Ecstasy.
- I knew that bit! - You knew? - Yes! - BARRY WHITE BUZZER - Yes, Vic? I'm under the impression that Ecstasy was invented by the Germans in the Second World War as a truth drug.
I'm going to give you a couple of points.
- No, they - They invented it much earlier.
It was the First World War.
It was a hydrastitine, or a hydrastatine if you prefer, which is a drug for binding wounds, drying blood, if you like.
That was its original purpose.
Not a truth drug.
It was to help wounds heal.
This was the time we've covered before, of "the great binge", the period from the 1880s up until the First World War when everybody was on drugs, all the time.
You could go to Fortnum and Mason's, at the beginning of the World War I, and order a hamper for your boys at the front which included heroin, cocaine, syringes.
- It was all legal and it was all - Fortnum and Mason hampers now are just pots of stuff you never eat! Exactly! Fantastic stuff.
Didn't do any harm, just led to the First World War! Slaughter of millions.
Didn't do any harm.
- And some of the greatest inventions the world has seen, and greatest literature.
- Indeed.
- And Modernism was born.
- So it's not all bad.
The First World War was a blemish.
But other than that I thought E was supposed to be given to old people who were depressed.
I thought it was to make music more bearable.
- You can only listen to that music when - You can only listen to that noise that's playing - unless you've had something.
- Two days later, on Suicide Tuesday, you can still hear it in your head.
- Tell me about Suicide Tuesday.
- Well, if you take Ecstasy, it's quite likely a couple of days later, you'll get So it's the downer you get after the weekend.
OK.
Very good.
- That's why I don't do it.
- What are the symptoms of taking E? Clive? I don't know.
I haven't taken it myself.
I've given ecstasy, but not - Oh, Clivey-wivey! - Occasionally in my legal world, I've prosecuted or defended people for it.
It keeps you awake and makes you drink a lot of water until you die.
Broadly speaking.
Broadly speaking, - that's what it says on the can.
- "Feelings of openness, empathy, energy, euphoria and well-being.
- "Tactile sensations.
" - Like touching people, yeah.
- Fabulousness.
- Fabulousnessness.
- Ecstatic.
- Which is to stand outside yourself.
- Loved up, man.
- Loved, as you rightly say, up.
Anyway, the answer was, as you discovered, E, or MDMA.
And so to explosions.
What happens if you get a chicken to look after a nuclear bomb? My everything Yes, Vic.
It could hatch the bomb thinking that it was a large egg and a member of its family.
- Yes - But near where I live in Kent, they invented some kind of nuclear bomb which they were going to plant around Germany and they had to keep chickens to keep it warm somehow You are 100% right.
Exactly right.
Brilliant.
Brilliant.
Absolutely.
Yes, the idea was, the British Army on the Rhine in Germany, in case Russia invaded Germany, as they saw them coming across the border, they would bury ten in different areas with an eight-day fuse in it and skedaddle, and by the time the Russians had taken over, they would blow them all up, but unfortunately, the electronics underground were too cold.
There was no way of keeping them working, so someone had the idea of putting chickens in there with a week's worth of food, sealed into the bomb, and just the body heat of the chickens would be just enough to keep the electronics working.
- CLIVE: I think the answer is free-range missiles.
- Hey! Very good! - I did a programme about chickens once.
- Go on.
And afterwards, I got so fond of them, - I bought quite a lot of them - Oh! We can talk at length! - Do you like chickens? - I've got lots.
- How do you cope with foxes? - Our foxes are Yeah, we shoot them.
We're not allowed to set the dogs on them any more cos we've got three dogs.
One dog would be fine, two dogs is illegal, three is absolutely I'd be in prison forever.
Foxes are like thingy, Charles Bronson, Great Escape.
They can get under the wire and in, and they'll savage the lot.
I've got a great idea for you.
If you've got a chicken hut, what about Your fox goes in there to look for the chickens, what about if you put a mirror at the back of the hut? So, the fox goes in, sees another fox, goes, "Whoa!" "Your territory.
I'm off!" That's a thought.
What I did do was I decided I was going to shoot the fox, - so I went to that spy shop in Mayfair, have you been there? - I love that place.
Brilliant.
So I bought these Russian night-vision goggles.
- Always Russian, or Israeli - Russian.
I went home, and thought, "Fox, you're gonna die!" I got the thing and the only way to occupy myself was with a rather lovely bottle of Merlot, waiting - I'm scanning the garden - That's how the British Empire was made! - Absolutely.
- People with big guns, on the piss! I thought, "Here it comes.
" Now, the drawback to a night-vision goggle is you can't attach it to a 12-bore - So I had to think, "It's about near that tree" - "There he is!" Exactly! Yes, I blew my wife's Scotts of Stow steamer chair to oblivion, which, through Russian night vision goggles, looks exactly like a fox! It was three o'clock in the morning, "Boof!" in the bedroom - What the - BLEEP - are you doing? I'm sorry, darling, I got a fox! And the chair was all over the garden.
I'm very shit at keeping chickens.
Yes, you might ask a chicken to look after a nuclear bomb to keep it nice and warm and cosy.
A small diversion into the future for a moment now, from E to F and G.
What use is a fainting goat? BRYAN ADAMS' BUZZER I've seen the TV version of this.
It's a breed or a variety of goat which falls over rather suddenly.
- When it's nervous.
- I can only think of one use for it.
If you were to dramatise some 19th-century novels, using animals .
.
when the heroine had to swoon, like that, you would cast the goat to do that.
It's an immediate and practical use for a fainting goat.
They're just a race of goats like an Anglo Nubian, only these are fainting goats.
They're in America.
That's all I know.
If they faint when they're nervous, that would alert you to danger on the perimeter of your farm.
Perhaps Nazis were rearing up.
Or wolves attacking or something.
Or next-door neighbours.
They're the Tennessee or myotonic goat.
You keep them with a flock of sheep and when the wolf comes, the goat, when it gets a fright, goes stiff as a board and goes over like that.
So the sheep escape and the goat gets eaten.
The goat is less valuable than the sheep.
- So it sort of warns the sheep.
- It's not much of a long life for the goat, though! - It takes one for the team.
- It takes the bullet.
So they do faint with fear.
Do they do that as they go down? It's Myotonia congenita.
It occurs in several species including humans.
It only lasts about ten seconds.
It goes stiff then returns to normal.
It's painless, according to humans that have it.
Apparently the older and more experienced fainting goats lean against things to stop themselves falling over! "Somebody hold me up!" It must be quite hard to become an older fainting goat! The wolves are generally biting your throat out.
That's is a problem.
But fainting goats protect your flock by swooning and being eaten while the sheep make good their escape.
From escapes to epidemics.
Tell me about the jumping French lumberjacks of Maine.
Are they jumping lumberjacks involved in the wood industry, from Maine? They jump in the oddest way.
The fainting goats are odd but this condition is seriously weird.
I did a programme in Oregon.
It was about wood and trees.
I called the people who were chopping trees "lumberjacks.
" They said, "No, we never call people lumberjacks.
That's Canadian.
" They're called tree-fellers in America.
- Maine is in America.
- The Irish call them tree-fellers, unless there are four of them! I'm doubting whether they're really lumberjacks.
Actually, they are French Canadian lumberjacks.
Moosehead Lake is in Maine on the border of Canada.
- Is it a condition? - It's a weird condition.
- Sufferers react abnormally to certain stimuli.
- Say "Timber", they jump! - Or "Timbre"! - No, this is so strange.
It really is odd.
There are two symptoms.
One is that they obey any order that is given unexpectedly.
Punch Jeremy! They would do it! They'd do it.
Anything you say to them suddenly, they just do it.
The other one is a need compulsively to repeat foreign phrases.
They're French, for goodness' sake! They're entitled to! These are lumberjacks? It only affects lumberjacks? It was noted amongst this community of lumberjacks first.
People thought it was hereditary, they passed it on through close families.
But it turns out it's psychological.
No-one's quite sure.
Gilles de la Tourette was so obsessed by this, he went into the whole field of discovering conditions and discovered the one to which his name is given, Tourette's Syndrome.
What are the symptoms of Tourette's? The first case of Tourette's that I ever came across was in Waterloo and every morning I'd hear costermongers shouting, "Apples, pears" and whatever costermongers shouted.
But one bloke would walk down going, - BLEEP - off! - BLEEP - off! - I'd never heard of it before.
- He was just head of British Rail PR! APPLAUSE Very good! - It's all kinds of involuntary tics and noises.
- You're right.
The most common are motor tics, the spasms, or whatever, and various utterances - "phonic tics".
But in the public mind, it's associated with saying rude words.
There's Echolalia.
Know what that is? - It must be repeating things.
- Repeating things.
- Repeating things.
- Repeating things.
- People do that.
- I've got a friend who does that.
- Does that.
It's so annoying! - Annoying.
- The thing is about it, - he says his mum does it and it drives him nuts! - Nuts.
But I've found with him I would deliberately not Not .
.
finish a sentence at the moment he thought I wasgoing to.
We ended up like a Two Ronnies sketch! Is it the same thing if you mouth the words while you're talking? That's weird when people do that.
And there's Palilalia, where you repeat your own words.
Where you repeat your own words.
Say things twice.
- Everything has to have a name, doesn't it? - Yeah.
- Is that bad? - Yes, it's just - Cos then everybody has a label.
"I've got a this.
" - Yes.
- I can't be doing with it.
- There's a lot of truth in what you say.
- It's something to object to.
- It is! Why can't we just have "things in general" around us? I have a bit of a twitch and now you're a copophiliac or whatever.
There are people who really dislike names and labels.
- It's called Clarkson's Syndrome.
- Yeah, normality.
I've just been told on my little screen here - there is a genuine thing called Clarkson's Syndrome.
- Ah! It involves leaking capillaries.
There you are! Jumping Frenchmen of Maine is a condition that has afflicted lumberjacks in Maine, but very few others.
My next question is about emigration.
From 1884 onwards, what was the first man-made object that was seen by immigrants arriving at New York? THE POLICE BUZZER The Statue of Enlightenment of Liberty, but it wasn't KLAXON SOUNDS - VIC: - I think it's Ellis Island.
- Not Ellis Island.
There's an island before you get to Liberty Island or Ellis Island.
It's QI Island, which was placed there Very, very famous.
And you've missed your chance because it's Coney Island and it would have been an elephant.
A vast man-made elephant was the first sight that greeted immigrants before - There it is, on Coney Island.
- We were never gonna get that.
It was a hotel with 32 rooms, built by a man called Lafferty.
So America knew what they were letting themselves in for.
- It was before the Statue of Liberty? - Two years before.
But even after that, you'd have seen it first.
So people are thinking, "We'll see the Statue of Liberty.
.
.
It looks different close up!" - The Elephant of Liberty.
- Doesn't even look female! - The observation tower is on wrong.
Lafferty was given a patent.
He was the only man allowed to make animal-shaped buildings for 17 years! He needn't have worried, really! It burnt down, then he had another one which has lasted and it's the largest elephant in the world.
But it was also a brothel.
- What, on Coney Island? - It gave rise to an expression, "Going to see the elephant" in New York, going to see a lady of easy virtue.
- Was it entirely a brothel? - Not entirely, but it was pretty sleazy.
- Coney Island is pretty sleazy.
- My family went over to America - in the 19th century.
- What was the first thing they saw? That elephant.
My grandmother moved directly in there onto the fourth floor.
But I went to Ellis Island, and the amount of names you would not believe there.
On that list.
I tried to find my relatives' names and it's impossible.
There are billions of names there.
So I fled.
Then, most interestingly, just around the bottom, there, by the Statue of Liberty, my wife had her hotdog ripped from her lips by a seagull.
She had it in for me for the rest of the day.
I never really understood that.
Like I was commanding the seagull! It's a man's job to protect his bitch from seagulls.
The first thing that immigrants saw in America was a giant elephant-shaped brothel which must have seemed promising on so many levels! Now, who invented the multiple choice exam? Perhaps I can help by giving you a multiple choice.
Was it, A Steve? Steve?! Steve.
Do you not like "Steve"? - Not very much.
- Can I have a 50/50, please? - All right.
Computer, take away two random wrong answers leaving the right answer and one random wrong answer.
- I think that's what he says, isn't it? - Yes.
- What do we think, then? - I have in my mind it was the American Army, but obviously the Ancient Greeks, if they got there first, they invented everything.
- So which are you gonna go for? - OK, - let's ask everybody.
- Ask the audience.
- Shall we - Hands up if you think it's A.
- A show of hands for Greeks.
- That's quite a lot.
- Show of hands for the American Army.
You're all going out to Iraq.
- You've just been conscripted! - The American Army beat the Ancient Greeks.
And the American Army is the right answer! - Yes.
- Well done, audience.
- The fact is, it was the American Army.
When, do you imagine? - 1940s.
- They were trying to recruit people for a war - The First World War.
They wanted to recruit people quickly and it was a speedy exam.
- Absolutely.
- "Do you like or dislike the Germans?" - "Like a lot", "Not very much".
- "Are you prepared to shoot people?" "Blow them up?" "All the above?" One of the genders is better at multiple-choice than the other.
Which would it be? Girls better than boys? - Yes, girls are better than boys.
- No! Boys are better.
We're all right, then.
We can't multi-task, drive, have sex, talk properly or anything, - but - We can choose! - But we can choose! APPLAUSE - I have it on - I guess we're just lucky.
.
.
on good authority that we're also shallow and insensitive.
- We choose to be shallow and insensitive! - A) Shallow, or B) Insensitive.
Chinese driving tests have a written exam in multiple choice format.
Here are some of the questions you might get asked if you apply Hai-tai-a-ho! Yes.
I don't know what I said, but I meant it! "Drivers should A) Deliberately underestimate each other? "B) Compete for road supremacy "C) Learn and help each other adopt one's strong point "while overcoming one's weak point and keep safely driving.
"If you come across a road accident victim whose intestines are lying in the road, "should you pick them up and push them back in? Yes or no?" Yes.
And other such questions.
And who are the most dangerous cars driven by in the world? - Men, women, children, babies? - No, nationality.
The most dangerous cars are green and driven by the Chinese.
They're called tanks! Very good! Anyway, multiple choice examinations were invented as a way of testing US Army recruits in World War I.
Now, that brings us rapidly to the place where everything is not what it seems.
The shadowy netherworld of general ignorance.
Fingers on buzzers.
Now, what is house dust mostly composed of? ETHEL MERMAN BUZZER Skin.
KLAXON No.
No, it's a myth, I'm afraid.
- It's a myth.
- Rust.
- Rust?! - Not mostly of rust, no.
- If you live in an iron house, like me, it's rust.
- JEREMY: - Animals, insects - A lot of it.
- Dust mites.
- Bits of smashed badgers - KLAXON - Smashed badgers is coming up? - No, dust mites.
You didn't really say that - I said smashed badgers! - Clive said dust mites! The camera was on Jeremy.
I said nothing.
- I said I said - You sneak! I said dust might be the sort of stuff you find in your house.
The fact is, what Vic said is pretty true.
It varies from country to country, house to house, room to room, as well as by season and in response to lifestyles.
If you have a pet, how often you clean, whether you open windows.
But generally, you will find soil, sand, soot, brick, concrete dust, clothing, carpet fibres, fungal spores, dried cells of animal hairs, skin and feathers, cigarette and wood smoke, dust mites, dead insects, rat and mouse droppings, industrial pollutants, pesticides, PVC, vinyl, flour and crumbs and good old-fashioned dirt.
- So no smashed badgers, then? - Not one! How much of it is skin? A small percentage.
Mattress manufacturers like to promote the idea that half the weight of a mattress is made of dead mites and skin and other detritus.
- Nonsense.
- They make it up? - Yep.
People trying to sell you things by making up stuff? Unbelievable! Very little house dust is made of human skin.
It's mostly dirt and grit.
Now, what would you find in the middle of a pearl? - Yes? - An oyster! - No! - You'd find an oyster in the middle of a pearl?! I got it the wrong way round.
- A - Nothing.
- A bit of grit.
Sand.
KLAXON So, no, not true.
There are strange things about oysters.
You get pearls from mussels, clams, whelks, conches, abalones and snails as well as oysters.
It's nearly always an organic thing like a nematode worm that's burrowed through the shell and died.
It's around that that the pearl is formed.
When they artificially do them, do they put in sand? - Or a nematode worm? - They put a polished fragment of shell, then a piece of tissue from another pearl oyster and it's the flap that covers its organ.
It's organic.
- The flap that covers its organ? OK, I'm with you.
- Its internal bits.
Now, there are fish restaurants in London that say if you find a pearl in your oyster, you can keep it.
What is the largest pearl that's been found in such circumstances? - The size of the World Cup? - No.
- The moon? - That big? - No.
None.
- None? - No-one's found one? - No edible oyster gives pearls.
- It's completely - Is it to do with an elephant? The kind of oysters you eat never produce pearls.
It's a completely different species.
So they put it there to excite you.
The world's largest pearl was found in what animal? Some sort of garden snail, I dare say! - It was a giant clam.
- Very good! It was a giant clam.
- I've seen a giant clam.
- Ever put your foot in one? - No.
- I did.
It's the stupidest thing I've ever done.
I said, "I wonder what'd happen if you put your foot in that?" It's a kind of velvety, soft, rather comfortable place to be stuck.
Doesn't it start ingesting it and squirting enzymes at your foot? I was more worried by the meter saying how much air I had left in the tank.
- Shouldn't you have had a buddy? - It was my wife.
She'd buggered off.
Pearls are normally the sarcophagi of nematode worms.
Pearl divers use glass-bottomed boats to hunt for oyster beds.
How would a glass bottom keep you out of the Army? BRYAN ADAMS BUZZER - I don't know the answer, but - I do! - I'm going to answer it! - It's something about the shilling in the tankard.
- Ah! The shilling in the tankard! What a shame! You were thinking that.
You were thinking of that.
Is it fragile arse syndrome? Yes, the glass-bottomed tankard.
There is a myth that they had glass bottoms to stop people putting the money in If you'd taken the king's shilling you had to be in the navy.
- It's just not true.
It's weird.
- It's unlikely - It's harsh.
- You could wangle out of that, just cos there's a shilling there.
Exactly.
Your lawyer's mind has got to the bottom of it.
It's not always that legal arguments would hold sway in the 18th century! If you recruited using trickery, you would be court-martialled and a signature or mark is required.
Plus there was a four-day cooling-off period.
So if someone felt impressed, they had four days to change their mind.
By which time they're in the Bay of Biscay! That's a possibility.
But this idea that just by taking a shilling, you could be forced into service So we haven't got the answer yet? No, there is no basis for it.
It was in order to trap Alan and I'm afraid we did.
Sorry.
It was cheap and wicked.
What's the best colour of clothing to wear in a hot climate? Yes? - Black.
- Black? - Yeah.
KLAXON Logically, it will come up that you want something light.
- It reflects the light.
- So what's the best colour? I'm gonna say white and you'll go KLAXON It's like being in with a Detective Sergeant! ETHEL MERMAN BUZZER Silver.
- He may be right.
- That's quite good.
- I'm going silver.
The fact is, all colours seem to be the same in the desert, from experiments.
- Black is not bad.
- The Bedouin.
- The Bedouin, as you say.
- They wear black.
They do.
Some people argue that black might be best because it's hottest round the bottom and convection causes cool air to rise.
No-one's demonstrated that.
The fact is, it doesn't matter what colour you wear as long as you look cool! Which brings us to the scores tonight.
Everything's coming up roses for Vic Reeves! On minus six, in the lead.
But everything's coming up an even cheaper brand of chocolates for Alan Davies on minus 24, in second place! In third place, just, with minus 25, Clive Anderson! But everything's going to Hel-ena Bonham-Carter for Jeremy Clarkson on minus 30! So, it's every good wish from Clive, Vic, Alan, Jeremy and me and I would go along with Stephen Wright who says, "You can't have everything.
After all, where would you put it?" Good night.