QI (2003) s07e03 Episode Script
Games
Gooo.
d evening, good evening, good evening and welcome to games night at QI.
Let's meet the players.
Game for a laugh, Phill Jupitus.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE At the top of his game, Sean Lock! CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Game girl, Liza Tarbuck! CHEERING AND WHISTLES And, thinking about going on the game, Alan Davies.
CHEERING Tonight, the bells are all well-hung and fairly gamey.
Phill goes 'Gladiators r-r-ready?' Sean goes BUZZER LAUGHTER Liza goes SPORTS COMMENTATOR: 'Go-o-o-oal!' Alan goes BRUCEY: 'Good game.
Good game.
' Ah! Good game! Good game.
Well, let the games, then, begin.
Picture this, Alan.
It's complicated but I think we'll get there.
Phill and yourself and Sean are in love - and why shouldn't you be? - with Liza.
You've noticed.
You're going to have a truel, which is a three-way duel.
Right.
Problem is, Sean's a good shot.
Amazing, looking at my eyes! LAUGHTER Phill hits the target 60% of the time.
You are not a very good shot, only 10% of the time.
Right.
You get first shot.
You've only got one.
Shoot one of them.
They will then each have a shot.
The question is, what would your best strategy be? Shoot myself.
LAUGHTER ALARM RINGS APPLAUSE SEAN: All I've got to do is shoot Liza! ALARM RINGS LAUGHTER I say, "Sean, look.
Phill's got something on his back of his shirt.
" I shoot through Phill into Sean.
Like we're going to fall for that(!) And like a bullet is going to make its way through my body in under a quarter of an hour.
Sean will be the other side of me going, "Any minute now.
" I'll do it the other way round.
I appear to have been eating cocoa out of a jar by ramming my face in.
No expense has been spared.
I have done two series of QI without the beard.
They persist on using a photo where I look like the fat Carlos the Jackal.
Surely, my best option is to try and shoot the one who's a better shot? You've got a 90% chance of not hitting them.
If you went for Sean, and did kill him, Phill would aim at you.
So that's a bad option.
Yeah.
Worse if you shoot Phill, cos then you've got a 90% chance.
Supposing you just miss? You deliberately miss? Then run away? No.
Stay where you are.
What's in their interests? Yeah.
Shoot the one Phil, you're not threat to him.
He could shoot you but then he'd have no bullet, you'd have no bullet and Sean would have a bullet Brilliant.
Get the guns out! LAUGHTER Pass it on.
Damn it! How do you load these? Leave it! It's not worth it! Have you got yours? I don't have one.
Presumably, my gun going off early is one reason Liza likes the idea that I lose the duel.
What we're dealing with, while you're refolding your ammunition, is game theory - does that ring a bell? No, we didn't do that.
Game theory? No.
It was invented by Von Neumann and Morgenstern in America, but famously by a man called Nash.
He won a Nobel prize then suffered from the awful effects of being played by Russell Crowe in a film.
Gladiator! Not Gladiator, no.
LAUGHTER The mathematician, Beautiful Mind.
Yes.
He won a Nobel prize for game theory, this kind of thinking, which has been applied to economics.
A very good example is advertising.
Two companies both advertise.
They both spend an enormous amount and cancel each other out.
If neither advertised, they'd keep the money, the market would remain the same.
The bizarre situation was when they banned tobacco advertising it was to the benefit of the tobacco firms who saved money they were wasting.
Another example was an episode of Big Brother.
There were two finalists.
They were asked separately.
If they both say they'll share it, they'll share it, 25k each.
If one says, "I'll take the lot" and the other says, "I'll share it" the one who says, "I'll take the lot" wins it.
If they both say "I'll take the lot", neither of them gets anything.
What do you do? They say, "Make your decision now.
" I came here with nothing, Stephen.
I've had a lovely day.
Everyone's been so nice.
LAUGHTER Your best strategy, the point is, is to say, "I'll share it.
" Is it? They both did say, "I'll share it.
" And both probably regretted it.
"I should have said I'll take the lot!" Or they should have probably studied at school.
LAUGHTER Possibly! In the truel, Alan's best plan is to miss and hope that the two hotshots kill each other.
It's an example of game theory in action.
Which popular game traditionally ends with all the players being thrown into a lake of fiery sulphur? I hope it's show jumping! LAUGHTER I hate show jumping! Really? Oh, God! I'd have one of those after every jump.
Before and after every jump! It's not show jumping, though it would certainly liven it up.
It sounds biblical.
I don't think it's humans.
Wouldn't it be pieces? It's a game that went dramatically out of fashion in 1972.
Early '72, it was more popular than Monopoly.
By the end of '72, it had gone out of fashion because of a film.
Mousetrap.
Mousetrap.
No.
There is no film of Mousetrap.
Is it draughts? Remember that film, Draughts? LAUGHTER The film "Draughts makes you go bored! Don't play draughts!" The film is not a game.
This game is played in it and it's scary.
Is it a seance? Ouija board.
Yes, using a Ouija board.
What film? The Exorcist.
One of the great films of the 20th century.
Is a Ouija board really a game? I don't remember anyone saying, "Right, who won?" LAUGHING I'm here and not dead! Ouija was a board and still belongs to Parker Brothers.
Get out! Ouija's a proprietary name.
It's a trademark.
Is it Oui Ja? Interesting point.
That is some people's theory.
Two words for "yes".
"Oui", French.
"Ja" German.
No-one's sure where it came from, except that it's a game that was invented.
It was sold and people played it.
It's weird.
It nearly always works.
In as much as people spell out words and don't know how.
It's clearly not dead people.
It was not supposed to be dead people.
It was supposed to be that you contacted a part of yourselves that automatically wrote.
Did dead people just join in? "Of all the games, this is the one for us!" A third of people who still use them say it's to contact dead people.
In the First World War it was used to contact troops abroad.
Hold on.
Are some dead people communicating with the living through Monopoly? There was a court case in the '90s, I'm sorry to say, in Britain, a murder case, an important one, and the jury had to be dismissed.
In the hotel they used a Ouija board to contact the murdered person.
And the murdered person said the guy in the dock is guilty, convict him.
The judge heard about it and dismissed the jury, quite rightly.
If they'd done it in the jury room, the judge couldn't dismiss them.
The judge has no right in law to know what goes on in a jury room.
Deliberations must be private.
Unless he's dead.
That's really complicated.
Was the guy guilty? Unfortunately, he was retried and found guilty, which is irritating.
So maybe the ghost of the murdered person It works! Where's the competitive element? Who are you trying to contact? Right, your turn.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Or you contact two dead people and they box.
Then tell you how it went.
Ghost boxing.
Ghost boxing! "On Sky Sports 2!" "Live ghost boxing from Auntie Vera's parlour!" Two people in sheets.
LAUGHTER The headless man is already down! Trying to punch There's an Elvis Yeah.
There you go! Go on! Hit me! LAUGHTER There's an Elvis seance website.
Course there is.
Bet there's more than one.
Where you contact Elvis Online? It cautions, "If you wish to repeat this experiment, "please be considerate, many people want to contact Elvis and we're sure he's quite busy.
"Please treat this information" For eternity! '.
.
as you would if he were alive and you had his e-mail address, with respect.
" It's a terrifying thought, posthumous Twitter.
That would be hell! LIZA: Have you just thought of that? You're in it up to your neck! Oh, God! Horrifying! The reference in the Bible, in Revelations it says those who practise the magic arts will be cast into burning sulphur.
How about balloon animals? The punishment for balloon animals is not specified.
Squeak! Squeak! Squeak! Giraffe.
It's loneliness, the punishment for them.
LAUGHTER APPLAUSE So, games which conjured up the spirits of the dead were a popular gift for children.
If they didn't like it they could go to hell! During the Second World War, who were the scallywags? That's just a little suggestion.
Urchin types.
I'm fairly sure it wasn't the SS.
That's the odd thing.
It's the SS? No.
But LAUGHTER They were the Scallywag Scallywags, the cheekiest men in the war.
Despite the cheeky name, we're talking about something really dark and violent.
Assassins.
Snipers.
Well, no.
What was the cutest, cuddliest part of the British forces? Probably Vera Lynn.
Yes.
Or Dad's Army, for example.
Oh.
The Home Guard.
There were plans afoot that if, and probably when That's a man dressed as a woman doing a practice.
If the Germans invaded, there would be a guerilla section of people who were not mainstream military.
I almost wish they had invaded! LAUGHTER There were people in reserved occupations Hands up, Fritz! Yeah.
In that picture, the baby's the best shot.
LAUGHTER It's a truel.
Clergymen and doctors were trained, given money and supply dumps, ammunition and a gallon of rum in each one.
Their job would be, when the Germans came, not only to shoot Germans but there was a view that Churchill would be killed and someone like Lord Halifax would go in.
Michael Foot was one, a scallywag, a secret part of Dad's Army.
George Orwell and others were trained to assassinate anyone who collaborated with the Nazis.
An underground resistance.
Michael Foot said, "I'd have killed Lord Halifax.
" So they were pretty violent.
It was not a cosy thing.
It's a good story.
It's terribly clever.
If somebody did come and collaborate anybody who might otherwise have caused trouble would be automatically on the side of good.
You're exactly right.
The radicals and leftwingers had an uneasy alliance with the military, against anybody who collaborated.
That is a double mind Jedi.
It is.
As it's commonly known.
Michael Foot's changed his image over the years.
He has a little.
If he wore that beautiful outfit on Armistice Day there wouldn't have been a fuss! It's Spike Milligan! They had two weeks of rations because the belief was they wouldn't survive longer.
They were, basically, terrorist suicide squads, which we'd now call them.
It was a cellular structure.
They didn't know who the others were.
They only knew their own band and were tasked to do specific things.
Do you suspect that such an organisation exists today? I wonder.
I'm not allowed to tell you.
Who have you been trained to kill? Their unofficial motto was Terror By Night.
Even in the ordinary Home Guard there were tough things taught.
Boy Scouts, aged 12 to 14, were given demonstrations of how to decapitate motorists by stretching wire across the road.
That's the kind of scouting I wanted! Not following twigs round Epping Forest! And Harry Lee, who was the British roller skating champion, demonstrated how to use roller skates to knee someone in the groin.
How are you going to get the other foot anchored? He may not have thought it through.
You may be right.
Anyway, guerrilla fighters were trained as underground scallywags.
They must have been pretty tough customers but who, team, who were the toughest of all vegetarians in history? That's a bit of a What's it called? An oxymoron? Is it? There are whole swathes of Asia with a lot of vegetarians.
I'm sure their armies would be quite fiercesome.
Some shaolin monk, ninja, kung fu? Are we Orient? You may be right.
But who are thewell, not THE toughest? Bulls.
Of course, the strongest animals are all vegetarians.
They're as tough as anything.
History Hitler was quite tough.
Yes, but Hitler wasn't a vegetarian.
Wasn't he? Oddly enough.
It's certainly true that he didn't smoke or drink much.
He occasionally had glasses of wine.
I'm not saying he was wonderful.
By saying he's vegetarian I'm not saying he's ghastly either.
A film in the last 15 years.
Cowboys.
A very successful film.
Australian actor starred as? Gladiators.
Gladiators.
They were vegetarians? They were vegans.
A relatively recent discovery in Ephesus, a mass grave of gladiators, gave all indications that they didn't eat meat.
They were known as barleymen, "hordearii", "eaters of barley".
It was thought that they ate barley and beans and a bit of dry ash, but it was important they were fat.
They're always shown as stocky in art.
How do they know they're vegetarian from archeology? Teeth? Shopping lists.
LAUGHTER They're at Waitrose.
Carved with flint on slate.
Beans No, just loads of toilet paper.
> I thought, beyond teeth, how would they know? Chemicals in the bone and levels of zinc indicate very strongly.
Low levels of zinc indicates they didn't eat meat.
The problem with this prehistoric science is the fact that they get the bones and go, bzzz, crrr, bzzz.
Something like that.
They've got to find something.
They go, "They only ate vegetables.
" They can't go, "Hasn't been of any use whatsoever.
"Just wasted the last three bloody years of my life!" That is so precisely what scientists do do.
They say, "This is not indicative of anything.
We don't know.
" If any group says "we don't know" it's scientists unlike religionists.
Scientists are always accused of being arrogant.
"We don't know" is the default position until you absolutely know.
It's an ordnance from 1633, they have to be black.
The law says they will be black.
They're allowed bits of ornament and bling, a curly prow and a few other such things, but they must be black.
Let's go to the casino.
How can you win money from a casino? Magnets.
Counting cards.
Prostitution.
Card counting.
They can spot that you're doing it.
They have people that watch and know.
It was a chap who wrote a book, Ben something? LIZA: Nevis.
Awfully good! I interviewed the dude.
He's a maths teacher and he gets students MIT students.
They went as an experiment.
He's been banned from casinos.
It's not against the law.
You're playing the game extremely well.
Now they have this face-recognition technology that all casinos buy into.
If you went into a casino in Phoenix and did some card counting.
They said, "Can you leave?" They can't take your winnings away, unless they're criminals.
And you were to go into one in Macau, flew over the next day, they'd spot you as you came in, their computers would pick you up.
As if they haven't got enough advantages.
I know! They're there to make money.
How do they spot you unless you sit there and go, "Seven! Five!" "A Jack!" Bust.
LAUGHTER If you did, I'll wager they'll go, "Excuse me, sir.
Could you leave?" "I've got a picture one! I've got a picture one!" That's maybe the way you disguise it.
What they do is they do it in teams and have clever ways.
The guy at the other end's counting the cards.
It's a perfect That was the system that Ben Campbell Remember him? Yes! LAUGHTER That was his system.
They tried to do it with roulette.
How would you do it with roulette? Count the spins.
Stop it.
Count the ball.
Stop it.
Stop time.
Ah! And then you only can move.
Everyone else is frozen in time.
You put the ball where you want.
Then go, "Everyone back in the room.
" Why not just help yourself to all the money in the place? LAUGHTER Because .
.
eventually, you'd have to stop time and bring them back in.
They'd go, "Something's missing.
" If you won, they'd go, "Wow! You've done it again!" "And I feel my pants are on" Oh.
No.
You would take all the money and you'd fiddle with people.
LAUGHTER Stop! Sean Lock! You would! You've just got to watch that you don't play one of the tables where the croupier, once he spins it, goes Yes, that's it.
They just go, "Place your bets.
" The only honest way to win money from a casino is to play black jack well, but they'll kick you out.
Now, maybe I'm bluffing, but how would you know if I was bluffing? We know your tell.
That's the word.
A tell is what they're called.
What are tells? Come on! Come on! Or just blinking a lot.
Blinking is said to be one.
Speedboats! Fast cars! All going to be mine! If you were quite good at poker, you might then reverse that.
If you got a bad hand, do that.
I'll go in anyway, but what's the point? That's what I always do! LAUGHTER Gamblers tell you that weak is strong and strong is weak.
They double bluff, maybe triple bluff.
Now we enter the endgame, gentlemen, lady.
Your chance to take a wild gamble on a few hands of General Ignorance.
Fingers on buzzers.
What colour is this hound? 'Goal!' Blue.
Oh, you're good.
How did you know that? I'm mad for dogs.
Absolutely mad for dogs.
What's the breed? A miniature It's a greyhound.
Really? A grey hound? Greyhounds are not grey.
The word "grey" is from "grig", it was a "grighund".
Olde English? Yeah.
"Grig" means bitch.
So it's a "bitch hound" basically.
As you say, that colour is called blue.
There you are.
Greyhound racing, is it flourishing at the moment? Dying out.
Greyhound Racing UK say it's the second most popular spectator sport after football.
A lot of the greyhounds are more interested in football.
How fast does the hare go round? 40 miles an hour.
Up to 100.
Really? Yeah.
How about that? Max speed 70 with greyhounds.
Between 40 and 70 miles per hour.
The dogs themselves? Yeah.
Who would win out of a race between a cheetah and a greyhound? I would.
Who would win? Cheetah.
SEAN: The cheetah would just have lunch.
Brilliant! Someone did try, a man called Kenneth Gandar-Dower.
The cheetah just wasn't interested.
It sat down, wouldn't race.
Especially with his monkey jockey.
Anyway, greyhounds are not grey and even the ones that are, are blue.
What should you do with mussels that don't open? Ooh, leave them well alone, really.
What should you do with them? Don't eat them.
That's good advice.
No, it isn't.
It's terrible advice.
Clearly it's bad! Thank goodness you didn't say, "Throw them away.
" No, this is odd.
Jane Grigson wrote a very fine book on seafood in which she said if they don't open, throw them away.
This was in the '70s.
By the '90s, The Australian Seafood Commission say, if anything, the reverse is true, it may be better for you.
One that is open before you start cooking, you SHOULD throw away cos that'll be dead.
Yeah.
It's fine to eat closed mussels.
They're probably fresher.
What did gladiators say at the beginning of a tournament? "We who are about to die salute you.
" ALARM RINGS Oh, dear.
That's what it's there for! You're right.
"Not the face!" LAUGHTER Very good.
No, they didn't say that.
Any more lentils? I'd like a bean salad.
I want a steak! There was a thought that it was morituri te salutamos or whatever, in the Latin, and they said it to the Emperor Claudius.
They were just prisoners who were going to be killed.
No gladiator was recorded saying it.
So there's no reason to believe it.
Bet they said, "Come on! Let's just all have a laugh!" Yeah.
Absolutely.
So, once again, we find ourselves at the end of the game.
Our clear winner with five points is Liza Tarbuck.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE In second place, with two points, Phill Jupitus.
APPLAUSE In third place, Sean, with minus seven! APPLAUSE CHUCKLES Yes, minus 17, Alan Davies.
CHEERS AND APPLAUSE So, that's it.
Thanks to Phill, Sean, Liza, Alan and me.
We'll leave you with this truth from James Hetfield out of Metallica.
"It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye.
"Then it's fun and games you can't see any more.
" Good night.
APPLAUSE
d evening, good evening, good evening and welcome to games night at QI.
Let's meet the players.
Game for a laugh, Phill Jupitus.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE At the top of his game, Sean Lock! CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Game girl, Liza Tarbuck! CHEERING AND WHISTLES And, thinking about going on the game, Alan Davies.
CHEERING Tonight, the bells are all well-hung and fairly gamey.
Phill goes 'Gladiators r-r-ready?' Sean goes BUZZER LAUGHTER Liza goes SPORTS COMMENTATOR: 'Go-o-o-oal!' Alan goes BRUCEY: 'Good game.
Good game.
' Ah! Good game! Good game.
Well, let the games, then, begin.
Picture this, Alan.
It's complicated but I think we'll get there.
Phill and yourself and Sean are in love - and why shouldn't you be? - with Liza.
You've noticed.
You're going to have a truel, which is a three-way duel.
Right.
Problem is, Sean's a good shot.
Amazing, looking at my eyes! LAUGHTER Phill hits the target 60% of the time.
You are not a very good shot, only 10% of the time.
Right.
You get first shot.
You've only got one.
Shoot one of them.
They will then each have a shot.
The question is, what would your best strategy be? Shoot myself.
LAUGHTER ALARM RINGS APPLAUSE SEAN: All I've got to do is shoot Liza! ALARM RINGS LAUGHTER I say, "Sean, look.
Phill's got something on his back of his shirt.
" I shoot through Phill into Sean.
Like we're going to fall for that(!) And like a bullet is going to make its way through my body in under a quarter of an hour.
Sean will be the other side of me going, "Any minute now.
" I'll do it the other way round.
I appear to have been eating cocoa out of a jar by ramming my face in.
No expense has been spared.
I have done two series of QI without the beard.
They persist on using a photo where I look like the fat Carlos the Jackal.
Surely, my best option is to try and shoot the one who's a better shot? You've got a 90% chance of not hitting them.
If you went for Sean, and did kill him, Phill would aim at you.
So that's a bad option.
Yeah.
Worse if you shoot Phill, cos then you've got a 90% chance.
Supposing you just miss? You deliberately miss? Then run away? No.
Stay where you are.
What's in their interests? Yeah.
Shoot the one Phil, you're not threat to him.
He could shoot you but then he'd have no bullet, you'd have no bullet and Sean would have a bullet Brilliant.
Get the guns out! LAUGHTER Pass it on.
Damn it! How do you load these? Leave it! It's not worth it! Have you got yours? I don't have one.
Presumably, my gun going off early is one reason Liza likes the idea that I lose the duel.
What we're dealing with, while you're refolding your ammunition, is game theory - does that ring a bell? No, we didn't do that.
Game theory? No.
It was invented by Von Neumann and Morgenstern in America, but famously by a man called Nash.
He won a Nobel prize then suffered from the awful effects of being played by Russell Crowe in a film.
Gladiator! Not Gladiator, no.
LAUGHTER The mathematician, Beautiful Mind.
Yes.
He won a Nobel prize for game theory, this kind of thinking, which has been applied to economics.
A very good example is advertising.
Two companies both advertise.
They both spend an enormous amount and cancel each other out.
If neither advertised, they'd keep the money, the market would remain the same.
The bizarre situation was when they banned tobacco advertising it was to the benefit of the tobacco firms who saved money they were wasting.
Another example was an episode of Big Brother.
There were two finalists.
They were asked separately.
If they both say they'll share it, they'll share it, 25k each.
If one says, "I'll take the lot" and the other says, "I'll share it" the one who says, "I'll take the lot" wins it.
If they both say "I'll take the lot", neither of them gets anything.
What do you do? They say, "Make your decision now.
" I came here with nothing, Stephen.
I've had a lovely day.
Everyone's been so nice.
LAUGHTER Your best strategy, the point is, is to say, "I'll share it.
" Is it? They both did say, "I'll share it.
" And both probably regretted it.
"I should have said I'll take the lot!" Or they should have probably studied at school.
LAUGHTER Possibly! In the truel, Alan's best plan is to miss and hope that the two hotshots kill each other.
It's an example of game theory in action.
Which popular game traditionally ends with all the players being thrown into a lake of fiery sulphur? I hope it's show jumping! LAUGHTER I hate show jumping! Really? Oh, God! I'd have one of those after every jump.
Before and after every jump! It's not show jumping, though it would certainly liven it up.
It sounds biblical.
I don't think it's humans.
Wouldn't it be pieces? It's a game that went dramatically out of fashion in 1972.
Early '72, it was more popular than Monopoly.
By the end of '72, it had gone out of fashion because of a film.
Mousetrap.
Mousetrap.
No.
There is no film of Mousetrap.
Is it draughts? Remember that film, Draughts? LAUGHTER The film "Draughts makes you go bored! Don't play draughts!" The film is not a game.
This game is played in it and it's scary.
Is it a seance? Ouija board.
Yes, using a Ouija board.
What film? The Exorcist.
One of the great films of the 20th century.
Is a Ouija board really a game? I don't remember anyone saying, "Right, who won?" LAUGHING I'm here and not dead! Ouija was a board and still belongs to Parker Brothers.
Get out! Ouija's a proprietary name.
It's a trademark.
Is it Oui Ja? Interesting point.
That is some people's theory.
Two words for "yes".
"Oui", French.
"Ja" German.
No-one's sure where it came from, except that it's a game that was invented.
It was sold and people played it.
It's weird.
It nearly always works.
In as much as people spell out words and don't know how.
It's clearly not dead people.
It was not supposed to be dead people.
It was supposed to be that you contacted a part of yourselves that automatically wrote.
Did dead people just join in? "Of all the games, this is the one for us!" A third of people who still use them say it's to contact dead people.
In the First World War it was used to contact troops abroad.
Hold on.
Are some dead people communicating with the living through Monopoly? There was a court case in the '90s, I'm sorry to say, in Britain, a murder case, an important one, and the jury had to be dismissed.
In the hotel they used a Ouija board to contact the murdered person.
And the murdered person said the guy in the dock is guilty, convict him.
The judge heard about it and dismissed the jury, quite rightly.
If they'd done it in the jury room, the judge couldn't dismiss them.
The judge has no right in law to know what goes on in a jury room.
Deliberations must be private.
Unless he's dead.
That's really complicated.
Was the guy guilty? Unfortunately, he was retried and found guilty, which is irritating.
So maybe the ghost of the murdered person It works! Where's the competitive element? Who are you trying to contact? Right, your turn.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Or you contact two dead people and they box.
Then tell you how it went.
Ghost boxing.
Ghost boxing! "On Sky Sports 2!" "Live ghost boxing from Auntie Vera's parlour!" Two people in sheets.
LAUGHTER The headless man is already down! Trying to punch There's an Elvis Yeah.
There you go! Go on! Hit me! LAUGHTER There's an Elvis seance website.
Course there is.
Bet there's more than one.
Where you contact Elvis Online? It cautions, "If you wish to repeat this experiment, "please be considerate, many people want to contact Elvis and we're sure he's quite busy.
"Please treat this information" For eternity! '.
.
as you would if he were alive and you had his e-mail address, with respect.
" It's a terrifying thought, posthumous Twitter.
That would be hell! LIZA: Have you just thought of that? You're in it up to your neck! Oh, God! Horrifying! The reference in the Bible, in Revelations it says those who practise the magic arts will be cast into burning sulphur.
How about balloon animals? The punishment for balloon animals is not specified.
Squeak! Squeak! Squeak! Giraffe.
It's loneliness, the punishment for them.
LAUGHTER APPLAUSE So, games which conjured up the spirits of the dead were a popular gift for children.
If they didn't like it they could go to hell! During the Second World War, who were the scallywags? That's just a little suggestion.
Urchin types.
I'm fairly sure it wasn't the SS.
That's the odd thing.
It's the SS? No.
But LAUGHTER They were the Scallywag Scallywags, the cheekiest men in the war.
Despite the cheeky name, we're talking about something really dark and violent.
Assassins.
Snipers.
Well, no.
What was the cutest, cuddliest part of the British forces? Probably Vera Lynn.
Yes.
Or Dad's Army, for example.
Oh.
The Home Guard.
There were plans afoot that if, and probably when That's a man dressed as a woman doing a practice.
If the Germans invaded, there would be a guerilla section of people who were not mainstream military.
I almost wish they had invaded! LAUGHTER There were people in reserved occupations Hands up, Fritz! Yeah.
In that picture, the baby's the best shot.
LAUGHTER It's a truel.
Clergymen and doctors were trained, given money and supply dumps, ammunition and a gallon of rum in each one.
Their job would be, when the Germans came, not only to shoot Germans but there was a view that Churchill would be killed and someone like Lord Halifax would go in.
Michael Foot was one, a scallywag, a secret part of Dad's Army.
George Orwell and others were trained to assassinate anyone who collaborated with the Nazis.
An underground resistance.
Michael Foot said, "I'd have killed Lord Halifax.
" So they were pretty violent.
It was not a cosy thing.
It's a good story.
It's terribly clever.
If somebody did come and collaborate anybody who might otherwise have caused trouble would be automatically on the side of good.
You're exactly right.
The radicals and leftwingers had an uneasy alliance with the military, against anybody who collaborated.
That is a double mind Jedi.
It is.
As it's commonly known.
Michael Foot's changed his image over the years.
He has a little.
If he wore that beautiful outfit on Armistice Day there wouldn't have been a fuss! It's Spike Milligan! They had two weeks of rations because the belief was they wouldn't survive longer.
They were, basically, terrorist suicide squads, which we'd now call them.
It was a cellular structure.
They didn't know who the others were.
They only knew their own band and were tasked to do specific things.
Do you suspect that such an organisation exists today? I wonder.
I'm not allowed to tell you.
Who have you been trained to kill? Their unofficial motto was Terror By Night.
Even in the ordinary Home Guard there were tough things taught.
Boy Scouts, aged 12 to 14, were given demonstrations of how to decapitate motorists by stretching wire across the road.
That's the kind of scouting I wanted! Not following twigs round Epping Forest! And Harry Lee, who was the British roller skating champion, demonstrated how to use roller skates to knee someone in the groin.
How are you going to get the other foot anchored? He may not have thought it through.
You may be right.
Anyway, guerrilla fighters were trained as underground scallywags.
They must have been pretty tough customers but who, team, who were the toughest of all vegetarians in history? That's a bit of a What's it called? An oxymoron? Is it? There are whole swathes of Asia with a lot of vegetarians.
I'm sure their armies would be quite fiercesome.
Some shaolin monk, ninja, kung fu? Are we Orient? You may be right.
But who are thewell, not THE toughest? Bulls.
Of course, the strongest animals are all vegetarians.
They're as tough as anything.
History Hitler was quite tough.
Yes, but Hitler wasn't a vegetarian.
Wasn't he? Oddly enough.
It's certainly true that he didn't smoke or drink much.
He occasionally had glasses of wine.
I'm not saying he was wonderful.
By saying he's vegetarian I'm not saying he's ghastly either.
A film in the last 15 years.
Cowboys.
A very successful film.
Australian actor starred as? Gladiators.
Gladiators.
They were vegetarians? They were vegans.
A relatively recent discovery in Ephesus, a mass grave of gladiators, gave all indications that they didn't eat meat.
They were known as barleymen, "hordearii", "eaters of barley".
It was thought that they ate barley and beans and a bit of dry ash, but it was important they were fat.
They're always shown as stocky in art.
How do they know they're vegetarian from archeology? Teeth? Shopping lists.
LAUGHTER They're at Waitrose.
Carved with flint on slate.
Beans No, just loads of toilet paper.
> I thought, beyond teeth, how would they know? Chemicals in the bone and levels of zinc indicate very strongly.
Low levels of zinc indicates they didn't eat meat.
The problem with this prehistoric science is the fact that they get the bones and go, bzzz, crrr, bzzz.
Something like that.
They've got to find something.
They go, "They only ate vegetables.
" They can't go, "Hasn't been of any use whatsoever.
"Just wasted the last three bloody years of my life!" That is so precisely what scientists do do.
They say, "This is not indicative of anything.
We don't know.
" If any group says "we don't know" it's scientists unlike religionists.
Scientists are always accused of being arrogant.
"We don't know" is the default position until you absolutely know.
It's an ordnance from 1633, they have to be black.
The law says they will be black.
They're allowed bits of ornament and bling, a curly prow and a few other such things, but they must be black.
Let's go to the casino.
How can you win money from a casino? Magnets.
Counting cards.
Prostitution.
Card counting.
They can spot that you're doing it.
They have people that watch and know.
It was a chap who wrote a book, Ben something? LIZA: Nevis.
Awfully good! I interviewed the dude.
He's a maths teacher and he gets students MIT students.
They went as an experiment.
He's been banned from casinos.
It's not against the law.
You're playing the game extremely well.
Now they have this face-recognition technology that all casinos buy into.
If you went into a casino in Phoenix and did some card counting.
They said, "Can you leave?" They can't take your winnings away, unless they're criminals.
And you were to go into one in Macau, flew over the next day, they'd spot you as you came in, their computers would pick you up.
As if they haven't got enough advantages.
I know! They're there to make money.
How do they spot you unless you sit there and go, "Seven! Five!" "A Jack!" Bust.
LAUGHTER If you did, I'll wager they'll go, "Excuse me, sir.
Could you leave?" "I've got a picture one! I've got a picture one!" That's maybe the way you disguise it.
What they do is they do it in teams and have clever ways.
The guy at the other end's counting the cards.
It's a perfect That was the system that Ben Campbell Remember him? Yes! LAUGHTER That was his system.
They tried to do it with roulette.
How would you do it with roulette? Count the spins.
Stop it.
Count the ball.
Stop it.
Stop time.
Ah! And then you only can move.
Everyone else is frozen in time.
You put the ball where you want.
Then go, "Everyone back in the room.
" Why not just help yourself to all the money in the place? LAUGHTER Because .
.
eventually, you'd have to stop time and bring them back in.
They'd go, "Something's missing.
" If you won, they'd go, "Wow! You've done it again!" "And I feel my pants are on" Oh.
No.
You would take all the money and you'd fiddle with people.
LAUGHTER Stop! Sean Lock! You would! You've just got to watch that you don't play one of the tables where the croupier, once he spins it, goes Yes, that's it.
They just go, "Place your bets.
" The only honest way to win money from a casino is to play black jack well, but they'll kick you out.
Now, maybe I'm bluffing, but how would you know if I was bluffing? We know your tell.
That's the word.
A tell is what they're called.
What are tells? Come on! Come on! Or just blinking a lot.
Blinking is said to be one.
Speedboats! Fast cars! All going to be mine! If you were quite good at poker, you might then reverse that.
If you got a bad hand, do that.
I'll go in anyway, but what's the point? That's what I always do! LAUGHTER Gamblers tell you that weak is strong and strong is weak.
They double bluff, maybe triple bluff.
Now we enter the endgame, gentlemen, lady.
Your chance to take a wild gamble on a few hands of General Ignorance.
Fingers on buzzers.
What colour is this hound? 'Goal!' Blue.
Oh, you're good.
How did you know that? I'm mad for dogs.
Absolutely mad for dogs.
What's the breed? A miniature It's a greyhound.
Really? A grey hound? Greyhounds are not grey.
The word "grey" is from "grig", it was a "grighund".
Olde English? Yeah.
"Grig" means bitch.
So it's a "bitch hound" basically.
As you say, that colour is called blue.
There you are.
Greyhound racing, is it flourishing at the moment? Dying out.
Greyhound Racing UK say it's the second most popular spectator sport after football.
A lot of the greyhounds are more interested in football.
How fast does the hare go round? 40 miles an hour.
Up to 100.
Really? Yeah.
How about that? Max speed 70 with greyhounds.
Between 40 and 70 miles per hour.
The dogs themselves? Yeah.
Who would win out of a race between a cheetah and a greyhound? I would.
Who would win? Cheetah.
SEAN: The cheetah would just have lunch.
Brilliant! Someone did try, a man called Kenneth Gandar-Dower.
The cheetah just wasn't interested.
It sat down, wouldn't race.
Especially with his monkey jockey.
Anyway, greyhounds are not grey and even the ones that are, are blue.
What should you do with mussels that don't open? Ooh, leave them well alone, really.
What should you do with them? Don't eat them.
That's good advice.
No, it isn't.
It's terrible advice.
Clearly it's bad! Thank goodness you didn't say, "Throw them away.
" No, this is odd.
Jane Grigson wrote a very fine book on seafood in which she said if they don't open, throw them away.
This was in the '70s.
By the '90s, The Australian Seafood Commission say, if anything, the reverse is true, it may be better for you.
One that is open before you start cooking, you SHOULD throw away cos that'll be dead.
Yeah.
It's fine to eat closed mussels.
They're probably fresher.
What did gladiators say at the beginning of a tournament? "We who are about to die salute you.
" ALARM RINGS Oh, dear.
That's what it's there for! You're right.
"Not the face!" LAUGHTER Very good.
No, they didn't say that.
Any more lentils? I'd like a bean salad.
I want a steak! There was a thought that it was morituri te salutamos or whatever, in the Latin, and they said it to the Emperor Claudius.
They were just prisoners who were going to be killed.
No gladiator was recorded saying it.
So there's no reason to believe it.
Bet they said, "Come on! Let's just all have a laugh!" Yeah.
Absolutely.
So, once again, we find ourselves at the end of the game.
Our clear winner with five points is Liza Tarbuck.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE In second place, with two points, Phill Jupitus.
APPLAUSE In third place, Sean, with minus seven! APPLAUSE CHUCKLES Yes, minus 17, Alan Davies.
CHEERS AND APPLAUSE So, that's it.
Thanks to Phill, Sean, Liza, Alan and me.
We'll leave you with this truth from James Hetfield out of Metallica.
"It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye.
"Then it's fun and games you can't see any more.
" Good night.
APPLAUSE