QI (2003) s10e07 Episode Script
Journalism
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING Well, goooooood evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening.
And to a greater or lesser extent, good evening, and welcome to QI, where tonight we'll be delving into the seedy world of journalism.
Before we start sexing up the facts, let's look at who's going to be on my press-gang.
Hold the front page, it's Shappi Khorsandi! APPLAUSE drop the dead donkey, it's Ross Noble.
APPLAUSE Another world exclusive Johnny Vegas! APPLAUSE And, personally responsible for eating Freddie Starr's hamster, Alan Davies.
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING Now, before we press on, let's hear their buzzers.
Shappi goes NEWS AT TEN THEME That's newsy.
Ross goes BOMBASTIC NEWS INTRO Quite newsy, too.
Johnny goes DRAMATIC NEWS DRUMS And Alan goes IT'S A KNOCKOUT THEME LAUGHTER Very pleasing.
That's great! So you've actually given? It's A Knockout, yeah.
You've given us the It's A Knockout theme? So at any point we can play that and just wrestle around in that.
LAUGHTER I could go "HA-HA-HA-HA!" Then every time I press mine, something terrible will happen.
Yes, well, yes I can't press my buzzer at all, in case there's a tsunami.
A volcano has killed the population of Sunderland.
Anyway, let's start.
What kind of person lived here? NEWS AT TEN THEME Yes, already the tragic tones.
- Initially, you think a very angry person that's quite small.
- Yes.
LAUGHTER Small-minded, or just small? It did genuinely exist, this Daily Mail model village.
This was after the First World War, when housing was in short supply and we were trying to build a land fit for heroes And it was made entirely of Daily Mail papier mache, was it? Well, the Daily Mail was never shy about trying to draw attention to itself with publicity stunts of all kinds - athletic stunts, firsts in aviation, and so on.
It was the Daily Mail that sponsored Amy Johnson to fly to Australia, for example.
And they decided that they would lead the world, and they thought they would contribute to a model village.
I can see that, like if they go, "Let's have an air race, "let's try and cross the Atlantic," they're all quite BOMBASTIC NEWS INTRO - .
.
like that.
But then, model village - But then IT'S A KNOCKOUT THEME LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE You know, it's the sort of thing where, like, Richard Branson said, "I'm going to send a rocket to the moon and I'm going to take people," and they go, "Wow, Branson's amazing!" And when we get here, I'm going to build a model village! Well, I suppose you have to go back to after 1919, all those people wiped out by Spanish flu, before that all the people wiped out by the First World War, and the Daily Mail thought we needed a new, modern Britain with new, modern cities, and so they devised this village which they thought was going to be absolutely marvellous.
But the plans were a little overambitious, and they were overtaken by the SHAPPI: Guardian village.
LAUGHTER The company who owned the land around and who named this new town Welwyn Garden City.
- Oooh.
- Ah.
There it was, the Daily Mail model village at Welwyn Garden City, 1922.
It's a good job it wasn't the Sunday Sport model village, because it would be the "Well-In Garden City!" LAUGHTER Phwoarr! Check out the fronts of those houses! LAUGHTER Total frontage! And there is always the back alley, too! LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE That was a rubbish model village, it's clearly full-size.
Yeah, don't forget "model" has two meanings - there's "model" in the sense of a paragon, a model of its kind.
- That's what they meant by it.
- It's got three meanings, hasn't it? Because "model village" everyone just walks around like that.
LAUGHTER The high street is called "The Catwalk", yeah.
- Everyone's just in their pants.
- That's true! I have to say, I weep when I think of my childhood and the amount of time we spent around a model village - Oh, Bekonscot? - .
.
and what kids have today.
- Yeah.
- They've got so much, and my mum and dad were going, "Look at that, it's Big Ben but this big," and we'd go, "Wow.
" JOHNNY: Your dad didn't drink.
My dad would go to a model village, drink and go, "I'm King Kong!" LAUGHTER And just start smashing stuff! Oh, how we'd laugh! You know why I can't go to model villages? Cos when you walk around, because of the painted faces, they all look like people who've been trapped by witchcraft.
- They do, don't they? - "Help, get me out of here! "I'm not really queuing for a newspaper.
" And I come home, shrouded in guilt, and drink.
LAUGHTER I don't know enough about the dark arts to make them all fully-sized again.
Then you could save them.
Tell me about the Daily Mail, who founded the Daily Mail? - Lord Beaverbrook.
- Satan.
Not Lord Beaverbrook, that's The Express - Satan is closer.
LAUGHTER Was it just a load of beavers in a brook? No, it's a family that still exists and still controls the group.
Is it the Patak family? LAUGHING: No, it's not the Pataks.
That would be great! - That would be pleasing.
- If we find out the spice dynasty It was founded in 1896 by Alfred Harmsworth, who later became Lord Northcliffe.
So, Alfred Harmsworth was a great showman and he had a brilliant gift for making Daily Mail readers think they kind of owned The Mail, so he was always having competitions asking them how The Mail could be improved, for example.
There were people who wrote in and said "You should perforate your articles so we could tear them out, like stamps," which is an interesting idea.
Are you sure that wasn't for toilet paper? LAUGHTER Someone else suggested each page should be perfumed differently, so it smelt different.
What if you confused the chip paper with the toilet paper? Madness would ensue.
But before he was a press baron, he actually wrote a rather QI-style book, which had the marvellous title of "Answers To Correspondents On Every Subject Under The Sun.
" The first edition contained articles with headlines, "What The Queen Eats", "How To Cure Freckles", and "Why Jews Don't Ride Bicycles.
" LAUGHTER And those three answers covered everything? - That wasn't the sum of the questions.
- Oh, right.
But part of the showman in him was that he guaranteed that, if you died with a copy of that book on you, your estate would get £200.
He was a real showman.
Now, listen to this obituary, and let me know what kind of person is being described.
"He was a tireless raconteur, "who gave colourful accounts of his exploits, "but did not suffer fools gladly.
"An uncompromisingly direct ladies' man, "he was affable and hospitable at every hour, "but he did not uphold the highest ethical standards of the City.
" NEWS AT TEN - Sounds like a bit of a wrong 'un.
- Yes.
Because they're all things that you kind of I've got a problem with that expression, - "Didn't suffer fools gladly.
" - You've put your finger on it.
Who does? Who does suffer fools gladly? Who goes, "I want to spend the weekend with a fool?" You have, you're on my team.
LAUGHTER You've put your finger on it, Shappi.
The point is, all those phrases are what used to be obituary codes, and basically you had to translate it.
"A tireless raconteur" means a crashing bore.
Is it Nick Clegg? It's not one individual, it's just these different things.
"Affable and hospitable at every hour", or simply convivial a drunk.
Basically, a terrible drunk.
"Uncompromisingly direct ladies' man" - a serial groper.
You'd also get, "Devoted much of his time to the Boys' Brigade and the Boy Scouts.
" That also tells you a lot about such figures.
- "Gave colourful accounts of his exploits.
" - Liar.
Liar, exactly.
"Did not uphold the highest ethical standards of the City.
" - Thief.
- Yeah, fraudster, basically.
- And "Did not suffer fools gladly.
" - Intolerant! A total shit, exactly.
LAUGHTER A howling shit.
LAUGHTER And these were the codes, and you read the obituaries and you kind of understood what was being said about them.
But can you name anyone who's actually read his own, premature, obituary? Has anyone ever read their own obituary while being alive? I wouldn't be surprised if there's someone who was presumed dead - during the war or something and then came back.
- Might have been found, yes.
There are two stories, one was that Alfred Nobel read his own obituary and was described as being "a merchant of death" - because he invented - Dynamite.
Dynamite, yes, exactly.
And he was so horrified, and he wasn't dead, that he instituted the Nobel Prizes in order to try and reclaim his name.
That is not, in fact, a true story, it's a myth.
The other one is Marcus Garvey, the Jamaican black nationalist, apparently died as a result of reading his obituary.
He had a stroke when he read the Chicago Defender newspaper, which printed his obituary describing him as "broke, alone and unpopular.
" - Terribly sad.
- That's like Googling yourself.
Mine would just say, "It's safe to come out now.
" LAUGHTER "He's gone, honest.
" "Friends who knew him said, 'Yes, he really was like that.
'" LAUGHTER The other day, I was driving through Islington, and there was a hearse slowing everything down, and I did say to my wife, "If it's my funeral, "tell the bloke driving the hearse to step on it, I would not" Vroom! Instead of having a coffin, as well, just have the body so that as you're going round the corners you're slamming against LAUGHTER Get some chickens Get some chickens in a cage and some boxes to drive through, just make it look like LAUGHTER Like an A Team finale.
What music do you want your coffin to go? - When your coffin disappears? - The Sweeney theme.
That would be a good one.
HE SINGS THE SWEENEY THEME The end music when it's really slow.
When the foot presses on the accelerator.
I'd quite like the music from 'Allo, 'Allo with "You have been watching" and my body like that.
LAUGHTER When my dad died, he was a big fan of sailing, so we gave him a Viking send off.
We put his ashes in a boat and tried to set fire to it.
But, cos it was in the North Sea, it wouldn't light LAUGHTER .
.
so what we did was, we were trying to fill the boat full of his ashes, and we were going, "Do you tip the ashes straight into the boat, or do you put them in bags?" And my mum, who's ever practical, went, "I've got some sandwich bags, I'll get some sandwich bags.
" LAUGHTER So we went out to sea, then off he went and shot off into the distance.
Was it a remote-controlled boat? - It was, yeah! Like a proper big yacht.
- You're joking! No, seriously.
- You sent your dad off with four double-As? - We did! LAUGHTER Keep going till the batteries run out! Going around in circles! You're there with an air rifle, like that.
And the people from the miniature village were going, "Help that man!" "Someone, help him!" A little lifeboat comes out.
LAUGHTER Did you not argue over who used the remote control? That wouldn't work in our family.
"Give it here, you're doing it wrong!" "He was my dad, too! Give us a go!" LAUGHTER The word "dignity" is not the first LAUGHTER This is the thing, that's exactly what he would have wanted, And I've said the same thing - like Hunter S Thompson, when he died, he was put in a cannon and fired off across the valley he used to own, and what I'd quite like to do is be put in pepper spray, and then people that I don't like I'm going to get my wife to go "Fffft!" like that.
LAUGHTER Face full of Noble! Oh my God, how did we get here? I can't even remember.
LAUGHTER The fact is, no matter how many character flaws you have, you can be sure they'll be euphemistically dealt with in your obituary.
Journalists are not above a bit of muck-raking, of course, but can you describe the most expensive piece of shit to come out of a British bank? Is it some sort of fossilised, dinosodic poo in the? How extraordinary you are, Ross Noble.
For 20 minutes you've been gibbering like an idiot LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE .
.
suddenly you've come up with a brilliant answer.
APPLAUSE You're absolutely right.
The only way you could be righter is if you could give me a technical name for fossilised shit.
- Is there going to be faeces in the thing? - Well, yes, you can call it palaeontofaeces, or you can call it coprolite.
"Copra" is shit in Latin.
Coprolite sounds like a chocolate bar.
It does, rather, doesn't it? Not a very nice one.
But it was a Lloyds Bank in York, of all places, and they found this period poo in 1972.
It was 23 centimetres long, five centimetres wide, a human poo.
It was a Viking poo.
Did they find this within the bank, or was it? I'm taking it it was a staff day out.
LAUGHTER - To be honest, it just looks like an old Wotsit to me.
- It does, but when you examine it more closely you will see it is a poo, and you can actually even determine what was eaten, and that is cereal bran, so they were quite healthy and regular, and hence the I wouldn't say it's the most normal looking stool I've ever seen So you're telling me that every time I go to the loo I am flushing away millions? In future I'm going to go to my bank and have a shit there.
LAUGHTER And I'm going to tag it so that my family in future You're going to walk in and say, "I'm just going to make a deposit.
" LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE Oh dear, oh dear.
The poo's discoverer, Andrew "Bones" Jones, said, "this is the most" LAUGHTER ".
.
the most exciting piece of excrement I've ever seen.
"In its own way, it's as valuable as the Crown Jewels.
" There was another exciting coprolite that was discovered.
It was a T Rex turd that was found in Saskatchewan in 1998, and that was 17 inches long and six inches thick.
And that was reckoned to be a bit of it knocked off, that the actual turd would have been even bigger.
How did they know? Was there a dead T Rex next to it that had pooed itself to death? LAUGHTER It was found reaching for the toilet roll with its tiny claws.
LAUGHTER Coprolites are not everybody's cup of tea, collecting fossilised turds - People like poo, though.
- They do, don't they? They do like poo, they like drawing with poo.
I went to someone's house and they had this elephant poo painting.
But when communication breaks down, it does make a bold statement.
LAUGHTER When you write something on the wall, like, "Call me a taxi" they do do it, honestly.
LAUGHTER You know like one of them parties when you've had enough? You write on the wall with your own faeces, people start listening to you! LAUGHTER You've just got to do one big enough to go, "I was not fond of the cheesecake" LAUGHTER ".
.
and considering you're out of vodka and I'm low on turd, "I would like to go home now.
" The odd thing is when the forensic scientists come in and find out that it was Johnny Vegas's poo, but it was Lorraine Kelly's handwriting.
LAUGHTER Yeah, the diction was perfect, and even the sweetcorn was used for little commas.
AUDIENCE: Awww! Oh, now! Now, there's the line! We've found the line.
You've crossed a boundary.
Are you finding you're not selling as much Tupperware at these parties? LAUGHTER I don't mean to keep it in that area, but I will.
- My wife once had, you know those bath bomb things? - Yes.
- Yeah, the fizzy ones.
- Yeah, "lass grenades" I call them.
You chuck them in the bath and they fizz up and fill the bath with glitter, and I didn't realise, went in the bath, and quite a lot of glitter had gone in my in my bum, and I didn't realise, and I did a poo, and I looked into the toilet, and it was sparkling, right LAUGHTER I, honestly, for a minute I thought I had a magic arse.
I honestly did.
Yeah.
That was lovely.
That's a beautiful story.
Anyway, moving on.
Now, some people will do anything for fame.
But what did The Famous Five have lashings of? NEWS AT TEN THEME Ginger beer.
ALARM RINGS No! - Someone had to say it.
- I read all of those books.
I'm gutted that I don't know.
It's funny, cos in the books there is only one foodstuff that is referred to - in all the Famous Five books, of which they had lashings.
- Yeah, they They eat the dog.
- Treacle.
- They don't eat the dog, no.
Asbestos.
They had lashings of asbestos.
Before they realised just how dangerous it was in powdered form.
- The dog in The Famous Five was Asbestos? - No, not the dog.
- Sorry, I thought the dog was Asbestos.
- They just packed lots of asbestos for its fire-retardant qualities.
- Asbestos is a very good name for a dog.
- It's good, isn't it? - Asbestos! SHOUTS: As-bes-tos! The reason - My uncle had a dog named after Charlie Mingus, the jazz musician.
- Yeah.
Mingus.
Problem was, is that he's got the same accent as me.
He'd be in the Park, and he just be shouting, "Mingus! Mingus!" - And the The local girls thought that he was - Yeah, talking to them.
"Mingus!" "Piss off!" "Mingus!" "Who are you calling mingers?" - And it led to all sorts of problems.
- I'm sure it did.
Why do we think of the lashings of ginger beer? Because of The Comic Strip Presents Because The Comic Strip Presents, their first film was The Comic Strip Presents Five Go Mad In Dorset - It's very funny.
- .
.
and they kept going on about having lashings of ginger beer.
But in the actual books, there is no reference to lashings of ginger beer.
But in one of the books, Five Go Down To The Sea, they did arrive at a Cornish farm and immediately settled down to a high tea of lettuce, tomatoes, onions, radishes, mustard and cress, carrot grated up and lashings of hard-boiled eggs.
- Eggs! I was going to say eggs! - You were going to say that! They always go in to farmhouses and get free eggs.
The only lashings Enid Blyton gave The Famous Five were lashings of hard-boiled eggs.
- They never had lashings of ginger beer.
- That's a terrible picnic.
Who has onions at a picnic? It's very hard to lash an egg.
Unless you're in some sort of S&M thing with Humpty Dumpty.
That's why they couldn't put him back together again.
I'll give you 10 points if you can give me, within three, the number of books that Enid Blyton wrote a year.
- 42.
- You were damn close.
You were just out of range, I'm afraid.
She actually wrote 37 books a year.
And, talking of busy women, let's move on to another question here.
Why have we never heard of Harriet Quimby? - You've heard of Fred Quimby who produced the - Tom and Jerry.
- Tom and Jerry.
And Mayor Quimby in The Simpsons, but Harriet was the first American woman to become a licensed pilot, and the first woman to fly the English Channel.
But unfortunately, it just so happened her record-breaking flight didn't make the news because she completed it the day after the Titanic sank.
So, it just was a damp squib, to say the least.
She was famous in her day.
She was one of the very first screenwriters at the very beginning of Hollywood.
She wrote seven scenarios for the father of cinema, DW Griffith.
She died aged 37 at an aviation meet, sadly crashing.
But it was an impressive and a short and brilliant life.
Who was the first man to fly the Channel, do you remember? Oh, we all know him! We all know the MEN that fly the channel.
- A mean, I don't - Well, he was the first person.
LAUGHTER Louis Bleriot.
It was one of the great achievements.
He flew from England to France, but the French authorities, when he landed, didn't have a form, and so they signed him in as having landed on a yacht called Monoplane, because that's the best they could do.
It was a huge feat at the time, and it was a £1,000 prize offered by? - The Daily Mail? - Of course, the Daily Mail.
Well done.
Exactly.
But you know what, Harriet did that backwards and in heels.
- Exactly.
Very good.
Good point.
- Thank you.
I'm sure it was harder for her.
But it can be LAUGHTER It can be very difficult to die at the wrong time.
Can you think of people who died unfortunately on the same day as somebody even better known than themselves? Oh, I know! NEWS AT TEN THEME - Mother Teresa.
- Who died the same day as? - Diana.
The Princess of Wales.
Precisely, so she was not only below the fold, she was over the page.
- I only realised couple of months ago Mother Teresa was dead.
- Yes, yes.
- 22nd of November 1963.
Who died then? - Kennedy.
- Right, so, JFK.
That was obviously huge news, the American president dying.
As it happens, two very distinguished authors died on the same day.
Both British, as it happens.
CS Lewis and Aldous Huxley both died on the same day as Kennedy, so both got rather tiny-winy little obituaries.
So, moving on.
- What kind of hat did they wear in the Wild West? - 10 gallon hat.
ALARM RINGS Ten gallon hat? Five gallon hat? - No, no.
- Of course, cos now it's litres, isn't it? - 45 litre? - No litres or gallons.
- Was it a Stetson? Can I have Stetson? It wasn't Stetson, no.
ALARM RINGS - The most popular hat by far - ROSS: A cap, a flat cap.
- No.
- It was the, it was the - Say it.
- A bowler hat.
Yes, a bowler hat is the right answer.
APPLAUSE Far and away.
There we are.
We think of the bowler hat as the British businessman, but in fact it was THE preferred hat in the West.
That's a pretty wild bunch, there.
Butch Cassidy, seated front right.
Sundance Kid, Harry Longabaugh, of course, front left.
In fact, their pride in having their photographs taken with those hats was their undoing, because the Pinkerton agency reproduced the photographs and gave it to their agents, who tracked them down and killed them.
It was hat makers Thomas and William Bowler who created the hat, but they weren't known as bowler hats in America, nor are they to this day.
What do they call them? - AUDIENCE MEMBERS: Derbies.
- Derbies, yes.
"Darbies" or "derbies", yeah.
Bowlers basically were much more common in the Wild West than Stetsons.
Who fancies a shoot-out with a real, live vortex canon? I've given you one each.
You've got a box.
See that box, there? It's simply a box, all right? Now, the hole is where the vortex emerges, so if you lean it so that the hole is pointing at the target, all right? And basically, what you've got to do is smack the side of the box.
All right? After three, two, one Smack! - Very good.
There you are! - Wow! APPLAUSE LAUGHTER But what we can Yes.
What we can do, before you destroy the box, Before you destroy the box, you can do something even more exciting, and that is fill it with smoke, and it will demonstrate what, in fact, was happening with the air.
You should all have smoke machines.
LAUGHTER That's it, fill with smoke.
Fill it with smoke.
And now AUDIENCE GASPS Look! Look at that! Just a gentle tap.
That is a vortex, those beautiful smoke rings.
A lovely one, there.
I've got I've got an enormous cannon, here.
I'm going to fill mine with SMOKE MACHINE HISSES I'll see if I can get mine across the Across the room, here.
SHAPPI: You can even chase each other! Here we go.
I've got it the wrong way round.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE AUDIENCE GASPS We'll let the smoke drift a little.
Would anyone like a big dustbin? It's simply pressure of air creating this wonderful vortex.
- No it's not, it's magic.
- Nice one, Alan! Hey, with this kind of magic we could make the tiny people big again.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE Basically, ladies and gentlemen, that's it.
Hours of fun can be had - playing with your own home-made vortex canon.
- Quick! More smoke! And I suppose it must be time now for me to give the scores.
And how interesting they are.
In first place, with minus 5, is Ross Noble.
APPLAUSE DROWNS SPEECH Second equal with minus 6, Alan Davies and Johnny Vegas.
APPLAUSE And a slightly unhappy Shappi with minus 17.
APPLAUSE DROWNS SPEECH THEME MUSIC Those lovely smoke rings.
Lovely smoke rings.
So, that's all from Shappi, Johnny, Ross, Alan and me.
And I will leave you with this from Abraham Lincoln.
"The trouble with quotes taken from the Internet is that you can never know if they are genuine.
" Thank you and good night.
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
And to a greater or lesser extent, good evening, and welcome to QI, where tonight we'll be delving into the seedy world of journalism.
Before we start sexing up the facts, let's look at who's going to be on my press-gang.
Hold the front page, it's Shappi Khorsandi! APPLAUSE drop the dead donkey, it's Ross Noble.
APPLAUSE Another world exclusive Johnny Vegas! APPLAUSE And, personally responsible for eating Freddie Starr's hamster, Alan Davies.
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING Now, before we press on, let's hear their buzzers.
Shappi goes NEWS AT TEN THEME That's newsy.
Ross goes BOMBASTIC NEWS INTRO Quite newsy, too.
Johnny goes DRAMATIC NEWS DRUMS And Alan goes IT'S A KNOCKOUT THEME LAUGHTER Very pleasing.
That's great! So you've actually given? It's A Knockout, yeah.
You've given us the It's A Knockout theme? So at any point we can play that and just wrestle around in that.
LAUGHTER I could go "HA-HA-HA-HA!" Then every time I press mine, something terrible will happen.
Yes, well, yes I can't press my buzzer at all, in case there's a tsunami.
A volcano has killed the population of Sunderland.
Anyway, let's start.
What kind of person lived here? NEWS AT TEN THEME Yes, already the tragic tones.
- Initially, you think a very angry person that's quite small.
- Yes.
LAUGHTER Small-minded, or just small? It did genuinely exist, this Daily Mail model village.
This was after the First World War, when housing was in short supply and we were trying to build a land fit for heroes And it was made entirely of Daily Mail papier mache, was it? Well, the Daily Mail was never shy about trying to draw attention to itself with publicity stunts of all kinds - athletic stunts, firsts in aviation, and so on.
It was the Daily Mail that sponsored Amy Johnson to fly to Australia, for example.
And they decided that they would lead the world, and they thought they would contribute to a model village.
I can see that, like if they go, "Let's have an air race, "let's try and cross the Atlantic," they're all quite BOMBASTIC NEWS INTRO - .
.
like that.
But then, model village - But then IT'S A KNOCKOUT THEME LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE You know, it's the sort of thing where, like, Richard Branson said, "I'm going to send a rocket to the moon and I'm going to take people," and they go, "Wow, Branson's amazing!" And when we get here, I'm going to build a model village! Well, I suppose you have to go back to after 1919, all those people wiped out by Spanish flu, before that all the people wiped out by the First World War, and the Daily Mail thought we needed a new, modern Britain with new, modern cities, and so they devised this village which they thought was going to be absolutely marvellous.
But the plans were a little overambitious, and they were overtaken by the SHAPPI: Guardian village.
LAUGHTER The company who owned the land around and who named this new town Welwyn Garden City.
- Oooh.
- Ah.
There it was, the Daily Mail model village at Welwyn Garden City, 1922.
It's a good job it wasn't the Sunday Sport model village, because it would be the "Well-In Garden City!" LAUGHTER Phwoarr! Check out the fronts of those houses! LAUGHTER Total frontage! And there is always the back alley, too! LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE That was a rubbish model village, it's clearly full-size.
Yeah, don't forget "model" has two meanings - there's "model" in the sense of a paragon, a model of its kind.
- That's what they meant by it.
- It's got three meanings, hasn't it? Because "model village" everyone just walks around like that.
LAUGHTER The high street is called "The Catwalk", yeah.
- Everyone's just in their pants.
- That's true! I have to say, I weep when I think of my childhood and the amount of time we spent around a model village - Oh, Bekonscot? - .
.
and what kids have today.
- Yeah.
- They've got so much, and my mum and dad were going, "Look at that, it's Big Ben but this big," and we'd go, "Wow.
" JOHNNY: Your dad didn't drink.
My dad would go to a model village, drink and go, "I'm King Kong!" LAUGHTER And just start smashing stuff! Oh, how we'd laugh! You know why I can't go to model villages? Cos when you walk around, because of the painted faces, they all look like people who've been trapped by witchcraft.
- They do, don't they? - "Help, get me out of here! "I'm not really queuing for a newspaper.
" And I come home, shrouded in guilt, and drink.
LAUGHTER I don't know enough about the dark arts to make them all fully-sized again.
Then you could save them.
Tell me about the Daily Mail, who founded the Daily Mail? - Lord Beaverbrook.
- Satan.
Not Lord Beaverbrook, that's The Express - Satan is closer.
LAUGHTER Was it just a load of beavers in a brook? No, it's a family that still exists and still controls the group.
Is it the Patak family? LAUGHING: No, it's not the Pataks.
That would be great! - That would be pleasing.
- If we find out the spice dynasty It was founded in 1896 by Alfred Harmsworth, who later became Lord Northcliffe.
So, Alfred Harmsworth was a great showman and he had a brilliant gift for making Daily Mail readers think they kind of owned The Mail, so he was always having competitions asking them how The Mail could be improved, for example.
There were people who wrote in and said "You should perforate your articles so we could tear them out, like stamps," which is an interesting idea.
Are you sure that wasn't for toilet paper? LAUGHTER Someone else suggested each page should be perfumed differently, so it smelt different.
What if you confused the chip paper with the toilet paper? Madness would ensue.
But before he was a press baron, he actually wrote a rather QI-style book, which had the marvellous title of "Answers To Correspondents On Every Subject Under The Sun.
" The first edition contained articles with headlines, "What The Queen Eats", "How To Cure Freckles", and "Why Jews Don't Ride Bicycles.
" LAUGHTER And those three answers covered everything? - That wasn't the sum of the questions.
- Oh, right.
But part of the showman in him was that he guaranteed that, if you died with a copy of that book on you, your estate would get £200.
He was a real showman.
Now, listen to this obituary, and let me know what kind of person is being described.
"He was a tireless raconteur, "who gave colourful accounts of his exploits, "but did not suffer fools gladly.
"An uncompromisingly direct ladies' man, "he was affable and hospitable at every hour, "but he did not uphold the highest ethical standards of the City.
" NEWS AT TEN - Sounds like a bit of a wrong 'un.
- Yes.
Because they're all things that you kind of I've got a problem with that expression, - "Didn't suffer fools gladly.
" - You've put your finger on it.
Who does? Who does suffer fools gladly? Who goes, "I want to spend the weekend with a fool?" You have, you're on my team.
LAUGHTER You've put your finger on it, Shappi.
The point is, all those phrases are what used to be obituary codes, and basically you had to translate it.
"A tireless raconteur" means a crashing bore.
Is it Nick Clegg? It's not one individual, it's just these different things.
"Affable and hospitable at every hour", or simply convivial a drunk.
Basically, a terrible drunk.
"Uncompromisingly direct ladies' man" - a serial groper.
You'd also get, "Devoted much of his time to the Boys' Brigade and the Boy Scouts.
" That also tells you a lot about such figures.
- "Gave colourful accounts of his exploits.
" - Liar.
Liar, exactly.
"Did not uphold the highest ethical standards of the City.
" - Thief.
- Yeah, fraudster, basically.
- And "Did not suffer fools gladly.
" - Intolerant! A total shit, exactly.
LAUGHTER A howling shit.
LAUGHTER And these were the codes, and you read the obituaries and you kind of understood what was being said about them.
But can you name anyone who's actually read his own, premature, obituary? Has anyone ever read their own obituary while being alive? I wouldn't be surprised if there's someone who was presumed dead - during the war or something and then came back.
- Might have been found, yes.
There are two stories, one was that Alfred Nobel read his own obituary and was described as being "a merchant of death" - because he invented - Dynamite.
Dynamite, yes, exactly.
And he was so horrified, and he wasn't dead, that he instituted the Nobel Prizes in order to try and reclaim his name.
That is not, in fact, a true story, it's a myth.
The other one is Marcus Garvey, the Jamaican black nationalist, apparently died as a result of reading his obituary.
He had a stroke when he read the Chicago Defender newspaper, which printed his obituary describing him as "broke, alone and unpopular.
" - Terribly sad.
- That's like Googling yourself.
Mine would just say, "It's safe to come out now.
" LAUGHTER "He's gone, honest.
" "Friends who knew him said, 'Yes, he really was like that.
'" LAUGHTER The other day, I was driving through Islington, and there was a hearse slowing everything down, and I did say to my wife, "If it's my funeral, "tell the bloke driving the hearse to step on it, I would not" Vroom! Instead of having a coffin, as well, just have the body so that as you're going round the corners you're slamming against LAUGHTER Get some chickens Get some chickens in a cage and some boxes to drive through, just make it look like LAUGHTER Like an A Team finale.
What music do you want your coffin to go? - When your coffin disappears? - The Sweeney theme.
That would be a good one.
HE SINGS THE SWEENEY THEME The end music when it's really slow.
When the foot presses on the accelerator.
I'd quite like the music from 'Allo, 'Allo with "You have been watching" and my body like that.
LAUGHTER When my dad died, he was a big fan of sailing, so we gave him a Viking send off.
We put his ashes in a boat and tried to set fire to it.
But, cos it was in the North Sea, it wouldn't light LAUGHTER .
.
so what we did was, we were trying to fill the boat full of his ashes, and we were going, "Do you tip the ashes straight into the boat, or do you put them in bags?" And my mum, who's ever practical, went, "I've got some sandwich bags, I'll get some sandwich bags.
" LAUGHTER So we went out to sea, then off he went and shot off into the distance.
Was it a remote-controlled boat? - It was, yeah! Like a proper big yacht.
- You're joking! No, seriously.
- You sent your dad off with four double-As? - We did! LAUGHTER Keep going till the batteries run out! Going around in circles! You're there with an air rifle, like that.
And the people from the miniature village were going, "Help that man!" "Someone, help him!" A little lifeboat comes out.
LAUGHTER Did you not argue over who used the remote control? That wouldn't work in our family.
"Give it here, you're doing it wrong!" "He was my dad, too! Give us a go!" LAUGHTER The word "dignity" is not the first LAUGHTER This is the thing, that's exactly what he would have wanted, And I've said the same thing - like Hunter S Thompson, when he died, he was put in a cannon and fired off across the valley he used to own, and what I'd quite like to do is be put in pepper spray, and then people that I don't like I'm going to get my wife to go "Fffft!" like that.
LAUGHTER Face full of Noble! Oh my God, how did we get here? I can't even remember.
LAUGHTER The fact is, no matter how many character flaws you have, you can be sure they'll be euphemistically dealt with in your obituary.
Journalists are not above a bit of muck-raking, of course, but can you describe the most expensive piece of shit to come out of a British bank? Is it some sort of fossilised, dinosodic poo in the? How extraordinary you are, Ross Noble.
For 20 minutes you've been gibbering like an idiot LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE .
.
suddenly you've come up with a brilliant answer.
APPLAUSE You're absolutely right.
The only way you could be righter is if you could give me a technical name for fossilised shit.
- Is there going to be faeces in the thing? - Well, yes, you can call it palaeontofaeces, or you can call it coprolite.
"Copra" is shit in Latin.
Coprolite sounds like a chocolate bar.
It does, rather, doesn't it? Not a very nice one.
But it was a Lloyds Bank in York, of all places, and they found this period poo in 1972.
It was 23 centimetres long, five centimetres wide, a human poo.
It was a Viking poo.
Did they find this within the bank, or was it? I'm taking it it was a staff day out.
LAUGHTER - To be honest, it just looks like an old Wotsit to me.
- It does, but when you examine it more closely you will see it is a poo, and you can actually even determine what was eaten, and that is cereal bran, so they were quite healthy and regular, and hence the I wouldn't say it's the most normal looking stool I've ever seen So you're telling me that every time I go to the loo I am flushing away millions? In future I'm going to go to my bank and have a shit there.
LAUGHTER And I'm going to tag it so that my family in future You're going to walk in and say, "I'm just going to make a deposit.
" LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE Oh dear, oh dear.
The poo's discoverer, Andrew "Bones" Jones, said, "this is the most" LAUGHTER ".
.
the most exciting piece of excrement I've ever seen.
"In its own way, it's as valuable as the Crown Jewels.
" There was another exciting coprolite that was discovered.
It was a T Rex turd that was found in Saskatchewan in 1998, and that was 17 inches long and six inches thick.
And that was reckoned to be a bit of it knocked off, that the actual turd would have been even bigger.
How did they know? Was there a dead T Rex next to it that had pooed itself to death? LAUGHTER It was found reaching for the toilet roll with its tiny claws.
LAUGHTER Coprolites are not everybody's cup of tea, collecting fossilised turds - People like poo, though.
- They do, don't they? They do like poo, they like drawing with poo.
I went to someone's house and they had this elephant poo painting.
But when communication breaks down, it does make a bold statement.
LAUGHTER When you write something on the wall, like, "Call me a taxi" they do do it, honestly.
LAUGHTER You know like one of them parties when you've had enough? You write on the wall with your own faeces, people start listening to you! LAUGHTER You've just got to do one big enough to go, "I was not fond of the cheesecake" LAUGHTER ".
.
and considering you're out of vodka and I'm low on turd, "I would like to go home now.
" The odd thing is when the forensic scientists come in and find out that it was Johnny Vegas's poo, but it was Lorraine Kelly's handwriting.
LAUGHTER Yeah, the diction was perfect, and even the sweetcorn was used for little commas.
AUDIENCE: Awww! Oh, now! Now, there's the line! We've found the line.
You've crossed a boundary.
Are you finding you're not selling as much Tupperware at these parties? LAUGHTER I don't mean to keep it in that area, but I will.
- My wife once had, you know those bath bomb things? - Yes.
- Yeah, the fizzy ones.
- Yeah, "lass grenades" I call them.
You chuck them in the bath and they fizz up and fill the bath with glitter, and I didn't realise, went in the bath, and quite a lot of glitter had gone in my in my bum, and I didn't realise, and I did a poo, and I looked into the toilet, and it was sparkling, right LAUGHTER I, honestly, for a minute I thought I had a magic arse.
I honestly did.
Yeah.
That was lovely.
That's a beautiful story.
Anyway, moving on.
Now, some people will do anything for fame.
But what did The Famous Five have lashings of? NEWS AT TEN THEME Ginger beer.
ALARM RINGS No! - Someone had to say it.
- I read all of those books.
I'm gutted that I don't know.
It's funny, cos in the books there is only one foodstuff that is referred to - in all the Famous Five books, of which they had lashings.
- Yeah, they They eat the dog.
- Treacle.
- They don't eat the dog, no.
Asbestos.
They had lashings of asbestos.
Before they realised just how dangerous it was in powdered form.
- The dog in The Famous Five was Asbestos? - No, not the dog.
- Sorry, I thought the dog was Asbestos.
- They just packed lots of asbestos for its fire-retardant qualities.
- Asbestos is a very good name for a dog.
- It's good, isn't it? - Asbestos! SHOUTS: As-bes-tos! The reason - My uncle had a dog named after Charlie Mingus, the jazz musician.
- Yeah.
Mingus.
Problem was, is that he's got the same accent as me.
He'd be in the Park, and he just be shouting, "Mingus! Mingus!" - And the The local girls thought that he was - Yeah, talking to them.
"Mingus!" "Piss off!" "Mingus!" "Who are you calling mingers?" - And it led to all sorts of problems.
- I'm sure it did.
Why do we think of the lashings of ginger beer? Because of The Comic Strip Presents Because The Comic Strip Presents, their first film was The Comic Strip Presents Five Go Mad In Dorset - It's very funny.
- .
.
and they kept going on about having lashings of ginger beer.
But in the actual books, there is no reference to lashings of ginger beer.
But in one of the books, Five Go Down To The Sea, they did arrive at a Cornish farm and immediately settled down to a high tea of lettuce, tomatoes, onions, radishes, mustard and cress, carrot grated up and lashings of hard-boiled eggs.
- Eggs! I was going to say eggs! - You were going to say that! They always go in to farmhouses and get free eggs.
The only lashings Enid Blyton gave The Famous Five were lashings of hard-boiled eggs.
- They never had lashings of ginger beer.
- That's a terrible picnic.
Who has onions at a picnic? It's very hard to lash an egg.
Unless you're in some sort of S&M thing with Humpty Dumpty.
That's why they couldn't put him back together again.
I'll give you 10 points if you can give me, within three, the number of books that Enid Blyton wrote a year.
- 42.
- You were damn close.
You were just out of range, I'm afraid.
She actually wrote 37 books a year.
And, talking of busy women, let's move on to another question here.
Why have we never heard of Harriet Quimby? - You've heard of Fred Quimby who produced the - Tom and Jerry.
- Tom and Jerry.
And Mayor Quimby in The Simpsons, but Harriet was the first American woman to become a licensed pilot, and the first woman to fly the English Channel.
But unfortunately, it just so happened her record-breaking flight didn't make the news because she completed it the day after the Titanic sank.
So, it just was a damp squib, to say the least.
She was famous in her day.
She was one of the very first screenwriters at the very beginning of Hollywood.
She wrote seven scenarios for the father of cinema, DW Griffith.
She died aged 37 at an aviation meet, sadly crashing.
But it was an impressive and a short and brilliant life.
Who was the first man to fly the Channel, do you remember? Oh, we all know him! We all know the MEN that fly the channel.
- A mean, I don't - Well, he was the first person.
LAUGHTER Louis Bleriot.
It was one of the great achievements.
He flew from England to France, but the French authorities, when he landed, didn't have a form, and so they signed him in as having landed on a yacht called Monoplane, because that's the best they could do.
It was a huge feat at the time, and it was a £1,000 prize offered by? - The Daily Mail? - Of course, the Daily Mail.
Well done.
Exactly.
But you know what, Harriet did that backwards and in heels.
- Exactly.
Very good.
Good point.
- Thank you.
I'm sure it was harder for her.
But it can be LAUGHTER It can be very difficult to die at the wrong time.
Can you think of people who died unfortunately on the same day as somebody even better known than themselves? Oh, I know! NEWS AT TEN THEME - Mother Teresa.
- Who died the same day as? - Diana.
The Princess of Wales.
Precisely, so she was not only below the fold, she was over the page.
- I only realised couple of months ago Mother Teresa was dead.
- Yes, yes.
- 22nd of November 1963.
Who died then? - Kennedy.
- Right, so, JFK.
That was obviously huge news, the American president dying.
As it happens, two very distinguished authors died on the same day.
Both British, as it happens.
CS Lewis and Aldous Huxley both died on the same day as Kennedy, so both got rather tiny-winy little obituaries.
So, moving on.
- What kind of hat did they wear in the Wild West? - 10 gallon hat.
ALARM RINGS Ten gallon hat? Five gallon hat? - No, no.
- Of course, cos now it's litres, isn't it? - 45 litre? - No litres or gallons.
- Was it a Stetson? Can I have Stetson? It wasn't Stetson, no.
ALARM RINGS - The most popular hat by far - ROSS: A cap, a flat cap.
- No.
- It was the, it was the - Say it.
- A bowler hat.
Yes, a bowler hat is the right answer.
APPLAUSE Far and away.
There we are.
We think of the bowler hat as the British businessman, but in fact it was THE preferred hat in the West.
That's a pretty wild bunch, there.
Butch Cassidy, seated front right.
Sundance Kid, Harry Longabaugh, of course, front left.
In fact, their pride in having their photographs taken with those hats was their undoing, because the Pinkerton agency reproduced the photographs and gave it to their agents, who tracked them down and killed them.
It was hat makers Thomas and William Bowler who created the hat, but they weren't known as bowler hats in America, nor are they to this day.
What do they call them? - AUDIENCE MEMBERS: Derbies.
- Derbies, yes.
"Darbies" or "derbies", yeah.
Bowlers basically were much more common in the Wild West than Stetsons.
Who fancies a shoot-out with a real, live vortex canon? I've given you one each.
You've got a box.
See that box, there? It's simply a box, all right? Now, the hole is where the vortex emerges, so if you lean it so that the hole is pointing at the target, all right? And basically, what you've got to do is smack the side of the box.
All right? After three, two, one Smack! - Very good.
There you are! - Wow! APPLAUSE LAUGHTER But what we can Yes.
What we can do, before you destroy the box, Before you destroy the box, you can do something even more exciting, and that is fill it with smoke, and it will demonstrate what, in fact, was happening with the air.
You should all have smoke machines.
LAUGHTER That's it, fill with smoke.
Fill it with smoke.
And now AUDIENCE GASPS Look! Look at that! Just a gentle tap.
That is a vortex, those beautiful smoke rings.
A lovely one, there.
I've got I've got an enormous cannon, here.
I'm going to fill mine with SMOKE MACHINE HISSES I'll see if I can get mine across the Across the room, here.
SHAPPI: You can even chase each other! Here we go.
I've got it the wrong way round.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE AUDIENCE GASPS We'll let the smoke drift a little.
Would anyone like a big dustbin? It's simply pressure of air creating this wonderful vortex.
- No it's not, it's magic.
- Nice one, Alan! Hey, with this kind of magic we could make the tiny people big again.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE Basically, ladies and gentlemen, that's it.
Hours of fun can be had - playing with your own home-made vortex canon.
- Quick! More smoke! And I suppose it must be time now for me to give the scores.
And how interesting they are.
In first place, with minus 5, is Ross Noble.
APPLAUSE DROWNS SPEECH Second equal with minus 6, Alan Davies and Johnny Vegas.
APPLAUSE And a slightly unhappy Shappi with minus 17.
APPLAUSE DROWNS SPEECH THEME MUSIC Those lovely smoke rings.
Lovely smoke rings.
So, that's all from Shappi, Johnny, Ross, Alan and me.
And I will leave you with this from Abraham Lincoln.
"The trouble with quotes taken from the Internet is that you can never know if they are genuine.
" Thank you and good night.
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING