QI (2003) s12e02 Episode Script

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Gooooodevening! Good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, and welcome to QI, where tonight, we'll be looking at the three L's.
That's Location, Location and Location.
And on the road to L are the fiendish Aisling Bea .
.
the diabolical Jason Manford .
.
the Mephistophelian Johnny Vegas .
.
and that infernal Alan Davies.
They all have satanic horns.
Aisling goes BIKE HORN TOOTS Oh! - Excuse me.
- Jason goes - CAR HORN HONKS - Classic.
Johnny goes TRUCK HORN BLASTS And Alan has a tail.
CHILD: "Are we nearly there yet?" Ah! Now, for your convenience, we have a lavatory on site.
GAMESHOW-STYLE JINGLE PLAYS TOILET FLUSHES This being the L series, there is a very good chance that there will be one question to which the answer will be lavatorial.
And if that is the case, you can play your Spend A Penny card.
And if you are right, you will get extra points, such is the nature of that particular joker.
Now, here's a question about a very special location.
What would you find at the exact centre of the observable universe? You? Well, oddly enoughpossibly.
- Norfolk.
- Norfolk! Yes.
There isn't a centre of the universe, really, so isn't the centre of the universe just the person who's lookingout? Because it must be the same You are so absolutely right, it hurts.
- .
.
in any direction? Yeah.
- That's brilliant.
APPLAUSE Never ends, never ends.
I remember, at school, them doing something with a balloon.
- Yes.
- The teacher, and he put loads of dots on a balloon andhe sort of said it was, like, the closest to explaining the universe as he could do.
That's absolutely right.
Although there has been an absolute statement of where the centre of the universe is, which is that it's at the meeting of Bank Street and Sixth Street in the town of Wallace, Idaho.
There it is - the centre of the universe.
- Is that the Mayor of Idaho, though? Has he said that? - Yeah.
- Well They're not doing well for tourism and gone, "Why don't we say the centre of the universe is here?" You're right.
He said it because there was no particular scientific evidence to say it wasn't the centre of the universe.
- So they decided - "We'll have it!" - We could say that of anywhere.
Americans like to stake a claim, they're land-grabbers.
- It's in their - Yeah.
.
.
in their DNA so to be, not that we weren't, in our colonial era, of course.
Isn't the sun the centre of the universe? STEPHEN LAUGHS Well Sorry, I don't know why I laughed like that.
What a way to build my confidence for the rest of the show(!) That was the most I thought that was a serious question, too, we both look to you and you looked at us like the peasants on the land, going, "Will we ever be free of this tyranny? "Ha-ha-ha! Never, never, never.
" "I'd like to go in the toilet, "but doesn't the Wickey Hole witch live there? "Oh, ha-ha-ha!" Well, I'm sorry that it sounded quite so patronising.
The centre of the universe is apparently Bank Street and Sixth Street in Wallace, Idaho.
- Or - The sun.
THEY CHUCKLE HAUGHTILY APPLAUSE You beasts, you beasts.
You unutterable beasts.
At the exact centre of the observable universe, you'll find the unbearable likeness of Johnny Vegas, or whoever happens to be observing it.
Now, if Johnny and Jason got naked, covered their legs LAUGHTER - Wow! - It's pretty good, isn't it? APPLAUSE - Wow.
- I know.
- I mean, I can't unsee that now I can't wait after the show to open wedding gifts together.
Be still, the beating hearts of the nation.
If they got naked, covered their legs in lard and put their hands on each other's shoulders, what could we expect to happen next? I would guess OFCOM would get involved.
- Something COM.
Yeah.
- Yeah.
I'd obviously be the - The bitch? - .
.
female in the relationship.
- You know, I'm the one who needs rescuing.
- The bottom.
Yeah.
ALAN: Why are their legs in lard? Are they going to slither about? Legs are important in this particular pursuit.
It's a red wine that we are about to trample the grapes for that you can also fry with.
I like the idea of that - Lancashire wine Yeah, it's the first kind of sipping lard.
Yes, that's right.
So you can have a glass and do your chips in it also.
- Available in every Yates's Wine Lodge.
Ooh.
- Yeah.
There'd be a rush, like at Christmas, when Jamie Oliver said to use goose fat, but this time, they'd be using comedians'dripping.
You'd go, "Do you know what? These potatoes taste a bit funny.
" Twice-fried Johnny dripping.
NORTHERN ACCENT: Now, we're in t'north and, um - You all right? - Yeah, I'm all right.
Sound like you've swallowed your tongue.
It's a pursuit in the north west.
JOHNNY: It's not shin-kicking? - Yes, it is shin-kicking.
- Ah! - You knew about shin-kicking.
I did, my uncle was one.
Wahey! Very good.
There you are.
I don't know if he left - did he bequeath you his pair of clogs? He was You know what, by the time I knew him, he was blind and spoke, like, pretty much nonsense in the corner.
But he was a phenomenal shin-kicker.
He was a very tough man and that was his pastime, shin-kicking.
- Is that a blade? - What is it? - Yes, it is.
- Wow.
- You take it in turns to kick each other in the shins as hard as you can.
And it's the first person to, to burst into Do you know what they cry if they give up? It's rather wonderful.
- You'd think it'd be, "I give in.
" Or, "Oh, stop it, no.
" - "Stop it.
" "Go on with your bother!" No It's - "Stop kicking me shin, you" - It's not that.
They shout, "Sufficient!" LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE That's the cry.
Oddly enough, that's my climax call.
"Sufficient!" Very good.
It's Now, I'd like to stress, there's no domestic violence involved.
- No, no.
- It's just that, we're not greedy in our nature up north.
I have to confess, I've never heard the phrase "climax call" before.
So it took a bit of time for me to understand what you were saying.
Forgive me for that.
- I think it's actually from bird watching.
- Is it? Did they rip the skin off each other's legs and stuff? - Oh, yeah.
- Oh, God! One of the reasons for larding the shins was in order to encourage a glancing blow, rather than a really vicious one.
But the skill was obviously to move your legs so that it was a glancing blow.
The more I get to know you, the more I think men are mad.
- I'm afraid you're right.
- They're always up to something ridiculous.
Kicking each other on the lardy shins - you're like Shin-kicking is probably what it was called on an everyday basis.
In the nineteenth century there was a special word for it, which was "purring" or "purrin".
"Purrin" or "porrin" or "parrin".
They seem to be all used.
Parrin, purrin - "parring", maybe, because you were parrying away.
Nobody quite knows, but anyway.
It was a popular pastime.
A lot of betting on it.
Yeah.
And there are shin-kickers to this day in the oldest Olympics Games since the Greek ones, which we've covered before, which are in the Cotswolds.
You can see Do they have a Channel 4 programme called Shin-Kickers' Wives? Where they're like, "Oh, my God, "he's making so much money kicking shins.
"I love him.
"I don't like his personality, but it's just the money.
" - Is he called the stickler? - He's the stickler, he's the umpire or referee.
- "A stickler for detail", is that where that comes from? - Exactly.
- I like that.
- You can probably see that he's got straw coming out of the bottom of his trousers and that's what they used.
They pad their shins.
They're not like tough northerners, they pad their shins.
Cos this is in the Cotswolds.
- Get a bit of lard on that, you soft lad.
- That's it.
Next thing you know, they'll be bringing in Crocs.
It'll be going on for nine days, your shin-kicking.
The Shin-Kicker's Association of Britain are known as SKAB, - you'll be pleased to know.
- Are they? - Perhaps appropriately.
And Johnny's uncle was one, which is jolly, we never knew that.
- Really impressive.
- Genuinely.
Shin-kicking was a popular sport in Lancashire pubs for 150 years.
Now here's a pub in Lancashire.
My question is how did Spanking Roger woo the ladies? - I know that pub.
- Do you know it? - Yeah, I do.
- Where is it? It's in like, I think it's in Kersal or Salford area.
It's Manchester area, quite right.
When I went to university - I know, I did - I lived in a place called Castle Irwell, which was a dog track before we - Destroyed it.
- It became a student village.
- Yes.
- Right.
But every year, there was a race down the hill naked.
- And they would run down.
- Yes.
Or rather all the blokes would.
I didn't, obviously, I didn't I'm a grower, not a shower.
And this pub was part I think the guy, Spanking Roger That's how he got his wife - there was something to do with his wife, where he was naked and she had a little look, he was quite well-endowed and thought, "I'll have him.
" You're right.
This naked running was on Kersal Moor.
Kersal Moor, which has now become Castle Irwell, which is now a student village.
Exactly.
We've got a picture as it used to be, which is beautiful.
It was much more of a shit-hole when I was there.
Now it's just vomit and empty Pringles tubes.
But hethat guy, Spanking Roger, even though it sounds like he was a bit of an idiot, he ended up being a big guy in the army.
LikeI think he defended Gibraltar or something like that.
Absolutely right.
He was the great hero of Gibraltar.
This is brilliant.
He's on fire! It's just round the corner from my house.
It's like watching Slumdog Millionaire or something like that, going, "How did you know that one?" We have rather It is your manor, isn't it? That's where I grew up, round the corner from there.
And he was a fascinating character, Spanking Roger, as he was known.
He was from Scotland, actually, in the Scots Dragoons.
And he came down, 6'4" high and of ample endowment, it seems, because he did do the naked run.
That's it, precisely.
That's why he was called Spanking Roger.
He could only do it in the summer when the slapping didn't hurt him quite so much.
- But he did catch the eye - Or the lard.
.
.
catch the eye of a 65-year-old widow, whom he married.
With his Literally? Yeah - caught her in the eye.
"My eye! My eye!" Her name was Minshull, Barbara Minshull.
That's right - the Minshull courts in Manchester and Minshull Street is wherewhere her family are from.
- She was a rich family, yeah.
- Yeah.
I think she died This is back in the 1760s when they married.
The next day, he was immediately betraying her, spending all her money.
He spent it on, essentially, he would have bare-knuckle fights.
If anybody beat him, they were, sort of, free, but if he beat them, he dragooned them, as it were.
Is that why he's called Spanking Roger? Yeah.
I mean, he's called Spanking Roger He spanked 'em, then you had to be in his army.
That's exactly the reason.
And life was extraordinary, because he, as you rightly say, was the hero of Gibraltar, with this dragooned army there.
It was the longest siege in British military history, held out for four years and kept the Rock, as we still have at time of going to press, unless the Spanish have had something to do with it.
His wife died, he got into terrible debt, came back impoverished.
Found another woman whom he married, she was Scottish.
And he died a very rich man indeed.
So he had a pretty splendid life.
A spanking life, in fact.
Why do they say "spanking" for "good", in England? "Spanking good time" and It's a very good point, isn't it? The great, much lamented Christopher Hitchens once said, "There is no surname in English that cannot be improved "by having the word Spanker put in front of it.
" Spanker Manford.
Spanker Vegas.
Spanker Bea.
Spanker Bea is terrific, isn't it? Yeah.
It would be hard to spank a bee.
- There's the queen bee.
- Yeah.
There's worker bees and then there's the spanker bees.
Spanker bee.
"I bumped into old Spanker Davies at the club the other day.
" Well, Spanking Roger didn't spank ladies - he spanked the French and the Spanish.
Roger was a strapping 6'4" with a Scottish accent, but what's short, talks gibberish and is much sought after in Merseyside? - Kevin Keegan.
- Johnny's uncle.
- Is it a Diddy Man? - It's not the Diddy Men, though, oddly enough, you could barely be closer.
In Liverpool, there was this - there it is in case you wanted to know what Merseyside looked like - ferry across the Mersey.
What's the largest, best-known ethnic minority in Liverpool, would you say? - Irish, I'd say.
- The Irish, of course.
Yes.
Because the Liverpool accent is very like the Dublin accent.
They're quite close to each other.
DUBLIN ACCENT: People talk like that.
LIVERPOOL ACCENT: All of a sudden, they're from Liverpool.
So if you go backwards you'll end up - Ken Doherty.
That's right.
- Yeah.
- Exactly.
- Irish, yes.
- So you've got Diddy Men and you've got Ireland.
Are you saying short, talking gibberish are Irish people? No.
But you've got Diddy Men, who are little people, little people created by Ken Dodd.
And you've got the Irish.
So it's not Diddy Men.
Leprechauns.
Leprechauns! Thank you very much, Johnny Vaughan - Johnny Vaughan?! - Johnny Vaughan? I'm so sorry Well, it was a particular event in 1964.
Thousands of Liverpudlian children streamed into the parks to look for leprechauns, because there was a rumour some had been seen, or one had been seen, or something, and they tore up plants and they ravaged the entire park system, for 11 or 12 days in July '64.
And then it just stopped, as suddenly as it had begun.
Can I just say, just to be a little bit of a nit-picker here? - Those are garden gnomes.
- Yeah, I know.
I feel very racially offended.
- Yes.
- You're a stickler.
I'll give you points if you tell me how a leprechaun should look? - How a leprechaun should look? - Yeah.
- He should lookcharming in the eye.
- Right.
He should have a sort of a jaunty gait about him.
- Right.
- And then a green hat and green outfit and you can only find one at the end of a rainbow.
- Should he be bearded? - Should he be bearded? If he's not bearded, it is just a child wearing an outfit, .
.
welcoming you to Ireland.
- It's got a big red bushy beard - A red beard.
- Because I've got one.
- Have you? Hmm.
- A big red bushy beard? - You've got a leprechaun? You can get them at Dublin Airport.
- A leprechaun? - If you press them on the tummy, they go, And Irish eyes are smiling It's one of the spookiest, scariest things.
My kids love it, but me and the wife are terrified.
Like a Chippy Doll? If anyone presses it And Irish eyes are smiling - Oh, horrible! - Yes.
You keep throwing it out the window and then it keeps on coming back in.
- I think it's supposed to be cute, but it's actually really like a horror film.
- Oh.
"Look at my lucky charms, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha" Oh, don't, oh! And it's got sort of an old man's voice in the distance.
I'll bring it in.
My kids have got a bear and it's got a red heart on it, and you press it and it glows.
And every so often you'll just hear it sort of, it'll go, "I love you.
" - And all, you know.
- Oh! "I can see you," or whatever.
The worst one is, "I see you.
" And I remember one night Oh, do you? No! I went to the toilet and in the middle of the night, half asleep, and the batteries were going on it.
I was sort ofall of a sudden, I just heard DISTORTED VOICE: "I see you" - That's very disturbing.
- Absolutely terrifying.
I wouldn't recover from that.
- Well, interesting.
- "I can see you" Who am I to tell you that you've got it slightly wrong - in what leprechauns look like, because - All right, Stephen.
No, I'm, I'm going by Look down upon me and tell me what we did wrong this time.
I'm going on early information, rather than late, you know, There are inventions which come from the 20th century, which include the fact that they wear green clothes and tall hats.
And they have ginger beards.
According to fairy legends and traditions of the south of Ireland from 1825, proper leprechauns - if there is such a thing - are all They have a trade - shoemakers.
They're all shoemakers.
And they are exclusively what? ALAN: White.
Yes.
They are.
They're exclusively white.
- And? - Old.
- Male? - Male.
- Male, oh.
- Is the right idea.
And there's the shamrock, of course.
There's a rule that an Irish person, "Never go into an Irish pub in America or London "that has a neon shamrock, "because it'll be crap.
" - Is that right? - Yeah.
- I mean, it would be a bit dodgy.
- Yeah.
- Any American sort of Irish pub.
- Yeah.
"Come on in to be sure "and you'll have a right old great craic of a time.
" That must be very annoying.
Yeah.
But this particular chase happened, as I say, in '64, but in 1982, a man called Brian, which is a good Irish name, told the Liverpool Echo that he had been working in the park when some children saw him and mocked him for his height, or rather lack of it.
And so, joining in the sport, he spoke in sort of "Ah-de-da-de-da-de-da!" Sort of Irish gibberish.
I know, I'm sorry, I'm doing what he did.
Threw sods of earth at them, and they ran away frightened, thinking he was a leprechaun.
Because they'd called him a leprechaun.
They said, "Oi, you! You're a leprechaun!" And he went, "I am that, da-de-da-de-da-de-da" And so they all said, "We saw a leprechaun, we saw" You know.
"Saw a real one, saw a real leprechaun, in the park.
" And so all these kids, were like, you know, they all invaded it.
It's like a lost episode of Brookside, this.
It is, isn't it? Where does it begin? But these particular things happen from time to time, these mass delusions, or whatever you might call them.
They're called the children's hunt, when they involve children.
So in 1964, as Beatlemania swept the world, leprechaun mania swept Liverpool.
Now, what would you do in 12th century London if you saw this man? It is a ghost.
Oh, you're spending a penny, are you? I'm going to spend my penny, yes.
Jason's spending his penny.
TOILET FLUSHES Must be.
You're absolutely right! Absolutely right.
Toilet, toilets.
You'd be like You'd put that round you.
- That's right.
Do you want to try it out? - Go on, then.
Is that man an old-fashioned portaloo? This is This is Steve, one of our most gifted intellectuals.
Intellectual elves.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE Can you pass me the newspaper? Pass the newspaper! And I believe there's an extra farthing for a happy ending, but the - Have you had sufficient? - Sufficient.
Sufficient! In the 12th century, there were those who were a little bit too, you know, a little bit pernickety and didn't want to be seen taking a poo in the street, as many did.
And so these gentlemen would come around with their big capes and allow you a little bit of privacy.
Did people used to just poo in the street? - Otherwise they would poo in the street.
- Would they? - Yeah.
Times have changed, haven't they, Stephen? They have, absolutely.
- Though there's a lot of peeing in the street, late at night.
- Yeah.
- A huge amount.
Yeah, and I'll admit to that.
But, you know Quite.
Needs must.
May I thank our senior elf, who has done something well beneath his huge dignity? Steve Colwen, ladies and gentlemen - thank you.
APPLAUSE Now it's time to get our kit off and frolic in the sub-zero temperatures of General Ignorance.
So fingers on buzzers if you would.
Which part of the world does the idea of eating frogs' legs come from? - CAR HORN TOOTS - Go on, Jason.
France.
Oh! Bless you.
Very sweet of you.
Yeah, it's all right.
Is it England? Yes! Bless my soul! Well done.
So far as we can tell, this is absolutely right.
There is evidence of the early Neolithic British eating frogs' legs in our most iconic memorial.
There it is.
Stone - look at it - Henge.
- Henge.
- Yeah, exactly.
What could be hengier or stonier? How many years ago? I'll give you a thousand either way, when we discovered - 4,000.
- 4,000.
It's about 9,000 years ago, that's to say, between 7,000 and 6,000 BC.
There is evidence, not just of eating Well, there's toads, but also, we've got three-course meal evidence.
Frogs with hazelnuts, followed by a fish course, followed by blackberries.
- That's not bad, is it? - Sounds nice.
That would see you through nicely, very healthy.
Very healthy.
To the nearestthousand tonnes, how many tonnes of frogs' legs do the French get through a year? Half a million tonnes.
It's between 3,000 and 4,000 tonnes.
It's still a fair quantity.
- Yeah.
- I thought they had massive frogs.
- It would be peculiar.
- The size of a man.
Now what's this? What's this? What's this? Pass it down.
Just tell me what it is, have a taste.
It's, I promise you, not poison, despite being green.
- It's not wasabi is it? - Not wasabi, is it? Wasabi, there we go! You would be served this if you were to go out around London and go to most Japanese restaurants, and we can have a taste and it'swoo! That is as close to wasabi as you could get without it being wasabi.
I nearly took a mouthful of that, you know, it's not a joke.
I can't take chilli, - but I can take as much mustard - I put a load in - because you said it wasn't - You said it's not wasabi! - It's not wasabi.
- Well it's I'll tell you what it is.
I'll tell you what it is.
It's killed a man over there.
This is not Jackass, it's QI! What you're eating there is horseradish.
- Horseradish.
- Now you may say wasabi is Japanese horseradish, but the wasabi you get sold in British restaurants is almost always ordinary British horseradish dyed green.
- No! - Yes.
Because real wasabi, although it's related to horseradish, it takes two years to mature and it's very expensive to transport.
So it's much easier to use the British stuff, which grows on railway sidings and is cheap as chips, to use that instead.
Do you know what, Stephen? That would have been lovely just if you'd explained it and used some bloody pictures! - I'm sorry.
- Rather than give us some and go, "Put that in your mouth!" - I'm so sorry.
- I'll swear to God - I mean, I can hear things like a dog does! It's done things in me head! I've been waiting all my life to become a superhero and all you had to do was give me a bloody spoonful of that! - Yeah.
It's opened - I'm seeing through walls! It's opened your Eustachian tube and your sinuses.
Oh, yeah, yeah, cancel my car, I'm flying home.
Oh, bless you.
Now shove your little dishes away, if you can.
You might want to keep them.
That's enough superpowers for one day.
I'm going to demonstrate something called the Leidenfrost Effect, named after a certain Dr Leidenfrost.
So allow me to present a tray, which may seem rather mysterious.
There we go.
Now, essentially, what the principle is - I'll explain it first and then you'll see it - is that when you drop some water on a very hot surface, it kind of beads into a little ball.
And goes around, it's often a way you test the heat of a frying pan or so on, or if you drop water accidentally onto a hotplate.
And if you allow this beading to take place on certain surfaces, the beading is sort of predictable and rather exciting.
And you can see a little bit of it on VT, in which the bead is going uphill.
There it's being dropped from a pipette onto a very hot, ridged, sort of, saw-toothed surface, and you can see the ball itself, that's how it That's how my sperm reacts with a ridged condom.
You may be wearing it inside out.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE Why have you got your sperm in a pipette? Sufficient, sufficient.
All right.
I have pipettes here, and this is room temperature.
I'm going to put it on here and you can see, as I drop the water, that it's just Nothing much happens.
But the beads go off and that's starting to boil and frizz.
And as it gets hotter, you will see the Leidenfrost effect of it.
Listen - you'd swear the women were watching the Chippendales.
"Ooh! Aah.
" Where it gets interesting is where these things have been left on the heat and so are already incredibly hot.
And this is a little concave thing, and we drop a bit in and it goes round and round and round and round.
Rather beautifully.
And now we've got another one with the saw-tooth that we saw climbing up, but this is a circular saw tooth and it should go round and round as well.
Whee! Incredible speed, look at that.
I don't know why young people have to go and, you know, play Grand Theft Auto, - when they've all this sort of craic to look forward to.
- I know, exactly.
Isn't it fun? And for the grand finale, you can see here, next to the hotplate, is We've got ourselves a sort of maze.
And let's see what happens here.
Cool! That's just water? It has a very predictable path and they go all the way round.
If they've got enough energy, they'll go round twice.
There you go.
Big fellow.
That's like chasing me dad round the shopping precinct.
"Don't abandon me!" - That's it, there you go.
- "I will make you proud.
"Dad? Dad, come back!" Thank you Kei Takashina from the University of Bath for the loan of this splendid equipment.
And that brings us to the sizzling scores.
Well, my word, we have a Well, I'm not surprised he's won, he's been on fire.
Despite one klaxon, a clear lead from Jason Manford, at plus three.
Oh, amazing.
That's really never happened before.
- Three for all that? - I know.
And in second place, that intellectual war horse, Johnny Vegas on two! APPLAUSE DROWNS SPEECH And a magnificent debut for Aisling Bea, on minus seven.
Come on, Ireland! Come on, Ireland.
But just pipping them in the L for Loser position is Alan Davies with minus 14.
Thank you very much.
That's all from Aisling, Johnny, Jason, Alan and me.
And I leave you with the rather poignant last words from Stan Laurel, who, when asked how he felt said, "I wish I was skiing.
" "Oh, Mr Laurel, do you ski?" replied the nurse.
"No," he said, "but I'd rather be skiing "than doing what I am doing.
" Good night.