QI (2003) s12e05 Episode Script
Lenses
Good evening, buona sera, bon soir, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, and welcome to QI, where tonight, we are looking at lungs, livers and other bits beginning with L.
Joining me are the luscious legs of Jo Brand.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE The lustrous locks of Phill Jupitus.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE The lovely larynx of Josh Widdicombe.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE And the lily-livered Alan Davies.
Thank you very much.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE So, let's examine your organs.
Jo goes FIRST FEW BARS OF TOCCATA AND FUGUE BY BACH Phill goes NEXT FEW BARS OF TOCCATA AND FUGUE BY BACH Josh goes NEXT FEW BARS OF TOCCATA AND FUGUE BY BACH And Alan goes.
LA CUCARACHA PLAYS ON ELECTRIC ORGAN LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE Anyway, in this L series, we have a special bonus, which is if there's a lavatorial question, it's a Spend A Penny.
There you go.
JAUNTY JINGLE, FLUSHING Because L is for lavatory, there may be a question which involves something lavatorial.
If you think you've spotted the question, wave your penny.
So, let's have a look at question one.
What was the problem with the first ever contact lenses? ORGAN MUSIC PLAYS Jo Brand? Were they made of hydrochloric acid? - LAUGHTER - That would have been a serious problem.
I presume they were massive and heavy and awkward and difficult? They were very awkward, massive and difficult.
I'll give you 20 years either way to say what year they first appeared.
ALAN AND JOSH: 1920.
Oh, that's weird.
- Whoa! Scary.
- That was odd! No, it's not that.
1880, actually.
It was in Germany, where they grind lenses extremely well.
And there was one pioneer called August Muller, who could only wear them for half an hour, and then only after he had used cocaine on his eyes to numb them.
- Because they were very painful.
- Worst excuse ever! - Yeah.
"Oh, my eyes, they're so" - "Mein augen!" Yeah.
- "Ooooh.
" LAUGHTER "Oh, my eyesight is so irritable and keen!" "My eyes are talking nonsense!" They used to saw off the bottom of test tubes and then grind them smooth and put them in.
They were used not for vision correction.
Originally, they were concealing eye damage and things like that, to protect sensitive eyes.
And then Was the eye damage caused by the contact lenses? Well, you'd think! But then, they got more sophisticated with it.
By the 1920s and '30s in America they were quite popular, but only with rich people.
- That's quite a big one, there.
- That is big.
LAUGHTER In the '20s and '30s they cost more than a car, one set.
So, it was only very rich daddies who would let Because their daughters didn't want to wear glasses.
And if you watch Hollywood movies of the '30s and '40s, you will see that no actress wears glasses, except an actress who is playing a part that is basically a librarian, a dowd, a frump, I'm not looking at you when I'm saying that.
LAUGHTER APPLAUSE IN AMERICAN ACCENT: "Why, Miss Quimby, you're beautiful!" Anyway, we have borrowed some objects from the world-famous British Optical Association Museum.
And you each have, and I'm going to start with Phill, you have an optical object and I'd like you to tell me what you think it might be.
Oh.
Right.
- Well, it's got a lovely leather surround.
- Yes.
- Right, so why would you want to see things this red? - Yeah.
Was it for nascent superhero Communist Man? LAUGHTER Are they literally rose-tinted glasses? Are you feeling? Ah, the '80s! The Style Council! LAUGHTER The Guardian with a decent LAUGHTER - Aaah.
- Araucaria, his crosswords were easy, then.
Oh! - As you can see, they look like flying goggles.
- Yeah, yeah.
And that's what they are, but they're not for flying.
- Then they're not flying goggles.
- Driving.
- Well, they, they are for - Don't be picky, he doesn't like that.
They are for pilots.
They're for night pilots.
- It's so they can acclimatise their eyes for darkness.
- Oh.
- Oh! I would say that rather they make everyone you bump into - look like a Dutch prostitute.
- Yeah, there is an element of that.
Dance for me, Stephen! Dance for me.
Oh! LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE You made me! All right.
You are a unique individual, if you don't mind me saying.
Have a go.
Why can't I dance without people laughing?! - I don't understand! - You bring joy, you're like I missed that lesson that everybody else went to at school where they were taught how to dance at a discotheque.
LAUGHTER Anyway, Alan, what have you got that's optical? - It looks like an ordinary pair of glasses.
- Yeah, it is.
- And it has three - Put them on and describe what you see.
LAUGHTER - You won't be surprised to hear that my vision is somewhat obscured.
- Yes.
LAUGHTER - But look at the audience.
- They make three And what do I? What can you see? Can you see me? They're kind of like binoculars, where you can see - Can you see me doing anything? - No.
Are they not working, Alan? Dance.
Dance! Whoa! LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE Are they meant to be for peripheral vision? - They were designed for drivers who had - Jesus! LAUGHTER .
.
who had bad eyesight and it was to improve their peripheral vision.
But it clearly doesn't work! There'd be no chance of driving in these! You'd just be like that all the time! LAUGHTER Well, that's unfortunate.
Well, but thank you for trying them, and next up is Josh.
- What have you got? - They're very fashionable, aren't they? If I were to tell you that these are, despite their modern look, they're actually way over 100 years old.
They're mid-19th century.
From the open carriage days of railways onwards, because of steam, smuts, so on, people got really stung in the eyes.
- And these were railway spectacles.
- I'm sorry, who's speaking now? LAUGHTER That makes no sense! And yet, it's funny.
I think I could tell what they do better, Josh, if you'd dance for me.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE - Never got that reaction before! - Yeah.
Jo, it's your turn.
Oh, you've got a bonnet.
Lovely bonnet.
Oh, and something hanging from it, there you are.
How cool is that? That's great, isn't it? You are Mrs Norris in Mansfield Park.
It's a Jane Austen moment.
"Holmes, I never realised it was you!" If there had been a character from Mansfield Park in Colditz, she Yes.
"So, you vish to escape from mein prison camp.
"Not before we have done a little embroidery, no?" LAUGHTER I think it's more sort of Dickensian, isn't it? Like Mrs Gamp, the Elderly Prostitute.
"I say, sir, let me see your penis.
" Now, this is what these goggles were for! She's got the idea, that one! These are definitely Dutch.
- Right.
I'm going to have to - Even with my monocle, it's awfully small.
Oh! - You know how to make a man feel very, very unhappy.
- Come on.
So, good, excellent! Name something this lizard is doing as well as running.
LAUGHTER ORGAN MUSIC PLAYS Yes, Josh? Is he worrying what's wrong with his legs? He might be.
I don't think lizards ever worry.
He looks quite cheerful.
- What might he be doing, what do all animals do, virtually? - Hunting? - Hunting, yeah.
- Sniffing.
- Sniffing, what does that involve? - Breathing.
- Well, uses its tongue.
- What do you mean, what does it involve? - Breathing? - Breathing, Josh said.
- KLAXON SOUNDS Oh! Sorry.
I was cruel, I pushed you on that.
He's not breathing.
That's the strange thing about lizards, they have to twist their bodies so much that it compresses their lungs and they can't breathe.
So, they do a bit of a run and then they stop, as we'll see.
He's running, running, running, not breathing at all, and then he thinks, "Oh, blimey, I need some oxygen!" - He'll stop.
- STEPHEN PANTS It's only when he's straight, only when he's heteros No, that he can, that's just silly, makes no sense.
- That he can breathe.
- You were like the Oxbridge Johnny Morris, then.
"He's running along, baaa, oh, no.
" But we have an example.
The fastest humans on earth run which race? - 100 metres.
- The 100 metres, and it's said that some 100-metres sprinters don't breathe throughout the race.
I mean, they obviously take gulps in, oxygenate themselves, get all ready, like that, and then they're running and And you see them in slow motion, going And then lower down, "Phedabida, phedabida, phedabida.
" And, um LAUGHTER - Is that the noise it makes? - That's the noise it makes.
- Wow.
When it reaches 20mph, that's the noise it starts to make.
Yeah, exactly.
"Phedabida"! Doo doo, do-do-do.
LAUGHTER - I've got a thing.
Has anyone else got - Have you, darling? - LAUGHTER - And it goes "phedabida".
LAUGHTER - I can't walk and drink at the same time.
- Ah.
I really struggle with it.
- Is that normal? - No, I think it is.
Who wants to throw in their Well, I think you'd have to go slowly, because the motion creates a wave that will slop over the side of the glass.
It's just physics.
LAUGHTER Yeah, the ability to do two things at once.
We can ask the audience and we can ask you, it's easier for the audience because of the way they're sitting down.
All you have to do is revolve your right foot clockwise.
That's easy, isn't it? And then, with your right hand, make a 6.
Is your foot suddenly going anticlockwise? - Oh, wow! That's weird! - Oh, I don't like that.
- Isn't that extraordinary! What was it? What foot? Right foot.
That's weird.
- Right foot clockwise.
- Yeah.
- And then do a 6.
- You have to think about it.
- You really do, don't you? - Oh! Oh! That was instant! You really have to think about it to the point where you nearly break your foot off.
You forget what's clockwise.
And you start going up and down and not Argh, argh, no! - I'm absolutely fighting it! - You're in agony.
But I couldn't do the 6, I couldn't finish the 6.
I just did a C.
Yes.
Exactly.
It's a bitch, isn't it? It's really fascinating.
Oh, I'm going to remember that one.
People say, what do you remember from QI? And I remember nothing! - Even if you watch your foot.
- Yeah.
I mean, this isn't great television, what I'm doing at this moment.
You can raise your foot, put your foot on the desk if you want to.
- Right, so, glad I wore my natty socks today.
- Yeah, they've very natty.
LAUGHTER Argh! It is fascinating, isn't it? Lizards can't breathe and walk at the same time.
And our audience are even worse.
Lizards have four legs, but what's got eight legs, sits in the middle of a spider's web, but is not a spider? ORGAN MUSIC PLAYS - Jo Brand? - One and a half flies.
LAUGHTER And the half a fly has lost a leg.
Wouldn't that be nine legs? No, and the half has lost a leg, that's been eaten.
- In theory, that is right.
- If Yes, why Don't you hate it when you try and help a spider and it resists you, and then one of its legs comes off.
- Don't you hate that? - That is so annoying! Just get on the paper! And daddy-longlegs, they're even worse.
- Yeah, they are.
- You'd think the spider could do the six and the clockwise with its two legs.
It probably can, easily.
Yeah, it's laughing up its sleeve at us, if they have sleeves, eight sleeves, it's laughing up its eight sleeves.
This does seem very bizarre.
It sits in the middle of a web, has eight legs, looks exactly like a spider, but it isn't a spider.
Is it an unlucky octopus? - A beached octopus.
- A beached octopus! - Well, given - Is it some sort of predator that wants to eat spiders? - Is it one of those? - Actually, it's the reverse.
It's a spider that wants to DETER predators, so it creates a fake spider.
- Shut up! - There.
That's made of its dead skin, it's made of leaf mould.
It's made of all kinds of bits and pieces.
There you can see the sort of body, you can only see four of the legs there, it's already making a woman in the audience wet herself.
LAUGHTER - Did someone just make that? - A spider did.
- Oh, is that real? - Spiders make them.
That's the point, they make them.
- Is that to scale? - Well, it's Almost, in the sense that it's five times bigger than the actual spider.
So, the spider is quite small and it makes this enormous spider, and sometimes, it lives in a pouch in the abdomen, and no-one's quite sure why.
They think it may be to deter predators, because it looks too big, or it may be to suggest to other spiders that you can't steal this web, - because it's occupied.
- It's like a scarecrow, really, isn't it? Basically, yeah.
Or turning your lights on in your house to deter burglars off.
- It may just be a hobby.
- Yes.
LAUGHTER When your life is sitting in the corner of a shed eating flies - You need a hobby.
- You've got to have something, haven't you? It is in the middle of the Peruvian jungle, where there are not so many sheds.
- They don't even eat them, do they? They drink them.
- Do they not? Because they wrap them up in their silky web and then the prey dissolves into a fluid and then they suck it when it's a liquid thing.
- "Hmm, that's good eatin'.
" Yeah, isn't it? - Yeah.
The amazing thing is, and this is really extraordinary, is that another species of spider altogether, as far away as you can virtually get on the planet, across from Peru in the Philippines, does almost exactly the same thing and nobody knows if that's convergent evolution or whether it's It would be a weird raft that managed to get all the way across that amount of water.
- It's just God, Stephen, it's just God.
- Just God.
LAUGHTER I overlooked that possibility.
- Mysterious ways, mysterious ways.
- Very mysterious ways.
So, that's the Peruvian spider that makes huge models of itself.
Are those spiders to scale? LAUGHTER Because, I'm telling you now, Japan are going to be all over that.
- IN JAPANESE ACCENT: - "Oh, no! Giant spider, no!" I quite like this map behind Alan, because it looks like "And now the spider forecast with Alan Davies.
"South America, large, red.
" It's like when you're on a plane and they have the map with the little plane, if you turned it on and it was that, you'd shit yourself.
It always has such random cities on it, as well, doesn't it? - It doesn't have like Paris, Rome, Venice.
- Yeah, King's Lynn! LAUGHTER Yeah, exactly, it's very strange.
I never quite understood that.
Very peculiar.
Anyway! Peruvian spiders make huge models of themselves and put them in the middle of their webs.
Speaking of things with lots of legs, why can I never seem to catch the perfect centipede? ORGAN MUSIC PLAYS - Yes, Jo? - Is it because you're too pissed all the time? LAUGHTER - Why, thank you for that.
- Just a guess.
- A lucky guess! - Is it because nobody's perfect? LAUGHTER That's a lovely point.
No, it's really because if you chase them - and you start to try and catch them - Their legs fall off.
- They jettison legs.
- They throw them at you.
- Well, they kind of do.
LAUGHTER That's basically what they do! Exactly! LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE - They do! You've got it.
That's what they do.
- APPLAUSE In order to distract a predator, they jettison their legs.
So, it stops, the predator will go, "Ooh, I'll have an eat of that leg," and meanwhile, they're haring off.
- God's weird, isn't he? - He really is.
A strange fellow.
Very strange fellow.
Yeah, so there you go.
It's called autotomy.
And speaking of abandoned body parts, which body part beginning with L did Queen Victoria leave with the Empress of France? There's Queen Victoria, and there's the - I was going to say labia and that would be just awful.
- I know.
What were you going to say? - KLAXON SOUNDS - Oh! CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Oh, dear, dear, dear, dear, dear.
- Is it her little finger? - Liver, larynx.
- Is it a lock of hair? - Lock of hair is the right answer! - CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Brilliant! But she virtually invented this sort of Victorian sentimental obsession with locks of hair.
When her husband died, she kept lots of Albert's hair.
It's an astonishing gift.
But this was what Victorians were obsessed with.
Knitting, braiding, plaiting, making things out of hair.
Artists powdered hair down.
Do you remember those things, as a child, where you would put glue, like Pritt, the non-sticky sticky stuff on it, and then you would sprinkle glitter? Do you remember that? - Copydex.
- Or Copydex you could use, which smelt slightly chlorinous - and was a wonderfully - Semen.
LAUGHTER - Not angry.
- Disappointed.
LAUGHTER Disappointed.
Dear me.
Oh, well.
Yeah.
That's what artists would do, they would put glue on and then they'd sprinkle the powdered hair.
So, hair was a big kind of deal.
Lord Byron was considered the most handsome and extraordinary figure.
There you can see a little locket hanging Although it's beautifully made as a braid and with gold, as you can see, and that can be made to fit into a waistcoat or something, for a man's "Here you go, Lady Casterby, this watch chain is made of my pubes.
"Ha-ha! And now a poem!" LAUGHTER Well, Lord Byron didn't necessarily give his own hair away, it's that he was so handsome and so adored that - LAUGHTER - That's a painting! But what is wrong with his hands? It was generally agreed by all who met and knew him, he was a hugely charming man.
- According to his own diaries anyway.
- Lady Tappleton No, no, he had Letters were written to him, women sent him locks of their own hair.
And he used locks of his Newfoundland dog, which he sent back to the women, which they didn't notice, they thought it was Byron's hair.
"Lady Suffolk, I apologise for giving you mange "with my latest gift.
But meanwhile, "I shall come round to your house and I shall rotate "my right foot and draw a 6 in the air.
Ha-ha! Poem?" There's a good reason why that might have been difficult for Lord Byron.
- Oh, of course, yes, yes.
- He had a dodgy foot.
Despite that, he managed to achieve a great athletic feat.
- He swam.
- He swam the? - Hellespont.
- Straights of somewhere.
- The Hellespont! You know these things, you pretend to be an ignorant pig.
LAUGHTER - I only went - I mean, sorry! You pretend - An ignorant what? No, I meant to say you pretend to be pig-ignorant! - LAUGHTER - And it came out wrong.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE Do you know what I'm going to do with you? I'm going to make you run across a field and I'm going to pull your legs and arms off.
I don't want to lower the tone, but didn't Lady Caroline Lamb - pull out handfuls of her pubic hair and send them to Byron? - Yes.
And she was responsible for the most famous description of him.
- Yes.
- "Mad, bad and dangerous to know.
" - "Dangerous to have tea with.
" - Yeah.
Anyway, the Empress Eugenie, her name was, and she was the wife of Napoleon III.
There's Eugenie.
She had a fantastic real name.
Dona Maria Eugenia Ignacia Augustina de Palafox-Portocrarrero de Guzman y Kirkpatrick.
- That was her name.
- Kirkpatrick.
- Yeah.
- APPLAUSE - Thank you.
- Crikey.
But what was very pleasing is that she was known as "Carrots".
Because that was her nickname at school in Bristol, where she lived, and she died in Britain as well.
I had no idea that we had a Hipster Napoleon.
- Yeah, he was a hipster, yeah.
- Check him out.
- Yeah, he's pretty good.
- "Er, can I have a flat white, please?" LAUGHTER No, the jacket, I got it in this vintage place, it's great.
Yes.
Queen Victoria gave the Empress of France a bracelet made of her own hair.
Now, what did Georgian gentlemen keep in the sideboard - for after dinner? - Small Georgian ladies.
- After Eights.
- After Eights! LAUGHTER Porn.
After 1713, it would be.
Porn.
Well, actually, it was something that disgusted a French observer and he wrote about it in a letter.
So, you've got a chance here for serious points.
Ah, Alan, quickly.
Shut up, he's done it before me! JAUNTY JINGLE, FLUSHING Oh, there we are, two of you, three of you.
You've all got to get the points except Jo.
The fact is, it was chamber pots.
It was Rochefoucauld, not the famous Rochefoucauld, but another Rochefoucauld, Francois de la Rochefoucauld, who wrote in his diary "The sideboard" This was in Suffolk, in 1784, "The sideboard is garnished also with chamber pots in line "with the common practice of going over to the sideboard to pee, "while the others are drinking.
"Nothing is hidden.
I find that very indecent.
" Chamber pots lasted well into the because there were many households that weren't on mains supplies.
- Many of them - They didn't have a WC.
- Exactly, they had outdoor loos and they popped a chamber pot under the bed.
And chamber pots were, I won't say exactly witty, but they had things written on them which were quite surprising, really, thinking of a previous age where you imagine people were rather more prudish.
Look at these.
"Use me well and keep me clean.
"And I'll not tell what I have seen.
" So, you pooed onto an eye.
Or you peed onto an eye.
And there were some during the Second World War that had a picture of Hitler, so you could poo on Hitler's face.
Which is pleasing in a way.
That's your chamber pot.
Now, it's time to dip the crouton of confidence into the all-melting fondue of General Ignorance.
Who sat in the middle at the Last Supper? - SPANISH ACCENT: Jesus.
- Jesus? - Oh KLAXON SOUNDS No matter how you pronounce it, it wasn't he.
- Judas.
- Nor was it Judas, the traitor.
- Peter.
- No-one.
Nor was it Peter.
No-one is the right answer.
No-one's in the middle.
No, it's not that no-one was in the middle, - it's that no-one sat.
- Oh, shut up, they're all standing! - Yes.
LAUGHTER No, they're not standing.
Shut up! You shut up! LAUGHTER I don't shut up, you shut up! LAUGHTER You don't tell me to shut up! No, the Stop, stop it now! Just stop it now! The thing is, in Palestine, which was a Roman province, they ate like Romans.
They lay on their stomachs like Romans.
That can't be good for digestion! No, you'd think not, but we know that's the way they ate, more or less, because in the Bible, "Now there was one leaning on Jesus' bosom, "one of his Disciples whom Jesus loved.
" And that, you see how that would have worked.
That's how they lay to eat.
Rather pleasing.
- Very odd, though.
- A bit odd, to us, because we don't do that.
Even in a picnic, you wouldn't want to be lying on your front.
I agree.
I don't like it.
I can't even, you know, a hot chocolate in bed I have to sit up in order to swallow it.
LAUGHTER There's nothing There is nothing about that that is anything other than straightforward! We were just immediately thinking of the man who sang Brother Louis in the '70s, that's all we were thinking.
- # I believe in # - # I believe in miracles.
# I'll have to sit up now! LAUGHTER Oh, Lordy, Lordy, bless.
Now, nobody sat anywhere at the last supper, everyone was lying down.
Well, now, who's in charge of all the ants? Adam.
LAUGHTER - KLAXON SOUNDS - Very good, but No! - Yeah.
We were there before you, I'm afraid.
- Is it a queen? A queen ant, that's going to get a klaxon, as well.
- KLAXON SOUNDS - Oh.
Is it something like the weather or the climate or something? The weather probably is as good an answer as any.
And they don't control themselves.
The fact is, they are a self-organising colony.
There is no leader.
But there's the queen.
All the queen does is lay thousands and thousands and thousands of eggs in her life and then dies of exhaustion.
And the ants just get on with being ants and there are just signals sent between each one that somehow sort of ripple outwards into what appears to be organisation.
But it's a bit like flocks of starlings or shoals of mackerel that have this incredible sort of You think, what's the intelligence behind this? It's like the Tartan Army.
LAUGHTER No-one knows how they do it, but they do it.
They somehow do it.
Exactly.
The way, at a football match, a chant will grow and then suddenly die.
You think that's, who's organising that, and no-one is.
It's just a sort of feature of large groups.
It's very odd.
And that's true of ants, who are, you know, and termites.
They love football, don't they? They love football.
They do indeed.
North Ants, in particular.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE It seems there's no-one in charge of the ants, but there is someone in charge of the scores, and that's me or I.
And it's very interesting, because in first place, with a positive integer, one point, Phill Jupitus.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE On minus 6, in second place, Jo Brand.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Highly respectable, for him, it's a triumph, on minus 26, Alan Davies.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE So, now, looky here, on minus 30, Josh Widdicombe! CHEERING AND APPLAUSE And so, it's thanks and good night from Josh, Phill, Jo, Alan and me.
And we leave you with some last words.
The last words of American murderer, James Allen Red Dog, executed in 1993.
"I'd like to thank my family and friends and Mr Pankowski "for supporting me and all the others who treated me with kindness.
"For the rest of you, y'all can kiss my ass.
" Good night.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Joining me are the luscious legs of Jo Brand.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE The lustrous locks of Phill Jupitus.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE The lovely larynx of Josh Widdicombe.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE And the lily-livered Alan Davies.
Thank you very much.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE So, let's examine your organs.
Jo goes FIRST FEW BARS OF TOCCATA AND FUGUE BY BACH Phill goes NEXT FEW BARS OF TOCCATA AND FUGUE BY BACH Josh goes NEXT FEW BARS OF TOCCATA AND FUGUE BY BACH And Alan goes.
LA CUCARACHA PLAYS ON ELECTRIC ORGAN LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE Anyway, in this L series, we have a special bonus, which is if there's a lavatorial question, it's a Spend A Penny.
There you go.
JAUNTY JINGLE, FLUSHING Because L is for lavatory, there may be a question which involves something lavatorial.
If you think you've spotted the question, wave your penny.
So, let's have a look at question one.
What was the problem with the first ever contact lenses? ORGAN MUSIC PLAYS Jo Brand? Were they made of hydrochloric acid? - LAUGHTER - That would have been a serious problem.
I presume they were massive and heavy and awkward and difficult? They were very awkward, massive and difficult.
I'll give you 20 years either way to say what year they first appeared.
ALAN AND JOSH: 1920.
Oh, that's weird.
- Whoa! Scary.
- That was odd! No, it's not that.
1880, actually.
It was in Germany, where they grind lenses extremely well.
And there was one pioneer called August Muller, who could only wear them for half an hour, and then only after he had used cocaine on his eyes to numb them.
- Because they were very painful.
- Worst excuse ever! - Yeah.
"Oh, my eyes, they're so" - "Mein augen!" Yeah.
- "Ooooh.
" LAUGHTER "Oh, my eyesight is so irritable and keen!" "My eyes are talking nonsense!" They used to saw off the bottom of test tubes and then grind them smooth and put them in.
They were used not for vision correction.
Originally, they were concealing eye damage and things like that, to protect sensitive eyes.
And then Was the eye damage caused by the contact lenses? Well, you'd think! But then, they got more sophisticated with it.
By the 1920s and '30s in America they were quite popular, but only with rich people.
- That's quite a big one, there.
- That is big.
LAUGHTER In the '20s and '30s they cost more than a car, one set.
So, it was only very rich daddies who would let Because their daughters didn't want to wear glasses.
And if you watch Hollywood movies of the '30s and '40s, you will see that no actress wears glasses, except an actress who is playing a part that is basically a librarian, a dowd, a frump, I'm not looking at you when I'm saying that.
LAUGHTER APPLAUSE IN AMERICAN ACCENT: "Why, Miss Quimby, you're beautiful!" Anyway, we have borrowed some objects from the world-famous British Optical Association Museum.
And you each have, and I'm going to start with Phill, you have an optical object and I'd like you to tell me what you think it might be.
Oh.
Right.
- Well, it's got a lovely leather surround.
- Yes.
- Right, so why would you want to see things this red? - Yeah.
Was it for nascent superhero Communist Man? LAUGHTER Are they literally rose-tinted glasses? Are you feeling? Ah, the '80s! The Style Council! LAUGHTER The Guardian with a decent LAUGHTER - Aaah.
- Araucaria, his crosswords were easy, then.
Oh! - As you can see, they look like flying goggles.
- Yeah, yeah.
And that's what they are, but they're not for flying.
- Then they're not flying goggles.
- Driving.
- Well, they, they are for - Don't be picky, he doesn't like that.
They are for pilots.
They're for night pilots.
- It's so they can acclimatise their eyes for darkness.
- Oh.
- Oh! I would say that rather they make everyone you bump into - look like a Dutch prostitute.
- Yeah, there is an element of that.
Dance for me, Stephen! Dance for me.
Oh! LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE You made me! All right.
You are a unique individual, if you don't mind me saying.
Have a go.
Why can't I dance without people laughing?! - I don't understand! - You bring joy, you're like I missed that lesson that everybody else went to at school where they were taught how to dance at a discotheque.
LAUGHTER Anyway, Alan, what have you got that's optical? - It looks like an ordinary pair of glasses.
- Yeah, it is.
- And it has three - Put them on and describe what you see.
LAUGHTER - You won't be surprised to hear that my vision is somewhat obscured.
- Yes.
LAUGHTER - But look at the audience.
- They make three And what do I? What can you see? Can you see me? They're kind of like binoculars, where you can see - Can you see me doing anything? - No.
Are they not working, Alan? Dance.
Dance! Whoa! LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE Are they meant to be for peripheral vision? - They were designed for drivers who had - Jesus! LAUGHTER .
.
who had bad eyesight and it was to improve their peripheral vision.
But it clearly doesn't work! There'd be no chance of driving in these! You'd just be like that all the time! LAUGHTER Well, that's unfortunate.
Well, but thank you for trying them, and next up is Josh.
- What have you got? - They're very fashionable, aren't they? If I were to tell you that these are, despite their modern look, they're actually way over 100 years old.
They're mid-19th century.
From the open carriage days of railways onwards, because of steam, smuts, so on, people got really stung in the eyes.
- And these were railway spectacles.
- I'm sorry, who's speaking now? LAUGHTER That makes no sense! And yet, it's funny.
I think I could tell what they do better, Josh, if you'd dance for me.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE - Never got that reaction before! - Yeah.
Jo, it's your turn.
Oh, you've got a bonnet.
Lovely bonnet.
Oh, and something hanging from it, there you are.
How cool is that? That's great, isn't it? You are Mrs Norris in Mansfield Park.
It's a Jane Austen moment.
"Holmes, I never realised it was you!" If there had been a character from Mansfield Park in Colditz, she Yes.
"So, you vish to escape from mein prison camp.
"Not before we have done a little embroidery, no?" LAUGHTER I think it's more sort of Dickensian, isn't it? Like Mrs Gamp, the Elderly Prostitute.
"I say, sir, let me see your penis.
" Now, this is what these goggles were for! She's got the idea, that one! These are definitely Dutch.
- Right.
I'm going to have to - Even with my monocle, it's awfully small.
Oh! - You know how to make a man feel very, very unhappy.
- Come on.
So, good, excellent! Name something this lizard is doing as well as running.
LAUGHTER ORGAN MUSIC PLAYS Yes, Josh? Is he worrying what's wrong with his legs? He might be.
I don't think lizards ever worry.
He looks quite cheerful.
- What might he be doing, what do all animals do, virtually? - Hunting? - Hunting, yeah.
- Sniffing.
- Sniffing, what does that involve? - Breathing.
- Well, uses its tongue.
- What do you mean, what does it involve? - Breathing? - Breathing, Josh said.
- KLAXON SOUNDS Oh! Sorry.
I was cruel, I pushed you on that.
He's not breathing.
That's the strange thing about lizards, they have to twist their bodies so much that it compresses their lungs and they can't breathe.
So, they do a bit of a run and then they stop, as we'll see.
He's running, running, running, not breathing at all, and then he thinks, "Oh, blimey, I need some oxygen!" - He'll stop.
- STEPHEN PANTS It's only when he's straight, only when he's heteros No, that he can, that's just silly, makes no sense.
- That he can breathe.
- You were like the Oxbridge Johnny Morris, then.
"He's running along, baaa, oh, no.
" But we have an example.
The fastest humans on earth run which race? - 100 metres.
- The 100 metres, and it's said that some 100-metres sprinters don't breathe throughout the race.
I mean, they obviously take gulps in, oxygenate themselves, get all ready, like that, and then they're running and And you see them in slow motion, going And then lower down, "Phedabida, phedabida, phedabida.
" And, um LAUGHTER - Is that the noise it makes? - That's the noise it makes.
- Wow.
When it reaches 20mph, that's the noise it starts to make.
Yeah, exactly.
"Phedabida"! Doo doo, do-do-do.
LAUGHTER - I've got a thing.
Has anyone else got - Have you, darling? - LAUGHTER - And it goes "phedabida".
LAUGHTER - I can't walk and drink at the same time.
- Ah.
I really struggle with it.
- Is that normal? - No, I think it is.
Who wants to throw in their Well, I think you'd have to go slowly, because the motion creates a wave that will slop over the side of the glass.
It's just physics.
LAUGHTER Yeah, the ability to do two things at once.
We can ask the audience and we can ask you, it's easier for the audience because of the way they're sitting down.
All you have to do is revolve your right foot clockwise.
That's easy, isn't it? And then, with your right hand, make a 6.
Is your foot suddenly going anticlockwise? - Oh, wow! That's weird! - Oh, I don't like that.
- Isn't that extraordinary! What was it? What foot? Right foot.
That's weird.
- Right foot clockwise.
- Yeah.
- And then do a 6.
- You have to think about it.
- You really do, don't you? - Oh! Oh! That was instant! You really have to think about it to the point where you nearly break your foot off.
You forget what's clockwise.
And you start going up and down and not Argh, argh, no! - I'm absolutely fighting it! - You're in agony.
But I couldn't do the 6, I couldn't finish the 6.
I just did a C.
Yes.
Exactly.
It's a bitch, isn't it? It's really fascinating.
Oh, I'm going to remember that one.
People say, what do you remember from QI? And I remember nothing! - Even if you watch your foot.
- Yeah.
I mean, this isn't great television, what I'm doing at this moment.
You can raise your foot, put your foot on the desk if you want to.
- Right, so, glad I wore my natty socks today.
- Yeah, they've very natty.
LAUGHTER Argh! It is fascinating, isn't it? Lizards can't breathe and walk at the same time.
And our audience are even worse.
Lizards have four legs, but what's got eight legs, sits in the middle of a spider's web, but is not a spider? ORGAN MUSIC PLAYS - Jo Brand? - One and a half flies.
LAUGHTER And the half a fly has lost a leg.
Wouldn't that be nine legs? No, and the half has lost a leg, that's been eaten.
- In theory, that is right.
- If Yes, why Don't you hate it when you try and help a spider and it resists you, and then one of its legs comes off.
- Don't you hate that? - That is so annoying! Just get on the paper! And daddy-longlegs, they're even worse.
- Yeah, they are.
- You'd think the spider could do the six and the clockwise with its two legs.
It probably can, easily.
Yeah, it's laughing up its sleeve at us, if they have sleeves, eight sleeves, it's laughing up its eight sleeves.
This does seem very bizarre.
It sits in the middle of a web, has eight legs, looks exactly like a spider, but it isn't a spider.
Is it an unlucky octopus? - A beached octopus.
- A beached octopus! - Well, given - Is it some sort of predator that wants to eat spiders? - Is it one of those? - Actually, it's the reverse.
It's a spider that wants to DETER predators, so it creates a fake spider.
- Shut up! - There.
That's made of its dead skin, it's made of leaf mould.
It's made of all kinds of bits and pieces.
There you can see the sort of body, you can only see four of the legs there, it's already making a woman in the audience wet herself.
LAUGHTER - Did someone just make that? - A spider did.
- Oh, is that real? - Spiders make them.
That's the point, they make them.
- Is that to scale? - Well, it's Almost, in the sense that it's five times bigger than the actual spider.
So, the spider is quite small and it makes this enormous spider, and sometimes, it lives in a pouch in the abdomen, and no-one's quite sure why.
They think it may be to deter predators, because it looks too big, or it may be to suggest to other spiders that you can't steal this web, - because it's occupied.
- It's like a scarecrow, really, isn't it? Basically, yeah.
Or turning your lights on in your house to deter burglars off.
- It may just be a hobby.
- Yes.
LAUGHTER When your life is sitting in the corner of a shed eating flies - You need a hobby.
- You've got to have something, haven't you? It is in the middle of the Peruvian jungle, where there are not so many sheds.
- They don't even eat them, do they? They drink them.
- Do they not? Because they wrap them up in their silky web and then the prey dissolves into a fluid and then they suck it when it's a liquid thing.
- "Hmm, that's good eatin'.
" Yeah, isn't it? - Yeah.
The amazing thing is, and this is really extraordinary, is that another species of spider altogether, as far away as you can virtually get on the planet, across from Peru in the Philippines, does almost exactly the same thing and nobody knows if that's convergent evolution or whether it's It would be a weird raft that managed to get all the way across that amount of water.
- It's just God, Stephen, it's just God.
- Just God.
LAUGHTER I overlooked that possibility.
- Mysterious ways, mysterious ways.
- Very mysterious ways.
So, that's the Peruvian spider that makes huge models of itself.
Are those spiders to scale? LAUGHTER Because, I'm telling you now, Japan are going to be all over that.
- IN JAPANESE ACCENT: - "Oh, no! Giant spider, no!" I quite like this map behind Alan, because it looks like "And now the spider forecast with Alan Davies.
"South America, large, red.
" It's like when you're on a plane and they have the map with the little plane, if you turned it on and it was that, you'd shit yourself.
It always has such random cities on it, as well, doesn't it? - It doesn't have like Paris, Rome, Venice.
- Yeah, King's Lynn! LAUGHTER Yeah, exactly, it's very strange.
I never quite understood that.
Very peculiar.
Anyway! Peruvian spiders make huge models of themselves and put them in the middle of their webs.
Speaking of things with lots of legs, why can I never seem to catch the perfect centipede? ORGAN MUSIC PLAYS - Yes, Jo? - Is it because you're too pissed all the time? LAUGHTER - Why, thank you for that.
- Just a guess.
- A lucky guess! - Is it because nobody's perfect? LAUGHTER That's a lovely point.
No, it's really because if you chase them - and you start to try and catch them - Their legs fall off.
- They jettison legs.
- They throw them at you.
- Well, they kind of do.
LAUGHTER That's basically what they do! Exactly! LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE - They do! You've got it.
That's what they do.
- APPLAUSE In order to distract a predator, they jettison their legs.
So, it stops, the predator will go, "Ooh, I'll have an eat of that leg," and meanwhile, they're haring off.
- God's weird, isn't he? - He really is.
A strange fellow.
Very strange fellow.
Yeah, so there you go.
It's called autotomy.
And speaking of abandoned body parts, which body part beginning with L did Queen Victoria leave with the Empress of France? There's Queen Victoria, and there's the - I was going to say labia and that would be just awful.
- I know.
What were you going to say? - KLAXON SOUNDS - Oh! CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Oh, dear, dear, dear, dear, dear.
- Is it her little finger? - Liver, larynx.
- Is it a lock of hair? - Lock of hair is the right answer! - CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Brilliant! But she virtually invented this sort of Victorian sentimental obsession with locks of hair.
When her husband died, she kept lots of Albert's hair.
It's an astonishing gift.
But this was what Victorians were obsessed with.
Knitting, braiding, plaiting, making things out of hair.
Artists powdered hair down.
Do you remember those things, as a child, where you would put glue, like Pritt, the non-sticky sticky stuff on it, and then you would sprinkle glitter? Do you remember that? - Copydex.
- Or Copydex you could use, which smelt slightly chlorinous - and was a wonderfully - Semen.
LAUGHTER - Not angry.
- Disappointed.
LAUGHTER Disappointed.
Dear me.
Oh, well.
Yeah.
That's what artists would do, they would put glue on and then they'd sprinkle the powdered hair.
So, hair was a big kind of deal.
Lord Byron was considered the most handsome and extraordinary figure.
There you can see a little locket hanging Although it's beautifully made as a braid and with gold, as you can see, and that can be made to fit into a waistcoat or something, for a man's "Here you go, Lady Casterby, this watch chain is made of my pubes.
"Ha-ha! And now a poem!" LAUGHTER Well, Lord Byron didn't necessarily give his own hair away, it's that he was so handsome and so adored that - LAUGHTER - That's a painting! But what is wrong with his hands? It was generally agreed by all who met and knew him, he was a hugely charming man.
- According to his own diaries anyway.
- Lady Tappleton No, no, he had Letters were written to him, women sent him locks of their own hair.
And he used locks of his Newfoundland dog, which he sent back to the women, which they didn't notice, they thought it was Byron's hair.
"Lady Suffolk, I apologise for giving you mange "with my latest gift.
But meanwhile, "I shall come round to your house and I shall rotate "my right foot and draw a 6 in the air.
Ha-ha! Poem?" There's a good reason why that might have been difficult for Lord Byron.
- Oh, of course, yes, yes.
- He had a dodgy foot.
Despite that, he managed to achieve a great athletic feat.
- He swam.
- He swam the? - Hellespont.
- Straights of somewhere.
- The Hellespont! You know these things, you pretend to be an ignorant pig.
LAUGHTER - I only went - I mean, sorry! You pretend - An ignorant what? No, I meant to say you pretend to be pig-ignorant! - LAUGHTER - And it came out wrong.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE Do you know what I'm going to do with you? I'm going to make you run across a field and I'm going to pull your legs and arms off.
I don't want to lower the tone, but didn't Lady Caroline Lamb - pull out handfuls of her pubic hair and send them to Byron? - Yes.
And she was responsible for the most famous description of him.
- Yes.
- "Mad, bad and dangerous to know.
" - "Dangerous to have tea with.
" - Yeah.
Anyway, the Empress Eugenie, her name was, and she was the wife of Napoleon III.
There's Eugenie.
She had a fantastic real name.
Dona Maria Eugenia Ignacia Augustina de Palafox-Portocrarrero de Guzman y Kirkpatrick.
- That was her name.
- Kirkpatrick.
- Yeah.
- APPLAUSE - Thank you.
- Crikey.
But what was very pleasing is that she was known as "Carrots".
Because that was her nickname at school in Bristol, where she lived, and she died in Britain as well.
I had no idea that we had a Hipster Napoleon.
- Yeah, he was a hipster, yeah.
- Check him out.
- Yeah, he's pretty good.
- "Er, can I have a flat white, please?" LAUGHTER No, the jacket, I got it in this vintage place, it's great.
Yes.
Queen Victoria gave the Empress of France a bracelet made of her own hair.
Now, what did Georgian gentlemen keep in the sideboard - for after dinner? - Small Georgian ladies.
- After Eights.
- After Eights! LAUGHTER Porn.
After 1713, it would be.
Porn.
Well, actually, it was something that disgusted a French observer and he wrote about it in a letter.
So, you've got a chance here for serious points.
Ah, Alan, quickly.
Shut up, he's done it before me! JAUNTY JINGLE, FLUSHING Oh, there we are, two of you, three of you.
You've all got to get the points except Jo.
The fact is, it was chamber pots.
It was Rochefoucauld, not the famous Rochefoucauld, but another Rochefoucauld, Francois de la Rochefoucauld, who wrote in his diary "The sideboard" This was in Suffolk, in 1784, "The sideboard is garnished also with chamber pots in line "with the common practice of going over to the sideboard to pee, "while the others are drinking.
"Nothing is hidden.
I find that very indecent.
" Chamber pots lasted well into the because there were many households that weren't on mains supplies.
- Many of them - They didn't have a WC.
- Exactly, they had outdoor loos and they popped a chamber pot under the bed.
And chamber pots were, I won't say exactly witty, but they had things written on them which were quite surprising, really, thinking of a previous age where you imagine people were rather more prudish.
Look at these.
"Use me well and keep me clean.
"And I'll not tell what I have seen.
" So, you pooed onto an eye.
Or you peed onto an eye.
And there were some during the Second World War that had a picture of Hitler, so you could poo on Hitler's face.
Which is pleasing in a way.
That's your chamber pot.
Now, it's time to dip the crouton of confidence into the all-melting fondue of General Ignorance.
Who sat in the middle at the Last Supper? - SPANISH ACCENT: Jesus.
- Jesus? - Oh KLAXON SOUNDS No matter how you pronounce it, it wasn't he.
- Judas.
- Nor was it Judas, the traitor.
- Peter.
- No-one.
Nor was it Peter.
No-one is the right answer.
No-one's in the middle.
No, it's not that no-one was in the middle, - it's that no-one sat.
- Oh, shut up, they're all standing! - Yes.
LAUGHTER No, they're not standing.
Shut up! You shut up! LAUGHTER I don't shut up, you shut up! LAUGHTER You don't tell me to shut up! No, the Stop, stop it now! Just stop it now! The thing is, in Palestine, which was a Roman province, they ate like Romans.
They lay on their stomachs like Romans.
That can't be good for digestion! No, you'd think not, but we know that's the way they ate, more or less, because in the Bible, "Now there was one leaning on Jesus' bosom, "one of his Disciples whom Jesus loved.
" And that, you see how that would have worked.
That's how they lay to eat.
Rather pleasing.
- Very odd, though.
- A bit odd, to us, because we don't do that.
Even in a picnic, you wouldn't want to be lying on your front.
I agree.
I don't like it.
I can't even, you know, a hot chocolate in bed I have to sit up in order to swallow it.
LAUGHTER There's nothing There is nothing about that that is anything other than straightforward! We were just immediately thinking of the man who sang Brother Louis in the '70s, that's all we were thinking.
- # I believe in # - # I believe in miracles.
# I'll have to sit up now! LAUGHTER Oh, Lordy, Lordy, bless.
Now, nobody sat anywhere at the last supper, everyone was lying down.
Well, now, who's in charge of all the ants? Adam.
LAUGHTER - KLAXON SOUNDS - Very good, but No! - Yeah.
We were there before you, I'm afraid.
- Is it a queen? A queen ant, that's going to get a klaxon, as well.
- KLAXON SOUNDS - Oh.
Is it something like the weather or the climate or something? The weather probably is as good an answer as any.
And they don't control themselves.
The fact is, they are a self-organising colony.
There is no leader.
But there's the queen.
All the queen does is lay thousands and thousands and thousands of eggs in her life and then dies of exhaustion.
And the ants just get on with being ants and there are just signals sent between each one that somehow sort of ripple outwards into what appears to be organisation.
But it's a bit like flocks of starlings or shoals of mackerel that have this incredible sort of You think, what's the intelligence behind this? It's like the Tartan Army.
LAUGHTER No-one knows how they do it, but they do it.
They somehow do it.
Exactly.
The way, at a football match, a chant will grow and then suddenly die.
You think that's, who's organising that, and no-one is.
It's just a sort of feature of large groups.
It's very odd.
And that's true of ants, who are, you know, and termites.
They love football, don't they? They love football.
They do indeed.
North Ants, in particular.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE It seems there's no-one in charge of the ants, but there is someone in charge of the scores, and that's me or I.
And it's very interesting, because in first place, with a positive integer, one point, Phill Jupitus.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE On minus 6, in second place, Jo Brand.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Highly respectable, for him, it's a triumph, on minus 26, Alan Davies.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE So, now, looky here, on minus 30, Josh Widdicombe! CHEERING AND APPLAUSE And so, it's thanks and good night from Josh, Phill, Jo, Alan and me.
And we leave you with some last words.
The last words of American murderer, James Allen Red Dog, executed in 1993.
"I'd like to thank my family and friends and Mr Pankowski "for supporting me and all the others who treated me with kindness.
"For the rest of you, y'all can kiss my ass.
" Good night.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE