QI (2003) s16e15 Episode Script
Past Times
1 This programme contains some strong language.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Hello! Hello and welcome to QI.
Tonight, we take a plunge into the pastimes of past times.
But let me preface that with the introduction of our players.
It's the triumphant Joe Lycett! CHEERING AND APPLAUSE It's the victorious Phil Wang! CHEERING AND APPLAUSE It's the indomitable Ellie Taylor! CHEERING AND APPLAUSE And it's the taking part that counts.
Alan Davies! LAUGHTER, CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Right, panel.
Play me back to the past.
Joe goes PLAINSONG CHANTING Oh, that's lovely.
Phil goes FANFARE Catchy.
LAUGHTER Ellie goes GAVOTTE Oh, a gavotte! LAUGHTER Well, it was a short dance, but I liked it! Alan goes Crazy horses! OK.
How do you beat a bull at poker? Do you bring in loads of sexy cows to try and distract him? What if the cards were red Yes.
.
.
on the back, like those.
Yes.
And then he'd go like that.
HE GROWLS LAUGHTER You'd have to deal him a lot of clubs and spades.
"What's the matter with the bull?" "He's got all hearts and diamonds" "Get the cows in! Get the sexy cows!" It's a genuine game, OK? It takes place in a rodeo.
The Angola Prison Rodeo, which is where? In Angola? No.
Louisiana.
There we are.
They have something called Convict Poker.
So four inmates play a game of poker, seated in the middle of the rodeo.
And a bull is released, for the sole purpose Oh! .
.
to unseat the poker players.
And the last man remaining seated is the winner.
Yeah.
If you move at all, you're disqualified.
It's just the most astonishing So the poker They could be playing anything.
I suppose poker, like, if it was Monopoly, the bits would go everywhere.
Yes, it would be annoying, wouldn't it? Convict KerPlunk would a be nice one.
Oh, that would be very good! Any thoughts why Louisiana State Penitentiary is known as Angola Prison? Why might it be called that? It started out as a fisherman's prison Right.
.
.
for anglers Anglers, yes.
.
.
who used the wrong bait Yes.
.
.
and went to prison for it.
And then by a process of evolution, the word changed to Angola.
I like that.
No.
It is the place where most of the African Americans came from, from Louisiana, the slaves came originally from Angola.
They have a round after Convict Poker called Guts And Glory, and they tie a poker chip to a Brahma bull.
There it is, it's got a poker chip on it.
And the object is to get close enough to the bull to win the poker chip.
Again, it's slightly on the violent side.
Do they have, like, the Internet there, or anything? Like, do? Why is this their entertainment? It is so popular in the United States.
There are loads of rodeos.
There's even, there's gay rodeo, there's black rodeo Oh, well, now you're talking! It's not quite as violent When I went to gay rodeo, they did a thing called goat dressing, where you have to try and put a pair of underpants on a goat.
It's not quite as We've all been there, haven't we, Sandi? ELLIE: Is it in the prison? Is it, like, in part of the prison complex? Yes.
It's actually part of the prison.
I think it's the only prison in the world that also has a golf course.
PHIL: I've been to an Indonesian rodeo.
Have you? In Sumatra.
Right.
It's not so much a rodeo as some cows in a field, but It's a paddy field flooded with water, and men compete with each other to surf off the back of a brace of buffalo, without a surfboard, just their feet.
Just skimming across the water? Yeah.
So they grab each tail And then Are you making this up? No! I haven't I haven't the imagination.
LAUGHTER It's two bulls, you grab a tail each, and that's your steering wheel.
Right.
And then they go, "Go on, then, bull," and the bulls, the "Go on, then, bull"?! Are they yoked together? Cos otherwise, if, you know Yeah, could be awful.
Whoa! Theythey are yoked together.
But I tell you what, doesn't help.
Cos they just, they'll go any which way.
And the audience watch from in front of the buffalo.
Right.
And you just have to see if it comes at you, and if it does, try and get out of the way! And the winner is whoever isn't dead LAUGHTER .
.
at the end.
Wow.
What's wrong with just a quiet game of Catch The Bus? Catch The Bus? Catch The BusStop The Bus.
Oh.
I like Catch The Bus.
It's a card game my nan used to play.
It's called Stop The Bus? Stop The Bus.
I think it's a Birmingham game.
So sweet! I don't know how you play it, though.
Do you just catch a bus? LAUGHTER "Here we go, Joe, it's time for Stop The Bus!" "Put your hand out" "Hey!" Wow, what fun.
I know! I have to say, Convict Poker is not the worst prisoner sport story from America.
Not even by a long shot.
There was a thing called the Penitentiary Row All Stars, and they were a baseball team that was set up in 1911, and it was death row convicts from Wyoming State Penitentiary.
So they played as a team.
If they won the match, that could mean a little bit of a reduction in their sentence.
And if they lost, it could bring their execution forward.
So this was quite focusing for the baseball team, as you can imagine.
They played four matches, they won four.
And lots of people bet on them.
132,000 was wagered on them, including bets made by three state politicians who were raising funds for re-election.
But then they decided that it wasn't a good idea and the whole thing was closed down, and unfortunately, the star player, Joseph Seng, was executed.
So it's not a good story.
Tell us another bedtime story! You go catch the bus, darling! Now, from playing poker to playing possum.
How can you tell if your partner is dead? Well, are they moving, breathing, speaking? Are they nagging you and berating you for all your behaviour? These are the things Are they finding faults? OK, it's to do with tossing.
You toss them? You do.
You absolutely do.
It is the practice of people throwing, or tossing people on blankets.
So This guy in the middle is called Johann Unzer, he was a German doctor, and in the 18th century, he was visiting Corsica.
And he wrote down about this, when a married man died, it was common for villagers to toss the corpse on a blanket for hours on end, which occasionally had the effect of bringing him back to life.
If he didn't come back to life, then the local women would gather and they would beat his widow as a punishment for letting him die.
If it turned out he wasn't dead, then I imagine she dealt with him.
It's not uncommon, not just in Corsica.
So you get it in Spain, it's called pelele, and prellen in Germany.
It's a bit like giving somebody the bumps on their birthday.
And it was a common thing to toss people up and down in that way.
Is there any, like, medical basis for that to work? Like, jolting the heart? Well, it could be, but I mean, it has a kind of a superstitious background to it.
So the idea of tossing things in the air to ward off evil spirits.
And it probably comes from winnowing.
So you know about separating the wheat from the chaff? So the simplest way is to toss it in the air because the chaff is lighter than the wheat and the wind will blow it away.
And so there's a sort of symbolic thing of doing that with human beings.
"He's dead! He's alive! He's alive!" "Oh, he's dead again.
" "His neck's broken.
" "Where's his widow? It's YOUR fault.
" Yeah, your fault! One of the most famous recipients of a tossing, Sancho Panza, from which book? Oh, Don Quixote.
Don Quixote! Chapter 17, he and his master refuse to pay an innkeeper's bill, and so he's grabbed by a group of lodgers and they toss him up and down And Queen Elizabeth, she was tossed, wasn't she? Queen Elizabeth I? II.
II? Yeah.
The day of the coronation! Do tell! Well, they had a rehearsal, and the Archbishop Canterbury and a few cohorts gave her a toss.
That's the tradition.
People aren't familiar with it because we haven't had a coronation for ages, but Charles is next.
Really? Is that actually a thing? Of course not, you fool! APPLAUSE I was so, like No, darling! "Oh, my God!" You thought your nan catching a bus was a game.
Bless your heart.
But there were strict rules about it, but if you really wanted to punish somebody, you would laden the whole thing with logs and tools and Oh! I know.
And it wasn't just humans that were tossed.
There was actually a game called Fuchsprellen, or fox tossing, played by German aristocrats in the 17th century.
And they had actual courts for fox tossing.
The winner was the team that got their fox highest in the air.
Oh! And the whole ground there, it's covered in sawdust in case they missed, and that's to protect the fox, it's to keep it alive for the next tossing, cos they're valuable.
The most famous match was held in Dresden.
There was a man called Augustus II, "the Strong", he was known as.
In this particular game, 647 foxes, 533 hares, 34 badgers and 21 wild cats were tossed, and the whole game finished off with a jolly good clubbing ELLIE: Oh, God! I know.
.
.
for any animals that were still alive.
PHIL: And the Tories want to bring it back.
I like Augustus the Strong.
He liked to toss with just one finger, like that.
So he had a sling attached to the blanket Sandi, do that again! He was an extraordinary fellow, Augustus the Strong.
He liked to break horseshoes with his bare hands, for fun.
You know what's worse than being tossed? What's that? Indoor tossing.
Oh, yes.
Yes.
Pah! Yeah.
Especially for women, because there's always the glass ceiling.
Very good! A good tossing can save a marriage.
Wow.
From upward foxes to downward dogs, how old are yoga poses? PHIL: Well, some must be older than others.
So, like, standing, that's probably pretty old.
Yeah.
Is that actually a pose, though, do you think? Just standing? Yeah, I think it's, like, one of the beginner ones.
Right.
Do you do yoga? I have done yoga.
Right.
And did you get beyond standing, or just do standing? I I did a bit of sitting.
OK.
I did lying down.
Advanced.
I felt great after doing it, absolutely great, and I've never done it again.
No.
OK.
Have you done yoga? I've done that.
And that was the outfit I was wearing at the time.
So anybody? Any idea how old? Give it a guess.
Seven million years.
Wow.
Is it very modern, then? Is that? It is extremely modern.
Most ALAN: Invented in the '40s.
Yeah, most of the yoga poses practised today are late 19th and 20th century inventions.
Like fidget spinners! Yes, exactly like that! Exactly.
Oh! So ancient yoga is a meditative and philosophical practice.
It's not what we think of it today.
And pretty much, it's almost what you said, Phil.
They just have one posture, but it's not standing, it is just to sit comfortably.
That's it.
Oh, my God I'm doing yoga now! You are totally into the zone.
I always thought I'd be good at yoga.
It's a win-win.
The lotus position might be an old one, that may have some provenance, but the guide to yoga postures, or the asana, they were created in the 15th century.
But these are not really recognisable as the ones that we have today.
Most of the 15 poses described in a thing called the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, they're seated or flat on your back.
The best bit about this book is not the yoga poses.
It has some instructions, for example, how to avoid death by redrawing discharged semen back into your penis.
That is one of the AUDIENCE GROANS It's like a boomerang on Instagram! SHE SLURPS Oh, you've been on my Instagram! What a gif.
ELLIE: Yeah.
There's another one, how to lengthen your own tongue so you can lick your forehead.
Who doesn't want that skill? Wow! It's Licking your forehead's not the first thing that comes to mind.
APPLAUSE Phil, I'm sorry.
You seem like a nice boy, and I'm very sorry.
This is exactly what I came here for! OK.
But it's really a very modern thing.
The most difficult yoga pose that we know of is called a Yoganidrasana, and it is known.
Oh, God! Yeah.
It's the yoga sleep pose.
I don't even know what's happening.
I think he's trying to do what Alan was suggesting earlier.
I think that all that stands between that man and happiness is two vertebrae.
"Will someone help me get my pants off!" Yeah, where are his feet, actually? They're tucked in under his chin.
Some people tuck the feet behind the head and use it as a sort of pillow, that is the other way I've seen it done.
Just use a pillow! It is very disturbing.
Full body yoga is supposed to be good for you, it's supposed to lower blood pressure, treat depression, musculoskeletal conditions, like lower back pain.
Although Look at you! Doing some there, doing a few moves there.
I like that! Can you do the sleep pose? Yeah.
But it causes as many injuries as any other sport.
So it's not necessarily People are always knackering themselves.
Yes.
That's why I think - just sit still.
Go for a walk! Yeah.
I've got two pieces of practical advice for people to avoid injuries from yoga.
This was from a 2013 review of yoga case studies.
First of all, avoid headstands, and secondly, don't practise yoga while under the influence of psychoactive drugs.
Good to know.
Good to know! I haven't even thought of that second one.
Yoga as we know it is largely a modern invention, and anyone who says otherwise is merely posturing.
Now, what can you tell me about the authors of these poems? Joe, read this one out for me, darling.
LAUGHTER OK, that was lovely.
Let's do another one.
Alan, you could maybe read this one for me, darling.
OK.
What is wrong with both those poems? They're shit.
They're Yes.
Is the correct answer! They were both written by? What do we reckon? A bad poet.
No.
They were written by a computer.
Oh! They were written by a computer program.
So there's a man called Jack Hopkins, who's a researcher at the University of Cambridge, and he fed huge amounts of poetry into what's called a deep learning program to teach it to produce its own, and that is what the computer came up with.
But I have to say, in terms of bad poetry, we don't need any help, do we? I think human beings are perfectly capable.
Anybody know who's widely considered the worst poet in the English language? PHIL: Ed Sheeran.
I rather like Ed Sheeran.
Why does he do that funny thing with his hair? ELLIE: It's just being ginger.
APPLAUSE It's a mistake.
William McGonagall, probably considered the worst poet of the English language.
He lived 1825 to 1902.
One of my favourites, his ode to the Tay Bridge rail disaster of 1875.
Terrible disaster.
A bridge collapsed under a train during a storm, it killed everybody aboard.
And he wrote So It's just so beautiful! I know.
This was arguably bested, or possibly worsted, in 1873 by a British Museum employee called Theophile-Jules-Henri Marzials.
Here's his poem, A Tragedy.
It's considered one of the worst poems of all time.
These are the final lines.
I've often wondered what I wanted read at my funeral.
Isn't it perfect? So before the show, I asked everybody to write a poem to see if we could beat Mr McGonagall, or indeed, Theophile.
So I've got one.
Here we are.
"What would we be without Alan?" "Totally unbalan-ced.
" "That's where.
" It's a haiku.
Do you like it? Yes, very much! Yeah, it was written by my agent.
I hadn't got time.
Do you want to begin? I've written a haiku, as well.
Oh, go for it, darling.
Ahem.
"First time on QI.
" "Must not swear and let Mum down.
" "Piece of fucking piss.
" APPLAUSE She'll be so proud.
Thank you, Sandi.
Joe.
Can I have absolute silence? "I really like to go on QI.
" "It is better than if I die.
" "Sandi Toksvig is so nice," "but Alan Davies has got lice.
" APPLAUSE I have actually I have actually been treated for that.
Phil? Oh, I've written a poem on the theme of pastime, which is the theme of the episode.
And it's called One T Or Two.
"Does pastime have one T or two?" "I haven't the foggiest, do you?" "I suppose it doesn't matter.
We're only here for the patter.
" "Does anyone else need a poo?" I sort of panicked at the end, I think, cos APPLAUSE Do you want to hear some of my tries? Yes, please.
OK.
"Denmark, what a lark!" "Everyone agrees.
" "Sandi Toksvig's at her tallest when she's climbing trees.
" And then I ran out of ideas.
People do take their poetry very seriously.
There was a man called Roderick Maclean, and he once tried to shoot Queen Victoria because she didn't like his poetry.
He sent her a poem, and he got a less than generous reply, he felt, and he fired at her at Windsor Station on March the 2nd in 1882.
He missed, and was subdued by two Eton schoolboys who hit him with their umbrellas.
I think, out of all of those, I'm afraid I'm going to vote Phil's the best one.
I think that was very good.
Thank you.
APPLAUSE Now, here's a pet hate of mine.
Why did the ancient Chinese give wine to their dogs? What do you reckon? Cos they were legends! So it's miniature Pekingese that we are talking about.
They were also known as sleeve Pekingese.
They used to keep the dogs up the sleeves, it's partly to keep their hands warm, but it's also a form, hilarious form of self-protection.
Because if anybody comes near you, you just go, "Bah!" like that, with the dogs up your sleeves.
So obviously, if you've got a sleeve Pekingese, you want them to be as small as possible, and one of the things they thought was, if you gave rice wine to puppies, it would stunt their growth.
Oh! I tried this with my children, and honestly, they're enormous, so No idea what happened there! And they used to squeeze them as newborns to try and keep them small, and they used to fit them with a wire mesh waistcoat to try and Oh! I know! It's awful.
I have no idea why they thought giving wine to a dog would keep it small.
It I have to say, do not give alcohol to dogs.
Their kidneys are not adapted to process it.
And in fact, the practice was banned eventually by an Empress Dowager Cixi in She died in 1908.
She stopped it.
Oh, look at the Ferrero Rocher that she Yes Expecting the ambassador! Can't give that to a dog, either.
That's very naughty.
No, no chocolate.
No, do not give chocolate.
I'm from Borneo.
There's a tribe in Borneo that cooks food, meat, by passing it through the digestive system of a dog - and so you feed the dog like chunks of meat and squeezesqueeze it so that it gets cooked by the acid, but not long enough for it to get digested, and out the butt comes a lovely little sort of ceviche.
Like a magician, like pulling a sleeve.
Yeah.
How are you doing with that - that thought? I don't like it.
How old do you think the Pekingese breed is? Seven million years.
Same as yoga, then.
1,000 years.
It is really old.
It is one of the oldest dog breeds.
Dog remains have been found that look a bit like them in the Middle East and in Europe dating back 12,000 years.
They're one of the least genetically diverged dogs from the wolf.
You wouldn't think it, would you? Especially the one on the top left Yes.
That has been blow-dried.
That's been held under a hand-dryer.
Just up and down in one of those Dyson ones for ages.
But keeping dogs in sleeves - no stranger than putting them in a handbag.
So, in New York City, the subway prohibits dogs unless they're carried.
You sure that's a dog? If not, it wants shaving.
Texting his doctor.
Yeah.
"I can't even get it in my trousers now.
" Now on to the penalty shoot-out round that we call General Ignorance.
Fingers on buzzers, please.
What pastime that begins with P was illegal in New York for 30 years? Is the picture a clue? Well, we are in New York, there, and we do have the letter P, so FANFARE Pinball.
Pinball is exactly right.
Pinball.
So the very first pinball machine patented in 1871, the first commercial one is 1931, and then the early 1940s, they began to be seen as a game of chance, and therefore a form of gambling, and so they banned it in 1942.
Slight overreaction.
It's prohibition-style stuff, darling - they smashed them up, they burned machines.
So politically incorrect and ecologically unsound - they dumped all of them in the river - and then eventually it became like a secret thing, they were in the back rooms of seedy establishments.
The one in the back on the right, there, is clearly rubbing the pinball machine against his genitals.
Clearly.
Clearly only to you.
And it was finally overturned as late as 1976.
Ding-ding! Tilt! Oh, sorry.
Pinball jizz-ard.
LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE The ban was overturned because there was an association called the Music And Amusement Association, they hired a 26-year-old called Roger Sharpe, and he proved that it was a game of skill and the ban was overturned.
So now you can play pinball.
Pinball prohibition lasted twice as long as alcohol prohibition.
Which country is the home of golf? GROANING Oh, that's not fair! I bet it's China.
Everything was invented in China.
You are absolutely right.
Yes, it is indeed.
APPLAUSE The oldest form of golf is in China.
It's called Chuiwan - literally hitting ball - and they were playing this form of golf about 1,000 years ago, and it's described in something called the Dongxuan records, written sometime between 1050 and 1100 AD.
A Chinese magistrate tells his daughter to dig goals in the ground so that he might drive a ball into them with a purposely crafted stick.
What the Scottish did was they brought all the aspects of the game together.
The first time we hear about golf is when it's banned in Scotland - 1457.
It was thought to be a distraction from practising battle skills.
Also they had the links, didn't they? They had the land between farmland and the sea, which was unusable sand dune, you couldn't grow anything, so they played there.
Yeah.
Have I been playing golf wrong?! In the wrong outfit, certainly! Which country do pinatas come from? Not Mexico.
Not Mexico.
Where else might they come from? Wales.
Scotland.
China.
China! Thought to have been brought to Europe from China by Marco Polo.
Speaking of Marco Polo, the stories are absolutely fantastic.
One of my favourite stories is about Kublai Khan's niece, Princess Khutulun, and she was unmarried and Kublai Khan wanted her to get married so she said, "Well, that's fine, I will marry the first man" "who wrestles me and wins - and if he wins, I'll marry him," "if he loses he has to give me 100 horses," and Marco Polo writes that Princess Khutulun concluded her life unmarried with 10,000 horses! I love that.
So there's a Chinese tradition which Marco Polo wrote about, and basically they made an ox or a sort of cow-shaped papier mache structure and they covered it in coloured paper and they filled it with seeds and then they hit it until they spilled, and supposedly it brought good luck and brought the harvest.
So pinatas are also an ancient Chinese invention.
Where does Chinese checkers come from? It's not going to be that, is it? PLAINSONG CHANTING Mexico.
It's a German invention.
So there was a game called Stern-Halma, but the company in the United States that made it thought it sounded more exotic to call it Chinese checkers - but it's based on an earlier American game, also called Halma.
Chinese checkers is one of the few inventions not actually Chinese.
All of which brings us to the puffed-up perorations of the final scores.
In joint first place, with one point each, it's Ellie and Alan! APPLAUSE AND CHEERING In third place, with -4, Phil! APPLAUSE AND CHEERING And, winning isn't everything - our wooden spoon goes to Joe, with -18! APPLAUSE AND CHEERING Our thanks to Ellie, Joe, Phil and Alan.
That's all from us, but I leave you with this - in 1980, American tennis player Vitas Gerulaitis finally beat Jimmy Connors after losing their previous 16 encounters.
In the post-match interview, Vitas triumphantly said, "Nobody beats Vitas Gerulaitis 17 times in a row!" Thank you, goodnight.
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Hello! Hello and welcome to QI.
Tonight, we take a plunge into the pastimes of past times.
But let me preface that with the introduction of our players.
It's the triumphant Joe Lycett! CHEERING AND APPLAUSE It's the victorious Phil Wang! CHEERING AND APPLAUSE It's the indomitable Ellie Taylor! CHEERING AND APPLAUSE And it's the taking part that counts.
Alan Davies! LAUGHTER, CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Right, panel.
Play me back to the past.
Joe goes PLAINSONG CHANTING Oh, that's lovely.
Phil goes FANFARE Catchy.
LAUGHTER Ellie goes GAVOTTE Oh, a gavotte! LAUGHTER Well, it was a short dance, but I liked it! Alan goes Crazy horses! OK.
How do you beat a bull at poker? Do you bring in loads of sexy cows to try and distract him? What if the cards were red Yes.
.
.
on the back, like those.
Yes.
And then he'd go like that.
HE GROWLS LAUGHTER You'd have to deal him a lot of clubs and spades.
"What's the matter with the bull?" "He's got all hearts and diamonds" "Get the cows in! Get the sexy cows!" It's a genuine game, OK? It takes place in a rodeo.
The Angola Prison Rodeo, which is where? In Angola? No.
Louisiana.
There we are.
They have something called Convict Poker.
So four inmates play a game of poker, seated in the middle of the rodeo.
And a bull is released, for the sole purpose Oh! .
.
to unseat the poker players.
And the last man remaining seated is the winner.
Yeah.
If you move at all, you're disqualified.
It's just the most astonishing So the poker They could be playing anything.
I suppose poker, like, if it was Monopoly, the bits would go everywhere.
Yes, it would be annoying, wouldn't it? Convict KerPlunk would a be nice one.
Oh, that would be very good! Any thoughts why Louisiana State Penitentiary is known as Angola Prison? Why might it be called that? It started out as a fisherman's prison Right.
.
.
for anglers Anglers, yes.
.
.
who used the wrong bait Yes.
.
.
and went to prison for it.
And then by a process of evolution, the word changed to Angola.
I like that.
No.
It is the place where most of the African Americans came from, from Louisiana, the slaves came originally from Angola.
They have a round after Convict Poker called Guts And Glory, and they tie a poker chip to a Brahma bull.
There it is, it's got a poker chip on it.
And the object is to get close enough to the bull to win the poker chip.
Again, it's slightly on the violent side.
Do they have, like, the Internet there, or anything? Like, do? Why is this their entertainment? It is so popular in the United States.
There are loads of rodeos.
There's even, there's gay rodeo, there's black rodeo Oh, well, now you're talking! It's not quite as violent When I went to gay rodeo, they did a thing called goat dressing, where you have to try and put a pair of underpants on a goat.
It's not quite as We've all been there, haven't we, Sandi? ELLIE: Is it in the prison? Is it, like, in part of the prison complex? Yes.
It's actually part of the prison.
I think it's the only prison in the world that also has a golf course.
PHIL: I've been to an Indonesian rodeo.
Have you? In Sumatra.
Right.
It's not so much a rodeo as some cows in a field, but It's a paddy field flooded with water, and men compete with each other to surf off the back of a brace of buffalo, without a surfboard, just their feet.
Just skimming across the water? Yeah.
So they grab each tail And then Are you making this up? No! I haven't I haven't the imagination.
LAUGHTER It's two bulls, you grab a tail each, and that's your steering wheel.
Right.
And then they go, "Go on, then, bull," and the bulls, the "Go on, then, bull"?! Are they yoked together? Cos otherwise, if, you know Yeah, could be awful.
Whoa! Theythey are yoked together.
But I tell you what, doesn't help.
Cos they just, they'll go any which way.
And the audience watch from in front of the buffalo.
Right.
And you just have to see if it comes at you, and if it does, try and get out of the way! And the winner is whoever isn't dead LAUGHTER .
.
at the end.
Wow.
What's wrong with just a quiet game of Catch The Bus? Catch The Bus? Catch The BusStop The Bus.
Oh.
I like Catch The Bus.
It's a card game my nan used to play.
It's called Stop The Bus? Stop The Bus.
I think it's a Birmingham game.
So sweet! I don't know how you play it, though.
Do you just catch a bus? LAUGHTER "Here we go, Joe, it's time for Stop The Bus!" "Put your hand out" "Hey!" Wow, what fun.
I know! I have to say, Convict Poker is not the worst prisoner sport story from America.
Not even by a long shot.
There was a thing called the Penitentiary Row All Stars, and they were a baseball team that was set up in 1911, and it was death row convicts from Wyoming State Penitentiary.
So they played as a team.
If they won the match, that could mean a little bit of a reduction in their sentence.
And if they lost, it could bring their execution forward.
So this was quite focusing for the baseball team, as you can imagine.
They played four matches, they won four.
And lots of people bet on them.
132,000 was wagered on them, including bets made by three state politicians who were raising funds for re-election.
But then they decided that it wasn't a good idea and the whole thing was closed down, and unfortunately, the star player, Joseph Seng, was executed.
So it's not a good story.
Tell us another bedtime story! You go catch the bus, darling! Now, from playing poker to playing possum.
How can you tell if your partner is dead? Well, are they moving, breathing, speaking? Are they nagging you and berating you for all your behaviour? These are the things Are they finding faults? OK, it's to do with tossing.
You toss them? You do.
You absolutely do.
It is the practice of people throwing, or tossing people on blankets.
So This guy in the middle is called Johann Unzer, he was a German doctor, and in the 18th century, he was visiting Corsica.
And he wrote down about this, when a married man died, it was common for villagers to toss the corpse on a blanket for hours on end, which occasionally had the effect of bringing him back to life.
If he didn't come back to life, then the local women would gather and they would beat his widow as a punishment for letting him die.
If it turned out he wasn't dead, then I imagine she dealt with him.
It's not uncommon, not just in Corsica.
So you get it in Spain, it's called pelele, and prellen in Germany.
It's a bit like giving somebody the bumps on their birthday.
And it was a common thing to toss people up and down in that way.
Is there any, like, medical basis for that to work? Like, jolting the heart? Well, it could be, but I mean, it has a kind of a superstitious background to it.
So the idea of tossing things in the air to ward off evil spirits.
And it probably comes from winnowing.
So you know about separating the wheat from the chaff? So the simplest way is to toss it in the air because the chaff is lighter than the wheat and the wind will blow it away.
And so there's a sort of symbolic thing of doing that with human beings.
"He's dead! He's alive! He's alive!" "Oh, he's dead again.
" "His neck's broken.
" "Where's his widow? It's YOUR fault.
" Yeah, your fault! One of the most famous recipients of a tossing, Sancho Panza, from which book? Oh, Don Quixote.
Don Quixote! Chapter 17, he and his master refuse to pay an innkeeper's bill, and so he's grabbed by a group of lodgers and they toss him up and down And Queen Elizabeth, she was tossed, wasn't she? Queen Elizabeth I? II.
II? Yeah.
The day of the coronation! Do tell! Well, they had a rehearsal, and the Archbishop Canterbury and a few cohorts gave her a toss.
That's the tradition.
People aren't familiar with it because we haven't had a coronation for ages, but Charles is next.
Really? Is that actually a thing? Of course not, you fool! APPLAUSE I was so, like No, darling! "Oh, my God!" You thought your nan catching a bus was a game.
Bless your heart.
But there were strict rules about it, but if you really wanted to punish somebody, you would laden the whole thing with logs and tools and Oh! I know.
And it wasn't just humans that were tossed.
There was actually a game called Fuchsprellen, or fox tossing, played by German aristocrats in the 17th century.
And they had actual courts for fox tossing.
The winner was the team that got their fox highest in the air.
Oh! And the whole ground there, it's covered in sawdust in case they missed, and that's to protect the fox, it's to keep it alive for the next tossing, cos they're valuable.
The most famous match was held in Dresden.
There was a man called Augustus II, "the Strong", he was known as.
In this particular game, 647 foxes, 533 hares, 34 badgers and 21 wild cats were tossed, and the whole game finished off with a jolly good clubbing ELLIE: Oh, God! I know.
.
.
for any animals that were still alive.
PHIL: And the Tories want to bring it back.
I like Augustus the Strong.
He liked to toss with just one finger, like that.
So he had a sling attached to the blanket Sandi, do that again! He was an extraordinary fellow, Augustus the Strong.
He liked to break horseshoes with his bare hands, for fun.
You know what's worse than being tossed? What's that? Indoor tossing.
Oh, yes.
Yes.
Pah! Yeah.
Especially for women, because there's always the glass ceiling.
Very good! A good tossing can save a marriage.
Wow.
From upward foxes to downward dogs, how old are yoga poses? PHIL: Well, some must be older than others.
So, like, standing, that's probably pretty old.
Yeah.
Is that actually a pose, though, do you think? Just standing? Yeah, I think it's, like, one of the beginner ones.
Right.
Do you do yoga? I have done yoga.
Right.
And did you get beyond standing, or just do standing? I I did a bit of sitting.
OK.
I did lying down.
Advanced.
I felt great after doing it, absolutely great, and I've never done it again.
No.
OK.
Have you done yoga? I've done that.
And that was the outfit I was wearing at the time.
So anybody? Any idea how old? Give it a guess.
Seven million years.
Wow.
Is it very modern, then? Is that? It is extremely modern.
Most ALAN: Invented in the '40s.
Yeah, most of the yoga poses practised today are late 19th and 20th century inventions.
Like fidget spinners! Yes, exactly like that! Exactly.
Oh! So ancient yoga is a meditative and philosophical practice.
It's not what we think of it today.
And pretty much, it's almost what you said, Phil.
They just have one posture, but it's not standing, it is just to sit comfortably.
That's it.
Oh, my God I'm doing yoga now! You are totally into the zone.
I always thought I'd be good at yoga.
It's a win-win.
The lotus position might be an old one, that may have some provenance, but the guide to yoga postures, or the asana, they were created in the 15th century.
But these are not really recognisable as the ones that we have today.
Most of the 15 poses described in a thing called the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, they're seated or flat on your back.
The best bit about this book is not the yoga poses.
It has some instructions, for example, how to avoid death by redrawing discharged semen back into your penis.
That is one of the AUDIENCE GROANS It's like a boomerang on Instagram! SHE SLURPS Oh, you've been on my Instagram! What a gif.
ELLIE: Yeah.
There's another one, how to lengthen your own tongue so you can lick your forehead.
Who doesn't want that skill? Wow! It's Licking your forehead's not the first thing that comes to mind.
APPLAUSE Phil, I'm sorry.
You seem like a nice boy, and I'm very sorry.
This is exactly what I came here for! OK.
But it's really a very modern thing.
The most difficult yoga pose that we know of is called a Yoganidrasana, and it is known.
Oh, God! Yeah.
It's the yoga sleep pose.
I don't even know what's happening.
I think he's trying to do what Alan was suggesting earlier.
I think that all that stands between that man and happiness is two vertebrae.
"Will someone help me get my pants off!" Yeah, where are his feet, actually? They're tucked in under his chin.
Some people tuck the feet behind the head and use it as a sort of pillow, that is the other way I've seen it done.
Just use a pillow! It is very disturbing.
Full body yoga is supposed to be good for you, it's supposed to lower blood pressure, treat depression, musculoskeletal conditions, like lower back pain.
Although Look at you! Doing some there, doing a few moves there.
I like that! Can you do the sleep pose? Yeah.
But it causes as many injuries as any other sport.
So it's not necessarily People are always knackering themselves.
Yes.
That's why I think - just sit still.
Go for a walk! Yeah.
I've got two pieces of practical advice for people to avoid injuries from yoga.
This was from a 2013 review of yoga case studies.
First of all, avoid headstands, and secondly, don't practise yoga while under the influence of psychoactive drugs.
Good to know.
Good to know! I haven't even thought of that second one.
Yoga as we know it is largely a modern invention, and anyone who says otherwise is merely posturing.
Now, what can you tell me about the authors of these poems? Joe, read this one out for me, darling.
LAUGHTER OK, that was lovely.
Let's do another one.
Alan, you could maybe read this one for me, darling.
OK.
What is wrong with both those poems? They're shit.
They're Yes.
Is the correct answer! They were both written by? What do we reckon? A bad poet.
No.
They were written by a computer.
Oh! They were written by a computer program.
So there's a man called Jack Hopkins, who's a researcher at the University of Cambridge, and he fed huge amounts of poetry into what's called a deep learning program to teach it to produce its own, and that is what the computer came up with.
But I have to say, in terms of bad poetry, we don't need any help, do we? I think human beings are perfectly capable.
Anybody know who's widely considered the worst poet in the English language? PHIL: Ed Sheeran.
I rather like Ed Sheeran.
Why does he do that funny thing with his hair? ELLIE: It's just being ginger.
APPLAUSE It's a mistake.
William McGonagall, probably considered the worst poet of the English language.
He lived 1825 to 1902.
One of my favourites, his ode to the Tay Bridge rail disaster of 1875.
Terrible disaster.
A bridge collapsed under a train during a storm, it killed everybody aboard.
And he wrote So It's just so beautiful! I know.
This was arguably bested, or possibly worsted, in 1873 by a British Museum employee called Theophile-Jules-Henri Marzials.
Here's his poem, A Tragedy.
It's considered one of the worst poems of all time.
These are the final lines.
I've often wondered what I wanted read at my funeral.
Isn't it perfect? So before the show, I asked everybody to write a poem to see if we could beat Mr McGonagall, or indeed, Theophile.
So I've got one.
Here we are.
"What would we be without Alan?" "Totally unbalan-ced.
" "That's where.
" It's a haiku.
Do you like it? Yes, very much! Yeah, it was written by my agent.
I hadn't got time.
Do you want to begin? I've written a haiku, as well.
Oh, go for it, darling.
Ahem.
"First time on QI.
" "Must not swear and let Mum down.
" "Piece of fucking piss.
" APPLAUSE She'll be so proud.
Thank you, Sandi.
Joe.
Can I have absolute silence? "I really like to go on QI.
" "It is better than if I die.
" "Sandi Toksvig is so nice," "but Alan Davies has got lice.
" APPLAUSE I have actually I have actually been treated for that.
Phil? Oh, I've written a poem on the theme of pastime, which is the theme of the episode.
And it's called One T Or Two.
"Does pastime have one T or two?" "I haven't the foggiest, do you?" "I suppose it doesn't matter.
We're only here for the patter.
" "Does anyone else need a poo?" I sort of panicked at the end, I think, cos APPLAUSE Do you want to hear some of my tries? Yes, please.
OK.
"Denmark, what a lark!" "Everyone agrees.
" "Sandi Toksvig's at her tallest when she's climbing trees.
" And then I ran out of ideas.
People do take their poetry very seriously.
There was a man called Roderick Maclean, and he once tried to shoot Queen Victoria because she didn't like his poetry.
He sent her a poem, and he got a less than generous reply, he felt, and he fired at her at Windsor Station on March the 2nd in 1882.
He missed, and was subdued by two Eton schoolboys who hit him with their umbrellas.
I think, out of all of those, I'm afraid I'm going to vote Phil's the best one.
I think that was very good.
Thank you.
APPLAUSE Now, here's a pet hate of mine.
Why did the ancient Chinese give wine to their dogs? What do you reckon? Cos they were legends! So it's miniature Pekingese that we are talking about.
They were also known as sleeve Pekingese.
They used to keep the dogs up the sleeves, it's partly to keep their hands warm, but it's also a form, hilarious form of self-protection.
Because if anybody comes near you, you just go, "Bah!" like that, with the dogs up your sleeves.
So obviously, if you've got a sleeve Pekingese, you want them to be as small as possible, and one of the things they thought was, if you gave rice wine to puppies, it would stunt their growth.
Oh! I tried this with my children, and honestly, they're enormous, so No idea what happened there! And they used to squeeze them as newborns to try and keep them small, and they used to fit them with a wire mesh waistcoat to try and Oh! I know! It's awful.
I have no idea why they thought giving wine to a dog would keep it small.
It I have to say, do not give alcohol to dogs.
Their kidneys are not adapted to process it.
And in fact, the practice was banned eventually by an Empress Dowager Cixi in She died in 1908.
She stopped it.
Oh, look at the Ferrero Rocher that she Yes Expecting the ambassador! Can't give that to a dog, either.
That's very naughty.
No, no chocolate.
No, do not give chocolate.
I'm from Borneo.
There's a tribe in Borneo that cooks food, meat, by passing it through the digestive system of a dog - and so you feed the dog like chunks of meat and squeezesqueeze it so that it gets cooked by the acid, but not long enough for it to get digested, and out the butt comes a lovely little sort of ceviche.
Like a magician, like pulling a sleeve.
Yeah.
How are you doing with that - that thought? I don't like it.
How old do you think the Pekingese breed is? Seven million years.
Same as yoga, then.
1,000 years.
It is really old.
It is one of the oldest dog breeds.
Dog remains have been found that look a bit like them in the Middle East and in Europe dating back 12,000 years.
They're one of the least genetically diverged dogs from the wolf.
You wouldn't think it, would you? Especially the one on the top left Yes.
That has been blow-dried.
That's been held under a hand-dryer.
Just up and down in one of those Dyson ones for ages.
But keeping dogs in sleeves - no stranger than putting them in a handbag.
So, in New York City, the subway prohibits dogs unless they're carried.
You sure that's a dog? If not, it wants shaving.
Texting his doctor.
Yeah.
"I can't even get it in my trousers now.
" Now on to the penalty shoot-out round that we call General Ignorance.
Fingers on buzzers, please.
What pastime that begins with P was illegal in New York for 30 years? Is the picture a clue? Well, we are in New York, there, and we do have the letter P, so FANFARE Pinball.
Pinball is exactly right.
Pinball.
So the very first pinball machine patented in 1871, the first commercial one is 1931, and then the early 1940s, they began to be seen as a game of chance, and therefore a form of gambling, and so they banned it in 1942.
Slight overreaction.
It's prohibition-style stuff, darling - they smashed them up, they burned machines.
So politically incorrect and ecologically unsound - they dumped all of them in the river - and then eventually it became like a secret thing, they were in the back rooms of seedy establishments.
The one in the back on the right, there, is clearly rubbing the pinball machine against his genitals.
Clearly.
Clearly only to you.
And it was finally overturned as late as 1976.
Ding-ding! Tilt! Oh, sorry.
Pinball jizz-ard.
LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE The ban was overturned because there was an association called the Music And Amusement Association, they hired a 26-year-old called Roger Sharpe, and he proved that it was a game of skill and the ban was overturned.
So now you can play pinball.
Pinball prohibition lasted twice as long as alcohol prohibition.
Which country is the home of golf? GROANING Oh, that's not fair! I bet it's China.
Everything was invented in China.
You are absolutely right.
Yes, it is indeed.
APPLAUSE The oldest form of golf is in China.
It's called Chuiwan - literally hitting ball - and they were playing this form of golf about 1,000 years ago, and it's described in something called the Dongxuan records, written sometime between 1050 and 1100 AD.
A Chinese magistrate tells his daughter to dig goals in the ground so that he might drive a ball into them with a purposely crafted stick.
What the Scottish did was they brought all the aspects of the game together.
The first time we hear about golf is when it's banned in Scotland - 1457.
It was thought to be a distraction from practising battle skills.
Also they had the links, didn't they? They had the land between farmland and the sea, which was unusable sand dune, you couldn't grow anything, so they played there.
Yeah.
Have I been playing golf wrong?! In the wrong outfit, certainly! Which country do pinatas come from? Not Mexico.
Not Mexico.
Where else might they come from? Wales.
Scotland.
China.
China! Thought to have been brought to Europe from China by Marco Polo.
Speaking of Marco Polo, the stories are absolutely fantastic.
One of my favourite stories is about Kublai Khan's niece, Princess Khutulun, and she was unmarried and Kublai Khan wanted her to get married so she said, "Well, that's fine, I will marry the first man" "who wrestles me and wins - and if he wins, I'll marry him," "if he loses he has to give me 100 horses," and Marco Polo writes that Princess Khutulun concluded her life unmarried with 10,000 horses! I love that.
So there's a Chinese tradition which Marco Polo wrote about, and basically they made an ox or a sort of cow-shaped papier mache structure and they covered it in coloured paper and they filled it with seeds and then they hit it until they spilled, and supposedly it brought good luck and brought the harvest.
So pinatas are also an ancient Chinese invention.
Where does Chinese checkers come from? It's not going to be that, is it? PLAINSONG CHANTING Mexico.
It's a German invention.
So there was a game called Stern-Halma, but the company in the United States that made it thought it sounded more exotic to call it Chinese checkers - but it's based on an earlier American game, also called Halma.
Chinese checkers is one of the few inventions not actually Chinese.
All of which brings us to the puffed-up perorations of the final scores.
In joint first place, with one point each, it's Ellie and Alan! APPLAUSE AND CHEERING In third place, with -4, Phil! APPLAUSE AND CHEERING And, winning isn't everything - our wooden spoon goes to Joe, with -18! APPLAUSE AND CHEERING Our thanks to Ellie, Joe, Phil and Alan.
That's all from us, but I leave you with this - in 1980, American tennis player Vitas Gerulaitis finally beat Jimmy Connors after losing their previous 16 encounters.
In the post-match interview, Vitas triumphantly said, "Nobody beats Vitas Gerulaitis 17 times in a row!" Thank you, goodnight.
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING