Transcript by: Sarah Falk
TRANSCRIPT
Stephen
Hello,
and welcome to QI, where we hope, finally, to prove Oscar Wilde's
theory that there are only two kinds of interesting people: those who
know absolutely everything, and those who know absolutely nothing. On
tonight's programme, we're lucky enough to have four kinds of people, only one of whom, sadly, fits into either category. Alan Davies . . . Bill Bailey . . . Linda Smith . . . Richard E Grant.
Well, now, the rules are straightforward, er: I am omnipotent, omniscient, and I have a low boredom threshold. You
are quite interesting, or there'll be trouble. If all else fails, each
of you is able, at least, to make an interesting noise. Richard goes:
Richard
[presses buzzer, which blows a trumpet fanfare]
Stephen
Linda goes:
Linda
[presses buzzer, which plays the sound of a harp being strummed]
Stephen
Bill goes:
Bill
[presses buzzer, which plays the sound of bagpipes trying to warm up, and falling flat]
Stephen
Alan goes:
Alan
[presses buzzer, which brays as a donkey]
[nods appreciatively]
Stephen
And I go: Let's go! So, er,
fingers on buzzers, please, for our first round, which is on "arts and
entertainment", and this question: Why don't pigeons like going to the
movies?
[Viewscreens: Video of pigeons ambling around a park.]
Bill
[presses buzzer, which bagpipes]
Stephen
Yes, Bill.
Bill
Er, well . . . I dunno. Pigeons just don't go to the movies . . . just . . . there's . . . nothing much is made with them in mind, really . . . Pigeons are much more into, sort-of, er, German expressionism.
Stephen
Yeah.
Alan
How long does a pigeon live? What's the lifespan of a pigeon?
Stephen
[makes a muffled noise] You've got me there.
Richard
Two months.
Alan
Nine, ten years?
Stephen
No, they live a fair . . . a fair old time.
Bill
An hour.
Alan
Then they can only go to see a "U" film, anyway.
Stephen
That's true! That's very true.
Alan
But . . . birds don't fly at night, do they? I mean, they do in some cities, but--
Stephen
Owls do, yeah.
Alan
--generally, they can't see where they're going . . . Owls do.
Stephen
Yeah.
Alan
But they don't go to the pictures, either. And if they do--
Bill
They keep looking at the back.
Alan
--they spend the whole time looking 'round the other way. [points behind him]
So they can only go in the day--
Stephen
Yeah.
Alan
--to a "U" film . . . You're narrowing it down!
Richard
[presses buzzer, which fanfares]
Stephen
Richard.
Richard
Er, because they're allergic to popcorn. Quite literally. Open air cinemas, like drive-ins, where I grew up, er . . . pigeons exploded from eating popcorn. So it's--
Alan
Becoming increasingly hard to verify.
Stephen
It's so convincing! It is very hard to verify, 'cause you grew up in . . . Swaziland.
Richard
Yeah. Pigeon country.
Stephen
Is it? Are there a lot of pigeons in Swaziland?
Richard
There are a lot.
Stephen
Damn, that's so convincing. It's not true, but I really like it.
What would happen if a pigeon looked at a film?
Bill
The eyes on the side of the head--
Alan
They'd do like that! [flips head to one side and the other repeatedly]
Stephen
No . . .
Bill
And the fact that--
Stephen
No . . .
Bill
--he'd have to perch on the back of a chair, like that, and it couldn't see . . . they can't see anything straight ahead, so he'd have to keep looking from side to side?
Stephen
Not that . . . Pigeons have extraordinarily good eyes.
Alan
Do they?
Stephen
Ex . . . yes. Homing pigeons.
Linda
They can see their home from across the Channel?
Stephen
No, but they can see landmarks from high up.
Linda
Say, [points] "Look! There's my house!"
Stephen
No.
Landmarks they see very well indeed from high up, like a lot of birds,
of course, like birds of prey. They're reckoned to have eyesight at
least 10x better than ours, but not only that--
Linda
So does that mean they'd prefer to see it on DVD? With . . . with all the interviews--
Stephen
How does film work?
Linda
--and . . . you know--
Stephen
How does film work?
Alan
Lots and lots of pictures--
Stephen
Movie film.
Alan
--going really quickly.
Linda
Going very, very fast.
Stephen
Really quickly to us.
Alan
But to them, they're thinking:
Bill
It's slow.
Alan
"Why is it going so slowly?" [mimes slideshow pictures with hands]
Stephen
To them, it's a slideshow. It's a slow slideshow. They don't . . . We . . . we see 24, 25 frames a second as movement . . .
[Viewscreens: Picture of St. Mark's Square.]
Stephen
They would need--it has been calculated, and maybe, it has even been demonstrated--they would need 250 frames a second--10 times faster--in order for it to be a coherent image that moved.
Linda
So they're--
Stephen
So they would be bored stiff by a slideshow, is the answer.
Linda
So they would be sitting there in The Matrix, and they're thinking, "When is something going to happen?"
Stephen
--"going to happen?" Exactly! Exactly.
Linda
"What is this? A Merchant-Ivory film? What's going on?"
Bill
Who is funding research into what pigeons like?
Alan
Yeah . . .
Bill
Watching films.
Alan
Lines and lines of pigeons in the pictures, all like--[yawns and checks watch].
Stephen
Don't you know . . . pigeons . . . pigeons have saved many lives--
Bill
Yeah, I mean--
Stephen
--as carriers in . . . in wars right up, even, to the Second World War.
Alan
So we're rewarding them with a cinema.
Stephen
We're rewarding ourselves by researching into all kinds of interesting, pigeon-related data.
Alan
When they sit in, and the Pathe News chicken comes up, do they all go, "Baaaah!"?
Stephen
For example, I can tell you--
Alan
[jeering at chicken, wiggling fingers at own eyes] "Crap eyes!"
Stephen
--it cost . . . it cost £105,000 last year to clean up the pigeon crap from, er . . . from Trafalgar Square . . .
Alan
St. Mark's Square.
Stephen
Well, that's actually St. Mark's Square; I think you're probably right, but . . . from Trafalgar Square, but that's--
Linda
Where did pigeons get that sort of money?
Alan
When you're driving down the road, why does the pigeon not jump out of the way of your car 'til the last conceivable . . . ?
Stephen
Well, that's a fun game, and that's proof of the . . . how . . . how it sees the world much slower than we do. For them, it's . . . it's got acres of time.
Alan
[imitates a pigeon bobbing its head]
Stephen
And what do they go? What noise do they make, Alan?
Alan
[makes an attempt to sound like a pigeon] How do they do it? [moves balled hands to face, drops them, and turns to Bill] Bet you can do it. You're good at noises.
Bill
Yeah, I--[balls hands and brings them to face].
Richard
[from across the table, starts cooing like a pigeon]
Stephen
Who did that?
Linda
[points to Richard]
Stephen
Oh, five points!
Richard
Five!
Stephen
Very good. There we go.
Alan
[to Bill] He got five points for doing a pigeon noise!
Stephen
How do pigeons, er--
Alan
[meows like a cat a few times, then yaps like a dog]
Stephen
Absolutely nothing like a pigeon at all!
Alan
Pigeons go in other birds' nests.
Stephen
Like cuckoos.
Bill
Pigeon doing an impression of a cat.
Alan
. . . Is it cuckoos?
Stephen
I think you may be thinking of cuckoos. As in the phrase, "A cuckoo in the nest".
Alan
[claws at his nose in frustration]
Stephen
Erm, but I'll tell you what is interesting . . . What else is interesting about . . . about pigeons? They can suck.
Bill
Yes.
Stephen
The only bird that can suck.
Alan
Is that how the raised the £105,000?
Bill
Yes.
Stephen
[points silently at Alan to indicate appreciation]
Bill
Yes. . . . Pigeons can . . . yeah. Suck. Yeah.
Stephen
Yeah.
Bill
Because all other birds, erm--
Alan
Don't use straws?
Bill
They . . . no, no, they, er . . . They scoop up with their lower part of the beak and tip back, like--[tips back head and pretends to eat].
Stephen
Exactly right.
Bill
Like that.
Stephen
Exactly right.
Bill
I know, because I . . . I . . . I have . . . I have parrots, you see.
Alan
I know you do.
Bill
Yeah.
Alan
But it's clearing up.
Bill
Thank you.
Stephen
Pigeons, as we've discovered, are the only birds that suck, but why would you invite one to a picnic?
Linda
To . . . to suck stuff for you.
Richard
[presses buzzer, which fanfares]
Stephen
Go ahead, Richard.
Richard
Erm, well, if you . . . you don't think of taking, er, toothpicks on a picnic, so if you've got spinach or stuff stuck in your . . . in your teeth . . . if you grab a pigeon, and, you know, shove it to your face, and--[sucks]--like that, it's gonna suck it out for you, so . . . Fights gum disease, and . . . I think it would be very useful.
Stephen
It's a . . . I want to tell you that the answer . . . the real answer's even more disgusting than that. It really is repellant. You don't even use the front end of a pigeon. . . . This is . . . I
have to say, I think it's a practice that has died out, but it was
common right up until a couple of hundred years ago. What are the
dangers on a picnic, for example? What are the--
Bill
Bees.
Alan
Wasps.
Stephen
Bees, wasps, or even worse . . . ?
Alan and Bill
Ants.
Stephen
[narrows eyes and makes an indeterminate "not quite"-ish noise]
Alan
Bad company.
Alan and Bill
Snakes?
Stephen
Snake. An adder. Yeah. It was believed that a pigeon's arse would suck out the poison.
Alan
For God's sake.
Stephen
Yeah.
Richard
So you'd get bitten, and then you'd--
Stephen
You get bitten--[mimes holding a pigeon to his arm].
Richard
--get a stray pigeon and stick its arse on--
Stephen
Yeah.
Richard
--and say, "Start--" . . . How do you tell it to start sucking?
Stephen
Er . . . You wait for the pigeon to die, apparently, and then you use another pigeon, and another, and . . . and when the . . . the final pigeon survives, you know that all the poison has been sucked--
Linda
Oh, come-- . . .
Stephen
--from . . . from the--
Linda
Can an adder's bite be that bad?
Stephen
No! That's the weird thing. The last person to die from an adder's--
Linda
[to audience] It'd have to be pretty bad, really, wouldn't it?
Stephen
1977, a girl died from an adder's bite. It's the last one. More people die from peanuts every year than have died from adders in every century.
Alan
Yeah, they're lethal, aren't they?
Stephen
Yeah.
Richard
So, who discovered that a . . . that a . . . that a pigeon's arse can suck poison?
Stephen
Well, it goes back to Pliny the Elder--
Alan
Oh, not him again . . .
Stephen
Yes.
Alan
Everything he says is rubbish.
Stephen
No, the great Pliny the Elder actually had his own version, er . . . Er, which was simply to tear open a swallow, a live swallow, and apply it.
Try this for size, gentlemen and lady. Which living creature has the largest brain in comparison to its body size?
Bill
[presses buzzer, which bagpipes]
Stephen
[winces at the noise]
Bill
[pauses in thought] Wasp.
Stephen
No. Not a wasp. But not a bad guess.
Linda
Oh, not a wasp.
Alan
A human.
Stephen
Oh, no!
[Forfeit: Klaxons sound. Viewscreens flash the word "HUMAN".]
Stephen
Oh, dear; oh dear. Oh dear. [flips pointedly through QI cards, slapping each down until he finds the right one, which reads "HUMAN"] No. Not a human.
Alan
Not a human.
Stephen
No, I'm afraid you lose ten for that. Not a human.
Alan
I haven't got ten, though.
Stephen
No, well . . . we're--
Bill
A flea.
Stephen
Not a flea.
Bill
Ant. Is this some kind of insect . . .
Stephen
[starts making frantic and nondescript noises, gesturing at Bill and holding a hand to his nose]
Bill
Ant?
Stephen
Ant! "Ant" is the right answer!
Alan
Is that how you're awarding points?
Bill
[exaggeratedly imitates Stephen]
Alan
How big is it, then?
Stephen
It's about--
Alan
The ant's brain, I mean . . .
Stephen
Six per cent . . . six per cent of its body.
Richard
The smallest brain is an ostrich, is it?
Stephen
Ostriches do have pretty tiny ones, don't they? Yeah. You grew up with ostriches--
Richard
I did, yes.
Stephen
You were adopted by a family of ostriches.
Alan
Can you make an ostrich noise, though?
Richard
Yes, but not for you. But--
Alan
Make it for Linda! Make it for Linda!
Richard
I'd love to make it for Linda.
Stephen
No, if we applied the same percentage to humans, our heads would, er, have to be nearly three times larger than they are. We'd all look like William Hague.
Alan
[traces a huge skull around his head]
Stephen
They reckon about 40,000 ants, the . . . the size of an average colony, has, probably, the same amount of neurons and brain cells as . . . as one human being. So . . . so an ant colony is an intelligent object.
[Viewscreens: Two very close-up pictures of an ant's head.]
Bill
Whoa!
Stephen
That's right.
Alan
I had an ant's nest in my flat, once.
Stephen
Did you? [prompting] What did you do?
Alan
Well, I was fairly stupid about it--
Stephen
Yeah?
Alan
--because I saw an ant--
Stephen
Yeah.
Alan
I thought, "There's an ant in the flat!"
Stephen
Ah.
Alan
And the next day, I saw an ant and thought, "Oh . . . there he is."
Stephen
The same one! You'd given him a name.
Alan
And this went on for a couple of weeks. And then, one day, I moved the telephone table, and there were loads of them there.
Bill
Loads of them.
Stephen
Oh, dear.
Alan
And they went--[looks up and makes a frightened stance] . . . Hoovered them. Hoovered the lot.
Stephen
No! They'd probably survive the Hoover . . .
Alan
They hang on! [mimes stubborn ants being sucked suddenly into a vacuum]
Stephen
Well, there you are.
Bill
Were you sucking them up with a pigeon's arse?
Alan
I would have done if I'd thought of it.
Stephen
Quite interesting; may be worth a point.
Alan
Oh, come on!
Stephen
I'll give you the point if you can tell me, to the nearest hundred, how many species of ants there have been calculated to be.
Alan
One hundred.
Stephen
[grimaces in silence]
Richard
Two and a half thousand.
Stephen
Eight thousand is the answer. Eight thousand species of ant.
How good are they at lifesaving? Human lifesaving. What uses can you put an ant to to save a human life?
Bill
A synaptic connection lost in your brain . . . you can stretch an ant across it--
Stephen
Well,
now, this is getting very close, Bill! In ancient India . . . say, you
were performing an ancient Indian appendectomy or some such operation,
what do you do to sew the two sides of skin left that you've cut
through? You take a soldier ant, and you apply . . . you pinch the two bits of skin together, get the soldier ant, and it bites--
Bill
[as though in pain] Oh!
Stephen
--between,
and then you cut its head off. And it stays in the right position as a
stitch. The ant is a stitch. So you have rows of soldier ants as
stitches. And they used them, er, to great effect.
Alan
Yeah. And then you reach up to the top shelf . . .
Stephen
Yeah?
Alan
[flicks thumb upward as a stitch popping apart]
[Viewscreens: Picture of enormous ants clamping onto peanuts.]
Stephen
There's . . . there's some of the kinds of ant you use. And you can see they've got pretty--
Alan
Might want to watch those peanuts. They're lethal.
Stephen
They could have "antaphylactic" shock, couldn't they? But, erm . . . [to groaning audience] Now!
Alan
"Now!" [giggles]
Stephen
In Thailand, they use, er, red ants for, er, something . . . still today. What do you imagine they might do--
Richard
Chutney.
Stephen
On . . . on . . .
Richard
Delicious.
Stephen
I'm thinking of . . . I'm thinking of interventionist medical processes here. Pour in some red ants--
Alan
And they--
Stephen
--into an open wound--
Bill
Yup.
Stephen
--and they secrete an acid, which is both antiseptic, and, indeed, pain-killing, as well, to some extent.
Alan
What about--
Linda
On the other hand: Savlon?
Alan
--possibly using Savlon?
Bill
Yeah.
Stephen
In . . . There are parts of Thailand--I know it's horrible, and we must do something about it urgently--where you can't get Savlon. Ants are cheaper and more readily available, I suspect.
Bill
You could get 'em to carry the Savlon.
Stephen
What do a Greasy Butcher, a Hog's Snout, and Gene Pitney have in common?
Richard
[presses buzzer, which fanfares]
Stephen
Yes. Oh, Richard.
Richard
They can all hit top C naturally.
Linda
Ahh.
Stephen
Well--
Richard
And because . . . because all the grease that, er, ex only experienced butchers can have this . . . the grease the accrues down their, erm, larynx and oesophagus, erm,
coats the vocal chords so that butchers . . . can, you know, if they
need to, can hit a top C. And if you've ever tried to kill a pig, top C
is what it hits naturally, and Gene--[shrugs]--Gene's just always done it.
Stephen
Twenty four hours from [falsetto] Tulsa!
Richard
Yeah.
Stephen
Sadly, not. None of this is true.
Linda
Do you know with pigs, you can have--this is amazing; this is a true fact--you can actually have pigs' organs--pigs' valves . . . put into your heart, you know?
Stephen
Yes, indeed, this is--
Linda
If you've got a dodgy heart valve, that you . . . they can put the valve from a pig w . . . I just find it amazing, 'cause what are the chances of a reckless young
pig getting killed in a motorbike accident? It must be nearly . . .
And then, carrying a donor card . . . ! It's got to be millions, really.
Stephen
Well, they carry a dφner kebab card, which, I suppose, is . . .
Well, no, I want you to think . . . er, and there's no real way you can get this, I suppose, unless you know. They're all types of apple.
Bill
Well, what is a Greasy Butcher, then? Is it a--
Alan
It's an apple.
Bill
Is it a cooker, or a . . . or an eater?
Stephen
A Greasy Butcher is a sweet, red, eating apple.
Bill
Ah.
Stephen
Apples are seriously strange, though. That's why you have so many vari . . . variations of them. If an apple drops to the ground and seeds and fruits itself, the . . . the apples that grow from the tree are nothing like the parent, in the way that humans are, and even more so. So in order to . . . to have types of apple, you have to graft, er . . . er, from the same tree. The actual seeds will . . . it will always . . . will keep the same species.
Bill
In
the jungle, if you run out of batteries for your torch, you can use an
apple peel and two heads of soldier ants as electrodes, and, er . . . there's a significant amount of electricity contained within the apple to run a battery for several hours.
Stephen
Yeah. You'd just be hard-put to find an apple tree in a jungle; that's the--
Alan
Yeah.
Stephen
--only problem.
Bill
That's true.
Stephen
Now, what's the common factor between apples and a game played with headless goats? And there is one.
Bill
Bobbing! Like bobbing for apples--
Linda
Yes!
Bill
--and bobbing for--"Oh, erugh!"
Stephen
Bobbing for headless goats.
Bill
Bobbing for headless goats.
Stephen
It would help if you knew where apples came from.
Alan
Trees!
Bill
Ah!
Stephen
[rolls eyes] Not trees. Which country?
Alan
Kent!
Stephen
Which coun-try?
Bill
"Kent."
Alan
[shrugs amusedly]
Stephen
There is one part of the world where apples originated. Where the first, original apple trees still exist.
Bill
In the Middle East somewhere?
Stephen
There . . . there's this one country--
Alan
In the Garden of Eden.
Stephen
Well . . . there are many . . . yes,
there are many partakers, but there's no evidence that there was an
apple in the Garden of Eden, is there? It's always sort-of taken to be
one, but it never says "apple" in Genesis, does it? It just says, "The
fruit of the tree of whereof I said, 'Thou shouldst not eat'."
Alan
I have . . . I haven't read . . . I haven't actually read it.
Stephen
Not read it?
Alan
No.
Stephen
You should. It's hilarious. Very funny. Amusing stuff in there.
The first recorded, er, game, as far as we know, that took place on horseback, like polo, er, involves a headless goat--
Bill
Oh, it--
Stephen
--instead of a . . . instead of a ball. But there were goals, and it was a marked pitch. And there's a country--
Alan
China.
Bill
Pakistan.
Stephen
No, it's one . . . it's one of those countries that you vaguely have heard of and couldn't draw on a map.
Bill
"Tajikistan."
Linda
Oh, er . . .
Stephen
That kind of one.
Richard
Uzbekistan.
Linda
Uzbekistan--
Stephen
Oh, it's so like that.
Alan
Kazakhstan.
Stephen
"Kazakhstan" is the right answer! Well done. Well done.
Alan
You know--
Stephen
I'm going to give you . . . I'm going to give you eight for getting that--
Alan
Eight?
Stephen
--because it takes . . . it takes you out of the minus zone.
Alan
And I now have zero?
Richard
Stephen, I missed the point. What . . . what . . . They . . . they used the headless goats--
Stephen
They . . . they had a game there--
Richard
--to hit apples into--
Stephen
No, no, it has nothing to do with apples! It's what apples have in common with a game involving headless goats.
Richard
Oh, I see.
Stephen
They both originated in Kazakhstan.
Now. From apples to something as American as apple pie: Dodgy presidents. Richard E Grant, this is for you. What ghastly blot on his reputation did your namesake, Ulysses S Grant, share with John Prescott?
Richard
Er . . . they both had a condition called . . . erectus permanantus. Which is . . . no, it's serious. It is . . . it is absolutely true. From, you know, from the age of five, it's been at--[extends index finger]--full
woody mast the whole way through. Which is why John had to get into
that Jaguar and travel that one-mile distance, because . . . Ulysses
did the same thing in a carriage trip from a very small, 18th century
mile to, erm, Washington.
Stephen
You've mentioned John Prescott's Jaguar--
Richard
Right.
Stephen
--and you've mentioned Ulysses S Grant in a wooden cart.
Richard
Right.
Stephen
Stick with that thought. . . . Try and expunge woody masts from your mind . . . for the moment, and . . . and run with the idea of vehicles.
Bill
Erm . . .
Alan
Parking offences?
Bill
Railway.
Linda
Speeding! Speeding!
Stephen
Speeding.
Bill
Speeding.
Stephen
Speeding. "Two Jags" Prescott--
Linda
Right.
Stephen
--was banned from driving for 21 days in 2001, after he admitted going more than 100 miles an hour on the M1, and was fined £200. In
the three previous years, he earned nine points on his license for
speeding. The best reason he could come up with was that he didn't want
his constituents to catch cold waiting for him. Now, er,
"Three Buggy" Grant received a speeding ticket while driving his horse
and buggy in Washington, D.C., in 1869. He had to persuade the officer
in charge that he was guilty. And he was, er . . . he was fined £20.
Linda
God, was that a speed camera, like a bloke, you know, with a black hood over him? "Now . . . now, hold it . . . now, wait a minute--"
Stephen
[brings fists vertically together and imitates a flashbulb noise]
Linda
"In forty minutes, I'll have this . . . " [flashbulbs]
Bill
Or was he a sketch artist, you know, like--[mimes taking a very quick sketch on his hand as a car passes by].
Stephen
There's
something very odd, also, that they both had in common. They both won
rather extraordinary prizes. Ulysses S Grant, as a boy, won a prize for
taming a . . . a pony in a circus. Erm, but the prize that Prescott won . . . very odd. 1951, in Brighton, the Prescott family won second prize . . .
Alan
Knobbly knees?
Stephen
"The most typical family in Britain" competition. Absolutely true.
Bill
But second?
Stephen
Yeah, but second . . . But
it should have been first, because the winning family was found out to
be distantly related to the organiser of the competition. So there was
corruption, but not on the part of, er, of John Prescott. But he . . . there you are.
It's time to grapple with the unknown, the unknowable, and the never-known.
Bill
What?
Stephen
Yes.
Bill
The never-known?
Alan
Stuff that . . . stuff that no one's ever known?
Stephen
Yes.
Alan
We're gonna be asked about that?
Stephen
Yeah. Because it's the round we call General Ignorance.
What, or which, is the largest living thing on earth?
Alan
[presses buzzer, which brays]
Stephen
Oh, yes.
Alan
[index finger already poised defensively] It is the blue whale--
[Forfeit: Klaxons sound. Viewscreens flash the words "BLUE WHALE".]
Stephen
Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear! [holds up card which reads "BLUE WHALE"] I'm so sorry, Alan. Minus ten points. It's not the blue whale. Have another go. Largest living thing on earth.
Linda
Er . . .
Alan
[appealing with open palms] It's a tree. It'll be a tree--
Stephen
No, it isn't.
Alan
--like the redwood.
Stephen
No. No.
[Forfeit: Klaxons sound. Viewscreens flash the words "GIANT REDWOOD".]
Stephen
Did they have "tree"?
Stephen
[holds up card which reads "GIANT REDWOOD"]
Giant redwood, ladies and gentlemen. Not the sequoia sequoia. Any other thoughts? Largest living thing on earth.
Bill
[presses buzzer, which bagpipes]
Stephen
Yes.
Bill
France.
Stephen
Oh, dear me, Lord. Oh, dear.
Linda
Is it my friend Martin's uncle Roy? He's huge.
Alan
Is it in the sea?
Stephen
No.
Bill
Mammoth.
Stephen
I'll tell you what it is. It's the honey mushroom, of which the largest recorded specimen is--
Alan
Bigger than a redwood tree?!
Linda
Yeah!
Stephen
Yes. The largest specimen is in the Malheur National Forest in Oregon. It covers 2,200 acres, ladies and gentlemen--
Richard
One mushroom?
Linda
One mushroom?
Stephen
It is between two- and eight-thousand years old.
Linda
[to Richard] No.
Stephen
It
was initially thought to grow in separate clusters throughout the
forest, but researchers have now confirmed the discovery that it is one
single, huge organism, connected under the soil.
Who was the first man to claim that the earth goes 'round the sun?
Bill
[presses buzzer, which bagpipes]
Erm . . . Copernicus?
Stephen
Oh!
Bill
Oh, no!
[Forfeit: Klaxons sound. Viewscreens flash the word "COPERNICUS".]
Stephen
Oh, dear, oh, dear. Not, not, not Copernicus.
Alan
Galileo.
Stephen
Nor Galileo, no.
Alan
[sings] Galileo!
Richard
[responds] Galileo!
Stephen
No, we will not do the fandango.
Alan
Aeschylus.
Stephen
No, it wasn't a playwright . . .
Alan
Euripedes' trousers!
Stephen
No, he was a mathematician--
Alan
Sophocles! Archimedes!
Stephen
No.
Bill
Ah!
Stephen
No, not Archimedes.
Bill
Ogg the Clever!
Stephen
No . . . His name was Aristarchus.
Bill
Yes.
Stephen
Aristarchus of Samos.
Bill
'Course.
Alan
He runs a restaurant on the Seven Sisters Road.
Stephen
He was born in 310 B.C. And, er--
Alan
He's still alive?!
Stephen
A whole . . . a whole 1800 years before, er, Nicolaus Copernicus.
Not only did, er, did Aristarchus suggest that the earth and the planets traveled around the sun: he also
calculated the relative sizes and distances of the earth, moon, and
sun, and worked out that the heavens were not some celestial sphere,
but a universe of almost infinite size.
Now, which African animal kills more human beings than any other?
Richard
[presses buzzer, which fanfares]
Hippopotamus.
Stephen
--is the right answer! Well done. Very good. Yeah.
[Viewscreens: Picture of two hippopotamuses splashing up water, both with wide-open mouths and heads tipped backwards.]
Stephen
Though, of course, the sad truth is, man kills more, er, than any other, but we . . . we
were, of course, discounting man. And there he is. The hippo.
Extraordinary animal, hippopotamus. Did you encounter many in Swaziland?
Richard
I did, yeah. And they're vegetarian, too.
Stephen
They are vegetarian, yeah.
Richard
Yeah. So they'll just . . . they'll chomp you in half, and then they'll just leave you.
Stephen
Yeah. Yeah.
Richard
And they're very fast in the water--
Stephen
Incre . . . and on land.
Richard
And on land.
Stephen
And on land, they're fast.
Richard
Very fast.
Stephen
Yeah.
Alan
Doesn't the tsetse fly kill more people? Or the--
Alan and Stephen
--mosquito.
Stephen
Actually, I think you're absolutely right. Mosquitos have killed more than anything else. More than wars; more than anything.
Alan
Mm.
Bill
[at viewscreens] I love this . . . this caption, here. One of them's going, "And then I bit 'im in 'alf, and I said, 'Funny thing is, I'm a vegetarian!'" [throws back his head and laughs]
Stephen
Very good.
Alan
Ha ha! And how they laugh!
Bill
[with head thrown back still] Oh, we had a laugh!
Stephen
If you were to skin a hippopotamus . . .
Alan
It would be livid!
Stephen
Furious . . . And you were to put that skin on some scales, how heavy would that skin weigh?
Alan
Fourteen stone.
Stephen
No. "A ton" is the answer.
Alan
A ton of skin?!
Stephen
Their
skin weighs a ton. It's an inch-and-a-half thick; bulletproof, as far
as most guns are concerned; accounts for 25% of the animal's weight. In
other words, it weighs four tons.
Alan
It weighs . . . it weighs four tons?
Stephen
Yeah.
Alan
Like a bus?
Stephen
Like . . . like a bus, or like any other four-ton weighing . . . thing . . . Yes. Yes. More or less.
Linda
So, if you were to say to it, "Ooh, you've put on a bit of weight," it wouldn't care. It's just . . . really thick-skinned.
Alan
Yeah, really.
Stephen
No. Very thick-skinned. Very good.
[to Richard] Have you ever smelt a hippopotamus' breath?
Richard
It's . . . diabolical. Yeah. Terrible.
Stephen
And it's actually p . . . It's part of its weaponry. Its halitosis is so bad--
Richard
Yeah. Second to a lion's breath.
Stephen
--it's used . . . Yeah. It's used . . . it's used as a . . . as a warning. As a way of keeping other animals away. Its breath is so disgusting. Oddly enough, there was a controller at BBC2 who did the same thing, but, erm . . . There we are.
The tusks, like an elephant and a walrus, are made of ivory.
Alan
Are they--
Stephen
And George Washington had . . . had hippopotamus-tusk teeth.
Alan
How do they work?
Linda
Must have had quite an overbite!
Alan
[extending index fingers beside mouth] "I had hippo teeth, you know!"
Stephen
[sighs]
Bill
"In the orchard . . . "
Stephen
Hippos
like to hang out near slow-moving freshwater bordered by grass, which
is pretty much the same habitat favoured by most humans. Most accidents
occur either, as Richard said--
Stephen
--because a submerged hippo has inadvertently whacked its, er . . . er,
its head on a paddle or something and is very cross, and decides to
overturn a boat, or because people are out walking at night just when
most hippos leave the water to graze on grass. Being trampled on by a
startled hippo, er, is not a dignified way to die.
Who invented, ladies and gentlemen, the telephone?
Alan
I'm not gonna say it!
Bill
No.
Alan
I'm not gonna say it! [looking resolutely at ceiling] I'm not gonna say it.
Stephen
No thoughts?
Bill
No way.
Stephen
No thoughts?
Bill
[presses buzzer, which bagpipes]
Aristarchus.
Stephen
You're quite right . . . you're quite right to be suspicious, because the answer is certainly not Alexander Graham Bell.
Bill
Right.
Alan
Who's the first person to do two baked bean cans and a bit of string?
Stephen
Not recorded, as far as I know.
Alan
Valerie Singleton invented the phone.
Stephen
Valerie Singleton! Could have been.
Bill
Erm . . . I know that, er, Louis Daguerre, who invented, er, the . . . photography--
Stephen
Mm?
Bill
--erm, he . . . this . . . he . . . a typical bloke, you see. He invented photography, and, er,
a couple of days later, persuaded a local barmaid to take her top off
so he could take a picture. That's blokes for you, isn't it, really?
"I've invented photography, this wonderful, this . . . phwoar . . . " [trails off into indistinct sounds of depravity]
Stephen
Well, it was ever thus!
Alan
Who invented the telephone, though?
Stephen
Do you want to know? All right, I'll tell you. Antonio Meucci.
[Viewscreens: Two pictures of Antonio Meucci.]
Stephen
Italian-born
scientist; he invented the telephone; he'd perfected it by 1871;
couldn't afford the patent . . . but do you know what happened? It was
being assessed for a patent in the offices of Western Union, and it
fell into the hands of a young, Scottish engineer called Alexander
Graham Bell . . .
Alan
[Scottish accent] Aye, I'm nicking that!
Stephen
. . . Boo!
[Viewscreens: Second picture of Meucci changes into a picture of Alexander Graham Bell holding a telephone.]
Stephen
And he grabbed the chance, and patented it in his own name. Meucci took him to court, but died before the judgment was given--
Alan
[mimes choking to death, and slumps over in seat]
Stephen
--leaving Bell to claim his place in history. What do we say to Alexander Graham Bell?
Alan
[quickly] You cunt!
Stephen
Boo!! . . . [extends arm to Alan] Thank you.
Linda
[laughs hysterically]
Richard
[pumps both his arms in victory]
Stephen
Isn't that wicked? Isn't it wicked as you get? Isn't that . . . It's wicked.
Alan
That's what we'd have said in Essex. . . . Look at him! I don't even like the look of him! [supremely disdainful] Look--at--him! He doesn't even know how to use it! He doesn't even know how to use the phone. [Scottish accent, as Bell] "Aye, I think it goes like this . . . "
[hoarse Italian accent, as Meucci] "It was my idea all along! Back in the old country . . . "
Stephen
No. Let's have respect--
Alan
"I invented the telephone!"
Stephen
This poor man--
Alan
[mimes choking again, and slumps over in seat]
Stephen
Thank you. . . . This poor man deserves respect.
A quite interesting thing that Alexander Graham Bell said, erm . . . he said, er . . . he said, when he was asked what the future of the telephone was, he said, [Scottish accent] "I truly believe that one day, there will be a telephone in every town in America."
Alan
[with hushed disgust] What a wanker.
Bill
My dad, er . . . When he was shown around a computer once, when he was a young man, and, er, the, er . . . the guy showing him 'round very proudly said . . . er, it was in the West Country, and he proudly said, er, "Yes, right. This is a computer, and, erm, we . . . we predict that, er, in the future, there will probably be about eight of these."
Stephen
That's very nice. We could go on like this forever. But we're not going to.
A big round of applause for our winner this evening, ladies and gentlemen: it's Richard E Grant, with 12 points!
Richard
Oh, thank you!
Stephen
In second place, ladies and gentlemen, with a whole plus-5 points, it's Linda Smith!
Linda
Thank you. Thank you.
Richard
[leans over and kisses Linda on the cheek]
Stephen
In third place, with minus-2 points . . . Bill Bailey, ladies and gentlemen. But our runaway loser, with minus-18, is Alan Davies!
Alan
Thank you!
Stephen
Well,
that's it, ladies and gentlemen, for another edition of QI this week.
Thank you to Richard, Linda, Bill, and Alan, and finally, just to show
off that the spirit of Aristarchus is still alive today, here is the
crisp and unimprovable description of an eclipse of the sun, as related
by an unnamed Australian aboriginal astronomer in 2002. "Kerosene lamp
belong Jesus gone bugger-up." Good night.