Monster Mash QI XL

This programme contains some strong language.

CHEERS AND APPLAUSE

Goo-oo-oo-ood evening.

Good evening, good evening, good evening, and welcome to QI,

where tonight we're doing the Monster Mash.

Let's meet the nameless horrors that lurk in our monstrous shadows.

The malformed Josh Widdicombe...

CHEERS AND APPLAUSE

..the mutated Phill Jupitus...

CHEERS AND APPLAUSE

..the misbegotten Sara Pascoe...

CHEERS AND APPLAUSE

..and the complete monstrosity Alan Davies.

CHEERS AND APPLAUSE

IN MENACING VOICE: Now, let's hear your scary noises.

Sarah goes...

WOMAN SCREAMS

Josh goes...

MONSTER GROWLS

Phill goes...

WOLF HOWLS

And Alan goes... CHICKEN CLUCKS

LAUGHTER

Too terrible to contemplate.

Let's start with a monster mix-and-match.

Here are some cards you'll find under your desk.

-The fronts and the backs.

-Oh!

And we want you to see if you can make

some kind of monster - and name it if you can.

-Oh, right.

-Name it?

-Mm.

-OK.

-You've got bottoms, Alan...

-I'm a classic bottom.

-I'm a classic top.

..and Josh has got tops.

-What have you got there?

-Alan Davies has got gorgeous legs.

-LAUGHTER

-Hey...

What you've created there is a human.

-I'd say it's borderline, Stephen.

-Too terrible to contemplate.

-Yeah.

-Here we go, here we go, all right...

-OK, OK.

-You don't know what I've put, then we'll look in a minute.

-OK.

-Ooh.

-OK.

-There we go.

Ah, a lionfish.

Now, that's interesting, cos the lionfish does exist.

Unlike the merlion that we have created...

Ah, the merlion is a very good...

..which would sing on the rocks by the coast of Africa

and lure deer to their deaths.

Well, Alan, there you've got an ant...

An ant cow.

Yeah, we've got the...

Basically, what you've got there is

an ungulate that will ruin a picnic.

Well, we can go through some of these.

-Certainly a lionfish exists.

-OK.

There's a bounty on them, if you catch them in the Caribbean.

They destroy the habitat - they're so successful

there's almost nothing that can get them, and they can eat everything.

-Try making one to order. See if you can make a Minotaur.

-OK.

-Minotaur...

-Oh, Minotaur...

-So, it's...

-Bull's head.

-Bull's head's on there.

-Chap's bottom, isn't it? A Minotaur.

-Yeah.

-Rather than a lion?

There we go.

No-one's quite sure whether it should have...

the human top with a bull's bottom, but...

-We've made a Minotaur.

-Oh, yeah. He looks really muscly.

That's not as scary as I thought it was going to be.

-I'm going to say pop your cards away.

-Oh.

I've just made a mermaid, Stephen.

You've done a lovely mermaid - well done.

That's definitely one that was available.

There are all kinds of things available -

the myrmecoleon, which is also known as a formicaleon.

-This is a lion head and an ant body.

-What?!

In medieval bestiaries, they were very sure that that existed.

They held it to be bigger than an ant.

Basically, it lived in a little pit and pulled in things.

-How big was it?

-A bit like a large ant.

Oh, like a large ant.

I feel like someone who had a very low pain threshold is the person

who was like, "No, promise you, it was a lion what bit me but it was very small.

"It came out of a tiny hole."

Yeah, well, they do exist, antlions. Americans call them doodlebugs.

-They live in a pit and they pull in anything that falls in.

-Wow!

Mermaids and mermen, obviously, are the human body with a fish tail.

People think, you know, sailors fall in love with mermaids

and how can they consummate their relationship? You know...

-Fertilise the eggs, Stephen.

-Exactly, it's very simple.

She lays her eggs on a rock or something

and you fertilise them - what's the problem with that?

The sailor has to sail back to his waters where he was spawned

and take the mermaid with him.

So, he has to go back to, I don't know, Dorking...

Yes, that it might be.

..find a pond, pop his new fishwife in there.

-JOSH:

-Fishwife!

-She lays her eggs

and then he has to be arrested for indecent public exposure

at a boating pond.

And one that you get points for because it does exist

is the merlion.

Yeah, which you came up with - a merlion -

-which is the lion head and a fish tail.

-Yeah.

-Really?

Yeah, the national symbol of Singapore.

-Is it?

-Oh...thank you, Singapore.

Yeah. They give you those points.

-The hippocampus.

-Hippopotamus.

Thank you for replying with another animal.

LAUGHTER You're doing very well.

Hip-po replacement.

But...hippocampus is...

The hipster campus is, it's...

-runs coffee bars in Shoreditch...

-LAUGHTER

..in a very effeminate way.

Well, as you probably know,

it's part of the brain, the hippocampus,

but why is it called the hippocampus?

-The shape of it.

-Is...?

It's the shape of a seahorse.

But a hippocampus, as a mythical beast,

-had a horse front and a fish tail.

-Oh...

And so did they think that before they found the seahorse

or they thought there were two separate seahorses?

No, there are seahorses in the Mediterranean, so I suppose...

Let's find out sometime - not now.

LAUGHTER

That is surely the opposite of what this show is about.

I panicked, all right? I just panicked.

People love seahorses because

it's the male who gestates the babies, isn't it, with seahorses?

Which is always so lovely.

I've dived amongst them and I was just shocked by how small they are.

You must have...

-They are tiny. Well, I've seen them in the London Aquariums.

-Oh, right.

They have a very long thin tank that they go up and down -

it's quite sweet.

I assume that's what they want to do,

-otherwise it feels a bit unfair.

-Would be cruel.

They have to just go up and down.

-They're very horse-like as well in the way they feed...

-They race.

..they browse in the weeds.

They browse in the weeds, looking...

They have little stalls and they all get in.

LAUGHTER At the races.

There's always one that doesn't want to go and they have to take him off.

So, no matter what monster you imagine,

you can be pretty sure that someone else made it first.

Here's a monster that someone made earlier,

but what is it and what's it made from?

-Oh....

-Oh, my gosh.

-Is it carved?

-Mm...

-Is it made from bone?

It's a type of mermaid that was very popular in the 19th century.

-It's called a Fiji mermaid.

-Ooh...

People would come from miles to see it.

It was shown off at carnivals,

and it was made from fish and household bits and pieces.

For a long time, people thought it was made by

the addition of a monkey's head with a fish.

And this particular one was acquired by the Wellcome Collection in 1919,

and then later by the fabulous Horniman Museum.

-Do you know the Horniman Museum?

-Yeah, I live near there.

-Do you?

-It's in Forest Hill. It's brilliant, yeah.

It is an incredible place.

A genuine museum of curiosities of the most fascinating kind.

-I've been there too - it's great.

-It is good. It's a fine place.

You just saying that cos I said I've been there?

-LAUGHTER

-I go every week.

-Largely, yeah.

Cos when you said you went to the aquarium, I didn't jump on it.

Like, "Oh, yeah, I've been."

I let you have your time in the sun.

"Time in the sun."

-When you say household bits and pieces...

-Yeah.

..what, like...

LAUGHTER

..sticky-backed plastic?

-Well...

-Fairy liquid bottle?

You'd be surprised to know that recent CT scans

and DNA tests have been done on this fellow, and they revealed

that no monkeys were harmed in its making,

but it is a fish and the rest is made from

fabric of a wooden frame

supporting a papier mache head

-with a fish's jaw.

-Wow.

So, kind of household. Papier mache is usually bits of newspaper

or paper, isn't it, mashed up?

-SARA GASPS

-Oh, wow!

There we go.

Now, look. You see, now...

So, were they supposed to be scary creatures?

It is quite scary.

You can picture it scampering in your bedroom or something.

They were a lot sexier once they added the hair and the shell bras.

Exactly. But you'll be pleased to know that

this is a result of the CT scans,

which were made by the Horniman Museum for us,

and Dr James Moffatt of St George's University in London

translated the CT scan data into

-this 3-D printing of the original.

-Wow!

So, this is a 3-D printing.

-Isn't it good?

-Yeah!

-Yeah, we like that.

APPLAUSE

And you can see how detailed it is.

Even the little holes and flaws in the fish tail.

Have you been to St George's Hospital?

It's really excellent.

LAUGHTER Now...

I'm not going to play this game.

Ergh! Ergh!

I genuinely jumped.

LAUGHTER

You've seen them on Dartmoor, haven't you, Widdicombe?

-What are your monsters called?

-We've got... On Dartmoor?

-Yeah.

We've got the Hairy Hand. Are you aware of the Hairy Hand?

-Which is a...

-No.

-PHILL:

-You get it when you're about 15.

LAUGHTER

The Hairy Hand is a disembodied hand that would appear from nowhere

-if you were driving along the B3021...

-Pissed.

..and it would steer you off the road.

-But there's...

-"Officer!"

-"Officer!"

IN WEST COUNTRY ACCENT: "And it smelt of cider, didn't it?"

"It dropped its pint on me, and then it drove me off the road."

One of the people that claimed

he'd been steered off the road by the Hairy Hand,

he described it as invisible.

LAUGHTER

Oh, bless him for trying.

There's the old curse about the Monkey Wishing Hand,

-which it seems is where that's coming from.

-Oh, yeah.

What's that? What's that?

It's a dead one of those.

LAUGHTER

What's that? What's that?

What's that? What's that?

It's a herd of those.

I've got loads of them.

APPLAUSE

Now, the Horniman Museum,

which gave us access to the original of this...

Probably went there before Sara.

..it was all arranged by a man who's in the audience tonight

from the Horniman Museum,

and it's Paolo Viscardi. Can you give us a wave?

There you are. Thank you very much, Paolo.

APPLAUSE

Grazie.

Who do you recognise more, me or Alan?

-Who's been more often?

-Yeah.

So, Jenny. Do you know about Jenny Haniver?

No. Jenny Agutter.

Jenny Agutter you know about? That's good.

Let me add another Jenny to your list of Jennys.

Let's see some pictures of Jenny Haniver.

-Was she on the front of a boat?

-Whoa. Oh!

Lord, that's Doctor Who.

That's a box of props from Doctor Who.

It does look like it, doesn't it?

It's the Ku Klux Klams.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Can you guess what they are?

-You burn one cross...

-Fish.

-They're fish.

-They are flatfish.

-They're skates. Skate.

-Oh, skate.

Rays or skates would be carved in these shapes -

it was known as Jenny Hanivers.

Mostly sailors from Antwerp who seemed to do this -

it was their specialist art.

Other sailors did scrimshaw, you know,

and they did Jenny Haniver.

Very odd, but they exist,

and you can see that they exist, because they're there in a box.

LAUGHTER

Discarded, unwanted.

The ones in the middle that look like they're wearing glasses

-are the best ones.

-They are.

If they started singing, you'd shit yourself.

LAUGHTER

# Doo-doo doo-doo dum... #

HE SCREAMS

Now, describe the mammoth moles of Siberia.

-They're huge and they live underground.

-Right...

-Yeah. Next.

-Consider the word mammoth.

-Woolly.

-Mammoth.

-Where is it from?

-What language might it be from?

-Welsh.

-Russian?

-No, but it's that... Almost...

-Cornish?

-Is it kind of Celtic?

Baltic/Nordic. They consider themselves Nordic people.

Norway.

LAUGHTER

They really, really ARE Nordic.

These people, most people wouldn't think of them immediately as Nordic.

-They'd think of them as Baltic.

-Latvia, Estonia...

-Yeah, Estonia.

-Is it? OK.

-The wonderful country of Estonia.

-I've never been there.

Sara, have you?

LAUGHTER

I've got a lifetime membership card.

I can go for free as many times as I like.

Lovely gardens.

Well, they have a language that is very

separate from the languages of their neighbours.

It's Finno-Ugric. It's related to Finnish and Hungarian.

And the word "mammoth" is one of the theirs and it means "earth mole".

Does it?

It means "earth mole".

And the reason is that it was thought...

When mammoths were discovered they were always underground,

and they thought they lived underground and were killed

by breathing air by coming up and maybe that's what killed them.

And so that's why they got the name mammoth.

But when were the last mammoths, do you think, in thousands of years?

-1940s.

-Very cold.

-1940s!

LAUGHTER

-200,000 years ago.

-10,000 years ago.

I would say three million years ago.

It's more recent than you might think. It's 4,000 years ago.

-Really?

-There was a herd of them in...

-Essex.

..Wrangel Island in the Arctic.

So when they were there in a herd the Great Pyramid of Cheops

-was already 1,000 years old.

-So it was civilisation?

-So they overlapped with man, very much so, yeah.

-Wow.

But there is a company called Revive and Restore

that is looking to re-introduce mammoths.

They think they can take some genes,

do some gene juggling with Asian elephants and create a mammoth.

It's a very extraordinary thought.

Aw! Bless. Asian elephants with the small ears.

Yes, just before they have their genes juggled.

"Aw! Come into the lab now. I've just got to cut your ovaries open."

It's genome editing is what they call it.

We're hoping they would need to live in the tundra

and one of the reasons we hope that is that they'll reintroduce

certain grasses, the way they eat and the way they move.

They move the seeds around.

Yeah, and the permafrost there where they used to roam is really,

really beneficial to the environment.

It contains two to three times as much carbon as the world's rainforests.

-That would be amazing.

-Yeah.

That could be good aside from the fact it would be delightful to think of them anyway.

If they're free and out on the tundra that's amazing.

I thought they would just be breeding them to put them in captivity,

so we could go, "Oh, you're back."

They're going to put them in one of those tubes like the London Aquarium.

They could swim up and down.

No, there's a man called Sergey Zimov who has created

an experimental preserve in Siberia that he's called Pleistocene Park.

-Wow.

-So could you do that with other...?

Is it possible that this will become a thing that will happen?

-T Rex.

-I guess it is, yeah.

I think it's a question of when rather than if.

I think it would be a foolish person to say it could never happen.

If there's human will behind it,

and it's not illegal, and it's not...

Maybe not velociraptors.

No, we've got a warning there

-cos you see what they do in a kitchen.

-Yeah.

-Less bother in a kitchen than Gordon Ramsay.

-Well, that's true.

-JOSH:

-Do you reckon in 4,000 years they'll be trying to recreate Gordon Ramsay?

-PHILL:

-Wow!

-JOSH:

-For a dare.

-They'll think...

-PHILL:

-Imagine herds of them

sweeping across. Hear their cry.

"Fuck!"

"Why don't you grow some balls?"

"What's this? It's a stupid person sandwich."

Lawks!

Now, what kind of animal does this skull belong to?

-Toothy.

-Well...

-He's very toothy.

-..looks dinosaur-y to me.

Well, you can certainly tell that it's not herbivore,

it's not vegetarian, can't you?

-Is it...a killer rabbit?

-Sabre-toothed tiger?

Is it a sabre-toothed tiger?

-No, it's a bit smaller than that.

-Is it a tiny mouse?

LAUGHTER It's a little bit bigger than that.

It's a species we've mentioned already...

-Is it a mole?

-It's a mole!

-A mole! Is it?

That's a mole. Well done.

APPLAUSE Well done.

The species, not surprisingly, is called the star-nosed mole, and...

It looks like that guy from Futurama, doesn't it?

-It does. Zoidberg.

-Zoidberg.

-Yeah.

IMITATES ZOIDBERG: Well, when you look like Zoidberg...

LAUGHTER

It's a wonderful mole.

They live underground, and we don't have much to do with them,

but they're equipped with special powers.

For example, they can smell in stereo,

so they can tell when something is coming, from which direction.

So they'd be very useful in a lift, wouldn't they?

They'd be able to say, "It was you. It was you.

"Don't lie - it was you."

And they have toxins with which they paralyse

and stun the worms that they eat.

Why would they want to do that if they've got the worm anyway?

-So they can eat it later.

-So they can eat it later.

-So they find it and go...

-They have larders.

-.."tasty, but lunchtime."

-Exactly. Deferred pleasure.

-Pop it in their larder.

-Eurgh...

-But they're...

-That's amazing.

-PHILL:

-Christ!

Yeah. They need a lot of sustenance because they do a lot of work.

They do extraordinary tunnelling.

They can dig 150 feet of new tunnels a day.

Now, given their size and weight

that is the equivalent of a human moving four tonnes -

about 1,000 shovel loads - every 20 minutes.

Why didn't we get them to do the Channel Tunnel?

-LAUGHTER

-It would've been amazing - and cute.

Yeah, about 400 of them - Crossrail, done in a fortnight.

-LAUGHTER

-We're missing something. Huh?

APPLAUSE

They're very territorial and solitary, though,

and the females mate...

and as soon as they've mated, germinated, ovulated, whatever things females do,

erm...

LAUGHTER

It's complicated!

It's complicated.

Once they've done that,

their gonads then put out enormous quantities of testosterone,

-so that they become very aggressive and territorial.

-That's amazing.

And they then go back to a solitary life like a male. So they become sort of male.

-Did you know that hyenas... female hyenas have penises...

-Yes.

..that they have to give birth through.

-Ooh...

-Yes.

-Oh, an audible gasp!

-They're fake penises, though...

-What ARE they laughing at?!

-They're not real penises.

-They don't work like one.

HE CACKLES LIKE A HYENA

LAUGHTER

So their body has to basically put them to sleep to give birth,

-they have to release so many relaxants to be able to do it.

-Oh...

-I know. Incredible. Isn't that amazing, though?

-Yeah. Phenomenal.

Anyway, now, name all the members of the Monstrous Regiment of Women.

Beryl?

-Linda...

-Jean.

-..Shirley.

-Angry Sue.

-LAUGHTER

-She's the leader.

Have you heard of The Monstrous Regiment Of Women?

-The First Blast Of The Trumpet Against The Monstrous...

-Oh!

-John Knox.

-Yes, John Knox. I knew you would've...

The First Blast Of The Trumpet Against

The "Monstrous", notice, Regiment Of Women.

So, I've read that, and it's bad that I couldn't remember

the Monstrous Regiment... It seems like it's kind of the main part.

-LAUGHTER

-It seems like...

Actually, what it is is a slight change in the language,

and "monstrous" doesn't mean "monstrous" as we would say it -

-it means unnatural.

-Mm.

And "regiment" doesn't mean

the whole load of them marching on, these women -

-it means "regime".

-Right.

And he was a Protestant,

and he was angry at the fact

there were two Catholic women on the thrones...

-Oh, of course.

-..of England. Who might they have been?

-Mary...

Which Mary? They were both called Mary.

-The Two Marys...

-The Two Marys.

LAUGHTER Exactly.

This has now turned into a story from the Bunty - The Two Marys.

-There was our Mary, Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary - Mary Tudor.

-Yeah.

The one who burned the Protestants.

And in Scotland, it wasn't Mary Queen of Scots,

it was her regent, who was Mary of Guise.

-Cheery bunch.

-Yeah, a cheery bunch.

-I feel like that's the same Mary in different outfits.

-Yeah.

You know when they do, like, those style challenges on This Morning

-and it's before and after?

-It is, isn't it?

"She used to just wear monochrome, but look at her now!"

LAUGHTER

So, Knox, who was a very keen Protestant,

didn't like these women on the throne.

He was angry about it and wrote this thing.

But on the subject of Mary Queen of Scots,

do you remember who her husband was, by any chance?

Darnley, his name was, her husband.

He was murdered. He was actually blown up.

This is a very extraordinary story.

One of the presumed architects of the explosion

was a fellow called Archibald Douglas -

a pair of his shoes were found at the scene of the crime.

ALAN GIGGLES

"Where's your shoes, Archibald?"

-LAUGHTER

-"Oh!"

-You've always got to take your shoes off before a dynamiting.

-He got away with it.

But he later gave an account of Mary's reaction.

-So, this is Mary, her husband has been blown up.

-Mm-hm.

"She sent for a number of light ladies and women

"to come to Holyroodhouse

"and participate stark naked in a ball."

"Then they had cut off their pubic hair

"and had put it in puddings to be eaten by the male guests,

"who were sick."

LAUGHTER

Is that what you do when your husband's blown up?

Was she just trying to, you know, like,

trying to get back to normal life?

LAUGHTER

-"Let's just carry on as we were."

-That's right.

"Get your pubes and put them in that pie."

"It's what he would have wanted." LAUGHTER

Actually, I think this might be quite clever.

Probably, if your partner is killed in a horrific way,

all anyone is ever going to talk to you about is,

"Aw, what happened to your husband?"

But now, no - "Why did you have that pube party?"

What? Why? Are you joking?

It's all the detail we have.

"Two things, Mary - number one, condolences. Number two..."

It's all the detail we have, sadly,

but the actual person who took the rap for the murder -

he was hanged, drawn and quartered

on the basis that he was the one who discovered the scene,

which seems a bit unfair -

his name was William Blackadder.

Oh...

HE IMPERSONATES GENERAL MELCHETT: It's true.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Oh, stop it. Don't.

There you are.

The Monstrous Regiment Of Women was just a couple of Marys.

Which is nastier -

a Foetid Parachute or a Hairy Nuts Disco?

-OK...

-I'll tell you who doesn't like a hairy nuts disco - Mary.

LAUGHTER Exactly. It's so true.

Presumably, she has that sort of in bowls...

You have hairy nuts as a sort of amuse-bouche.

Basically that would be a party

-with people just walking around, going...

-HE RETCHES

HE CONTINUES TO RETCH

Making a PUBIC nuisance of yourself. LAUGHTER

They ARE cocktails?

-Are these cocktails?

-They're not cocktails.

They look exactly as if they would be...

In Japan, there is a disco where the women don't wear underwear

and they are on a floor above, and it's glass,

and they dance and the men pay more to be underneath.

And I was telling my friend this and she went,

"They couldn't do it with men cos it would look like everyone was waving at you."

LAUGHTER

Isn't that romantic - people like, "Oh... Don't worry."

"No, no, it's OK, carry on."

Foetid Parachute might be a slight clue

inasmuch as the shape of a parachute might be.

-JOSH:

-Oh!

-Oh, jellyfish!

-Jellyfish!

-That's the one thing it could've been...

-Mushrooms!

..the other one is mushrooms. Yeah, these are fungi or fun-gee.

Extraordinary names for new species that occur all the time,

and there are some incredible names.

Pink Disco - that's normal and nice.

Greasy Bracket...

"Punched him in the greasy bracket." I don't know.

Powdery Piggyback.

IN A MENACING VOICE: Shall we play powdery piggyback?

White Brain, Jelly Ear, Verdigris Navel,

LAUGHING: Fragrant Funnel...

I'm sorry. I'm sorry! LAUGHTER

Cinnamon Jellybaby, Witches' Butter, Slimy Earth Tongue.

Alan Rickman's Fridge Gunk. Let's just start making up mushroom names.

These are also all bands that have had a John Peel session as well.

Hot Lips, Twisted Deceiver...

Barbara Cartland's Shoe Tree.

..Bog Cannon, Gassy Night...

-JOSH:

-I've had one of them.

-..and the Hairy Nuts Disco.

So how often are they finding new fungi?

Amazingly, amazingly. Let me tell you a remarkable story.

This is in September 2014 - not very long ago.

A couple of mycologists -

as they call fungus experts - from Kew Gardens

analysed the DNA of a supermarket packet of porcini mushrooms.

They found three species unknown to science.

LAUGHTER Perfectly edible...

Was there any horse in it?

LAUGHTER

The scientists named them in Latin

White Beef Liver, Delicious cattle Liver Fungus and Edible.

Wow.

Do you know, the worst thing is throughout that I was thinking,

"I wonder who's been to Kew Gardens more - Sara or Alan?"

LAUGHTER

So in terms of fungi as a whole, 1,200 new species are added a year.

-Wow.

-1,200 a year?

-Amazing, isn't it?

-They may account for up to 25% of the Earth's biomass.

-Wow.

-So are they really adaptive? Is that's what's happening?

-Very.

-And can be aggressive - that's why we've...

-Like moles!

-We should get them in a fight.

-Yes!

-Mushrooms versus moles!

-LAUGHTER

They can be very aggressive. Although they don't exactly move,

they do spread themselves huge distances underground.

I still think I could beat one in a fight.

-Some would beat you in a fight if you tried to EAT them.

-Yes...

which is how I fight.

LAUGHTER

Well, there you are, you see?

The Trichoderma fungus bumps into another species

and grasps it with its hyphae, its thin tubes,

and squeezes the food out of it.

So it basically takes the food from another species.

"Meanwhile, in the Swan Vesta reject room...!

LAUGHTER

Other fungi launch gas warfare -

the Sulphur Tuft produces chemical agents...

Chemical warfare?!

-Yeah. Against each other.

-Oh, my God.

-Yeah.

Mushrooms are quite small. They used to be huge.

They used to be the biggest kinds of non-animal there were.

When trees and plants were just three foot tall,

they were much, much bigger - and much more phallic.

-Really?

-Apparently.

Planet of the Cocks.

LAUGHTER

Anyway, if Frankenstein's Monster came to dinner,

what would you give him to eat?

Electricity, I would give him.

Electricity? To keep him alive?

That's what he was brought to life with,

so that's what I would feed him.

Just finger in the plug socket, or...

-JOSH:

-Have you got an adaptor?

In the novel, Frankenstein, Or The Modern Prometheus,

the Monster speaks and is intelligent, and brave, and kind.

And also eats.

-Who wrote it?

-Mary Shelley.

-Mary Shelley, who was the wife of...

-She was very, very young...

-Percy.

-Percy Shelley.

-..when she wrote it.

She was young. Percy Shelley and she were two of the most

notable pioneering vegetarians.

Ahh.

And they wanted to express that feeling in the creature,

in the Monster, as it's called.

A simple humble diet of carrots, vegetables,

and gallons of laudanum.

So Frankenstein's Monster didn't eat any meat?

He actually has a speech in the novel,

"My food is not that of Man.

"I do not destroy the lamb and the kid to glut my appetite.

"Acorns and berries accord me sufficient nourishment."

-Aw, that's amazing.

-He could do better than acorns and berries.

He could have a quiche, for example.

LAUGHTER

It's weird to think of Frankenstein's Monster having that in common with Piglet.

"I like haycorns."

But that's how we know he was such a kind, empathetic character.

Because he lived with a bear.

I was talking about Frankenstein's Monster.

LAUGHTER

When Shelley died... Do you know how Shelley died? He was very young,

-as Keats was.

-On a boat?

-He died in Italy, didn't he?

-On a boat, quite right.

-I was right, yeah.

It sank, the Arial, and his friend, Captain John Trelawny,

scoured the Italian coast to find his body.

And when they burnt his body at the cremation,

the heart seemed to stay whole, and so Trelawny grabbed it,

pulled it out, burned his hand terribly,

and gave the heart to Mary, who kept it for 30 years.

Some people now think it was probably the liver, not the heart,

and it... Who knows? But it's rather touching.

Byron's liver would have gone off like a bomb.

LAUGHTER

Right, yeah, Frankenstein's Monster was a vegetarian, fair play to him.

Alan, what horrors are under your bed

and how can you get rid of them?

LAUGHTER

Be honest with us. Share.

Don't over share, but just share enough.

The Bogeyman, everyone's always scared of.

The Bogeyman. And how do you get rid of it?

Is there a way?

Er, fire. Burn him, smoke him out.

LAUGHTER

A futon.

LAUGHTER

Well, there is...

Yeah, we have a divan base with drawers.

No Bogeyman.

The point is you can buy a spray that you tell your child

will get rid of the Bogeyman.

-Oh, really.

-Great, lies in a can.

So, yeah, you can get the spray.

And we've got some, I think it's under there somewhere.

You can spray away the monsters.

Yours is... LOUD HONK

Yes, that's the loud... That's another way.

What if you like monsters?

-If you like them, don't...

-I'm not going to.

-You like monsters?

-I think I'm open to them.

I remember being a bit afraid of what was down the bottom of the bed.

Indeed, and there are evolutionary psychologists

who believe that the child's resistance to bed

is actually very sensible

and is part of the in-built thing of not wanting to sleep

alone in the dark where there are genuine monsters,

animals and all kinds of things, and it's been inherited.

But in Hungary, they have a monster which is most peculiar.

It's called Rezfaszu bagoly,

though I'm sure it's not pronounced like that.

But what it means, in English, is "the copper-penised owl."

-He is a giant owl...

-I'm glad you've shown me his face.

LAUGHTER

He's a giant owl and he has a copper penis,

-and he'll get you...

-When you say "copper penis"...

-Yeah, I mean a penis made of copper.

-Thank you.

Not a tiny policeman with balls.

LAUGHTER

That would be scary, though.

"Evenin', all."

The really scary part is he's a threat to children, this creature.

-Oh.

-That's the point.

This is what's disturbing, is that the copper-penised owl

will get you if you don't do what your mother tells you.

What does it mean, "get you"?

Oh, my gosh.

What sort of mother would say that to a child?

If you don't behave, the copper-penised owl

will come and get you.

Imagine that, you're lying in bed at night and you hear...

IMITATES OWL

LAUGHTER

Oh, my God, it's tarnished!

There is some research to show that people who play

a lot of computer games

can sometimes develop the ability to take control of their nightmares

and fight back within them.

-Wow.

-Yeah, it's rather good, isn't it?

Take it to the next level.

Take it to the next level.

Now, how do you keep a blue man happy?

I once auditioned for the Blue Man Group.

-Did you?

-I auditioned for everything that was in The Stage,

which is a newspaper for out-of-work actors,

and I did not read that advert properly.

And not only do you need to be a man to be in the Blue Man Group,

but you also need to be over 6'5".

-Seriously?

-And I was in the queue thinking...

"I think I've got this."

"I'm really special amongst all these people."

So is it... What is the Blue Man Group?

-Like that, completely painted blue.

-They're a huge success,

-enormous.

-There they are!

-They started in New York.

-I didn't get it, if anyone was wondering.

They have five running just in the United States.

And whenever you're in any city in the world, you see

a poster for the Blue Man Group.

-Tourist fodder, because they're not dependent on language.

-Exactly.

That's a very good point.

But these blue men are monsters in the world that we're in.

Not the Smurfs, then.

These are the Blue Men of the Minch,

Between the north-west coast of Scotland and the Hebrides.

And the Blue Men of Minch, they're also known as Sea Kelpies.

Oooh. Ooh, he's a charmer.

Yeah, isn't he?

And they used to lure sea folk.

They're always luring, aren't they, monsters?

It creates storms. But they had a really unique line

in allowing you to be saved.

And that is they would shout out two lines of poetry

and if you could shout back two which rhymed, that pleased them,

they would let your ship go.

There was a young man from Dunoon...

Like an improv game.

That's right. We have one example from Scottish mythology.

Perhaps you could supply the reply.

The chief of the Blue Men called out thus to a ship's captain -

"My men are eager, my men are ready

To drag you below the waves."

"One's called Steve, one called Zeddy..."

LAUGHTER

"The other three are all Daves."

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Very pleasing!

I think they would have been insane not to let you off with that.

In fact, the rather dull one that saved the skippers of that ship

that was attacked was,

"My ship is speedy, my ship is steady

If it sank, it would wreck your caves."

-Rubbish.

-I like to think that it was like a proto version of The Voice.

They were all in chairs the other way around

and they shouted the rhymes.

And, like, "Yeah, that rhymes."

If they just said to me, "My men are eager, my men are ready

"To drag you below the waves",

I'd never have thought,

"They want me to rhyme with this."

LAUGHTER

I'd see that as a threat.

Maybe that's what hecklers have been wanting all along.

-What, a rhyme...

-Yeah, rhyme back.

The theory is they were blue because they'd painted themselves.

And Latin for to paint is pictum,

as in picture and depict...

-and...

-Picts.

Picts, exactly. They were Picts. The Picts and the Scots.

There were Picts in woad, possibly on kayaks,

who were aggressive and did indeed colonise Scotland,

so maybe that's who they were.

"Angus, can you hear lions singing?"

LAUGHTER

"Sounds awfully nice."

Wellll, if you don't want to sink in the Minch,

think of something that rhymes...

LAUGHTER ..at a pinch.

Um, yeah.

Ah, it's a cinch.

So, now it's time to descend into the dark

and fetid nest of nasties that is General Ignorance.

First, some real sea monsters. Fingers on buzzers.

Why do great white sharks bite people?

WOMAN SCREAMS Yes?

It's to keep themselves in the news.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

That's probably why.

It's so good and so true.

Is it cos they think they're something else?

It's a pretty good answer, yes...

People say it's because the shadow of a person,

especially if they're surfing, looks like a seal.

No, you see, the thing is when... They do eat seals,

but when they eat seals, it's a frenzy, it's a torpedo -

they dive in, and there's nothing left.

But when they attack people, they just take a bite,

and they usually then go off.

So it's generally believed that it's a kind of curiosity.

-"What is this?"

-Oh, God.

So it's like at a party with a vol-au-vent?

Yeah, basically.

They just think, "I'll just take a little bit off it..."

-Oh, no, no.

-"..and see if I like it, see what it is."

That's generally believed by...

Going over to his mates going, "Don't try that - it's horrible."

"Don't put it back on the tray. Don't put it back on the tray.

-"Put it over there."

-"You've started it now."

Curious rather than predatory is the way their behaviour is.

Wrap it in a napkin, put it in your pocket.

If you're a human and you lose half your leg,

-you don't, obviously, think of it like that.

-No, no.

But the point is if they wanted to kill you,

they are such ferocious...

"I hope that's sated your curiosity!"

So, yeah, sharks like to have a nibble

before they decide whether or not we're worth munching.

Who has the biggest face in America?

-Oh, is it...

-MONSTER ROARS

..one of Mount Rushmore?

Ah... Dang nabbit. SIREN RINGS

No, I said "one of".

-Is it a clock?

-No, it's not a clock.

-Good, good... Very smart.

-OK.

-Where's Mount Rushmore?

-Dakota.

-South Dakota is right, yeah.

And this particular huge face

which is bigger by far than either of the four Presidents there...

But you can get a point for naming them.

-Washington...

-Washington.

-..Lincoln...

and the other two.

-McKinley, no? And...

-Jefferson...

-Jefferson and...

-..and Teddy Roosevelt.

-Oh! Oh!

-Oh!

Oh, we can all do that at the end, Josh.

-LAUGHTER

-I knew all of them! Just on the...

Oh, Horniman Museum!

I'm not going to lie - I was going to go Obama, so...

15 miles away from Mount Rushmore is the biggest face in America.

-15 miles?

-Which is an ongoing work, also sculpting a face.

Oh, it's the Indian head thing.

Yes, it's the head of a Lakota Sioux Indian chief

who was a hero to his people.

It's being done by one person who's been doing it for about 20 years.

Ancient Polish guy - I've met him. He's extraordinary, yeah.

-It's going to be much, much bigger than them, isn't it?

-Yes.

87 feet high, is the face.

And do you know the name of the Indian brave?

He won, for his people, the battle,

of which was only a battle - they lost the war...

-Sitting Bull.

-Sitting Bull.

-Crazy Horse.

-Steve.

-# Ow! #

-"Steve!"

Crazy Horse.

-There it is - there's the face.

-Oh, he's beautiful.

He beat Custer in the Battle of Little Bighorn.

Yeah, but they never found Roobarb.

LAUGHTER

Lordy, lord.

HE SINGS ROOBARB AND CUSTARD THEME MUSIC

But if you go sideways on, he's on his horse.

-IMITATES CUSTARD:

-Look out, there's a big Indian after you.

-So, there's one guy who's done this?

-Yeah.

-Amazing.

-And he's still doing it.

-That's why it's taking so long.

-When did he start?

-Do you have to buy the mountain

first, or do you just do it on somebody else's?

Cos I'd be pretty angry if that was in my garden.

You know, the really impressive thing is

that he's done it with sandpaper.

Is he going to get to the end

and then they're going to realise he hasn't got planning permission?

"Put it all back, my friend."

"You have to rebuild the original mountain as it was.

-LAUGHTER

-"We want it all back."

-There you can see how it should look.

-Oh, wow.

That's the real thing in the background.

It's a noble endeavour,

but, goodness me, it's taking him a long time.

I don't know if he's using dynamite,

cos that's what they used in Mount Rushmore.

They used dynamite to four inches' worth of accuracy.

-Really?

-You know, all the little features -

the nose and everything else. Unbelievable.

It was going to be Lewis and Clark, the explorers,

you know, who opened up the West,

and it was going to be Chief Red Cloud and Buffalo Bill,

but then they decided it should be presidents

just to get on the right side of politics, I suppose.

There's Buffalo Bill. Obviously, Lewis and Clark on the right.

And you know what you do after a good dynamite?

Pube party.

LAUGHTER

That must have been the biggest pube party of all time.

It was massive.

Anyway, name the largest single man-made structure on the planet.

-Oh... Oh, yeah.

-Not falling for that one.

No way. No way!

Is it going to be a 50-mile long tunnel or a bridge

or something like that?

What we've got out of the way, cos it's hanging here like a worry,

is it's not the Great Wall of China.

-Oh, OK.

-Yeah.

-Try a continent where it might be.

-Europe.

-OK.

-Europe is not where it is.

-Asia.

-Australia.

-Nor Asia, nor Australia.

-North America.

-Nor North America.

-South America.

-Nor South America.

-Antarctica.

-Antarctica.

-Nor Antarctica.

-Arctic.

-Africa.

-Africa! Thank you.

-Hey!

-Bloody hell, I'm glad...

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

I really, really hope Ban Ki-moon isn't watching this.

"Africa! Africa!"

-So, is it Egyptian? Is it North...?

-It's Nigeria, in fact.

-Oh.

It's the Great Earthworks of Benin.

The Great Earthworks of Benin!

LAUGHTER

It's also called the Walls of Benin.

-The Walls, of course, Benin!

-Defensive earthworks...

The Earthen Walls of Benin in...

..dug by the Edo people.

-10,000 miles in length.

-Miles of it. 10,000 miles...

-10,000 miles?

..of defensive earthworks by the Edos.

-10,000 miles in length.

-How could I forget(?!)

-Four times longer than the Great Wall of China.

-OK.

Puny little wall.

Consumed 100 times more material than the Great Pyramid of Cheops.

Took 700 years and an estimated 150 million hours of digging.

Severely damaged by... HE CLEARS THROAT

..the British...when we sacked and burned Benin in 1897.

Aren't the British brilliant?

"Yes. Well, they just wouldn't do as they were told."

LAUGHTER

"There's only so much gentle persuasion we've got time for.

"Sack and burn them. Fuck the earthworks."

More or less exactly what happened.

And then we twisted the knife by not remembering Africa existed.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

-What did they build it for?

-Defences.

-Keep out the British, I'd imagine.

-Keep out the British!

Didn't work very well, unfortunately.

"Here come the white folks. Dig, dig!"

Of course, you could argue that

the Eurasian road network is a bigger thing,

cos it covers Portugal all the way to Siberia.

-You can drive across the whole lot.

-It's all connected by road.

-You know...

-So, who do we take this up with?

The Guinness Book Of Records? Or do we go to Nigeria?

They'll go, "I think in fact we got something bigger, actually."

And further twist the knife again.

The monstrous Walls of Benin were the biggest thing ever built

until we monstrously knocked them down.

All of which brings us to the monstrous scores.

It's remarkable. PHILL AND SARA LAUGH

I'm going to start...

You've all done, may I say, remarkably well.

In last place, with a score that sometimes could be a winning score

of minus seven is Josh Widdicombe.

CHEERS AND APPLAUSE

In third place, with minus two...

Ooh! It's Sara Pascoe.

CHEERS AND APPLAUSE

No! Tell me it ain't so!

In second place, with plus five, Alan Davies!

CHEERS AND APPLAUSE

How close it was,

because the winner by a whisker on six points is Phill Jupitus.

CHEERS AND APPLAUSE I don't understand it.

That's all from Sara, Phill, Josh, Alan and me,

and I leave you with these words from Andre Breton.

"The man who can't visualise a horse galloping on a tomato

"is an idiot."

Thank you.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE