The Occult QI XL

APPLAUSE

Hello and welcome to QI.

Tonight's show is an other-worldly odyssey

through the mysterious occult.

Please offer up oblations to the Prince of Darkness - Russell Brand.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

The Beast of Revelations, Aisling Bea.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

The Lord of the Flies, Noel Fielding.

LAUGHTER CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And, hell, yes, it's Alan Davies!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Hey-hey!

That was a terrifying outfit. LAUGHTER

I was really hoping there'd be a new car under there, but it's just Alan.

And their buzzers are obligingly ominous. Russell goes...

WOLF HOWLS

Aisling goes...

EVIL CACKLING

And Noel goes...

EVIL LAUGHTER

And Alan goes...

OMINOUS ORGAN MUSIC

FAIRGROUND MUSIC PLAYS ON ORGAN

Hey, right. We're going to begin with some mind-reading,

but those of you who are psychic will already know that.

We have asked some members of our front row to write some

words on cards and put them in an envelope, which I have not seen.

So if the QI minion, this is our magic minion,

can please collect them,

then we're going to attempt some spooky mind-reading.

And what are they? Just facts, or?

It's just a word, a single word, is that right?

Each one's written a single word.

So the minion is going to give me the cards.

Do you believe in this kind of thing?

-Do you believe in mind-reading?

-Yes.

OK. LAUGHTER

So in order for this to work, I need to make my mind a complete blank.

Alan, how do I do that?

LAUGHTER

Oh-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!

Now, some of you may know I have an ear piece,

I don't want you to think that in any way that anybody can

communicate with me, so I can't use that.

What's going to happen now is that I am going to place the card

to my head, and I need to concentrate.

I'm going to say...potato. Who said potato?

-Anybody say? You did say potato?

-Did you?

-OK.

Very, very good. Indeed.

OK, let's do the next one. LAUGHTER

Let's see. Oh, this one's difficult.

This one is very difficult.

I am going to say sin, something to do with sin...

..synchronicity?

It is, synchronicity is your word?

She's a witch, burn her!

Goodness. Oh, indeed, OK.

So, we'll just do one more and see if I can think.

Oh, this one's nice - mushroom. I think it's mushroom.

Yes. Absolutely. Well, there we go, that will do.

APPLAUSE

-So...

-There was a real...

-There was a real disparity between what inspired you lot there.

-Yeah.

As in, like, you really dug deep around mushroom, didn't you?

Yeah. So, anybody know how I did that?

Does anybody have any idea how that happens?

-Because you can read minds?

-Yes, that's exactly what happened.

Basically, you can read menus, is what I got from that.

LAUGHTER

-Yeah, mushrooms and potatoes.

-Mushroom, potato.

-Yeah.

See, I love those tricks, I think they're fantastic,

-I mean, clearly they are a trick. And...

-What?!

Of genius, a trick of genius, in some way.

Are you a fan of magic shows, Russell?

I'm astounded that we're all just sat here

while you have unravelled one of the great mysteries of the universe.

Now we're going to have to work out through which necromancy

you have taken over Bake-Off.

LAUGHTER

You've managed to install Noel Fielding,

an astonishing piece of casting. What's next?

I'm channelling Mrs Beeton, that's what's happening.

-You have powers beyond my comprehension.

-I know, I know.

So what I'm going to do, I'm going to take a blank card like this

and I'm going to write a word myself on it,

and I'm going to stick it in an envelope.

And then we will place that in this big book,

so that it's not possible for me to change it.

Russell can see it from where you are.

I saw your eyes looking. He's cheating.

Yeah, but I would never use that knowledge to trick the QI audience.

OK, let's put it on there, let's put it on there

so that I can't cheat with it, you can all see it, it's in...

There it is, it's in plain sight, OK.

So, there used to be a thought that some people could read

through something other than their eyes.

It's called dermo-optical perception, or cutaneous perception.

And the idea is, so I put it against my head

so that you could read through your fingers

or you could read through your skin.

I've been warned about men where they come at you

in that sort of position.

It's like, "I'm going to read you!"

You're like, "Argh!"

Well, in World War I, there's a wonderful story.

There was a lot of paranoia in Europe, as you can imagine,

and there was a lady's maid, and she was stopped and strip-searched

in Germany, and they found secret writing on her bottom, OK.

And they arrested her, they photographed the writing,

and they sent it to German military intelligence.

Her bottom was much discussed and much looked at.

It turned out that the maid, on the train, had been worried

that the loo would be dirty, and she'd put newspaper on the seat.

LAUGHTER

And the writing was several articles from the Frankfurter Zeitung,

which I like. They were able to read the newspaper off her arse.

But, in fact, our mind-reading

was done by a completely different trick.

There was a mentalist who used to be known as Alexander -

The Man Who Knows.

-I've got that very poster.

-Have you?

-Yeah.

Do you know who he actually is, Alexander, The Man Who Knows?

-He was called Alexander.

-LAUGHTER

And he worked as a psychic.

His real name was Claude Conlin and he was from South Dakota.

I got it in Coney Island.

And they still have contortionists

and people who stick nails in themselves.

They're people who do actual extraordinary things.

Get a real job!

There's one lad who can get himself through a tennis racket.

But there's no strings on it.

LAUGHTER

-Be a bit sick.

-That would be a trick, wouldn't it?

He comes out like human chips!

But to do it, he has to dislocate his shoulder to get through it.

And he's 23, or something.

-And I said, "Are you not worried by long-term implications?"

-Yeah.

And he said, "Well, I've been told that my shoulders will be ruined

"by the time I'm 40."

I said, "Well, stop doing it, then." And he wouldn't.

But he was quite a guy, Alexander.

He married 8 to 14 women, many at the same time.

We don't know exactly how many, maybe 14 women.

-14 women?

-Yeah, it's quite a lot.

That's not that many, is it, Russell?

LAUGHTER

A conservative mind-bender!

I can't tell you how we read the mind of our front row,

but I can say that we have a plant in the audience.

-Yeah.

-CHUCKLING

OK, so I've got an object here for you.

-There's one for you guys to share.

-Thank you very much.

And one for you to share.

And I want you to tell me how you would use it to burgle a house.

-OK, so...

-I... I've an idea.

-Yes, go on, then.

Well, I think what you'd do is, you would melt the waxen tips.

-There are waxen tips.

-There are.

You would get the finger prints of the person whose house it

was on their hi-tech James Bond style fingerprint system.

-Yeah.

-I don't know how you get in that bit,

cos if you've got that kind of access to the person,

simply charm them into allowing you in to rob the safe at your leisure.

And then you put their fingerprints on there,

then you put this very discreet garment on your other hand

and wander into Canary Wharf, or wherever it is, and say -

"I'm just one of the people who happens to live here.

"Don't judge me by that. I move among you.

"I love you. I'm a banker, just like you."

Then you press all the buttons, you're in there,

-and that's how you rob their house.

-And that's that sorted.

-Simple business.

-Yeah. I don't know why we didn't think of that.

LAUGHTER

What we really needed was the pickled hand of a hang...

That one's gone rogue!

I think you could only rob a house if Freddy Krueger lived there.

Just put your hand through the letterbox and the dog lets you in.

We wanted to set fire to them,

but apparently it's a health and safety nightmare.

There's a fire there, though.

Why is fire allowed there and not near Noel?

-Now I understand.

-I think the worry was that...

LAUGHTER

-Who wants me to try?

-CHEERING

-OK.

-Don't put it near your hair product, will you?

-Are you left or right handed?

-Well, the glove is left handed.

Yeah, but...

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

-OK. So hang on, is that it?

-There we go.

Light the others. I used to do this with...

-AISLING:

-So, in answer to your question, Sandi,

-while they're doing that, I go and burgle the house.

-Yes.

Is that what it is?

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

-Hi, nice to meet you.

-OTHERS SING:

-Happy birthday to you.

A really rubbish kid's thing.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

-Is it the flame that's significant?

-Kind of.

-Or the rubber?

So, you needed the pickled hand of a hanged man, OK?

-Oh, wow.

-You then needed to make

a candle from the fat of the condemned man.

-Ugh!

-And then, in an idea world, you would make the wick out of his hair.

It's called a Hand of Glory.

If you were holding the Hand of Glory,

and the Hand of Glory had a...

LAUGHTER

That's not the Hand of Glory, Sandi. That's the Hand of Glory.

It was a race.

It's sweet when boys are so pleased with themselves.

LAUGHTER

It's a good job this desk is here.

No, you're all right. Um...

So the idea was, if you held one of these

when you went into somebody's house,

it would have a stupefying effect upon them, and put them to sleep.

Now, the only photograph that we have of a genuine Hand of Glory

is courtesy of the Whitby Museum,

and that is probably the only one still in existence, and that was...

It's quite a wild pitch, like, for Dragons' Den, to go,

"I've got this idea, all we need is one hand

"of a hanged man, we stick his hair in there,

"make a candle out of his skin, the hair is going to be the wick.

"That's important. When we go into the house,

"it'll automatically send people to sleep

"and that's how we're going to burgle the house."

"I'm in, £250,000. I see nothing wrong with this idea."

-NOEL:

-Or just wait till they go on holiday.

LAUGHTER

Well, the Observer, in 1831,

reported on the 16th of January, "Burglars entered a house

"in County Meath, armed with a dead man's hand

"with a lighted candle in it, believing in the superstitious

"notion that it would prevent those who may be asleep from awaking."

-Do you think it worked?

-No.

No, they woke instantly and raised the alarm.

-Screamed their heads off.

-Yeah, absolutely.

-He's got a burning hand!

-LAUGHTER

Anybody know where the term Hand of Glory comes from?

-Russell!

-LAUGHTER

I feel I'm looking the wrong way, really, for this...

I don't know, but I'm going to Google it

and see whose picture comes up.

-It's an old word for the mandrake root, mandragore.

-Oh.

Which was supposed to look a bit like human beings.

But the good thing is, if you thought that somebody

was going to come at you with a Hand of Glory,

you could protect yourself. This is good. There's an unguent

which you can rub around the threshold

of your house, and it's very simple. You just need a...

-I'm glad you said "of your house," then.

-Yes.

LAUGHTER

You need gall of black cat, fat of white hen and blood of screech owl.

And if you do those things, then that'll protect you.

What's a screech owl?

One of them.

The Irish were very keen on all these old folklores.

In fact, Irish butter makers would incorporate a dead man's hand

taken fresh from the graveyard in their recipes

and the milk would be stirred around nine times with the hand.

Erm, just on behalf of Ireland, that is no longer done.

Please continue to buy Irish butter, where and if you can.

LAUGHTER

-Shares in Kerrygold have just gone through the floor.

-Yeah.

My favourite of these is from a book called Folklore Of Herefordshire.

The cure for whooping cough

was to make a child eat a slice of bread and butter

that had sat in the hand of a corpse.

LAUGHTER AND GROANS

"You'll eat it till it's finished,

"and then we'll return the corpse."

But I didn't mention, in the recipe for the Hand of Glory,

it needs to be the left hand. Why would that be?

Makes it feel like it's someone else.

LAUGHTER

So you can deny it was you burgling the house.

"It didn't feel like me!"

-NOEL:

-Is it something to do with Satan?

It's to do with it being sinister.

-So, sinister is the Latin word for left.

-Oh.

So that's where we get sinister from.

That's another thing, in Ireland they used to beat...

My mother was a left hand, with a left... "Was a left hand!"

LAUGHTER

Here she is!

"Oh, hiya, Mammy." "Hello, Aisling."

"I still love you and I never left."

"Oh, thanks, Mammy."

LAUGHTER

My mother was left handed,

and in Ireland, they think the devil is in your left hand.

They used to beat it out of kids and force them

to write with their right hand.

The... I don't want to say it, but, like...

It was the nuns!

LAUGHTER

But, yeah, they used to beat them across the hands,

and most kids were forced, probably, I'd say, until the '70s,

-to do everything with their right hand.

-Wow.

-Yeah. Yeah.

Well, the occult was also used against burglars.

So there used to be quite a lot of book curses,

because books were phenomenally expensive.

So in the Middle Ages they wanted to stop people from stealing books.

This is a fantastic one from a 15th-century manuscript

owned by Count Jean d'Orleans.

-He's covering a lot of bases, there.

-He is really, yeah.

-He don't want that book stolen.

-No, that's not going to...

-Look after it.

-Yeah.

And, in fact, if you go to Edinburgh now,

you can go to the Writers' Museum.

It was built in 1622 by William Gray of Pittendrum.

And he was so worried about burglars,

if you look at the steps, they're all different heights,

because he knew that they were different heights,

he would have heard a burglar coming.

It's a rather clever idea, isn't it?

Because you'd hear them going, "These steps are ridiculous!"

It's actually called Lady Stair's House. Have you ever been?

I went there, but I found the stairs quite taxing.

So I turned around and went home.

It was midnight, no-one else was there, it was dark.

Now, which horny member of royalty

is immune from any form of legal prosecution?

EVIL CACKLING Yes?

Prince Andrew?

KLAXON Oh, no.

-It's going to be something with horns?

-Yes.

Is it, like, a royal cow, or something?

-No. There should be, I think.

-The Royal Cow.

-NOEL:

-That's a snail, what you're doing.

LAUGHTER

-Brian from Magic Roundabout.

-Magic Roundabout.

-Hello.

-Who was it - Florence and Dougal?

-Yeah.

And there was the one who's based on Bob Dylan, the rabbit.

Dylan. And he was stoned all the time.

Yeah, exactly, it was the '70s.

You were allowed to be stoned in a children's cartoon.

-AISLING:

-Helen, did you say?

-AUDIENCE MEMBER: Dylan.

-Dylan, yeah.

-Dylan.

-Dylan, yeah.

Yes, we just said that, thanks. We said that.

That person just woke up. "Dylan, they're talking about Dylan!"

LAUGHTER

"They're talking about Magic Roundabout! Dylan!"

The guy's just beginning to get the hang of mind-reading.

-"Mushroom! Mushroom!"

-LAUGHTER

"Potato!"

Come on, now - horny member of royalty.

-In the context of the occult...

-Yes.

-..who is a horny royal?

-The Devil.

The Devil is exactly right.

The Devil. You can't prosecute the Devil?

No, so, in 1971, there was an American called Gerald Mayo,

attempted to sue the Devil.

And there is the case.

"United States ex rel. Gerald Mayo

"vs Satan and His Staff."

And it was heard by the US District Court

for the Western District of Pennsylvania.

Mr Mayo alleged, "Satan has on numerous occasions caused

"plaintiff misery and unwarranted threats.

"Against the will of the plaintiff, Satan has placed deliberate

"obstacles in his path and has caused the plaintiff's downfall."

The first point that was raised by the judge,

a man called Gerald J Weber, was that he wasn't sure that they

could prosecute Satan, as Satan was technically a foreign prince

and, if sued, he might be able to claim immunity.

Surely it's a typo, he meant "Stan."

LAUGHTER

And in the end they refused his request,

because nobody could find an address to serve Satan the papers.

You actually have to put it in their hand, don't you?

-Yeah.

-Otherwise it doesn't count.

-Yeah.

-Wow!

There was a guy who filed a suit against God,

seeking a permanent injunction against His harmful activities.

Nebraska State Senator Ernie Chambers.

Again, the suit dismissed cos God was not properly notified.

Although Chambers said, you know,

"His omniscience would surely mean that He knows already."

In fact, Ernie Chambers brought the case

to show that some court cases are frivolous.

But do you know about the Devil's Advocate?

-Do you know about that?

-Avocado?

-As in being one?

Well, it's a Roman Catholic thing, the Devil's Advocate.

Yeah, as in to play Devil's Advocate?

Well, that's where the phrase comes from,

but it used to be a proper job.

It was the job of the Devil's Advocate to argue the case

against proposed sainthoods. So his job was to say,

"This person is going to come up to be a saint,

"I don't think it's a good idea."

It was got rid of by Pope John Paul II in 1983,

and the number of saints just shot through the roof.

482 in his 27-year tenure,

compared with 98 for the rest of the 20th century,

and more than all his predecessors combined,

going back to the 16th century.

It's quite cool. It's like a casting, isn't it?

-Just went crazy, making saints. AISLING:

-Yeah.

I think I should be a saint. Mm, not sure...

So, when Mother Teresa was nominated for the sainthood,

Christopher Hitchens was asked by the Roman Catholic Church

to say why it was a bad idea for her to be.

And he stood up and made a speech and said, basically,

-"She was a wrong 'un."

-Wow.

-It's like a roast.

-Yeah, it is exactly like that!

Anybody know the correct way to greet the Devil?

-High-five?

-No.

-I reckon there's got to be some deference in it,

you go down on one knee, little bit of a hornpipe,

stick an elbow out, two thumbs up, come on,

take us on a wild, giddy journey.

OK, yeah. Down on one knee is a good place to start.

-See?

-Like, no, not a blowy.

-LAUGHTER

It's the kiss of shame, you have to kiss the Devil's...

-You kiss his ring?

-His arse, you have to kiss his arse. There it is.

-The Devil's arse?

-What?!

-Yeah.

-Kiss his bum.

The Osculum Infame, the Kiss of Shame. Kissing the Devil's arse.

I like the idea of the Devil presenting his anus to you

and you not going for it, and just leaving, and him being embarrassed.

Do you think he lifts his own tail or do you have to lift his tail?

Flick that tail right up, reveal the anus, a little wink.

Give us a kiss.

I'd like it if it was like a Pez dispenser,

so, like, when it lifts up, you get a little Devil sweet.

You're like, yum-yum, thank you.

You've crossed... You've crossed the line, did you hear that noise?

LAUGHTER

-Sweets from the Devil's arse? No.

-Not on the BBC.

The rest of that chat's fine, but we're drawing the line there.

We like Pez and you've ruined it for us!

-LAUGHTER

-Mushroom!

Alan actually knows the parameters.

We think of you as a sort of a shambling, lovable figure,

but you actually are sensing stuff, like a shaman.

-You're reading their minds, Alan.

-Yeah.

No, they just made a funny noise.

Now, over to O for Osterreich.

Here are four sculptures.

Which is the constipated one?

LAUGHTER

Hmm...

They look like the four stages of Victor Meldrew.

Are they done by the same person?

They're all done by exactly the same sculptor.

I can tell you what the other ones are called.

There's one called The Yawner.

There's one called The Strong Odour.

And there's one called The Vexed Man.

So let's have a look and see which ones they are.

The Constipated One is number three.

Strong Odour and the Vexed One.

And there's also one called the Incapable Bassoonist.

LAUGHTER

These are all by an 18th-century German sculptor

called Franz Messerschmidt.

There are 43 that survive today.

The man suffered from terrible digestive disorders,

and to distract himself during really painful episodes,

he would pinch himself all over.

And he noticed in the mirror the expressions that he would make,

and he decided to record what he referred to as

the 64 canonical grimaces of the human face with sculpture.

And he spent 11 years making those amazing heads.

But he had hallucinations, and he believed that he saw ghosts,

and he was much troubled, frankly.

I feel like that's the order of me waiting on a text back from a guy.

LAUGHTER

I love them,

because it's as though you can see inside the pain of somebody.

-I think they...

-Did he do any cheerful ones?

-He wasn't given to...

-Watching Morecambe and Wise.

Yeah, he wasn't really given to cheerfulness.

-How big are they?

-They're proper busts, you know.

-Right.

-There's... I mean, the man was a skilled Baroque sculptor.

-Right.

And after his death, they were exhibited at the Citizens Hospital in Vienna.

You mentioned necromancy, he was very interested in that,

using magic to communicate with the dead,

it was one of the things that he was very interested in.

-He had a wide range of interests, didn't he, the fella?

-Yeah.

He's sculpting faces, trying to depict mental illness,

-and still trying to summons up the dead.

-Yeah. He was very busy.

-Where'd he find the time?

-I know.

Now, time for mind-reading number two.

OK, so for this, I'm going to ask Aisling, please, to channel

Carol Vorderman for me, if you don't mind.

-Vr-o-o-o-p.

-So here is a pen.

So you've got to hold it up so that everybody can see.

-Yes.

-So maybe Alan can help you with that.

Well, I think I'm all right.

No, no, I mean hold it up so that the audience can see

what you're writing.

-Oh, I see what you mean. Yes.

-LAUGHTER

-AMERICAN ACCENT:

-Thank God I got this big strong man with me

to carry this heavy old board.

-Oh!

-LAUGHTER

There's a gentleman wearing a T-shirt

that says "Love Is" something.

Any random number, please.

-Just single-digit number.

-Eight.

-It wasn't a difficult question.

-LAUGHTER

-Eight.

-He's gone eight.

-Write that down, please.

-OK.

Just to warn you, you're going to write a three-digit number

and there's going to be quite a lot of numbers.

-So, eight.

-Oh, dear God. LAUGHTER

Could you just start again? OK.

That was just me having a gentle laugh with you, Sandi.

I love it. There is... Let's go right up the back there,

first row at the very back.

-The blue shirt at the end?

-Two.

-Two, number two.

-OK, two.

-OK, there we go.

-Squeaky.

-Shut up, Debbie McGee!

And let's go over here, lady with a patterned top?

-Seven.

-Seven. 827. OK.

-Whoa.

-So what I want you to do now is reverse the digits underneath.

Oh, yes. Oh...

..but that's always going to be two in the middle.

Yeah, that's fine, keep going.

-That's still...

-Put it upside down.

It's not really complicated, what I'm asking you to do.

-LAUGHTER

-Yes, yes, yes.

Could you now subtract the smaller

number from the larger?

Right, yeah. OK,

so we're going to do this now.

SANDI LAUGHS

So we take eight from seven, just not possible,

I think we all know that.

OK. Yes, so we're going to do...

-Wow!

-I mean, I'm in the arts, you see, so...

-Yeah.

-It's just...

-Nine, nine, nine!

-Um...um...

-Stop saying "no" at me in German

-and tell me what this is.

-LAUGHTER

-Nine.

-Yeah, and then it's going to be nine again.

-And then this one comes down here...

-It's going to be nine again.

So it's three from nine, God!

So I need to have three numbers, so put a zero now please.

So you have three numbers.

Now reverse those digits, please.

-Zero...

-Always nine.

And please could you add them together?

-Um...

-LAUGHTER

-So, 18.

-No. So... LAUGHTER

-So nine and zero, start again.

-Oh!

Nine and zero is nine. Nine and nine is eight, carry one.

-18.

-So the answer is...?

-1,089.

OK, so we've come to 1,089. OK, thank you very much.

AISLING SIGHS Wow, that was painful.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Really painful.

So what was the number that we had? We had 1,089.

So, Noel, I'm going to pass you a copy of 1,342 QI Facts

To Leave You Flabbergasted. LAUGHTER

-Noel?

-Yes?

-Could you, let's see, 1089,

take the tenth word on page 89

-and tell me what it is.

-Yeah.

-What is it?

-French.

French. Here is the envelope that I did earlier.

-And there is the word French.

-No!

-APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

-Whoa!

-Isn't that fab?

-That's a very good trick.

-I mean, that's nuts.

-Yeah.

I feel like you've taken Bake Off, you've taken QI,

-and now, you're going to take Derren Brown shows.

-Yeah.

-It's over, Brown.

-Amazing.

Sandi, you clearly are Satan born again, show me

-the correct greeting once more.

-LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

I'm ready.

And the powers it will surely imbue.

Anyway, thank you very much to our audience,

and very well done to Carol, there. Very good.

APPLAUSE

-Why was...?

-Yeah?

Why was six afraid of seven?

I don't know.

Because seven ATE nine.

LAUGHTER

And that's brought us right back to the level...

..that we're normally used to.

-Does anybody want to know how I did it?

-Yes.

Nah, I'm not telling.

Can you tell me the final title in Shakespeare's oeuvre?

-Anybody know?

-He was very cranial, wasn't he?

-Big forehead.

-Yes. Receding.

Really, you'd like to hit him with a teaspoon.

Dip a soldier in him.

It would come out with sonnets on it.

The sonnets would be in his mind in the form of a fluid

that you could access with soldiers.

He is a genius. Make him a saint, or should we?

I'm hungry and Noel's hungry too.

Has anyone got a banana?

Someone's usually got a banana.

Has anybody got a banana?

-There, that lady's got one.

-Is that mind-reading?

-Yes.

-There it is.

-Oh, yes.

-NOEL:

-Don't throw it!

-Two people have got bananas!

There's two bananas. How many...?

Can we do a whole hand of bananas amongst all the audience?

I've never stopped to have a banana during the show.

That's never been...

Why has the whole audience got bananas?

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Has anyone got a bit of toast with Marmite on it?

LAUGHTER

Never mind that, who's got a Scotch?

Seriously. LAUGHTER

Do you feel better now?

Yeah, thank you. It was starting to affect my consciousness.

Well, the good thing is, it didn't show, so...

LAUGHTER

I once spent a whole day in Stratford

trying to ask everybody how Shakespeare died.

And they don't like to tell you.

Does anybody know how Shakespeare died?

-NOEL:

-Kissing Satan's arse.

LAUGHTER

Someone cracked his head and put a soldier in it.

Well, it gives it away that he was born and died on the same day.

-April 23rd.

-April 23rd. He was born and died on the same...

Oh, something happened with his birthday cake.

We think he possibly had too much to drink on his birthday!

# Happy birthday to you! #

LAUGHTER

-Yeah, it killed him. NOEL:

-Wow, that's a lot to drink.

I know, but they don't like to say, "Oh, yeah, drunk on his birthday."

They don't want to say, "You know Shakespeare - lightweight!"

Yeah, really, yeah.

-Come on. Last work authored by Shakespeare?

-Tempest, ain't it?

-The Tempest.

-Oh.

-BELLS RING, KLAXON HOOTS

-No.

-You've been in that?

Is it definitely a play, or could it have been a poem?

It's not a play, it is a work authored by Shakespeare.

Did he have a diary or something?

I can tell you it was written in 1920.

-OK...

-Yeah. And we're doing the occult.

-Did someone channel him?

-That's exactly right.

-That's what they used to do, didn't they?

-According to a wonderful book

called Essential Cataloguing: The Basics, it's the guide

followed by the British Library and the US Library of Congress,

books written by authors after their death

are still catalogued under their own name.

So his last work, published in 1920,

The Book For Him I Name For Jesus' Sake,

by William Shakespeare (spirit)...

LAUGHTER

-Wow.

-..is in fact the last listed work by William Shakespeare

in the British Library.

So, the royalties of that go to his family?

Sadly not, I think they go to Sarah Taylor Shatford, who wrote it.

-Shatford?

-Shatford. LAUGHTER

She deserves some cash.

Mark Twain wrote a book seven years after his death entitled

Jap Herron: A Novel Written From The Ouija Board.

And noted spiritualist and dead person Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

got in touch in 1983 to write The Great Mystery of Life Beyond Death.

Are these all by a Ouija board, or are some of them

with automatic writing? That was a thing, wasn't it?

Some of them are automatic writing, so they're a kind of a mix.

That is a weird Ouija board scenario,

that's a gingham shirt and they're clearly on public transport.

LAUGHTER

First we summons the dead, then a hoedown.

And Thomas Edison, too, he tried to invent a spirit telephone.

He revealed it in 1920 and then he denied it in 1926,

saying he was playing a joke.

But, in fact, after he died, they discovered

The Diary And Sundry Observations Of Thomas Edison,

and it does talk about him trying to use a valve

to amplify and capture voices of spirits. It wasn't really a joke.

But it's no sillier than anything else.

-Like you were saying, we do want to believe in magic.

-Yeah.

I remember this blind lady who came to Dublin,

and she said that she could talk to the dead.

And it's really odd, because you do get swept away by it.

Because she starts feeling people out, and you all get swept up,

-thinking it could be...

-Yeah. Cos you want to believe it.

-You want to believe it.

-Sure.

Everyone in the room is there because they want to believe.

No-one's a true sceptic, I think, if they're in the room.

There was a very famous Irish medium called Geraldine Cummins,

and my great aunt, Signe Toksvig, edited her book of automatic writing.

So there's my Aunt Signe and her husband.

And she wrote a book called Swan On A Black Sea,

it's all about automatic writing.

-Anyway, Signe...

-Automatic writing, quickly, is...?

-Is when you just sit down with a pen...

-And you're channelling a spirit.

And you're channelling the spirit, and the spirit is telling you what to write.

-Oh.

-Like when you was doing that maths.

-Yeah.

LAUGHTER

Just like that.

Anyway, when Signe died, she left very clear instructions

for the family, how we were to contact her after death.

So my mother very kindly did exactly what she said,

and she went along to meet this particular woman,

who was apparently very good at getting in touch with the dead.

And the woman said... So, this is my father's side of the family,

but it's my mother who's gone, right.

"I'm seeing an old lady and she's sitting,

"she's got her cup of tea in one hand

"and a piece of cheese in the other."

And my mother went, "Oh, my God, that's MY grandmother."

And the woman went, "Oh, isn't it typical?

"You finally get through and you get the wrong old woman!"

LAUGHTER

Look at that jumper. That's automatic knitting, right there.

LAUGHTER

William Shakespeare's last work was written

through the medium of a medium.

What did the yoghurt say to the CIA interrogator?

Probably saying, "This will get rid of your thrush in two days."

LAUGHTER

So, there was an interrogation specialist for the CIA.

He's the man who's claimed to have founded the agency's polygraph programme.

He's called Cleve Backster.

And in 1966, on a rather strange whim,

he hooked up a house plant to a lie detector.

And here he is, doing it.

And he was looking for an anxiety response, so he got a match,

and he didn't actually set fire to the leaf,

he just thought about doing it.

And he said the levels on the lie detector suddenly spiked, OK.

And he took this as a sign

that plants had what he called primary perception.

In other words, they were sentient, almost as if they had ESP.

This caused a sensation, and he expanded his research further,

and he hooked up the polygraph machine to lettuce, to onions,

to oranges, bananas, chicken, eggs,

sperm...

-..and yoghurt.

-Very chatty.

-Never shuts up.

-Yeah.

It says here, "One sample of yoghurt, for example,

"will react when another is being fed, as if to say,

"'That one's getting food, where's mine?'"

LAUGHTER

He was absolutely convinced of this,

and his assertions basically hindered science for years.

Now, what's the worst omen you can see on a football pitch?

-An omen?

-Yeah. Are footballers superstitious?

-Yes!

-Is it a young woman with a list of allegations?

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

But is there something about the markings on the field

that are significant to occultists?

It's to do with the many superstitions

that are associated with football. 1990 World Cup...

-Right.

-..there was an Argentine goalkeeper called Sergio Goycochea.

Did he have a body part of an animal or something in the goal net?

No, what happened to him was, Argentina's quarterfinal

was against Yugoslavia, and it ended in a draw, which meant?

-Penalty shoot-out.

-They had to do a penalty shoot-out.

He needed to wee, but he wasn't allowed to leave the field.

So his team-mates surrounded him

and he had a wee and he then blocked two penalty shots.

So, the coach thought this was a marvellous thing,

took it as an omen,

and he went on to urinate on the field again, with his team-mates

around him, before the semifinal penalty shoot-out against Italy.

He blocked two shots and they went on into the finals,

but they lost the finals against West Germany, because...?

-He didn't urinate.

-He didn't wee, because...?

-It didn't go to a shoot-out.

-It didn't go to a shoot-out.

But wasn't Germany's winning goal a penalty?

It was a late penalty and it was in the main body of the game,

-so he didn't have time to wee.

-Didn't have time for a wee.

-No.

When they stood around him, did they look in or out, do you know?

Do you know, I always think I've got all the information

I need for this show.

Do you think he was a bit self-conscious?

-His team-mates around him.

-Well, because he might have been wearing somebody else's underpants -

apparently that's a very common footballer thing,

is that they swap underpants. Some of them wear them inside out.

-They do not!

-Yeah.

Was it Barry Fry who weed in all four corners of the ground?

-Do you remember that?

-Yes, I believe that is a fact,

that Barry Fry, whilst manager of Birmingham,

perhaps, weed in every corner of the ground.

I thought you said Barry Cryer!

No, not Barry Cryer.

He's weed in all four corners of the Just A Minute studio.

Yeah, just for that.

And he thought... No, it was a superstitious thing.

-NOEL:

-During the game?

-No, I think he did it in his own time.

Birmingham City Football Club had a belief for a while

that they were cursed by gypsies evacuated from the ground in 1906.

I was just worried about the men

who do the grass for the football pitches,

if everyone's weeing on them all the time.

-Yes, it's going to go a horrible colour.

-It's going to go a horrible colour.

So, big shout-out to those guys at home listening, we feel your pain.

No, no, that's dogs, that do that.

I don't know, I've left some crazy marks on some exes' lawns.

LAUGHTER

Does this photo go back to the times where you had to

blow the ball up before the match?

Now, it's time for the ritual sacrifice of rationality

that we call General Ignorance.

Fingers on buzzers, please. Take a look at this.

This is Tommaso, the world's richest cat.

According to legend, how many lives does he have?

-Well, now, usually, they have...

-Yes?

-..one less than ten.

-Yes? LAUGHTER

BELLS RING KLAXON WAILS

That isn't fair! I was being so clever.

So, I can tell you that he is Italian, and that has a bearing.

-He's Italian? That cat?

-Yes.

-Where's his mouth?

So, why would it matter that he's Italian?

Why would that make a difference?

Because he has got so many past-a lives.

COLLECTIVE GROAN

Look, that is actually professional comedy you just witnessed.

LAUGHTER

Are they superstitious, Italians, about cats?

Yeah, but the number of lives that a cat has in superstition

varies from culture to culture.

So the Italians believe it is seven.

In Turkish and Arabic tradition, it's six.

Germany, Greece, Brazil,

a few Spanish-speaking places, it's seven as well. We have nine.

Tommaso is possibly just one of the world's richest cats.

He was a stray adopted by an elderly Italian woman named

Maria Assunta, and when she died in 2011, she bequeathed him

13,000,000

to make sure he would be loved and cuddled.

I would totally do it, and I don't like cats. I'm...

I'd sit at the bottom of an old man's bed

and drink milk naked for 13,000,000.

-For probably 20 quid.

-Just for 20...

Why do so many cultures have an idea that cats always come back?

It's more they're cheating death, isn't that the thing?

-Yeah, they cheat death.

-They fall off a roof and they walk away.

Lots of people think that they...

-But, if you put them in a tumble dryer, they will die.

-They will.

-LAUGHTER

-Eventually.

On the ninth time. "He's still alive!

-"Go again!"

-This is the eighth cycle!

"I can't even touch him, he's so hot!

"Arrgh, boof!"

"Meow, bang, meow, bang."

-NOEL:

-Can you put my socks in with it?

Cats are sometimes associated with bad luck,

but naval traditional generally believes they protect vessels,

and that even extended to airships.

So the America was a dirigible, it was built in 1906,

for a newsman called Walter Wellman.

He was trying to reach the North Pole.

And they brought along a cat called Kiddo, and it was a mascot.

And Kiddo hated being on a dirigible,

and he just skittered all over the place.

He loathed it.

What's interesting about the America,

it was the very first airborne vessel to be fitted with a radio.

And the first-ever air-to-ground radio communication from an aircraft was,

"Roy, come and get this goddamn cat!"

LAUGHTER

And the second one was that bloke in the back going,

"I've lost half my glasses."

LAUGHTER

Now, what should you use to make a traditional jack-o'-lantern?

-NOEL:

-Pumpkin.

BELL RINGS KLAXON BLARES

No, it's not a pumpkin.

EVIL GIGGLING Yes?

A turnip.

A turnip is exactly right. Yes, very good.

So turnips there on the left, and if you can't get a turnip,

something called a mangelwurzel, which is on the right.

And if you go to south Somerset,

the last Thursday of October every year, they have Punkie Night,

which is celebrated,

and the children carry around lanterns called punkies,

and those are hollowed-out mangelwurzels.

Do you know where the tradition of Halloween comes from?

-I'm looking at Aisling.

-Best country in the world, Sandi.

-Denmark.

-Oh, no.

-No?

Ireland, it came from Ireland, from Samhain, S-A-M-H-A-I-N,

which is Halloween, All Hallows Eve, we celebrate our dead.

How do you say it? Because it looks like sam-hain.

-Yeah, sow-an.

-Sow-an.

-Samhain.

-Just haven't got time to say the whole thing properly.

-Yeah. Very busy people.

So it's actually about respecting the dead

and letting them all hang around,

and then, the next day, they get buried,

so the first of November is where... It's All Saints' Day.

But it's all over the world.

In England, they used to carve turnips into something

rather similar called Hoberdy's Lantern, and put them on...

LAUGHTER

That looks like someone had an infection after a long weekend.

-Yeah. NOEL:

-That is...

-You can see why they moved on to pumpkins.

-Yeah.

So, the first jack-o'-lanterns were carved from turnips.

Now, I've got each of you some magic sticks,

but I want you to tell me which of these sticks is a wand.

So I'm going to give this one to Aisling, there we go.

I am going to give this one to Noel.

-There we go.

-That's it.

I'm going to give this one to Russell.

Oh, they're getting bigger and bigger. There we go.

And, ah. LAUGHTER

That's for Alan.

-Aw.

-Actually, I've got two for you.

You can have that one, as well.

-Anybody know what a wand used to be?

-A walking stick?

It's a unit of length.

This was originally equivalent to a modern metre.

So, in fact, Aisling has the original wand.

Ooph! LAUGHTER

Now, they're all old lengths.

So, Noel, you've got something, it's called an "ars."

LAUGHTER

It's an old Turkish unit meaning forearm.

So, you know in the Bible, it says Noah builds the ark using cubits?

-Yes, by cubits.

-That's that measure. That's the one you've got there.

-OK.

-And the one you've got, Russell, is Mongolian, it's an "ald",

so it's the width of a man's arms outstretched.

It was used in the time of Genghis Khan.

I don't know if your arms would be the same as that span?

Yeah. So it's roughly about...

In his own world, with Genghis and his army,

out there on the plains, fighting on horseback, bows and arrows,

up against the Chinese, why the hell not?

What else are you going to do, just sit quietly?

To hell with it, we've got me wand, I'm off out there.

LAUGHTER

-Alan, your little one is actually a measure.

-Oh.

It's a pyramid inch, which briefly in the 19th century

they believed was the measure that had been used by the Egyptians

to build their pyramids. And it was a sort of sacred measure.

The theory in fact fell out of popularity in 1880.

The Egyptologist Flinders Petrie re-measured and thought it wasn't quite...

The other one you've got, Alan, is a Scandinavian measure,

and do you know what it's called? It's 60cm long.

A...er... No.

-It's called an "alen."

-Aw.

-Is it?

-None of them are in fact magic wands.

Does anybody know what you have to say in order to get a magic wand?

Please.

-GASPING

-Ah! Ah!

-She's a witch! Witch!

-APPLAUSE

-That was genuinely alarming.

-Genuinely.

Which brings us to the hellfire and damnation of the scores,

and, oh, my. Last place, with minus 17 -

Noel Fielding. APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

In a very creditable third place -

Russell!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

In second place, with minus two -

it's Alan!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And that means...

SHE GASPS

Oh, my God!

This week, I've won! No, it means...

..with no points at all, this week's winner is Aisling.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And that means that Aisling is the winner

of tonight's objectionable object.

This is the skull of one of the QI researchers, as a matter of fact.

So, there you are, Aisling, there is your object to take home.

-Oh, goodness me.

-Is it a real skull?

-Yes, of course, darling, look at the size of it.

-Oh.

Just... Your biology as good as your maths.

LAUGHTER

Thank you to Russell, Noel, Aisling and Alan.

And I leave you with this -

the great French zoologist Georges Cuvier was irritatingly logical.

One day, to teach him a lesson,

a colleague broke into his bedroom dressed as a devil with

horns on his head, and shouted, "Mr Cuvier, I'm going to eat you!"

To which he replied,

"All animals with horns and hooves are herbivorous."

And he went back to sleep. LAUGHTER

Thank you and good night.

APPLAUSE