Jumpers QI

This programme contains some strong language.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

Well, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening,

good evening, good evening,

and to some extent, good evening, and welcome to QI,

where tonight, the joint is jumping!

Lots of hoops to get through, so let's meet our jumpers.

A classy thoroughbred, Julian Clary.

APPLAUSE

Fit as a flea, Ross Noble.

APPLAUSE

The human pogo stick, Bill Bailey.

APPLAUSE

And a nice, warm, woolly top, Alan Davies.

Very kind.

APPLAUSE

There we are.

So, they're all got buzzers, and Julian goes...

MUSIC: "Jump Around" by House of Pain

-I'm not happy.

-LAUGHTER

Something to do with jumping in there, I believe, in the pop music sphere.

Ross goes...

MUSIC: "Jump (For My Love)" by the Pointer Sisters

Good overbite.

That also had "jump." Bill goes...

MUSIC: "Jump" by Van Halen

I've no idea what that means.

That was a Van Halen!

Alan goes...

MUSIC: "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport" by Rolf Harris

LAUGHTER

Aw. A little jumpy thing, too.

So, it's "jumpers."

First tonight, I'd like you all to give me your impression of some Mexican jumping beans.

MEXICAN VOICE: "Hello there, we are jumping beans. LAUGHTER

"We like to do the jumping, we cannot help ourselves."

"Higher!"

# La cucaracha, la cucaracha. #

I have to say, there is...

They're not jumping.

-..A slight embarrassment here.

-What's happened?

We ordered the Mexican jumping beans over the internet,

and they arrived in fully jumping form...

but they have since died.

LAUGHTER

I think you've been had. This is a hazelnut.

Yeah.

It looks like...I know it looks like a hazelnut.

Here they are.

They're more like "Mexican fidgeting beans."

LAUGHTER

Yeah.

-Can I just say that, in a wildlife documentary, that's a pretty poor excuse, isn't it?

-Yeah, it is.

"We had some snakes earlier, but when they came in the post..."

LAUGHTER

-"DHL tried to wedge them through the..."

-I know. It's deeply shaming.

How were they mistreated, then? What's happened? Well...

Because Springwatch will hear of this!

-I know.

-LAUGHTER

Can we revive them with some powdered Doritos? LAUGHTER

Play some Mexican music and they'll be up and running again.

STEPHEN HUMS LA CUCARACHA

-I've cracked one open, there's something in it.

-There is.

-A tiny battery.

-Yes.

LAUGHTER There's a creature.

There IS a creature in there, there's a larva.

-A larva which has now sadly died..

-They've hatched. They've become...

Is it a flea of some kind? Is it a Coleoptera? Is it from the Coleopteras?

You're wanting to say "beetle", aren't you?

-I want to say "beetle". I said "Coleoptera".

-Which is even...

-To try and do my best.

..A really smart way of saying "beetle".

Yeah, because this is that sort of programme, isn't it? It's not BBC Breakfast,

where they have pin-heads who wouldn't know a...

I want you to say not "Coleoptera", but "Lepidoptera".

Oh! You mean butterflies?

-Well...moths.

-Moths?

-Yes. They're the larva of a moth.

-Ah, right.

And to be fair, they are seeds, not beans.

Up to 20 million of them are exported from Mexico, every year,

around the world, as a novelty...

For comedy purposes.

Yeah, for comedy purposes. Anyway, the "Mexican jumping bean" isn't really a bean, but it does

jump and it does come from Mexico.

-From the Sonoran Desert, in fact.

-Oh, right.

In Sonora, we're going to stay.

What's unusual about Bailey's pocket mouse?

LAUGHTER

Wait a minute!

Obviously, Bailey's pocket mouse doesn't look like that.

No.

If you take away the handsome features, that's it - Bailey's pocket mouse.

Is it some sort of desert mouse that doesn't drink, or something?

Well, you're almost right. You're very close.

Oh, it does drink, but only Bailey's.

LAUGHTER

That's right.

It shins up the bottle, like that. And it brings its own miniature parasol.

There is a particular oil-bearing plant in Mexico...

Jojoba.

Yes!

APPLAUSE

And it was thought for many years that the Bailey's mouse

was the only one that could tolerate eating it,

because it is, basically, disgusting to all other animals.

So they can survive on shampoo?

Well, that's the point, yeah. It has then become a useful oil.

Since whaling stopped, it has some of the same properties as whale oil.

A lot easier to apprehend.

Yeah, than a whale, exactly. You just get hold of a jojoba plant and it gives off this oil.

But very few animals eat it. And very few animals are tolerant of it,

because it is a disgusting oil.

But not if you're a Bailey's mouse, it's not.

Exactly. And it was thought to be the only animal that could eat it,

and, in fact, three others have since been discovered

that are also capable of surviving on jojoba.

Pete Burns.

LAUGHTER

Pete Burns is one. Shaun Ryder is another.

Yes.

-Bez.

-And Bez, yes. That's your three go-to jojoba guys.

As an oil, it's a laxative, and so some people use it as a frying oil,

except that when you fry things in it,

it just runs through you.

So it's just a good way of keeping on a diet.

But mostly Jojoba is used for?

-Shampoo.

-Your skin.

Your skin, shampoo, cosmetics and things.

Yes.

-Who was it who made jojoba famous?

-Billy Connolly.

Billy Connolly, exactly, did a famous routine about...

-BILLY CONNOLLY VOICE:

-"Jojoba. What's that? What the fuck's that, jojoba? Jojoba?!"

LAUGHTER

He has a way of repeating words, Billy Connolly,

that I remember many years ago,

when, for the first time, he was elected President of Israel,

-and I got this phone call...

-Billy Connolly was?!

-No.

LAUGHTER

I may have...

BILLY CONNOLLY VOICE: "Mate, I'll tell you what. Israel, it's a lovely place."

I may have phrased this the wrong way, but this particular person had been,

and the phone rang and it was Billy Connolly. He didn't introduce himself, he just went,

"Benjamin Netanyahu?!"

LAUGHTER

And I said, "What?" He said, "Benjamin Netanyahu?!"

And I said, "Sorry, who is this?" He went, "Benjamin Netanyahu?!

"What's that about? For fuck's sake, Benjamin Netanyahu?!"

And then he put the phone down.

LAUGHTER

It was Billy Connolly riffing on the name "Benjamin Netanyahu."

Yeah, and he would have done the same with "jojoba."

-"Jojoba."

-"Jojoba."

-"The month before November," that was the joke, wasn't it?

-Exactly.

Sometimes Paul O'Grady phones me up and just goes...

-PAUL O'GRADY VOICE:

-"Ooh, ah, ah, fucking shite..."

LAUGHTER

Then hangs up.

"What's that, get that, no, stop it. No, don't."

-He doesn't say, "No, don't."

-Doesn't he?

-No, that's Frankie Howerd.

Oh, damn!

LAUGHTER

So easily confused.

That was your jojoba.

Now, who put jolly jumpers on their skyscrapers?

Is it Cockney rhyming slang? "Jumpers on your skyscrapers."

Doesn't rhyme with anything, how could it be? LAUGHTER

It makes no sense at all. Cockney not-rhyming slang.

COCKNEY VOICE: "I'll put a jumper on the skyscraper." "What's a skyscraper?"

It rhymes with "rapers," that's all I can...

Oh, stop it. Stop it right now. No.

They swoop out of the sky and have you.

-COCKNEY ACCENT:

-"A horrible bunch of skyscrapers."

Go back in time, go back in time, before tall buildings.

-What was a skyscraper before there were such things?

-A tree?

-No.

-LAUGHTER

-A hut.

-Was it an erection?

-LAUGHTER

No. No, it wasn't that.

Some sort of plane or aviation device, was that it?

Look at the picture, and think...

-A sail, a mast...!

-Oh!

Yes. The top one was called the skyscraper,

but above it, there would be another one,

which was called the jolly jumper.

And the jolly jumper was the highest sail on a boat.

So, it would be a sailor who would put a jolly jumper on a skyscraper.

Ah!

-Isn't that pleasing?

-That is quite...

Yeah. I'm glad you're interested.

Crow's nest - vest!

LAUGHTER

Spinnaker... Spinnaker...

Football commentator!

LAUGHTER

So, erm, anyway, talking on skyscrapers and jumping -

and jumping is of course our theme -

there's a famous kind of jumping that originated in Polynesia.

-Bungee?

-Bungee?

-Bungee jumping - how did that begin?

-It was the tribesmen with the twines, tying themselves up.

-Yes.

-They used vines.

-Yeah. Vines, twines... Yeah.

-Rhyming slang, wasn't it?

-Vine, twine...

-Swine, bine... Yeah.

-No, no, vines. So, they tie it round, and then they jump,

-but they didn't sort of go like that.

-They'd tie it round their ankle.

-It would go into the mud, their head, right into the mud.

-Exactly.

And we have film of precisely that. Here you are - it's pretty scary.

Woah!

-That's...

-What an idiot! Ha-ha-ha!

LAUGHTER

Look at them, laughing their heads off!

That's the Pentecost Islands, in the South Seas,

where it was first observed.

And do you know who brought it to the world's attention?

-Butlins.

-Er, no.

-LAUGHTER

It was David Attenborough, 50 years ago,

did a documentary in which he showed this,

and then Oxford Dangerous Sports Society started doing it

-off Clifton Suspension Bridge...

-Yes.

But the first official bungee jumping

-was done by AJ Hackett in New Zealand.

-New Zealand, Queenstown.

Near Queenstown. There's the bridge.

And you're about to see a superhero -

a man of astounding courage and bravery -

do a bungee jump off the original AJ Hackett bridge.

There he is. Can you see him there? He's fat,

he's... It's... It's me!

-ALL: Whoah!

-Ooh, ow!

There I am. That was me bungee jumping,

just last...earlier this year, in fact.

-Goodness me!

-And do you know, the weird thing is,

I am the biggest coward in the world. The moment... The moment

I was picked up by the relief boat,

I said, "I want to do it again!"

The adrenalin surge is so enormous,

it is the biggest fun I've ever had.

Does it...does it pull at your ankles?!

The major problem usually is detached retinas, actually.

-Yes.

-People get pop-eyed.

What about when we went scuba-diving and your mask was too tight?

Oh! No, no, no.

-His eyes nearly came out of his head!

-Oh!

LAUGHTER

Inside the mask, these massive eyes!

We're all going, "Look at Bill!

"Check he's all right!" When we found out he was all right,

I laughed...I laughed my head off!

-No, wait...

-The thing is,

Wait, wait, wait, wait! Rewind!

Can we just go back to the bit where you said,

when you checked I was all right, you laughed your...

You were laughing from the minute my face came out of the water.

LAUGHTER

There was blood pouring out of my eyes,

-and every...

-You had no idea at all!

-I had no idea.

I was going, "What?" And people were going, "Oh, my...!"

-"Aaagh!"

-"Oh, my god!"

I went, "What? What?" Like Carrie or something, with blood

-streaming from my eyes.

-These huge great eyeballs -

-it took quite a long time for them to recede as well.

-Yes, it did.

And lot of laughing was going on.

I thought you had some sort of magnifying mask on,

-but when you took the mask off, they were still enormous!

-Enormous.

-Oh!

-Anyway, there's an even more extreme form of jumping,

which is bungee in the dark,

-where you can't tell how far you've fallen.

-Bungee in the dark?

< That's a cocktail!

Bungee In The Dark, please!

You have no idea how far you're going to fall!

What are bungee ropes usually made of?

-Elastic.

-Erm, latex, yeah.

-Oh, I've got a suit in latex!

-Have you?

Just had it made.

I would like a photograph sent to me of that, please.

-LAUGHTER

-In 2008, one Carl Dionisio

used one made from 18,500 whats

-joined together?

-Socks.

-Also latex...

-Elastic bands?

-Tights?

-Condoms?

Condoms is the right answer.

That's the greatest condom bungee of all time.

If they all inflated, it would be like the scene from Up

-when the house turns...

-LAUGHTER

-It would indeed.

-And was there just loads of really tired women?

-Just...just in his garden?

-Yes!

Anyway, so jumping off a bridge turns out to be as easy as

falling off a log. Now, how could these weights

give you an extra 6.5 inches?

Hang 'em from your cock.

BELL RINGS AND ALARM SOUNDS

APPLAUSE

Oh, dear.

-Wow.

-Is it to do with stretching out your

-spine?

-No.

-There's some sort of inscription on here.

-Yes - in what language?

Sort of...San...Greek, I'd say.

-If we put...

-Greek is the right answer.

Ah, right. This is the new Greek currency.

Er... LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

Hang on a second, I'll just get Wilma.

Erm...

You had it the wrong way up!

- I got no signal, nothing! - Just do it that way.

No, the other way up - that's it.

The mad thing is, if Bill and I were to put these two things together,

we would unleash the apocalypse.

-So, you're not allowed to, yeah.

-Keep them away.

They're called halteres, they're Greek,

and they gave you an extra 6.5 inches advantage

-at a sporting event.

-Yeah?

-Yeah.

Punting with rocks.

Is it that if you're hurling them with the other hand,

-and that weight gives you more of a spin?

-That's a thought.

It's certainly an event in which you are judged

by the greatest distance you have covered.

-Well, the long jump is...

-Long jumping.

You use these. At first, when people found them, they thought

they might be used as a handicap system

for people who were better at long jumping, to hold them back,

but actually, you wind it up, you wind it up and wind it up

and then you jump, and it gives you an extra 6.5 inches advantage.

And also, you look like that.

You can see them depicted there, a pair of them hanging on the plate.

Is there some sort of checking system in the Olympics

to check that people aren't, you know,

-giving themselves an advantage?

-Well, nowadays,

you would not be allowed to do that, to use these.

Metal implants in their knuckles.

LAUGHTER You get nipples, and then, you know,

the piercings - big magnet at the other end...

Urrrgh!

You go knockers first across the line.

Standing long jumps existed until 1912 in the Olympics.

You didn't run up, you just went, yagh!

And the record is 12ft 2".

-No way.

-And it so happens...

-What?

..that the distance between there and there

is exactly 12ft 2".

Have you heard of Fierljeppen?

Leppen. It sounds Scandinavian.

It exists in East Anglia and Frisia,

mostly in Holland, though.

Oh, jumping, jumping the...

- Jumping the canals. - ..the dykes.

Jumping between the dykes using a pole. It's a big sport.

We do it in Norfolk, where I come from.

You know they've got bridges now?

It's so much less fun.

And you can actually see some...

LAUGHTER

Mock ye not.

Watch some film of some splendid Fierljeppen performers

and you will be impressed.

Here you are. Big run.

Whoa! And...

Yes! And didn't even fall over.

Oh, look at that.

Less fortunate.

Just to prove it's not as easy as you think.

And...oh...

There you are. Fierljeppen.

Oh... That's a good one.

Yeah. You could watch that forever, couldn't you?

They should do that instead of straightforward pole dancing,

they should just have a loose brass pole,

then a woman in her pants runs out.

"Wahey!" And then it's less sexual, you know,

- you can watch her arcing. - I think it is sexual, mate.

You're in desperate, desperate need of help, Ross.

How about jumping camels?

-What?

-Jumping camels?

-Jumping camels?

-Yeah.

What, do you mean without any kind of a chit-chat before, just...?

"Jump the beast."

-Just straight in.

-In the Yemen.

-In the desert as well.

-In the Yemen.

-I don't believe a camel can jump. I don't think it can lift itself.

-It's not the camels jumping.

-Do you jump from one camel to another?

-It's more than that.

-Think Eddie Kidd.

-Oh, jumping over, right.

-Yeah.

Stunt bikes.

-Stunt, not bike, though.

-Oh.

-Just simply by your own human power, leaping over camels.

-What?!

The record is six.

One human being can run up and leap over six dromedaries.

-With a trampoline or something?

-No, there's a small amount of dirt

laid up as a kind of jumping-off point, but no trampoline.

So, now, what did the environmentalist say to the camel?

"Stop farting." Isn't it they produce a lot of methane?

Yes, they do. Where in particular?

Out of their arse?

-Why did I ask?

-Just a guess.

APPLAUSE

-But no, there is a particular place where camels are...

-Known for it.

-..extremely numerous.

-Egypt.

-Yes, but this is a place where...

Australia, is it Australia?

-Australia.

-They've got more wild camels in Australia

than anywhere else on the planet.

Exactly, they have the highest number of feral camels.

In fact, they have 1.2 million of them.

-They're like rats, they're vermin.

-Yeah.

-They get in your house, it's a nightmare.

-And you can see...

Only that sign could be Australia, couldn't it? Look at it.

Camel, wombat, kangaroo.

But the fact is, they export them to Arabia,

-for meat and for racing.

-That's right.

Because they're a finer, a finer sort of species of camel.

They were brought over originally as a pack animal to Australia.

They seemed very natural because Australia is a dry country

and camels survive well, obviously, in dry climates.

People thought, "perfect". But of course, they bred and bred and bred

and suddenly you've got these million point two camels.

And they do an enormous amount of anal wind expulsion.

They were on at Download, actually.

45...

-It's actually...

-They supported Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark!

-To be fair to them, it's not so much anal as oral.

-Oh, yeah.

It's 45 kilograms of methane a year.

It's quite extraordinary. It's a sixth the amount of the average car.

So, now there's a company called North West Carbon,

which has set up a thing where you offset your carbon footprint,

if you're an Australian car driver,

by paying this company to go and shoot camels.

Which is...

basically a bit unfair,

because, let's face it,

Europeans with cars are as unnatural to Australia as camels are,

and it seems a bit unfair.

-Why shouldn't the camels shoot the humans?

-Yes.

Here's a thing, though.

While we're talking about all this whole business of ecology,

Sainsbury's, the supermarket chain, very useful supermarket chain.

The great thing about Sainsbury's, it keeps the scum out of Waitrose.

APPLAUSE

-All right, here's an initiative announced by Sainsbury's.

-Go on.

By reducing the diameter of the tube of a loo roll

from 123mm to 112mm,

right, just 11mm reduction,

they will be able to fit more rolls into the same lorry.

Given the scale of the loo roll market -

we use 45 to 50 rolls a year each!

And that's including you.

I do that of a weekend.

Yes, all right.

This will mean 500 fewer lorry trips a year,

just by doing that,

by reducing the centre tube by 11mm.

-Wow.

-This is the principal difference between men and women, in my view.

The amount of loo roll that women use is unbelievable.

I mean, a roll can go in one visit.

-Really?

-To be fair, though...

Just wrapping it round.

What's that?

At least women don't pee all over the floor.

You know that's not true.

APPLAUSE

Ah, a lot of women clapping there.

Obviously, they do use more loo roll

but it's a lot harder for them to shake than it is for us,

do you know what I mean?

Cheeky flick, everything's fine.

For a woman to do that, she's got to get on a swing.

Or one of those power plates, you know, the ones that go...

Right.

Just, go like this.

One of those.

You wouldn't need a power plate. All you need is a vibrating loo.

Oh, that's it, there you go.

You sit on it, you have a wee, press a button...

Trouble with that is, they'd never get off it.

"Where is she?"

APPLAUSE

"Are you coming out of there?" "I'm nearly there!"

Oh, God. Oh, God.

"I think I've got diarrhoea."

Now here's the question, here's...

The Shake n' Vac. Drink and leave the water.

I have to tell you, I have to tell you that the little baby Jesus,

whom I have never believed in, until this minute,

has told me to change the subject.

-So...

-Aw!

-All right. We're going to jump.

-I was just getting started.

-We're going to jump to Spain.

-We're on a roll.

We're on a roll! We're on a roll!

-We're on a roll!

-Come on! Come on!

APPLAUSE

Why do these babies have nothing to fear?

There are men jumping over them, but why have they nothing to fear?

-Yes.

-It's a real event that happens in Spain.

Baby jumping?

Baby jumping, it's the baby jumping festival, El Colacho.

-El Colacho!

-Yes.

-Yes, of course.

Near Burgos in Northern Spain, in the Castrillo de Murcia.

The reason is that these babies have been purged of their original sin

in this ceremony, so that if they die, they won't go to hell.

Burgos has the largest cathedral in Spain.

-It's absolutely enormous.

-It's a very huge cathedral. Yeah.

I love the concept of original sin.

It's like you go to confess and you go in and the priest goes,

"That's not original enough."

-It's derivative sin.

-"All right, then, I got a transit van

"and then pushed it into a bouncy castle."

"Yep, I haven't heard that before. You can have a blessing."

The Catholic Church is slightly embarrassed about this festival...

I was thinking, on the vibrating loo,

you'd have different speeds, wouldn't you?

Like a dial.

Like side to side, forwards and backwards, round and round.

But basically...

Al, then one like the waltzers that goes like that.

There are no reports of injured babies.

Oh, all right.

So you may prefer to indulge in a Japanese ceremony

called the Hadaka Matsuri.

It's the Naked Festival.

-Raw baby eating.

-Yeah, it takes place in Okayama. There they are.

A 500-year-old event.

It culminates in 9,000 men in loincloths, wrestling in mud.

Are they all men? Some of them look like women.

-They're all men.

-There's a woman in the middle there, surely.

No, she's a man. He's a man.

And in the end, the lucky man

gets thrown a pair of sticks by a Shinto priest at around midnight

and the winner thrusts the sticks into a wooden box filled with rice

and is granted a year of happiness.

It seems a perfectly normal way to behave, to me, don't you think?

So run me through it again.

-You get a pair of sticks...

-9,000 naked men wrestle in mud.

And then eventually...

..a Shinto priest throws two sticks to the winner,

who sticks it in some rice and is granted happiness.

-OK.

-Yeah.

-I love rice.

Five stars on Trip Adviser, this, wouldn't it? Yeah.

All right, we're now going to have something incredibly exciting -

at least, I hope it's exciting. It's a jolly jape.

-I do love my jolly japes.

-I love a jolly jape.

I've got here a little...

What I'm going to try and do is try and create something

that will make you think, "No!

"No, Stephen, this is not possible!

"Stephen, I will now bow down and worship you forever."

I'm going to try and create...

a square bubble.

-No!

-"Shut up, Stephen!"

-I'm on the verge of worshipping you forever.

-Yeah, exactly.

How would you not be? A square bubble.

-Shut the front door.

-So I've got this here,

can you see that bubble there?

-Oh!

-Wow!

It's not yet square,

but if I blow...

Look at that!

No way!

-Square bubble.

-Oh!

Square bubble!

APPLAUSE

How amazing is that?

Very cool.

On television, virtually live, as live, as we say,

it's probably the only interesting and important thing I've ever done in my life.

But I'm proud, and thank you for enjoying my square bubble.

Well, that's the jolly jape.

And on that bubble-shell, I jump over to the scoreboard.

I suppose I have to begin at the bottom.

-Julian...

-No!

Unfortunately, you scored minus seven points.

APPLAUSE

-Alan, you are at third place, with minus four.

-Thank you.

APPLAUSE

In second place, with five points,

Ross Noble.

APPLAUSE

And just one point ahead,

on plus six, is Bill Bailey.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

Well, that's all from Julian, Ross,

Bill, Alan and me. Be adorable to each other always. Good night.

APPLAUSE

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd