Journeys QI

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Hello!

Good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening,

and welcome to QI, where tonight our topic is Journeys.

And let's see who's in the arrivals hall today.

All the way up from Down Under, it's Cal Wilson.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Hello!

The only way here is from Essex - Phill Jupitus.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And...from Port Talbot Parkway, stopping at Pyle, Bridgend, Pencoed,

Llanharan, Pontyclun, Ninian Park and Cardiff Central -

Rob Brydon.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And bearing the label, "Not Wanted On Voyage," Alan Davies.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And they all have little buzzer noises and Cal goes...

PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT CHIMES

And Rob goes...

STEAM TRAIN WHISTLES

Phill goes...

FOGHORN BLARES

-Which you do, in fact, don't you?

-I do.

-LAUGHTER

-And Alan goes...

HORN HONKS

That's your chosen mode of transport.

We've travelled a lot, Alan,

and one of the places we travelled to a few months ago was Australia,

and that's where we found Cal,

who is New Zealand's perhaps greatest stand-up comedian

-and works mostly in Melbourne now, don't you?

-Yes, I do, I do.

-I've got the Antipodes covered!

-Yeah!

But we liked you so much we smuggled you in our luggage

-and we brought you back here, so, welcome.

-Thank you.

I make a better souvenir than an interesting key ring, I suppose.

Exactly, exactly!

-I did want a koala but...

-A stuffed koala?

-Not on, apparently.

-No.

The journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single question -

where the hell did I leave my passport?

I lost mine on a plane once and it had gone down,

-under the cushion of my seat.

-Oh!

-Oh, yeah.

-The actual plane seat.

-Yeah.

-I was on the plane for a... I refused to get off the plane.

-Yeah, you have to get your seat disassembled. I've had that.

-Eventually, I found it.

That's the end of the story.

LAUGHTER

Oh, that's a beautiful story! That is...

That is a lovely, lovely story.

Stephen, is that Alan Davies or is it...?

Hang on, is it Peter Ustinov?! LAUGHTER

That was a hell of an anecdote!

If that is the level of the bar this evening I may go home.

LAUGHTER

Is it you? Specifically you? Where did YOU leave YOUR passport?

No, it's technique.

The University of Wisconsin, when you lose something,

it actually helps to say the name of the thing that you've lost,

or you are looking for.

-Dignity.

-Yes!

-LAUGHTER

-Very good.

APPLAUSE

-Brilliant!

-You see?

-Exactly.

-For me, that would make it worse.

-That would just draw attention to it.

-Your wallet has a name?!

Well, no...

"Peregrine!"

-LAUGHTER

-"PEREGRINE! Baaa!"

"Peregrine!"

-LAUGHTER

-That's how...

-It might work!

-It has now!

From now on it will be called Peregrine.

But anyway, that's not the point, the point is, for example,

you open a cutlery drawer and where the hell's the garlic peeler, or whatever?

-If you just say garlic peeler.

-Yes, the garlic peeler. Again...

-"Andrew! "Andrew!"

-LAUGHTER

You're missing my point about names, here.

I just mean the word we give the thing.

Its normal description, as found in a dictionary.

Not from the list of given names.

It isn't Julian the cheese grater.

LAUGHTER

It isn't Barbara the corkscrew.

So, what did you do? You have to say,

you have to say, "Wallet, wallet, wallet"?

-"Keys, keys, keys, keys, keys, keys."

-Yeah, exactly.

So, it you say, sort of, you know, "bottle opener, bottle opener."

You've got more chance of seeing it, you're look...

-"Money, money, money..."

-LAUGHTER

-You know that phrase...

-"GOLD, GOLD!"

-LAUGHTER

-You know that phrase, "It was just staring me in the face,"

and you somehow couldn't see it?

The act of speaking does something in your brain

that actually allows your eyes to see it more clearly.

-That's been demonstrated.

-Reminds me of that phrase,

"Couldn't see the wood for the trees,"

-have you ever come across that phrase before?

-I have, I have.

I never used to understand it.

What it basically means is you're looking at... Wait.

-LAUGHTER You're looking for wood.

-Yes, yes.

-Not in the way you might!

-No, not in that sense!

-LAUGHTER

-You're looking, you're looking for wood...

-Yeah.

-..and you're looking at trees.

-Yes.

So, you are, in essence, looking at wood.

-They are wood, aren't they?

-But you're s... I've got it, Alan. LAUGHTER

But you're seeing trees so you can't see the wood for the trees

and, I think, in a funny old way, it's a little bit like what you're talking about.

-LAUGHTER

-Almost exactly not.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

-LAUGHTER

It's nice you brought that up. It's a good...

Now, the other thing, before I finish,

the other thing I'd like to bring up is this business now with passports.

-They don't like you to smile in the photograph.

-Oh, no.

-When I grew up a smile was always mandatory.

-A big grin, yes.

Like, if you're...

LAUGHTER

But now, you have to look like you're suspected of having done something.

I look like a Russian prison guard in my passport photo.

I can see that! I can see that! Absolutely.

LAUGHTER

A hatchet-faced Silesian fish wife.

LAUGHTER

Every single photo booth I get into appears to be set on paedophile.

LAUGHTER

Try and recreate that look for us now, could you?

Right, for a kick-off, what you have to do in a photo-Me booth

is, they don't let you wear glasses either,

and, also, because the camera lens is behind the mirror

and you don't know where it is you're always looking slightly off...

-That's true.

-Is it down...? OK, this is the look.

LAUGHTER

Stay away from my children!

APPLAUSE

It gets you... It gets you out of a lot of baby-sitting duties, though.

I bet our passports would look quite good together

cos you're the paedophile and I'm the prison guard.

Yeah, we should travel together.

-LAUGHTER

-I'm with my Kiwi handler.

-Do Kiwis have handlers?

-LAUGHTER

-There's not, they're not very good...

-Are they edible?

-We're not allowed to eat them.

-Like swans?

I mean, the Queen's allowed them. Is the Queen allowed Kiwis?

-I don't think she is.

-Could she eat anything cos she's the Queen?

-I wouldn't be the one to tell her not to but...

-I imagine not!

-No, no.

"Stop eating that Kiwi, you dreadful old woman!"

LAUGHTER

I imagine that you'd be a bit more polite.

You are Stephen Fry off the telly.

-You don't have to do the "dreadful old woman."

-No...

But it would be a dreadful thing to do.

-You could say, "Stop eating that Kiwi, ma'am, have some jam."

-Exactly, exactly.

-"Your Majesty, put the puffin down!"

-LAUGHTER

Let's just have situations where we tell the Queen to stop eating...

That sounds like a children's game.

"And now have a round of Your Majesty Put The Puffin Down!"

-LAUGHTER

-"You're the Queen, so, one...two...three...

-Trousers off!

"..Your Majesty, put the puffin down!" Yes, very good.

I don't know why or how we got there but that's what journeys do to you.

Anyway, describe the travel arrangements

of the Japanese flying snail.

-FOGHORN BLARES

-Where is it going?

LAUGHTER

Er, it probably won't travel more than 11 miles but very fast.

Does it drop?

-Yes.

-Is it a fall?

Yes, but how would it get up?

-They haven't got wings, have they, you see?

-They haven't.

They so haven't but we haven't got wings and we fly, how do we do it?

-In an aeroplane.

-In an aeroplane.

-We get in...

-I've got the answer.

-..a conveyance of flight.

-STEAM TRAIN WHISTLES

-They hop on a bird or a creature with wings - a bird.

-Yes.

Erm, they hop on...

Could have been a bat?

Could've been a bat. Could have been a bat or a bird.

Or a strange hybrid of bird bat. LAUGHTER

They hop onto a creature with the ability to fly.

But 11 miles, that's very, very high.

-It's not the height, it's not the altitude, they travel...

-LAUGHTER

They are not going up into space!

I've got it in my head that they're dropping 11 miles.

It's not a voluntary act, they get eaten by birds.

-Oh.

-There are two types of bird on the little island of Haha-jima.

Haha-jima, it's one of the Ogasawara Islands, south of Japan,

as you can see, and there is the Japanese White-eye and the Brown-eyed bulbul,

which are two types of bird. There they are.

And they EAT this particular snail...

and about 15% of them survive the process

and are excreted out alive and so they are, kind of, spreading their,

-spreading the genes further around.

-Is this to scale?

-Yeah.

-Because that seems unlikely.

-No, it's not!

LAUGHTER

That'd be a seriously weighed down bulbul.

That snail would eat that bird! I'd back the snail!

Is the, is, the bird on the left, is that a white ring around its eye

-or has it just excreted a full size snail?

-Yeah! Oh!

"Whoa!"

LAUGHTER

It can be up to between 30 minutes or two hours later

that it passes through the bird's system, as it were,

and the bird can fly at about 11mph.

Does the snail go into his own shell,

by which I don't mean get a little self-conscious.

Does he retreat into his shell to take shelter?

I should imagine he would. I should imagine he would.

Don't they pick them from the shell? Don't they...?

Like you do in a restaurant with a little special fork?

-They've got a special fork!

-Which is called Arnold, by the way.

-I'm writing it down. Ice cream Scoop called Vanessa.

-Yes!

-So, anyway...

-What would you call one of those pizza cutters?

The roly pizza cutter?

-Clement.

-Clement.

-Can we call it Dave?

-LAUGHTER

Well, there you are.

Yes, good. So, the cry goes up, "Abandon ship," now.

That's our next question, "Abandon ship."

Now, we are proud Britons and one proud Kiwi,

what do we say next? What do we chaps say?

Women and children first!

Oh!

KLAXON BLARES

As far as we know, that's only ever been cried twice.

It's called the Birkenhead Drill

and it happened on board a ship called the Birkenhead

but that was cos the captain pointed a gun at his crew

and said, "Women and children first."

This had not been an idea that especially existed before

and, in fact, it's very un-British.

Women have a lesser chance of surviving

if a British ship sinks than a Continental one.

-That's good to know!

-Yup, so there you go.

-LAUGHTER

So, we aren't the gallant creatures that we thought we were, at all.

The Titanic was the other one in which men were told to stand back

and there was, we've had this on QI before,

there was one crew member who survived,

went all the way home to Liverpool

and he had the door slammed in his face by his mother

who was ashamed of him for having survived.

-But, in fact, more...

-She sounds nice.

-Yeah, charming!

LAUGHTER

Extraordinary. I mean, unbelievable!

But, obviously, you want a fair number of fit, strong people

who know their way around the waters, as it were,

once you're in the lifeboat cos if it's women and children

there's not really going to be that much, necessarily, use in being in the lifeboat.

That's a bit sexist, Stephen!

You need at least one crew member who can navigate by the stars or who can operate the oars efficiently.

Or isn't going, "Oh, look, there's a fish over there! Let's go over there!"

I wasn't going to be the one to say that, I'm glad you did.

Known as the Birkenhead Drill, it's not common.

Anyway, how long would it take you to bicycle from Land's End

-to the northernmost part of Britain?

-What, John O'Groats, you mean?

-Oh!

-KLAXON BLARES

-Mean of me, wasn't it?

-No, no, ask clear, well-defined questions!

-We just like to make you say things!

-You can't buzz-buzz me on chitchat!

LAUGHTER

-No, it's not the northernmost part of Britain.

-Is it not?

No, surprisingly.

It, sort of, advertises itself as such and it has a little hut.

There's the last house in Scotland, in John O'Groats.

There's one of those boys in callipers. I haven't seen one for years.

-A long time ago, I know.

-There was one on the high street when I was a kid.

It used to be called the Spastic Society, it's now Scope, isn't it?

-You put a penny in and he was still there the next week.

-LAUGHTER

Did you put a penny in to make him go away?!

-I thought it would get him better, poor lad.

-Oh, bless!

Look at him, there, he's obviously on his holidays, isn't he?

I used to like those ones where you put the penny in

and it just rolled round and round, and round...

We had a guide dog, you put the penny in its head.

-We had a lifeboat one where you put the penny in and the lifeboat came out.

-That's right! I like that.

There's a brilliant model of Queen Victoria's dog in Sydney,

outside the Queen Victoria building,

and it's like a, you know, you put your donation but it talks.

So, it's a little, like, Highland terrier

and it says, in very beautiful newsreader tones,

"During my lifetime because of my good deeds,

"after my death I was granted the power of speech." LAUGHTER

Like this. And then it goes,

"If you put a coin in the box I will say thank you."

And then it pauses and then goes, "Thank you." LAUGHTER

"Woof."

That said nothing to me.

-My word!

-Every week I put something in his box.

Which...? Do you put it in the box or is it his head?

It's got a slot in his box.

He might have two slots. Some of them would have two slots.

-Two slots in the box, yeah. Women... No, stop it!

-LAUGHTER

PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT CHIMES

-I never said that!

-I resign!

-Yes, quite right. Absolutely shameful.

-We've established this is not your area.

-Yeah, exactly.

He looks, he looked a little bit like...

-It's like you're talking about Narnia or somewhere.

-LAUGHTER

-It's a fantastical land you've only heard about.

-Exactly.

"You make your way through the fur coats and suddenly...!"

-Whoa!

-LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Whoa-ho-ho-ho! Dear, oh, dear!

Wielding a coin. A single coin.

For a while you have a magical time but then you meet an ice maiden.

-Yes. It's all... Oh, dear God!

-LAUGHTER

-Anyway, yes...

-You're telling me there's somewhere further than John O'Groats?

There is indeed - Dunnet Head. That's the actual northernmost spot.

If you've got to John O'Groats and you haven't gone there...

You wouldn't cycle on there, would you? It's a bit bumpy!

It's rather beautiful, isn't it?

It's about 603 miles, as the crow flies,

but by road it's about 800 miles.

Cyclists could take 10 to 14 days doing it.

The record for running the route, what would you say, is...?

-Have a guess.

-You couldn't do it in less than a week, could you?

No, no. It's nine days and two hours, which is pretty damn good going.

-I'll say!

-In 2005, a golfer named David Sullivan

hit a golf ball all the way. Took him seven weeks.

I don't know what his score was.

Be awful if he didn't fill his card correctly at the end. Disqualified.

-Have a bit of putter.

-LAUGHTER

Did he mean to do it? Did he mean to do it?

Was he just trying to get it in... "Wait a minute!"

-Just playing it where it lies...

-"Oh, I've lost it again!"

It would land in the back of a lorry going the other direction -

"Oh, Christ!"

I feel sorry for the bloke that was standing waiting for him

-holding the flag.

-LAUGHTER

So, people have done it in all kinds of different ways.

In 1911 there was a motorcycle record of 29 hours and 12 minutes,

which led to a ban on further attempts

because the time necessarily proved that they had been breaking the speed limit, which was 20mph.

Now, here's a bird you might see near John O'Groats. What is it?

-Well...

-Gannet!

-Fulmar.

-Not a gannet, it's not a falcon.

Is it the one puffin the Queen hasn't eaten?

It is a puffin, well done!

-It's a puffin?

-It is a puffin.

Yes, we usually think of puffins as looking more like this, don't we?

-There, that's, exactly. Well...

-Photoshop. Photoshop.

-..when they've had sex...

-It's a ninja puffin.

..and it's winter they don't need to look all bright like that, and so they go all dull.

But its beak is...?

-Well, I suppose its beak has shrunk enough...

-It falls off.

-It falls off?!

-Yes.

-What?!

Yeah. I know. It's just there to attract a mate and then once...

-The dirty, dirty puffins!

-LAUGHTER

Is it the equivalent of a woman losing her figure

after she's got married? LAUGHTER AND GROANING

-The minute the ring goes on they just go to pieces.

-Oh, now, behave!

To me, it looks more like a woman taking her padded bra off.

-That's what it looks like.

-Yes, I'm afraid there is...

She's just not making an effort any more, is she?

The eye, there, has just been stuck on? Is that...?

Yeah, again, it's a colour, there. It's an all to, kind of...

-Just blind. I look great.

-Brighter, sexy...

-"Oh, hello, it's worked!"

-LAUGHTER

They rather sweetly pair for life, male and female puffins,

and they make one egg a year.

So once they've mated, they don't need to attract each other any more.

So, you know, for the winter season, when they're busy feeding

and they just, sort of, put on their spring make up...

"I remember when you cared about me!"

-Exactly.

-"You used to have a pink beak!"

-LAUGHTER

-But then it comes back?

-Yes.

-"You should put the eye make-up on!"

-It comes back again.

-It comes back?!

Yes, but they are lovely little creatures, aren't they?

Do you know what a baby puffin is called?

A puff.

STEPHEN CHUCKLES

-It's a puffling. Isn't that lovely?

-ALL:

-Ah!

-Exactly, ah!

-That's like something out of Harry Potter.

-They loved that!

Say it again, they loved it!

Puffling.

-ALL:

-Ah!

How many people now have a new nickname for their partner? LAUGHTER

-Exactly. Puffling.

-"For their partner," did you say?

-For a moment I thought you were going to say their penis.

-LAUGHTER

-For some people, that is their partner.

-Puffling.

Aren't they like those party hats you can get with a bit of elastic?

-Handy.

-The one on the left, he looks like "whoa"! He could easily...

Honestly, a toucan could do great on that puffin island.

-Can you imagine?

-He'd score big-time.

-Oh, Nelly!

-Oh-ho-ho-ho, yeah!

-"Hey, ladies, yeah."

-Well, they spend the time...

-"From the tropics."

-LAUGHTER

-"This doesn't fall off after."

-LAUGHTER

"No, I'm keeping this. Yeah, I've still got the Guinness money."

-They are...

-He'd be freezing cold, though, wouldn't he, after a while?

"Ahhh! How'd you do this up here?"

Would his beak gets smaller in the winter?

Are these just Arctic toucans?

Right, no, they're not, actually, they're a kind of auk, in fact.

Most of those you will find in the north Atlantic.

These, indeed John O'Groats would be a very good place to see them.

-Not Auckland?

-Not Auckland, oddly enough.

That's spelt with a C, a little redundant C, A-U-C-K.

-Oh, of course it is.

-Yeah. But out to sea,

they are pelagic and they have little backward,

sort of like barbed rows of things,

to, basically, to store fish in their mouth

but they are lovely, lovely creatures.

Of course, the Catholic Church counted them as fish so you could eat them on Fridays. Good.

So, for evolutionary reasons, puffins' beaks fall off after sex,

assuming you believe in evolution, that is.

Like that, what was the name of the naturalist on board the Beagle?

-Charles Darwin, you mean?

-Oh!

-Oh, drat!

-KLAXON BLARES

This is a whole new tactic he's doing!

He wasn't the naturalist on board the Beagle.

There was an official naturalist on board the Beagle

and it wasn't Charles Darwin. He was the...?

-I don't care any more!

-Oh, you're angry, I'm sorry.

-Phillip, I wish it hadn't happened to you.

-He was the cook.

-He wasn't the cook, no.

-He was the figurehead on the prow. STEPHEN LAUGHS

He wasn't that either! He was, in fact, the geologist.

-The geologist.

-It was the doctor, whose name was McCormick, who was the official naturalist

and he really resented Darwin being there.

It was for rather snobbish British 19th century reasons

that FitzRoy, whose voyage it was, wanted a gentleman companion

and Charles Darwin fitted the bill rather more than the doctor.

But Christmas Day in 1835,

there's the young Darwin before he grew that massive beard,

they went to Tierra del Fuego, the land of the fire, right down below South America,

and the Darwin was very astonished to note what happened

when the local people had a famine. What they turned to eat.

Can you imagine what it is that they ate when times were difficult?

-Guinea pigs?

-Penguins?

-Guinea pigs are eaten in South America commonly.

-Just a snack!

-That's...

-One another?

-On another is right

-but a particular type of person was chosen.

-Elderly people.

And the particular type of...?

-Elderly women?

-Elderly women is the answer.

The elderly women ran for the hills when there was any kind of famine

-because they were the ones...

-"Mmm-mm! That's some good old lady!"

-LAUGHTER

-"I've got the GILF cookbook!"

-LAUGHTER AND GROANING

That's terrible!

That's just awful, Phillip Jupitus.

-Erm, but the reason being that...

-"Their arms are so tender!"

Well, they explained to the crew of the Beagle that the reason was,

I'm afraid to say, that the old women were the least useful members of the tribe

because old men and children, and others could otter hunt

-but the old women couldn't hunt for otters.

-What about the knitting?!

-I'm sorry?

-What about the knitting and crochet?

-Well, exactly.

-I know, exactly.

-And who is going to teach you rummy?

-That's a very good point. Yes.

-LAUGHTER

They can make dumplings. All these things only old ladies can do.

How does their society evolve with nobody to say, "Oh, I know!"

-LAUGHTER

-"Oh, I know!"

Anyway, now to a place where they had jackal-headed gods.

-Where would I be?

-Egypt.

-Ah!

KLAXON BLARES

"What, Egypt, you mean?"

-You didn't quite say that, did you?

-Sorry, I didn't quite say...

"What, Egypt, you mean?"

LAUGHTER

Not Egypt, in fact.

Those have been known as jackal-headed gods.

-That particular God, extra points if you know that.

-Anubis.

-Well done!

Anubis is the right answer.

Anubis who was, do you know what the duty of Anubis was?

Something to do with death.

Didn't he guide you into the spirit world?

Another five points, I think, there.

There's a name for a god that guides you into the underworld,

like Mercury, who guided you as far as the River Styx,

and that's a psychopomp.

-That's a good word!

-A psychopomp?

-A psychopomp.

Sounds like something you'd find in a medical examination.

"I'm sorry, you've got psychopomps."

-"It may be benign, it may be malignant."

-Yes, "We're going to have to operate."

A malignant psychopomp, you wouldn't want.

Erm, but, in fact, what has been discovered,

and this is, you won't find this on Egyptological websites

where they will continue to call Anubis and other Egyptian deities jackal-headed,

but the animals that existed at the time of ancient Egypt

were, we now know from DNA, wolves, not jackals.

So, from a zoological point of view,

if not from an Egyptological point of view,

they are in fact the wolf-headed not jackal-headed.

You heard it here first. A very recent discovery.

So, that's exciting, isn't it? Well, there you are.

Which travel organisation includes a mandatory fee

for the repatriation of your corpse?

Er, the AA? Thomas Cook?

No, this is a very particular event that you can subscribe to,

which, er, they sort out your travel

and your participation in this event

but included in it is a fee for the repatriation of your corpse.

It's not expected you'll die but there is a chance.

It's not running the bulls at Pamplona, is it?

No, is not the bulls in Pamplona.

-It's not one of these Ironman races, is it?

-It's that sort of thing.

It's an incredibly difficult marathon.

It's called the Marathon des Sables,

-which your French will tell you means...?

-Marathon of the sable.

LAUGHTER

These little black furry creatures... Yes.

-Sand is sable in French.

-Oh, sable. Sorry, sorry.

It's the Marathon of the Sands

and it's an extraordinarily enduring and gruelling event

in which you have two carry your own food, although there are water stops,

and it's six-day... Each day you run a marathon in the Sahara Desert.

People are very weird, aren't they?

I have a friend who does it and she's done it twice, which is extraordinary.

Did she have to go back because she had forgotten something?

-On two separate years!

-Oh, they'd better not tell Izzard about it.

-AS EDDIE IZZARD:

-"Really? Er... OK!"

LAUGHTER

"How many? How many do they do? OK."

LAUGHTER

"Er, I'm going to do 120 Desert marathons a week, for a year."

-LAUGHTER

-"Yes, true story."

Very good Eddie, I have to say!

APPLAUSE

I'm going to the pub every night for 27 years.

LAUGHTER

In tribute to Nelson Mandela.

Consider the case of Mauro Prosperi,

who was a very experienced runner, an Italian policeman, in fact,

who, in 1994, was doing the Marathon des Sables and there was a sandstorm,

and he disobeyed the official instructions,

which are that if you are in a sandstorm you hunker down

and wait till it passes.

I guess he wanted to win, so he carried on running and got lost.

And this is a bad thing in the Sahara, as I'm sure you can imagine.

By the second day he was drinking his urine, naturally.

On the third he found an abandoned shrine,

managed to kill a couple of bats, whose blood he drank.

He then decided to kill himself with the pen knife but he was so dehydrated the blood wouldn't flow.

He was rather encouraged to wake up the next morning

and so he ran for the next five days, drinking urine and dew,

and eating the occasional lizard that he found and managed to kill on the way.

After nine days he encountered some nomads who got him back to safety.

He'd lost three stone and was 130 miles off course in Algeria.

-LAUGHTER

-So, and then he did it again for six years?

He went back and did it again. Amazing.

I mean, bizarre but, there you go. It's brrr! Sheesh!

-No-one gives the nomads much credit in that story, do they?

-No, quite!

He was out there for nine days. Oh, my whole life!

Yeah, exactly.

-PHILL LAUGHS

-"He walked for six days."

Oh, get over yourself!

LAUGHTER

I was doing that when I was three.

-"Drinking your own piss? Luxury."

-LAUGHTER

But his description of it is really a very good ode to life, isn't it?

He said, "I didn't panic, I just despaired."

There you are.

Anyway, what did Napoleon say to Josephine

-on his way back from a journey?

-Ah, I sense a trap!

LAUGHTER

The only thing I know about Napoleon to Josephine was he said,

-what was it? Rob, what was it?

-LAUGHTER

Phill?

-LAUGHTER

-Cal?

I'm, I'm going to do it! "I'm coming back, don't wash!"

-Oh!

-KLAXON BLARES

No, that is one of the two things that people know that Napoleon said.

"Yeah, I shall be home soon, don't wash." Cos he liked them dirty!

There is no evidence of that whatsoever.

The earliest place this quotation that can be sourced is 1981.

-I only know the other one.

-The other on which might be...? What?

It's the one... Rob?

LAUGHTER

Phill, you know it.

-Cal, it's... Really?

-I'm still stuck on the no washing.

-"Pas ce soir, Josephine."

-Oh!

-Ah, got away with it!

Josephine, on the right, there, she's got the same black eyes

that all the people in my pictures have got on my computer

when I try and get rid of the red eye.

They end up with massive black dots

and they look like something from a zombie film.

I'm sorry you fell into our trap

but you managed to avoid the trap of, "Not tonight, Josephine,"

which is the other thing he was supposed to have said.

That appears in a play, WG Wills play called The Royal Divorce, which didn't come out until 1891,

some 70 years after the death of the Emperor.

-"An army marches on its stomach."

-Yes, well, indeed, yes.

-Did he say that?

-Unlikely to have said that to Josephine

-but he might have done.

-LAUGHTER

I think he meant it more as a, sort of, you know, point about logistics.

Maybe he discussed all sorts of battle stuff?

He might have done.

He said, "I prefer a lucky general to a skilled one," as well.

We don't know anything particular that Josephine and Napoleon might have said to each other

but we do know one thing - "Journeys end in lovers meeting,"

-that's Shakespeare...

-LAUGHTER

..and in fourth place.

PHILL JUPITUS LAUGHS

In fourth place we have, I'm sorry to say

but he did fall into some of our honeytraps rather cumbrously,

Phill Jupitus with minus 16!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And...

our little kiwi fruit is third with minus eight!

Cal Wilson!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

But hold the front page...

second, with minus three, Rob Brydon!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

With an astonishing plus four, Alan Davies is the winner!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

So, that's all from Rob, Phill, Cal, Alan and me.

The last word on journeys comes from Erma Bombeck, who said,

"Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the Titanic

"who waved away the dessert cart."

Have a safe trip. Good night.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd