Jack and Jill QI

APPLAUSE

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

and dare I say again, good evening and welcome to QI,

which tonight features Jack and Jill,

and indeed John, James, Johannes,

or anybody else whose name begins with J.

Let's meet every man Jack of 'em. Jack the Lad, Sue Perkins.

APPLAUSE

Jack the Giant Killer, Katy Brand.

APPLAUSE

Mad Jack McMad, winner of last year's Mr Madman competition,

David Mitchell.

APPLAUSE

And someone who doesn't know Jack. It's Alan Davies.

APPLAUSE

So, buzzer-wise, let's hear it for the girls. Katy goes...

# Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene. #

-I worship that woman.

-Sue goes...

# The Jean Genie lives on his back

# The Jean Genie. #

Happy with that.

Good. David goes...

# Jennifer, Jennifer. #

Awww. And Alan goes...

MUSIC: "Jessica" by The Allman Brothers Band

Ah!

Ah, now do you know, that's the theme for Top Gear.

-Top Gear!

-And what's the name of that piece of music?

It's hard to think that the most testosterone-driven programme

in television history is introduced by Jessica.

That's the name of that song. It is. Jessica by the Allman Brothers.

And that's the most interesting fact...in the world.

So, don't forget, we are looking for names beginning with J.

Who dies if they don't have sex for a year?

Is it Russell Brand?

SIREN WAILS

Good night! Bye-bye!

-I fear we were there before you, Sue.

-Yeah, you were.

He so doesn't begin with a J. Jo Brand does, but she may die, I don't know.

No, it's two years before Jo Brand dies.

Yeah, exactly.

I suspect it's not a human.

Correctly correctington.

-It's something other...

-It is from the animal kingdom.

I actually conducted an experiment many years ago to see

if you could survive a year without having sex,

and I'm happy to tell you that yes, you can.

I was worried your experiment was going to be that you'd had sex

with a variety of animals to see.

It wasn't clear to me that it was you,

it sounded to me like you had someone in a room locked up

for a year just to see if they would die without sex.

-They were the control.

-They were the control, yeah.

-While you were freely roaming.

-Yes, yeah. And as it turned out, neither of us had sex.

Could you not have saved each other by having sex with one another?

I think if you put someone in a room and then you have sex with them,

that's a crime.

So it's an animal and it's going to begin with a J?

Well, yes, though the species of animal doesn't begin with J.

-Right.

-It's just that the particular gender begins with a J.

It's a furry mammal often kept as a pet. And the male...

-Cat, dog, rabbit, hamster, gerbil...

-Cow?!

Cat! Gerbil.

No, you were closer with gerbil.

-A ferret.

-A ferret.

-Ferret.

-Now, what's a male ferret called?

-Jeff.

-He might be.

-They're actually, they begin with H.

They're called a hob.

-A hob?

-The female is called a...

Jenny?

-Not a Jenny, but it might as well be, almost.

-Julia.

-Jennifer.

-No.

A June. Judy.

# Jolene, Jolene. #

-It's not Jolene. That would be so pleasing.

-Jane.

No, it's a Jill.

-How did we not get Jill?

-A hob and a Jill. Who knows why these...?

A hob and a Jill. That doesn't go.

These are medieval assignations. It's extraordinary.

It sounds like a dance.

And what happens on, is it literally on day 365 they just explode?

It's a leap year! Come on!

In mid-summer they become oestrus, they're on heat.

-The poor Jill, the poor female ferret.

-Jill Ferret.

Jill Ferret, yeah, and if she hasn't had sex,

she carries on producing oestrogen, she gets aplastic anaemia and dies.

So she basically boils to death of heat.

Yeah, kind of.

So what you have to do if you have a pet female ferret,

-is either spay her...

-Shag it.

-Sleep with her.

No...

-Treat her nice.

-It would be the ultimate sacrifice.

-Find a hob for her.

-Find a hob for her, you don't shag her, Katy.

-And then cook her on the hob, yeah.

Well, you can give injections. You can give injections.

It's easier to have sex with her, really.

It's going to take away some of the pride in the conquest

from the male ferret, isn't it? You know, towards the end of the summer.

The male ferret is very ferocious. They have a hooked penis.

Do they have a bone in there?

They don't, like a badger, that's good, though. It's a hook, really.

And so it's up to the male then to unhook himself when he's satisfied.

-He also bites the back of the neck of the female.

-It sounds like fun.

It sounds like Russell Brand!

"Come 'ere, love!"

So yeah, there's your ferret. And it comes from the Latin, "furritus", which means?

Have sex with me or die.

It means, actually, "little thief".

-Oh.

-They're always nicking things.

That ferret looks very sweet there

and doesn't look like the sort of ferret that would hook you

with a bone in its penis.

But that's how they get you in, isn't it?

-Exactly.

-They get you with the eyes, the soft eyes.

-Yeah, they look so loveable.

-Then comes the boomerang cock.

Apparently, flatworms fight with their penises like swords.

And the one that loses gets stabbed and becomes a girl.

-That's a brilliant system.

-So they do these fights, and they've both got penises, fight, fight, argh!

It's like fencing, but when the rapier goes in, it becomes a lady

and has to give birth.

But that's win-win for the victorious one,

-because they win and then they get to have a shag...

-Yeah.

..with the newly formed female. Because the loser gets hurt and then suddenly develops breasts.

- And violated. - Feels violated and then has a baby.

Let's not get all women's lib about this.

Let's leave that.

Anyway, what made Mad Jack so mad?

Something he ate, I expect.

-Had he been on holiday?

-That's a mad Jack, that's a very familiar...

People are always eating things, or there's stuff in paint, that makes you mad, doesn't it?

But no, it's really, where does the phrase Mad Jack come from?

-Why Mad Jack?

-The original Mad Jack.

They go back quite a long way. It's basically applied to anybody,

whether they're named John or Jack or not. They're just called Mad Jack, and no-one quite knows why.

-Who was the first Mad Jack?

-Very hard to trace. Very hard to trace.

There was Mad Jack Mytton, who was a very eccentric aristocrat,

who paid £10 to a thousand of the constituents of Shrewsbury

for their vote, which is the equivalent of £750,000

in today's money.

-That was in 1819 and he was elected to be the member for Shrewsbury.

-No shit!

Sounds broadly similar to our current system.

And also similar to our current system is,

he found debating incredibly boring,

he only attended one session of parliament, for 30 minutes,

having paid £750,000 for the privilege.

And stood down in the next year, 1820.

-It's a hobby.

-If you're an aristocrat,

you're eccentric, aren't you?

-But if you're poor, you're just mad and you're a loony. I know.

-And you end up in an asylum.

Though he did end his days

in a debtors' prison, he lost all his money.

He used to...he once set fire to his night shirt to cure his hiccups.

That would probably work, but it's not actually a shock, is it?

No, it's not.

If you can get someone else

to do it when you're not expecting it, then that's a shock.

Although it could end up in a sort of Clouseau-Cato scenario,

where it's impossible to explain to someone

that it's no longer necessary for them to find a moment to set fire to your pyjamas.

If you wake up in the burns unit and go...

-Oh!

-HE HICCUPS

Oh!

He also liked to get up in the middle of the night

and shoot ducks while he was naked.

-Naked duck shooting.

-SUE: Was there any reason for the nudity?

He probably thought, "They're naked, why shouldn't I be?"

Is it wrong to be starting to slightly fall in love with this man?

I know what you mean.

You might fall in love with Charles Howard,

who was the 20th Earl of Suffolk.

And during the war, he went into Nazi-occupied Paris

and he rescued 10 million worth of industrial diamonds,

and all the heavy water that the Germans had.

But he also managed to bring back 50 nuclear scientists from Paris.

This is all during the time the Nazis were occupying.

So he was described by Harold Macmillan as a kind of cross

between Francis Drake and the Scarlet Pimpernel.

He was a very brave man.

And he then trained himself to be able to defuse bombs

and had his own bomb disposal unit, which was his secretary,

Eileen, and his chauffeur, Fred.

When you say he trained himself, that's quite hardcore.

-It is.

-There's only one way to go if you get it wrong.

-Yeah.

Well, he did unfortunately get it wrong, on his... I think his 35th bomb,

aged 34, 35 or something,

so he was, he was a good Mad Jack.

There was Mad Jack Churchill as well, in the Second World War.

And he was the only soldier known to have gone into battle

in the Second World War armed with, what weapon of choice?

Teapot.

SUE: A dessert spoon.

Sorry, cosy. Tea cosy.

-A tea cosy!

-SUE: A cheese slicer.

-A bow and arrow.

Did he know what decade or even what century he was in?

-He was a gallant, chivalrous man.

-"Marvellous stuff!"

And also, he would have a sword on the battlefield.

That's even stupider, isn't it? Because if you've got a bow and arrow,

you can't use a sword at the same time.

He thought no gentleman was dressed for battle unless they had a sword.

And he also said that if you smile at the enemy, they're less likely to shoot you.

And he was...

SUE: I wonder how he died!

No, he was taken prisoner, in fact.

Because he was so charming.

Who is that devastating man with the lovely smile?

He was actually housed at Sachsenhausen,

which was the VIP prison camp.

The Germans thought he was related to Winston Churchill, which he wasn't.

Mad Jack Churchill.

Anyway, Mad Jack Churchill didn't die until 1996, so he had

a more fortunate life than Charles Howard, 20th Earl of Suffolk.

There's a load of Jacks.

But how did Queen Jenga arrange her harem?

Oh, was it like that and then that and then that.

Three rows that way and then three rows...

SIREN WAILS

For you!

You're being so kind. She was quite a piece of work, Queen Jenga.

Bow and arrow and sword, apparently.

And sword, exactly.

He didn't think of the bells, though.

-No, the bells...

-That would have clinched it for him.

-That would have been a good...

-That's just to make people look up. Ding ding ding! Who is it?

She was a 17th century member of the Royal Family of...

Well, she killed her brother, who was called Ngola,

after which the country Angola is named,

supposedly her nephew as well, and ate his heart.

And she liked men to fight each other to death and the winner

would sleep with her for the night and then be killed in the morning.

So she was...

What's the incentive to then enter the competition?

You're killed either way, so it's whether you get a shag or you're killed without one.

But what kind of shag would you have

when you know at the end of it, you're going to get murdered?

I mean, that is one tense coitus.

I think Mr Tiggy would probably be a bit shrivelly, wouldn't he?

Yes, Mr Tiggy would.

Is that not a universal name?

Oh, my goodness.

Too much Mr Tiggy information.

There must be the promise of a reprieve.

Well, you'd think if you were really, really good.

"If you really please me, I will not kill you with my bells."

"Or my sword or my big bag."

What's the bell for?

Is that to just give somebody tinnitus

-before they're eviscerated, or something?

-Room service.

She was not a...

You rang?

She was not a kindly soul, it must be said.

Describe the best ever game of royal hide and seek.

Well, I presume the Hampton Court maze is involved.

Well, no, actually. That's just sort of giving an example.

Oh, no.

Up the tree. The Royal Oak.

That's certainly, that was pretty good. That was, I mean, he hid.

The princes in the Tower, and they hid so well

that it was hundreds of years and then they were skeletons?

Is it any game of hide and seek

in which you never find Prince Edward again?

No. Remember, we're in the world of Js.

Now, the Civil War, Charles I.

John.

-No, Charles I had two sons.

-There's a J in it.

Charles, who became Charles II.

-And James...

-Who became?

-James I.

-No.

-James II.

It makes sense, because The Second was their surname

and they were brothers.

SUE: That's what, yeah.

KATY: They're like the boys from the band Blue.

-There's Duncan from Blue, and there's Simon from Blue.

-Yeah.

They're all related as well, aren't they?

Well, James was imprisoned at St James's Palace.

Named not after him, but the saint, of course.

Oh, what an ordeal(!)

Yeah, I know. He used to play hide and seek and he was so good at it

that the servants would spend hours looking for him and...

Oh, they wouldn't look for him at all.

He'd be hiding and they'd go and have lunch.

"Another game of hide and seek?" "Yes."

"Oh, we couldn't find you, sir."

It was all part of his plan,

because one day he managed to get hold of the gardener's key,

and while playing hide and seek he actually escaped from the Palace

and met up with a Colonel Blumpstead, or some similar name,

who was a royalist, as you would be if you were call Blumpstead.

"Oh, Blumpstead, Blumpstead!"

And he escaped to Holland, where he lived a happy life.

It was actually Bampfield, not Blumpstead.

But still, "Bampfield" is clearly a royalist.

So are you saying the hide and seek prowess was sort of all

part of the strategy, or that was just a happy...?

-Yeah, preparing for an escape.

-Oh, I see.

-At the age of 12.

It's like the Shawshank Redemption.

Yeah, except he was 12, which is impressive.

-He was 12?!

-He was 12, so it's quite impressive.

-He was only 12.

-Brilliant.

How does he come into contact with Major Bampfield?

I guess secret messages were passed in some way...

I'd dread to think, now I know he's 12.

You've got to be careful as a boy, running away with a random colonel.

-To Amsterdam.

-Especially...

You can't be sure. I mean, he might be a royalist, or...

Especially to Amsterdam, yes, quite. No, you're right.

"Come with me, it's going to be such fun."

"No, really, I am seriously a colonel."

So, while on the subject of King James's,

imagine that Jamie Oliver was to be crowned the next king of England.

-It's sort of...

-Not inconceivable.

Not inconceivable in the strange world in which we live.

President Oliver.

What number James would he be?

What would be his regnal number, as the official says it?

Well, it would be different in England from Scotland.

No, there's just one UK, so it would be the same in both,

but what would it be?

I'm desperate to say James III.

SIREN WAILS Yes!

No.

No, because what happened was, when Elizabeth was crowned,

60 years ago, she was of course called Queen Elizabeth II.

But in Scotland, there was a bit of an outcry.

Because she wasn't the second Queen Elizabeth in Scotland,

she was the first.

They had Mary Queen of Scots,

when Elizabeth I was on the throne.

So a few early E II R pillar boxes were trashed in Scotland

and there was a big fuss.

And Winston Churchill, who was Prime Minister in 1953,

he sort of decided that there...

This is 350 years later!

I know, people have long memories on these things.

So Churchill essentially laid down a convention whereby UK monarchs

would be numbered uniformly according to either an English

or Scottish reckoning, whichever was higher.

So James I of England was James the..?

Sixth.

..VI of Scotland. So James II was James VII,

so if there were another James, he would be called James VIII.

That would be the procedure.

Princess Anne looks a lot like my daughter in that picture, quite disturbingly.

Gosh! She's very young there, isn't she?

I feel sorry for all the other finalists to be Queen.

APPLAUSE

There is also unresolved controversy over the naming of the QEII.

Do you know what this might be?

Well, I've always wondered,

I was never sure whether the QEII was named after Queen Elizabeth II,

-or was the second ship called Queen Elizabeth?

-Yes.

Because there's a Queen Mary II.

Exactly. The second vessel of the Cunard line to be called Queen Mary.

And opinion is divided, but a lot of people think it was literally

just the second ship to be called Queen Elizabeth.

But the Queen herself, when launching it, saying,

"I name this ship Queen Elizabeth II"

so Cunard had to rename it, basically, because she had done it.

Anyway, who's this? What are they doing?

"I thought it would be ten times as exciting

"as a swing boat at the fair, but it wasn't.

"There was no sensation, just a lot of noise and wind.

"My hair was blown into a tangled mess

"which couldn't be combed out for days."

The inventor of the hairdryer.

Is it Brian May on the latest Thorpe Park ride?

Well, we're with a transport experience and this person

was famous for their achievement in it, but the first time

they tried it, they found it horrible, noisy, windy.

Amy Johnson?

Amy Johnson is the right answer! Very good.

It's a J, it's a J.

There she is.

APPLAUSE

That's the J. And what was her great feat?

-Flew the Atlantic.

-Yeah.

-No, that was Alcock and Brown.

-Flew across America.

-No, she flew from...

-Flew to the moon.

She flew from Britain to Australia.

-To Australia?

-Yeah. Heck of a flight.

Did she ever come back?

Yes, she certainly did, and when she came back she landed at what

was then the sort of London Airport, which was Croydon Airport,

and there were 200,000 people there to meet her.

You're kidding?

No, it was a sensation of the age.

Was there a car boot sale going on as well?

No. There was... She had a 12 mile parade through London.

So she was describing when she first got into an aeroplane,

and first flew?

She absolutely hated it.

But she stuck with it and became obviously incredibly good at it.

So yes, now then, talking of flight,

I want you all to do a jolly jape now,

which is make a dart, a paper dart,

and see the person who can throw it the furthest wins.

Talk amongst yourselves.

There are various kinds you can do, just try the type you did at school.

Oh, I've totally forgotten now to do this.

And obviously take your time, as quickly as you can.

Thing is, I'm going to make one in the way we used to make them

at school, knowing full well that they didn't fly very well.

Well, some people were good at it and some people weren't.

Interesting to see how well you're doing.

Precision engineering.

- Oops, I've made a hat.

I'm going to put little flaps on mine, is that all right, and a tail.

I've just had that idea!

You seem to be ready, who's ready? David, have a go.

As far as you can go.

APPLAUSE

Not bad.

Should you throw or should you cast like a bowler?

-Ah. Well, it's up to you.

-Look at that.

Yours looks great, I have to say.

APPLAUSE

-It went up because of the flaps.

-Yeah. Your flaps.

-Corrugated roof tiles.

-Flaps gave it lift.

Watch out in the back row, this is going to be lethal.

It's one of those Stealth ones, you won't be able to see it,

you won't be able to measure it.

You can buy that from Wickes, "It's got our name on it."

Oh!

APPLAUSE

A suicide plane.

Impossible. It defies all laws of physics.

I thought it was acrobatics.

Sue, your chance for glory.

I don't think it's going to happen.

APPLAUSE

Well, despite the brilliance of Amy Johnson...

But would you be surprised to know that the paper aeroplane

that goes the furthest looks like this?

-Stop it!

-Yeah, that's a bracelet.

I know, it seems hardly credible.

What do you do? You just scrunch it up and chuck it.

I'm unfortunately not very good at throwing it.

I've practised a bit, but the world record is 200 yards.

-No way!

-I'm not kidding you.

Straight down.

You're supposed to twist it and that's why I'm not good at it,

I've never thrown an American football - that's what you do it in the style of.

ALL: Whoa!

There you go!

APPLAUSE That's amazing!

Pretty good, isn't it?

And that's...

So why aren't all aeroplanes designed like that?

It was invented by a man called Mark Forti, whose father worked for NASA.

Oh, what a cheat.

Yes, it's a short plastic cylinder,

slightly weighted on the leading edge and that's as simple as that.

So you use sticky-back plastic,

which some purists would say doesn't make it a proper aeroplane,

because it has to be slightly heavier in the front.

You would not imagine that was so aerodynamic a shape as a dart,

which just to our eyes looks right, doesn't it.

Is that the future of aeroplanes?

Darts, the future of darts.

I thought you said "ducks".

They're going to evolve into kind of cylindrical, little beaks at the top.

Yeah, birds everywhere are watching this programme going,

"What have we been doing all these..."

"All this. We should have just done that!"

"And just jumped. What have we been doing?!"

But we were saying earlier about Amy Johnson,

almost gave up flying because it made such a mess of her hair.

Can you remember who wrote the first dictionary in English?

-Oh, yes. Johnson.

-Samuel Johnson.

Samuel Johnson!

SIREN WAILS

No, it wasn't Samuel Johnson.

I led you down the garden path and spanked you.

-Baldrick.

-Baldrick!

"B."

Probably a B, yes.

"We're going to have to write the whole dictionary tonight!"

Yes.

Dr Johnson's dictionary, written in the earlier part

of the 18th century, was preceded by, well there was...

-Famously the first one.

-Weren't there lots?

There was a Richard Mulcaster in the 16th century,

who came up with the name football, in fact.

And indeed, invented refereeing and the idea of football teams,

but he wrote Elementary in 1582, which was the first to gather

"all the words which we use in our English tung, out of all

professions, as well learned as not, into one dictionarie."

But he didn't give definitions.

He just listed all the words that he thought there existed.

But Robert Cawdrey's Table Alphabeticall, of 1604,

not only listed words, but gave definitions, so it was

perhaps the first true dictionary, in the sense that we know it.

It listed around 3,000 hard words, as he called them,

defining each one.

So then Johnson's dictionary had how many entries?

At around the time there about 275,000 or 300,000 words.

-How many did he list?

-42.

Oh, you were so close. 42,000.

Thousand.

That was really close. 42,773.

But we've got some Johnson words that have gone out of use.

Maybe you can imagine what they mean.

Tonguepad.

Mouth-friend.

Mouth-friend. Don't we all need a mouth-friend?

Sometimes we certainly do need a tonguepad and a mouth-friend.

Sometimes I like a frigorifick.

- I hear you, girl.

Frigorifick.

Yeah. We've all been frigorifick in our time.

A depucelate is...

That's a coffee.

I think it's single shot, isn't it?

You can get those in, yeah, Starbucks.

It's not "depu-kela-tay," it's depucelate.

That's what you do before a big date, isn't it?

- Yes. If you're meeting a mouth-friend.

You get a bit tonguepad. Slip of the old shapesmith.

Is a shapesmith just a rubbish blacksmith?

-No, a shapesmith is basically what we...

-"I've done a thing."

There you are.

You did a shapesmith.

It sort of looks like a doorknob, though.

It's not a horseshoe,

but it's sort of horse jewellery in some way.

Like a horse clog.

A horse nipple clamp.

-They founded Camden Market and sold all that crap.

-Yes.

No, a shapesmith is actually what we would call a personal trainer.

It's someone who gets you into shape.

-It's a shapesmith.

-Time for that word to come back.

-Exactly.

"I'm going to see my shapesmith."

My shapesmith, yeah.

Personal trainer, hate that.

A tonguepad is just a talker, someone who natters all the time.

-A mouth-friend is...

-Gossip?

No, someone who is a friend to your face,

-but is duplicitous behind your back.

-Oh, God, I know a few of those.

Yeah, a few mouth-friends, pretends to be your friend.

To depucelate, is to deflower, to bereave of virginity.

It's not a bereavement!

Let's not see it as that.

Frigorifick sounds like something Del Boy might say, but what is frig...?

Actually, I suppose...

It's probably rather badly spelt. We should pronounce - yes, cold -

we should pronounce it "frijorifick", probably.

It just means causing cold,

something that's frigorifick causes cold.

Some of his definitions were just a little bit lazy.

"Sock. Something put between the foot and the shoe."

He must have thought, though,

because you know, previous diction...

the one before you were saying had been just of hard words.

He must have thought, "Everyone knows what a sock is!"

If you've got this book

and you don't know what a sock is, then I can't help you.

Exactly. Oats was a famous one.

He said horrible things about the Scots in his one on oats, didn't he?

He did. He said "a grain which in England

"is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people."

He describes "to worm",

"to deprive a dog of something, nobody knows what, under his tongue,

"which is said to prevent him, nobody knows why, from running mad."

-It's just a very strange...

-Wasn't a scientist then.

No, I think probably not.

He was one of our greatest men of letters.

Well, we've come to the amen, because it's time for the scores.

It's all we've got time for. Let's see who's hit the jackpot.

HE INHALES DEEPLY

Well...

He's died!

I'm afraid it's Sue who's died in last place, with minus 12.

APPLAUSE

And really, it's a massive step up for Alan,

on our third place, with minus seven.

APPLAUSE

Robbed.

And having been depucelated, QI-wise,

it's pretty impressive to break your virginity with minus three, Katy.

APPLAUSE

But our mouth-friend of the week, clear winner on plus five,

is David Mitchell.

APPLAUSE

So, this is where we jack it all in and say that's all

from Sue, David, Katy, Alan and me.

Be excessively nice to each other. Good night.

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