Little and Large QI

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

good evening, good evening, good evening and welcome to QI.

Tonight, we look through both telescope and microscope

at the Quite Interesting world of Little and Large.

Joining us tonight are the gigantic Phill Jupitus...

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

..the massive Richard Osman...

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

..the titanic Lucy Porter...

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

..and, oh my gosh, he's so teeny-weeny,

I could squish him, Alan Davies.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Thank you.

Now, let's go large on your little buzzers.

Phill goes...

MUSIC: Big Spender by Shirley Bassey

# Hey big spender

# Spend

# A little time with me. #

Big Spender. Richard goes...

MUSIC: Big Bad John by Jimmy Dean

# Big John, big John

# Big bad John... #

Lucy goes...

MUSIC: Big Girls Don't Cry by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons

# Big girls don't cry

# Big girls don't cry #

And Alan goes...

MUSIC: Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini by Brian Hyland

Lovely.

So, what's the largest native land animal, hmm,

that you'll find all year round on Antarctica?

I don't think there are any land animals on Antarctica.

Humans? Human beings?

-Oooh!

-KLAXON

I did say...

The line between clever and stupid is so... It's so thin, isn't it?

I did say "native". Obviously there are humans.

-Oh, I beg your pardon.

-Yeah, there are natives.

-Is it a penguin, a big penguin?

-Oh!

KLAXON

I mean... Right, OK.

So it's not that, because I made the evil siren go off.

Would it be whales?

A whale isn't a land animal.

-A seal?

-If the water melts really quickly, it is.

I will give you a clue. You've already said penguin...

It's a flightless animal, but it's not a big mammal.

Given that it is big and little and large, is it very wee?

It is actually very small. Although it's the largest.

-Is it a mosquito or something like that?

-It's an insect.

You're in the right direction. It's like a mosquito.

Mosquitoes are like... If you go to Scotland, what do you get?

-A ladybird.

-Midge.

-Midge.

-Midge, midge. It's a midge.

It's a...bug?

A midge?

Belgica Antarctica. The Belgian, as you might say, midge.

There it is - it's wingless, flightless, it's a midge

and the point is, it's native to Antarctica.

There are all kinds of animals, like humans, like penguins,

that spend a bit of their time in Antarctica.

Penguins only 25% of their time,

75% of their time, they're at sea.

They're not a land animal.

"Arr, but we're married to the sea."

-"Penguins, we love the life."

-They do.

"Away from our nagging wives

"with their beaks and their wings,

"sitting on eggs. Arr."

There they are. Ah, bless.

What is it about them that is so endearing?

They're delicious.

Mmm, that's good eating.

Talking of humans not being native to Antarctica,

there's a story the other day about the American scientist

who's there and he decided to turn Tinder on -

-you know Tinder, the dating app?

-Oh, yes?

-Oh.

And he got a date with a woman in a tent 45 minutes away,

-who was also a researcher.

-You're kidding me!

-That's hilarious!

-That would be great if she came up and he went,

"Nah, swipe right, nah."

Grindr, however - all penguins.

Yes.

But if they were to mate, say have a child,

raised that child there, suddenly...

That child would be endemic or native to Antarctica.

Yeah, and by the time this goes out on Dave, everyone will be like, "What about the..."

-Yeah, you're right.

-Yeah, what about the Tinder baby?

-The midge.

Tinder baby, you're right. I'll have to pull in...

They've got wifi, that's the best thing about that.

-Yeah, wifi on Antarctica.

-That's good going.

-Yeah, it is impressive.

-I bet the penguins are all hooked up.

"They're all the same."

Their version of Tinder is called Pick Up A Penguin.

Very good. So, now...

Identify the world's biggest gasbag.

Oh, Lord, John McCririck.

John McCririck is a very good answer.

An actual bag of actual gas?

That would probably be the best way to go.

Without hinting too much.

I presume something like the Hindenburg, an airship.

An enormous airship, perhaps.

Well...kind of like an airship, yes, though in fact even bigger.

This is the biggest such device ever constructed by man.

Is it the one that Bruce Dickinson from Iron Maiden is involved with?

How extraordinary you are.

No.

But I am very impressed that you should know of that.

He is. Yeah, I met him about five years ago, he said he was doing...

He invested a huge amount of money and it's about 200ft, or 300ft long or something,

it's absolutely enormous. There's pictures of it, it looks like an arse, the way it's built.

-That's it.

-Oh, there you go.

-It does. There it is, like an arse.

-It's in its hangar.

But it's in a hangar that's so big it has its own climate.

-Yes.

-It has clouds and all sorts of things.

-Yeah.

-Why, oh why, oh why?

Did he do it? Well, because, for commercial reasons, it's like to replace...

-Oh, it goes 100mph.

-Yeah, it's like properly quite impressive.

Have they sorted out the whole, you know, Hindenburg

fiery death element?

No, they decided not to worry about it.

It can carry 50 tonnes,

it can stay in the air for three and a half weeks.

But the difference between that and the Hindenburg is?

Do you know what the...?

-It's not full of hydrogen, I take it.

-It's the gas.

Well that's it, the Hindenburg and the earlier airships were

full of hydrogen, which is incrense...

-Incrensely... Incrensely flammable.

-Yeah.

Anyway, not just incredibly or intensely,

-but incrensely. Yeah.

-Well, that's... Which is why it blew up.

That's why it blew up, because it was incrensely flammable.

What have I told you about reading Jabberwocky

before you present shows?

It makes it intedibly dangerous.

So, yes, that was a really good interruption, as it were.

Is this a naturally occurring gas-bag?

No, it isn't.

It is the biggest ever bag of gas created by human kind.

Does it have a purpose...

So it has a purpose other than storing the gas?

It had a purpose, in as much as it broke three records,

which are better remembered than this record.

What are the three records you might think of,

in terms of a balloon?

-Height, distance...

-Yes, height, distance...

And number of deaths.

There were no deaths.

There were no deaths in this case.

Is it loudest pop?

Not...

Most excited child?

Who...who jumped out of a really high balloon?

-Oh, the...

-Felix Baumgartner.

-Yeah.

-GERMAN ACCENT:

-Felix Baumgartner is the right answer. This is the... Ja.

So, Felix Baumgartner - there he is.

-He fell from a greater height than anyone has ever fallen.

-Right.

He achieved a greater speed than anyone has fallen,

which made him the first man ever to what?

Break the sound barrier.

Break the sound barrier, unaided.

And it was the highest balloon ascent ever.

Those are three records, the highest balloon ascent, biggest freefall...

-Do you know what else it was, Stephen?

-What's that?

It was incrensely dangerous.

Incrensely... it was incrensely dangerous!

But it was the largest balloon ever constructed.

And let's have a look at how bigot it was.

It was... Bigoted?

It was bigoted than the Statue of Liberty.

It was more bigoted than the Statue of Liberty?

-What is the matter?!

-What is going on?!

It is a famous bigot.

Get... Just get rid of this one, get another one in.

Give me your bored, your tired and tell them to piss off.

What they'd call it in Carry On world is

the "Statue of Diabolical Liberty".

Anyway, it is gigantic,

it's almost as tall as St Paul's Cathedral,

but taller, as you can see, than the Statue of Liberty, by a few feet.

But the comparison with the Hindenburg is interesting,

which is one, do you know the Hindenburg? You mentioned, I think,

-didn't you...

-Mmm-hmm.

-There's the Hindenburg.

And the Hindenburg burst into flames catastrophically in New Jersey,

at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station.

There it is. I mean, just awful.

It was so sophisticated inside, incredible.

That is, that is sophisticated.

Yeah. And they even had a cigarette lighter,

although it was hydrogen, one of the most flammable gases there is.

-All smoking!

-But it was chained.

"Cigarette? Cigarette?" "Yes, please."

I like to live dangerously...

"What's that smell? Can anyone smell gas?"

"Don't be absurd."

The cigarette lighter was chained to one place,

so you could go up and light your cigarette.

But everyone wore special shoes that didn't create friction

and static electricity to create a spark that would set it off,

but something went wrong.

In the movie, it's supposedly sabotage.

So there you are.

What use is a blue whale at a birthday party?

Alan, I'll give you a chance here.

We know how you love blue whales.

It's not a blue actually, we should have offered you a blue,

but in fact that is a hump. It's a humper.

That's not real, that photo, is it?

Oh, yes. Oh, yes, Alan's a diver.

A blue whale at a birthday party?

Well they take up a lot of room, you'd need a big hall.

Yeah.

It's good, I think you're getting there.

Yeah. That's good encouragement, thanks, Richard.

That's OK.

Think it would be fun for the kids to get inside, couldn't they?

-Play around.

-True.

-Bouncy castle?

-Bouncy arsehole, did you say?

-No...

..I didn't, but by all means.

Oh, bouncy castle.

-Bouncy castle.

-Oh, yeah, yeah, I see what you mean, yeah.

"Yeah, I'd like to, I'd like to hire a bouncy arsehole, if I may."

Oops.

No. List things that you need for children's parties.

-Well, my kids...

-Cake, I was thinking candles.

-Yeah.

-Candles is one.

-My kids love ambergris, so...

You're quite right, ambergris does come from a whale.

It would be a natural for a blue whale. Right, cake...

-Pass the parcel.

-Pass the parcel.

-Balloons?

-Yes!

-Balloons!

-Balloons.

-A big whale balloon. Whales filled with helium.

Why would a blue whale be useful at a children's party?

Because it can fill up, it's got the largest breath in the world.

Yes. Because, in one breath,

a blue whale could inflate

1,250 balloons.

-Wow.

-OK.

-That's a spoilt child.

I agree.

I take that point, but I'm fairly sure it's never happened.

No, no. You're right.

Yeah, and also, logistically, it would be almost impossible.

I would like... Whales live to be very old as well, don't they?

-Oh, yes.

-So I would like one at my birthday party

to make me feel both young and slim.

Yes. Whales aren't particularly slim though, Lucy.

No, but I would, next to a whale...

Oh, I see, next to a whale. Yeah, sorry, I'm so stupid.

I'm not asking for much of a compliment, Stephen.

No, no. I'm sorry!

Just...you know?

I do apologise.

You're not going to be able to get next to the whale,

because he's in the balloon shed, pumping away.

-PHILL GRUNTS

-One.

-PHILL GRUNTS

-Two.

Just going, "Those dolphins have it easy, don't they?"

I'm going to give you some bags now and ask you to blow these up.

Now you may say, that's easy enough.

Ah, time for the controversial

auto-erotic asphyxiation round.

Oh, don't, that's so rude.

-There you are.

-Here we go.

-That's terrible.

I'd just like a belt and a tangerine now.

So you're blowing up.

What you're doing is, you're trying to blow up...

All right.

Look how clever she is.

How did you do that?

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

I'll show you here. It's called the Bernoulli effect.

I can't even do that, Richard.

OK, watch this.

One blow.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

So there you are.

Just one blow from a distance, like that, which you did.

So you get the points there, Lucy, that's very impressive.

So put them away nicely.

Now, who said,

"The most beautiful girl or woman in the world

"would be a matter of indifference to me,

"but tall soldiers - they are my weakness"?

You did.

KLAXON

Oh, yes.

Oh, yes.

That was very pleasing.

It was, wasn't it?

Was it someone who had a tall soldier

pointing a gun at them at the time?

You'd think so.

This person was obsessed with tall soldiers,

tall people generally.

Was it my PA, Kelly?

She would be.

She is literally... All she wants in the world, if you know anyone,

is a ginger squaddie - that's all she wants.

It's all she wants.

-But a tall ginger squaddie?

-A tall ginger squaddie, or failing that,

a ginger roofer. So if you know anybody...

All right, you heard it here first.

I do have a... I have an inkling about this,

but I can't remember... It was a squadron...

Potsdam?

Ah, brilliant! Absolutely right.

Yeah, there were the Potsdam Giants.

Yeah, absolutely right.

It was King Frederick Wilhelm I of Proist,

or Prussia,

who was the father of Frederick the Great.

And he became King in 1713,

as you all know.

And he was obsessed with tall soldiers.

-And he would kidnap them, he would recruit them...

-It's like your PA.

He would get them from any country that wanted to be in with Prussia,

which was just growing as a power.

He himself was only 5 foot 5.

-So he wasn't very tall.

-"Taller than me."

But he just got them from all over the place.

In fact one of his tallest was a seven foot Irishman,

called James Kirkland,

who was a hero of the Regiment of Potsdam Giants

and he paid fathers for tall sons,

he paid tall women to have sex with tall men

so they could have tall sons.

He was, and if he was...

He sounds like my kind of guy, I've got to say.

If he was unhappy, he'd get two or three hundred of his giants...

Ho, ho, don't finish this sentence.

No, no, no. Preceded by tall turbaned Moors,

with cymbals and trumpets of the Grenadiers' mascot,

an enormous bear, to march for him to cheer him up.

And they'd do this through his bedroom if he was ill.

-To march for him?

-With a bear as well?

-Through his bedroom? How big was his bedroom?

It must have been, well enormous. He was an emperor.

He wants big men and a bear, marching to strict rhythm,

which you can find

in Old Compton Street, most Fridays.

-You're right. You're right.

-PHILL BEATBOXES

You'd think he'd want them to do tall stuff.

Like reach up to high shelves?

Yeah, stuff off shelves or something.

Yes, that's true. Plucking.

I mean what's the point of having them just walking up and down?

I don't know. He had his particular thing.

The reason I've heard of this is because

when I got together with my husband, someone made this reference,

because I'm 4 foot 11 and my husband is 6 foot 5.

-Which is like...

-Hmm, Justin.

It's like, yes, in the bedroom it's like a ventriloquism act

that's gone really seriously wrong.

-You know, a horrible image I know.

-That's gone so right!

Well, yes.

There's a... Well, Frederick would have loved it, obviously.

-Yeah.

-What does he make you do while he's drinking a pint of water?

I'll bet it's not the alphabet.

Oh!

Now.

So, and almost 100 years,

this regiment was part of the Prussian army.

Was that because they live longer?

No, I don't mean each individual member -

though they did live longer.

Do they get gradually shorter?

-It was a...

-"I used to be tall."

Yes. King Frederick William of Prussia liked a tall soldier.

But why was Sir Billy Butlin such a little devil?

-Hmm.

-Oh, holiday camps.

Butlins holiday camps. Minehead, Scarborough, Filey.

-Skegness.

-Skegness, yeah.

Were the chalets little?

No, but Billy Butlin himself...

Was he tiny?

He was. And if you think about the age he is,

you might be able to work this out.

Second World War?

-No.

-First World War?

The First World War, that's the generation he was.

And in the First World war,

they had something to make people fight, which was called?

Bromide.

No. It was a law.

-Conscription.

-Conscription, yes.

-Conscription.

But one of the things that could get you out of being conscripted

was that if you were?

-Tiny.

-If you were small.

Did he pretend to be bigger to...?

No, he, as it were,

fell under a particular desperation that the British Army...

Did they start a short army?

Yes, they literally did.

Lord Derby, the Earl of Derby said, now hang on, there are a whole

load of short people, as it were, getting under the wire.

And all these tall people are fighting and dying for us,

we want more people to die for us.

There simply aren't enough people dying.

And all these short people are living.

So we're going to have a short brigade.

And they were known as the "Bantams". The "Bantam Brigade".

I know, they were...

Presumably it would be quite good,

you could play on the opposition's...

-You know, the opposing army's sense of perspective?

-Yeah. Exactly.

In some way you're like...

"Those soldiers are really far away."

-Yeah, that's right.

-"We have ages. They won't get here for days."

"They are no danger to us... Argh!"

These were men under 5 foot 3

and Billy Butlin was one of them.

They became known as "The Devils", in fact, the "Devil's Dwarfs",

-because they were so...

-Oh, my God!

Their reputation for brawling and mischief.

They were very, very aggressive.

Here they are, being inspected by a splendid man with a moustache.

"Well done, well done."

German shin injuries up 75%.

"All our legs are being shot away from us, we do not know why."

Surely they should have just put them

on each others' shoulders in a long coat.

Oh, yeah.

The most famous of them was called Henry Threadgould,

who was only 4 foot 9.

And he was believed to be the shortest soldier ever

to have served in the British Army.

There he is, next to quite a tall Scottish soldier.

But that's a short chap,

but chirpy and cheerful and ready to lay down his life for our country.

I hope he doesn't shake hands with him.

Hey, now.

That's given my husband and I

a whole new avenue for bedroom role-play.

-You be Henry and I'll be a Scots Guard.

-Yeah!

Well, there you are.

So next time you go on a Butlins holiday, you can say,

well, thank you, Billy, for putting your life at risk,

despite the fact that you weren't as tall as most soldiers.

And he survived.

He survived in order to create these holiday camps. Yeah.

-With tiny beds.

-With...

Now, what did the chap on the left here have

that was twice as big as the chap on the right?

Is it to do with their beards?

No, they're both very, very, very famous, they're both 19th century.

Are they philosophers?

One of them won a Nobel prize, the other didn't.

Oh, is it Nobel Prize cabinet?

APPLAUSE

You are faster than the speed of light tonight.

No, it's not that, but it could easily be.

You definitely deserve points for that.

The one on the right was hugely fashionable for a time,

and his name is Anatole France.

And he won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

The one on the left was a great literary figure,

still much more highly regarded as a literary figure

than the one on the right.

Is it Twitter following?

Neither of them, to their eternal shame, has a Twitter following.

How do you win a Nobel Prize for Literature if you don't Twitter?

It seems inconceivable, doesn't it? I know. I know.

The one on the left... His initials though, are to do,

slightly to do with Twitter, his initials are IT.

Is he Russian?

Yes. So if it's "I", it's got to be?

-Igor.

-Ivan.

"Ivan" is the right answer.

Month In The Country?

-Turgenev?

-Fathers And Sons, Ivan Turgenev is the right answer.

So, you have Ivan Turgenev and you have Anatole France.

One had something that was double the size of the other.

Is it right hand or left hand?

-No, but you're right to be physical, it's about their bodies.

-Cock.

-Maybe cock...

-Well, everyone's thinking it, we might as well get it out in the open.

KLAXON

Oh!

APPLAUSE

-No?

-It's quite fun to sit here

when the word "penis" just flashes behind you.

The number of times that's happened to him.

-It's not.

-Brain?

"Brain" is the right answer.

You bring back a little... A few points to yourself.

Oh, come on, it must match up.

Well, that's the thing, is...

You can't lose more for saying "cock" than you get for saying "brain".

You know that a klaxon...

Yeah, Turgenev's brain is twice the size of Anatole France's -

or was - and Anatole France won the Nobel Prize and Turgenev didn't,

not that that's anything to do with it, but it is quite surprising.

Because generally speaking,

it's held that brain size is to do with intelligence.

Although there are manifold exceptions.

But in the case of Turgenev and Anatole France, well,

Turgenev's brain was 4lbs 6oz.

And France's was 2lbs 4oz. Almost exactly half.

Can you feel the weight of your brain?

-Is that a thing?

-Yes, I can.

-If you've got a heavier brain...

Yeah. It's really upsetting.

I can't feel anything.

Size isn't everything, it seems.

However, just how small can you feel?

Er, right. So is this the... Your ability to feel tininess?

Hmm, it is, well spotted.

A human hair is pretty small.

Oh, look. Hairs are small, yeah.

You can't feel that if it's resting on your hand,

but if you put it between your fingers, you can.

-Pollen, can you feel pollen?

-Ooh, ooh...

-It depends what you're feeling it with.

-Ooh...

-Yes.

-Yes.

-Look, I'm doing this, look, I'm doing this, I can play the tiny violin.

-You're using your fingertips, which are your best feely things.

-Oh, OK, fingertips.

So it was only in 2013 they started to do experiments really, to try and find out.

And they used a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very

smooth surface to try and get the friction, the friction.

And it's absolutely extraordinary what they discovered.

And that is that we can feel, with our fingers,

something as small as 13 nanometres high.

Which is to say, the size of a single molecule.

Which in itself would be ten times smaller than a bacterium.

Fortunately, we can't feel bacteria,

because that would drive us crazy, because they're everywhere.

Human fingers do this by sensing vibrations from the friction,

and it is absolutely astonishing.

And you can test it,

because you can put something on a surface that's smooth

and put these tiny things and say "stop" when you feel it.

How smooth is smooth?

Yeah. Are we talking like Magic FM?

-That's too smooth.

-Too smooth?

-Yeah.

The research team created invisible wrinkles of 16 different heights.

The smallest detectable ones

were 7,000 times thinner than a sheet of paper.

There you are. It makes you wonder though,

why we can never find the end of a roll of Sellotape.

Hey...

How is that?

Anyway, you'd be surprised just how small people feel sometimes.

Now, fingers on buzzers please,

because it's time for General Ignorance.

Which country's armed forces official march

is about a tramp by a pond being accosted by a farmer, because

he's stolen a sheep in his lunch bag...?

# Big bad John. #

-Australia?

-Oh!

KLAXON

-What a shame.

-It sounds a bit like it though, doesn't it?

It sounds exactly like it, because it is an exact translation of?

-Waltzing Matilda.

-Waltzing Matilda.

-Waltzing Matilda,

but Waltzing Matilda is not an official march in Australia.

But it is the official march of a country's military.

Oh, I bet, it's one of the African countries, isn't it?

-It's not, bizarrely.

-It's one of the Asian countries.

No, it's not.

-So way deep down there in South America?

-South American?

-No. But that's the right area, except not south.

-Caribbean.

-No.

-Central America, Nicaragua, like Honduras type place?

Panama, I want to say Panama.

Belize, I'm going to say Belize. I'm going to say...

-If you get it, when I've done 15, I'm going to...

-Belize, Belize me.

-El Salvador.

-Costa Rica.

No. Go big.

-Mexico.

-Mexico.

-Even bigger.

-America.

-America.

The United States of America, amazingly.

-Get out of town.

-The first Marine... Yeah.

The First Marine division, there they are. They have...

-Tall soldiers!

-Yeah. The First Marine...

"I love you. March for me!"

I love she's just, she's just not all...

She's come out of the wrong door.

-Well...

-That's my PA, Kelly.

Hats off!

Yeah, the First Marine division used Waltzing Matilda,

because of their relationship with the Australian Army in World War II.

But there's no Australian military force that uses it officially.

Of course, they can play what they like.

-They were trying to have it as their national anthem, weren't they? But it was out-voted, I think.

-By?

-By Advance Australia Fair.

-"Advance Australia Fair."

Which is one of the official marches,

-the other being,

-AUSTRALIAN ACCENT:

-"God Save The Queen."

And there's also the British Royal Tank Regiment's slow march.

So, the fact is, if you hear Waltzing Matilda coming at you

in an official capacity,

it's Americans attacking you, not Aussies.

Or our own chaps, but very slowly.

When a chicken lays an egg,

which end comes out first?

Oh, God. Not answering.

# Big girls... #

The big end.

-Yes! That's right. You see...

-Oh, shut up! I was going to say that!

We can actually, um...

We've actually got a glove

which sort of reproduces an oviduct -

you know, a little egg-laying tube, so you can try and...

What happens is, in utero,

the egg is little end down and then it turns round.

Yeah, very good.

I'm going to start campaigning for epidurals for chickens.

There you are, you can let the big end out, can you...

Ooh.

-Oh, no, this is so sore.

-Are these hard-boiled, because this is...

-Oh, well done, there you are.

-Oh, I've laid one.

Oh, dear.

It is a rubber egg, as you can...

WHACK WHACK

That's why you're not a hen gynaecologist.

But you should have... Have you got a real egg down there?

I've got a real egg and a cup.

Now, now be careful with the real egg. Point it over the cup.

Why, are they fragile, Stephen?

Well, no, they're not fragile, Alan,

and if you obey this picture and put the egg in your hand like this

and squeeze as hard as you like, you shouldn't be able to break it.

Yeah.

-What have I got to do?

-Squeeze.

Hard as you can, to break it. But you can't, can you?

-No, I cannot break it.

-Very, very strong. And that's the thing, eggs are very...

You can try it at home, ladies and gentlemen.

-But...

-Ah, if any of you had done it, I would have married you, goddamn it.

How do they stamp them, Stephen?

Well they've got a little thing inside their little hymen.

A little printing event, that goes on, just as it comes out,

getting its best before date.

-That's clever. That's very clever.

-Yeah, yeah.

The cartridges to refill a chicken are really prohibitively expensive.

Well, yes, you've rather revealed my trick...

Oh they're great, look at that go!

Meanwhile, on the chicken farm, Barnes Wallace...

And so, having spent a little time having it large with you all,

it's time to look at the scores.

Well, it's extraordinary, it's wonderful, it's terrific

and it's marvellous, because in first place, by quite a margin -

that's to say by QI standards -

it's Lucy Porter, with 8 points!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

In second place,

5 behind, with plus 3,

is Phill Jupitus.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And surprising, given the depth and breadth of his knowledge,

with minus 16, in third place,

is Richard Osman.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

We did rubbish.

But, bringing up his all too familiar rear,

with minus 27, is Alan Davies.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

So, it's thanks from Lucy, Phill, Richard, Alan and me.

And I'll leave you with the last words of Nostradamus,

as he lay dying, probably making what was his only accurate

and only unambiguous prediction.

"Tomorrow, I shall no longer be here."

Good night.