VG Part One QI

This programme contains some strong language.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

Good evening and welcome to QI.

So my first question is about ova, spelt O-V-A.

You can't learn to ski-jump without breaking legs

and you can't make an omelette without?

-BOTH:

-Breaking eggs.

Yeah!

-And we're off and running.

-What?

-Yes.

-But you're going to show us how you can.

You can make an omelette without breaking eggs into a pan,

it's called a golden egg, as we shall demonstrate.

What you need to do is...

-Get a chicken.

-LAUGHTER

-An egg.

-It's in a pair of tights.

-Well, it's in a stocking.

-A stocking, oh, right.

-So I'm going to pass this to you

and what you need to do is you need basically to break the membrane that

is round the egg yolk, that is called the vitelline membrane,

that's the protein fibres.

And what you do is you spin it, like this, and you're trying

to shake the egg... LAUGHTER

Actually one of the good things, when you let go

-it does that.

-I've got a very expensive suit on at this point.

LAUGHTER Ah, OK. Just spin it gently,

would be the thing, yes. LAUGHTER

I don't think we've ever had anybody who's worn expensive clothing

on this show before. LAUGHTER

Woohoo!

Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo!

It is a really cheap children's toy, isn't it?

Have you broken yours? LAUGHTER

You spin it and you mix up the egg inside the shell.

-Right.

-It's actually quite tough to do.

"I canna make it go any further, Jim!"

LAUGHTER And then you boil it and it will...

When you remove the shell, it will reveal that it is an omelette.

That's what a man looks like...

-That's a bloke, innit?

-..in tights.

LAUGHTER

I'm sure we could ask Grayson.

Is this what a man looks like in tights?

LAUGHTER

-Grayson, I'm so sorry.

-I tell you, if my skirt

-was any shorter.

-Yes.

Let's have a look at the below-the-desk cam.

Oh, there we go!

Which is the odd one out out of these four?

-Mmm...well...

-Three.

Number three? SIREN BLARES

-Not number three.

-I mean, this feels like this is...

-I can't... Yeah.

-I think the last one that we pick is going to be

-the good one, right?

-Do you think?

-One.

-SIREN BLARES

Aw! LAUGHTER

Does someone get paid when that sound effect goes off?

-LAUGHTER

-It feels like somebody...

SIREN BLARES

APPLAUSE

They've been waiting 15 years for that gag.

There are lots of what we call augmented animals,

so animals who make themselves look a bit different.

One of my favourites, Uraba lugens caterpillar.

It keeps its old heads and wears them as hats.

What?!

Oh, my God!

That is hoarding gone mad.

As it grows, it sheds its exoskeleton

and the protrusion on the top of the head remains,

and eventually it has a stack, which it uses both as a weapon

and as a false target for any would-be predators.

It's known as the Mad Hatterpillar.

-Yeah. Yeah, I mean it would be, wouldn't it?

-Yeah.

Found in Australia and New Zealand.

-Isn't it wonderful?

-That's incredible.

He doesn't even need that.

-Look...look how much you'd remember him anyway.

-Yeah.

You know the one, do you remember the guy? You met him last week.

He had five heads on his... Five heads as a hat.

-Five Head Gary, yeah.

-Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Is this a sardine or a pilchard?

MUSIC PLAYS

-Bill?

-Pilchard.

SIREN

-OK.

-Is that the name, the pilchard?

-Try again.

MUSIC PLAYS Yes?

-Sardine.

-Sardine, yeah!

SIREN

So... MUSIC PLAYS

-Yes?

-Dolphin!

LAUGHTER

If it were an optical illusion, it would be red.

It would therefore be a red...?

Snapper!

-Easy, easy.

-Wow!

-Easy.

I want that as a ring tone.

-Wow.

-"Snapper!"

I've got a text.

I am aroused.

-That is fantastic.

-Wow!

-Be brilliant that, as a gif.

-Make that into a gif.

-Oh, Nellie.

-"Snapper!"

-Again, again. Again...

-Can you do it one more time, Claudia?

-..but right in my face.

Very loud, quick snapper, come on.

-Come on. Ready?

-I am ready.

-Yeah. Go on.

-So, if it was an optical illusion and it was red, it would be a red...?

-SNAP...!

-SHE LAUGHS

APPLAUSE

So the etymology of "ocean",

anybody know where it comes from?

Billy, it's named after Billy.

Billy.

It's Greek, Oceanus.

The great river or sea surrounding, well,

the only known land masses at the time, which is Eurasia and Africa,

and the river was personified by Oceanus,

son of Uranus for the earth, and Gaia from the sky.

A muscular fellow, wasn't he?

He looks like he owns, like, a Shoreditch coffee bar.

"Oh, my God, we've got every sort of coffee you could imagine,

"we've got the stuff made by weasels.

"We've got..."

He was married to his sister.

Listen, don't knock it till you've tried it.

How many kids do you think they had, he and his sister Tethys?

Three kids, six heads.

APPLAUSE

There's another one, which is a beetle that lives in the Costa Rican rain forest.

It's called Nymphister kronaueri,

and it disguises itself as an army ant's bottom.

So, that looks like it's just an ant,

but the bit that is a protrusion,

as if the ant has got terrible haemorrhoids, is actually a beetle.

And what it does is, it bites onto the ant and then it rides around

-disguised as an army ant's bottom.

-Wow.

-What a life.

-We've all done it!

-What a life, I know!

Do you think the ant knows what's happening...

..why it's got an extra bum?

Or do you think the ant is like, "Oh, my God,

-"the piles are back?"

-Yeah.

Well, it would keep going like that, wouldn't it?

Yeah. "What the hell is that?"

"There's something, I'm sure there's something..."

And the beetle's like that...

-Oooh...

-Suddenly, you're the Kardashian of ants.

Oh, no, no.

"You never see me."

-And every now and then it goes...

-HE HUMS

Can you hear something? I can hear something!

But then the ant will shit in its face.

"Oh, you ruined it!"

"You were behind me, you stupid beetle!"

All the other ants are going, "You don't,

"you haven't put on any weight, you look fine!"

"Oh, really, are you sure?" "You look fine."

And then the five head caterpillar going,

"Have you seen him? He's hanging onto his arse!"

"Well he can't possibly be living down there."

"He is, he's on his arse."

"There's a beetle on the ant's arse."

"There's a beetle on the ant's arse?!"

"Yes, there's a beetle, I can see it from here."

"Swap places, swap places."

"Oh, hold on..."

"Oh, there is, oh, there is, there's a beetle on the ant's arse.

"Go and have a look."

"I can't get up there, why am I always at the bottom?"

APPLAUSE

Now, doctors, what's your diagnosis here?

He'd fallen asleep on a stag do.

-He was running a circus school...

-The world's worst.

..and his students hated him.

It's a party game, is it?

Pin the sword on the nutter.

So, this is possibly one of the earliest anatomical drawings for medics.

He was known as the Wound Man.

It's a medieval image, first printed in a book, 1491, in Venice.

It's all the various things, so he's been injured, if you look there,

with daggers, he's been shot with arrows, he's been lacerated,

he's been stung by bees, scorpions, been clubbed in the head,

bitten by a dog, scratched by thorns,

blasted by cannonballs, he's definitely got plague and bad spots,

and he appears to have a toad in his stomach.

So it's, as it were, the contents page to the book.

What a shame, though, for a guy

who obviously looks after himself and goes to the gym...

..to go down like that.

-He eats paleo.

-Yeah.

You know, he's really healthy, thought he'd have a long life,

-and then...

-All of those things happen to him.

He's a curious contradiction, though, cos he doesn't

look after his appearance enough to remove a sword from his head.

No.

But he does buy his underwear in Agent Provocateur.

Yeah.

They're quite snug.

They are on the tight side, aren't they?

Yeah. Ironically, that's the most pain he's in.

It's time for a round of that evergreen parlour game favourite...

OK, let's have a look at our skeletons.

And who's going to start with number one,

and be specific, please?

Its teeth haven't come through.

You're absolutely right, it's a child,

because you can actually see the adult teeth waiting to...

Oh, no, it's not that cute kid!

It's not that child, is it?

No, it's not that child, OK?

It's another child that we don't care about!

But that, that poor kid is a model,

and then his parents might be just flicking through the TV

and they're like, "Argh!"

This looks like you've spun the world's worst fruit machine.

APPLAUSE

You can see the teeth waiting to come through there.

So the process of the old teeth being pushed out

is called exfoliation.

We moved house recently, and behind the U-bend under the sink,

we found this tobacco tin full of children's teeth.

-Oh, my God.

-Yeah, yeah.

-Is that where the Tooth Fairy puts them?

-Yes!

And I didn't know what we should do with them, and I felt really bad,

cos they were obviously the people who lived in the house before us,

and it's like a family heirloom.

So I asked our neighbour if they had a forwarding address for them,

and they were like, "Yeah, sure." And I...

I sent it to them, and I felt really good about myself,

and then I was talking to my other neighbour,

and she said, "That's so weird, cos they didn't have children."

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Oh, my God.

So I just sent a complete stranger a tin of children's teeth.

Right, moving on...

This is absolutely true.

I'm the only person I know who has a mark on their hand

from setting fire to a condom.

Yeah, don't do this, OK.

I was making a retractable knife for a play at university,

and I had conceived the idea that a condom inside the mechanism

would stop it making a sort of clunking noise.

Anyway, it didn't. And I didn't know then that condoms

come in packs of five, but I'd used one, so I thought,

"Well, I can't even make a glove for washing-up,

"so what shall I do with the other four?"

And I didn't want people to find them in my room.

So I thought, "Well, I'll set fire to it."

So I got a match and I held the condom like this,

and if you set fire to the end of a condom, the tight bit at the end,

it separates itself from the rest of the condom,

flies in a little arc and embeds itself in your hand.

I'm just warning you now.

Why didn't you just put them in the bin, Sandi?

Stuff them in a chicken, that's what I'd do.

Stuff them in a chicken?!

What, one that's just walking past?

-Good hiding place for stuff, isn't it, chickens?

-Chickens?

I'd stuff the chicken in it and use it as a nice roasting bag.

Keep the juices in,

they're definitely not going to escape at the end.

But at some point, the end of the condom's going to separate

and burst itself through the oven door.

And that's how you know the chicken's ready!

APPLAUSE

What we're going to do now is we're going to test out

how a dog does on sniffing things out.

I have here some contraband,

which I am going to give to you, Alan.

-OK.

-And what I would like you to do is put it in your pocket.

-Put it in my...

-And go and hide in the audience.

Go and hide in Croydon.

So the audience have got special masks to put on,

so if they could put, those who've got masks could put them on.

-Oh, my God!

-It's terrifying.

-Argh, it's like a sea of... It's awful.

-It's completely terrifying!

-Oh, God!

-Now this is a very special episode of Jonathan Creek.

-There you go.

-I never thought I'd be involved

in a live game of Where's Wally.

OK. We now welcome, please, to the studio, from the RAF Police,

Corporal Sam Robson Rodriguez and Rex.

Sam, thank you so much for coming in

and supplying us with the dummy contraband.

Tell me about Rex, and what his job is?

Well, Rex is a five-year-old black lab.

His main job is to search for drugs,

anywhere we want to put him, basically.

And how's he trained? How do you make him be able to do that?

Well, we start searching for, like, their toys,

and then we just associate the toys with the drugs.

Then, in their head, they'll think they're searching for their toy,

whereas in fact we want them to search for drugs.

And how many scents can Rex recognise, do you think?

He's trained in all the main scents,

and basically anything that you can make out of that.

-So he looks keen to get going.

-He does.

Right, Sam, please, over to you, my lovely.

Yeah, thank you very much.

-Rex. Come here.

-I do hope nobody in the audience has got anything.

LAUGHTER

Do you know what? I really hope somebody does.

That would be...wouldn't that just be the best bit of telly ever,

if you just...if he dragged someone to the floor and just,

just dragged them out?

A live drug bust on QI.

He's so far ignoring everybody.

So that's good for that side.

How will he...how will he show, if he knows?

They have either a stand indication or a sit indication.

Oh. Is he sniffing your crotch, Alan?

-Is it in your left pocket?

-Oh, my God!

Let's have a round of applause, please, for Rex and Sam.

Sam and Rex, very good, thank you very much.

When is it cool to wet your pants?

Is it when it's, like, in a hot situation?

Obviously, we're going to be, yes, somewhere hot.

Is it to do with jellyfish, you know, when you have to pee on a...?

-Cos my daughter got stung by a jellyfish in South Africa.

-Right.

And she was crying, really upset, and so I pulled my tankini,

which is what older women wear instead of a bikini,

I pulled it to the side to pee,

and the sight of my pulled-to-the-side gusset

-fully stopped her crying.

-Yes, I would imagine.

It worked really well.

-And she begged me not to pee on the sting.

-No.

-Is it to do...? No?

Does she still have dreams about this?

She does, yeah, and, you know, we're working on it.

-It's best. OK.

-We're working it through.

I think we're all going to have dreams about it, aren't we?

Now, name an endangered mammal that eats bamboo.

-BOTH:

-Panda!

SIREN

Hey!

Not so, why?

-Bill, any idea?

-Well, they're not that endangered.

They're no longer endangered.

Oh, they're all over the place.

-They're vulnerable.

-You can't go in any shopping centre in London

without them taking up all the seats.

-Yeah.

-Elephants eat bamboo, is there a right answer?

There is a right answer, but it isn't panda,

because they are no longer designated as endangered.

-Tree sloths.

-It's a golden bamboo...?

-..eater.

-..lemur.

-There, look, how cute is that?

-Aww.

Look at his little face!

-Aah, look, cute.

-And then a bird of prey!

HE SCREECHES

There's only the two of us left now!

Phone the World Wildlife Fund. Stop eating the bamboo!

That's why they see us!

We're making the same mistakes again and again and again!

We need to adapt to new habitats!

Shut up, I'm eating all the bamboo before the bird comes back!

I love bamboo, I bloody love it!

You can do so much with it. You can grill it, you can fry it.

You can chop it up and...

You can make scaffolding out of it, for building a lemur house.

It's a very flexible plant, everyone knows that!

You can make a xylophone out of it, for God's sake!

There's loads of it, why are we dying out?!

-We should be thriving.

-We're not having enough sex.

No.

It doesn't really look like bamboo, though,

I mean, it looks like he's crimping the end of a joint.

"Yeah, let's crimp it, here we are, that's that.

"Right, OK, come on everyone."

-The Camberwell Carrot.

-Yeah.

Now, you'll need to sort the sheep from the goats.

So let's play...

This has really dumbed down, hasn't it?

-I like it, I like it.

-This show used to be something. I mean...

What is the difference between a sheep and a goat?

I think it's something that they do, rather than what they look like.

The simplest way to tell them apart is that goats' tails point upwards.

That is the easiest way.

It's almost like they're asking for it.

Don't listen to him, he's a bad man!

-That is a kind of...

-That's why they have the horns, right?

-That's the whole point of the horns.

-Yeah.

Don't listen to him, either!

They're both terrible men.

So sorry.

So another clear distinction is kind of a martial arts style.

So rams back up and charge in order to butt heads,

whereas billies will rear up. Look at that, that's fantastic.

They'll rear up on their hind legs and try and nut their opponent there.

-Oh, OK.

-And when the two species fight each other,

the ram style gives an advantage, cos he hits the billy in the middle,

-amidships, there.

-But also, another difference between them is,

they look different.

They look different. Spelt differently.

Tails.

-They have different names.

-Different names.

OK. Let's find out whether you're right,

whether it is in fact cos they look different, as we play,

Sorting The Sheep From The Goats!

I'm telling you, Jimmy, you're going to be hosting this

before long. This quiz show.

OK, here we go, first picture.

-Goat.

-Sheep, sheep.

SIREN

In your face!

You had it, it's a sheep.

The giveaway is the long, floppy ears there.

That's definitely a sheep. OK.

-And the fact that it's a sheep.

-All right.

Next one.

-Ah...

-Oh.

-Sheep.

SIREN

It looks it.

Ha-ha, ha-ha!

Colin, say the opposite of what it looks like, I think that's the game.

-Say the opposite.

-A dog.

It's an angora goat.

Next one. What are going for?

I'm saying sheep, cos it looks like a goat.

OK, the main reason we know it's a sheep is cos the tail is down.

-Tail's down!

-Oh!

OK. Next one. What do we reckon about this one?

-Pig sheep.

-It is a pig.

It's a curly-coated Mangalitza from Austria or the borders of Hungary.

Actually, the really extraordinary thing was,

I talked about sheep's tails hanging down,

so about a quarter of the world's sheep

are what they call fat-tailed varieties.

They store fat in their tails.

-Whoa!

-They've got booties.

-Yeah, just like a camel stores fat.

Can we show that?

What should I do if I spill red wine on the tablecloth?

So, gentlemen,

I'm going to give you a tablecloth

and you've got some wine between you.

Wine, yes. Wine, lovely wine.

All right, there we go.

If you think any of it's going on the tablecloth,

you are sadly mistaken.

A merry, merry, merry Christmas to you all.

I've had drinks with you before, and I suspect I am not mistaken.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

-OK, so...

-Pouring the red on.

-Do a bit of red on.

-A little bit of red on there.

OK. Now, what would you do about that?

-I've gone, "Ooh, my tablecloth!" What are you going to do?

-Oh!

-Get me some white wine, get some white wine.

-White.

SIREN

-Can we try it, at least?

-You can give it a go, yeah.

I mean, it's a bit unfair to give us white wine and then have a go at us

-for mentioning it, but...

-Yeah. OK, have a go.

-So...

-It's gone, it's gone!

-Yes.

So, it will dilute the stain,

but it contains complex sugars.

It's perfectly possible that the white wine will discolour the cloth.

So you two, you've got a bit of carpet that you've spilled yours on.

I have seen that work, though.

-Spill a bit of red.

-Shall I spill it?

Yeah, go on. It's Liberty Hall.

-There we go.

-Oh, God.

Red on the carpet... Wow, you just went crazy!

You assumed that you were doing just the one experiment did you, Holly?

And you were going to get it right first time out of the gate?

-Right, Jason, what are you going to do?

-I've got all sorts here, so...

-OK, go, yes.

-I think there's some, is that soda water?

-Yes. That's...

-Is it water?

-Yes.

-Maybe a bit of salt?

OK, you were doing...

SIREN

-Not salt?

-Not salt.

Salt will absorb the wine initially, but it's also a fixative.

So unless you manage to get all the salt out, it's possible

that what you're actually doing is making the stain permanent.

Well, this is...this is doing a good job.

-I mean, I'm getting...

-So the tip is, blot it...

-I'd open the vinegar.

-So, again, the vinegar,

frankly no better than water, and extremely expensive.

-What's this, then?

-No better than water.

It's also acidic, so it's going to possibly discolour the cloth.

It's going through the desk! It's going through the desk!

Argh, it's like Alien!

So the tip is...

Get Ripley!

-The tip is to... Oh, no.

-Sorry, I splashed you.

Well, that's put that fire out.

-That didn't work, Sandi.

-That didn't work, no.

What you need to do is blot it with kitchen paper.

I was going to take this notebook home.

Well, that's sorted that out, that's...

What did the Nazis call this?

Um...

Aaah...

Aah. Who's going to go for it?

-Stephen?

-The future!

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Not, I'm told they didn't call it a swastika?

They did not call it the swastika. They called it the Hakenkreuz.

It's the German for "hooked cross",

and in Germany, in fact, it's still referred to,

except when discussing it in a neo-Nazi context,

in which case it's called the swastika.

But Hitler was mad for it.

And after his party adopted the swastika,

he actually changed his signature to S Hitler,

because the shape of the S mimicked, there, you can see there,

-it mimicked the shape of the swastika.

-"Sadolf."

Yes, Sadolf.

Sadolf Shitler.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Do you know what? I've never seen it.

Oh, Josh!

Oh, really, never?

You've never seen the...?

# You are 16, going on 17. #

Yeah, it's like that, but with a tune. And...

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

-Do you know, I was once lucky enough to meet Julie Andrews.

-Oh, wow.

It's the only time in my entire life I've been completely speechless.

Cos she wouldn't shut up?

She just kept asking me what my favourite things were, it was very annoying.

-I'm not laughing, cos I don't know...

-Do you like string?

Do you like 'em tied up with string?

I bet you do, girl, I bet you do!

What's a deer, what's a female deer? Come on!

Oh, Julie, leave me alone!

I'll get the puppets out, I'll get the puppets out.

Do you want to see the goatherd?

-FALSETTO:

-# High on the hill. # It wasn't me singing!

# High on the hill. #

I'm Maria, I'll be back with you, I'm Maria.

What's up, Julie? God!

APPLAUSE

I'll be honest, I understood none of that.

If you were on the moon and you jumped off...

-Yes?

-Would you land on the Earth?

Hold on, hold on, what are you doing on the moon, anyway?

-Well, I don't know, maybe...

-Have you been left behind by a spacecraft?

Yeah. You got an Uber and it went horribly wrong.

It depends which side you're on.

I just think, if you jumped off the moon, you would just fall,

-and you'd land on Earth.

-Yeah. I don't think you'd be in a great state.

I mean, I think you'd be like Wound Man,

-by the time you got down.

-Yeah, you would.

They know about space. This is my problem with the sea.

-Right.

-They can tell us all kinds of things about planets and space

and other galaxies, they've been to the moon, allegedly, but they've...

LAUGHTER

..not been to the bottom of the sea.

-I've been to the bottom of the sea, in part of it.

-Have you?

-Yes.

-What's down there?

-My feet.

The fact is, nobody knows for sure

how to separate the sardines from the pilchards.

OK, in theory, how fast can this boat sail?

OK. Oh, the jib's broken.

Oh hang on a minute. Wait, wait, wait.

-Oh, there we are. OK. Do it again.

-Is it depending on the wind?

Yes, one moment, hold that thought and I'll do it again.

OK, nobody knows for sure

how to separate the sardines from the pilchards.

In theory, how fast...?

Something about wind!

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Oh, how unusual, a boy who came before I was ready.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

-Sorry.

-Sorry, sorry.

-Sorry.

-Put your glasses on.

-Sorry, it's happened again, sorry.

-Back to square one.

-I'll see you tomorrow, same time.

-See you tomorrow, bloody...

I'm going to do it again.

OK, baby!

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Well, you know what to do, don't you?

I'm ready, ready. Come on.

On and on and...

-Just in an hour.

-Right. OK, here we go.

All right, then, I'm ready, I'm ready, baby.

Say the words, lady.

Bill, shut the fuck up!

LAUGHTER

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Claudia, I'm going to bring out a yacht.

I'm excited about it.

And you're going to say, "Is it something to do with the wind?"

I want to do it!

-I'm doing it!

-OK.

-Go ahead.

-Shush! Put your wine away,

put your wine away.

God, it's bloody, it's just like being at school.

"Put your wine away."

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

-Take your blindfold off.

-Yeah. Shut up, put your wine away.

Shut up, put your wine away! God! I'll tell you what...

-Happiest days of our lives.

-Bloody hell!

Bovington Gurney Primary was a rough school of hard knocks,

I'm telling you.

"Here, Bailey, put your wine away and shut the fuck up!"

Right. Quiet!

Here we go. Nobody knows for sure

how to separate the sardines from the pilchards.

In theory...

LAUGHTER

..how fast can this boat sail?

Claudia, what do you think?

Is it...?

-Has it got something to do with wind?

-Yes!

LAUGHTER

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

LAUGHTER