QI (2003) s11e07 Episode Script
Knowledge
APPLAUSE Good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening and welcome to QI, where tonight we're doing the Knowledge.
Please welcome the well-educated Jimmy Carr.
APPLAUSE Thank you.
The well-informed Jo Brand.
APPLAUSE The well-read Graham Linehan.
APPLAUSE And the well, you know, it's Alan Davies.
APPLAUSE And if you want to call me, you know what to do.
Jimmy goes: Knowing me, knowing you, aha Graham goes: They don't know about us Jo goes: I know him so well And Alan goes: No no.
No no no no There's no limits.
There's a spelling issue there, Alan.
Now, um, I know what you want to know, once and for all how many moons does the earth have? Nobody knows.
LAUGHTER We're not doing that this year, are we? No, we're not.
Three.
Ooh! BUZZER What a pity.
What a pity.
One.
Doh! Well, it is! Just because it's called "the moon" doesn't mean it's the only one, it turns out.
The moons, it would be called.
Yeah.
BUZZER Six.
You're not doing yourself any favours early doors.
Two.
Two, oh! LAUGHTER Now, this could go on for ages.
It could.
So let me stop you right here.
The point is, very early on, in the A series, we said there were two.
Are you taking that back? Yes.
What do you mean? Ah, this is I rely on this show.
This is all I know.
This is the whole point of this round, in fact.
Facts are not permanent.
We thought there were two, and then we said, "oh, no, "it's either one or five," we said, in the B series.
Because we were acting on the latest info that we had from the scientific community.
And this has changed.
Now NASA describes them as "mini moons" but we have about 18,000 moons.
I thought it was the same moon.
LAUGHTER What, bits of it, you mean? No, I thought the ones that we keep seeing was the same one over and over again.
That was the That's wrong? No! Are you talking about the mini moons? There was like one extra mini moon? No.
Or just that whole Can I just say, if there's so many, why haven't we noticed them before? Well, the reason is they are actually tiny and it's only recently they've run computer simulations to show 18,000.
One of those that has been observed, has been given the exciting name RH120, which orbited the Earth, four orbits, in 2006 and 7.
They're also known as "temporarily captured objects".
They're captured into a Earth orbit, perhaps for a short amount of time.
But as satellites of the Earth, non-man-made, they are moons.
That's what a moon is.
But the man-made satellites are satellites? Yes, but to be a moon you have to be a celestial body, rather thanyou COULD count a man Well.
that makes me a moon, then.
Yes, exactly, there you are.
Precisely.
You orbit my life, Jo.
But you have to be in orbit for at least five years before you can claim benefits.
LAUGHTER Exactly right.
But the quite interesting thing about this is the point that raised Jimmy Carr's tremendous eyebrows earlier, which is that facts don't remain stable.
Things we know, or think we know, will be untrue.
LAUGHTER Very good.
Will be untrue in a number of years' time.
Yes.
Appropriately, you look a bit like Patrick Moore.
I'm trying to do a Mexican wave.
Yes, you do look like Patrick Moore.
"We just, we just don't know.
" LAUGHTER Can I just say, I did a course at university called Shut up! I bloody did.
No! I bloody did, and it was called the Sociology of Science, and yes, I got a grant for it.
It was a complete waste of time.
But what I learnt during that course is there's no such thing as a fact.
Yes.
This is precisely our point.
And indeed, at medical colleges, they usually teach that half of what the medical students are going to learn will be considered untrue in about 10 or 20 years.
And this is known by academics as the half-life of facts.
That's to say, you know half of it will be untrue.
Unfortunately, you don't know exactly which half.
And on QI, an estimated 7% of the things I tell you this evening will be shown to be untrue in a year's time.
And if you're watching a very old repeat on Dave, a much bigger proportion.
It's probably untrue now.
It's probablyeven what I'm saying now is untrue.
I'm not even saying it, it's so untrue.
I'm not on the show.
We actually have a chart showing the rate of decay of QI facts.
And you can see, there's series A on the right, and plotted against it is the 10th series, J.
J.
And so, as you can see, the further you get away, the greater the number of untruths.
series are bollocks.
Yes, are now untrue.
If that's true, yes, that's right.
We do talk a lot of bollocks, in fairness.
But the most important thing, you'll be excited to know, is that that means over the years, cumulatively, you must be owed a lot of points.
And going according to this theory, things we have said are wrong, a proportion of them are likely to have been right.
Therefore, we have actually calculated how many points we owe you.
Um, and This is, suddenly this has gone brilliantly.
Suddenly we're smiling.
Yeah.
Jimmy Alan is going to be way out in front, isn't he? Jimmy, we owe you 43.
58 points.
Jo, 84.
73.
Can I use them in Sainsbury's? LAUGHTER I'm giving you permission.
If you work at Sainsbury's and she tries to claim them, yes, she can.
The audience are owed 23.
24.
Well done.
Even not having done anything.
APPLAUSE Alan, you are owed 737.
66! APPLAUSE There you are.
And, um Are those transferable? If I went onto Have I Got News For You, could I use Yes.
Could I arrive and go, "I've got 24 points that I could use here?" Yeah.
You can take this, yes.
I can just? Use them, yeah, yeah.
Oh, fabulous.
Great news.
Mastermind, can I have it on Mastermind? I don't think you could slip that in, somehow.
Someone's going to have to answer a lot of questions to beat that.
And of course, unfortunately, Graham, you get nothing.
Yes.
Yeah, no.
That's really unfair.
You're playing it first time and you get a huge disadvantage.
Yeah.
Well, you needn't have pointed it out.
Yes.
I'll try and find a way to make it up to you, in some way, by giving you a random 600 points.
I'll give you some examples of facts that we gave in good faith on QI.
So in the I series we said nobody knows how to tell the age of a lobster.
Well, that was only a few years ago.
But since then, Canadian scientists have discovered, the way you do, that if you dissect their eye stalks and count the rings, you know how old they are.
Really? What? It's not a very kind thing to do.
What you mean is, you know how old they were.
LAUGHTER I think that's a reasonable point.
There's a flaw in this plan.
I still think you should ask them first.
Before you dissect their eye stalks! Another one was in the G series.
We said giraffes' necks may have evolved for fighting each other, which was commonly held by quite a few zoologists.
But it now seems this hypothesis is not believed.
And in the A series They used to like wading across deep rivers.
Yes, that, keeping their necks above, very, very deep.
LAUGHTER As the river got higher Yeah.
They evolved.
LAUGHTER That might prove to be correct.
It might, you see.
Who am I to say it isn't? In the A series, we said that the best-endowed millipede had 710 legs.
Soon afterwards, a millipede with 750 turned up, but that's still the greatest number we know.
Is there someone checking them? Yes.
That's superb.
I like the idea that counting a millipede's legs, you would lose You'd have to keep going back.
Yes, you would, exactly.
Argh! One, two Yeah, it's the same thing Many times.
It's the same thing with all these things, before they count the legs, they kill it.
LAUGHTER It's true.
So the legs are very still.
Just pluck them off.
Oh, dear! One She loves me.
Two, three It might still be alive.
They might think it was dead, and then they'd just hear it go, "Argh!" LAUGHTER "Argh! Argh!" Do you know, that's an interesting fact, that's how they make worms.
LAUGHTER It's true.
True story.
Brilliant.
Yeah, a worm would come along, "Are you not doing anything with these legs? "Now you've counted them off the millipede, can I have four?" And a whole new species is born.
Yeah.
And that is how sausage dogs are made.
And Daschunds, exactly.
Yeah.
We've discovered a lot of new science here, none of which is likely to be disproved, or possibly may come round again to be proved.
Now, what did the inventor of the thermometer spend 30 years measuring? I'm going to say temperature, OK? BUZZER Oh! Wa-hey! Do you know what, Alan, you've got points to burn this evening.
Just relax.
Sometimes it's right, you know, sometimes he goes, yes, it is.
Exactly.
I know a joke about thermometers, about nurses and thermometers.
It's about a rectal thermometer.
Go on.
Well, a nurse finds a rectal thermometer in her pocket and goes, "Aw! Some arsehole's got my pen.
" LAUGHTER It's an old joke, it's an old joke.
It's very fine, though.
Very fine.
One very old nurses' joke that we used to was that a nurse comes running in and says to the matron, "Oh, dear, I think I've got something the wrong way round.
"You asked me to prick someone's boil.
" LAUGHTER Very good.
I do know quite an interesting fact about thermometers.
Thermometers.
The difference between an oral and rectal thermometer.
Yeah, I hope you do know the difference! Yeah.
Taste.
Oh! LAUGHTER No, his name was Sanctorius Sanctorius.
At least that was his Latinised name.
He was from Padua, and there you can see him.
Right.
He's weighing himself, that's a special balance he had created.
Oh, he's weighing himself? Every single day he'd weigh himself AND the food he ate.
And, indeed, the faeces and urine that he expelled, he excreted.
Was it some sort of weird Weight Watchers thing he was on? No, well, what he discovered is that his urine and faeces weighed only a fraction of what he'd eaten and drunk, but despite that, he stayed the same weight, which is amazing, he thought.
He thought, "Why is it if I put in, say, 100 pounds of food, "but I poo out only 30 pounds of faeces" It had taken him 30 years did he not work out that there's a fuel thing? It is easy to look back at past generations and say, "How can you not have known?" But of course NONE of them knew.
And really, before people like him, who was almost one of the world's first scientists They hadn't measured and calibrated things.
You're absolutely right about all of those things.
Well, as right as we know.
However Yeah? 30 Years! I mean, really, after three years with the same Oh, no, he had a theory, but his theory was wrong, that's all.
His theory was that the rest came out of your skin so it was very dangerous to cover most of your skin, because you wouldn't let the poison out.
He knew that faeces was poisonous, or at least toxic and bad for you.
Its smell is a big warning, obviously.
Sorry, your faeces smell? Of Parma Violets.
Yeah.
Jimmy's make a noise.
They point at him.
They emit a totally different They're very unusual.
It's one in a million people who have noisy faeces.
"Aah!" HE IMITATES TOILET FLUSHING Very good.
He co-invented, with his fellow at Padua, a much better-known scientist.
Who would that be, in the same period? Co-invented? Da Vinci.
His co-inventor.
Not Da Vinci, no.
Is he going to be Martin Centigrade, or Galileo.
It won't be future.
Galileo.
Galileo is the right answer.
Oh, I nearly said Galileo! APPLAUSE Thank you.
I was going to say Scaramouche or Fandango.
Galileo Galilee.
Can do the Fandango! Yes, he could, darling, that's right.
Thunderbolt and lightning! Oh, no.
Please! Very, very frightening! Stop, behave.
That's what one of Jimmy's poos sounds like! No.
"Galileo, Galileo!" "You all right in there, Jimmy?!" LAUGHTER Be out in a minute, I'm reading a very interesting article! Your faeces is made up of 70% Shit? Liquid! separating out.
Not that I would urge you to do it when you get home! When I get home? Why wait?! I've got a centrifuge in my dressing room! Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear.
Anyway, what can you find out by hiding under a student's bed? BUZZER Yes, Jo? I've got to go for this.
Is it a massive pile of porn mags? That's probably true.
I thought that would go off.
Those were the days.
I think, I think now you've got the internet, it's I'm afraid, yeah, you wouldn't, really.
Broadband are doing a terrific job now.
Terrific.
I think that's a bit sad though, in a way.
It's not, yeah, they were You prefer mags.
Not for men.
No, not personally.
LAUGHTER They did this in the 1930s, it was extremely unethical, but we're in pursuit of knowledge, which is our theme today.
Oh, scientists? So they were researchers.
They were researching, and the only way to find out what people are saying without knowing they're being overheard was to hide somewhere and take notes while they were talking.
And they wanted to know what sort of things students spoke about.
So they used to hide underneath the beds? Yeah, and take notes.
It sounds to me, Stephen, I don't want to, you know, throw stones at these lovely scientists, but it sounds to me like a cover story.
You wait, you wait till I get to some other unethical scientists, you hold that back.
Because it gets worse.
Oh, tell me more! We're on the subject of unethical research.
And basically, this was the only way you can have of being sure that you know what people are talking about with absolute clarity.
Because people change what they say when they know someone's listening, someone outside their circle.
But the idea was to discover what the main subject was, that people spoke about.
They listened to They just thought, "They'll never look under their bed!" Why would you look under a bed?! There's nothing interesting down there! Yeah, where they could overhear them.
And they discovered that 40% of their conversation was devoted to? The opposite sex.
No, it wasn't that, it was themselves.
It was a study in egocentricity.
They spoke about themselves.
I would never do that.
A-haha! Jimmy Carr would never let that happen! Oh, don't, that's the worst thing in the world you can do! So, there are other dodgy experiments.
There was a "Personal Space Invasion In The Men's Restroom", a study of 1976.
GRAHAM SNORTS Someone hid a camera under the partition, under the sort of floor space.
"Someone", Stephen? "Someone?" LAUGHTER You seem to know a lot about this, Stephen! I've got a couple of questions.
You like technology, don't you? And there's a camera in the men's room! "Oh, I'm just doing a study.
" "Are you?!" It was Apologise, Stephen! It was to see how they filled space when, if there was one person, let's say the third one in a row of six, where would the average person go? Would it be as far away apart, or would that look too obvious? It's very interesting when you go in there, because I used to be, I don't have it any more, but I used to be quite a shy pee-er, are you aware of shy peeing? Yeah, of course.
I have a technique for that.
What's your technique? My technique for shy peeing is, I think of the most embarrassing thing I can do.
I just think of doing something like saying, "I think I love you", or just something like that, and then it's all go.
When you say, "I love you", you will automatically pee.
Have a little wee.
I don't need to say it, I just need to THINK it.
And I always have to imagine it very, very realistically.
I imagine the guy going: "What?! Did he really say that?" And then the next thing it's just, you know, it's no longer a problem.
It is very maddening when you've been absolutely bursting to go and then, hello.
"Come on! Come on!" I find men's rooms There's a story about Bono going into a men's room and standing up there and the guy standing beside him, a long silence, and then eventually the guy saying, "Bit of stage fright, Bono?" JIMMY HOOTS UPROARIOUSLY But in 1942, and this is the one where you're going to go, "Yeah, right(!)", a psychologist called Lawrence LeShan tried to use sleep-learning at a summer camp.
Yeah, right(!) To cure some boys of nail-biting.
Oh, no.
He recorded the phrase, "My fingernails are terribly bitter," on a phonograph, and then played it 300 times a night in the boys' tent, or room or whatever it was.
And they all went on to kill and kill again? One boy appeared to respond positively, but then after five weeks the phonograph broke.
So, to keep the experiment running, he stood in the boys' dormitory through the night and repeated the phrase himself.
"My fingernails taste terribly bitter.
" This seemed to work, and he claimed it as a success.
It's thought, generally, these days, that the boys were awake and just freaked out by the experience and they stopped biting their nails to make the nasty man go away.
It's all very peculiar.
Anyway, moving on.
How did the Romans tell their Keiths from their Kevins? Some Keiths and Kevins there, in case you don't know what they are.
Keith Richards.
Kevin Bacon Kevin Keegan.
Keith Lemon.
Well done, that's enough.
That's all, you won't get any more.
The other ones don't look real.
No And they're looking Are they the actual Romans? I think on the far left, that's Burger King, isn't it? I think it might be, it does look a bit like Burger King.
They could have, because in Latin they both mean the same? It's not that.
It doesn't have to be Keiths and Kevins, it means how did Romans know people's names? How do they know people's names? Because we all forget them Did they remember them? No.
That's the point, they'd forgotten.
Badge, they had a badge.
No.
You have a special servant.
A servant to say your name? A nomenclator.
Not to say YOUR name! LAUGHTER I'm assuming you'll remember your own name! This is Pepe! It's when you forget other people's.
So you come in and the person whispers, "Alan Davies", and you go, "Alan, how lovely to see you!" Because otherwise you've forgotten, like a politician.
That's very useful.
Yeah.
Absolutely right.
And politicians I have a technique for names.
Yeah? I've forgotten someone's name, I just say, "Excuse me for a second", and then I go home.
LAUGHTER APPLAUSE Works every time! If you're the nomenclator Yes? And you keep saying this is Steve, this is Fiona.
Stevius, Fiona.
After a while he goes, I know, I know that one! Yes, you would, you're allowed to tell them Just tell me the ones I don't know.
She thinks I've forgotten her name! I really thought I was in there, and now you've just gone "Fiona", as if I didn't know it was, look at her face now! Go over there and say, "He knew, I was just doing my job.
" "He wants you to know that he knew you were Fiona.
" "This is this your wife, Susan.
You've been married 15 years.
" I actually do have a system involving my wife, which is, we go over to someone whose name I don't know, and I just stand there in total silence, and then eventually my wife says, "I'm sorry, my name's Helen.
" And the guy says, "Oh I'm Gary, and I go, I'm sorry, Gary! Gary, Helen.
Helen, Gary.
" Didn't I introduce you? I thought I, yeah Yeah.
Just as soon as they say it, you go, "Ah!" And then you sort of Is that a system, per se? LAUGHTER Sounds like you being awkward at a party.
I'm sorry, I am So, moving on, a question about kith and kin now.
What's the best way of avoiding talking to your mother-in-law? BUZZER Yes, Jo? Removing her vocal cords, with some pliers! That's the best way of avoiding HER talking to YOU.
Well, lean in for the kiss.
Ugh! Oddly enough, you're in the right hideous area.
Really? Prince Charles's hair is being stealthily removed from his head by Camilla's hair-grabbing, hair-eating hat.
LAUGHTER It's like a Triffid.
And she's operating it slyly with her hand and going like that.
And the hair is being sucked into that hat.
She's looking down at the dial.
The hat devours it! I think, if you don't like your mother-in-law, what hope is there for you? I view the mother-in-law as, it's Christmas Future.
Yes, that's true.
If you don't like your mother-in-law, you're in trouble, 20 years down the line.
That's what you're buying into.
My mother-in-law makes absolutely no sound when she moves.
LAUGHTER That's remarkable, like Jeeves.
She is the stealthiest person.
You've got a Stealth mother-in-law.
Is she sprayed black? Honestly, she could be a brilliant spy, you know? You might be in a room and you're looking in a thing or something, and then suddenly she'll go, "Hello.
" "Oh, Jesus!" Where did you come from?! Where did you come from?! It's a long way from the door! Anybody would have gone, "Ahem", made a little noise.
Nothing.
Oh, that's terrible.
It's like the famous story of the boy who was, you know, having a play with himself in his bedroom, with his eyes closed.
And by the way, I was not doing, I was not playing with myself! No, not you.
In this story, before you conflate them.
No, that's true.
What's that story or that thing where Alan Davies, and his mother-in-law comes up behind him? Let's just separate those two things! All right.
But he closes his eyes in bliss and when he opens them afterwards, he just finds a cup of tea next to him! LAUGHTER It sounds so appalling! She thought, "Well, your father always likes a cup of tea afterwards!" And a biscuit! APPLAUSE Oh, gracious! Oh, Alan! We haven't even begun to answer this question yet.
It's about sexual taboos with mothers-in-laws Sexual taboos with mother-in-laws?! Taboos, and there is this particular language where you have a special language What?! In which to speak to your mother-in-law.
It's called an avoidance language, so you have your own, the natural line of language.
We've got one of those, haven't we? It's called small talk.
But this has a different vocabulary and it's absolutely different.
A whole language where you can talk to your mother-in-law so it's just safe subjects? You also have to avert the eyes and look at the ground, which is part of using that language.
And there are certain words that don't exist in that language, most notably things like pubic hair and sweaty smells.
But why? Because there is a taboo and a sense of respect that is given by the male to the mother of his wife.
It's in Australia.
There's some Aboriginal peoples who have these avoidance languages.
And it's really fascinating, isn't it? In Japan, they have a special language when talking about the royal family.
Is there a phrase for "You've spilt the Tippex"? In their culture.
Someone needs to address that.
You're so bad, you're so bad! Now, what did this bird bring to the German city of Klutz? Chlamydia.
Chlamydia! The Chlamydia Stork.
It's a good idea.
The Chlamydia Stork! Sounds like a desperate man back from a business trip in Holland, going, "Ah, ah, the thing is, storks.
" Yes! Is that a particular, like a giant stork that you only find in Germany? I'll show you a picture of it.
It's been stuffed and is in a museum.
How big is it, really? Well, it's hard to tell the scale, but storks are quite big.
But that's an arrow through it, or spear, rather.
They call it an arrow in German, which is pfeil, and it's known as the Pfeilstorch, which is just literally "arrow stork".
Now, you may say what's odd about that? Nothing, particularly.
But what they recognised was that the arrow was not German.
Indeed it was not even European.
But they recognised right away that it was African.
That it had flown a very long way.
What on earth would a bird be doing with an African spear in its neck, they thought? So they puzzled out the possibility that birds, rather than disappearing at winter Oh, went to Africa.
Yes, migrated.
Sorry, are you saying it flew back with that Yes.
It survived.
No way! I know, yeah.
I was just, I mean, no way! It happened.
Yes, it did.
It flew to Germany going, "Well, I'm never going back there.
" LAUGHTER The worst holiday ever! APPLAUSE I find that, the survival of that bird I find extraordinary, that it arrived.
It is.
But you hear stories of bullets piercing people's heads without somehow managing to Not an arrow, not an arrow travelling the length of its, its neck and through its head.
It somehow managed, I know, it is astounding that it flew.
"Something's different!" Yeah.
Do you think it was originally from Germany, or it got kind of, it was from England and somehow, "Whoa, we're going right a bit!"? It might have slightly tilted to the right, we don't know.
It was in the 1820s.
Anyway, until that time, people had observed birds disappearing, and they'd assumed all kinds of things, that they went underwater, that, you know, they changed into other animals, I mean, but there was no particular evidence, anyway, except they disappeared.
It was 18? 1820.
This was the first kind of clear evidence, as it were, that the bird had been to Africa.
And so things began to get put together.
Samuel Johnson wrote that "Swallows certainly sleep in the winter.
"A number of them conglobulate together by flying round and round "and then all in a heap throw themselves underwater and lie on the bed of the river.
" That's what he thought, because swallows disappear in winter.
He assumed they hibernated, like other animals.
So, moving on.
Get this right and you can have your weight in points.
I'd like you to add these numbers up.
Look at the screen, add up the numbers.
Hang on.
Hang on.
Pen.
Ow! That's silly.
Nine, nine, nine, nine.
No.
which the winner of this competition did not have, the opportunity to see it again.
All right, again.
Two-second burst.
Add that up.
Oh, it's about 8,897.
No.
It would be astonishing if you got it, but in Japan - where else - they have this, it's called "Flash Anzan".
And actually the world record holder had a shorter time than that.
You have to correctly add and he did it in 1.
7 seconds.
There's a particular reason Japanese people are very good at this.
I think I know the reason.
It's in Malcolm Gladwell's book.
It's because of how they process, how the language processes numbers.
There is a strange thing in Chinese and Japanese, in both languages, with the number, if you say the numbers together, it automatically adds them up, sort of linguistically.
Yes, but there's a really interesting addition to that, which is that what they're doing, and their fingers are the giveaway, they do this.
What do you think that is? That, that is a living one of those! LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE Come on! Genius! You see? I've always said, he's a savant! Or it's a herd of those! The answer, incidentally was 1,966.
But the secret actually is in the Chinese, Japanese abacus.
They're actually doing the action of the abacus.
And the more amazing thing, perhaps, is that at the same time, they can have a conversation with someone.
Because it's another part of the brain that's being engaged.
And they'll say the answer, but they won't remember a single one of the numbers they added up.
Which brings me to some very complicated adding up of my own, as a matter of fact.
Oh, my gracious goodness, heavens! The scores are unusual, because we have of course been giving scores to make up for our errors on account of the half-life of facts.
So, in last place, I'm afraid, it's magnificent for a first appearance, minus 19, Graham Linehan.
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING Graham, congratulations.
Thank you.
In fourth place, with 23.
24, it's the audience! Well done! And in third place So I'm behind the audience? Yes, I'm afraid so.
It's deeply unfair.
And the Star Wars guy's in the audience.
I'm on the show! I'm so sorry.
And in third place, with plus 33.
58, is Jimmy Carr.
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING Come on.
In second place, with plus 85.
73, Jo Brand.
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING Not bad for a lady! And today's out-and-out winner, with 689.
66, is Alan Davies! APPLAUSE AND WHOOPING It was worth it.
And, so, it's thank you and good night from Graham, Jimmy, Jo, Alan and me.
Be useful and lovely to yourselves, good night.
APPLAUSE
Please welcome the well-educated Jimmy Carr.
APPLAUSE Thank you.
The well-informed Jo Brand.
APPLAUSE The well-read Graham Linehan.
APPLAUSE And the well, you know, it's Alan Davies.
APPLAUSE And if you want to call me, you know what to do.
Jimmy goes: Knowing me, knowing you, aha Graham goes: They don't know about us Jo goes: I know him so well And Alan goes: No no.
No no no no There's no limits.
There's a spelling issue there, Alan.
Now, um, I know what you want to know, once and for all how many moons does the earth have? Nobody knows.
LAUGHTER We're not doing that this year, are we? No, we're not.
Three.
Ooh! BUZZER What a pity.
What a pity.
One.
Doh! Well, it is! Just because it's called "the moon" doesn't mean it's the only one, it turns out.
The moons, it would be called.
Yeah.
BUZZER Six.
You're not doing yourself any favours early doors.
Two.
Two, oh! LAUGHTER Now, this could go on for ages.
It could.
So let me stop you right here.
The point is, very early on, in the A series, we said there were two.
Are you taking that back? Yes.
What do you mean? Ah, this is I rely on this show.
This is all I know.
This is the whole point of this round, in fact.
Facts are not permanent.
We thought there were two, and then we said, "oh, no, "it's either one or five," we said, in the B series.
Because we were acting on the latest info that we had from the scientific community.
And this has changed.
Now NASA describes them as "mini moons" but we have about 18,000 moons.
I thought it was the same moon.
LAUGHTER What, bits of it, you mean? No, I thought the ones that we keep seeing was the same one over and over again.
That was the That's wrong? No! Are you talking about the mini moons? There was like one extra mini moon? No.
Or just that whole Can I just say, if there's so many, why haven't we noticed them before? Well, the reason is they are actually tiny and it's only recently they've run computer simulations to show 18,000.
One of those that has been observed, has been given the exciting name RH120, which orbited the Earth, four orbits, in 2006 and 7.
They're also known as "temporarily captured objects".
They're captured into a Earth orbit, perhaps for a short amount of time.
But as satellites of the Earth, non-man-made, they are moons.
That's what a moon is.
But the man-made satellites are satellites? Yes, but to be a moon you have to be a celestial body, rather thanyou COULD count a man Well.
that makes me a moon, then.
Yes, exactly, there you are.
Precisely.
You orbit my life, Jo.
But you have to be in orbit for at least five years before you can claim benefits.
LAUGHTER Exactly right.
But the quite interesting thing about this is the point that raised Jimmy Carr's tremendous eyebrows earlier, which is that facts don't remain stable.
Things we know, or think we know, will be untrue.
LAUGHTER Very good.
Will be untrue in a number of years' time.
Yes.
Appropriately, you look a bit like Patrick Moore.
I'm trying to do a Mexican wave.
Yes, you do look like Patrick Moore.
"We just, we just don't know.
" LAUGHTER Can I just say, I did a course at university called Shut up! I bloody did.
No! I bloody did, and it was called the Sociology of Science, and yes, I got a grant for it.
It was a complete waste of time.
But what I learnt during that course is there's no such thing as a fact.
Yes.
This is precisely our point.
And indeed, at medical colleges, they usually teach that half of what the medical students are going to learn will be considered untrue in about 10 or 20 years.
And this is known by academics as the half-life of facts.
That's to say, you know half of it will be untrue.
Unfortunately, you don't know exactly which half.
And on QI, an estimated 7% of the things I tell you this evening will be shown to be untrue in a year's time.
And if you're watching a very old repeat on Dave, a much bigger proportion.
It's probably untrue now.
It's probablyeven what I'm saying now is untrue.
I'm not even saying it, it's so untrue.
I'm not on the show.
We actually have a chart showing the rate of decay of QI facts.
And you can see, there's series A on the right, and plotted against it is the 10th series, J.
J.
And so, as you can see, the further you get away, the greater the number of untruths.
series are bollocks.
Yes, are now untrue.
If that's true, yes, that's right.
We do talk a lot of bollocks, in fairness.
But the most important thing, you'll be excited to know, is that that means over the years, cumulatively, you must be owed a lot of points.
And going according to this theory, things we have said are wrong, a proportion of them are likely to have been right.
Therefore, we have actually calculated how many points we owe you.
Um, and This is, suddenly this has gone brilliantly.
Suddenly we're smiling.
Yeah.
Jimmy Alan is going to be way out in front, isn't he? Jimmy, we owe you 43.
58 points.
Jo, 84.
73.
Can I use them in Sainsbury's? LAUGHTER I'm giving you permission.
If you work at Sainsbury's and she tries to claim them, yes, she can.
The audience are owed 23.
24.
Well done.
Even not having done anything.
APPLAUSE Alan, you are owed 737.
66! APPLAUSE There you are.
And, um Are those transferable? If I went onto Have I Got News For You, could I use Yes.
Could I arrive and go, "I've got 24 points that I could use here?" Yeah.
You can take this, yes.
I can just? Use them, yeah, yeah.
Oh, fabulous.
Great news.
Mastermind, can I have it on Mastermind? I don't think you could slip that in, somehow.
Someone's going to have to answer a lot of questions to beat that.
And of course, unfortunately, Graham, you get nothing.
Yes.
Yeah, no.
That's really unfair.
You're playing it first time and you get a huge disadvantage.
Yeah.
Well, you needn't have pointed it out.
Yes.
I'll try and find a way to make it up to you, in some way, by giving you a random 600 points.
I'll give you some examples of facts that we gave in good faith on QI.
So in the I series we said nobody knows how to tell the age of a lobster.
Well, that was only a few years ago.
But since then, Canadian scientists have discovered, the way you do, that if you dissect their eye stalks and count the rings, you know how old they are.
Really? What? It's not a very kind thing to do.
What you mean is, you know how old they were.
LAUGHTER I think that's a reasonable point.
There's a flaw in this plan.
I still think you should ask them first.
Before you dissect their eye stalks! Another one was in the G series.
We said giraffes' necks may have evolved for fighting each other, which was commonly held by quite a few zoologists.
But it now seems this hypothesis is not believed.
And in the A series They used to like wading across deep rivers.
Yes, that, keeping their necks above, very, very deep.
LAUGHTER As the river got higher Yeah.
They evolved.
LAUGHTER That might prove to be correct.
It might, you see.
Who am I to say it isn't? In the A series, we said that the best-endowed millipede had 710 legs.
Soon afterwards, a millipede with 750 turned up, but that's still the greatest number we know.
Is there someone checking them? Yes.
That's superb.
I like the idea that counting a millipede's legs, you would lose You'd have to keep going back.
Yes, you would, exactly.
Argh! One, two Yeah, it's the same thing Many times.
It's the same thing with all these things, before they count the legs, they kill it.
LAUGHTER It's true.
So the legs are very still.
Just pluck them off.
Oh, dear! One She loves me.
Two, three It might still be alive.
They might think it was dead, and then they'd just hear it go, "Argh!" LAUGHTER "Argh! Argh!" Do you know, that's an interesting fact, that's how they make worms.
LAUGHTER It's true.
True story.
Brilliant.
Yeah, a worm would come along, "Are you not doing anything with these legs? "Now you've counted them off the millipede, can I have four?" And a whole new species is born.
Yeah.
And that is how sausage dogs are made.
And Daschunds, exactly.
Yeah.
We've discovered a lot of new science here, none of which is likely to be disproved, or possibly may come round again to be proved.
Now, what did the inventor of the thermometer spend 30 years measuring? I'm going to say temperature, OK? BUZZER Oh! Wa-hey! Do you know what, Alan, you've got points to burn this evening.
Just relax.
Sometimes it's right, you know, sometimes he goes, yes, it is.
Exactly.
I know a joke about thermometers, about nurses and thermometers.
It's about a rectal thermometer.
Go on.
Well, a nurse finds a rectal thermometer in her pocket and goes, "Aw! Some arsehole's got my pen.
" LAUGHTER It's an old joke, it's an old joke.
It's very fine, though.
Very fine.
One very old nurses' joke that we used to was that a nurse comes running in and says to the matron, "Oh, dear, I think I've got something the wrong way round.
"You asked me to prick someone's boil.
" LAUGHTER Very good.
I do know quite an interesting fact about thermometers.
Thermometers.
The difference between an oral and rectal thermometer.
Yeah, I hope you do know the difference! Yeah.
Taste.
Oh! LAUGHTER No, his name was Sanctorius Sanctorius.
At least that was his Latinised name.
He was from Padua, and there you can see him.
Right.
He's weighing himself, that's a special balance he had created.
Oh, he's weighing himself? Every single day he'd weigh himself AND the food he ate.
And, indeed, the faeces and urine that he expelled, he excreted.
Was it some sort of weird Weight Watchers thing he was on? No, well, what he discovered is that his urine and faeces weighed only a fraction of what he'd eaten and drunk, but despite that, he stayed the same weight, which is amazing, he thought.
He thought, "Why is it if I put in, say, 100 pounds of food, "but I poo out only 30 pounds of faeces" It had taken him 30 years did he not work out that there's a fuel thing? It is easy to look back at past generations and say, "How can you not have known?" But of course NONE of them knew.
And really, before people like him, who was almost one of the world's first scientists They hadn't measured and calibrated things.
You're absolutely right about all of those things.
Well, as right as we know.
However Yeah? 30 Years! I mean, really, after three years with the same Oh, no, he had a theory, but his theory was wrong, that's all.
His theory was that the rest came out of your skin so it was very dangerous to cover most of your skin, because you wouldn't let the poison out.
He knew that faeces was poisonous, or at least toxic and bad for you.
Its smell is a big warning, obviously.
Sorry, your faeces smell? Of Parma Violets.
Yeah.
Jimmy's make a noise.
They point at him.
They emit a totally different They're very unusual.
It's one in a million people who have noisy faeces.
"Aah!" HE IMITATES TOILET FLUSHING Very good.
He co-invented, with his fellow at Padua, a much better-known scientist.
Who would that be, in the same period? Co-invented? Da Vinci.
His co-inventor.
Not Da Vinci, no.
Is he going to be Martin Centigrade, or Galileo.
It won't be future.
Galileo.
Galileo is the right answer.
Oh, I nearly said Galileo! APPLAUSE Thank you.
I was going to say Scaramouche or Fandango.
Galileo Galilee.
Can do the Fandango! Yes, he could, darling, that's right.
Thunderbolt and lightning! Oh, no.
Please! Very, very frightening! Stop, behave.
That's what one of Jimmy's poos sounds like! No.
"Galileo, Galileo!" "You all right in there, Jimmy?!" LAUGHTER Be out in a minute, I'm reading a very interesting article! Your faeces is made up of 70% Shit? Liquid! separating out.
Not that I would urge you to do it when you get home! When I get home? Why wait?! I've got a centrifuge in my dressing room! Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear.
Anyway, what can you find out by hiding under a student's bed? BUZZER Yes, Jo? I've got to go for this.
Is it a massive pile of porn mags? That's probably true.
I thought that would go off.
Those were the days.
I think, I think now you've got the internet, it's I'm afraid, yeah, you wouldn't, really.
Broadband are doing a terrific job now.
Terrific.
I think that's a bit sad though, in a way.
It's not, yeah, they were You prefer mags.
Not for men.
No, not personally.
LAUGHTER They did this in the 1930s, it was extremely unethical, but we're in pursuit of knowledge, which is our theme today.
Oh, scientists? So they were researchers.
They were researching, and the only way to find out what people are saying without knowing they're being overheard was to hide somewhere and take notes while they were talking.
And they wanted to know what sort of things students spoke about.
So they used to hide underneath the beds? Yeah, and take notes.
It sounds to me, Stephen, I don't want to, you know, throw stones at these lovely scientists, but it sounds to me like a cover story.
You wait, you wait till I get to some other unethical scientists, you hold that back.
Because it gets worse.
Oh, tell me more! We're on the subject of unethical research.
And basically, this was the only way you can have of being sure that you know what people are talking about with absolute clarity.
Because people change what they say when they know someone's listening, someone outside their circle.
But the idea was to discover what the main subject was, that people spoke about.
They listened to They just thought, "They'll never look under their bed!" Why would you look under a bed?! There's nothing interesting down there! Yeah, where they could overhear them.
And they discovered that 40% of their conversation was devoted to? The opposite sex.
No, it wasn't that, it was themselves.
It was a study in egocentricity.
They spoke about themselves.
I would never do that.
A-haha! Jimmy Carr would never let that happen! Oh, don't, that's the worst thing in the world you can do! So, there are other dodgy experiments.
There was a "Personal Space Invasion In The Men's Restroom", a study of 1976.
GRAHAM SNORTS Someone hid a camera under the partition, under the sort of floor space.
"Someone", Stephen? "Someone?" LAUGHTER You seem to know a lot about this, Stephen! I've got a couple of questions.
You like technology, don't you? And there's a camera in the men's room! "Oh, I'm just doing a study.
" "Are you?!" It was Apologise, Stephen! It was to see how they filled space when, if there was one person, let's say the third one in a row of six, where would the average person go? Would it be as far away apart, or would that look too obvious? It's very interesting when you go in there, because I used to be, I don't have it any more, but I used to be quite a shy pee-er, are you aware of shy peeing? Yeah, of course.
I have a technique for that.
What's your technique? My technique for shy peeing is, I think of the most embarrassing thing I can do.
I just think of doing something like saying, "I think I love you", or just something like that, and then it's all go.
When you say, "I love you", you will automatically pee.
Have a little wee.
I don't need to say it, I just need to THINK it.
And I always have to imagine it very, very realistically.
I imagine the guy going: "What?! Did he really say that?" And then the next thing it's just, you know, it's no longer a problem.
It is very maddening when you've been absolutely bursting to go and then, hello.
"Come on! Come on!" I find men's rooms There's a story about Bono going into a men's room and standing up there and the guy standing beside him, a long silence, and then eventually the guy saying, "Bit of stage fright, Bono?" JIMMY HOOTS UPROARIOUSLY But in 1942, and this is the one where you're going to go, "Yeah, right(!)", a psychologist called Lawrence LeShan tried to use sleep-learning at a summer camp.
Yeah, right(!) To cure some boys of nail-biting.
Oh, no.
He recorded the phrase, "My fingernails are terribly bitter," on a phonograph, and then played it 300 times a night in the boys' tent, or room or whatever it was.
And they all went on to kill and kill again? One boy appeared to respond positively, but then after five weeks the phonograph broke.
So, to keep the experiment running, he stood in the boys' dormitory through the night and repeated the phrase himself.
"My fingernails taste terribly bitter.
" This seemed to work, and he claimed it as a success.
It's thought, generally, these days, that the boys were awake and just freaked out by the experience and they stopped biting their nails to make the nasty man go away.
It's all very peculiar.
Anyway, moving on.
How did the Romans tell their Keiths from their Kevins? Some Keiths and Kevins there, in case you don't know what they are.
Keith Richards.
Kevin Bacon Kevin Keegan.
Keith Lemon.
Well done, that's enough.
That's all, you won't get any more.
The other ones don't look real.
No And they're looking Are they the actual Romans? I think on the far left, that's Burger King, isn't it? I think it might be, it does look a bit like Burger King.
They could have, because in Latin they both mean the same? It's not that.
It doesn't have to be Keiths and Kevins, it means how did Romans know people's names? How do they know people's names? Because we all forget them Did they remember them? No.
That's the point, they'd forgotten.
Badge, they had a badge.
No.
You have a special servant.
A servant to say your name? A nomenclator.
Not to say YOUR name! LAUGHTER I'm assuming you'll remember your own name! This is Pepe! It's when you forget other people's.
So you come in and the person whispers, "Alan Davies", and you go, "Alan, how lovely to see you!" Because otherwise you've forgotten, like a politician.
That's very useful.
Yeah.
Absolutely right.
And politicians I have a technique for names.
Yeah? I've forgotten someone's name, I just say, "Excuse me for a second", and then I go home.
LAUGHTER APPLAUSE Works every time! If you're the nomenclator Yes? And you keep saying this is Steve, this is Fiona.
Stevius, Fiona.
After a while he goes, I know, I know that one! Yes, you would, you're allowed to tell them Just tell me the ones I don't know.
She thinks I've forgotten her name! I really thought I was in there, and now you've just gone "Fiona", as if I didn't know it was, look at her face now! Go over there and say, "He knew, I was just doing my job.
" "He wants you to know that he knew you were Fiona.
" "This is this your wife, Susan.
You've been married 15 years.
" I actually do have a system involving my wife, which is, we go over to someone whose name I don't know, and I just stand there in total silence, and then eventually my wife says, "I'm sorry, my name's Helen.
" And the guy says, "Oh I'm Gary, and I go, I'm sorry, Gary! Gary, Helen.
Helen, Gary.
" Didn't I introduce you? I thought I, yeah Yeah.
Just as soon as they say it, you go, "Ah!" And then you sort of Is that a system, per se? LAUGHTER Sounds like you being awkward at a party.
I'm sorry, I am So, moving on, a question about kith and kin now.
What's the best way of avoiding talking to your mother-in-law? BUZZER Yes, Jo? Removing her vocal cords, with some pliers! That's the best way of avoiding HER talking to YOU.
Well, lean in for the kiss.
Ugh! Oddly enough, you're in the right hideous area.
Really? Prince Charles's hair is being stealthily removed from his head by Camilla's hair-grabbing, hair-eating hat.
LAUGHTER It's like a Triffid.
And she's operating it slyly with her hand and going like that.
And the hair is being sucked into that hat.
She's looking down at the dial.
The hat devours it! I think, if you don't like your mother-in-law, what hope is there for you? I view the mother-in-law as, it's Christmas Future.
Yes, that's true.
If you don't like your mother-in-law, you're in trouble, 20 years down the line.
That's what you're buying into.
My mother-in-law makes absolutely no sound when she moves.
LAUGHTER That's remarkable, like Jeeves.
She is the stealthiest person.
You've got a Stealth mother-in-law.
Is she sprayed black? Honestly, she could be a brilliant spy, you know? You might be in a room and you're looking in a thing or something, and then suddenly she'll go, "Hello.
" "Oh, Jesus!" Where did you come from?! Where did you come from?! It's a long way from the door! Anybody would have gone, "Ahem", made a little noise.
Nothing.
Oh, that's terrible.
It's like the famous story of the boy who was, you know, having a play with himself in his bedroom, with his eyes closed.
And by the way, I was not doing, I was not playing with myself! No, not you.
In this story, before you conflate them.
No, that's true.
What's that story or that thing where Alan Davies, and his mother-in-law comes up behind him? Let's just separate those two things! All right.
But he closes his eyes in bliss and when he opens them afterwards, he just finds a cup of tea next to him! LAUGHTER It sounds so appalling! She thought, "Well, your father always likes a cup of tea afterwards!" And a biscuit! APPLAUSE Oh, gracious! Oh, Alan! We haven't even begun to answer this question yet.
It's about sexual taboos with mothers-in-laws Sexual taboos with mother-in-laws?! Taboos, and there is this particular language where you have a special language What?! In which to speak to your mother-in-law.
It's called an avoidance language, so you have your own, the natural line of language.
We've got one of those, haven't we? It's called small talk.
But this has a different vocabulary and it's absolutely different.
A whole language where you can talk to your mother-in-law so it's just safe subjects? You also have to avert the eyes and look at the ground, which is part of using that language.
And there are certain words that don't exist in that language, most notably things like pubic hair and sweaty smells.
But why? Because there is a taboo and a sense of respect that is given by the male to the mother of his wife.
It's in Australia.
There's some Aboriginal peoples who have these avoidance languages.
And it's really fascinating, isn't it? In Japan, they have a special language when talking about the royal family.
Is there a phrase for "You've spilt the Tippex"? In their culture.
Someone needs to address that.
You're so bad, you're so bad! Now, what did this bird bring to the German city of Klutz? Chlamydia.
Chlamydia! The Chlamydia Stork.
It's a good idea.
The Chlamydia Stork! Sounds like a desperate man back from a business trip in Holland, going, "Ah, ah, the thing is, storks.
" Yes! Is that a particular, like a giant stork that you only find in Germany? I'll show you a picture of it.
It's been stuffed and is in a museum.
How big is it, really? Well, it's hard to tell the scale, but storks are quite big.
But that's an arrow through it, or spear, rather.
They call it an arrow in German, which is pfeil, and it's known as the Pfeilstorch, which is just literally "arrow stork".
Now, you may say what's odd about that? Nothing, particularly.
But what they recognised was that the arrow was not German.
Indeed it was not even European.
But they recognised right away that it was African.
That it had flown a very long way.
What on earth would a bird be doing with an African spear in its neck, they thought? So they puzzled out the possibility that birds, rather than disappearing at winter Oh, went to Africa.
Yes, migrated.
Sorry, are you saying it flew back with that Yes.
It survived.
No way! I know, yeah.
I was just, I mean, no way! It happened.
Yes, it did.
It flew to Germany going, "Well, I'm never going back there.
" LAUGHTER The worst holiday ever! APPLAUSE I find that, the survival of that bird I find extraordinary, that it arrived.
It is.
But you hear stories of bullets piercing people's heads without somehow managing to Not an arrow, not an arrow travelling the length of its, its neck and through its head.
It somehow managed, I know, it is astounding that it flew.
"Something's different!" Yeah.
Do you think it was originally from Germany, or it got kind of, it was from England and somehow, "Whoa, we're going right a bit!"? It might have slightly tilted to the right, we don't know.
It was in the 1820s.
Anyway, until that time, people had observed birds disappearing, and they'd assumed all kinds of things, that they went underwater, that, you know, they changed into other animals, I mean, but there was no particular evidence, anyway, except they disappeared.
It was 18? 1820.
This was the first kind of clear evidence, as it were, that the bird had been to Africa.
And so things began to get put together.
Samuel Johnson wrote that "Swallows certainly sleep in the winter.
"A number of them conglobulate together by flying round and round "and then all in a heap throw themselves underwater and lie on the bed of the river.
" That's what he thought, because swallows disappear in winter.
He assumed they hibernated, like other animals.
So, moving on.
Get this right and you can have your weight in points.
I'd like you to add these numbers up.
Look at the screen, add up the numbers.
Hang on.
Hang on.
Pen.
Ow! That's silly.
Nine, nine, nine, nine.
No.
which the winner of this competition did not have, the opportunity to see it again.
All right, again.
Two-second burst.
Add that up.
Oh, it's about 8,897.
No.
It would be astonishing if you got it, but in Japan - where else - they have this, it's called "Flash Anzan".
And actually the world record holder had a shorter time than that.
You have to correctly add and he did it in 1.
7 seconds.
There's a particular reason Japanese people are very good at this.
I think I know the reason.
It's in Malcolm Gladwell's book.
It's because of how they process, how the language processes numbers.
There is a strange thing in Chinese and Japanese, in both languages, with the number, if you say the numbers together, it automatically adds them up, sort of linguistically.
Yes, but there's a really interesting addition to that, which is that what they're doing, and their fingers are the giveaway, they do this.
What do you think that is? That, that is a living one of those! LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE Come on! Genius! You see? I've always said, he's a savant! Or it's a herd of those! The answer, incidentally was 1,966.
But the secret actually is in the Chinese, Japanese abacus.
They're actually doing the action of the abacus.
And the more amazing thing, perhaps, is that at the same time, they can have a conversation with someone.
Because it's another part of the brain that's being engaged.
And they'll say the answer, but they won't remember a single one of the numbers they added up.
Which brings me to some very complicated adding up of my own, as a matter of fact.
Oh, my gracious goodness, heavens! The scores are unusual, because we have of course been giving scores to make up for our errors on account of the half-life of facts.
So, in last place, I'm afraid, it's magnificent for a first appearance, minus 19, Graham Linehan.
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING Graham, congratulations.
Thank you.
In fourth place, with 23.
24, it's the audience! Well done! And in third place So I'm behind the audience? Yes, I'm afraid so.
It's deeply unfair.
And the Star Wars guy's in the audience.
I'm on the show! I'm so sorry.
And in third place, with plus 33.
58, is Jimmy Carr.
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING Come on.
In second place, with plus 85.
73, Jo Brand.
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING Not bad for a lady! And today's out-and-out winner, with 689.
66, is Alan Davies! APPLAUSE AND WHOOPING It was worth it.
And, so, it's thank you and good night from Graham, Jimmy, Jo, Alan and me.
Be useful and lovely to yourselves, good night.
APPLAUSE