QI (2003) s07e14 Episode Script
Greeks
APPLAUSE CHEERS AND WHISTLES O-o-oh Hello, hello, hello, hello and welcome to the temple of QI on Mount Olympus, where four mighty heroes will confront the forces of ignorance in a show about Greeks and gods.
Limbering up in the gymnasium of thought we have tonight a handsome Adonis in Clive Anderson.
CHEERS AND APPLAUSE An Odysseus, Rich Hall! CHEERS AND APPLAUSE A legendary demi-God, Phill Jupitus.
CHEERS AND APPLAUSE And our Achilles' heel, Alan Davies.
CHEERS AND APPLAUSE Their buzzers are all Greece-y! Clive goes STATELY ORCHESTRAL MUSIC You'll recognise that as the Greek national anthem.
Rich goes MUSIC: "Zorba The Greek" Phill goes TRADITIONAL GREEK FOLK TUNE And Alan goes Greased lightning Oh, greased lightning! Now that we're "Greece-d up", here's my first question.
You're a wealthy Athenian and you're invited to sponsor a battleship.
How do you get out of it? Out of the ship? Out of the sponsor-ship.
How do you get out of sponsoring this expensive business? I see.
If you were rich, did you? Not if you were Rich.
Have you ever funded the Greek navy? I've never funded the Greek navy.
But if history has taught us anything, it's that I should've.
You puzzled yourself there, didn't you? Yeah.
If you were rich, did you have to? There wasn't much taxation in Greece, but when it came to things like the ships, they made the richest Athenian citizens pay for it.
You got an accountant to explain how to put your money in a rowing boat.
Put it off-shore.
Off-shore! Yes! The great thing about Greece was it was a true democracy in an extraordinary way.
If your property was worth they said, "You have to pay for our navy.
" To challenge it, you had to find someone you thought was richer, and appear together in court.
You had to offer to swap all your property with the guy you thought was richer.
And the guy you thought Bagsy swapsy with you, Stephen! So the Greek military tactics were based loosely on Swap Shop? LAUGHTER Multi-Coloured Swapus Shopus.
Yes.
No, it's quite a clever idea.
Sponsorship is Greek, then? Well, not necessarily Greek.
I guess people had sponsored things before.
But the "ship" bit of words? The "ship"? Yeah.
"Sponsorship".
"Championship"? That's Germanic.
Yeah.
Just curious.
You're very good on words.
I like to check.
There's the extraordinary thing of how the F became P.
Pfennig became penny.
Pfeffer became pepper.
All the German Fs became Ps.
It happened so much so in Arabic that all the Ps disappeared.
They're all Fs.
Sharip became Sharif.
One of the interesting byways I use the word "interesting" obviously wrongly! LAUGHTER I am quite interested.
This is just for ME! Thank you! The brothers Grimm, we think of for fairytales, invented the subject of linguistics and they traced the great fricative shift.
CHUCKLING: Or the great "pricative" shift, you might say.
How did we get here? LAUGHTER So, to summarise, if you're called upon to sponsor a ship, and you're rich, you had to, unless you could find a richer person.
And you tested if they were richer than you by offering to swap your fortunes in court.
You're spending the weekend with your grandmother.
Which would she prefer? A Roman orgy or a Greek symposium? Does this depend on the granny? It sort of does, but let's assume Symposium is a fun thing.
A symposium? It's a drinking thing.
You're right.
"Symposium", which is now used to mean a seminar Yeah.
.
.
people talking about intellectual things Are you saying that "orgy" didn't mean anything to do with sex? It did mean a dinner party, but It was also stuff for kids.
You know, in an orgy.
It wasn't just adults.
No Petting zoo LAUGHTER Anyway The perhaps surprising thing is that a Roman orgy tended not to be a particularly wild sexual feast.
It was more about the food, the extravagance of the display.
Like Caligula, they were more famous for having solid gold food, and food like fish, that was bright blue, so it looked as if it was still in the ocean - a food party.
Did they really eat so much, you brought it up again? The vomitorium? Of course, a vomitorium is actually an exit from a theatre, where the people are vomited out.
Especially if you've just seen Mama Mia.
I always expect to lose points when I say anything I THINK I know.
They made themselves sick in order that they could carry on eating.
Did they really do that? People definitely did that in pubs when I was growing up.
Throw up in order to drink more? Go outside.
Be sick on the pavement.
Yeah.
Shake the head, go straight back to the bar.
The tactical chunder is very LAUGHTER Totally.
"I feel terrible.
I'm going to have to have a tactical chunder!" Come back.
"I'm fine now.
" That makes sense, I suppose.
in the gutter! Rich is looking bemused.
No.
I've seen it.
I believe you.
I've tried to do it myself but it doesn't work the same.
So it really depends on what your granny is into.
The point is that orgies were not as debauched as symposia.
What should you do if you see a Spartan with a new hairdo? There is one.
Slightly Boris Johnson, but it's a start.
Collar and cuffs aren't matching! LAUGHTER They're not, are they? A handily placed scabbard! The painter goes, "Just move that.
" Give him a wide berth? Do they have their hair cut before combat? I'm going to have to give you all those points.
That is exactly right.
APPLAUSE Before the battle of Thermopylae, the Persians made a mistake.
One of their spies who'd gone to the Spartan camp said, "They're a load of nancy boys.
I've seen them doing their hair.
" "You going anywhere?" "Into battle.
" "Who are you against? The Persians? They're a nasty lot! "Over at Thermopylae? Ooh! I wouldn't tell anybody.
" What the Persians didn't know was that when the Spartans did their hair they were prepared to die.
They were preparing their bodies for mortal combat.
Who's going to notice your haircut with your junk hanging out? Never heard it called "junk" before! Put on some pants before you go into battle! Fighting pants.
Yeah.
Your best fighting pants.
What do we know about the Spartans? They were good in that film, It could have been camper because in historical fact, those 300 Spartans were accompanied by 700 Thespians.
Really? "Let's do the show HERE!" LAUGHTER It Ain't Half Hot Mum.
"Lovely boy! Lovely boy!" "A waste of space, what is you?" and all that.
"La-di-da, Gunner Graham!" "La-di-da, Gunner Graham!" Was there stereotyping? "Those Spartans are like that.
" Or were they genuinely run on different lines? I think they were.
As you know, the Spartans and Athenians went to war.
Sadly for us who love classical civilisation, the Spartans won, who were the least interested art, harmony, music, mathematics, logic and politics.
They were a war-like race.
It's like as if the Klingons beat the Vulcans in Star Trek.
Awful! It would be.
That's what Star Trek is kind of based on.
Unthinkable, Stephen! I know.
Can you imag such a thing? Or the Daleks.
Yeah.
Yeah.
A warrior people.
Or Britain beating France! Yes.
Do you know the word "laconic"? I dunno.
Is it from Star Trek? Do you know what "laconic" means? RICH: I do.
Kind of means taking your time.
Taking your time Before you answer.
When the Peloponnesian War took place, the Athenians they sent a messenger to Sparta.
"If we beat you, we will not spare your children.
We will destroy your civilisation.
We will spare no-one.
" The Spartans sent one word reply.
Yeah.
"Bovvered?" No.
LAUGHTER Similar APPLAUSE I hate to disagree with the audience, but it was better.
It was simply the first word of the message.
"If.
" Ah! "If.
" And that was the original laconic reply, the Spartan reply.
"If we beat you" "Yeah.
If.
" If you see a Spartan with a new hairstyle run as fast as you can.
According to Herodotus, the last thing a Spartan soldier did before a fight was get a new do.
What's the proper thing to wear to the gym? Oh, please! Now, that's disturbing.
Look at your tiny arms! It's rather weird, isn't it? LAUGHTER I remember that day! LAUGHTER Oh, we had fun that day! Didn't we just? I like to be left alone at the gym.
> I wear Speedos and brown wing tips.
Right.
Not a stitch.
The point is not a stitch.
Gymnos is the Greek for "naked".
That's what "gymnasium" means, "a naked place".
Now that's Britain's Got Talent! LAUGHTER In the Olympics, they ran naked, didn't they? Yes.
Quite hard to be the high hurdle champion.
Terrible if your tackle WAS the reason you didn't get the high jump.
"Done a lovely job there.
Oh, no.
His knackers just caught the bar! "Another man let down by his tackle!" What you're looking at there is a kynodesme, a pouch in which your penis is held in an upright position and tied in a bow.
For Christmas! LAUGHTER For what reason, doing sporting activities? So it didn't flap about, I guess.
If your trainer wanted to get your attention, he'd pull the string! There are other things with the root "gymnos" meaning "naked".
Gymnopedia, the dances performed by naked boys at public festivals.
LAUGHTER There is To gymnologise is to debate whilst naked.
Let's gymnologise! WHOOPING FROM AUDIENCE After you, audience.
LAUGHTER No, I didn't mean it! There we are.
A lot of nudity in Greece.
They began as places for the middle classes to train for battle.
There they are.
That's an affectionate form of wrestling! Mud wrestling.
It's rather sweet.
The one on the left < Greco-Roman, but mostly Greco.
There's a lot of that going on, obviously.
I presume they're playing a slowy.
LAUGHTER The gymnasium # Loving you Is easy cos you're They became places of education, as Clive pointed out.
The famous ones were the Academy and the Lyceum.
The Academy, where Plato taught, and from which we get "academy".
It's a night club in the N1 Centre.
It was named after a Greek hero.
Academae.
Lyceum is where the Joe Loss Band played.
It was.
The French lycee, meaning a school, is from the same root.
So many common words come from things like that.
Gymnasium is an academy.
The Odeon was a cinema in Ancient Greece.
It should be! Do you know what its origin is? I've no idea.
Audience? < Oscar Deutsch.
Ten points! Oscar Deutsch, the founder.
OD were his initials.
Odeon.
Well done.
Round of applause.
APPLAUSE What happens in this game if someone in this audience wins? They take their clothes off and parade all around here.
So, to the Ancient Greeks, gymnasium was a place to get naked, though they liked to wear a bit of support.
Name the event in which Baron de Coubertin won his Olympic medal.
Who was Baron de Coubertin? The one who reinvented the Olympics? Yes, the father of the modern Olympic movement.
An event that he was the only person who did it.
So he could win it.
To give him credit, he did it anonymously.
That's why he's wearing a false moustache.
How many events can you enter anonymously? Ernot many, I suppose.
Exactly.
So something when you're hidden.
You don't need to be seen.
A race between pantomime horses.
He was the winning horse! It's not as absurd as it sounds.
There were some really odd events.
You're completely hidden? Well? Tunnelling.
Olympic tunnelling.
You're thinking of physical things, aren't you? Ah.
The Olympic Games was wider.
Essay writing or poem composing.
Poem is the answer.
He won the gold medal for poetry.
Shut up! Oh! You think THAT's weird? All the way up to 1948 there was town planning in the Olympics.
LAUGHTER Won by a Milton Keynes! Lost by Milton Keynes, you imagine.
There were all kinds of artistic categories.
Sculpture, music, painting Sculpture! "And look at him go! The young Greek! "The young Greek's mallet is flying!" The oldest ever medal winner was a silver medal winner aged 73, in the 1948 engravings and etchings event.
CLIVE: Fantastic! He was a Briton called John Copley.
In 1900, a woman won possibly the oddest event, a farmer's wife.
It was the poodle clipping event.
She trimmed 17 poodles in two hours.
She got a gold medal for it.
I'm sure she did.
That's impressive even to me.
Do you know the reason they stopped doing the sculpture and painting? Something to do with the drugs and the sex testing.
The reason they stopped was because they felt that it compromised the idea of amateurism.
The artists were artists for the rest of the year.
The other Olympians, those who threw javelins, held down other jobs.
Moving on Who knows what Olympic gold medals are made of? Probablypartially CLIVE: We've been on this programme! ALL SPEAK TOGETHER The surface, I would suggest LAUGHTER They're made of gold.
Oh, bless you! KLAXON BLARES APPLAUSE I think they might have another one in there.
Chocolate! Ah! KLAXON BLARES Thank you so much.
APPLAUSE How did you know? You put all that effort into training, win an Olympic gold medal, you think, "I can always melt that down as a pension" and it's not It's still made of a precious metal.
But it says gold! Must be gold.
There is a small amount of gold.
It has to be at least 92.
5% silver.
I'm determined to get an Olympic gold medal and I get to sue them.
The last ones made of gold were in 1912.
You think bronze? Should be made out of lead.
Whoever's third! LAUGHTER If they made them a bit smaller They're not actual size, Clive! Have you seen them? They're huge medallions.
If they made them tiny.
Not as big as Jim'll Fix It.
"Well done.
You won the 100 metres.
" "Ooh, jewellery.
Jewellery!" LAUGHTER So they're silver medals? They're mostly silver with a small amount of gold, six grams of gold.
Imagine they were 18-carat gold.
How much would each one cost? Ooh, 18-carats? Six grams of 18-carat gold? No.
Imagine the whole thing was still made of 18-carat gold.
At the current rate or the rate that gold was sold off by the Prime Minister ten years ago? Oh, please.
Not that! £5,000? Nearer, £3,000.
Not bad.
£3,000.
over the course of the competition, which you might think worthwhile, considering how much they cost, the Olympic Games, 1.
5 million is a small proportion to reward your medallists with real gold.
Why would you bite, panellistas, why would you bite a gold coin? To check it's real.
What would it tell you? If it wasnot real.
Gold, you can bite right through.
It's the same texture as chocolate.
That's why they're often confused.
LAUGHTER RICH: If it's malleable Real gold should or should not leave a toothmark? Real.
It would leave a toothmark.
A gold coin, like a sovereign.
It should give.
There should be some give in a gold coin.
Ah.
Oddly enough, I thought that.
If you did, you'd slightly spoil it.
That wouldn't matter, but it's the reverse.
If it leaves a toothmark, it's false.
Gold coins were always a mixture of other metals that hardened it.
Fake ones used lead and they did leave an impress.
So you were testing to see that it wasn't lead.
If it left a mark, it wasn't gold.
And if you were eating lead, you would die.
LAUGHTER You'd certainly be ill.
There's no lead in pencils.
Very true.
Well done.
APPLAUSE I've been told that all the gold in the world could be put into this room, if it was compressed.
Wellalmost, probably.
Only 161,000 tonnes of gold has ever been mined in all human history.
The large proportion of that in the last 50 years.
It wouldn't fill two Olympic size swimming pools, the amount of gold.
Nixon pulled the gold standard.
For you.
There's nothing to back the money any more.
Yeah.
This is why the island of Yap has the best standard of currency.
They're huge They're just big stones.
They look like that, the QI.
Big stone.
You put it on your frontyard.
Everybody knows how much money you have.
Brilliant.
It takes, like, LAUGHTER That's a good system.
Coke machines are eight storeys high! Everything was perfect.
They'd move the stones to the next frontyard.
Then this Irish guy came in with counterfeit stones, you know, 20-feet high counterfeit.
Ruined the economy.
< Polystyrene stones? Where's the island of Yap? It's in Micronesia.
How did you test whether it's a real stone or counterfeit? You had to bite it? If your teeth came out, it was a real stone? I'd love to see the bureau de change at the airport.
Anyway, counterfeit gold coins were made with a high lead content.
If your teeth made a mark in them, it was likely that they were fake.
Which of you comes closest to a perfect ideal of a Greek body? Wow! Got to love that ball sack, Phill! Thanks.
I shaved it myself.
I think my helmet's too small for me.
Oddly enough, Phill As for that thing on my head! Seriously, Phill, I want you to show me your helmet.
I happen to know Phill has got a helmet that you can show me.
Wow! That is fan Do you want to show the camera now? Look at that.
He's got a helmet tattoo.
That is a Greek helmet.
Can you see that? Rather fine.
You've got a Greek helmet tattoo.
By one of those weird coincidences, the wrist is at the heart of this question, bizarrely.
We're talking about the Greek ideal.
We all think of a "Greek god"! But what is a Greek ideal? It seems it's all based on the wrist.
You gave us your wrist measurements so we worked out, according to this Greek proportion ideal.
Phill, you've got a wrist of eight inches, the longest of anyone.
There is a thing about wrists that I won't go into.
Anyway, yours is an eight-inch wrist.
Say that again! You've only got a 23-inch thigh.
Your thighs are too small.
My thighs are fabulous! I know they're fabulous! Your neck is perfect.
19 inches, exactly what it should be.
It should be twice the circumference of your wrist.
The rest of you, Rich, Alan and Clive, have seven-inch wrists.
You should have a 17-inch bicep as well.
Yours is 12 and a half, Alan.
LAUGHTER Actually, the one closest to a Greek ideal is Clive Anderson.
Thank you very much.
CHEERS AND APPLAUSE The only one with one of your lineaments being perfectly Greek is Phill, who has a perfect Greek neck.
I feel that the reputation of the Greeks has gone down in the course of this programme! It shows that their ideal was rather butcher, more solid.
A big fat old neck! Maybe.
There was a man called Eugene Sandow - I don't know how he pronounced it.
There he is, the first of the famous bodybuilders.
We had, obviously, Charles Atlas and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
He had a very nasty accident earlier in life.
Five seconds after that picture was taken, trying to lift that column.
He has got a damn good physique for someone of that period, before protein whey powders and anabolic steroids.
He, with Monsieur Attila from France, kind of invented the modern bodybuilding cult.
He used to have great displays in London As it were! Women were invited to touch him and they had smelling salts on hand cos they would faint - they'd never touched people with those muscles.
It was really quite remarkable in the age, cos it simply had never been witnessed.
He was the first one with a scientific approach towards building muscles.
His name was Sandow, or Sandov, and he had a r-r-ripped body! Excellent.
With your wrist size, you can work out your Grecian ideal used by bodybuilders.
Now, what does this formula prove? Oh, I know this! LAUGHTER Lots of Greek lettering on it.
Yes, um It's an ontological proof, a proof by reason alone of something reason alone cannot prove.
Proof of God.
Yes! Very good.
Points.
I thought I recognised it! APPLAUSE The proof was made by one of the great logicians of the 20th century.
Died starving himself to death, sadly.
Friend of Einstein's.
Einstein said he only ever went to work because he enjoyed the walk back so much with this man.
Marvellous multicoloured hair.
Godel, his name was.
He didn't publish it.
He didn't want people to think he believed in God.
He was merely demonstrating how symbolic logic can be used.
I was in a film with people who played Einstein and Godel.
Lou Jacobi played Godel.
Remember that film? IQ.
Yeah.
RICH: With Walter Matthau? Yeah.
Told you how to gamble, didn't he, betting on the horses? Yeah.
He was a swine, Walter.
Great man! Shoulders like this, as if he still had a coathanger in.
He used to Hold my hand.
I'd be in the make-up thing and he'd go, "Let go of my hand!" "Will you let go of my hand? Jesus Christ!" He used to tell me horses to bet on.
I'd go, "I've lost 50 on the Saratoga.
" He said, "You bet on that? Why?" I said, "You told me to.
" "You idiot!" He'd say, "This horse, you've got to bet on.
" I'd say, "Well, I lost 100 this time.
" He said, "You fool!" LAUGHTER Anyway, terrific.
Why did he starve himself to death? I have a formula right here.
B + L + T LAUGHTER .
.
means that you don't starve to death.
Yay! APPLAUSE If only he had known that! Proof of a sandwich.
The sad reason was because he was slightly loopy.
He had paranoid fantasies of being poisoned.
The only person he trusted to taste his food was his wife who was in hospital, so he didn't eat.
Cos she was eating all this poison over the years.
Kurt Godel used modal logic to prove that God exists, though he wasn't convinced by the conclusion.
That's human life, but how could sewage be used to create alien life? CLIVE: Ooh, sewage? To create alien life? Yeah.
Sewage from another planet arriving here? Yes, or our sewage.
Our astronauts jettisoned their doings into space.
Yes.
There is an enormous amount of human poop, now, in the solar system, orbiting the Earth.
There's a film of human faeces on most space junk.
They don't bring it back in a plastic bag, like with a dog? They may do occasionally, but a lot is simply jettisoned.
Just inconsiderate.
Arthur C Clarke had a theory, Toilets Of The Gods.
An article he wrote suggested that maybe our lifeform, as you suggest, was descended from poo from another civilisation.
We're descended from poo? "We may have arisen from dumped sewage.
" This is Arthur C Crap's opinion? His idea came when scientists looked at junk in Earth's orbit, much of which was covered in faecal matter, due to astronauts' sloppy sanitation.
You now have space debris lawyers.
Do you? Yeah.
They specialise in space junk.
Why do you think they'd be needed? In case someone's junk hits someone else's junk? Yeah.
You put up a 300 million satellite.
If a small amount of junk hits it, it can absolutely destroy it.
Neil Armstrong's number two from 1969! Exactly! The reason they keep going up to the Hubble is to wipe off the lens? That may be the case.
They're not telling us.
Did they spend millions of pounds to go with a squeegee and go? I think Why not leave a bloke up there with some Wet Wipes? Cos he'd be producing more rubbish.
He taps on your window.
Pound.
LAUGHTER "I didn't ask you to do it so I'm not giving you any money!" People who put the wipers on to try and stop.
These space lawyers are like ambulance chasers, only they have rockets to take them up there? No, not really.
LAUGHTER It's an extraordinary thought.
Reasonably extraordinary.
Extraordinary enough for our purposes.
We call ourselves Quite Interesting, not Astonishing.
Good.
Human waste could be the start of life on other planets.
Arthur C Clarke suggested we could have developed from alien sewage.
Brace yourselves as we rashly prise open the Pandora's Box of General Ignorance, so fingers please on buttons.
You've just seen a meteorite crash down on Earth.
Why should you not touch it with your bare hands? Why, it's greased lightning! Too hot? N-n-no! Not too hot.
KLAXON BLARES Too cold.
Too cold.
Oddly enough.
It's minus 240 to 270 Celsius when it's in space.
Even though it heats up going through the atmosphere, it's still inside and outside cold, so you might get frostbite.
Like a baked Alaska? No.
It's really cold inside AND outside.
All those poos in space are all frozen solid.
They would be.
Yes.
Horrible thought.
Quite a clang.
Ooh, there they are! LAUGHTER Around 50,000 meteorites larger than 20 grams fall from space to Earth every year.
Most of them are lost? At sea.
At sea.
More have been found on which continent than any other? Australia.
No.
Antarctica.
Antarctica.
They're attracted by the cold, homing instinct.
Bit tough on the penguins.
How many deaths have been recorded by meteorites? Ask the penguins! That's why they stand up.
Less of a surface area.
"Don't touch that.
It's freezing.
" "Don't be ridiculous.
" None reported.
A dog was reportedly killed by one in Egypt in 1911.
No humans.
A boy was hit but not seriously injured in Uganda in '92.
Hit by a meteorite from space that's freezing cold, and not seriously injured? What are they made of? "Oh, it killed the dog.
" That's a back-lit meteorite.
They've got holes in, as you see.
That poor person is welded to it by the cold.
It's been allowed to chambre.
It's now equalised its temperature with Earth.
A chambred meteorite! Best served at room temperature.
Always serve your meteorite at room temperature.
I think so.
Anyway, what happens the instant you get sucked into a vacuum? You die! LAUGHTER # Why, it's greased lightning! You die instantly from asphyxiation.
KLAXON BLARES Oh, Alan.
If a human being were to be inside a vacuum you wouldn't die instantly.
You wouldn't last long.
It wouldn't be any worse than being in Belgium or Watford? CLIVE: How long do we get in this vacuum? Depends how much air you'd breathed in before.
I'm basing an answer on something in a science fiction film! You exhale.
Yes.
You shouldn't hold your breath.
Are we talking seconds, minutes? Hours? Minutes.
You can't survive hours without air.
Gas escaping from your body would make you simultaneously defecate, projectile vomit and urinate.
Just like an astronaut! I bet they've done it with small mammals in labs.
I fear they probably have "Let's put a cat in there!" I'm afraid that's how we know.
Experiments with animals "Brilliant!" You can survive with no long-term problems for a couple of minutes.
What would you do with that time? The first sensation is the moisture in your tongue boiling.
Loss of taste may continue for days.
They have had accidents involving humans.
Like having a very strong curry? Tongue boils then all your innards fall out.
Very similar to a vindaloo.
A vacuum-loo.
Yeah.
It's pretty unpleasant.
Avoid it, if you see one of those.
Avoid it! What an idiot he was! LAUGHTER Bless.
Experiments and accidents have shown that people can survive in a vacuum for a couple of minutes.
Which country has weekly news broadcasts in Latin? Nuntii Latini.
Vatican City would, surely, have Vatican City, eh? Yes.
KLAXON BLARES It's going well tonight.
Do we? No, we don't.
Channel 5 do them in pig Latin for a laugh.
Ow-nay, the eadlines-hay.
Oday-tay, the ime minister-pray LAUGHTER A five-minute Latin news bulletin once a week at 1.
55 in the afternoon every Friday.
On local radio in Helsinki Finland! Thank you.
Yes, Finland.
Why do they do that? I thought they were broadcasting into space, in case aliens are going, "Hang on a minute.
That sounds familiar.
" Latin aliens! "We stopped speaking that years ago when we left that god-awful planet.
" Is it educational? Not particularly.
Radio Bremen in Germany carries four minutes of news per month in Latin.
They're the only two, as far as we know.
More people outside Finland understand Latin than Finnish.
That's their reason, which doesn't make much sense.
A Finnish musician, Jukka Ammondt, has recorded several albums in Latin including Elvis covers.
What is Nunc Hic Aut Nunquam? Are You Lonesome Tonight? No.
# Nunc hic aut nunquam # RICH: It's Now Or Never.
Cor Ligneum? Jailhouse Rock.
LAUGHTER Wooden Heart.
Thank you.
Wooden heart.
Very good.
And Tenere Me Ama.
Tender.
Love Me Tender.
Love Me Tender.
There you are.
I wasn't demanding that you love me tender, Rich.
Stand down, Rich.
You can be as rough as you like! LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE Excellent.
You and me are gonna have a symposium! Excellent.
Finland has a radio station that broadcasts in Latin, as does Bremen.
What are you most likely to see thrown at the end of a Greek meal? Plates.
Oh! KLAXON BLARES Come on! They don't throw the plates any more? No, they don't, for health and safety reasons.
I can't remember where, but there were two restaurants, one did plate throwing, one didn't.
Camden.
It was the main choice you made of an evening, plate throwing or not? You sit in the quiet one and about half ten you could hear them kick off.
For the Greek plate constructing industry, fantastic! Get through a new set every night.
They're mainly seconds.
I think you're right.
Not the best.
Unfortunately, it tends to be CLIVE: Rice.
Something soft so that it can't hurt, you can't be sued.
Women.
LAUGHTER I don't know where to begin with that one! Not the best women, obviously.
The seconds.
Bless you.
Heaven bless this child.
Women come from miles to be thrown around a restaurant.
Even the women were smashed.
Is it confetti or rice? Flowers.
Flowers.
Well done, Phill.
I bet the old Greek men hate that.
There's pub near me, when Greece won the European Championship, a blue plaque appeared on the wall, homemade, but looked like a proper blue plaque they have in London.
It said, "In 2004, when Greece won the European Championship" Then there's a Greek name, Angelos or something.
".
.
ran naked down the New North Road.
" Fabulous! Returning to traditions of Ancient Greece! Completes our circle! Gymnossed down the New North Road.
That's very pleasing.
Very pleased about that.
So, due to health and safety gone MAD restaurants in Greece require a licence to throw plates, so you see flowers thrown, they make less mess.
Now, talking of mess, the scores.
But we should do this the Athenian way.
LAUGHTER We should offer Alan the chance I can say that Alan is coming last.
It's one of my best features.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE You mean when you're bringing up the rear? Very Greek! Who would you like to swap with? The audience.
That's very good.
LAUGHTER The audience are doing rather well.
They haven't had any forfeits.
I'll allow you to swap if you will tell me what it was that got the audience their ten points.
Now, no help! Argh! Of course you do.
Oh, it was the thing about the No.
LAUGHTER Oh, I'm going to be really upset tonight.
LAUGHTER As soon as he tells me I'm going to be really Five, four ALAN MIMICS COUNTDOWN CLOCK .
.
three, two, one, zero.
Audience shout it out.
One, two, three.
ALL: Oscar Deutsch.
Oscar Deutsch.
The Odeon.
I'm afraid you have to keep your score.
So, in first place with a gold medal made in 92.
5% silver, Clive Anderson with three points.
CHEERS AND APPLAUSE In second place with two points, Rich Hall.
APPLAUSE In third place with minus five, Phill Jupitus.
APPLAUSE CHUCKLING: In fourth place, oh dear, with minus 47, Alan Davies.
WHISTLES AND APPLAUSE The real winner is the audience with their Oscar Deutsch ten points.
It's good night from QI, from Phill, Rich, Clive, Alan and me.
Finally, there's a story of a Greek and an Italian having an argument over who had the superior culture.
The Greek said proudly, "We have the Parthenon.
" The Italian counters with, "We have the Colosseum.
" The Greek retorts, "We gave birth to advanced mathematics.
" "Yes," says the Italian.
"But we built the Roman Empire.
" The Greek comes up with a clincher.
"We invented sex," he says.
The Italian replies, "But we thought of having it with women.
" Good night.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Limbering up in the gymnasium of thought we have tonight a handsome Adonis in Clive Anderson.
CHEERS AND APPLAUSE An Odysseus, Rich Hall! CHEERS AND APPLAUSE A legendary demi-God, Phill Jupitus.
CHEERS AND APPLAUSE And our Achilles' heel, Alan Davies.
CHEERS AND APPLAUSE Their buzzers are all Greece-y! Clive goes STATELY ORCHESTRAL MUSIC You'll recognise that as the Greek national anthem.
Rich goes MUSIC: "Zorba The Greek" Phill goes TRADITIONAL GREEK FOLK TUNE And Alan goes Greased lightning Oh, greased lightning! Now that we're "Greece-d up", here's my first question.
You're a wealthy Athenian and you're invited to sponsor a battleship.
How do you get out of it? Out of the ship? Out of the sponsor-ship.
How do you get out of sponsoring this expensive business? I see.
If you were rich, did you? Not if you were Rich.
Have you ever funded the Greek navy? I've never funded the Greek navy.
But if history has taught us anything, it's that I should've.
You puzzled yourself there, didn't you? Yeah.
If you were rich, did you have to? There wasn't much taxation in Greece, but when it came to things like the ships, they made the richest Athenian citizens pay for it.
You got an accountant to explain how to put your money in a rowing boat.
Put it off-shore.
Off-shore! Yes! The great thing about Greece was it was a true democracy in an extraordinary way.
If your property was worth they said, "You have to pay for our navy.
" To challenge it, you had to find someone you thought was richer, and appear together in court.
You had to offer to swap all your property with the guy you thought was richer.
And the guy you thought Bagsy swapsy with you, Stephen! So the Greek military tactics were based loosely on Swap Shop? LAUGHTER Multi-Coloured Swapus Shopus.
Yes.
No, it's quite a clever idea.
Sponsorship is Greek, then? Well, not necessarily Greek.
I guess people had sponsored things before.
But the "ship" bit of words? The "ship"? Yeah.
"Sponsorship".
"Championship"? That's Germanic.
Yeah.
Just curious.
You're very good on words.
I like to check.
There's the extraordinary thing of how the F became P.
Pfennig became penny.
Pfeffer became pepper.
All the German Fs became Ps.
It happened so much so in Arabic that all the Ps disappeared.
They're all Fs.
Sharip became Sharif.
One of the interesting byways I use the word "interesting" obviously wrongly! LAUGHTER I am quite interested.
This is just for ME! Thank you! The brothers Grimm, we think of for fairytales, invented the subject of linguistics and they traced the great fricative shift.
CHUCKLING: Or the great "pricative" shift, you might say.
How did we get here? LAUGHTER So, to summarise, if you're called upon to sponsor a ship, and you're rich, you had to, unless you could find a richer person.
And you tested if they were richer than you by offering to swap your fortunes in court.
You're spending the weekend with your grandmother.
Which would she prefer? A Roman orgy or a Greek symposium? Does this depend on the granny? It sort of does, but let's assume Symposium is a fun thing.
A symposium? It's a drinking thing.
You're right.
"Symposium", which is now used to mean a seminar Yeah.
.
.
people talking about intellectual things Are you saying that "orgy" didn't mean anything to do with sex? It did mean a dinner party, but It was also stuff for kids.
You know, in an orgy.
It wasn't just adults.
No Petting zoo LAUGHTER Anyway The perhaps surprising thing is that a Roman orgy tended not to be a particularly wild sexual feast.
It was more about the food, the extravagance of the display.
Like Caligula, they were more famous for having solid gold food, and food like fish, that was bright blue, so it looked as if it was still in the ocean - a food party.
Did they really eat so much, you brought it up again? The vomitorium? Of course, a vomitorium is actually an exit from a theatre, where the people are vomited out.
Especially if you've just seen Mama Mia.
I always expect to lose points when I say anything I THINK I know.
They made themselves sick in order that they could carry on eating.
Did they really do that? People definitely did that in pubs when I was growing up.
Throw up in order to drink more? Go outside.
Be sick on the pavement.
Yeah.
Shake the head, go straight back to the bar.
The tactical chunder is very LAUGHTER Totally.
"I feel terrible.
I'm going to have to have a tactical chunder!" Come back.
"I'm fine now.
" That makes sense, I suppose.
in the gutter! Rich is looking bemused.
No.
I've seen it.
I believe you.
I've tried to do it myself but it doesn't work the same.
So it really depends on what your granny is into.
The point is that orgies were not as debauched as symposia.
What should you do if you see a Spartan with a new hairdo? There is one.
Slightly Boris Johnson, but it's a start.
Collar and cuffs aren't matching! LAUGHTER They're not, are they? A handily placed scabbard! The painter goes, "Just move that.
" Give him a wide berth? Do they have their hair cut before combat? I'm going to have to give you all those points.
That is exactly right.
APPLAUSE Before the battle of Thermopylae, the Persians made a mistake.
One of their spies who'd gone to the Spartan camp said, "They're a load of nancy boys.
I've seen them doing their hair.
" "You going anywhere?" "Into battle.
" "Who are you against? The Persians? They're a nasty lot! "Over at Thermopylae? Ooh! I wouldn't tell anybody.
" What the Persians didn't know was that when the Spartans did their hair they were prepared to die.
They were preparing their bodies for mortal combat.
Who's going to notice your haircut with your junk hanging out? Never heard it called "junk" before! Put on some pants before you go into battle! Fighting pants.
Yeah.
Your best fighting pants.
What do we know about the Spartans? They were good in that film, It could have been camper because in historical fact, those 300 Spartans were accompanied by 700 Thespians.
Really? "Let's do the show HERE!" LAUGHTER It Ain't Half Hot Mum.
"Lovely boy! Lovely boy!" "A waste of space, what is you?" and all that.
"La-di-da, Gunner Graham!" "La-di-da, Gunner Graham!" Was there stereotyping? "Those Spartans are like that.
" Or were they genuinely run on different lines? I think they were.
As you know, the Spartans and Athenians went to war.
Sadly for us who love classical civilisation, the Spartans won, who were the least interested art, harmony, music, mathematics, logic and politics.
They were a war-like race.
It's like as if the Klingons beat the Vulcans in Star Trek.
Awful! It would be.
That's what Star Trek is kind of based on.
Unthinkable, Stephen! I know.
Can you imag such a thing? Or the Daleks.
Yeah.
Yeah.
A warrior people.
Or Britain beating France! Yes.
Do you know the word "laconic"? I dunno.
Is it from Star Trek? Do you know what "laconic" means? RICH: I do.
Kind of means taking your time.
Taking your time Before you answer.
When the Peloponnesian War took place, the Athenians they sent a messenger to Sparta.
"If we beat you, we will not spare your children.
We will destroy your civilisation.
We will spare no-one.
" The Spartans sent one word reply.
Yeah.
"Bovvered?" No.
LAUGHTER Similar APPLAUSE I hate to disagree with the audience, but it was better.
It was simply the first word of the message.
"If.
" Ah! "If.
" And that was the original laconic reply, the Spartan reply.
"If we beat you" "Yeah.
If.
" If you see a Spartan with a new hairstyle run as fast as you can.
According to Herodotus, the last thing a Spartan soldier did before a fight was get a new do.
What's the proper thing to wear to the gym? Oh, please! Now, that's disturbing.
Look at your tiny arms! It's rather weird, isn't it? LAUGHTER I remember that day! LAUGHTER Oh, we had fun that day! Didn't we just? I like to be left alone at the gym.
> I wear Speedos and brown wing tips.
Right.
Not a stitch.
The point is not a stitch.
Gymnos is the Greek for "naked".
That's what "gymnasium" means, "a naked place".
Now that's Britain's Got Talent! LAUGHTER In the Olympics, they ran naked, didn't they? Yes.
Quite hard to be the high hurdle champion.
Terrible if your tackle WAS the reason you didn't get the high jump.
"Done a lovely job there.
Oh, no.
His knackers just caught the bar! "Another man let down by his tackle!" What you're looking at there is a kynodesme, a pouch in which your penis is held in an upright position and tied in a bow.
For Christmas! LAUGHTER For what reason, doing sporting activities? So it didn't flap about, I guess.
If your trainer wanted to get your attention, he'd pull the string! There are other things with the root "gymnos" meaning "naked".
Gymnopedia, the dances performed by naked boys at public festivals.
LAUGHTER There is To gymnologise is to debate whilst naked.
Let's gymnologise! WHOOPING FROM AUDIENCE After you, audience.
LAUGHTER No, I didn't mean it! There we are.
A lot of nudity in Greece.
They began as places for the middle classes to train for battle.
There they are.
That's an affectionate form of wrestling! Mud wrestling.
It's rather sweet.
The one on the left < Greco-Roman, but mostly Greco.
There's a lot of that going on, obviously.
I presume they're playing a slowy.
LAUGHTER The gymnasium # Loving you Is easy cos you're They became places of education, as Clive pointed out.
The famous ones were the Academy and the Lyceum.
The Academy, where Plato taught, and from which we get "academy".
It's a night club in the N1 Centre.
It was named after a Greek hero.
Academae.
Lyceum is where the Joe Loss Band played.
It was.
The French lycee, meaning a school, is from the same root.
So many common words come from things like that.
Gymnasium is an academy.
The Odeon was a cinema in Ancient Greece.
It should be! Do you know what its origin is? I've no idea.
Audience? < Oscar Deutsch.
Ten points! Oscar Deutsch, the founder.
OD were his initials.
Odeon.
Well done.
Round of applause.
APPLAUSE What happens in this game if someone in this audience wins? They take their clothes off and parade all around here.
So, to the Ancient Greeks, gymnasium was a place to get naked, though they liked to wear a bit of support.
Name the event in which Baron de Coubertin won his Olympic medal.
Who was Baron de Coubertin? The one who reinvented the Olympics? Yes, the father of the modern Olympic movement.
An event that he was the only person who did it.
So he could win it.
To give him credit, he did it anonymously.
That's why he's wearing a false moustache.
How many events can you enter anonymously? Ernot many, I suppose.
Exactly.
So something when you're hidden.
You don't need to be seen.
A race between pantomime horses.
He was the winning horse! It's not as absurd as it sounds.
There were some really odd events.
You're completely hidden? Well? Tunnelling.
Olympic tunnelling.
You're thinking of physical things, aren't you? Ah.
The Olympic Games was wider.
Essay writing or poem composing.
Poem is the answer.
He won the gold medal for poetry.
Shut up! Oh! You think THAT's weird? All the way up to 1948 there was town planning in the Olympics.
LAUGHTER Won by a Milton Keynes! Lost by Milton Keynes, you imagine.
There were all kinds of artistic categories.
Sculpture, music, painting Sculpture! "And look at him go! The young Greek! "The young Greek's mallet is flying!" The oldest ever medal winner was a silver medal winner aged 73, in the 1948 engravings and etchings event.
CLIVE: Fantastic! He was a Briton called John Copley.
In 1900, a woman won possibly the oddest event, a farmer's wife.
It was the poodle clipping event.
She trimmed 17 poodles in two hours.
She got a gold medal for it.
I'm sure she did.
That's impressive even to me.
Do you know the reason they stopped doing the sculpture and painting? Something to do with the drugs and the sex testing.
The reason they stopped was because they felt that it compromised the idea of amateurism.
The artists were artists for the rest of the year.
The other Olympians, those who threw javelins, held down other jobs.
Moving on Who knows what Olympic gold medals are made of? Probablypartially CLIVE: We've been on this programme! ALL SPEAK TOGETHER The surface, I would suggest LAUGHTER They're made of gold.
Oh, bless you! KLAXON BLARES APPLAUSE I think they might have another one in there.
Chocolate! Ah! KLAXON BLARES Thank you so much.
APPLAUSE How did you know? You put all that effort into training, win an Olympic gold medal, you think, "I can always melt that down as a pension" and it's not It's still made of a precious metal.
But it says gold! Must be gold.
There is a small amount of gold.
It has to be at least 92.
5% silver.
I'm determined to get an Olympic gold medal and I get to sue them.
The last ones made of gold were in 1912.
You think bronze? Should be made out of lead.
Whoever's third! LAUGHTER If they made them a bit smaller They're not actual size, Clive! Have you seen them? They're huge medallions.
If they made them tiny.
Not as big as Jim'll Fix It.
"Well done.
You won the 100 metres.
" "Ooh, jewellery.
Jewellery!" LAUGHTER So they're silver medals? They're mostly silver with a small amount of gold, six grams of gold.
Imagine they were 18-carat gold.
How much would each one cost? Ooh, 18-carats? Six grams of 18-carat gold? No.
Imagine the whole thing was still made of 18-carat gold.
At the current rate or the rate that gold was sold off by the Prime Minister ten years ago? Oh, please.
Not that! £5,000? Nearer, £3,000.
Not bad.
£3,000.
over the course of the competition, which you might think worthwhile, considering how much they cost, the Olympic Games, 1.
5 million is a small proportion to reward your medallists with real gold.
Why would you bite, panellistas, why would you bite a gold coin? To check it's real.
What would it tell you? If it wasnot real.
Gold, you can bite right through.
It's the same texture as chocolate.
That's why they're often confused.
LAUGHTER RICH: If it's malleable Real gold should or should not leave a toothmark? Real.
It would leave a toothmark.
A gold coin, like a sovereign.
It should give.
There should be some give in a gold coin.
Ah.
Oddly enough, I thought that.
If you did, you'd slightly spoil it.
That wouldn't matter, but it's the reverse.
If it leaves a toothmark, it's false.
Gold coins were always a mixture of other metals that hardened it.
Fake ones used lead and they did leave an impress.
So you were testing to see that it wasn't lead.
If it left a mark, it wasn't gold.
And if you were eating lead, you would die.
LAUGHTER You'd certainly be ill.
There's no lead in pencils.
Very true.
Well done.
APPLAUSE I've been told that all the gold in the world could be put into this room, if it was compressed.
Wellalmost, probably.
Only 161,000 tonnes of gold has ever been mined in all human history.
The large proportion of that in the last 50 years.
It wouldn't fill two Olympic size swimming pools, the amount of gold.
Nixon pulled the gold standard.
For you.
There's nothing to back the money any more.
Yeah.
This is why the island of Yap has the best standard of currency.
They're huge They're just big stones.
They look like that, the QI.
Big stone.
You put it on your frontyard.
Everybody knows how much money you have.
Brilliant.
It takes, like, LAUGHTER That's a good system.
Coke machines are eight storeys high! Everything was perfect.
They'd move the stones to the next frontyard.
Then this Irish guy came in with counterfeit stones, you know, 20-feet high counterfeit.
Ruined the economy.
< Polystyrene stones? Where's the island of Yap? It's in Micronesia.
How did you test whether it's a real stone or counterfeit? You had to bite it? If your teeth came out, it was a real stone? I'd love to see the bureau de change at the airport.
Anyway, counterfeit gold coins were made with a high lead content.
If your teeth made a mark in them, it was likely that they were fake.
Which of you comes closest to a perfect ideal of a Greek body? Wow! Got to love that ball sack, Phill! Thanks.
I shaved it myself.
I think my helmet's too small for me.
Oddly enough, Phill As for that thing on my head! Seriously, Phill, I want you to show me your helmet.
I happen to know Phill has got a helmet that you can show me.
Wow! That is fan Do you want to show the camera now? Look at that.
He's got a helmet tattoo.
That is a Greek helmet.
Can you see that? Rather fine.
You've got a Greek helmet tattoo.
By one of those weird coincidences, the wrist is at the heart of this question, bizarrely.
We're talking about the Greek ideal.
We all think of a "Greek god"! But what is a Greek ideal? It seems it's all based on the wrist.
You gave us your wrist measurements so we worked out, according to this Greek proportion ideal.
Phill, you've got a wrist of eight inches, the longest of anyone.
There is a thing about wrists that I won't go into.
Anyway, yours is an eight-inch wrist.
Say that again! You've only got a 23-inch thigh.
Your thighs are too small.
My thighs are fabulous! I know they're fabulous! Your neck is perfect.
19 inches, exactly what it should be.
It should be twice the circumference of your wrist.
The rest of you, Rich, Alan and Clive, have seven-inch wrists.
You should have a 17-inch bicep as well.
Yours is 12 and a half, Alan.
LAUGHTER Actually, the one closest to a Greek ideal is Clive Anderson.
Thank you very much.
CHEERS AND APPLAUSE The only one with one of your lineaments being perfectly Greek is Phill, who has a perfect Greek neck.
I feel that the reputation of the Greeks has gone down in the course of this programme! It shows that their ideal was rather butcher, more solid.
A big fat old neck! Maybe.
There was a man called Eugene Sandow - I don't know how he pronounced it.
There he is, the first of the famous bodybuilders.
We had, obviously, Charles Atlas and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
He had a very nasty accident earlier in life.
Five seconds after that picture was taken, trying to lift that column.
He has got a damn good physique for someone of that period, before protein whey powders and anabolic steroids.
He, with Monsieur Attila from France, kind of invented the modern bodybuilding cult.
He used to have great displays in London As it were! Women were invited to touch him and they had smelling salts on hand cos they would faint - they'd never touched people with those muscles.
It was really quite remarkable in the age, cos it simply had never been witnessed.
He was the first one with a scientific approach towards building muscles.
His name was Sandow, or Sandov, and he had a r-r-ripped body! Excellent.
With your wrist size, you can work out your Grecian ideal used by bodybuilders.
Now, what does this formula prove? Oh, I know this! LAUGHTER Lots of Greek lettering on it.
Yes, um It's an ontological proof, a proof by reason alone of something reason alone cannot prove.
Proof of God.
Yes! Very good.
Points.
I thought I recognised it! APPLAUSE The proof was made by one of the great logicians of the 20th century.
Died starving himself to death, sadly.
Friend of Einstein's.
Einstein said he only ever went to work because he enjoyed the walk back so much with this man.
Marvellous multicoloured hair.
Godel, his name was.
He didn't publish it.
He didn't want people to think he believed in God.
He was merely demonstrating how symbolic logic can be used.
I was in a film with people who played Einstein and Godel.
Lou Jacobi played Godel.
Remember that film? IQ.
Yeah.
RICH: With Walter Matthau? Yeah.
Told you how to gamble, didn't he, betting on the horses? Yeah.
He was a swine, Walter.
Great man! Shoulders like this, as if he still had a coathanger in.
He used to Hold my hand.
I'd be in the make-up thing and he'd go, "Let go of my hand!" "Will you let go of my hand? Jesus Christ!" He used to tell me horses to bet on.
I'd go, "I've lost 50 on the Saratoga.
" He said, "You bet on that? Why?" I said, "You told me to.
" "You idiot!" He'd say, "This horse, you've got to bet on.
" I'd say, "Well, I lost 100 this time.
" He said, "You fool!" LAUGHTER Anyway, terrific.
Why did he starve himself to death? I have a formula right here.
B + L + T LAUGHTER .
.
means that you don't starve to death.
Yay! APPLAUSE If only he had known that! Proof of a sandwich.
The sad reason was because he was slightly loopy.
He had paranoid fantasies of being poisoned.
The only person he trusted to taste his food was his wife who was in hospital, so he didn't eat.
Cos she was eating all this poison over the years.
Kurt Godel used modal logic to prove that God exists, though he wasn't convinced by the conclusion.
That's human life, but how could sewage be used to create alien life? CLIVE: Ooh, sewage? To create alien life? Yeah.
Sewage from another planet arriving here? Yes, or our sewage.
Our astronauts jettisoned their doings into space.
Yes.
There is an enormous amount of human poop, now, in the solar system, orbiting the Earth.
There's a film of human faeces on most space junk.
They don't bring it back in a plastic bag, like with a dog? They may do occasionally, but a lot is simply jettisoned.
Just inconsiderate.
Arthur C Clarke had a theory, Toilets Of The Gods.
An article he wrote suggested that maybe our lifeform, as you suggest, was descended from poo from another civilisation.
We're descended from poo? "We may have arisen from dumped sewage.
" This is Arthur C Crap's opinion? His idea came when scientists looked at junk in Earth's orbit, much of which was covered in faecal matter, due to astronauts' sloppy sanitation.
You now have space debris lawyers.
Do you? Yeah.
They specialise in space junk.
Why do you think they'd be needed? In case someone's junk hits someone else's junk? Yeah.
You put up a 300 million satellite.
If a small amount of junk hits it, it can absolutely destroy it.
Neil Armstrong's number two from 1969! Exactly! The reason they keep going up to the Hubble is to wipe off the lens? That may be the case.
They're not telling us.
Did they spend millions of pounds to go with a squeegee and go? I think Why not leave a bloke up there with some Wet Wipes? Cos he'd be producing more rubbish.
He taps on your window.
Pound.
LAUGHTER "I didn't ask you to do it so I'm not giving you any money!" People who put the wipers on to try and stop.
These space lawyers are like ambulance chasers, only they have rockets to take them up there? No, not really.
LAUGHTER It's an extraordinary thought.
Reasonably extraordinary.
Extraordinary enough for our purposes.
We call ourselves Quite Interesting, not Astonishing.
Good.
Human waste could be the start of life on other planets.
Arthur C Clarke suggested we could have developed from alien sewage.
Brace yourselves as we rashly prise open the Pandora's Box of General Ignorance, so fingers please on buttons.
You've just seen a meteorite crash down on Earth.
Why should you not touch it with your bare hands? Why, it's greased lightning! Too hot? N-n-no! Not too hot.
KLAXON BLARES Too cold.
Too cold.
Oddly enough.
It's minus 240 to 270 Celsius when it's in space.
Even though it heats up going through the atmosphere, it's still inside and outside cold, so you might get frostbite.
Like a baked Alaska? No.
It's really cold inside AND outside.
All those poos in space are all frozen solid.
They would be.
Yes.
Horrible thought.
Quite a clang.
Ooh, there they are! LAUGHTER Around 50,000 meteorites larger than 20 grams fall from space to Earth every year.
Most of them are lost? At sea.
At sea.
More have been found on which continent than any other? Australia.
No.
Antarctica.
Antarctica.
They're attracted by the cold, homing instinct.
Bit tough on the penguins.
How many deaths have been recorded by meteorites? Ask the penguins! That's why they stand up.
Less of a surface area.
"Don't touch that.
It's freezing.
" "Don't be ridiculous.
" None reported.
A dog was reportedly killed by one in Egypt in 1911.
No humans.
A boy was hit but not seriously injured in Uganda in '92.
Hit by a meteorite from space that's freezing cold, and not seriously injured? What are they made of? "Oh, it killed the dog.
" That's a back-lit meteorite.
They've got holes in, as you see.
That poor person is welded to it by the cold.
It's been allowed to chambre.
It's now equalised its temperature with Earth.
A chambred meteorite! Best served at room temperature.
Always serve your meteorite at room temperature.
I think so.
Anyway, what happens the instant you get sucked into a vacuum? You die! LAUGHTER # Why, it's greased lightning! You die instantly from asphyxiation.
KLAXON BLARES Oh, Alan.
If a human being were to be inside a vacuum you wouldn't die instantly.
You wouldn't last long.
It wouldn't be any worse than being in Belgium or Watford? CLIVE: How long do we get in this vacuum? Depends how much air you'd breathed in before.
I'm basing an answer on something in a science fiction film! You exhale.
Yes.
You shouldn't hold your breath.
Are we talking seconds, minutes? Hours? Minutes.
You can't survive hours without air.
Gas escaping from your body would make you simultaneously defecate, projectile vomit and urinate.
Just like an astronaut! I bet they've done it with small mammals in labs.
I fear they probably have "Let's put a cat in there!" I'm afraid that's how we know.
Experiments with animals "Brilliant!" You can survive with no long-term problems for a couple of minutes.
What would you do with that time? The first sensation is the moisture in your tongue boiling.
Loss of taste may continue for days.
They have had accidents involving humans.
Like having a very strong curry? Tongue boils then all your innards fall out.
Very similar to a vindaloo.
A vacuum-loo.
Yeah.
It's pretty unpleasant.
Avoid it, if you see one of those.
Avoid it! What an idiot he was! LAUGHTER Bless.
Experiments and accidents have shown that people can survive in a vacuum for a couple of minutes.
Which country has weekly news broadcasts in Latin? Nuntii Latini.
Vatican City would, surely, have Vatican City, eh? Yes.
KLAXON BLARES It's going well tonight.
Do we? No, we don't.
Channel 5 do them in pig Latin for a laugh.
Ow-nay, the eadlines-hay.
Oday-tay, the ime minister-pray LAUGHTER A five-minute Latin news bulletin once a week at 1.
55 in the afternoon every Friday.
On local radio in Helsinki Finland! Thank you.
Yes, Finland.
Why do they do that? I thought they were broadcasting into space, in case aliens are going, "Hang on a minute.
That sounds familiar.
" Latin aliens! "We stopped speaking that years ago when we left that god-awful planet.
" Is it educational? Not particularly.
Radio Bremen in Germany carries four minutes of news per month in Latin.
They're the only two, as far as we know.
More people outside Finland understand Latin than Finnish.
That's their reason, which doesn't make much sense.
A Finnish musician, Jukka Ammondt, has recorded several albums in Latin including Elvis covers.
What is Nunc Hic Aut Nunquam? Are You Lonesome Tonight? No.
# Nunc hic aut nunquam # RICH: It's Now Or Never.
Cor Ligneum? Jailhouse Rock.
LAUGHTER Wooden Heart.
Thank you.
Wooden heart.
Very good.
And Tenere Me Ama.
Tender.
Love Me Tender.
Love Me Tender.
There you are.
I wasn't demanding that you love me tender, Rich.
Stand down, Rich.
You can be as rough as you like! LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE Excellent.
You and me are gonna have a symposium! Excellent.
Finland has a radio station that broadcasts in Latin, as does Bremen.
What are you most likely to see thrown at the end of a Greek meal? Plates.
Oh! KLAXON BLARES Come on! They don't throw the plates any more? No, they don't, for health and safety reasons.
I can't remember where, but there were two restaurants, one did plate throwing, one didn't.
Camden.
It was the main choice you made of an evening, plate throwing or not? You sit in the quiet one and about half ten you could hear them kick off.
For the Greek plate constructing industry, fantastic! Get through a new set every night.
They're mainly seconds.
I think you're right.
Not the best.
Unfortunately, it tends to be CLIVE: Rice.
Something soft so that it can't hurt, you can't be sued.
Women.
LAUGHTER I don't know where to begin with that one! Not the best women, obviously.
The seconds.
Bless you.
Heaven bless this child.
Women come from miles to be thrown around a restaurant.
Even the women were smashed.
Is it confetti or rice? Flowers.
Flowers.
Well done, Phill.
I bet the old Greek men hate that.
There's pub near me, when Greece won the European Championship, a blue plaque appeared on the wall, homemade, but looked like a proper blue plaque they have in London.
It said, "In 2004, when Greece won the European Championship" Then there's a Greek name, Angelos or something.
".
.
ran naked down the New North Road.
" Fabulous! Returning to traditions of Ancient Greece! Completes our circle! Gymnossed down the New North Road.
That's very pleasing.
Very pleased about that.
So, due to health and safety gone MAD restaurants in Greece require a licence to throw plates, so you see flowers thrown, they make less mess.
Now, talking of mess, the scores.
But we should do this the Athenian way.
LAUGHTER We should offer Alan the chance I can say that Alan is coming last.
It's one of my best features.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE You mean when you're bringing up the rear? Very Greek! Who would you like to swap with? The audience.
That's very good.
LAUGHTER The audience are doing rather well.
They haven't had any forfeits.
I'll allow you to swap if you will tell me what it was that got the audience their ten points.
Now, no help! Argh! Of course you do.
Oh, it was the thing about the No.
LAUGHTER Oh, I'm going to be really upset tonight.
LAUGHTER As soon as he tells me I'm going to be really Five, four ALAN MIMICS COUNTDOWN CLOCK .
.
three, two, one, zero.
Audience shout it out.
One, two, three.
ALL: Oscar Deutsch.
Oscar Deutsch.
The Odeon.
I'm afraid you have to keep your score.
So, in first place with a gold medal made in 92.
5% silver, Clive Anderson with three points.
CHEERS AND APPLAUSE In second place with two points, Rich Hall.
APPLAUSE In third place with minus five, Phill Jupitus.
APPLAUSE CHUCKLING: In fourth place, oh dear, with minus 47, Alan Davies.
WHISTLES AND APPLAUSE The real winner is the audience with their Oscar Deutsch ten points.
It's good night from QI, from Phill, Rich, Clive, Alan and me.
Finally, there's a story of a Greek and an Italian having an argument over who had the superior culture.
The Greek said proudly, "We have the Parthenon.
" The Italian counters with, "We have the Colosseum.
" The Greek retorts, "We gave birth to advanced mathematics.
" "Yes," says the Italian.
"But we built the Roman Empire.
" The Greek comes up with a clincher.
"We invented sex," he says.
The Italian replies, "But we thought of having it with women.
" Good night.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE