QI (2003) s11e09 Episode Script
Kinetic
This programme contains some strong language.
Gooooooood evening, good evening, good evening, good evening and welcome to QI, where tonight we're on the move with K for Kinetic.
Let's meet motor-mouth Danny Baker.
Thank you.
Good evening.
Thank you.
Speed-freak Marcus Brigstocke.
Go-go girl Jo Brand.
Go-go girl? And poetry in motion - Alan Davies.
Thank you.
That's nice.
And let's hear your beats, bruvs.
Danny goes I like to move it, move it Yeah.
It's too loud for me today.
Marcus goes I've got the moves like Jagger Jo goes Moving on up Nothing can stop me And Alan goes Saturday night at the movies Who cares what picture we see Movies.
Kinema was originally what cinema was called.
From the same word as kinetic, it was kinematic moving, ie, moving pictures.
Well, Kinetic of course means anything to do with movement, so, for heaven's sake, let's get moving.
Where will this get me? I'm going to find my broom here.
If I were to move my hands together like this, what would happen? Whether I did this one a bit more than that one, or that one a bit more than that one.
What would happen, at the end, when my hands met? The heavy end would fall down.
No.
Shut up! Extraordinary, when you do this, you will always find it meets at the centre of gravity.
Always.
Because the resistance from the heavy end slows Yeah, exactly, so as long as you're just sort of doing it without thinking, you know, it just meets up like that, and it balances.
It doesn't actually look a very natural implement in your hand, Stephen.
But you've got one.
Maybe it'll look more natural in yours.
Yeah, I am a drudge.
You can ride it home tonight.
Here we go.
You've all got one, so try it.
Obviously His fell apart! .
.
everybody except Alan.
Now try properly.
Obviously the left hand won't move as far as the right one.
Is it working for you, Marcus? Please, God! Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jo isn't even trying.
No, well, I can tell you, there are women all over the country going, "Look at the silly bastards.
We've got to clean the floor with it.
" Oh, man, this is I've been trying this all afternoon and I can't make it do anything else.
No! It's like it's got the Uri Geller touch about it, it's just Ohhh, cool.
That is bizarre.
Aaah.
Well, that's really disappointing.
This one's Kate Moss.
Yeah, baby.
I'm completely astounded.
We're all very disappointed.
Every single person who's tried this Is there any money in doing it wrong? LAUGHTER APPLAUSE It's just like, I'm not doing it on purpose, I promise I'm not Close your eyes.
Look at that! There, that's good.
You've found the centre of gravity perfectly there.
The thing is, you're tilting it, Danny.
You've got to keep it straight.
No.
I promise you, I'm trying to tilt it.
It's not No, you're tilting it.
That's working perfectly.
Well Physical comedy so early in the show.
I know.
You can't beat it.
Last time, last time, last time.
Last time.
It's level, yes? Yeah.
Level.
It's going, I can feel it's going Aah.
Hurray! Phew! Human error.
And this, now that's interesting.
Why do you think you can balance it with the centre of gravity so high? Because we know where the centre of gravity is.
Because I am a genius! LAUGHTER That's right.
But if you try and do that from the bottom end, but not grasping the brushes, literally just balancing it on your palm, it'll just fall over.
Not You mustn't grasp it.
Like that.
Hello.
That's really good, actually.
Yes.
I'm just going to rip I think the show's broom techy might need a word after the programme.
APPLAUSE Well, thank you very much, my science elves Exactly.
.
.
for all your moments of inertia and your centres of mass.
I like this.
This game's brilliant, because you don't need to be clever.
No, exactly.
You just need to know a variety of broom-related tricks.
Well, the centre of gravity is the issue there, isn't it? Yeah.
Discovered by Archimedes, supposedly.
Could anyone hear him speak, Archimedes? Was it just a? HE MAKES SQUEAKING NOISE It did sound as if it was coming through dense undergrowth.
There's a man in the bushes.
"No, it's me, it's me.
" Behind you, there's a man in the bush.
"No, I'm telling you, it's me speaking.
" Anyway, listen, the idea is that you will always find the centre of gravity of a broom, as you zoom your hands together.
Try it at home.
Jesus, God! So, now, what would happen if the Earth suddenly stopped spinning? We'd all fly off it.
Oh! ALARM BLARES Marcus-y, Marcus-y, Marcus-y, Marcus.
Wouldn't we all fall off, then? We wouldn't fall off, no.
No.
Oh, there would be numerous consequences, Stephen.
There would.
Name a consequence? Well, half of the world would be plunged into eternal darkness That's a very good point.
.
.
and they would all leave and come and join the light side.
Or would some of them go to the dark side? Ah.
It would change the very nature of human life on the planet, from the dark to the light people.
What about the animals? All the ones who like the dark, they'd have to get to the dark side.
All the moths would have to go All the moths would have to go that way.
The butterflies would have to go that way.
The moles would be really confused.
What about on Daybreak, when they start broadcasting, that would be confusing.
How do they know when to start Daybreak if they're on the light side? Well, the point is, the Earth spins at about 1,000 miles an hour, at the equator.
It would have to be almost to defeat the effect of gravity.
We would just scrape along the ground at 1,000 miles an hour, and we'd, you know Good to have shares in Savlon, because we'd have any number of bruises.
If I scraped along the ground at 1,000 miles an hour, I'd kill a load of old ladies.
It wouldn't be pleasant.
What we couldn't do is have enough force to go out of the atmosphere.
The fact is, you wouldn't fly off, although it's a compelling image.
You'd just scrape along the ground and probably bump into things.
Now, what travels the wrong way along a motorway at 12 miles per hour? Moving Yes, baby? Is it an elderly man in a Morris Minor? No, it's one of those motorised wheelchairs, normally.
Oh! KLAXON Oh, no, I got half of that.
No, you were both going for the same thing.
Well, no, this is an effect we might all have experienced on motorways, and a deeply unpleasant one, and yet a perplexing one.
There was a wonderful New Yorker cartoon, which showed a huge traffic jam and a man looking in a puzzled way at a sign that said, "Traffic jam clears inexplicably three miles ahead.
" And that's the phenomenon we're looking at if you drive, you know that sometimes you can be in this terrible traffic jam and then it will magically clear.
There are no cones, no police, there's never Not been anything wrong.
And you think, "What was that about?" And there's a science which is like fluid dynamics, but they use things called "kinematic wave equations".
And what happens is, a car will suddenly brake and the car behind it will brake, and the car behind it will brake, and so on and so on, and it sends a ripple effect back through the traffic.
And the one ahead can start off again quite cheerfully, saying, "Oh, it was only a pigeon diving at my windscreen.
" But the other ones are still slowing down.
And they continue to, going backwards.
There you see them backing up.
And they continue to back up for quite long distances, while the ones ahead are free.
But they've discovered that pulse, backwards, of braking, travels on average about 12 miles an hour and can cause big jams.
Presumably you get the same effect when there's a police car in the slow lane doing 68 as well.
Oh, yes, that's so annoying, you inch past it.
Everyone, doing 68, yeah.
If I just I bet police love that.
Do you ever give them the look? They're going, "Oh, look, he's going 71.
Shall we? Shall we?" But of course we know nothing of traffic jams in this country.
Which country is the absolute heroic epicentre of the traffic jams, of all traffic jams? I would think India.
No, it's China.
China has epic, I mean epic, traffic jams.
They had one in 2010 that was over 80 miles long and it moved on average less than a kilometre a day.
I'm not kidding you, that's how bad it was.
And they're so bad regularly, that they now have quite profitable services where you call up this service and they arrive on a motorbike, two people on a motorbike.
One gets in and takes your place in the traffic jam, and you get on the back and the other one drives you through the traffic.
Do people bring you things? Like will you get a phone-a-pizza and that kind of thing? Probably.
They're an enterprising people, the Chinese, I should imagine so.
But it would be very difficult, I suppose if you bought the pizza on a motorbike, you'd be all right.
But it would be quite frustrating to order the pizza, you know, "We're at the lights, so we're four days away.
" I was quite impressed.
I went to Las Vegas last year and they have those billboard trucks that say they can deliver a hooker to your room in 25 minutes, but the pizza still takes half-an-hour.
So what I worked out is that you could, if you had the resources, get the hooker to pick up the pizza for you.
APPLAUSE That's absolutely brilliant.
Oh, wonderful.
Wonderful.
You still have to pay for extra toppings.
I was going to say.
Oh, heavens above.
There are all kinds of Yes.
Very fine.
They're called phantom traffic jams, when they are waves that flow backwards at 12 miles an hour.
So, you're a mosquito, it starts raining heavily, what happens next? Umbrellas, they put umbrellas up.
That's a lovely idea.
They're flying about going like that, "Aah, I love it, aaah.
" The problem they face is that one rain drop is 50 times heavier than they are, so you'd imagine they're being knocked sideways by them.
Good.
But yes And frankly good bloody riddance! I bloody hate them! But this is what happens They just brush them aside.
Oh.
Oh.
And sometimes they actually ride on them.
We actually annoyingly don't have film of them riding on them, and then they leap off just before they hit the ground and burst.
They very sort of elegantly cope with them.
Because they like wet weather I genuinely think that we have slept-walked into being a mosquito nation.
I don't remember mosquitoes.
Gnats, yes.
Swarms of gnats.
Yeah.
Mosquitoes were something you experienced abroad.
But now they say there's only one thing guaranteed, if you're having a barbecue, to keep the mosquitoes away from the food, that's hang a big bag of blood over by the neighbours' house, and you'll find they'll always go that way.
But I don't remember mosquitoes being in this country Well, it's climate change.
.
.
and I think the Daily Mail should look into it.
Yes.
You could obviously want to take the tube to stay nice and dry and avoid the problem of rain drops at all, but there is, in fact, a special sub-species of mosquito that lives only on the London Underground.
Yeah? Yeah, and it bites rats, dogs and people, and it's called Culex pipiens molestus.
There it is.
It's not that big, don't worry.
Please.
That, I promise you, that really is a horrible Would you like a seat? Thanks very much.
I've bitten four rats and I'm exhausted.
So, if it's raining is it best to run into the dry, or to walk slowly into the dry? In order to be less wet.
I've just realised how much of my life I've spent, when it rains, trying to work this out.
Going, "If I run, am I running into more rain drops?" Yes, exactly.
That's the point.
"Or if I walk.
So what's going to make me wetter?" And by the time I've stopped and figured that out, I'm drenched.
Yes.
You run, but you run sideways Ah, yours is .
.
in a very narrow shape.
You're absolutely on the money here, Alan.
Really? Is that right? If, yeah.
If you're thin.
So there are many, many variables.
Pull your tummy in, pull your tummy in.
It's all been thought through by a man called So, fat people get wet? No, well Fucking typical.
That's a good title for a book It is.
Fat People .
.
Fat People Get Wet.
Isn't it a Randy Newman song? Fat people get wet Professor Franco Bocci actually wrote a paper in the European Journal Of Physics.
He's a high-level physics man I love that journal.
Obviously it was sort of semi jokey, but it covered all the points you've made.
It recommends that if the rain is falling straight down, or being blown towards you by the wind, you should run as fast as you can until you reach shelter.
If the wind is behind you, you should try and match the speed of the wind.
If the wind is from the side, fat people should run as fast as they can.
Whereas very thin people might be better off walking.
The maths behind it is apparently fiendishly complex.
If it's from the side, run as fast as you can.
Yeah.
Be pretty galling to be in that situation and see a mosquito surfing past.
Weee.
So, now then, do you remember when snails were faster? Yes.
Good.
You probably do.
You probably do.
Incrementally, by such a small amount.
Yeah? They're slowing down? They, snails are slowing down, yes.
It's like that awful joke about the builder who turns round and stamps on a snail and says, "That bastard has been following me round all day.
" What about the bloke? The snail who knocks on the door and the bloke picks it up and he goesthrows it away.
Then about two days later, he hears "bing-bong", and he opens the door and the snail goes, "What?" But they do Apparently, if you throw them away, they do make their way back to where you flung them from.
I'm sure I read that.
I'm sure someone painted up some Not thinking of cats? Oh, yes.
Yes, yes.
You're thinking grandparents.
Grandparents! No, I'm sure But you are right about snails, and of course they're the easiest animals on earth to mark, virtually.
I mean, because of the shell.
So, some scientists from Chile took the common garden snail, and what they did on each one is they measured their metabolism by the amount of CO2 they emitted at rest.
And then they released them into the wild, and then later they went out and found some dead ones and some still-living ones.
And they found that the size of the snails had no effect on their survival and thriving rates, but the metabolic rate did.
The lower the snail's metabolic rate, the greater the chance of survival.
It seems that nature is selecting for snails with a slower metabolism, giving it more time to do that kind of thing.
Oh, yeah, look at him.
Yeah.
Now that's lazy.
That is lazy.
I mean, say what you want.
Are they slowing down because they've taken up smoking? Is that why they're slower? It's a good point.
I think it's evolutionary pressure is slowing them down, as it were, selecting them for slowing.
I think I read somewhere that they were the first things we farmed.
Do you know? I think that rings a bell.
I have a feeling they were the first things we farmed because Well, because they're relatively easy to farm.
I mean, it's a quiet day for a snail shepherd, you know.
I would think, but they found evidence from very, very early man that That we'd farmed them, yeah.
You're absolutely right.
In fact, we covered this, didn't we, Alan? Do you remember? Is your memory stirring? Yes, we did.
That's what's happened with QI now.
You'll have people like me coming on and going, "I'm sure I heard somewhere" I can't think where the hell it was.
So, if you want to catch a snail, there's no hurry.
The longer you leave it, the slower it'll be going.
Who are Europe's biggest swingers? The Germans.
The Germans? ALARM WAILS Oh, dear.
Here we go.
Could be a long ride.
The Dutch.
Dutch, that's an interesting one.
Ah, haha! Damn and curses.
Don't say any Scandinavian countries, whatever you do.
Very wise.
Do you mean swingers, like, that swing from things? I literally do, yeah.
Or swingers that are married couples looking for some excitement? Cunning you.
You have seen through our ploy.
It is indeed the more literal former.
I don't know anything about that.
People who use swings in a sporting way.
They have I do about the other.
Yes, of course.
They have a national pastime, which is called Kiiking, or Kiiking, K-I-I-K.
Hungarians.
Oddly enough, it's one of only two other countries that has a language which is based on the same language as Hungary.
Iceland.
No.
Finland.
No, though Finland is one of them.
It's Estonia, bizarrely.
Estonia.
Yeah, it's Estonia, Finland and Hungary are part of the Finno ugric linguistic family.
I had a UKIP leaflet came through the door saying that's how they're going to get in, using big swings.
All of them, apparently, the whole lot, they're all just going to swing in in one day.
Well, they will take up space in our parks That's right.
Swinging in a way that we've never seen before.
Behold Kiiking.
They can swing better than we can.
You'll see something that we thought was impossible when we were children.
You start off like that He's not going to go round the top, is he? He's not going to go over the top?! Surely he couldn't.
Look at that, big leg thrusts.
Well Big leg thrusts at just the right moment.
He could have someone's eye out.
Hitting the resonance of the pendulum just at the right moment.
He's been to see Matilda.
Oops.
Ah, now he's higher.
Come on, baby! There he goes! Yes! Wowzeroonie! And then nearly up then.
So, that's the sport.
That's tremendous.
The interesting thing is, those arms, they are adjustable, so everyone has a go.
When they've all done it at that height, you then extend the arms telescopically, you bracket them up, and it's a bit like the high jump or something.
All those who can't do it drop out until you've got a winner who's got the longest arm setting and has done a complete You'd have to raise the height of the axis though, wouldn't you? That would be very important.
Yes.
Otherwise Oh, heavens, yes.
I mean, it's good, it's nice to win, but No.
Exactly.
Well put.
They look obviously immensely strong, the thighs are very strong, getting that real sort of kick in because they haven't got Daddy pushing.
I'm imagining the thighs now.
Oh, stop it! Picture They're immensely strong.
Anyway, the Estonians have taken swinging right over the top.
Now, what's the world's highest waterfall? That is to say, it has the longest drop.
Is it in South America? No.
It's not Angel Falls? Angel.
KLAXON Oh, no.
I'vesoiled my clean sheet.
Oh, Jo! What a tragedy.
It is.
Its drop is 11,500 feet.
Angel Falls is only 3,212 feet.
But you think, well, what is it called then? What's its name? The weird thing is, it doesn't have a name.
Oh.
It's actually underwater Underwater.
.
.
between Greenland and Iceland.
Why does it count as a waterfall, though, when there's loads of water there anyway? Because it's a huge current of cold water dropping down, and it is a waterfall within water.
But this This doesn't have a name, right? No, weirdly, it doesn't.
The QI Waterfall.
The QI Waterfall, yes.
The Alan Davies Waterfall.
The Alan Davies Cascade.
That would be a good name, wouldn't it? Now you're talking.
Yeah.
That's a haircut as well, isn't it? LAUGHTER Very good.
It's also a position.
Oh, dear.
Oh, dear.
Can't do it any more, I need support.
The unnamed QI Waterfall carries at least 175 million cubic feet of cold water per second.
It's the equivalent of 2,000 Niagaras at peak flow.
Wow.
Yeah.
So, what's the world's biggest river? And where is it? Is it underwater? KLAXON It's a nice thought.
Amazon.
Oh! KLAXON Hang on.
There you go.
Nile.
Nile? Well, you just KLAXON When you said biggest? Yeah.
What do you mean? Widest, longest? Carries the most water.
Carries the most water.
Well, you're going to be so angry.
It's in the sky.
They're called atmospheric rivers.
Oh! Oh, now, I've got to say, sometimes, on behalf of the audience, I hate this programme.
APPLAUSE I agree.
I agree and I'm really This is hurting you far more than it hurts me.
No They're known as atmospheric rivers.
They're vast ribbons of water vapour moving water around the world.
They appear in different places, different times.
Are they the ones that are perfectly timed to coincide with bank holidays? Yes, absolutely.
In fact you're right.
They're the ones.
a few kilometres wide, but although they cover less than 10% of the globe, four or five of them contain 90% of all the world's water vapour at a time.
Wow.
So the world's biggest rivers are in the sky - I'm sorry about that.
But seriously, name the world's biggest river that isn't in the sky.
Go on, Alan.
Go on, Al.
An actual river this time? That isn't in the sky.
No, that isn't in the sky.
Yes, but Is it one of those ones that Alan's mentioned already? Do you think, maybe? No.
There is a river under the Amazon called the Rio Hamza, and it is actually bigger than the Amazon itself.
It was only discovered in 2011.
The Rio Hamza? Yes, exactly, the Abu Hamza.
Is it sort of hook-shaped? It is a really sad coincidence, I'm afraid.
A river hated by the tabloids.
It's hated by the tabloids.
Yes, they collected data from 241 abandoned deep wells and it runs 6,000 kilometres, like the Amazon above it, but is up to four times wider.
And that's 200-to-400 kilometres wide.
How far down is it? Four kilometres beneath the Amazon itself.
I mean, some people would say it's an aquaflow, but it actually flows horizontally, like a river.
And it is called "hio", which is river flows.
Do things live in it? There must be organisms.
No matter how crap a place is, Attenborough always goes, "Even here ".
.
something very stupid" Then something comes past going ".
.
has built its house.
" .
.
like the Muppets.
Yeah.
He'll go anywhere, won't he? The organism Muppet.
Yeah, yeah.
He's got a little light on his head.
It's true.
And here they are mating.
It's absolutely true.
So, the biggest river that isn't in the sky is underground.
So, what's the world's biggest animal? Alan? Oh, don't, get me started.
Oh, it'swhatever you say I've got the moves It's the blue whale.
Is the right answer! Oh, you bastard! APPLAUSE Poor Alan.
Oh, it's so unfair.
No-one's allowed to say "blue whale" except me.
It's the biggest animal that's ever lived on the Earth, bigger than any dinosaur.
Absolutely correct, yeah.
Magnificent things.
Tongue as big as a bus.
And we know, we know Alan's so annoyed.
We know next to nothing about them.
You're right.
We don't know where they go, or anything.
I know where they go, I know exactly, I know everything about them.
They go on the minus side of the debit ledger, don't they? Yes, exactly.
Their tongue is the size of a Mini Cooper.
Or is it their heart? Oh, poor Alan, everyone's feeling so sorry for you.
But they are No, they are mysterious and extraordinary and beautiful animals.
And they're huge.
Oh, fuck off! You tried.
It's been waiting for me for years.
You tried, is all I can say.
And it is of course the blue whale.
Don't you listen to anything? Now we're going to end.
How can you knock a building down with a feather? Like the Shard, for example.
You could knock it down, I could knock it down, if I prepared things correctly, with a whisk of a feather.
Not using any electronics.
A very, very large feather.
No, using, I've actually got the feather here that I'm going to use.
It's nice and pink, so it stands out.
That would be the feather I would use.
Do you tickle the architect while he's doing Coming up with the plans, so that they're all off? Like that.
And it falls over.
And then they make it.
"Oh, it didn't work.
" "Well, Stephen was tickling me with a feather.
" A cunning thought, but no.
This is the existing standing Shard.
And you could reduce that to rubble with a feather? Yeah.
Shall I show you? I'll show you the principle.
This is my little template to show me where I have to go.
You see, I've got them down here and here's my big O h, my big load.
Oops.
Steady.
There we go.
Now, what we've got here is, in varying sizes, kind of dominos.
You can see.
And the idea is that each one is just one and a half times bigger than the one before it.
And it may seem like a very little amount, but what we're going to do is make a really loud bang with this.
What, is that meant to be like the Shard? Dominos, it's the domino effect.
You would aim this at the Shard Yes.
.
.
and you would only need 24 of these.
Each one just one and a half times bigger than the one before it - that's the point.
You'd only need 24 and the last one would utterly destroy it.
Really? Blimey.
It's the exponential increase of mass, just by going one and a half times bigger.
It's all right.
It can only fall, yeah.
I've got a splinter off my broom now.
Careful, careful.
Right, here we go.
We've just made the security services' job that much more harder.
You can bring down the Shard Here we go.
So Who needs to hijack aircraft any more? QI's given it away.
So you imagine this increasing up to just 24 and you'd start with one movement of a feather, and all the potential energy stored in these and all the mass of them like that, and you just have that effect, like wow Wow! There you go.
Excellent.
That's pretty good, isn't it? Yeah.
That's brilliant.
Bravo.
Where did you come by such a camp feather? The awful thing was, I was asked to choose a colour and I immediately went, "I think this one stands out.
" It is a lovely feather.
There's a bird of paradise somewhere having a very problematic flirting season.
Well, we've run out of energy for this week.
Let's see the movement on the scoreboard.
And oh, my word, isn't it fantastic? Clear winner - it's Danny Banker with plus eight! Thank you very much.
I thank you very much.
In fantastic second place with minus five, Marcus Brigstocke.
One mistake, Marcus, one mistake.
Yeah, I know, I know, I know.
A very close third with minus eight, Jo Brand.
You must have minus 47, I think.
But poor wee soul, with minus 56, in fourth place, it's Alan Davies.
Whoo! Well, my thanks to Marcus, Danny, Jo and Alan.
And it's goodbye from me and adore each other.
Goodnight.
Gooooooood evening, good evening, good evening, good evening and welcome to QI, where tonight we're on the move with K for Kinetic.
Let's meet motor-mouth Danny Baker.
Thank you.
Good evening.
Thank you.
Speed-freak Marcus Brigstocke.
Go-go girl Jo Brand.
Go-go girl? And poetry in motion - Alan Davies.
Thank you.
That's nice.
And let's hear your beats, bruvs.
Danny goes I like to move it, move it Yeah.
It's too loud for me today.
Marcus goes I've got the moves like Jagger Jo goes Moving on up Nothing can stop me And Alan goes Saturday night at the movies Who cares what picture we see Movies.
Kinema was originally what cinema was called.
From the same word as kinetic, it was kinematic moving, ie, moving pictures.
Well, Kinetic of course means anything to do with movement, so, for heaven's sake, let's get moving.
Where will this get me? I'm going to find my broom here.
If I were to move my hands together like this, what would happen? Whether I did this one a bit more than that one, or that one a bit more than that one.
What would happen, at the end, when my hands met? The heavy end would fall down.
No.
Shut up! Extraordinary, when you do this, you will always find it meets at the centre of gravity.
Always.
Because the resistance from the heavy end slows Yeah, exactly, so as long as you're just sort of doing it without thinking, you know, it just meets up like that, and it balances.
It doesn't actually look a very natural implement in your hand, Stephen.
But you've got one.
Maybe it'll look more natural in yours.
Yeah, I am a drudge.
You can ride it home tonight.
Here we go.
You've all got one, so try it.
Obviously His fell apart! .
.
everybody except Alan.
Now try properly.
Obviously the left hand won't move as far as the right one.
Is it working for you, Marcus? Please, God! Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jo isn't even trying.
No, well, I can tell you, there are women all over the country going, "Look at the silly bastards.
We've got to clean the floor with it.
" Oh, man, this is I've been trying this all afternoon and I can't make it do anything else.
No! It's like it's got the Uri Geller touch about it, it's just Ohhh, cool.
That is bizarre.
Aaah.
Well, that's really disappointing.
This one's Kate Moss.
Yeah, baby.
I'm completely astounded.
We're all very disappointed.
Every single person who's tried this Is there any money in doing it wrong? LAUGHTER APPLAUSE It's just like, I'm not doing it on purpose, I promise I'm not Close your eyes.
Look at that! There, that's good.
You've found the centre of gravity perfectly there.
The thing is, you're tilting it, Danny.
You've got to keep it straight.
No.
I promise you, I'm trying to tilt it.
It's not No, you're tilting it.
That's working perfectly.
Well Physical comedy so early in the show.
I know.
You can't beat it.
Last time, last time, last time.
Last time.
It's level, yes? Yeah.
Level.
It's going, I can feel it's going Aah.
Hurray! Phew! Human error.
And this, now that's interesting.
Why do you think you can balance it with the centre of gravity so high? Because we know where the centre of gravity is.
Because I am a genius! LAUGHTER That's right.
But if you try and do that from the bottom end, but not grasping the brushes, literally just balancing it on your palm, it'll just fall over.
Not You mustn't grasp it.
Like that.
Hello.
That's really good, actually.
Yes.
I'm just going to rip I think the show's broom techy might need a word after the programme.
APPLAUSE Well, thank you very much, my science elves Exactly.
.
.
for all your moments of inertia and your centres of mass.
I like this.
This game's brilliant, because you don't need to be clever.
No, exactly.
You just need to know a variety of broom-related tricks.
Well, the centre of gravity is the issue there, isn't it? Yeah.
Discovered by Archimedes, supposedly.
Could anyone hear him speak, Archimedes? Was it just a? HE MAKES SQUEAKING NOISE It did sound as if it was coming through dense undergrowth.
There's a man in the bushes.
"No, it's me, it's me.
" Behind you, there's a man in the bush.
"No, I'm telling you, it's me speaking.
" Anyway, listen, the idea is that you will always find the centre of gravity of a broom, as you zoom your hands together.
Try it at home.
Jesus, God! So, now, what would happen if the Earth suddenly stopped spinning? We'd all fly off it.
Oh! ALARM BLARES Marcus-y, Marcus-y, Marcus-y, Marcus.
Wouldn't we all fall off, then? We wouldn't fall off, no.
No.
Oh, there would be numerous consequences, Stephen.
There would.
Name a consequence? Well, half of the world would be plunged into eternal darkness That's a very good point.
.
.
and they would all leave and come and join the light side.
Or would some of them go to the dark side? Ah.
It would change the very nature of human life on the planet, from the dark to the light people.
What about the animals? All the ones who like the dark, they'd have to get to the dark side.
All the moths would have to go All the moths would have to go that way.
The butterflies would have to go that way.
The moles would be really confused.
What about on Daybreak, when they start broadcasting, that would be confusing.
How do they know when to start Daybreak if they're on the light side? Well, the point is, the Earth spins at about 1,000 miles an hour, at the equator.
It would have to be almost to defeat the effect of gravity.
We would just scrape along the ground at 1,000 miles an hour, and we'd, you know Good to have shares in Savlon, because we'd have any number of bruises.
If I scraped along the ground at 1,000 miles an hour, I'd kill a load of old ladies.
It wouldn't be pleasant.
What we couldn't do is have enough force to go out of the atmosphere.
The fact is, you wouldn't fly off, although it's a compelling image.
You'd just scrape along the ground and probably bump into things.
Now, what travels the wrong way along a motorway at 12 miles per hour? Moving Yes, baby? Is it an elderly man in a Morris Minor? No, it's one of those motorised wheelchairs, normally.
Oh! KLAXON Oh, no, I got half of that.
No, you were both going for the same thing.
Well, no, this is an effect we might all have experienced on motorways, and a deeply unpleasant one, and yet a perplexing one.
There was a wonderful New Yorker cartoon, which showed a huge traffic jam and a man looking in a puzzled way at a sign that said, "Traffic jam clears inexplicably three miles ahead.
" And that's the phenomenon we're looking at if you drive, you know that sometimes you can be in this terrible traffic jam and then it will magically clear.
There are no cones, no police, there's never Not been anything wrong.
And you think, "What was that about?" And there's a science which is like fluid dynamics, but they use things called "kinematic wave equations".
And what happens is, a car will suddenly brake and the car behind it will brake, and the car behind it will brake, and so on and so on, and it sends a ripple effect back through the traffic.
And the one ahead can start off again quite cheerfully, saying, "Oh, it was only a pigeon diving at my windscreen.
" But the other ones are still slowing down.
And they continue to, going backwards.
There you see them backing up.
And they continue to back up for quite long distances, while the ones ahead are free.
But they've discovered that pulse, backwards, of braking, travels on average about 12 miles an hour and can cause big jams.
Presumably you get the same effect when there's a police car in the slow lane doing 68 as well.
Oh, yes, that's so annoying, you inch past it.
Everyone, doing 68, yeah.
If I just I bet police love that.
Do you ever give them the look? They're going, "Oh, look, he's going 71.
Shall we? Shall we?" But of course we know nothing of traffic jams in this country.
Which country is the absolute heroic epicentre of the traffic jams, of all traffic jams? I would think India.
No, it's China.
China has epic, I mean epic, traffic jams.
They had one in 2010 that was over 80 miles long and it moved on average less than a kilometre a day.
I'm not kidding you, that's how bad it was.
And they're so bad regularly, that they now have quite profitable services where you call up this service and they arrive on a motorbike, two people on a motorbike.
One gets in and takes your place in the traffic jam, and you get on the back and the other one drives you through the traffic.
Do people bring you things? Like will you get a phone-a-pizza and that kind of thing? Probably.
They're an enterprising people, the Chinese, I should imagine so.
But it would be very difficult, I suppose if you bought the pizza on a motorbike, you'd be all right.
But it would be quite frustrating to order the pizza, you know, "We're at the lights, so we're four days away.
" I was quite impressed.
I went to Las Vegas last year and they have those billboard trucks that say they can deliver a hooker to your room in 25 minutes, but the pizza still takes half-an-hour.
So what I worked out is that you could, if you had the resources, get the hooker to pick up the pizza for you.
APPLAUSE That's absolutely brilliant.
Oh, wonderful.
Wonderful.
You still have to pay for extra toppings.
I was going to say.
Oh, heavens above.
There are all kinds of Yes.
Very fine.
They're called phantom traffic jams, when they are waves that flow backwards at 12 miles an hour.
So, you're a mosquito, it starts raining heavily, what happens next? Umbrellas, they put umbrellas up.
That's a lovely idea.
They're flying about going like that, "Aah, I love it, aaah.
" The problem they face is that one rain drop is 50 times heavier than they are, so you'd imagine they're being knocked sideways by them.
Good.
But yes And frankly good bloody riddance! I bloody hate them! But this is what happens They just brush them aside.
Oh.
Oh.
And sometimes they actually ride on them.
We actually annoyingly don't have film of them riding on them, and then they leap off just before they hit the ground and burst.
They very sort of elegantly cope with them.
Because they like wet weather I genuinely think that we have slept-walked into being a mosquito nation.
I don't remember mosquitoes.
Gnats, yes.
Swarms of gnats.
Yeah.
Mosquitoes were something you experienced abroad.
But now they say there's only one thing guaranteed, if you're having a barbecue, to keep the mosquitoes away from the food, that's hang a big bag of blood over by the neighbours' house, and you'll find they'll always go that way.
But I don't remember mosquitoes being in this country Well, it's climate change.
.
.
and I think the Daily Mail should look into it.
Yes.
You could obviously want to take the tube to stay nice and dry and avoid the problem of rain drops at all, but there is, in fact, a special sub-species of mosquito that lives only on the London Underground.
Yeah? Yeah, and it bites rats, dogs and people, and it's called Culex pipiens molestus.
There it is.
It's not that big, don't worry.
Please.
That, I promise you, that really is a horrible Would you like a seat? Thanks very much.
I've bitten four rats and I'm exhausted.
So, if it's raining is it best to run into the dry, or to walk slowly into the dry? In order to be less wet.
I've just realised how much of my life I've spent, when it rains, trying to work this out.
Going, "If I run, am I running into more rain drops?" Yes, exactly.
That's the point.
"Or if I walk.
So what's going to make me wetter?" And by the time I've stopped and figured that out, I'm drenched.
Yes.
You run, but you run sideways Ah, yours is .
.
in a very narrow shape.
You're absolutely on the money here, Alan.
Really? Is that right? If, yeah.
If you're thin.
So there are many, many variables.
Pull your tummy in, pull your tummy in.
It's all been thought through by a man called So, fat people get wet? No, well Fucking typical.
That's a good title for a book It is.
Fat People .
.
Fat People Get Wet.
Isn't it a Randy Newman song? Fat people get wet Professor Franco Bocci actually wrote a paper in the European Journal Of Physics.
He's a high-level physics man I love that journal.
Obviously it was sort of semi jokey, but it covered all the points you've made.
It recommends that if the rain is falling straight down, or being blown towards you by the wind, you should run as fast as you can until you reach shelter.
If the wind is behind you, you should try and match the speed of the wind.
If the wind is from the side, fat people should run as fast as they can.
Whereas very thin people might be better off walking.
The maths behind it is apparently fiendishly complex.
If it's from the side, run as fast as you can.
Yeah.
Be pretty galling to be in that situation and see a mosquito surfing past.
Weee.
So, now then, do you remember when snails were faster? Yes.
Good.
You probably do.
You probably do.
Incrementally, by such a small amount.
Yeah? They're slowing down? They, snails are slowing down, yes.
It's like that awful joke about the builder who turns round and stamps on a snail and says, "That bastard has been following me round all day.
" What about the bloke? The snail who knocks on the door and the bloke picks it up and he goesthrows it away.
Then about two days later, he hears "bing-bong", and he opens the door and the snail goes, "What?" But they do Apparently, if you throw them away, they do make their way back to where you flung them from.
I'm sure I read that.
I'm sure someone painted up some Not thinking of cats? Oh, yes.
Yes, yes.
You're thinking grandparents.
Grandparents! No, I'm sure But you are right about snails, and of course they're the easiest animals on earth to mark, virtually.
I mean, because of the shell.
So, some scientists from Chile took the common garden snail, and what they did on each one is they measured their metabolism by the amount of CO2 they emitted at rest.
And then they released them into the wild, and then later they went out and found some dead ones and some still-living ones.
And they found that the size of the snails had no effect on their survival and thriving rates, but the metabolic rate did.
The lower the snail's metabolic rate, the greater the chance of survival.
It seems that nature is selecting for snails with a slower metabolism, giving it more time to do that kind of thing.
Oh, yeah, look at him.
Yeah.
Now that's lazy.
That is lazy.
I mean, say what you want.
Are they slowing down because they've taken up smoking? Is that why they're slower? It's a good point.
I think it's evolutionary pressure is slowing them down, as it were, selecting them for slowing.
I think I read somewhere that they were the first things we farmed.
Do you know? I think that rings a bell.
I have a feeling they were the first things we farmed because Well, because they're relatively easy to farm.
I mean, it's a quiet day for a snail shepherd, you know.
I would think, but they found evidence from very, very early man that That we'd farmed them, yeah.
You're absolutely right.
In fact, we covered this, didn't we, Alan? Do you remember? Is your memory stirring? Yes, we did.
That's what's happened with QI now.
You'll have people like me coming on and going, "I'm sure I heard somewhere" I can't think where the hell it was.
So, if you want to catch a snail, there's no hurry.
The longer you leave it, the slower it'll be going.
Who are Europe's biggest swingers? The Germans.
The Germans? ALARM WAILS Oh, dear.
Here we go.
Could be a long ride.
The Dutch.
Dutch, that's an interesting one.
Ah, haha! Damn and curses.
Don't say any Scandinavian countries, whatever you do.
Very wise.
Do you mean swingers, like, that swing from things? I literally do, yeah.
Or swingers that are married couples looking for some excitement? Cunning you.
You have seen through our ploy.
It is indeed the more literal former.
I don't know anything about that.
People who use swings in a sporting way.
They have I do about the other.
Yes, of course.
They have a national pastime, which is called Kiiking, or Kiiking, K-I-I-K.
Hungarians.
Oddly enough, it's one of only two other countries that has a language which is based on the same language as Hungary.
Iceland.
No.
Finland.
No, though Finland is one of them.
It's Estonia, bizarrely.
Estonia.
Yeah, it's Estonia, Finland and Hungary are part of the Finno ugric linguistic family.
I had a UKIP leaflet came through the door saying that's how they're going to get in, using big swings.
All of them, apparently, the whole lot, they're all just going to swing in in one day.
Well, they will take up space in our parks That's right.
Swinging in a way that we've never seen before.
Behold Kiiking.
They can swing better than we can.
You'll see something that we thought was impossible when we were children.
You start off like that He's not going to go round the top, is he? He's not going to go over the top?! Surely he couldn't.
Look at that, big leg thrusts.
Well Big leg thrusts at just the right moment.
He could have someone's eye out.
Hitting the resonance of the pendulum just at the right moment.
He's been to see Matilda.
Oops.
Ah, now he's higher.
Come on, baby! There he goes! Yes! Wowzeroonie! And then nearly up then.
So, that's the sport.
That's tremendous.
The interesting thing is, those arms, they are adjustable, so everyone has a go.
When they've all done it at that height, you then extend the arms telescopically, you bracket them up, and it's a bit like the high jump or something.
All those who can't do it drop out until you've got a winner who's got the longest arm setting and has done a complete You'd have to raise the height of the axis though, wouldn't you? That would be very important.
Yes.
Otherwise Oh, heavens, yes.
I mean, it's good, it's nice to win, but No.
Exactly.
Well put.
They look obviously immensely strong, the thighs are very strong, getting that real sort of kick in because they haven't got Daddy pushing.
I'm imagining the thighs now.
Oh, stop it! Picture They're immensely strong.
Anyway, the Estonians have taken swinging right over the top.
Now, what's the world's highest waterfall? That is to say, it has the longest drop.
Is it in South America? No.
It's not Angel Falls? Angel.
KLAXON Oh, no.
I'vesoiled my clean sheet.
Oh, Jo! What a tragedy.
It is.
Its drop is 11,500 feet.
Angel Falls is only 3,212 feet.
But you think, well, what is it called then? What's its name? The weird thing is, it doesn't have a name.
Oh.
It's actually underwater Underwater.
.
.
between Greenland and Iceland.
Why does it count as a waterfall, though, when there's loads of water there anyway? Because it's a huge current of cold water dropping down, and it is a waterfall within water.
But this This doesn't have a name, right? No, weirdly, it doesn't.
The QI Waterfall.
The QI Waterfall, yes.
The Alan Davies Waterfall.
The Alan Davies Cascade.
That would be a good name, wouldn't it? Now you're talking.
Yeah.
That's a haircut as well, isn't it? LAUGHTER Very good.
It's also a position.
Oh, dear.
Oh, dear.
Can't do it any more, I need support.
The unnamed QI Waterfall carries at least 175 million cubic feet of cold water per second.
It's the equivalent of 2,000 Niagaras at peak flow.
Wow.
Yeah.
So, what's the world's biggest river? And where is it? Is it underwater? KLAXON It's a nice thought.
Amazon.
Oh! KLAXON Hang on.
There you go.
Nile.
Nile? Well, you just KLAXON When you said biggest? Yeah.
What do you mean? Widest, longest? Carries the most water.
Carries the most water.
Well, you're going to be so angry.
It's in the sky.
They're called atmospheric rivers.
Oh! Oh, now, I've got to say, sometimes, on behalf of the audience, I hate this programme.
APPLAUSE I agree.
I agree and I'm really This is hurting you far more than it hurts me.
No They're known as atmospheric rivers.
They're vast ribbons of water vapour moving water around the world.
They appear in different places, different times.
Are they the ones that are perfectly timed to coincide with bank holidays? Yes, absolutely.
In fact you're right.
They're the ones.
a few kilometres wide, but although they cover less than 10% of the globe, four or five of them contain 90% of all the world's water vapour at a time.
Wow.
So the world's biggest rivers are in the sky - I'm sorry about that.
But seriously, name the world's biggest river that isn't in the sky.
Go on, Alan.
Go on, Al.
An actual river this time? That isn't in the sky.
No, that isn't in the sky.
Yes, but Is it one of those ones that Alan's mentioned already? Do you think, maybe? No.
There is a river under the Amazon called the Rio Hamza, and it is actually bigger than the Amazon itself.
It was only discovered in 2011.
The Rio Hamza? Yes, exactly, the Abu Hamza.
Is it sort of hook-shaped? It is a really sad coincidence, I'm afraid.
A river hated by the tabloids.
It's hated by the tabloids.
Yes, they collected data from 241 abandoned deep wells and it runs 6,000 kilometres, like the Amazon above it, but is up to four times wider.
And that's 200-to-400 kilometres wide.
How far down is it? Four kilometres beneath the Amazon itself.
I mean, some people would say it's an aquaflow, but it actually flows horizontally, like a river.
And it is called "hio", which is river flows.
Do things live in it? There must be organisms.
No matter how crap a place is, Attenborough always goes, "Even here ".
.
something very stupid" Then something comes past going ".
.
has built its house.
" .
.
like the Muppets.
Yeah.
He'll go anywhere, won't he? The organism Muppet.
Yeah, yeah.
He's got a little light on his head.
It's true.
And here they are mating.
It's absolutely true.
So, the biggest river that isn't in the sky is underground.
So, what's the world's biggest animal? Alan? Oh, don't, get me started.
Oh, it'swhatever you say I've got the moves It's the blue whale.
Is the right answer! Oh, you bastard! APPLAUSE Poor Alan.
Oh, it's so unfair.
No-one's allowed to say "blue whale" except me.
It's the biggest animal that's ever lived on the Earth, bigger than any dinosaur.
Absolutely correct, yeah.
Magnificent things.
Tongue as big as a bus.
And we know, we know Alan's so annoyed.
We know next to nothing about them.
You're right.
We don't know where they go, or anything.
I know where they go, I know exactly, I know everything about them.
They go on the minus side of the debit ledger, don't they? Yes, exactly.
Their tongue is the size of a Mini Cooper.
Or is it their heart? Oh, poor Alan, everyone's feeling so sorry for you.
But they are No, they are mysterious and extraordinary and beautiful animals.
And they're huge.
Oh, fuck off! You tried.
It's been waiting for me for years.
You tried, is all I can say.
And it is of course the blue whale.
Don't you listen to anything? Now we're going to end.
How can you knock a building down with a feather? Like the Shard, for example.
You could knock it down, I could knock it down, if I prepared things correctly, with a whisk of a feather.
Not using any electronics.
A very, very large feather.
No, using, I've actually got the feather here that I'm going to use.
It's nice and pink, so it stands out.
That would be the feather I would use.
Do you tickle the architect while he's doing Coming up with the plans, so that they're all off? Like that.
And it falls over.
And then they make it.
"Oh, it didn't work.
" "Well, Stephen was tickling me with a feather.
" A cunning thought, but no.
This is the existing standing Shard.
And you could reduce that to rubble with a feather? Yeah.
Shall I show you? I'll show you the principle.
This is my little template to show me where I have to go.
You see, I've got them down here and here's my big O h, my big load.
Oops.
Steady.
There we go.
Now, what we've got here is, in varying sizes, kind of dominos.
You can see.
And the idea is that each one is just one and a half times bigger than the one before it.
And it may seem like a very little amount, but what we're going to do is make a really loud bang with this.
What, is that meant to be like the Shard? Dominos, it's the domino effect.
You would aim this at the Shard Yes.
.
.
and you would only need 24 of these.
Each one just one and a half times bigger than the one before it - that's the point.
You'd only need 24 and the last one would utterly destroy it.
Really? Blimey.
It's the exponential increase of mass, just by going one and a half times bigger.
It's all right.
It can only fall, yeah.
I've got a splinter off my broom now.
Careful, careful.
Right, here we go.
We've just made the security services' job that much more harder.
You can bring down the Shard Here we go.
So Who needs to hijack aircraft any more? QI's given it away.
So you imagine this increasing up to just 24 and you'd start with one movement of a feather, and all the potential energy stored in these and all the mass of them like that, and you just have that effect, like wow Wow! There you go.
Excellent.
That's pretty good, isn't it? Yeah.
That's brilliant.
Bravo.
Where did you come by such a camp feather? The awful thing was, I was asked to choose a colour and I immediately went, "I think this one stands out.
" It is a lovely feather.
There's a bird of paradise somewhere having a very problematic flirting season.
Well, we've run out of energy for this week.
Let's see the movement on the scoreboard.
And oh, my word, isn't it fantastic? Clear winner - it's Danny Banker with plus eight! Thank you very much.
I thank you very much.
In fantastic second place with minus five, Marcus Brigstocke.
One mistake, Marcus, one mistake.
Yeah, I know, I know, I know.
A very close third with minus eight, Jo Brand.
You must have minus 47, I think.
But poor wee soul, with minus 56, in fourth place, it's Alan Davies.
Whoo! Well, my thanks to Marcus, Danny, Jo and Alan.
And it's goodbye from me and adore each other.
Goodnight.