QI (2003) s13e07 Episode Script
Middle Muddle
This programme contains some strong language.
Good evening! Good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, and welcome to QI, for the middle show of the M series.
Which is in the middle of the alphabet.
Where our theme is, well, not so much middle as muddle, to be honest.
But we have the magnificent Aisling Bea.
The mighty Danny Bhoy.
The magnetic Jimmy Carr.
And the miscellaneous Alan Davies.
And their buzzers are merrily multifarious.
Aisling goes # Here we go round the mulberry bush, The mulberry bush, the mulberry bush.
Danny goes # This old man, he played one, He played knick knack on my drum.
Jimmy goes # Three blind mice Three blind mice.
It's like the soundtrack of a horror film.
And Alan goes My Bonnie lies over Will you go to bed?! - Was that a gunshot? - I don't know.
The bit at the end, yes.
Well, the best place to start, I always think, is in the middle.
How do you know when a chimpanzee is having a midlife crisis? Does it get a Chinese tattoo? - Just on the back of his neck there.
- A motorbike.
A motorbike? Where does the phrase midlife crisis come from? How long has it been in the language, do you think? Do you think the Victorians used it? Do you think - I bet it's more recent.
I bet it's like a '50s - Yeah.
Cos it was about buying sports cars and doing those kind of crazy divorcing your wife and going out with someone of 22.
It was actually 1965 that a psychologist decided on this midlife crisis.
He thought that only geniuses got a midlife crisis.
He used the phrase, but he said it was something that happened to geniuses.
- But we - It's not only us.
It's not only us.
Is it, Alan? You get them too.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
LAUGHTER The awkward thing about midlife crises, I've had some friends that have gone through them recently and they've left their partners, gone out with much younger women and they've bought sports cars, and the most difficult thing is pretending to my other half that, "Aw! That's terrible.
Isn't it sad?" "Aw, ah.
God, he's had a disaster there.
"Yeah.
No, apparently she used to be a dancer.
Yeah.
" Yeah.
LAUGHTER He's not But is he happy? Aw.
Yes.
He can't stop smiling.
He showed me some photos on his phone, it looks amazing.
Well, it turns out that chimpanzees, when they're young, they're high and when they get to middle age, they kind of go down and then up again, which is supposedly what a midlife crisis is.
Does it only affect the men, or does it affect the women chimps as well? It seems to be a male thing, doesn't it? And I think Yeah.
I hear that, sister monkeys.
Are those guys laughing at the ginger ones? Well, the tests were done on the ginger ones, or orang-utans, as some people prefer to call them - The ginger ones, yes.
- .
.
and on the chimpanzees.
Now, what mania was started by a few myopic Merseysiders? - # Mulberry bush.
# - Weirdly, you know - Yeah? - No, keep going.
Does this buzzer stop Jimmy speaking? Try again.
Say something.
- I was just going to say - # Mulberry bush.
# There's some support for it.
I find the buzzers really disconcerting.
It does feel like someone's about to get murdered in the show.
"Oh, go to bed!" Those childish ghost cries.
Mice.
It's usually The Beatles.
- Hmm.
- Isn't it? Yeah, it's usually The Beatles.
- The Beatles is what you're saying.
- It's usually The Beatles.
He's saying The Beatles.
Mulberry bush.
Very good.
No, is the answer.
- Oh.
- It was a mania, but not Beatlemania on Merseyside.
- Myopic Merseyside.
- It involves something to do with M.
- Myopic is short-sighted, is it? - Yes.
- Partially-sighted.
- So, what M could help you with partial-sightedness? My glasses.
Yes.
Any particular type of ophthalmic instrument - that would help, that began with M? - Monocle.
Monocle is the right answer.
There we go, very good.
Yeah.
I only knew that cos there happens to be a monocle next to me.
It was a bit of a giveaway.
There you are, pop 'em in.
It was a fashion thing that seemed to sweep Liverpool.
I can imagine it taking off again, to be honest.
- You do look great.
- You look very good.
Ah, Jimmy! - Oh, my goodness.
- My old pal.
What are you laughing at? Jimmy, you've never looked more like a ventriloquist's doll in your life.
So, Jimmy Oh, my! You really did look like Lord Charles there.
I now feel slightly haunted.
Wow! Thank you for putting your hand there, by the way.
It was reallyspecial.
Your hair is all up.
They won't fit because monocles had to be made to fit, which is why they were expensive.
And because they were expensive, they were associated with the upper classes.
And even when you wear them, it's very hard not to look rather kind of like that, isn't it? At what point in history did someone just go, make that mental leap between, "I've got it here and I've got a little bridge here.
"I could maybe just put another one" Well, it's funny you should say that.
Which came first, the monocle or the spectacles? I'm going to say the spectacles.
Yes.
The spectacles, by hundreds of years.
- What? - When do you think the monocle came in? No.
They came in, in the 1800s and they were instantly a success, but they were expensive.
And we associate them with, I suppose - Oh, there I am.
- Yeah.
There you are, yeah.
I had all three of those.
- They knocked that up pretty quickly.
- Yeah.
But something gave them a rather bad image - in the 20th century.
- Californian vegetables.
- Nazis.
Nazis, and in fact LAUGHTER Californian vegetables.
Buy Californian vegetables.
By Jove, they're awfully good.
- Yeah, they were associated with - You do become instantly posh.
.
.
aristocrats, German soldiers and generals.
Ludendorff wore one, Krebs, various of those figures there did.
Ja.
Advance.
- They really did never stop - No squinting.
- .
.
trying to look more evil, did they? - No, they didn't.
Well, what could we add to this? I've got the, you know, the skull and crossbones, I've got the weird look, I've got the steely eyes.
- They're a very good fit.
- I know, I'll put one spectacle lens over here.
What about a monocle? Zat would make us more evil.
A tiny moustache.
Anyway, now for a medical question.
What malady could you ameliorate by standing in the middle of Wales? - Yes? - Er, Moby Dick.
Ha! - Stand in the middle of whales.
- Moby Dick! Ah.
Oh, very good.
Very good.
APPLAUSE - Very good.
- Whales or Wales the country, though? Well, you see, this is the thing.
Not whale, the giant mammal.
You kind of deserve a little point for your Moby Dick.
- Oh, do I? - Because I am actually talking If you stood in the middle of a blue whale.
I know you're obsessed, but it doesn't have to be blue.
Yeah, but let's say it's blue.
All right, blue.
All right blue.
Because you know you can stand in one of those.
- You can? - They're huge.
Yeah.
They are quite big, aren't they? Of course, they're not the biggest life form on earth, as you know.
Hell no! Sorry, are we doing a 'best of' show? In some ways, it's the 'worst of'.
You two have had this conversation like a million times.
What's the question again, Stephen? Yeah, what sort of amelioration for what sort of malady could you expect, if you stood A cream, an ointment? Somea balm.
No.
No, this isthe act of standing, it's not something that's just taken from a whale.
This is an example.
This is in 1896 or thereabouts.
- This is an Australian - Is that a dead whale? A drunken Australian found a dead whale on the beach Just say Australian, you don't need to beleaguer.
- I knew you'd say that.
- Is that him there? Yeah, that's him.
.
.
and decided to walk into the whale.
That looks like something from Embarrassing Bodies, doesn't it? It does a bit.
I've put on a little bit of weight.
I've fallen into a bloody whale.
I thought a blowhole meant something else.
I feel like a bloody fool now.
I'll look for a malady and ameliorate it.
Just the kind of language you'd use.
But no, he got out of the whale He got out, he stank.
.
.
and was amazed to discover He could walk.
- That his - He was sober.
.
.
his rheumatism had disappeared.
We'd never have got that.
We could have been here about a week.
I know.
That's why I helped you out.
- Thank you so much.
- So it cures rheumatism? - Well - But I mean, you can't get them at the chemist, can you? No, you can't.
It started a fad, though.
People - Would go and stand in the middle of dead whales? - Yeah.
And whalers would leave a hole, a little, sort of, area for people who would pay and go and stand inside.
And the decaying blubber would act as a kind of poultice.
- Is there any kind of? - I want to go now.
- No.
- Total - No evidence that it works at all.
But it was just one of those fads that they had in those days.
- What a fun fad.
- A fun fad.
- These days we've got - Imagine if the monocle people went and they were standing there like, "Oh, I'm all for a fad now.
"Here I am with my monocle, sat in a whale.
"I'll do anything.
" Well, yeah, that's it really.
Australians with rheumatism had a whale of a time.
What would you find in a medieval manhole? Do they keep their favourite things in it? Do they bury them in case of marauding pillagers? We're actually in the Germanic regions here.
Obviously, there was no Germany in medieval times, but Is it access to drains? Ah, no.
It's a legal issue.
It's a rather bizarre one.
If a man wanted to take another man to court, in Germany and in England, they used trial by battle.
In England, if a man wanted to take a woman to court, he couldn't use trial by battle.
But in Germany, you could, but you had to dig a hole and be inside a hole and tie one arm behind your back Oh, yeah.
- No way! - .
.
and then you could fight.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- I feel like on this panel show, I should be stood up like this and all of you should be down there, and I'm slashing around me jokes.
Erm The man would be given three clubs with which he could, you know, try and hit the woman.
And the woman would have rocks and a slingshot.
- Now - Did this actually happen, or? - Yes.
Oh gosh, yes.
- Really? That should be surely be the other way on.
He should have the slingshot and the rocks, if he's just stuck in a hole.
- Yeah, I know.
It's strange.
- She can stand back quite a way - and just fire at him.
- With stones.
Imagine then I suppose you can get right down in your hole, can't you.
Yeah.
And just go round like that, with a club.
If the man touched the side of his hole Oh, that's LAUGHTER You know what I mean.
If he touched the side of the hole, he forfeited one of his clubs.
- Right.
- And then he only had two clubs left.
But, it's important to remember, whoever lost the battle would be put to death.
So this is quite a serious thing.
They've already sort of dug the grave, so it's all right.
- Yes, that's true.
- It's not as bad.
- Pop them in there, fill it in, we're done.
- Yeah.
- That's extraordinary.
- Isn't it? - Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Anyway That's what I love about this show, that sometimes we can all just go, "Yeah, fine.
" - Indeed.
- Perfectly lovely.
- That's quite interesting, yeah.
Still on the medieval match-ups, what brilliant new strategy was employed by the England team in the European Championships of 1176? Did they just do what they always do - get a really easy qualifying group? And Scotland got, you know, the Holy Roman Empire.
The Knights Templar and Spain.
And EnglandEngland get Lindisfarne.
This is medieval again, and it's early medieval, I suppose you might say.
It's not football though, is it? It must be another - No, it's not football.
- Jousting? Jousting came later.
- What happened in early medieval - They need more space for that.
.
.
was that.
I know, they do, don't they? It's rather crowded.
They're not getting enough of a run-up.
Yeah.
Before jousting, the two with lances, you know, riding towards each other, there was something, which was a French word that we still use to mean a kind of fray.
- It begins with M.
- Menagerie.
Not a menagerie.
LAUGHTER Menage a trois.
A European menage a trois.
- Melee.
- Yes! A melee is what it was.
Well done.
The original cast of Avatar in a melee.
And we're looking at the 12th century, - and the great king then was - Henry II.
- Followed by his son, Richard I, the Lionheart.
- Oh, right.
And they liked this melee when Richard wasn't out at the Crusades.
- I like it.
- And "I do.
It pleaseth me.
" And they saw this very good trick and they copied it.
And that is, you tell them you're not going to fight today.
You know, "I won't do the melee today.
" And they go, "Oh, OK.
" And then they exhaust each other.
And then you come with your lot saying, "I think I will actually.
" And they're all completely tired, and you win.
What do you mean they exhaust each other? Well, because they're running backwards and forwards at each other, - running and running.
- This is how I do a menage a trois.
I let them go for a while and then I come in late.
They stole the idea off Philip of Flanders and it seemed to work pretty well.
The sport is called melee and it's similar to jousting? Well, the reason jousting then took on, as you can see from the picture, this involves a lot all at once, whereas jousting is cheaper.
- Ah, I see.
- It's simply that.
It was so much cheaper to have that.
And you've got champions at the jousting who appeal to the ladies.
You know, the handkerchiefs and the favours and the rather extraordinary elaborate form of romance.
It's kind of funny that that would appeal to ladies.
It's kind of like the version now for men for The Only Way Is Essex.
- That you don't actually know what someone looks like - Yes! .
.
because they've got so much fancy stuff and extensions on.
You're like, "Oh, he's gorgeous.
Look at him! "I really like the look of him.
" Then he takes off his thing at the end and you're like, "Oh, God! "Maybe I don't like him.
" Going round in a miniskirt with a massive pole in your hand.
Yeah.
The chicks go wild.
Well, the first rule of knight club was to cheat.
Now, for a question about moral turpitude.
What morally questionable activity will you finally be able to do on the streets of Knutsford in 2015? - Is the clue in the picture, Stephen? - Sort of, yeah.
Does it involve nuts? No.
Sadly not.
Does it involve bunting? Nor bunting.
And look lower down.
What is there particularly noticeable? - Terrible shoes.
- Oh.
Look at them, oh.
- Very bad shoes.
- Yeah.
- The road.
- Pavement's - Parking.
Double yellow lines.
The pavement.
- What about the pavement? - It's small, very narrow.
It's a very narrow pavement.
Thank you, Danny.
- It is a narrow pavement.
- You can't have that.
There's a reason for the narrow pavement.
- Because - Those two people are massive.
In the olden days - Yeah? - A certain class of person virtually ruled the roost in Britain - and that was an aristocrat.
- Oh, the bastards.
Yes.
Absolutely shocking people.
And you had to throw yourself into the gutter if one approached you.
Well, sometimes they had strong, stern and absurd moral views.
- And - Oh, so they weren't allowed to walk - Well, yes.
- If you imagine - .
.
side by side? ARISTOCRATIC VOICE: "I'm not having the working classes "next to each other in the street.
"cos it can only lead to touching.
" I know you think you're doing a voice, but that is how you talk.
There's no difference.
Like a hair's breadth.
You are a beast.
Voicing the inner workings of the mind.
So, you weren't allowed to walk hand-in-hand with a lady? You could just walk behind her? - Basically, yeah.
- I'm happy with that.
Well, the Lady Jane Stanley, who was the daughter of the 11th Earl of Derby, - and she laid down this strict code of - Single-file pavement - Single-file pavements.
- .
.
in case they touched one another.
- Yes.
She died unmarried, as you might expect.
- Yeah! She wrote her own epitaph, apparently, which is, "A maid I lived and a maid I died.
I never was asked and never denied.
" I think that's not bad, considering she was dead.
Yes, quite.
Fair enough.
But perhaps the most famous prude of his era was a little later, in the 1870s - a fellow called Anthony Comstock.
Comstock, was from New York and founded a league against lewdness of any kind.
He saw it everywhere.
He hated it.
He'd been in the civil war, didn't like the swearing, apparently.
- Yeah, that's the worst thing about war.
- Yes, I know.
Especially that civil war, you know? I mean They've blown my fucking leg off! Now, now.
Language.
"I'm going to fucking kill you.
" "Please, could you just kill me? Thank you.
" But the particular tragedy that struck him in 1873, after the war, was a friend of his - who was addicted to pornography - died, supposedly having masturbated himself to death.
There's a lesson in there, Jimmy.
I'm happy to report, Stephen, that cannot happen.
You're just not trying hard enough, boy.
I thought you looked pale, Jimmy.
Comstock believed that anyway.
Yes, he founded the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice and for nine years in its height, from the '70s to early '80s, the society was responsible for 700 arrests, 333 prison sentences.
So, almost a 50% success rate on its arrests.
And fines totalling 65,000, which was a heck of a lot then.
The seizure of roughly 65,000 articles as well.
Articles for immoral use of rubber, etc.
As late as 1927 they were still going and they managed, reprehensibly, to shut down Mae West's Broadway play, Sex, and had her imprisoned for ten days.
Really? There was the Comstock Law, which made it a federal offence to send obscene matter - for example, contraceptives - through the post.
It was finally overturned in '36 in the wonderfully named case of United States versus One Package of Japanese Pessaries.
The US was always going to win that one.
It was, wasn't it? I think so.
I've never hadI've never had, in 14 years, people eating sweets in the front row.
What the hell?! And I can't think about anything else.
Thanks, Jimmy.
You can have them back at the end of the lesson.
I feel really bad for those people, because, obviously, you're just sat there watching an episode of QI, and then suddenly the telly gets up .
.
and nicks your sweets.
I didn't press the red button, what's going on? Anyway, what did the French do with marmosets that normal people did with cheese? - I have no memory of that whatsoever.
- That's Alan! Oh, we all remember our student days.
Forget the marmoset.
- Right, forget the marmoset.
- I say normal people do with cheese? - What do we do with cheese? - I put it on bread or crackers.
Put it in the back of the fridge for six months, then chuck it out.
Think laterally.
Not the substance, not the food even.
What else is there? - Cheese.
- Oh, notnot on some sort of, no - No, don't.
- Oh, Jimmy.
Not the substance.
Not any substance at all.
- Say "cheese".
We say "cheese".
- That's it! Thank you, Danny.
Thank you.
APPLAUSE Very good.
So do the French say "marmoset?" - They do.
- They say "marmoset"? Well, they used to.
I put it in the past tense.
That makes me go, "Oh, no wonder.
" Cos that makes you go like this and that's what old French people look like in photos, "Allo.
Allo.
" We have a Frenchman in the audience.
We have Vincent, who's come all the way from la belle France, - from la Republique.
- Bonjour.
Let's just listen to him shouting marmoset in French.
Ouistiti.
Ouistiti.
Brilliant, thank you.
And the point is, we smile when we say the - Which titty? - Which titty? - Which titty? - Ouistiti.
- This titty - Which titty? - .
.
or this titty? - Which titty? - This titty or this titty? - Ouistiti - Which titty? - Which titty will make you smile? - Which titty? It does make you smile, just saying "which titty?" If you stretch your face to say "ti-ti".
- Titty.
- Titty.
- As you do to say cheese.
- Little titty, big titty.
Exactly.
And other languages, of course, have other words, or used to.
I don't think it But people Blue Steel now, don't they? - They Blue Steel it.
They don't - Well, there is that, unfortunately.
But do you know of any other country's words? - Yes, the Danish - Yes? - Yeah, what? Yeah? They say "orange".
Well, they don't say the word orange, do they? Well, I don't know what it is, but I remember someone It's the Danish for orange.
Do we have Danes in the audience? - There's one.
- Oh.
- You're Danish? It sounds like apple, doesn't it? Say, if you could - Appelsin.
- Yeah, there we go.
- Appelsin? A pussy? - Appelsin.
- Where titty, a pussy? - Which titty? A pussy.
- A pussy.
- This is Europe is filth! - Europe is filthy.
And in various other languages, we have Serbian, - I don't suppose anyone.
Well - I don't think they smile in Serbia.
Do we have any Slavs in the audience? No, we don't.
"Little bird" in Serbian is ptica.
Tee-chee-tsa.
- Tee-chee-tsa.
- It might be the same in Russian, I don't know.
Iticheetza! Iticheetza! Iticheetza! Iticheetza! Honestly.
Korean you might get, cos it's their favourite thing.
- Eating dogs.
- Kimchi.
- Kimchi.
- Nuclear.
- Kimchi, yeah.
- Kimchi.
They love their kimchi.
Argentina and some other Latin countries is actually an English word they say.
Or Scottish.
A Gaelic word, I should say.
'Usquebaugh' means whisky.
- Usquebaugh? - Yeah, whisky.
- Or water of life, isn't it? - Usquebaugh.
Ah, usquebaugh is the same in Irish, in Gaelic as well.
Except you put an 'e' in it when you make it English.
No, we don't put an 'e' in it, because that's really They did for one 48-hour period, yeah.
Bulgarian is We don't have any Bulgars in the audience, I'm sure? - There's one! - Weh! - A Bulgar! - You're joking, really? Is that what you say, a Bulgar? You don't say you're a Bulgar? Bulgarian? - I am Bulgarian.
- And what would you say if? - We say "zele".
Yes! - Zele.
Which means? - Cabbage.
- Cabbage, yes.
- Cabbage.
Good God, very good.
The sad thing is that they've tended to die out.
Not because people do Blue Steel, as you were saying, but because the Americanisms and British even, they say "cheese" or "smile".
People go "hmmm" and they just do it.
Isn't it sad? People saying smile, how awful.
No, I didn't So, now it's time to run screaming into the disaster zone that we call General Ignorance.
So, fingers on buzzers if you please.
When is the best time to charge your mobile phone? At night.
Well, good.
Yeah, it might be.
Any other thoughts? Oh, really? I thought that would go off.
Yeah.
When it's completely almost run out of battery.
- CLAXON SOUNDS Oh! - Oh! If you've got an iPhone, it's every 15 minutes.
It used to be the case with an old phone.
Nokia would go on for weeks.
Yeah! Look at that beauty.
Bring 'em back! That's like one of the most modern, "Oh, it's not like it was in the old days.
" These phones of that generation used what sort of batteries? - Lithium? - Lithium.
- No, nickle is the point.
And if you charged it when it was 20% full, it wouldn't remember the rest of it, as it were, it was called memory problem.
So, you had to drain them.
You had to use them completely, so that it would charge the whole battery.
But we use lithium now and that isn't a problem any more.
But here's a great thing about batteries, and I'm going to demonstrate this to you, and I think it'll be rather interesting.
We're just talking about ordinary AA batteries here, whether or not they're charged or They have a thumb thing on them now, don't they? - I would, I would use - Well, but they did the thumb thing, but they've got rid of that, haven't they? They never quite worked.
It was supposed to shine a go green or something.
Yeah, yeah, go green and there was like a press thing.
I would attach it to my nipple clamps and see if it gives me a buzz that I need.
Here are two batteries.
How can you tell which one is flat, as it were, which one is drained of power - and which one is still powerful? - Try it on you.
- Some magnetic thing.
- It's nothing to do with magnetism.
I'm going to slip them through these copper sleeves so that they're both facing the right direction and should both fall at the same time.
So you can count me down from three, two, one and drop, all right? The whole audience can join in.
Three, two, one, drop! All right, let's have a look at that.
In theory, an empty battery should bounce more.
Oh! And that is the case that this is the one which has been drained.
It's to do with the gel inside the batteries.
And when they're drained, it's hardened and so it bounces more.
Should we do an apology now for people breaking their mobile phones? Presumably someone is at home going, "Is this charged?" - You could try it with that.
- Seems all right.
There you are, isn't that good? Couldn't you just buy new batteries? I just didn't think of that.
Right.
Yes, the best time to charge your phone is any time you can find a power socket.
All of which brings us charging towards a battery of very extraordinary scores, which will amaze and astonish you.
Not.
So, in first place, what an extraordinary debut, Danny Bhoy on ten points.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE In second place, half as good, but still brilliant, five points to Jimmy Carr.
I'm happy with that.
I'll take that all day.
Five?! That's good.
In third place, with -7, it's Aisling Bea.
Yeah! Who does that leave us, I wonder? Well -44 for Alan Davies! CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Well, that's all from Aisling, Jimmy, Danny, Alan and me.
And I leave you with these wise words from Pulitzer Prize winner, Anna Quindlen.
"Life is not so much about beginnings and endings "as it is about going on and on and on.
"It's about muddling through the middle," which I hope we've done this evening.
Goodnight.
APPLAUSE
Good evening! Good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, and welcome to QI, for the middle show of the M series.
Which is in the middle of the alphabet.
Where our theme is, well, not so much middle as muddle, to be honest.
But we have the magnificent Aisling Bea.
The mighty Danny Bhoy.
The magnetic Jimmy Carr.
And the miscellaneous Alan Davies.
And their buzzers are merrily multifarious.
Aisling goes # Here we go round the mulberry bush, The mulberry bush, the mulberry bush.
Danny goes # This old man, he played one, He played knick knack on my drum.
Jimmy goes # Three blind mice Three blind mice.
It's like the soundtrack of a horror film.
And Alan goes My Bonnie lies over Will you go to bed?! - Was that a gunshot? - I don't know.
The bit at the end, yes.
Well, the best place to start, I always think, is in the middle.
How do you know when a chimpanzee is having a midlife crisis? Does it get a Chinese tattoo? - Just on the back of his neck there.
- A motorbike.
A motorbike? Where does the phrase midlife crisis come from? How long has it been in the language, do you think? Do you think the Victorians used it? Do you think - I bet it's more recent.
I bet it's like a '50s - Yeah.
Cos it was about buying sports cars and doing those kind of crazy divorcing your wife and going out with someone of 22.
It was actually 1965 that a psychologist decided on this midlife crisis.
He thought that only geniuses got a midlife crisis.
He used the phrase, but he said it was something that happened to geniuses.
- But we - It's not only us.
It's not only us.
Is it, Alan? You get them too.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
LAUGHTER The awkward thing about midlife crises, I've had some friends that have gone through them recently and they've left their partners, gone out with much younger women and they've bought sports cars, and the most difficult thing is pretending to my other half that, "Aw! That's terrible.
Isn't it sad?" "Aw, ah.
God, he's had a disaster there.
"Yeah.
No, apparently she used to be a dancer.
Yeah.
" Yeah.
LAUGHTER He's not But is he happy? Aw.
Yes.
He can't stop smiling.
He showed me some photos on his phone, it looks amazing.
Well, it turns out that chimpanzees, when they're young, they're high and when they get to middle age, they kind of go down and then up again, which is supposedly what a midlife crisis is.
Does it only affect the men, or does it affect the women chimps as well? It seems to be a male thing, doesn't it? And I think Yeah.
I hear that, sister monkeys.
Are those guys laughing at the ginger ones? Well, the tests were done on the ginger ones, or orang-utans, as some people prefer to call them - The ginger ones, yes.
- .
.
and on the chimpanzees.
Now, what mania was started by a few myopic Merseysiders? - # Mulberry bush.
# - Weirdly, you know - Yeah? - No, keep going.
Does this buzzer stop Jimmy speaking? Try again.
Say something.
- I was just going to say - # Mulberry bush.
# There's some support for it.
I find the buzzers really disconcerting.
It does feel like someone's about to get murdered in the show.
"Oh, go to bed!" Those childish ghost cries.
Mice.
It's usually The Beatles.
- Hmm.
- Isn't it? Yeah, it's usually The Beatles.
- The Beatles is what you're saying.
- It's usually The Beatles.
He's saying The Beatles.
Mulberry bush.
Very good.
No, is the answer.
- Oh.
- It was a mania, but not Beatlemania on Merseyside.
- Myopic Merseyside.
- It involves something to do with M.
- Myopic is short-sighted, is it? - Yes.
- Partially-sighted.
- So, what M could help you with partial-sightedness? My glasses.
Yes.
Any particular type of ophthalmic instrument - that would help, that began with M? - Monocle.
Monocle is the right answer.
There we go, very good.
Yeah.
I only knew that cos there happens to be a monocle next to me.
It was a bit of a giveaway.
There you are, pop 'em in.
It was a fashion thing that seemed to sweep Liverpool.
I can imagine it taking off again, to be honest.
- You do look great.
- You look very good.
Ah, Jimmy! - Oh, my goodness.
- My old pal.
What are you laughing at? Jimmy, you've never looked more like a ventriloquist's doll in your life.
So, Jimmy Oh, my! You really did look like Lord Charles there.
I now feel slightly haunted.
Wow! Thank you for putting your hand there, by the way.
It was reallyspecial.
Your hair is all up.
They won't fit because monocles had to be made to fit, which is why they were expensive.
And because they were expensive, they were associated with the upper classes.
And even when you wear them, it's very hard not to look rather kind of like that, isn't it? At what point in history did someone just go, make that mental leap between, "I've got it here and I've got a little bridge here.
"I could maybe just put another one" Well, it's funny you should say that.
Which came first, the monocle or the spectacles? I'm going to say the spectacles.
Yes.
The spectacles, by hundreds of years.
- What? - When do you think the monocle came in? No.
They came in, in the 1800s and they were instantly a success, but they were expensive.
And we associate them with, I suppose - Oh, there I am.
- Yeah.
There you are, yeah.
I had all three of those.
- They knocked that up pretty quickly.
- Yeah.
But something gave them a rather bad image - in the 20th century.
- Californian vegetables.
- Nazis.
Nazis, and in fact LAUGHTER Californian vegetables.
Buy Californian vegetables.
By Jove, they're awfully good.
- Yeah, they were associated with - You do become instantly posh.
.
.
aristocrats, German soldiers and generals.
Ludendorff wore one, Krebs, various of those figures there did.
Ja.
Advance.
- They really did never stop - No squinting.
- .
.
trying to look more evil, did they? - No, they didn't.
Well, what could we add to this? I've got the, you know, the skull and crossbones, I've got the weird look, I've got the steely eyes.
- They're a very good fit.
- I know, I'll put one spectacle lens over here.
What about a monocle? Zat would make us more evil.
A tiny moustache.
Anyway, now for a medical question.
What malady could you ameliorate by standing in the middle of Wales? - Yes? - Er, Moby Dick.
Ha! - Stand in the middle of whales.
- Moby Dick! Ah.
Oh, very good.
Very good.
APPLAUSE - Very good.
- Whales or Wales the country, though? Well, you see, this is the thing.
Not whale, the giant mammal.
You kind of deserve a little point for your Moby Dick.
- Oh, do I? - Because I am actually talking If you stood in the middle of a blue whale.
I know you're obsessed, but it doesn't have to be blue.
Yeah, but let's say it's blue.
All right, blue.
All right blue.
Because you know you can stand in one of those.
- You can? - They're huge.
Yeah.
They are quite big, aren't they? Of course, they're not the biggest life form on earth, as you know.
Hell no! Sorry, are we doing a 'best of' show? In some ways, it's the 'worst of'.
You two have had this conversation like a million times.
What's the question again, Stephen? Yeah, what sort of amelioration for what sort of malady could you expect, if you stood A cream, an ointment? Somea balm.
No.
No, this isthe act of standing, it's not something that's just taken from a whale.
This is an example.
This is in 1896 or thereabouts.
- This is an Australian - Is that a dead whale? A drunken Australian found a dead whale on the beach Just say Australian, you don't need to beleaguer.
- I knew you'd say that.
- Is that him there? Yeah, that's him.
.
.
and decided to walk into the whale.
That looks like something from Embarrassing Bodies, doesn't it? It does a bit.
I've put on a little bit of weight.
I've fallen into a bloody whale.
I thought a blowhole meant something else.
I feel like a bloody fool now.
I'll look for a malady and ameliorate it.
Just the kind of language you'd use.
But no, he got out of the whale He got out, he stank.
.
.
and was amazed to discover He could walk.
- That his - He was sober.
.
.
his rheumatism had disappeared.
We'd never have got that.
We could have been here about a week.
I know.
That's why I helped you out.
- Thank you so much.
- So it cures rheumatism? - Well - But I mean, you can't get them at the chemist, can you? No, you can't.
It started a fad, though.
People - Would go and stand in the middle of dead whales? - Yeah.
And whalers would leave a hole, a little, sort of, area for people who would pay and go and stand inside.
And the decaying blubber would act as a kind of poultice.
- Is there any kind of? - I want to go now.
- No.
- Total - No evidence that it works at all.
But it was just one of those fads that they had in those days.
- What a fun fad.
- A fun fad.
- These days we've got - Imagine if the monocle people went and they were standing there like, "Oh, I'm all for a fad now.
"Here I am with my monocle, sat in a whale.
"I'll do anything.
" Well, yeah, that's it really.
Australians with rheumatism had a whale of a time.
What would you find in a medieval manhole? Do they keep their favourite things in it? Do they bury them in case of marauding pillagers? We're actually in the Germanic regions here.
Obviously, there was no Germany in medieval times, but Is it access to drains? Ah, no.
It's a legal issue.
It's a rather bizarre one.
If a man wanted to take another man to court, in Germany and in England, they used trial by battle.
In England, if a man wanted to take a woman to court, he couldn't use trial by battle.
But in Germany, you could, but you had to dig a hole and be inside a hole and tie one arm behind your back Oh, yeah.
- No way! - .
.
and then you could fight.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- I feel like on this panel show, I should be stood up like this and all of you should be down there, and I'm slashing around me jokes.
Erm The man would be given three clubs with which he could, you know, try and hit the woman.
And the woman would have rocks and a slingshot.
- Now - Did this actually happen, or? - Yes.
Oh gosh, yes.
- Really? That should be surely be the other way on.
He should have the slingshot and the rocks, if he's just stuck in a hole.
- Yeah, I know.
It's strange.
- She can stand back quite a way - and just fire at him.
- With stones.
Imagine then I suppose you can get right down in your hole, can't you.
Yeah.
And just go round like that, with a club.
If the man touched the side of his hole Oh, that's LAUGHTER You know what I mean.
If he touched the side of the hole, he forfeited one of his clubs.
- Right.
- And then he only had two clubs left.
But, it's important to remember, whoever lost the battle would be put to death.
So this is quite a serious thing.
They've already sort of dug the grave, so it's all right.
- Yes, that's true.
- It's not as bad.
- Pop them in there, fill it in, we're done.
- Yeah.
- That's extraordinary.
- Isn't it? - Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Anyway That's what I love about this show, that sometimes we can all just go, "Yeah, fine.
" - Indeed.
- Perfectly lovely.
- That's quite interesting, yeah.
Still on the medieval match-ups, what brilliant new strategy was employed by the England team in the European Championships of 1176? Did they just do what they always do - get a really easy qualifying group? And Scotland got, you know, the Holy Roman Empire.
The Knights Templar and Spain.
And EnglandEngland get Lindisfarne.
This is medieval again, and it's early medieval, I suppose you might say.
It's not football though, is it? It must be another - No, it's not football.
- Jousting? Jousting came later.
- What happened in early medieval - They need more space for that.
.
.
was that.
I know, they do, don't they? It's rather crowded.
They're not getting enough of a run-up.
Yeah.
Before jousting, the two with lances, you know, riding towards each other, there was something, which was a French word that we still use to mean a kind of fray.
- It begins with M.
- Menagerie.
Not a menagerie.
LAUGHTER Menage a trois.
A European menage a trois.
- Melee.
- Yes! A melee is what it was.
Well done.
The original cast of Avatar in a melee.
And we're looking at the 12th century, - and the great king then was - Henry II.
- Followed by his son, Richard I, the Lionheart.
- Oh, right.
And they liked this melee when Richard wasn't out at the Crusades.
- I like it.
- And "I do.
It pleaseth me.
" And they saw this very good trick and they copied it.
And that is, you tell them you're not going to fight today.
You know, "I won't do the melee today.
" And they go, "Oh, OK.
" And then they exhaust each other.
And then you come with your lot saying, "I think I will actually.
" And they're all completely tired, and you win.
What do you mean they exhaust each other? Well, because they're running backwards and forwards at each other, - running and running.
- This is how I do a menage a trois.
I let them go for a while and then I come in late.
They stole the idea off Philip of Flanders and it seemed to work pretty well.
The sport is called melee and it's similar to jousting? Well, the reason jousting then took on, as you can see from the picture, this involves a lot all at once, whereas jousting is cheaper.
- Ah, I see.
- It's simply that.
It was so much cheaper to have that.
And you've got champions at the jousting who appeal to the ladies.
You know, the handkerchiefs and the favours and the rather extraordinary elaborate form of romance.
It's kind of funny that that would appeal to ladies.
It's kind of like the version now for men for The Only Way Is Essex.
- That you don't actually know what someone looks like - Yes! .
.
because they've got so much fancy stuff and extensions on.
You're like, "Oh, he's gorgeous.
Look at him! "I really like the look of him.
" Then he takes off his thing at the end and you're like, "Oh, God! "Maybe I don't like him.
" Going round in a miniskirt with a massive pole in your hand.
Yeah.
The chicks go wild.
Well, the first rule of knight club was to cheat.
Now, for a question about moral turpitude.
What morally questionable activity will you finally be able to do on the streets of Knutsford in 2015? - Is the clue in the picture, Stephen? - Sort of, yeah.
Does it involve nuts? No.
Sadly not.
Does it involve bunting? Nor bunting.
And look lower down.
What is there particularly noticeable? - Terrible shoes.
- Oh.
Look at them, oh.
- Very bad shoes.
- Yeah.
- The road.
- Pavement's - Parking.
Double yellow lines.
The pavement.
- What about the pavement? - It's small, very narrow.
It's a very narrow pavement.
Thank you, Danny.
- It is a narrow pavement.
- You can't have that.
There's a reason for the narrow pavement.
- Because - Those two people are massive.
In the olden days - Yeah? - A certain class of person virtually ruled the roost in Britain - and that was an aristocrat.
- Oh, the bastards.
Yes.
Absolutely shocking people.
And you had to throw yourself into the gutter if one approached you.
Well, sometimes they had strong, stern and absurd moral views.
- And - Oh, so they weren't allowed to walk - Well, yes.
- If you imagine - .
.
side by side? ARISTOCRATIC VOICE: "I'm not having the working classes "next to each other in the street.
"cos it can only lead to touching.
" I know you think you're doing a voice, but that is how you talk.
There's no difference.
Like a hair's breadth.
You are a beast.
Voicing the inner workings of the mind.
So, you weren't allowed to walk hand-in-hand with a lady? You could just walk behind her? - Basically, yeah.
- I'm happy with that.
Well, the Lady Jane Stanley, who was the daughter of the 11th Earl of Derby, - and she laid down this strict code of - Single-file pavement - Single-file pavements.
- .
.
in case they touched one another.
- Yes.
She died unmarried, as you might expect.
- Yeah! She wrote her own epitaph, apparently, which is, "A maid I lived and a maid I died.
I never was asked and never denied.
" I think that's not bad, considering she was dead.
Yes, quite.
Fair enough.
But perhaps the most famous prude of his era was a little later, in the 1870s - a fellow called Anthony Comstock.
Comstock, was from New York and founded a league against lewdness of any kind.
He saw it everywhere.
He hated it.
He'd been in the civil war, didn't like the swearing, apparently.
- Yeah, that's the worst thing about war.
- Yes, I know.
Especially that civil war, you know? I mean They've blown my fucking leg off! Now, now.
Language.
"I'm going to fucking kill you.
" "Please, could you just kill me? Thank you.
" But the particular tragedy that struck him in 1873, after the war, was a friend of his - who was addicted to pornography - died, supposedly having masturbated himself to death.
There's a lesson in there, Jimmy.
I'm happy to report, Stephen, that cannot happen.
You're just not trying hard enough, boy.
I thought you looked pale, Jimmy.
Comstock believed that anyway.
Yes, he founded the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice and for nine years in its height, from the '70s to early '80s, the society was responsible for 700 arrests, 333 prison sentences.
So, almost a 50% success rate on its arrests.
And fines totalling 65,000, which was a heck of a lot then.
The seizure of roughly 65,000 articles as well.
Articles for immoral use of rubber, etc.
As late as 1927 they were still going and they managed, reprehensibly, to shut down Mae West's Broadway play, Sex, and had her imprisoned for ten days.
Really? There was the Comstock Law, which made it a federal offence to send obscene matter - for example, contraceptives - through the post.
It was finally overturned in '36 in the wonderfully named case of United States versus One Package of Japanese Pessaries.
The US was always going to win that one.
It was, wasn't it? I think so.
I've never hadI've never had, in 14 years, people eating sweets in the front row.
What the hell?! And I can't think about anything else.
Thanks, Jimmy.
You can have them back at the end of the lesson.
I feel really bad for those people, because, obviously, you're just sat there watching an episode of QI, and then suddenly the telly gets up .
.
and nicks your sweets.
I didn't press the red button, what's going on? Anyway, what did the French do with marmosets that normal people did with cheese? - I have no memory of that whatsoever.
- That's Alan! Oh, we all remember our student days.
Forget the marmoset.
- Right, forget the marmoset.
- I say normal people do with cheese? - What do we do with cheese? - I put it on bread or crackers.
Put it in the back of the fridge for six months, then chuck it out.
Think laterally.
Not the substance, not the food even.
What else is there? - Cheese.
- Oh, notnot on some sort of, no - No, don't.
- Oh, Jimmy.
Not the substance.
Not any substance at all.
- Say "cheese".
We say "cheese".
- That's it! Thank you, Danny.
Thank you.
APPLAUSE Very good.
So do the French say "marmoset?" - They do.
- They say "marmoset"? Well, they used to.
I put it in the past tense.
That makes me go, "Oh, no wonder.
" Cos that makes you go like this and that's what old French people look like in photos, "Allo.
Allo.
" We have a Frenchman in the audience.
We have Vincent, who's come all the way from la belle France, - from la Republique.
- Bonjour.
Let's just listen to him shouting marmoset in French.
Ouistiti.
Ouistiti.
Brilliant, thank you.
And the point is, we smile when we say the - Which titty? - Which titty? - Which titty? - Ouistiti.
- This titty - Which titty? - .
.
or this titty? - Which titty? - This titty or this titty? - Ouistiti - Which titty? - Which titty will make you smile? - Which titty? It does make you smile, just saying "which titty?" If you stretch your face to say "ti-ti".
- Titty.
- Titty.
- As you do to say cheese.
- Little titty, big titty.
Exactly.
And other languages, of course, have other words, or used to.
I don't think it But people Blue Steel now, don't they? - They Blue Steel it.
They don't - Well, there is that, unfortunately.
But do you know of any other country's words? - Yes, the Danish - Yes? - Yeah, what? Yeah? They say "orange".
Well, they don't say the word orange, do they? Well, I don't know what it is, but I remember someone It's the Danish for orange.
Do we have Danes in the audience? - There's one.
- Oh.
- You're Danish? It sounds like apple, doesn't it? Say, if you could - Appelsin.
- Yeah, there we go.
- Appelsin? A pussy? - Appelsin.
- Where titty, a pussy? - Which titty? A pussy.
- A pussy.
- This is Europe is filth! - Europe is filthy.
And in various other languages, we have Serbian, - I don't suppose anyone.
Well - I don't think they smile in Serbia.
Do we have any Slavs in the audience? No, we don't.
"Little bird" in Serbian is ptica.
Tee-chee-tsa.
- Tee-chee-tsa.
- It might be the same in Russian, I don't know.
Iticheetza! Iticheetza! Iticheetza! Iticheetza! Honestly.
Korean you might get, cos it's their favourite thing.
- Eating dogs.
- Kimchi.
- Kimchi.
- Nuclear.
- Kimchi, yeah.
- Kimchi.
They love their kimchi.
Argentina and some other Latin countries is actually an English word they say.
Or Scottish.
A Gaelic word, I should say.
'Usquebaugh' means whisky.
- Usquebaugh? - Yeah, whisky.
- Or water of life, isn't it? - Usquebaugh.
Ah, usquebaugh is the same in Irish, in Gaelic as well.
Except you put an 'e' in it when you make it English.
No, we don't put an 'e' in it, because that's really They did for one 48-hour period, yeah.
Bulgarian is We don't have any Bulgars in the audience, I'm sure? - There's one! - Weh! - A Bulgar! - You're joking, really? Is that what you say, a Bulgar? You don't say you're a Bulgar? Bulgarian? - I am Bulgarian.
- And what would you say if? - We say "zele".
Yes! - Zele.
Which means? - Cabbage.
- Cabbage, yes.
- Cabbage.
Good God, very good.
The sad thing is that they've tended to die out.
Not because people do Blue Steel, as you were saying, but because the Americanisms and British even, they say "cheese" or "smile".
People go "hmmm" and they just do it.
Isn't it sad? People saying smile, how awful.
No, I didn't So, now it's time to run screaming into the disaster zone that we call General Ignorance.
So, fingers on buzzers if you please.
When is the best time to charge your mobile phone? At night.
Well, good.
Yeah, it might be.
Any other thoughts? Oh, really? I thought that would go off.
Yeah.
When it's completely almost run out of battery.
- CLAXON SOUNDS Oh! - Oh! If you've got an iPhone, it's every 15 minutes.
It used to be the case with an old phone.
Nokia would go on for weeks.
Yeah! Look at that beauty.
Bring 'em back! That's like one of the most modern, "Oh, it's not like it was in the old days.
" These phones of that generation used what sort of batteries? - Lithium? - Lithium.
- No, nickle is the point.
And if you charged it when it was 20% full, it wouldn't remember the rest of it, as it were, it was called memory problem.
So, you had to drain them.
You had to use them completely, so that it would charge the whole battery.
But we use lithium now and that isn't a problem any more.
But here's a great thing about batteries, and I'm going to demonstrate this to you, and I think it'll be rather interesting.
We're just talking about ordinary AA batteries here, whether or not they're charged or They have a thumb thing on them now, don't they? - I would, I would use - Well, but they did the thumb thing, but they've got rid of that, haven't they? They never quite worked.
It was supposed to shine a go green or something.
Yeah, yeah, go green and there was like a press thing.
I would attach it to my nipple clamps and see if it gives me a buzz that I need.
Here are two batteries.
How can you tell which one is flat, as it were, which one is drained of power - and which one is still powerful? - Try it on you.
- Some magnetic thing.
- It's nothing to do with magnetism.
I'm going to slip them through these copper sleeves so that they're both facing the right direction and should both fall at the same time.
So you can count me down from three, two, one and drop, all right? The whole audience can join in.
Three, two, one, drop! All right, let's have a look at that.
In theory, an empty battery should bounce more.
Oh! And that is the case that this is the one which has been drained.
It's to do with the gel inside the batteries.
And when they're drained, it's hardened and so it bounces more.
Should we do an apology now for people breaking their mobile phones? Presumably someone is at home going, "Is this charged?" - You could try it with that.
- Seems all right.
There you are, isn't that good? Couldn't you just buy new batteries? I just didn't think of that.
Right.
Yes, the best time to charge your phone is any time you can find a power socket.
All of which brings us charging towards a battery of very extraordinary scores, which will amaze and astonish you.
Not.
So, in first place, what an extraordinary debut, Danny Bhoy on ten points.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE In second place, half as good, but still brilliant, five points to Jimmy Carr.
I'm happy with that.
I'll take that all day.
Five?! That's good.
In third place, with -7, it's Aisling Bea.
Yeah! Who does that leave us, I wonder? Well -44 for Alan Davies! CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Well, that's all from Aisling, Jimmy, Danny, Alan and me.
And I leave you with these wise words from Pulitzer Prize winner, Anna Quindlen.
"Life is not so much about beginnings and endings "as it is about going on and on and on.
"It's about muddling through the middle," which I hope we've done this evening.
Goodnight.
APPLAUSE