QI (2003) s13e17 Episode Script
Compilation, Part 1, Some Miscellaneous M's
1 This programme contains some strong language.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Very goooo-oo-ood evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, and welcome to QI.
Now, a magpie's real name is a pie.
It's a pie.
Then where does the "mag" come from? Margaret.
Yeah, Margaret.
Was it? Yeah.
Margaret pie? CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Where did that come from? Margaret pie.
In medieval England, it was common to give birds a Christian name, sometimes, and the ones that have survived have included magpie.
Which other ones can you? Robin.
Robin.
Robin redbreast.
Robin redbreast.
Robin's the only one where the first name is the one that's kept Dave Starling.
Sorry? LAUGHTER Joseph Starling? No, big Dave Starling.
LAUGHTER Joseph would have been funny.
Joseph Starling is good, yeah.
I like that.
I prefer that.
Not as funny as Dave, but it's better.
Yeah.
Tomtit.
Jenny Wren.
Tomtit, yeah.
Charlie Crow.
Jackdaw.
Jackdaw.
Oh, jackdaw.
Yeah, yeah.
So, there are a few of them.
Christopher Chaffinch.
LAUGHTER We had an injured bird in the garden yesterday Oh.
.
.
and it looked like a magpie, and it couldn't take off, and I was watching it for ages.
I didn't know what to do with it, so I opened the back gate and shooed it out.
LAUGHTER Oh, dear.
What do you think it was, then? What make? "The back gate.
" I think it was a young crow Yeah.
.
.
that was having a bit of trouble with flight cos it flew into a bush Oh, dear.
.
.
and I presume it's dead by now.
LAUGHTER That's it? You? And that's the end of tonight's Springwatch.
Yes.
LAUGHTER APPLAUSE What could you have done with it? I don't know.
What are you going to do with a bird? Shoot it.
Take it out.
Shoot the Sniper's rifle through the brain.
I could have gone after it cos it was in the garden and couldn't get out.
I could have easily got it with a tennis racket.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
AUDIENCE GASPS Just scoop it up with a tennis racket and hit it with a frying pan LAUGHTER .
.
and chuck it over the wall.
That's what I would do.
Then its parents would have come and ate it, wouldn't they? Yeah, that's right.
Let's face it, it is the wild.
Yeah.
Exactly, yes.
Even if it is Hampstead.
LAUGHTER It's wild for them, though.
They'd have had it in a coulis.
LAUGHTER A crow couscous.
With some quinoa.
LAUGHTER I wonder what its name was.
Clive, I expect.
No, I think it was Vel.
Vel? Vel-crow.
Velcro.
Oh! APPLAUSE Oh, dear.
Oh, dear.
Now, what begins with M that you could shoot with one of these? Those guys are tiny.
LAUGHTER A mallard.
Mallard is very good.
Absolutely.
You recognise what that is? It's a punt gun.
It is indeed a punt gun.
APPLAUSE There's a few punters in.
You're good on guns, aren't you, Jeremy? Well, I shot one of those, but I shot a clay pigeon with it Oh!.
.
and proved that a man can actually fly.
LAUGHTER So, don't tell me you weren't on a punt? No, I wasn't on a punt, and there's a sort of momentum thing goes.
You get it going and then you just can't stop it, and I was airborne for 20 minutes.
LAUGHTER That's one of the reasons they have them on punts is I mean, the boat goes backwards.
That's the point.
You could fire that at Norfolk and you would wind up in Stavanger three weeks later.
LAUGHTER More or less true.
But also, more distressingly, perhaps, if you like the waterfowl, one shot can destroy up to 50 at a time.
So, you've got to have the Is it shot like a shotgun? Yeah, it's just a huge amount of blast.
No, but, I mean, I know you're a vegetableist, which is fine, but LAUGHTER .
.
what I don't understand about these is that if you actually hit a duck, it vaporised it.
LAUGHTER And apart from licking the lake or the grass LAUGHTER .
.
there's no nutritional value from an atomised You're pretty much right.
LAUGHTER What are your monsters called? We've got On Dartmoor? Yeah.
We've got the Hairy Hand.
Are you aware of the Hairy Hand? Which is a No.
You get it when you're about 15.
LAUGHTER The Hairy Hand is a disembodied hand that would appear from nowhere if you were driving along the B3021 Pissed.
.
.
and it would steer you off the road.
But there's "Officer!" "Officer!" IN WEST COUNTRY ACCENT: It smelt of cider, didn't it? LAUGHTER IN WEST COUNTRY ACCENT: It dropped its pint on me, and then it drove me off the road.
LAUGHTER One of the people that claimed he'd been steered off the road by the Hairy Hand, he described it as invisible.
LAUGHTER Oh, bless him for trying.
There are lots of places in the UK named after mammaries.
Can you name one? Boob Town.
"Boob Town!" LAUGHTER No, can you name some real ones? Great Tit-chfield.
GRANDLY: The Mountains of Boob.
LAUGHTER SHE LAUGHS: "The Mountains of Boob!" LAUGHTER Press your buzzer.
'Man United!' Manchester? Yes! It was Mam-chester originally.
No.
As in mammary, yes.
And it's got "chest" in it as well.
Yeah.
LAUGHTER It's an incredibly rudely-named place.
It's double.
Full breasts - the mammaries and the chest.
Yeah.
And there's Nippleton as well, isn't there? Yes, from the Celtic "mam", you've got Mam Tor in Derbyshire.
Jugsford.
LAUGHTER Racksbury.
Memford.
Great Titi.
Bazookaville.
LAUGHTER Rackton.
LAUGHTER Oh, dear.
Gracious.
The Paps of Anu in Ireland are named after the breasts of LAUGHTER And there's a Pap of Glencoe and a Maiden Pap in Scotland.
There's Papworth.
Papworth.
Absolutely, yes.
There's a hospital there.
And what about Titty Hill in West Sussex? What about it? LAUGHTER It exists, but it's not named after breasts.
No, of course not.
What's it named after? Sir Malcolm Titty.
LAUGHTER It's so silly, it's funny.
His assistant named it when they both discovered it.
"What do you think we should call this?" "I think we should name it after you, Titty.
" "Titty Hill?" LAUGHTER "You found it, Titty.
" "We're not going to name it after you, Big Dick.
" Silly Carry On lines.
Oh, dear.
I used to do a bit of stand-up about this thing that I found.
HE LAUGHS LAUGHTER That sounds great.
Sounds brilliant.
What it was, we were doing a Secret Santa, right? And it was a £10 limit.
And I went in There was quite a good adult shop on the Essex Road, and for under £10, the only thing they offered was anal hoopla.
LAUGHTER Anal hoopla consists of a stick LAUGHTER .
.
that goes Guess where.
And three hoops.
LAUGHTER That'sthat's the actual game.
It's an icebreaker.
It's an icebreaker.
LAUGHTER If you think things have gone a bit flat in the bedroom area "Come on!" I mean, the tone of this show is so difficult to get right.
I'm sorry.
I'm justI'm recalibrating.
All this anal hoopla.
Who would have predicted anal hoopla? LAUGHTER On the front of it - on the front of the packet - is a cartoon drawing a bit like a saucy postcard of two people playing it, as if they couldn't get anyone to actually demo it.
I dare say it doesn't work.
Where was this for sale? At the Arsenal football ground? LAUGHTER HE MAKES GUTTURAL SOUNDS Thank you.
That's Klingon for, "Anal hoopla?" LAUGHTER HE MAKES GUTTURAL SOUNDS "No, thanks.
" LAUGHTER "Let's play Scrabble.
" LAUGHTER Now, on the subject of probability, you've got this It's really interesting.
It's a probability issue.
You want a pack of cards each.
I can't catch.
Oh, well caught.
We've got some for you.
So, I want you to take the cards out and give them a good shuffle.
Good shuffle.
I'm going to do the same.
Ooh.
LAUGHTER Beautifully done.
Sorry, boys.
And Sandi has been Look at her.
She's like a croupier.
Jesus! LAUGHTER Very good.
APPLAUSE Very good.
Yes, I've shuffled.
I've riffled, shuffled.
Yeah.
Not a gambler? So, can you shove your cards in here? Oh.
All right, then.
All right, thank you.
I'll give them a really good shake.
Is this going to be one of those Derren Brown ones where we all can't eat for a week or something? No, no, no.
Anyway, there you go.
All right.
It's just about probability.
It's not a big deal.
Is there anything you can't turn your hand to, Stephen? Now it's magic.
You haven't seen me turn my hand to anything yet.
OK, and I'll put my cards in as well.
There we go.
All right, give them all a good shake.
All right, so, you take one card out.
Don't look.
And if you can put it close to your chest, but not No, no, don't look.
I've looked.
I know what it is.
Well, it doesn't matter.
The point is to shove it close to your chest so that that's That's not your chest, darling.
LAUGHTER The reason to shove it close to your chest is so that when you reveal it, it's camera height.
Oh, right.
That's all it is, all right? So, take one out.
Feel it.
Yeah, very good.
Very good.
All right, I'll do the same.
All right, all right, I'll do the same.
OK, so, there is a possibility, but a very unlikely possibility, that two of the cards will be the same.
OK.
So, Sandi, you'll reveal your card.
LAUGHTER Yours is the six of clubs.
All right.
OK.
And you'll reveal your Oh, my God.
AUDIENCE GASPS Oh! Alan? Oh! Oh, no.
You reveal yours.
Surely not.
No.
Oh, my God.
And mine as well.
Oh, there you go.
Funny.
How can that happen? APPLAUSE There it is.
Burn him.
He's a witch.
There you are.
OK.
He's a witch.
That's a very good trick.
Thank you very much.
Very good.
Very good at cards.
Thank you.
APPLAUSE Now, what kind of bird does the Goliath bird-eating spider consume? Oh, God.
Whoa! LAUGHTER That should have had a warning.
Whoa.
That isfucking horrible, sorry.
LAUGHTER Whoa! He's a little furry animal.
Still there.
OK.
Still there.
OK.
Still there.
Oh.
Ah! LAUGHTER Oh, my God.
OK, now there's a still image of one.
Yeah.
It's not moving any more.
Oh! I'm just going to look at Phil.
Eyes on me.
Eyes on me.
Eyes on me.
It's all right, Phil.
It's OK.
OK, I'm SHE SCREAMS LAUGHTER That was naughty.
APPLAUSE Sorry.
Oh, I'm sorry.
What a pathetic reaction.
That's No, please.
I'd be the same, if not for all the therapy.
LAUGHTER We should have asked.
We should have asked if you had a problem.
It's not moving, so that's OK.
It's not moving.
No.
They're big.
It must be said they are very big and they're called Goliath bird-eating spiders.
But it's never eaten a bird in its life.
Well, that one may not have done because it's very, very rare for them to eat birds.
It just so happens the person who discovered it happened upon one eating a hummingbird and so called it a bird-eating spider.
That's like, in your family, when you do something once.
Yeah, exactly.
LAUGHTER It's like, "Oh, Cariad always gets sick on holiday.
" And you're like, "It was one time.
" LAUGHTER Oh, Poland-invading Adolf.
"Once, I invade Poland!" LAUGHTER Now, here's an interesting effect.
Listen to this.
DISTORTED RECORDING OF SPEECH What was being said? Is that the Devil? It was the Devil, but do you know what he was saying? "I'm going to be late.
Put the dinner on.
" Have another listen.
DISTORTED RECORDING OF SPEECH Now, the chances are you just didn't understand what he was saying, but if you heard it said, clearly, then listen again to that distorted sound.
And so this is what was being said.
RECORDING: 'Try saying "blue whale".
'That's bound to come up eventually.
' DISTORTED RECORDING OF SAME SPEECH LAUGHTER Isn't it extraordinary? Wow! Hear that again.
RECORDING: 'Try saying "blue whale".
'That's bound to come up eventually.
' DISTORTED RECORDING OF SAME SPEECH Yeah! You really can hear it, can't you? It just sounds like he's saying it with a cold.
That's right.
It's amazing what the human brain can process.
But it needs a little bit of information.
From that apparently random sound that you thought you could never, ever understand, once you're told what it is, you can instantly imprint the structure of it.
It's amazing, I think.
Now, who has the best teeth in the world? I really like this question and the answer.
The Bee Gees.
The Bee Gees.
They had good teeth.
John Bishop.
I'm looking for a nation.
I'm looking for a people.
Americans.
KLAXON BLARES Did you say Americans? No, I didn't say it.
Is it Scandinavians? It must be the Scandinavians.
No.
Oh, no, it'd be The English.
Yes, the British! Yeah! The British have the best teeth in the world.
APPLAUSE It's true.
We win again! LAUGHTER Yeah, according to the OECD - the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development, the international body Well remembered.
.
.
they looked at all the different nations and they found that, according to fillings and decay and so on, that British children had the best teeth on planet Earth.
Did they just go to one particular school in Nottingham? LAUGHTER I don't think so.
Yeah, but they said that's cos we've got less fillings.
Maybe it's cos we don't go to the dentist at all.
LAUGHTER Fewer fillings.
Fewer fillings.
No AUDIENCE GROANS I'm just being silly.
Stephen, knock, knock.
Yeah, who's there? To.
To who? No, it's "to whom".
LAUGHTER Yes! Touche! Tou-bloody-che! Yes.
Alan.
Hello.
Let's bring this to a beautiful, beautiful conclusion.
Cariad has been bitten by a snake.
SHE LAUGHS What's happening to me? This is not I'm A Celebrity LAUGHTER What should you do? Suck her.
LAUGHTER KLAXON BLARES In every sense, no.
You can't afford it, love.
LAUGHTER APPLAUSE Even when you've been bitten by a cobra, you're going to haggle prices.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You'd soon drop your prices once you've tried it.
LAUGHTER Oh, dear.
All right.
You tourniquet it.
You No.
KLAXON BLARES Nor even a tourniquet.
Guys, I'm dying.
You haven't told me.
What's happened? I've been bitten by a snake.
Stay still.
The spider's coming.
LAUGHTER If you stay still so it doesn't go round your blood.
Is that in there? Well, if you're not near a car.
But drive her to a hospital.
LAUGHTER Where are you taking me? Take the snake if you can.
Yeah, exactly.
Or a photograph of it.
LAUGHTER No, I didn't say a selfie.
Is this when? You know when you HAVE to be awake at ten to five? Oh, yeah.
No matter what happens, you HAVE to be awake at ten to five.
And miraculously, you are awake at ten to five.
That's an alarm clock, love.
LAUGHTER No, I have that too.
I do, definitely.
It's extraordinary.
So, is that the same kind of? Works very well.
At school, if we were going on a, you know, little dawn raid or something like that, you know, they'd say Sorry? LAUGHTER Do a raid on the kitchens and steal jelly and things.
I forgot you grew up in an Enid Blyton novel.
LAUGHTER To get your catapult back from the teacher? LAUGHTER You would do this onto the pillow.
You'd go, "One, two, three, four," like that, and you'd wake up at four in the morning.
It always seemed to work.
No! I can't remember a time when it didn't work.
That is bullshit.
OK.
LAUGHTER I totally agree, Sarah.
HE CHUCKLES It may be a false memory I've got, but it's a very clear one.
If it's so true, I want you to give us your phone and alarm clock Mm-hm.
.
.
and never use it again to wake yourself up HE CHUCKLES .
.
and just use the head hitting.
It all changes when you get an enlarged prostate.
LAUGHTER APPLAUSE And do you still hit it four times on the pillow? LAUGHTER Something that Blyton didn't cover much.
She didn't, did she? Not lashings of enlarged prostate.
No.
Oh, dear.
Marsh warblers just make it up as they go along.
And now for a question about metamor LAUGHTER What happened? What happened while I was reading the? I had my back turned to you when I was looking at the blackboard.
What? Nothing, sir.
I don't know, sir.
Sir, David showed me a picture of a penis, sir.
LAUGHTER And then he showed me that, sir.
APPLAUSE Not that one.
That is not a penis.
Look at Bailey's drawing of a penis, sir.
I never did that.
That is nothing like a penis.
What's wrong with his penis if he draws one like that? He drew a penis on the world.
LAUGHTER That's got to be That's illegal, isn't it? LAUGHTER Oh, Lord.
I'm going to get a glass of water and I'll get a teaspoon.
Right.
Oh, I'll just To prove that it is water, I'll drink it.
That just proves it might be vodka.
LAUGHTER It proves at least that it's not sulphuric acid or something Yeah.
.
.
because what I'm going to do is try and make this teaspoon disappear.
It may not work.
I'm not a good magician.
I'm a great magician.
And so we stir it here and I Oh, don't Oh, no Oh, it might not work, it might work, I don't know.
I'm, oh Yeah, it seems to have worked.
Ooh.
AUDIENCE GASPS APPLAUSE Wow! There you are.
Thank you.
That's rather good, isn't it? Rather good.
That's good.
That is.
In fact, on this occasion, it wasn't a magic trick and it's something you can do.
I'll give you your water and you'll notice the water is rather warm.
Ooh, it's warm.
It's warm water.
Warm water.
And I'll give you a couple of spoons.
They are metal, they're metal spoons, but the metal Are they made out of Alka-Seltzer? LAUGHTER They might as well be.
They're made out of gallium.
And gallium is a metal A very useful metal.
Let's have a look.
.
.
but it has the quality that it melts, as Alan is showing, in water.
Good Lord.
Oh, you wouldn't want that of your teaspoon, would you? No, it wouldn't make a practical teaspoon.
That's lasting less time than a biscuit.
Yeah.
That's it.
Look at that.
Now, if you stir it, it'll happen more quickly.
Oh, good Lord, look at that.
Ah, jeez.
That is That would be the most annoying teaspoon in the world.
It really would, wouldn't it? "Now Oh.
" But it's, like, Terminator's teaspoon.
Yeah, exactly.
Terminator 2, it should be said.
Yes.
Terminator two-spoon.
Hey! Scuba diving.
When they go caving with scuba diving Oh, yeah.
.
.
they take tanks with them because you can't get all the way in in one tank.
Scary.
So, you do this incredibly dangerous thing where you lug down some tanks and you leave a tank.
You've got to remember where you've left them.
Exactly.
If you can't find it on the way back, you'll die.
So, very important that you remember LAUGHTER "Just once" "You were supposed to remember where the tank was.
"That was your only job.
" "Well, what's the worst that could happen?" LAUGHTER "Cooee! I moved it.
Guess where.
" "Hilarious.
I'm moving his tank.
This'll be funny.
Watch this.
" "I tell you what, then he died.
"You should have seen the look on his dead face.
" LAUGHTER So, now, how would this bird make an offer you couldn't refuse? LAUGHTER Oh, yeah.
That bird.
He does your tax returns.
LAUGHTER It's called a brown-headed cowbird, rather unimaginatively.
It's got a brown head and it's on a cow.
I just don't want to know how it got the brown head.
I don't want to think about how it got the brown head.
Oh, stop it.
LAUGHTER "That's as far as I can go!" "All right, that'll do.
Now flap your wings.
" "I can't!" LAUGHTER You haven't seen the cow's legs.
They're blue.
We have to forget the cow in this instance, other than the fact that it's in its name.
It is a parasitic bird in a sense.
A brood parasite.
As I say, it's parasitic in the way that it occupies a host's birthing place.
A womb.
Not womb in this case cos they don't have wombs exactly, do they, birds? Oh, I thought it was in the cow.
Oh, no, no, it's the bird.
It's the bird that's the parasite.
Oh, OK.
It's a brood parasite.
It lays its eggs in someone else's nest.
I'd love if it was the cow that was the parasite.
LAUGHTER Living off the bird.
That would be such a flaw for a parasite to have to wait for the bird to land on you.
Just running around getting underneath birds.
LAUGHTER Yeah, it's a brood parasite.
It lays its egg like that, as does, more famously, our Cuckoo.
Cuckoo.
Cuckoo, yes.
Cuckoo's the great British brood parasite.
That nest wasn't on the back of that cow, was it? No.
I did say, "Forget the cow," but I knew that wouldn't be a helpful remark.
I couldn't forget the cow, Stephen.
It's a question of why the birds put up with it.
Why does the one that lays the blue eggs, in this instance, allow that to happen? Why didn't they just get rid of the egg? The answer is it doesonce.
If it tries it, the bird that's laid that egg will come back and absolutely destroy the nest and everything in it.
Wow.
And the mother bird learns this and next time laboriously builds a new nest, Iaboriously lays her own eggs.
Next time a brown-headed cowbird comes along to lay their egg, they go, "You can have it.
Honestly, I'll look after it.
"No problem.
" It's basically a protection racket.
They're gangster birds, hence the phrase, "Make you an offer you can't refuse.
" Oh.
But it works.
So, which one? Was it the one with the blue eggs or the other one? The blue eggs is, like, the nice guy who runs the Italian delicatessen Exactlywith his family all these years, and then the other egg is the guy who comes round going IN ITALIAN AMERICAN ACCENT: "You gonna look after my egg?" IN ITALIAN AMERICAN ACCENT: "You'll find a job for my boy.
" "You see this egg? You know what I'm gonna do to this egg? "If you don't look after the other egg" And then he throws it out.
Eventually, cos it's evolution, they'll start spraying their own blue egg that brown colour.
"Hey, someone's already done me.
Leave it.
" You're right.
That's quite likely, isn't it? Why haven't they evolved just to lay enough eggs so there's no gap? LAUGHTER APPLAUSE That's what I would do.
Good point.
So, pay attention now.
It's time for a magical, money-making moment.
Oh.
Yes.
I've got a proper, proper printing press here.
It's very It's a rather exciting one, and as you can see, it's got all the bells and whistles.
And it's even got a little calibration here.
Can you see? It's on ten.
I'm going to move it up to 20.
So, I've got a 20 .
.
sized one here.
I hope this works.
It takes a long time to fill it with ink, so if it doesn't work, I'm not going to do it twice.
Oh, yes.
That works.
Oh, good.
There you are.
Oh, wow.
There you are.
APPLAUSE Oh, there we go.
Stephen, one of the options is a 100.
I just want to see what one of them looks like.
OK.
Um Oh.
Oh.
There we go.
And Oh.
Oh, it's a 50.
It should be 100.
Oh, it is 100.
Ah.
There you are.
100.
APPLAUSE Now, how many paintings did Vincent Van Gogh, or "Goch," or "Gough," or "Go" How many did he sell while he was alive? Don't say none.
TURNTABLE BUZZER None! I'm going to say none.
KLAXON BLARES D'oh! D'oh! Really, I'm afraid One.
A few, maybe? KLAXON BLARES "A few.
" It was lots.
He sold hundreds of paintings.
Hundreds?! Yeah, when he was 15, he used to work in an art gallery.
Oh, shut up! LAUGHTER It's true.
I just asked you how many paintings This is the closest I've come to walking out of this show.
I'd like a recount on those two.
It was a horribly mean question, but the fact is he did sell hundreds.
They just weren't his own.
BILL GROANS I know, I'm sorry, but, look, I did say Oh, the chairman of the Pedantic Association.
LAUGHTER "It's actually the Society of Pedantics, "but I'll let that go.
" Yes, exactly.
In fact.
LAUGHTER I've never had, in 14 years, people eating sweets in the front row.
What the hell? And I can't think about anything else except LAUGHTER APPLAUSE Well done.
Thanks.
You can have them back at the end of the lesson.
LOUD RUSTLING I feel really bad for those people cos obviously, you're just sat there watching an episode of QI and then, suddenly, the telly gets up LAUGHTER .
.
and nicks your sweets.
It should happen more often! "I didn't press the red button.
What's going on?" LAUGHTER Now, describe the plot of, or sing a song from, the popular musical The Bathrooms Are Coming.
LAUGHTER # The bathrooms are coming Thank God, I need a shit.
LAUGHTER How about? Bill, can you do me Cisterns Are Doing It For Themselves? Oh, there we go.
APPLAUSE No, I can't.
# The bathrooms are coming Lock up your pipes # The bathrooms are coming Where are your knives? # Kill, kill, kill them They'll be coming # Kill them, kill them # The bathrooms are coming for your lives # They're coming for your souls # I've had it installed now But there's nothing to pay till September LAUGHTER # I am on a HP high And ain't no debt collector ever gonna bring me down LAUGHTER Water may be very hot.
Don't let the grout go mouldy on me.
LAUGHTER Do country and western.
If you're going to do country and western, it's got to be Fixed shower head driving me wild LAUGHTER # Can't find my crevices # No matter how hard I try Then I put my leg up No, don't.
Pull my junk to the side LAUGHTER HE PLAYS A BROKEN CHORD LAUGHTER Thank you.
APPLAUSE
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Very goooo-oo-ood evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, and welcome to QI.
Now, a magpie's real name is a pie.
It's a pie.
Then where does the "mag" come from? Margaret.
Yeah, Margaret.
Was it? Yeah.
Margaret pie? CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Where did that come from? Margaret pie.
In medieval England, it was common to give birds a Christian name, sometimes, and the ones that have survived have included magpie.
Which other ones can you? Robin.
Robin.
Robin redbreast.
Robin redbreast.
Robin's the only one where the first name is the one that's kept Dave Starling.
Sorry? LAUGHTER Joseph Starling? No, big Dave Starling.
LAUGHTER Joseph would have been funny.
Joseph Starling is good, yeah.
I like that.
I prefer that.
Not as funny as Dave, but it's better.
Yeah.
Tomtit.
Jenny Wren.
Tomtit, yeah.
Charlie Crow.
Jackdaw.
Jackdaw.
Oh, jackdaw.
Yeah, yeah.
So, there are a few of them.
Christopher Chaffinch.
LAUGHTER We had an injured bird in the garden yesterday Oh.
.
.
and it looked like a magpie, and it couldn't take off, and I was watching it for ages.
I didn't know what to do with it, so I opened the back gate and shooed it out.
LAUGHTER Oh, dear.
What do you think it was, then? What make? "The back gate.
" I think it was a young crow Yeah.
.
.
that was having a bit of trouble with flight cos it flew into a bush Oh, dear.
.
.
and I presume it's dead by now.
LAUGHTER That's it? You? And that's the end of tonight's Springwatch.
Yes.
LAUGHTER APPLAUSE What could you have done with it? I don't know.
What are you going to do with a bird? Shoot it.
Take it out.
Shoot the Sniper's rifle through the brain.
I could have gone after it cos it was in the garden and couldn't get out.
I could have easily got it with a tennis racket.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
AUDIENCE GASPS Just scoop it up with a tennis racket and hit it with a frying pan LAUGHTER .
.
and chuck it over the wall.
That's what I would do.
Then its parents would have come and ate it, wouldn't they? Yeah, that's right.
Let's face it, it is the wild.
Yeah.
Exactly, yes.
Even if it is Hampstead.
LAUGHTER It's wild for them, though.
They'd have had it in a coulis.
LAUGHTER A crow couscous.
With some quinoa.
LAUGHTER I wonder what its name was.
Clive, I expect.
No, I think it was Vel.
Vel? Vel-crow.
Velcro.
Oh! APPLAUSE Oh, dear.
Oh, dear.
Now, what begins with M that you could shoot with one of these? Those guys are tiny.
LAUGHTER A mallard.
Mallard is very good.
Absolutely.
You recognise what that is? It's a punt gun.
It is indeed a punt gun.
APPLAUSE There's a few punters in.
You're good on guns, aren't you, Jeremy? Well, I shot one of those, but I shot a clay pigeon with it Oh!.
.
and proved that a man can actually fly.
LAUGHTER So, don't tell me you weren't on a punt? No, I wasn't on a punt, and there's a sort of momentum thing goes.
You get it going and then you just can't stop it, and I was airborne for 20 minutes.
LAUGHTER That's one of the reasons they have them on punts is I mean, the boat goes backwards.
That's the point.
You could fire that at Norfolk and you would wind up in Stavanger three weeks later.
LAUGHTER More or less true.
But also, more distressingly, perhaps, if you like the waterfowl, one shot can destroy up to 50 at a time.
So, you've got to have the Is it shot like a shotgun? Yeah, it's just a huge amount of blast.
No, but, I mean, I know you're a vegetableist, which is fine, but LAUGHTER .
.
what I don't understand about these is that if you actually hit a duck, it vaporised it.
LAUGHTER And apart from licking the lake or the grass LAUGHTER .
.
there's no nutritional value from an atomised You're pretty much right.
LAUGHTER What are your monsters called? We've got On Dartmoor? Yeah.
We've got the Hairy Hand.
Are you aware of the Hairy Hand? Which is a No.
You get it when you're about 15.
LAUGHTER The Hairy Hand is a disembodied hand that would appear from nowhere if you were driving along the B3021 Pissed.
.
.
and it would steer you off the road.
But there's "Officer!" "Officer!" IN WEST COUNTRY ACCENT: It smelt of cider, didn't it? LAUGHTER IN WEST COUNTRY ACCENT: It dropped its pint on me, and then it drove me off the road.
LAUGHTER One of the people that claimed he'd been steered off the road by the Hairy Hand, he described it as invisible.
LAUGHTER Oh, bless him for trying.
There are lots of places in the UK named after mammaries.
Can you name one? Boob Town.
"Boob Town!" LAUGHTER No, can you name some real ones? Great Tit-chfield.
GRANDLY: The Mountains of Boob.
LAUGHTER SHE LAUGHS: "The Mountains of Boob!" LAUGHTER Press your buzzer.
'Man United!' Manchester? Yes! It was Mam-chester originally.
No.
As in mammary, yes.
And it's got "chest" in it as well.
Yeah.
LAUGHTER It's an incredibly rudely-named place.
It's double.
Full breasts - the mammaries and the chest.
Yeah.
And there's Nippleton as well, isn't there? Yes, from the Celtic "mam", you've got Mam Tor in Derbyshire.
Jugsford.
LAUGHTER Racksbury.
Memford.
Great Titi.
Bazookaville.
LAUGHTER Rackton.
LAUGHTER Oh, dear.
Gracious.
The Paps of Anu in Ireland are named after the breasts of LAUGHTER And there's a Pap of Glencoe and a Maiden Pap in Scotland.
There's Papworth.
Papworth.
Absolutely, yes.
There's a hospital there.
And what about Titty Hill in West Sussex? What about it? LAUGHTER It exists, but it's not named after breasts.
No, of course not.
What's it named after? Sir Malcolm Titty.
LAUGHTER It's so silly, it's funny.
His assistant named it when they both discovered it.
"What do you think we should call this?" "I think we should name it after you, Titty.
" "Titty Hill?" LAUGHTER "You found it, Titty.
" "We're not going to name it after you, Big Dick.
" Silly Carry On lines.
Oh, dear.
I used to do a bit of stand-up about this thing that I found.
HE LAUGHS LAUGHTER That sounds great.
Sounds brilliant.
What it was, we were doing a Secret Santa, right? And it was a £10 limit.
And I went in There was quite a good adult shop on the Essex Road, and for under £10, the only thing they offered was anal hoopla.
LAUGHTER Anal hoopla consists of a stick LAUGHTER .
.
that goes Guess where.
And three hoops.
LAUGHTER That'sthat's the actual game.
It's an icebreaker.
It's an icebreaker.
LAUGHTER If you think things have gone a bit flat in the bedroom area "Come on!" I mean, the tone of this show is so difficult to get right.
I'm sorry.
I'm justI'm recalibrating.
All this anal hoopla.
Who would have predicted anal hoopla? LAUGHTER On the front of it - on the front of the packet - is a cartoon drawing a bit like a saucy postcard of two people playing it, as if they couldn't get anyone to actually demo it.
I dare say it doesn't work.
Where was this for sale? At the Arsenal football ground? LAUGHTER HE MAKES GUTTURAL SOUNDS Thank you.
That's Klingon for, "Anal hoopla?" LAUGHTER HE MAKES GUTTURAL SOUNDS "No, thanks.
" LAUGHTER "Let's play Scrabble.
" LAUGHTER Now, on the subject of probability, you've got this It's really interesting.
It's a probability issue.
You want a pack of cards each.
I can't catch.
Oh, well caught.
We've got some for you.
So, I want you to take the cards out and give them a good shuffle.
Good shuffle.
I'm going to do the same.
Ooh.
LAUGHTER Beautifully done.
Sorry, boys.
And Sandi has been Look at her.
She's like a croupier.
Jesus! LAUGHTER Very good.
APPLAUSE Very good.
Yes, I've shuffled.
I've riffled, shuffled.
Yeah.
Not a gambler? So, can you shove your cards in here? Oh.
All right, then.
All right, thank you.
I'll give them a really good shake.
Is this going to be one of those Derren Brown ones where we all can't eat for a week or something? No, no, no.
Anyway, there you go.
All right.
It's just about probability.
It's not a big deal.
Is there anything you can't turn your hand to, Stephen? Now it's magic.
You haven't seen me turn my hand to anything yet.
OK, and I'll put my cards in as well.
There we go.
All right, give them all a good shake.
All right, so, you take one card out.
Don't look.
And if you can put it close to your chest, but not No, no, don't look.
I've looked.
I know what it is.
Well, it doesn't matter.
The point is to shove it close to your chest so that that's That's not your chest, darling.
LAUGHTER The reason to shove it close to your chest is so that when you reveal it, it's camera height.
Oh, right.
That's all it is, all right? So, take one out.
Feel it.
Yeah, very good.
Very good.
All right, I'll do the same.
All right, all right, I'll do the same.
OK, so, there is a possibility, but a very unlikely possibility, that two of the cards will be the same.
OK.
So, Sandi, you'll reveal your card.
LAUGHTER Yours is the six of clubs.
All right.
OK.
And you'll reveal your Oh, my God.
AUDIENCE GASPS Oh! Alan? Oh! Oh, no.
You reveal yours.
Surely not.
No.
Oh, my God.
And mine as well.
Oh, there you go.
Funny.
How can that happen? APPLAUSE There it is.
Burn him.
He's a witch.
There you are.
OK.
He's a witch.
That's a very good trick.
Thank you very much.
Very good.
Very good at cards.
Thank you.
APPLAUSE Now, what kind of bird does the Goliath bird-eating spider consume? Oh, God.
Whoa! LAUGHTER That should have had a warning.
Whoa.
That isfucking horrible, sorry.
LAUGHTER Whoa! He's a little furry animal.
Still there.
OK.
Still there.
OK.
Still there.
Oh.
Ah! LAUGHTER Oh, my God.
OK, now there's a still image of one.
Yeah.
It's not moving any more.
Oh! I'm just going to look at Phil.
Eyes on me.
Eyes on me.
Eyes on me.
It's all right, Phil.
It's OK.
OK, I'm SHE SCREAMS LAUGHTER That was naughty.
APPLAUSE Sorry.
Oh, I'm sorry.
What a pathetic reaction.
That's No, please.
I'd be the same, if not for all the therapy.
LAUGHTER We should have asked.
We should have asked if you had a problem.
It's not moving, so that's OK.
It's not moving.
No.
They're big.
It must be said they are very big and they're called Goliath bird-eating spiders.
But it's never eaten a bird in its life.
Well, that one may not have done because it's very, very rare for them to eat birds.
It just so happens the person who discovered it happened upon one eating a hummingbird and so called it a bird-eating spider.
That's like, in your family, when you do something once.
Yeah, exactly.
LAUGHTER It's like, "Oh, Cariad always gets sick on holiday.
" And you're like, "It was one time.
" LAUGHTER Oh, Poland-invading Adolf.
"Once, I invade Poland!" LAUGHTER Now, here's an interesting effect.
Listen to this.
DISTORTED RECORDING OF SPEECH What was being said? Is that the Devil? It was the Devil, but do you know what he was saying? "I'm going to be late.
Put the dinner on.
" Have another listen.
DISTORTED RECORDING OF SPEECH Now, the chances are you just didn't understand what he was saying, but if you heard it said, clearly, then listen again to that distorted sound.
And so this is what was being said.
RECORDING: 'Try saying "blue whale".
'That's bound to come up eventually.
' DISTORTED RECORDING OF SAME SPEECH LAUGHTER Isn't it extraordinary? Wow! Hear that again.
RECORDING: 'Try saying "blue whale".
'That's bound to come up eventually.
' DISTORTED RECORDING OF SAME SPEECH Yeah! You really can hear it, can't you? It just sounds like he's saying it with a cold.
That's right.
It's amazing what the human brain can process.
But it needs a little bit of information.
From that apparently random sound that you thought you could never, ever understand, once you're told what it is, you can instantly imprint the structure of it.
It's amazing, I think.
Now, who has the best teeth in the world? I really like this question and the answer.
The Bee Gees.
The Bee Gees.
They had good teeth.
John Bishop.
I'm looking for a nation.
I'm looking for a people.
Americans.
KLAXON BLARES Did you say Americans? No, I didn't say it.
Is it Scandinavians? It must be the Scandinavians.
No.
Oh, no, it'd be The English.
Yes, the British! Yeah! The British have the best teeth in the world.
APPLAUSE It's true.
We win again! LAUGHTER Yeah, according to the OECD - the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development, the international body Well remembered.
.
.
they looked at all the different nations and they found that, according to fillings and decay and so on, that British children had the best teeth on planet Earth.
Did they just go to one particular school in Nottingham? LAUGHTER I don't think so.
Yeah, but they said that's cos we've got less fillings.
Maybe it's cos we don't go to the dentist at all.
LAUGHTER Fewer fillings.
Fewer fillings.
No AUDIENCE GROANS I'm just being silly.
Stephen, knock, knock.
Yeah, who's there? To.
To who? No, it's "to whom".
LAUGHTER Yes! Touche! Tou-bloody-che! Yes.
Alan.
Hello.
Let's bring this to a beautiful, beautiful conclusion.
Cariad has been bitten by a snake.
SHE LAUGHS What's happening to me? This is not I'm A Celebrity LAUGHTER What should you do? Suck her.
LAUGHTER KLAXON BLARES In every sense, no.
You can't afford it, love.
LAUGHTER APPLAUSE Even when you've been bitten by a cobra, you're going to haggle prices.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You'd soon drop your prices once you've tried it.
LAUGHTER Oh, dear.
All right.
You tourniquet it.
You No.
KLAXON BLARES Nor even a tourniquet.
Guys, I'm dying.
You haven't told me.
What's happened? I've been bitten by a snake.
Stay still.
The spider's coming.
LAUGHTER If you stay still so it doesn't go round your blood.
Is that in there? Well, if you're not near a car.
But drive her to a hospital.
LAUGHTER Where are you taking me? Take the snake if you can.
Yeah, exactly.
Or a photograph of it.
LAUGHTER No, I didn't say a selfie.
Is this when? You know when you HAVE to be awake at ten to five? Oh, yeah.
No matter what happens, you HAVE to be awake at ten to five.
And miraculously, you are awake at ten to five.
That's an alarm clock, love.
LAUGHTER No, I have that too.
I do, definitely.
It's extraordinary.
So, is that the same kind of? Works very well.
At school, if we were going on a, you know, little dawn raid or something like that, you know, they'd say Sorry? LAUGHTER Do a raid on the kitchens and steal jelly and things.
I forgot you grew up in an Enid Blyton novel.
LAUGHTER To get your catapult back from the teacher? LAUGHTER You would do this onto the pillow.
You'd go, "One, two, three, four," like that, and you'd wake up at four in the morning.
It always seemed to work.
No! I can't remember a time when it didn't work.
That is bullshit.
OK.
LAUGHTER I totally agree, Sarah.
HE CHUCKLES It may be a false memory I've got, but it's a very clear one.
If it's so true, I want you to give us your phone and alarm clock Mm-hm.
.
.
and never use it again to wake yourself up HE CHUCKLES .
.
and just use the head hitting.
It all changes when you get an enlarged prostate.
LAUGHTER APPLAUSE And do you still hit it four times on the pillow? LAUGHTER Something that Blyton didn't cover much.
She didn't, did she? Not lashings of enlarged prostate.
No.
Oh, dear.
Marsh warblers just make it up as they go along.
And now for a question about metamor LAUGHTER What happened? What happened while I was reading the? I had my back turned to you when I was looking at the blackboard.
What? Nothing, sir.
I don't know, sir.
Sir, David showed me a picture of a penis, sir.
LAUGHTER And then he showed me that, sir.
APPLAUSE Not that one.
That is not a penis.
Look at Bailey's drawing of a penis, sir.
I never did that.
That is nothing like a penis.
What's wrong with his penis if he draws one like that? He drew a penis on the world.
LAUGHTER That's got to be That's illegal, isn't it? LAUGHTER Oh, Lord.
I'm going to get a glass of water and I'll get a teaspoon.
Right.
Oh, I'll just To prove that it is water, I'll drink it.
That just proves it might be vodka.
LAUGHTER It proves at least that it's not sulphuric acid or something Yeah.
.
.
because what I'm going to do is try and make this teaspoon disappear.
It may not work.
I'm not a good magician.
I'm a great magician.
And so we stir it here and I Oh, don't Oh, no Oh, it might not work, it might work, I don't know.
I'm, oh Yeah, it seems to have worked.
Ooh.
AUDIENCE GASPS APPLAUSE Wow! There you are.
Thank you.
That's rather good, isn't it? Rather good.
That's good.
That is.
In fact, on this occasion, it wasn't a magic trick and it's something you can do.
I'll give you your water and you'll notice the water is rather warm.
Ooh, it's warm.
It's warm water.
Warm water.
And I'll give you a couple of spoons.
They are metal, they're metal spoons, but the metal Are they made out of Alka-Seltzer? LAUGHTER They might as well be.
They're made out of gallium.
And gallium is a metal A very useful metal.
Let's have a look.
.
.
but it has the quality that it melts, as Alan is showing, in water.
Good Lord.
Oh, you wouldn't want that of your teaspoon, would you? No, it wouldn't make a practical teaspoon.
That's lasting less time than a biscuit.
Yeah.
That's it.
Look at that.
Now, if you stir it, it'll happen more quickly.
Oh, good Lord, look at that.
Ah, jeez.
That is That would be the most annoying teaspoon in the world.
It really would, wouldn't it? "Now Oh.
" But it's, like, Terminator's teaspoon.
Yeah, exactly.
Terminator 2, it should be said.
Yes.
Terminator two-spoon.
Hey! Scuba diving.
When they go caving with scuba diving Oh, yeah.
.
.
they take tanks with them because you can't get all the way in in one tank.
Scary.
So, you do this incredibly dangerous thing where you lug down some tanks and you leave a tank.
You've got to remember where you've left them.
Exactly.
If you can't find it on the way back, you'll die.
So, very important that you remember LAUGHTER "Just once" "You were supposed to remember where the tank was.
"That was your only job.
" "Well, what's the worst that could happen?" LAUGHTER "Cooee! I moved it.
Guess where.
" "Hilarious.
I'm moving his tank.
This'll be funny.
Watch this.
" "I tell you what, then he died.
"You should have seen the look on his dead face.
" LAUGHTER So, now, how would this bird make an offer you couldn't refuse? LAUGHTER Oh, yeah.
That bird.
He does your tax returns.
LAUGHTER It's called a brown-headed cowbird, rather unimaginatively.
It's got a brown head and it's on a cow.
I just don't want to know how it got the brown head.
I don't want to think about how it got the brown head.
Oh, stop it.
LAUGHTER "That's as far as I can go!" "All right, that'll do.
Now flap your wings.
" "I can't!" LAUGHTER You haven't seen the cow's legs.
They're blue.
We have to forget the cow in this instance, other than the fact that it's in its name.
It is a parasitic bird in a sense.
A brood parasite.
As I say, it's parasitic in the way that it occupies a host's birthing place.
A womb.
Not womb in this case cos they don't have wombs exactly, do they, birds? Oh, I thought it was in the cow.
Oh, no, no, it's the bird.
It's the bird that's the parasite.
Oh, OK.
It's a brood parasite.
It lays its eggs in someone else's nest.
I'd love if it was the cow that was the parasite.
LAUGHTER Living off the bird.
That would be such a flaw for a parasite to have to wait for the bird to land on you.
Just running around getting underneath birds.
LAUGHTER Yeah, it's a brood parasite.
It lays its egg like that, as does, more famously, our Cuckoo.
Cuckoo.
Cuckoo, yes.
Cuckoo's the great British brood parasite.
That nest wasn't on the back of that cow, was it? No.
I did say, "Forget the cow," but I knew that wouldn't be a helpful remark.
I couldn't forget the cow, Stephen.
It's a question of why the birds put up with it.
Why does the one that lays the blue eggs, in this instance, allow that to happen? Why didn't they just get rid of the egg? The answer is it doesonce.
If it tries it, the bird that's laid that egg will come back and absolutely destroy the nest and everything in it.
Wow.
And the mother bird learns this and next time laboriously builds a new nest, Iaboriously lays her own eggs.
Next time a brown-headed cowbird comes along to lay their egg, they go, "You can have it.
Honestly, I'll look after it.
"No problem.
" It's basically a protection racket.
They're gangster birds, hence the phrase, "Make you an offer you can't refuse.
" Oh.
But it works.
So, which one? Was it the one with the blue eggs or the other one? The blue eggs is, like, the nice guy who runs the Italian delicatessen Exactlywith his family all these years, and then the other egg is the guy who comes round going IN ITALIAN AMERICAN ACCENT: "You gonna look after my egg?" IN ITALIAN AMERICAN ACCENT: "You'll find a job for my boy.
" "You see this egg? You know what I'm gonna do to this egg? "If you don't look after the other egg" And then he throws it out.
Eventually, cos it's evolution, they'll start spraying their own blue egg that brown colour.
"Hey, someone's already done me.
Leave it.
" You're right.
That's quite likely, isn't it? Why haven't they evolved just to lay enough eggs so there's no gap? LAUGHTER APPLAUSE That's what I would do.
Good point.
So, pay attention now.
It's time for a magical, money-making moment.
Oh.
Yes.
I've got a proper, proper printing press here.
It's very It's a rather exciting one, and as you can see, it's got all the bells and whistles.
And it's even got a little calibration here.
Can you see? It's on ten.
I'm going to move it up to 20.
So, I've got a 20 .
.
sized one here.
I hope this works.
It takes a long time to fill it with ink, so if it doesn't work, I'm not going to do it twice.
Oh, yes.
That works.
Oh, good.
There you are.
Oh, wow.
There you are.
APPLAUSE Oh, there we go.
Stephen, one of the options is a 100.
I just want to see what one of them looks like.
OK.
Um Oh.
Oh.
There we go.
And Oh.
Oh, it's a 50.
It should be 100.
Oh, it is 100.
Ah.
There you are.
100.
APPLAUSE Now, how many paintings did Vincent Van Gogh, or "Goch," or "Gough," or "Go" How many did he sell while he was alive? Don't say none.
TURNTABLE BUZZER None! I'm going to say none.
KLAXON BLARES D'oh! D'oh! Really, I'm afraid One.
A few, maybe? KLAXON BLARES "A few.
" It was lots.
He sold hundreds of paintings.
Hundreds?! Yeah, when he was 15, he used to work in an art gallery.
Oh, shut up! LAUGHTER It's true.
I just asked you how many paintings This is the closest I've come to walking out of this show.
I'd like a recount on those two.
It was a horribly mean question, but the fact is he did sell hundreds.
They just weren't his own.
BILL GROANS I know, I'm sorry, but, look, I did say Oh, the chairman of the Pedantic Association.
LAUGHTER "It's actually the Society of Pedantics, "but I'll let that go.
" Yes, exactly.
In fact.
LAUGHTER I've never had, in 14 years, people eating sweets in the front row.
What the hell? And I can't think about anything else except LAUGHTER APPLAUSE Well done.
Thanks.
You can have them back at the end of the lesson.
LOUD RUSTLING I feel really bad for those people cos obviously, you're just sat there watching an episode of QI and then, suddenly, the telly gets up LAUGHTER .
.
and nicks your sweets.
It should happen more often! "I didn't press the red button.
What's going on?" LAUGHTER Now, describe the plot of, or sing a song from, the popular musical The Bathrooms Are Coming.
LAUGHTER # The bathrooms are coming Thank God, I need a shit.
LAUGHTER How about? Bill, can you do me Cisterns Are Doing It For Themselves? Oh, there we go.
APPLAUSE No, I can't.
# The bathrooms are coming Lock up your pipes # The bathrooms are coming Where are your knives? # Kill, kill, kill them They'll be coming # Kill them, kill them # The bathrooms are coming for your lives # They're coming for your souls # I've had it installed now But there's nothing to pay till September LAUGHTER # I am on a HP high And ain't no debt collector ever gonna bring me down LAUGHTER Water may be very hot.
Don't let the grout go mouldy on me.
LAUGHTER Do country and western.
If you're going to do country and western, it's got to be Fixed shower head driving me wild LAUGHTER # Can't find my crevices # No matter how hard I try Then I put my leg up No, don't.
Pull my junk to the side LAUGHTER HE PLAYS A BROKEN CHORD LAUGHTER Thank you.
APPLAUSE