1. Well, hello and welcome to QI,
the quiz show where the answersCopy !req
2. are much more interesting
than the questions.Copy !req
3. But the questions are completely
impossible. As I don't really expect
anyone to get any of them right,Copy !req
4. I shall be awarding points for
being interesting along the way,Copy !req
5. regardless of whether
the panel's answers are correct
or even relevant.Copy !req
6. So let's meet the panel who want to
commit intellectual suicide tonight.Copy !req
7. They are... Danny Baker...Copy !req
8. .. John Sessions...Copy !req
9. .. Hugh Laurie...Copy !req
10. .. and Alan Davies.Copy !req
11. Now each of our employees -
I can't really be doing
with the word "guests" -Copy !req
12. each of our employees
here tonight has a buzzer
in the time-honoured tradition.Copy !req
13. Danny goes...Copy !req
14. John goes...Copy !req
15. Hugh goes...Copy !req
16. Alan goes...Copy !req
17. And I go to Belgium
for which I profusely apologise.Copy !req
18. We've got a lot to do,
let's get on.Copy !req
19. Where better to start than
at the beginning with a round
of questions on Adam and Eve.Copy !req
20. Whether or not you believe in them,
they are quite interesting, which is
all we ask on this programme.Copy !req
21. As Woody Allen said, "How can I
believe in God, when just last weekCopy !req
22. "I got my tongue caught in the
roller of an electric typewriter?"Copy !req
23. Carrie Snow, the American comedian
said, "If God was a woman,
sperm would taste of chocolate."Copy !req
24. Perhaps...Copy !req
25. I don't understand it either -
perhaps we should...Copy !req
26. How d'you know it doesn't?Copy !req
27. Oh, he knows!Copy !req
28. Damn!Copy !req
29. Erm... Perhaps we should believe
in Adam and Eve...Copy !req
30. Geneticists have established
that every woman in the worldCopy !req
31. shares a single female ancestor
who lived 150,000 years ago.Copy !req
32. Scientists do actually call her Eve.
And every man shares
a single male ancestor dubbed Adam.Copy !req
33. It's also been established,
however, that Adam was born
80,000 years after Eve.Copy !req
34. So the world before him was one
of heavy-to-industrial-strength
lesbianism, one assumes.Copy !req
35. First question goes to Alan.
What is the connection between the
Archbishop of Canterbury's left earCopy !req
36. and Adam's bellybutton?Copy !req
37. The ear and the bellybutton?
God, just as you said that,Copy !req
38. there was a painting came up...
We do this, I'm afraid.Copy !req
39. I'm not going to ask the name of the
painting, that would be an insult.Copy !req
40. Adam's on the left...
Yes, well done.Copy !req
41. That's his bellybutton there...
It would seem.Copy !req
42. And the Archbishop of Canterbury's
ear...Copy !req
43. The only time when I can ever think
you'd put your earCopy !req
44. to someone's bellybutton would be
to hear if their tummy was rumbling.Copy !req
45. Yes. You'd go,
"Your tummy's rumbling,
you're hungry, aren't you?"Copy !req
46. True. Is that what it is?Copy !req
47. I don't want to astonish you
but I'm afraid it isn't.Copy !req
48. Adam had no bellybutton,
being the first man,Copy !req
49. and the Archbishop of Canterbury's
got no right ear!
- You're really good!Copy !req
50. He IS good! I'm going to give him
three points for that.Copy !req
51. The fact is, they're both purely
decorative. Adam of course, cannot
have had a navel cos he was created,Copy !req
52. he wasn't born so there wouldn't
have been an umbilical cord.Copy !req
53. So the Archbishop of Canterbury's
left ear is purely decorative?Copy !req
54. He described it himself,
"It's purely decorative",
because he was bornCopy !req
55. deaf in the left ear
so it has no function.Copy !req
56. If his left ear is purely
decorative... Yes.Copy !req
57. ..it's very unimaginative for him
just to have an ear there.Copy !req
58. He could have had anything he wanted
there at all.Copy !req
59. A doughnut or another organ,
like a hand...Copy !req
60. ..a badminton racquet
or a shuttlecock.Copy !req
61. A road sign... Gazebo...Copy !req
62. ..a little chicklet.Copy !req
63. Or rather surreally,
a portrait of Van Gogh.Copy !req
64. Yeah, he could have had Van Gogh,
you see? That's brilliant!Copy !req
65. He'd have a little Van Gogh there,
as if to say, "D'you see?"Copy !req
66. Very good.Copy !req
67. Well, we've got something out
of the wreckage. I'm inclined...Copy !req
68. Who painted that picture?Copy !req
69. 1475 till 1564,
I hate myself for saying that,
but those are his dates.Copy !req
70. He's quite correct.
Michelangelo Buonarroti.Copy !req
71. We have to give five points
to Johnny SessionsCopy !req
72. for knowing the birth and
death dates of Michelangelo.
That's so sad!Copy !req
73. We also have to hate him,
incidentally. Yes!Copy !req
74. We are very impressed. He does this
at parties. When was Bruckner born?Copy !req
75. 1824, died 1896. You see?Copy !req
76. It's right, isn't that wonderful?Copy !req
77. Mahler. 1860, born July 7th
in Kaliste in Austria,Copy !req
78. died 1911,
in Kaliste in Austria.Copy !req
79. It's a sickness!Copy !req
80. It's a horrible sickness!Copy !req
81. I met a man the other day who said
he was a naval doctor. I didn't know
they specialised that much.Copy !req
82. According to Rita Mae Brown, if
Michelangelo had been heterosexual,Copy !req
83. the Sistine Chapel
would have been painted basic white
and with a roller.Copy !req
84. Erm...Copy !req
85. Danny, your question now.
After the Flood, God gave Noah
the right to do what to sheep,Copy !req
86. a right which he denied to Adam.Copy !req
87. Well, what do we know about Adam? We
know there was the forbidden fruit,Copy !req
88. it wasn't the forbidden sheep,
I know that muchCopy !req
89. about Sunday school.Copy !req
90. To keep them, to mate, to farm
them... Well, he could not eat them.Copy !req
91. As simple as that! Really?Copy !req
92. That doesn't make any sense
because Adam,Copy !req
93. there would have been
a lot of sheep, but Noah's
down to the last two sheep...Copy !req
94. and God said, "S'all right,
if you fancy... a kebab...Copy !req
95. "have one on me", and Noah said,
"I'm not gonna eat the sheep,
God, you're out of your mind!"Copy !req
96. Eat them is the right answer
cos according to the Bible,
Adam and Eve were vegetariansCopy !req
97. told by God to eat
fruit and vegetables only.Copy !req
98. Some theological authorities
believe the forbidden fruit -Copy !req
99. not specifically named in
the Bible - was in fact a banana.Copy !req
100. It was only after the great Flood
when God made a new covenant
with Noah and said,Copy !req
101. "Every living thing that moves,
will be yours to eat."Copy !req
102. Somehow we got from there
to Bernard Matthews'
Golden Turkey Drummers.Copy !req
103. Here's one anyone can answer,
fingers on buzzers.Copy !req
104. Of whom was it said,
"Working with her was likeCopy !req
105. "being hit over the head
with a Valentine card"?Copy !req
106. Ann Widdecombe.Copy !req
107. No! It's not her.Copy !req
108. In fact it was Christopher Plummer
on the subject of Julie Andrews.Copy !req
109. And this brings us
to a round about Andrews.
People called Andrew or Andrews.Copy !req
110. John, the painter Caravaggio... Yes!
.. was once arrested for throwing
artichokes at a waiter.Copy !req
111. Art historian Andrew Graham-Dixon
discovered something aboutCopy !req
112. Caravaggio's outrageous behaviour
on the tennis court. What was it?Copy !req
113. Caravaggio died in 1610...Copy !req
114. I think it was 1610,
and he committed murder
but Andrew's programme -Copy !req
115. not that we should talk
about other programmes,
that's far too incestuous...Copy !req
116. Well, that's what
the question is about!Copy !req
117. Sorting out why Caravaggio died
prematurely, possibly murdered
by those avenging himCopy !req
118. for the death of, Tomasino,
I think was the artist
he had a fight with...Copy !req
119. Yes. For those of you
who didn't watch it.Copy !req
120. That's good! Stay with us!Copy !req
121. And, erm... I'll give you five
points but... anybody else?Copy !req
122. What Caravaggio did
on a tennis court?Copy !req
123. He said,
"Enough with the square balls,
why don't we use my rounded one?"Copy !req
124. I'll have to tell you.Copy !req
125. He was beaten by a British player,
that's why they still talk about it
300 years later! Excellent!Copy !req
126. For almost 400 years, historians
have believed Caravaggio was
exclusively homosexual,Copy !req
127. and believed he murdered
a man called Ranuccio Tomassoni,
in a squabble over a tennis match.Copy !req
128. But it's another thought,
thanks to the pioneering work
of Andrew Graham-Dixon,Copy !req
129. that Tomassoni's death
was an accidentCopy !req
130. and Caravaggio was only trying
to cut off his testicles,
not kill him.Copy !req
131. There you are. Yes.Copy !req
132. Over a tennis...? It was, yes!Copy !req
133. New balls, please!Copy !req
134. It's minus ten points.Copy !req
135. I don't even know who he is!
Oh, thank God you said that!Copy !req
136. See, to my mind,
that's not interesting enough!Copy !req
137. I was hanging in there!
Caravaggio's very interesting.Copy !req
138. He's perhaps one of the greatest...
I know about castration though!Copy !req
139. And it's to do with this...Copy !req
140. When they castrate a sheep,
they do itCopy !req
141. without breaking the skin
of the scrotum. Yes! Done it!Copy !req
142. I've done it! He has!Copy !req
143. And the testicles just fall
into the ball sack and then
they do the grape/sultana thing,Copy !req
144. become little shrivelly...Copy !req
145. You use an elastic band, don't you?
A little tiny...
I've got one on at the moment!Copy !req
146. The Prince A-A-Albert!Copy !req
147. Oh, Prince Albert,
now there's a story! Really?Copy !req
148. Really? He and Victoria,
they had masses of sex,Copy !req
149. nine children and they probably...
Maybe 100 times a night
for years and years and years.Copy !req
150. Till he died.
Stopped after he died. But, erm...Copy !req
151. Is that why the Albert Memorial,
has a great, big, tall...?Copy !req
152. I did a charity show
in the heyday of the Spice Girls
and there was a line-up afterwardsCopy !req
153. with the Prince of Wales...
I was there! Were you?Copy !req
154. And d'you remember they asked him
whether or nor Prince Albert
actually did wear a Prince Albert?Copy !req
155. No! And the Prince said,
"Well, I have no idea
what a Prince Albert is."Copy !req
156. So I had to explain to him that it
was an item... Did you tell him?Copy !req
157. I didn't say it was a cock-ring,
I said...Copy !req
158. Well, what words DID you use?
A piece of jewellery
worn in an intimate area.Copy !req
159. "Oh, a cock-ring!"Copy !req
160. Let's tear ourselves back to
Caravaggio and Tomassoni if we can.Copy !req
161. The two men were rivals for
the favours of Fillide Melandroni,Copy !req
162. a beautiful female prostitute
for whom Tomassoni acted as pimp.Copy !req
163. Caravaggio had been commissioned to
paint her for an Italian nobleman.Copy !req
164. For an extra five points,
can you connect this...Copy !req
165. I will pass it round
if you need to handle or smell it...Copy !req
166. Fennel. .. with Italian homosexuals.Copy !req
167. Oh!Copy !req
168. Are there any Italian homosexuals
in the room?Copy !req
169. My dressing room number is 315.Copy !req
170. Is it fennel? It IS fennel.Copy !req
171. I'll tell you that, yes.Copy !req
172. Erm... Is it the street slang
for homosexual?Copy !req
173. Correct! Wow!Copy !req
174. Ten points.Copy !req
175. Look at that! You get...Copy !req
176. Yeah.Copy !req
177. What is it, though?
Cos there's a certain word...Copy !req
178. Finocchio, fennel in Italian.Copy !req
179. Like Pinocchio but with an F.
That's quite interesting!Copy !req
180. Yeah, it is! Good!Copy !req
181. Now to Hugh, still with Andrews,
according to Andrew Marshall's
recent book about Burma,Copy !req
182. a Burmese may well sidle up to you
and murmur...Copy !req
183. "Excuse me, sir,
but I see that your department store
is open even on weekends."Copy !req
184. What does he mean by that?
What's the game?Copy !req
185. Well, it's either too much
Len Deighton,Copy !req
186. and it means the microfilm
is under the seat, or...Copy !req
187. It's your flies are open
or something?Copy !req
188. Ten points, your flies are undone
is exactly what it means!Copy !req
189. Very good!Copy !req
190. Appropriately enough, this book on
Burma is called The Trouser People.Copy !req
191. To give you a foretaste, it quotes
the diary of Sir George Scott,Copy !req
192. the man who introduced football
to Burma in the 19th C.Copy !req
193. "Stepped on something soft
and wobbly. Struck a match.Copy !req
194. "Found it was a dead Chinaman."Copy !req
195. Those very much were the days,
weren't they?Copy !req
196. You wonder why the British are hated
around the globe.Copy !req
197. "Be upstairs, ready, my angel",
of course, was Burma. B-U-R-M-A.
Alan Bennett's...Copy !req
198. And Notlob as well.
Knickers off ready when I come home.Copy !req
199. That's Norwich.
Norwich! That's right!Copy !req
200. Oh, yes, Notlob's the other one,
isn't it? Oh, it doesn't matter,
that's Bolton!Copy !req
201. It's Norwich! The man...
is clinically insane.Copy !req
202. So, interestingly, while
double-checking this informationCopy !req
203. about etiquette and Burma
on the internet,Copy !req
204. we came up with
the extraordinary information
that it's considered politeCopy !req
205. to express joy by eating snow,Copy !req
206. and to send unwanted guests away
by biting their leg,Copy !req
207. and normal behaviour
to wipe your mouth on the sofa.Copy !req
208. This is absolutely true,
the researchers were writing
this down with great excitement,Copy !req
209. only to discover in the end
that Burma turned out to beCopy !req
210. the name of a poodle belonging
to the author of the website.Copy !req
211. Now this third round
is about actors.Copy !req
212. After weeks of being pointedly
ignored on tour by Sir John Gielgud,Copy !req
213. Clive Morton, the actor,
plucked up the courage to knock
on his dressing room door.Copy !req
214. Gielgud opened it...
"Thank God it's you," he said,Copy !req
215. "for one dreadful moment
I thought it was going to be
that ghastly bore, Clive Morton."Copy !req
216. Now, why...? Hugh, yes.
Why does the actor Edward Woodward
have 4 D's in his name?Copy !req
217. Well...Copy !req
218. What are you doing? I'm sorry!
What are you doing?Copy !req
219. It was a spasm... He can't do that!Copy !req
220. Forget I'm here!Copy !req
221. It's quite interesting...
Good, it's what we're here for.Copy !req
222. kiwi fruit uses more than
its own weight in aviation fuelCopy !req
223. to get from
New Zealand to Europe.Copy !req
224. Very good.Copy !req
225. Five points. Wonderful.Copy !req
226. Another five points.
It sounds mad but is of course true.Copy !req
227. And regarding the Edward Woodward...
Yes. .. that's how you spell it!Copy !req
228. Let Hugh have a go!Copy !req
229. No, really, that's fineCopy !req
230. I was gonna say exactly that,
it's got that many Ds in it
cos that's his name.Copy !req
231. If you took the Ds out,
it would be a different name!Copy !req
232. Ewa Woowa! Exactly!Copy !req
233. It'd be Ewa Woo-woo!Copy !req
234. It's a sort of structural device,
like a joist,Copy !req
235. which stops his name collapsing
into the sort of spongy mass
of Ewar Woo-woo.Copy !req
236. On Edward Woodward
and John Gielgud...Copy !req
237. John Gielgud, when he first heard
the name Edward Woodward, said,Copy !req
238. "Interesting name,
sounds like a fart in the bath."Copy !req
239. Edward Woodward. It does.Copy !req
240. Yeah. Very good.Copy !req
241. But that means you get your points,
Hugh, naturally.Copy !req
242. Now, let's go back to
our actors' round. Which actor said,Copy !req
243. "One of my chief regrets in my years
in the theatre is that I couldn't
sit in the audience and watch me"?Copy !req
244. Oh, God, any of 'em!Copy !req
245. Well, hold on, I think actors
do bloody difficult jobs!Copy !req
246. And you know, it's quite easy
to sit there and...Copy !req
247. Fall asleep!Copy !req
248. What do you think?Copy !req
249. John Gielgud, I reckon.
No, it's not, actually.Copy !req
250. There's a very good story, though,
about Peter O'Toole,Copy !req
251. who was once getting drunk
in his Celtic hell-raiser days
in a pub in London,Copy !req
252. and it was throwing-out time
at lunchtime and he said,
"Let's go and see a play",Copy !req
253. and at one point
O'Toole nudged his friend and said,
"This is brilliant.Copy !req
254. "This is the bit where I come on.
Oh, bollocks!"Copy !req
255. But in fact...Copy !req
256. Erm... He wasn't, is the answer.Copy !req
257. It wasn't any of those,
it was another great -Copy !req
258. THE great Hamlet of his age,
if you're American -
John Barrymore.Copy !req
259. Oh. Barrymore also famously said,
"Love is the delightful interval
between meeting a beautiful girlCopy !req
260. "and discovering
that she looks like a haddock."Copy !req
261. Bearing in mind we want to be
in the bar BEFORE half ten,Copy !req
262. fingers on the buzzers
and identify the following.Copy !req
263. "They puff out their hair like
a cat, raise one front foot and then
hop menacingly from side to side,Copy !req
264. "roaring with all the fury
of a clogged drain."Copy !req
265. Yes.Copy !req
266. It's either... cats...Copy !req
267. .. or clogged drains.Copy !req
268. One or the other.Copy !req
269. It's actually anteaters. Oh!
Anteaters.Copy !req
270. Part of the elaborate play sequences
of young giant anteaters,
in fact, which is known asCopy !req
271. bluff charging. Oh. And
we're going to have a few questions
about anteaters. Mm.Copy !req
272. I'm going to start with you, Alan.
Oh!Copy !req
273. What would you do with a pencil
and a lesser anteater?Copy !req
274. Hours of fun!Copy !req
275. I'd probably try and make it
pick it up with its nose.Copy !req
276. And then if it really got
a good grip on it, I'd encourage it
to do a sketch or a note...Copy !req
277. I'd say, "Anything that's on
your mind, get it down now."Copy !req
278. It could go for 35 miles which is
how long an average graphite pencil
will, if you just go like that,Copy !req
279. all the way till there's nothing
left. Quite extraordinary!Copy !req
280. Five points!
He knows how many miles
a graphite pencil will write.Copy !req
281. Normal HB pencil, 35 miles.
However with an anteater...Copy !req
282. I can't get out of my head
the notion of inserting the pencil
somewhere in the anteater.Copy !req
283. Then there being a release
of hundreds of ants.Copy !req
284. Well, I tell you what it is.Copy !req
285. Anteaters have
enormously long tongues,
but tiny little mouths,Copy !req
286. which are about
the diameter of a pencil.Copy !req
287. Its tongue is around 16 inches...Copy !req
288. I nearly had me face off then
trying to do that!Copy !req
289. No, this way, actually.Copy !req
290. That's right. Not that way.Copy !req
291. I knew a landlord of a pub once,
he used to say to any female
customer that he liked the look of,Copy !req
292. "I've got a nine-inch tongue and
I can breathe through me ears."Copy !req
293. Wow!Copy !req
294. What a charmer!Copy !req
295. Now...Copy !req
296. That's the longest sustained laugh
I've ever heard in me life.Copy !req
297. It never went very high
but it just went on and on...Copy !req
298. A bit like the graphite pencil
of laughs.Copy !req
299. The 35-mile laugh.Copy !req
300. John, your question. Would you like
to be hugged by a giant anteater?Copy !req
301. Erm, probably not.
I would probably be eviscerated.Copy !req
302. Quite right.Copy !req
303. The anteaters, in order to claw open
the termite hill -Copy !req
304. I'm sorry, I'm getting very dull,
David Attenborough does it
so much better -Copy !req
305. but they have curly fingers
like that and they pull it apart.Copy !req
306. Once it is pulled apart
like a rather interesting pie
then they can get the tongue in,Copy !req
307. as Alan's friend in the pub
was talking about so sweetly...Copy !req
308. And... I think I've answered
the question. Absolutely right, yes.Copy !req
309. A hug from a giant anteater
is fatal to humans,
partly because of the factCopy !req
310. that they are
also known as ant bears
because their hug is so fatal.Copy !req
311. They'd squash you! A squashing hug!Copy !req
312. Yeah, they break your ribs and...Copy !req
313. Have they been known
to attack humans?
Exit pursued by an anteater...Copy !req
314. In their defence...
They come up to you and go,
"John!" and then go, "Oh, no!Copy !req
315. "I didn't mean any harm!Copy !req
316. "I didn't mean any harm!Copy !req
317. "I don't know my own strength!"Copy !req
318. Hugh, how big is a dwarf anteater?Copy !req
319. Roughly? You can use your hands.Copy !req
320. Metric or imperial?Copy !req
321. A dwarf anteater is exactly the
same length as a dwarf-ant eater.Copy !req
322. Ah! Both species are 62ft.Copy !req
323. Actually, they're about the size
of a squirrel.Copy !req
324. Right, a 62ft squirrel...
About that sort of size.Copy !req
325. Well, they are similar to squirrels
because they spend a lot of time
in trees,Copy !req
326. and in South America, stewed
dwarf anteater is a popular dish.Copy !req
327. Fried or grilled baby squirrels
are popular in the US.Copy !req
328. But as someone pointed out
in a letter to the Telegraph,Copy !req
329. these fried or grilled squirrels
should contain a warning,Copy !req
330. "May contain nuts".Copy !req
331. Which I thought was lovely!Copy !req
332. Now there's just time for a quick
last round which is an assortment
called General Ignorance.Copy !req
333. Fingers on the buzzers, please,
for this quickfire round,Copy !req
334. ten points for a right answer,
minus ten for anything
I have written down here.Copy !req
335. Right. All righty. So.
Which country has the world's
highest suicide rate?Copy !req
336. Yes. Woof?Copy !req
337. It's always Sweden, isn't it?Copy !req
338. You always do Sweden, it's
one of those urban mythy things.Copy !req
339. It's not Sweden.Copy !req
340. Another one I read somewhere
is that a ship's captain
cannot marry people.Copy !req
341. Yes, I've heard that.
Never been true.Copy !req
342. Invented by screenwriters
or something.Copy !req
343. And lemmings don't jump over cliffs!
Herded together for a Disney film.Copy !req
344. Disney rounded up all these lemmings
and drove Landrovers at them...Copy !req
345. And that footage of them
going over the cliffs...
They don't do that!Copy !req
346. Five for being interesting
about lemmings. This man
is just a runaway interest.Copy !req
347. The suicide answer... I think -Copy !req
348. I don't know why - but did
somebody say Indonesia to me once?
They didn't,Copy !req
349. not currently as far as we know,
is it the correct answer either.Copy !req
350. It's actually... England.Copy !req
351. Not England, no. Spain?Copy !req
352. No! This could be rather
a long evening, couldn't it?Copy !req
353. It's actually Lithuania.Copy !req
354. Ah. Oh!Copy !req
355. 52 suicides
per 100,000 head of population,Copy !req
356. more than 13 times higher than
the United States, which has 4.1Copy !req
357. per 100,000, and six-and-a-half
times that of Britain, with eight.Copy !req
358. Nobody has any idea
why this should be.Copy !req
359. Is it because the capital
is so difficult to spellCopy !req
360. and to say and it's one of
those words that really doesn't...?Copy !req
361. Which is Vilnius, isn't it?
It's not that hard! It's tricky!Copy !req
362. I've an idea for a book.Copy !req
363. Can the audience please say Vilnius?
One two, three... Vilnius!Copy !req
364. I'm sorry, I was just looking
for an answer, I was desperate!Copy !req
365. Very good that you knew
the answer was Vilnius!Copy !req
366. Do you think
it would be interesting...?Copy !req
367. .. if you got all
of the suicide notes...Copy !req
368. .. and published them as a book?Copy !req
369. It might find out what the hell's
going on in Vilnius!Copy !req
370. "It's the food!"Copy !req
371. They're all sick of the food here!Copy !req
372. Clearly, again and again,
in the references...Copy !req
373. Erm... Your favourite painter coming
up now, Alan, in this question.Copy !req
374. What was Caravaggio's real name?Copy !req
375. It sounds like Italian
for Carphone Warehouse.Copy !req
376. It's a buzzer round.Copy !req
377. Fabio. Fabio.Copy !req
378. You'd think cos he travelled,
cos of killing people...Copy !req
379. it'd be Caraviaggio, like a lover
of travel. Very good. Dear travel...Copy !req
380. But it's not.Copy !req
381. His real name's Michelangelo.Copy !req
382. Oh, that IS something. Did
Derek Jarman make a film about him?Copy !req
383. He did indeed, called simply,
Caravagg-io.Copy !req
384. Interesting enough for a point?
No!Copy !req
385. Yes!Copy !req
386. Oh! Clearly it is!Copy !req
387. We're losing it!Copy !req
388. All right...Copy !req
389. Caravaggio took the name Caravagg-io
because his father Fermo MerisiCopy !req
390. was the steward and chief architect
of the Marquis of Caravag-g-gio.Copy !req
391. So...Copy !req
392. Who invented the steam engine?Copy !req
393. Yes. It wasn't, as a lot of people
think, George Stephenson. Right.Copy !req
394. I said who did?Copy !req
395. That person would be
a Mr Trevithick. Very good.Copy !req
396. Very good.Copy !req
397. Richard Trevithick
went into a pub one nightCopy !req
398. and - this is true -
they built a steam engine and
they got it up to pressureCopy !req
399. and they went into a pub,
the whole gang of them,Copy !req
400. and they got absolutely slaughtered,
they forgot about the steam engineCopy !req
401. and it blew up and it took
about ten houses down. Good lord!Copy !req
402. Well, Richard Trevithick was
credited with the modern inventionCopy !req
403. but the real answer is neither
of those, it was Hero or
Heron of Alexandria in 100AD.Copy !req
404. Oh...Copy !req
405. It was called the aeolipile,
or windball.Copy !req
406. Using the same principle
as jet propulsion,
a metal sphere spun round,Copy !req
407. steam-generated at 1,500rpm,
making it the fastest
rotating object in the world.Copy !req
408. The ancient Greeks found it
an amusing novelty, nothing more.
But none of them thoughtCopy !req
409. to put it together with the railway
which amazingly had been invented
700 years earlier...Copy !req
410. ..by Periander of Corinth...Copy !req
411. .. who had a railway.Copy !req
412. Yes. But not steam-powered.
Powered by human force. Amazing.Copy !req
413. Moving on...
I know something interesting!Copy !req
414. Stephenson's Rocket went at 30mph,Copy !req
415. and they were sure if you went
at 30mph and over you would suffer
irreparable brain damage,Copy !req
416. so they put fences alongside
the tracks so that passers-byCopy !req
417. wouldn't have to witness
anyone just losing it...Copy !req
418. I suspect... that the person
who came up with that notion
wasn't a medical doctor or anything,Copy !req
419. I suspect it was a fence-maker...Copy !req
420. It's astonishing what people think
causes illness.Copy !req
421. The Romans thought
buggery caused earthquakes. Really?Copy !req
422. If it's done right!
If it's done right!Copy !req
423. Lastly, what is the name of
the 23rd tallest tree in the world?Copy !req
424. Ho, ho!Copy !req
425. What, like a Christian name?
Or the type of...Copy !req
426. I'd call it Dave
or something like that!Copy !req
427. Giant redwood. Well, that is...Copy !req
428. That is the species, the sequoia,
the giant redwood. But its name...Copy !req
429. The lesser giant redwood.Copy !req
430. The 23rd lesser giant redwood.Copy !req
431. The answer is...
Oh, you'll kick yourselves!Copy !req
432. Again? Well, because it's... themed.Copy !req
433. The answer is Adam.Copy !req
434. Ohhh!Copy !req
435. First round? Remember that far back?Copy !req
436. - No!
- No.Copy !req
437. It's one of
the 30 named giant sequoias of
the Giant Forest in CaliforniaCopy !req
438. and is named after the first man
so we come full circle,Copy !req
439. just in time for the final score.Copy !req
440. Ho, ho, ho!Copy !req
441. Alan...Copy !req
442. I've been really interesting!
You have been SO interesting!Copy !req
443. And you've made many new friends
here tonight.Copy !req
444. But you've only made
minus five new points. Brilliant!Copy !req
445. In third place, with ten, it's John,
and in second place with 11 is HughCopy !req
446. but our runaway winner,
with 18 QI points is Danny Baker.Copy !req
447. Thank you very much indeed.Copy !req
448. That about wraps it up for QI.
It only remains for me to thank
Danny, Alan, Hugh and JohnCopy !req
449. and to leave you with
something quite interesting.Copy !req
450. And it's this local titbit
from the Independent.Copy !req
451. An army bomb unit
was called to investigate
a suspicious-looking packageCopy !req
452. outside the territorial army unit
in Bristol.Copy !req
453. They blew up, with a controlled
explosion, the package,Copy !req
454. only to discover
that it was a parcel of leafletsCopy !req
455. explaining how to deal
with suspicious packages.Copy !req
456. Good night.Copy !req