1. Hello and welcome to QI.Copy !req
2. We hope to prove Oscar Wilde's
theory, there are only two kinds
of interesting people,Copy !req
3. those who know everything
and those who know nothing. Tonight,Copy !req
4. we have four kinds of people, only
one of whom fits either category.Copy !req
5. Alan Davies, Bill Bailey,Copy !req
6. Linda Smith and Richard E Grant.Copy !req
7. The rules are straightforward.
I am omnipotent, omniscient
and have a low boredom threshold.Copy !req
8. You're interesting,
or there'll be trouble. You can
at least make an interesting noise.Copy !req
9. Richard goes:Copy !req
10. Linda goes:Copy !req
11. Bill goes:Copy !req
12. Alan goes:Copy !req
13. And I go - let's go!Copy !req
14. Fingers on buzzers
for art and entertainment.Copy !req
15. Why don't pigeons
like going to the movies?Copy !req
16. Yes, Bill?Copy !req
17. Well, I dunno. Pigeons don't go
to the movies... cos not much
is made with them in mind.Copy !req
18. Cos they're much more into
German Expressionism.Copy !req
19. What's the lifespan of a pigeon?Copy !req
20. Humph! You've got me there.
Nine, ten years?Copy !req
21. A fair old time. They can only see
a U film. That's true. Very true.Copy !req
22. But... birds don't fly at night,
do they?Copy !req
23. They do in some cities. Owls do.
Yes.Copy !req
24. They don't go to the cinema. They
spend all their time looking behind.Copy !req
25. So they can only go in the day. Yes.Copy !req
26. To a U film. It's narrowing it down.Copy !req
27. Richard?
They're allergic to popcorn.Copy !req
28. Open-air cinemas where I grew up,
pigeons exploded from eating it.Copy !req
29. It's becoming increasingly hard
to verify. It is hard to verify.Copy !req
30. You grew up in Swaziland?
Yeah. Pigeon countryCopy !req
31. Are there pigeons there? A lot!Copy !req
32. That's so convincing! It's not true,
but I like it.Copy !req
33. What happens
if a pigeon looks at a film?Copy !req
34. Eyes on the side of the head.
Like that! No.Copy !req
35. No.Copy !req
36. They'd perch on the back of a chair
and can't see straight ahead, so
he'd keep looking from side to side.Copy !req
37. No. Pigeons have extraordinarily
good eyes. Do they? Yes.Copy !req
38. Homing pigeons. They can see their
home from across the Channel.
They can see landmarks from high up.Copy !req
39. Look! There's my house. No.Copy !req
40. Landmarks they see well. Like birds
of prey. Their eyesight's
ten times better than ours...Copy !req
41. Do they prefer to see it on DVD
with extra interviews? How does
film work? How does film work?Copy !req
42. Lots of pictures going quickly.
Quickly to us!Copy !req
43. But to them it's going slowly.
It's a slide show.Copy !req
44. It's a slow slide show. We see
24, 25 frames a second as movement.Copy !req
45. They'd need, it has been calculated,
and maybe even demonstrated,Copy !req
46. 250 frames a second. Ten times more,
for it to be a coherent image.Copy !req
47. So they'd be bored stiff.
They watch The Matrix thinking,
"When is something gonna happen?"Copy !req
48. Exactly! Merchant Ivory film,
what's going on?Copy !req
49. Who is funding research
into what pigeons like?Copy !req
50. Lines of pigeons
in the pictures all yawning!Copy !req
51. Pigeons saved lives as carriers
right up to the Second World War.Copy !req
52. So we reward them with a cinema?Copy !req
53. We're rewarding ourselves
by researching all kinds of
pigeon-related data.Copy !req
54. When the Pathe News chicken appears,
do they go "Bah!"?Copy !req
55. For example, I could tell you
it cost £105,000 last yearCopy !req
56. to clean up the pigeon crap
from Trafalgar Square. St Mark's.Copy !req
57. That's St Mark's Square,
I think you're right.Copy !req
58. How have pigeons
got that sort of money?Copy !req
59. When you drive why does the pigeon
not jump out of the way
till the last minute?Copy !req
60. It's a fun game. It's proof of how
it sees the world slower than us.Copy !req
61. To them it's got acres of time.
And what noise do they make?Copy !req
62. O-cooh! Bet you can, you're good at
noises. Coo-oo! Crr-crr! Who's that?Copy !req
63. Crr-crr! Oh! Five points!Copy !req
64. Five! Very good.Copy !req
65. What was that? He got five points
for doing a pigeon noise!Copy !req
66. Miaow!Copy !req
67. Woof-woof! Arf-arf!Copy !req
68. Nothing like a pigeon at all!Copy !req
69. Pigeons go in other birds' nests.Copy !req
70. Like cuckoos? Is it cuckoos?
I think it may be.Copy !req
71. As in "a cuckoo in the nest."Copy !req
72. But I tell you what is interesting,Copy !req
73. what else is interesting about them?
They can suck. Yes.Copy !req
74. The only bird that can suck.
Is that how they raised £105,000?Copy !req
75. Pigeons can suck. All other birds...
Don't use straws? No.Copy !req
76. They scoop up with the lower part
of their beak and tip back.Copy !req
77. Exactly right.
I have parrots, you see. I know.Copy !req
78. But it's clearing up. Thank you.Copy !req
79. Pigeons can suck, but why would you
invite one to a picnic?Copy !req
80. To suck stuff for you?Copy !req
81. Go ahead, Richard. You don't think
of taking toothpicks on a picnic.Copy !req
82. So if you've got spinach stuck
in your teeth,Copy !req
83. if you grab a pigeon,Copy !req
84. and shove it to your face and "SSS"
like that, it sucks it out for you.Copy !req
85. I think it could be very useful.Copy !req
86. The real answer's
even more disgusting.Copy !req
87. Repellent. It's not
the front end of a pigeon.Copy !req
88. I think it's a practice that has
died out, but it was common up
until a couple of hundred years ago.Copy !req
89. What are the dangers on a picnic?
Wasps. Bees.Copy !req
90. Or worse? Ants. Ee-ooh.Copy !req
91. Bad company.Copy !req
92. Snakes? Adders.
It was believedCopy !req
93. that a pigeon's arse
would suck out the poison.Copy !req
94. So you get bitten, then you get a
pigeon. How do you tell it to suck?Copy !req
95. You wait for the pigeon to die,
apparently.Copy !req
96. Then you use another pigeon and
another. When the final one
survives, the poison's all gone.Copy !req
97. Can an adder's bite be that bad? No.Copy !req
98. That's the weird thing.
It'd have to be bad, wouldn't it.Copy !req
99. 1977 a girl died. That's the last
one. More people die from peanuts
than have died from adders.Copy !req
100. They're lethal, they are.Copy !req
101. Who discovered that a pigeon's arse
can suck poison?Copy !req
102. It goes back to Pliny the Elder.
Not him again!Copy !req
103. Everything he says is rubbish.Copy !req
104. Pliny the Elder had his own version.Copy !req
105. He simply tore open a live swallow
and apply it.Copy !req
106. Try this for size. Which living
creature has the largest brain
compared to its body size?Copy !req
107. Bill.Copy !req
108. Wasp?Copy !req
109. No. But not a bad guess.Copy !req
110. Not a wasp? A human? Oh, no!Copy !req
111. Oh, dear, oh, dear. Oh, dear.Copy !req
112. No, not a human. I'm afraid you
lose ten for that. Not a human.Copy !req
113. I haven't got ten! No.
A flea? Not a flea.Copy !req
114. Ant? Ah-ooh-ee!Copy !req
115. Ant! Right!
Is that how you award points now?Copy !req
116. How big is it, then? About...
The ant's brain, I mean.Copy !req
117. 6% of its body. The smallest brain
is an ostrich? They have tiny ones.Copy !req
118. You grew up with ostriches. You
were adopted by ostriches. I was!Copy !req
119. Can you make an ostrich noise? Yes,
but not for you! Make it for Linda.
I'd love to make it for Linda.Copy !req
120. If we applied the same percentage
to humans, our heads would be
three times larger than they are.Copy !req
121. We'd all look like William Hague.Copy !req
122. They reckon about 40,000 ants,
the size of an average colony,Copy !req
123. has the same amount of neurons
and brain cells as one human being.Copy !req
124. I had an ants' nest in my flat once.Copy !req
125. Did you? What did you do?Copy !req
126. I was fairly stupid because I saw
an ant and the next day I saw
an ant and thought, "There he is."Copy !req
127. The same one!
Did you give him a name?Copy !req
128. Then one day I moved the telephone
table and there were loads of them
there and they all went, "Argh!"Copy !req
129. Hoovered them, hoovered the lot.
No? Mm. They'd survive the Hoover.Copy !req
130. Well... Were you sucking them up
with a pigeon's arse? I would
have done if I'd thought of it.Copy !req
131. I'll give you the point if you can
tell me to the nearest hundred
how many species of ants there are.Copy !req
132. 100.Copy !req
133. 2,500.Copy !req
134. 8,000 is the answer.Copy !req
135. How good are they at life-saving?
What uses can you put an ant to
to save a human life?Copy !req
136. A synaptic connection lost in your
brain - stretch an ant across it.Copy !req
137. Very close, Bill.Copy !req
138. In ancient India, say you were
performing an ancient Indian
appendectomy or some such operation,Copy !req
139. what do you do the sew
the skin together?Copy !req
140. You take a soldier ant, pinch
the skin together and it bites.Copy !req
141. You cut its head off and it stays
in the right position as a stitch.Copy !req
142. The ant is a stitch.Copy !req
143. You have rows of ants as stitches.
They used them to great effect.Copy !req
144. Yeah, and then you reach up
to the top shelf... Ping!Copy !req
145. There's some of the kinds of ants
you use. They wanna watch
those peanuts. They're lethal.Copy !req
146. They could have
"antaphylactic" shock!Copy !req
147. Now!Copy !req
148. In Thailand, they use red ants
for something still today.
What might they do?Copy !req
149. Chutney.Copy !req
150. I'm thinking of interventionist
medical processes.Copy !req
151. Pour some red ants into an open
wound and they secrete an acid
which is antiseptic and painkilling.Copy !req
152. What about...?
On the other hand, Savlon.Copy !req
153. There are parts of Thailand, and we
must do something about it urgently,
where you can't get Savlon.Copy !req
154. Ants are cheaper and more available.
They could carry the Savlon...Copy !req
155. Very good.Copy !req
156. What do a greasy butcher,
a hog's snout and Gene Pitney
have in common?Copy !req
157. They can all hit top C naturally.Copy !req
158. Well... Because of the grease.Copy !req
159. Only experienced butchers have this.Copy !req
160. The grease that accrues
down their larynx and oesophagus
coats the vocal cords.Copy !req
161. So, the butchers, if they need to,
can hit a top C.Copy !req
162. If you've ever tried to kill a pig,
top C is what it hits naturally
and Gene has just always done it.Copy !req
163. Sadly not. None of it's true.Copy !req
164. With pigs you can have...
This is true.Copy !req
165. You can actually have pigs' organs,
pigs' valves, put into your heart.Copy !req
166. If you've got a dodgy heart valve,
they can put the valve from a pig...Copy !req
167. What are the chances of a young pig
getting killed in a bike accidentCopy !req
168. and then carrying a donor card...
There's got to be millionsCopy !req
169. A "donor kebab" card.Copy !req
170. No, I want you to think,
and there's no way you can get this
I suppose, unless you know.Copy !req
171. They're all types of apple. What
is a greasy butcher? It's an apple.Copy !req
172. A greasy butcher is
a sweet red eating apple. Ah.Copy !req
173. If an apple drops to the ground
and seeds and fruits itself,
the apples that grow from the treeCopy !req
174. are nothing like the parent,
like humans.Copy !req
175. In order to have types of apple you
have to graft from the same tree.Copy !req
176. It won't keep
the same species at all.Copy !req
177. In the jungle, if your torch
runs out of batteries,Copy !req
178. you can use apple peel and two heads
of soldier ants as electrodes.Copy !req
179. There's enough electricity within
the apple to run a battery for hours.Copy !req
180. You'd be hard-pushed
to find an apple tree in a jungle.Copy !req
181. That's true.Copy !req
182. What's the common factor between
apples and a game played
with headless goats? There is one.Copy !req
183. Bobbing for apples and bobbing
for... oooh, eurgh!Copy !req
184. Bobbing for headless goats.
It would help if you knew
where apples came from. Trees.Copy !req
185. Which country?Copy !req
186. Kent. Kent!Copy !req
187. There is a part of the world where
the first apple trees still exist.Copy !req
188. There's this one country...
The Garden of Eden. Well...Copy !req
189. There's no evidence it was an apple.
It never says "apple" in Genesis.Copy !req
190. It says, "The fruit of the tree
whereof I said thou shouldst
not eat." I haven't read it.Copy !req
191. It's hilarious.Copy !req
192. The first recorded game, as we know
it, that takes place on horsebackCopy !req
193. involves a headless goat
instead of a ball.Copy !req
194. There were goals
and it was a marked pitch...Copy !req
195. China.Copy !req
196. It's one of those countries you've
heard of and couldn't draw on a map.
Tajikistan.Copy !req
197. Uzbekistan. Ooh!Copy !req
198. Kazakhstan. Right!Copy !req
199. Well done. Well done.Copy !req
200. I'll give you eight for that so
it takes you out of the minus zone.Copy !req
201. I now have zero. I missed the point.
They used headless goats...Copy !req
202. They have... ..to hit apples?
What do apples have in common with
a game involving headless goats?Copy !req
203. They both originated in Kazakhstan.Copy !req
204. From apples to something as American
as apple pie - dodgy presidents.Copy !req
205. Richard E Grant, this is for you.
What ghastly blot on his reputationCopy !req
206. did your namesake Ulysses S Grant
share with John Prescott?Copy !req
207. Er... they both had a condition
called "erectus permanentus".Copy !req
208. No, it's serious.
It is absolutely true.Copy !req
209. From the age of five,Copy !req
210. it's been at full woody mast
the whole way through.Copy !req
211. It's why John had to travel
that one mile in a Jaguar.Copy !req
212. Ulysses had the same thing
in a carriage trip from a small
18th-century mile to Washington.Copy !req
213. You've mentioned John Prescott's
Jaguar and you've mentioned
Ulysses S Grant in a wooden cart.Copy !req
214. Stick with that. Expunge woody
masts from your mind for the moment.Copy !req
215. Run with the idea of vehicles.Copy !req
216. Parking offences...
Speeding! Speeding.Copy !req
217. "Two-Jags Prescott" was banned
from driving for 21 days in 2001Copy !req
218. after he admitted going
more than 100mph on the M1.Copy !req
219. In previous years, he got nine
points on his licence for speeding.Copy !req
220. The best reason he came up with
was he didn't want his constituents
to catch cold waiting for him.Copy !req
221. "Three-buggy Grant" received
a speeding ticket while driving
his horse and buggy in 1869.Copy !req
222. He had to persuade the officer
in charge he was guilty and
he was fined £20. Was it a camera?Copy !req
223. You know, a bloke with a big black
hood over him going, "Hold it!"Copy !req
224. Watch the birdie!Copy !req
225. No, it was a sketch artist.Copy !req
226. They also both won
extraordinary prizes.Copy !req
227. Ulysses S Grant, as a boy, won a
prize for taming a pony in a circus.Copy !req
228. But the prize that Prescott won,
very odd. 1951, in Brighton,Copy !req
229. the Prescott family won
second prize... Knobbly knees?Copy !req
230. The Most Typical Family In Britain!Copy !req
231. They came second?Copy !req
232. It should've been first, as
the winning family was related to
the competition organiser.Copy !req
233. There's corruption, but
not on the part of John Prescott.Copy !req
234. Time to grapple with the unknown,
unknowable and the never known.Copy !req
235. What? Yes. Stuff that
no-one's ever known? Yes.Copy !req
236. We're gonna be asked about that?
We call the round General Ignorance.Copy !req
237. Which is the largest living thing
on earth?Copy !req
238. It is the blue whale.Copy !req
239. Sorry, Alan. Minus ten points.
It's not the blue whale.Copy !req
240. The largest LIVING thing on earth.
Um... It's a tree.Copy !req
241. It'll be a tree - like the redwood.Copy !req
242. Giant redwood, ladies and
gentlemen, not the sequoia-sequoia.Copy !req
243. Largest living thing on earth?Copy !req
244. France.Copy !req
245. Oh, dear me.Copy !req
246. My friend Marty's uncle Roy.
A mammoth. No.Copy !req
247. It's a honey mushroom.
The largest recorded specimen is...
Bigger than a redwood?Copy !req
248. The largest specimen is in the
Malheur National Forest in Oregon,
it covers 2,200 acres.Copy !req
249. One mushroom? It's between 2,000
to 8,000 years old.Copy !req
250. It was thought to grow in separate
clusters, but it is one organism
connected under the soil.Copy !req
251. Who was the first man to claim
that the earth goes round the sun?Copy !req
252. Copernicus?Copy !req
253. Not, not, not Copernicus.Copy !req
254. Galileo. Nor Galileo.
Galileo. Galileo.Copy !req
255. No, he will not do the fandango.Copy !req
256. I won't do it right.Copy !req
257. No. Sophocles. Archimedes.
Not Archimedes.Copy !req
258. Ogg the Clever.Copy !req
259. His name was Adistarcus of Samos.Copy !req
260. He runs a restaurant. He was
born in 310 BC. He's still alive?Copy !req
261. All 1,800 years
before Nicolaus Copernicus.Copy !req
262. Adistarcus suggested the Earth and
the planets travel around the sun,Copy !req
263. he calculated the size and distance
of the earth, moon and sun,Copy !req
264. and worked out that heavens
were not a celestial sphere,
but a universe of infinite size.Copy !req
265. Which African animal kills more
human beings than any other?Copy !req
266. Hippopotamus.Copy !req
267. Is the right answer. Well done!Copy !req
268. Though of course,
man kills more than any other,
but we were discounting man.Copy !req
269. There he is, the hippo.
Did you encounter many? I did,
and they're vegetarian too.Copy !req
270. They might chop you in half, and
then leave you. They're very fast.Copy !req
271. And on land. Doesn't the tsetse
fly kill more people?Copy !req
272. Or the mosquito? I think you're
right, mosquitoes have killed more
than anything else - wars even.Copy !req
273. One of them's going, "And I bit him
in half, but I'm a vegetarian!"Copy !req
274. Oh, I laugh!Copy !req
275. If you want to skin a
hippopotamus... It would be livid.Copy !req
276. Furious.Copy !req
277. If you put that skin on
some scales, how heavy would it be?Copy !req
278. 14 stone. No, a ton. A ton of skin?Copy !req
279. The skin weighs a ton, it's an inch
and a half thick and bulletproof.Copy !req
280. It accounts for 25% of the animal's
weight. It weighs four tons.
Like a bus?Copy !req
281. Like a bus or any other four ton
weighing thing. Yes, more or less.Copy !req
282. You have to say to him,
you've put on a bit of weight,
but they're really thick skinned.Copy !req
283. Have you ever smelled a
hippopotamus's breath? Diabolical.Copy !req
284. It's halitosis is part of its
weaponry. It's used as a warning
to keep other animals away.Copy !req
285. It's breath is so disgusting.
Oddly, a controller at BBC Two
did the same thing.Copy !req
286. Tusks, like the elephant and walrus
are made of ivory.Copy !req
287. George Washington
had hippopotamus tusk teeth.Copy !req
288. He must've had quite an overbite.Copy !req
289. "I've got hippo teeth, you know."Copy !req
290. They hang out by slow-moving fresh
water bordered by grass. This is
the same habitat favoured by humans.Copy !req
291. Most accidents occur either because
a hippo has whacked its head
on a paddle or something,Copy !req
292. gets very cross and overturns
the boat.Copy !req
293. Or because people are walking
when most hippos leave the water,
they're trampled on.Copy !req
294. It's not a dignified way to die.Copy !req
295. Who invented the telephone? I'm not
going to say. I'm not gonna say.Copy !req
296. I'm not gonna tell. No thoughts?Copy !req
297. Adistarcus.Copy !req
298. You're right to be suspicious,
because the answer is not
Alexander Graham Bell.Copy !req
299. Who was the first person to do two
baked beans cans and some string?Copy !req
300. Valerie Singleton invented the
phone. Valerie Singleton. Probably.Copy !req
301. I know Louis De Guerre
who invented photography...Copy !req
302. He's a typical bloke, see.
He invented photography,Copy !req
303. and a few of days later persuaded a
local barmaid to take her top off.Copy !req
304. That's blokes for you. "Photography,
this wonderful... phwoar!"Copy !req
305. Who invented the telephone then?Copy !req
306. Antonio Meucci. An Italian
scientist invented the telephone,Copy !req
307. perfected it by 1871,
couldn't afford the patent, but...Copy !req
308. it was being assessed for patent
and fell into the hands of
a young Alexander Graham Bell.Copy !req
309. Boo! He grabbed the chance
and patented it in his name.Copy !req
310. Meucci took him to court but died
before the judgement, leaving Bell
to claim his place in history.Copy !req
311. What do we say to Bell?
BEEP. Boo!Copy !req
312. Isn't that wicked?Copy !req
313. Isn't that as wicked as you get?
That's wicked.Copy !req
314. That's why were saving the energy.
Look at him. He doesn't know
how to use it!Copy !req
315. Probably works like this.Copy !req
316. "Hello!Copy !req
317. "Back in the old country,
I invented the telephone."Copy !req
318. This poor man deserves respect.
Interestingly, Bell said...Copy !req
319. He said, when asked what the future
of the telephone was, he said,Copy !req
320. "One day, there will be a telephone
in every town in America."Copy !req
321. What a wanker!Copy !req
322. My dad was shown around a computer
once, when he was a young man,Copy !req
323. and the guy said -
it was in the west country -Copy !req
324. "Right, this computer,
and we predict that in the future
there'll be eight of these."Copy !req
325. We could go on like this forever,
but we won't.Copy !req
326. Big round of applause for Richard
E Grant with 12 points! Thank you!Copy !req
327. I-I-I-In second place, with plus
five points - it's Linda Smith.Copy !req
328. In third place...Copy !req
329. with minus two points -
Bill Bailey!Copy !req
330. But our runaway loser,
with minus 18 is Alan Davies.Copy !req
331. That's it for another QI this week.Copy !req
332. Thank you to Richard, Linda, Bill
and Alan, and to show the spirit
of Adistarcus is still alive,Copy !req
333. here is the crisp description of
a solar eclipse from an Australian
aboriginal astronomer in 2002,Copy !req
334. "Kerosene lamp, belong Jesus,
gone bugger up."Copy !req