QI 1x5

1. Hello and welcome to QI,

2. the world's most impossible quiz and the nearest modern equivalent to lions versus Christians.

3. Let's meet my lunch - Alan Davies.

4. Rob Brydon. Rich Hall.

5. And Gyles Brandreth.

6. The rules are simple.

7. As I don't expect anyone to get anything right, I award points for being interesting

8. and penalties, if history is a guide, to Alan, for being obvious.

9. Then I humiliate him like this...

10. .. and take away ten points. Each team member can draw attention to themselves with a noise. Rich goes..

11. Gyles goes...

12. Rob goes...

13. And Alan goes...

14. Minus ten to Alan before we've even begun.

15. Our first round is on advertising.

16. "The superior man," says Confucius, "understands what is right."

17. The inferior man understands what will sell. If so, there are very few inferior men in advertising

18. because almost no-one in the industry has the faintest idea what will sell.

19. For example, team, what was the disastrous mistake made by

20. Gerber Foods, when they started advertising baby food in Africa?

21. You're never alone with a Strand.

22. Yes. That's a reference to a very famous disastrous campaign. Would you elucidate? Strand cigarettes.

23. This lone guy was smoking a cigarette at night and he looked a bit cool and sophisticated.

24. They thought people would aspire to that, but it made it look like it was for really lonely old bastards.

25. Hitler smoked. He hated smoking.

26. Oh, so he didn't smoke? No.

27. And he was a vegetarian. Queen Victoria smoked. Did she?

28. Two points for that.

29. There's a photograph of her smoking. She smoked in the Highlands to keep the midges away during picnics.

30. That's awfully good. It keeps the midges away. Keeps midges away.

31. And keeps Hitler away. You can't really do better than a cigarette.

32. Midges are more irritating, but in the long-term, I'd rather keep the Nazis out of the Highlands.

33. You may have a question, Rob.

34. No, I just like the tune. My answer to the original question -

35. Gerber Foods - is it that they had a very shoddy translator and the advert

36. gave the impression you were buying baby food?

37. Oddly enough...

38. Food made from babies?

39. No, you're halfway right.

40. It's quite intriguing and bizarre.

41. It's that they used the same packaging as in the US and Europe, which is a cute photo of a baby

42. on the jar.

43. Unfortunately, in Africa most people can't read, so packaging always represents what's inside the jar.

44. It's what's inside the jar, so they assumed the jars were of babies.

45. So I'm right. For the wrong reasons, three points.

46. Can I make a supplementary point?

47. I happen to know quite a bit about the Gerber family for reasons I can go into.

48. Is it Jerber or Gerber? Gerber.

49. What's interesting about the tins, the cans,

50. one reason they didn't go down well is that a lot of people in Africa are black.

51. And on the can... I'm just breaking you in gently.

52. That is quite interesting.

53. Picture these cans.

54. We're selling baby food to people in Africa. First, people think what's inside is going to be children.

55. Second, those that think it's for children think, "This does not look like the children I know,"

56. because it's a perfectly charming white child from Texas. Right.

57. And I can tell you who the white child was. Please do. A Gerber?

58. No, she was Ann Turner Cook. The photograph was taken in 1931,

59. and until the end of World War II, she was the most prolific romantic novelist in the USA.

60. That's ten points! Fantastic.

61. My great-great-grandfather, a man called Dr Benjamin Brandreth,

62. was a friend of the original Dr Gerber.

63. They were pioneers of advertising in the United States of America.

64. So I do know a lot about this.

65. The firm, originally, was not in food but in the business of tanning.

66. Unfortunately, tanning just fell from favour.

67. Whooo!

68. All right. I'm sorry.

69. Apparently,

70. during the recent war in the Gulf,

71. the Iraqi Republican Guard were told

72. that in order to become a US Marine you had to eat a baby. Wow!

73. Shock and awe. I may institute a new rule, Alan,

74. that anybody who starts off any information with "apparently" comma,

75. may well lose ten points.

76. Apparently, cos I heard it on Fox News.

77. That's not good enough. I wasn't at the Republican Guard briefing.

78. "As a childhood friend of the family that founded the US Army, while Gyles grew up with the Gerbers..."

79. My great-grandfather was in the original Republican Guard.

80. Can I say something about the Ferris wheel? Yes.

81. An interesting fact. I know a few things.

82. The Ferris wheel was originally designed as a mode of transportation.

83. And its maiden...

84. In its maiden voyage from St Louis to Kansas City at the world exhibition in 1898

85. it went off track and crushed a lot of people.

86. And that's when John Compton Ferris decided that it would be better if it didn't move.

87. The lesson there is that if you have an idea that goes nowhere, maybe it's not supposed to.

88. Very wise.

89. Do you want to pitch in with your story? I'll come back to that.

90. If I can throw in something about the Ferris wheel - that's the London Eye.

91. What is intriguing about the Eye is that the principal architect

92. is a man who shares a birthday with Gustave Eiffel who created the Eiffel Tower.

93. I say. I'm tempted to give you two points cos it's true. It's true.

94. And quite interesting. This one is known as the Millennium Eye.

95. Yes. Sponsored by British Airways. For Millennium eve. The South Bank

96. of the river Thames, which is the river which flows through London.

97. You can go as far as Oxford. You can go right out the other way.

98. And it's down near the old GLC.

99. From it, you can see Parliament...

100. I'm going to officially end question one.

101. Now, what is it that the French find hilarious about advertisements for the Toyota MR2?

102. Anybody have an idea?

103. Yes, Gyles. Do we get a penalty if we give you the obvious answer?

104. I don't know what it is. The obvious answer is that MR2,

105. said in French, is M-ER-Deux, which means the car is shit.

106. Right. It's the obvious answer and the true answer, in this case.

107. Merde.

108. Isn't it interesting the Eiffel Tower has now appeared? And Gustave Eiffel shares a birthday with...

109. Remarkable how you can cheer a child up once you get the spaghetti out of its hair.

110. Absolutely.

111. It's M-ER-Deux, which sounds like the French word "merde".

112. If you don't want to look a total prat abroad, it's not a good idea to drive a Ford Pinto in Brazil

113. where "pinto" is slang for tiny male genitals. I'd guess that!

114. That's brilliant slang for a tiny penis. Pinto. "Pinto in the shower!"

115. What was the unforgettable slogan the Irish playwright Brendan Behan devised to advertise Guinness?

116. "It's good for you."

117. Oh dear!

118. Oh! Obvious, and wrong.

119. I'm sorry about that. Minus ten to Alan. No, he didn't devise that.

120. There's a story of Brendan Behan in Canada. Did you know this was on Canadian television?

121. Drunk, as he always was, and they said, "So what brings you to Canada, Mr Behan?"

122. And he said, "Well now, I was in a bar in Dublin

123. "and a coaster said 'Drink Canada Dry' so I thought I'd give it a go."

124. Which was rather pleasing.

125. Did he die in New York? No, Dublin, at the age of 41 -

126. I know that - of severe cirrhosis of the liver. Only 41?

127. An alcoholic from the age of eight.

128. He wasn't... I'm not joking.

129. His brother is still alive.

130. No. Oh, has he died? Dominic's died. I met him. Indeed.

131. Did you do what I did? We were in a corridor, William Morris wallpaper,

132. and I learnt how to handle somebody if they're not being very interesting... Do tell me.

133. Do tell me.

134. I was telling him about William Morris and mistakenly said, "This is lovely William Morris wallpaper."

135. He then undid his trousers and urinated from that end to that end.

136. Ah, the charm of the Irish drunk. Lovely, isn't it?

137. No, Behan was asked by Guinness as Ireland's most famous living playwright to come up with a slogan.

138. He said, "You'll have to send a couple of crates round." They sent them and went round the next day.

139. And all the bottles had been drunk.

140. He said, "I've got it," and handed them a piece of paper and it said, "Guinness makes you drunk."

141. There you are. The perfect advertising slogan in many ways.

142. You know, Venus is made entirely out of felt.

143. Three points, please.

144. Do you know who predicted James Dean's death in his car? Yes, Nostradamus.

145. Mystic Meg?

146. Alec Guinness. Alec Guinness? Alec Guinness was going to a restaurant and James Dean ran out

147. and said, "You can come and sit with me." And he said, "That's kind."

148. And he said... Alec Guinness.

149. But he said, "Come along first and look at my new car." James Dean.

150. Stuart Little was there.

151. "I'm going in!"

152. He looked at it and Alec Guinness felt a strange thing and said...

153. "If you go inside that car, you will not be alive..." Don't spoil it with laughter.

154. Not the general rule. You'll get a chill after this.

155. "If you step inside that car, in two weeks' time, you'll not be alive.

156. "Sure enough, two weeks later I turned on the television and James Dean had been killed in that car."

157. - That's a true story. - Radish is a meat.

158. It's true!

159. Anyway, the slogan "Guinness is good for you" was written by

160. queen of crime Dorothy I Sayers, who was not Irish but English.

161. We'll be right back after these messages.

162. This round is set in ancient Athens.

163. The Greeks invented tragedy, comedy, geometry, philosophy, democracy,

164. persuasion, punctuation, politics, boxing gloves and the steam engine.

165. According to these geniuses, how do otters kill crocodiles?

166. Softly with their songs.

167. That's a very beautiful answer indeed.

168. It had a sort of lyrical quality, didn't it?

169. I think it must be more than one otter at work.

170. An otter distraction - lure them on to dry land, pull the plug out.

171. Or choke them!

172. Get in, you hold his jaws open, I'll choke him.

173. That's not far off. Don't they wait till they're asleep, and then just walk straight into them?

174. You're not far off, young Gyles.

175. They believed that otters scampered into the open mouths of crocodiles

176. and ate their entrails, then dashed out again when the crocodile died.

177. The crocodile went, "Aaagh!"

178. The Greeks had a lot of good ideas, but this wasn't one of them.

179. Another idea which was very popular is rafalidzaine.

180. It's the penalty for adultery,

181. and involved inserting a radish in the adulterer's bottom.

182. Radishes were wider and longer then, and hammered home with a mallet.

183. Rafalidzaine therefore means "to insert a radish into the fundament."

184. No, radish is a meat.

185. "To insert meat into the fundament"? There's another word for that.

186. There's a special word for that.

187. It's an absurd punishment.

188. Smacking them on the thumb with a mallet would be worse.

189. They were, after all, Greek. You see?

190. They didn't really mind homosexuality, though, did they?

191. They certainly knew a thing or two about, er... man on man action.

192. What was the job of Aristocles?

193. Better known to his friends as "wide boy".

194. It also means "flat". "Wide" and "flat".

195. Flatulence! What's a flat-billed animal called? Duck-billed platypus!

196. PLATypus. Plato. Plato is the answer. Plato is the answer?

197. Yes. His real name was Aristocles.

198. Plato's real name was Aristocles? He was nicknamed "Plato".

199. There he is. My word, he went to a terrible sculptor.

200. It must be so upsetting when you...

201. Like when they put the mirror behind you, they pull it out.

202. "May I ask who sculpted you last, sir?"

203. Plato was indeed the schoolboy nickname of Aristocles, from the Greek for "wide".

204. It was because of his broad shoulders.

205. Aristocles taught Aristotle, and what did Aristotle teach us about buzzards?

206. This'll be something absurd. He did say something absurd.

207. It'll be something like he can read their minds.

208. He erm...

209. He felt they were birds, who didn't realise they were buzzards, and they were LATENT buzzards.

210. Wey-hey!

211. You'll get fined for something there but I don't quite know what.

212. The answer is he thought they had THREE testicles.

213. He'd just come out with this sort of thing. He's overrated.

214. Despite knowing a good sculptor... He looks all right there.

215. Look at the robe on him!

216. There's a brilliant thing about buzzards -

217. the Latin for buzzard is Buteo buteo.

218. And there's a subspecies of buzzard called a hobby.

219. And it is sub-buteo.

220. Subbuteo?

221. And, the man who invented a game wanted to call it the "hobby".

222. When they wouldn't let him patent the word "hobby" he used the Latin name for the hobby - Subbuteo.

223. And that's why one is kicking a little testicle around the board? That's where the name's from.

224. It must be great to be a philosopher. We couldn't count buzzards' tesicles

225. and really explain it or justify it.

226. "What are you doing?" "I'm counting a buzzard's balls.

227. "I'm a philosopher." "Oh, well, go ahead."

228. Did you know that when the Pope is elected, in the Vatican ceremony,

229. he is carried over a group of the cardinals.

230. Now, of course, the Pope doesn't actually display himself. But in the past, he would.

231. And when the Pope is crowned, he's carried on a chair

232. over the cardinals. And they look up and say...

233. "Testiculos habet et bene pendentes." No! Yes!

234. "He has balls and he's well-hung"?

235. It means, "they are hanging well",

236. and goes back to the time of Pope Joan,

237. when a girl masqueraded as a young pope. That's when the ceremony was introduced and it continues today.

238. Fabulous. Five points. I love it!

239. Now, what did the Ancient Greeks use blackberries for?

240. Tarts, pies and occasionally a nice salad.

241. Is it to do with health or beauty? It is to do with health.

242. They used to push them up their backsides, to comfort them from the radish! They'd cushion the blow.

243. It's almost true because they used them against piles.

244. I daresay having a few radishes hammered up you

245. would probably induce piles.

246. Now, one in ten Ancient Athenians did it regularly

247. until the Macedonians put a stop to it in 322BC. What is it?

248. They're not doing it there.

249. They pay their utilities bills by direct debit.

250. Would you recommend the direct debit route?

251. It takes the hassle out of it.

252. You can't put a price on peace of mind.

253. So, what did Greeks do...?

254. Is it specifically Greek? It's something we do. We do it? We do.

255. Elections. They voted for all their leaders, all their wise men,

256. their justice and democracy was born.

257. It was crudely snatched away from them by the Macedonians.

258. Speaking of crudely - pinto.

259. The Greeks regarded small testicles as rather artistic. I'm a man out of his time.

260. Five points for being British.

261. Only 10% of the population ever had the vote.

262. Greek women had to wait another 2,274 years until they got theirs in 1952.

263. I don't know why, but all this talk of politics and radishes

264. has put me in mind of Michael Portillo.

265. When he was an unknown Tory hopeful, he was an energetic canvasser.

266. On one tour he arrived at a front door having run up the garden path

267. and rang the door bell. But something was amiss,

268. and he looked behind him to see the path he'd run up was covered in newly laid wet concrete.

269. At that moment, the door opened and the burly constituent said, "Yes?"

270. "Good morning, sir," said Portillo. "I am you Labour party candidate." And ran off back down the path.

271. Well, now to our final traditional round.

272. Fingers on the buzzers for this pyrotechnic display of general ignorance.

273. How many legs does a centipede have?

274. Erm...

275. None.

276. Oh... Because they don't really have legs,

277. they have little... Limbs. They have little claws!

278. Claws no. They're called legs.

279. Is it actually not 100? It's not a 100. Not 100, no.

280. You see what I've done there?

281. You've avoided a forfeit.

282. Not claws? It's not claws, neither.

283. It varies. But it is always an equal and even number.

284. What Gyles says is actually...

285. Let me do this for a while, then I'll tell you the answer.

286. Centipedes have been extensively studied,

287. but not one has ever been found that has 100 legs.

288. The one with the number of legs closest to 100

289. was discovered in 1999, and has 96 legs and is unique in that it is the only known species

290. with an even number of pairs of legs - 48 pairs.

291. All other centipedes have odd-numbered pairs of legs, ranging from 15 to 191 pairs.

292. So you're saying there's no CENTI Claus?

293. Wey-hey!

294. I came a long way for that!

295. You certainly did, and you're rewarded with a handsome one point!

296. What did 35,000 Americans insure themselves against in 1994?

297. They do it every year. Being abducted by aliens.

298. Did you say, "Being abducted by aliens"? I did. You're right!

299. Whoa!

300. Yep! What more can I add?

301. Believe it or not, 2,760,000 Californians, 8% of the state's population

302. claim to have been abducted by aliens.

303. A high proportion of these policies are actually bought by other people for friends as a joke.

304. Most of these people are pulled over by the police for drink-driving.

305. "In this forest I had no control over the vehicle. Blue lights descended on me.

306. "I was yanked from the car and thrown into a room, and probed."

307. With a radish. With a radish, yeah.

308. Next question - what rhymes with purple?

309. It's like orange, nothing does. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

310. Oh... dear!

311. No, there are two words in English that rhyme with purple.

312. Burple. I won't say everyday words, but there are two.

313. Hurple...

314. I'll tell you... Lurple. You'll get there if you go through all the sounds.

315. Querple. Maple. Surple.

316. Durple. Yefurple. Gurple. Hurple.

317. Jurple, kurple, lurple, murple, nurple.

318. Do you know what you're doing on national television?

319. Mrs Davies' little boy has grown up to go, "Nurple, purple, whurple."

320. Rurple, surple...

321. They're not common words but...

322. If you covered a swimming pool in fur it'd be a FURPOOL. It would.

323. "Hirple" is one word... I think I said hirple. You did.

324. Five points.

325. And five points taken away if you mentioned any other sound.

326. To hirple is to hobble along with one leg, between a walk and a crawl.

327. The other word is "curple".

328. I think you'll find I said that!

329. I said I'd take ten points away if there was a second one you'd said?

330. Yes. I'll take that back, I'm not going to.

331. Curple is the leather strap passing under a horse's tail. Tail.

332. It's buckled to the saddle to stop it slipping forwards.

333. It's better known as a crupper.

334. Curple is also the rump or hindquarters of a horse. Horse.

335. Now known as an "I'm an idiot."

336. The word appears in a rhyme in the work of Scotland's national poet.

337. I'd be mair vauntie o, my hap,

338. Douce hingin owre my curple,

339. Than onie ermine ever lap,

340. Or proud imperial purple.

341. It's time for the final scores. Oh, my wordly Worthington!

342. In last place, I'm afraid, is Alan with 15 points.

343. I'm sorry. You played an absolute blinder. In third place, with 17, it's Rob.

344. In second place, with 35, it's Rich, but in the lead with 54, it's Gyles Brandreth.

345. Tht's it for QI this week. It only remains for me to thank

346. Alan, Rob, Rich and Gyles,

347. and end on this snippet on adultery, taken from our court report in the Daily Express.

348. Mrs Hancocks of Coventry said she became Mellor's mistress in 1967.

349. He was a gentle lover and they "had a very good relationship".

350. When asked how long it continued,

351. she replied, "About half an hour." Good night.