QI 1x9

1. Hello! And welcome to QI.

2. The IQ test for the backward.

3. Let's meet tonight's panel, who, like a good cauliflower milkshake,

4. are thick, interesting and unusual.

5. Alan Davies, Jeremy Hardy,

6. Dave Gorman, Jo Brand.

7. Each member of the panel has an attention-getting device.

8. Dave goes... DING! Jeremy goes... DING!

9. Jo goes... DING! Alan goes...

10. And I go... after the show if I can hold on that long.

11. So, this round is all about antelope or antelopes.

12. A is for antelope and B is for bongo.

13. Apart from the obvious, what is a bongo? DING! Dave?

14. I'm assuming that the obvious is some kind of African antelope,

15. then the less obvious answer is that it's a percussive instrument.

16. We assumed that the obvious was... a drum

17. but the answer is yes, indeed it is an African antelope.

18. If you introduce the subject as "This round's all about antelopes..."

19. It's a spectacular African forest antelope with a striped body.

20. Much prized by poachers. There are only 100 left on the planet.

21. Only 100 people on the planet understand the works of Jacques Derrida, so are they all bongos?

22. That is what philosophers call a false syllogism. Ah.

23. Programme's gone beyond me already.

24. Who is Jacques Derrida, first of all?

25. He is a French philosopher.

26. And I don't understand a BLEEP word he wrote.

27. What's a syllogism? Um...

28. I know.

29. All men have... have... um, bollocks.

30. All men can talk therefore all men talk bollocks. Yes.

31. That antelope's bad at plastering.

32. He's not let the first coat set before the second coat.

33. Is there such a thing as silly-gism?

34. Oh, dear! What, like a cheap version of Play-Doh you mean?

35. There's a... there's a film called Jism that's just...

36. I was... I was gonna say, "That's just come out" but it's...

37. Can I just say something very strange

38. because there's some German chewing gum called Spunk,

39. and, um, you have to be careful you don't swallow it, but, um...

40. in fact I actually talked about that chewing gum

41. on Clive James' show with you and Princess Diana. Do you remember?

42. Seriously. That was a dream! It wasn't.

43. You've gotta sort these out. I remember.

44. I knew someone who worked somewhere... That's a lie.

45. I knew someone who knew someone who worked somewhere the Queen visited. You must have a toilet just for her.

46. He went in afterwards, there was a pube on the seat and he kept it.

47. Good, well, let's go back to antelopes about which this round supposedly is.

48. It's got a big old bum like J-Lo, the bongo.

49. The antelope has a large bottom. Does J-Lo have a large bottom? Yeah.

50. It's good the way they've tattooed those marks on for the butcher.

51. No wonder there are only 100 left.

52. Everyone's made a thing of Kylie's bottom and it's just the fact

53. she has one that makes her somehow sexy.

54. It's just a bottom. If she hadn't got one, she'd fall down the toilet.

55. And her teeth are too big. If you look at her head,

56. those teeth are proportionate to the teeth of a camel in the mouth of a toddler.

57. Her head must be really tiny,

58. otherwise, if her head's a normal size those teeth are eight or nine inches long.

59. Despite an ordinary bottom and ugly teeth, she's not done badly.

60. For an extra two points, what was the name of the bongo player in T. Rex?

61. I went to see Mark Bolan perform when I was about 14 on Hastings Pier.

62. And what happened was girls would go up the front and faint,

63. be dragged out of the audience by security and laid on the stage,

64. and as soon as they got there, they'd jump up and try and snog him.

65. I tried it and they refused to lift me up.

66. Where's the tree that he crashed into?

67. Barnes? Yeah. People stand around playing guitar on a Saturday night.

68. There's a shrine. They all stand around and sing. Young people. No bigger than your thumb.

69. In Paris at the Pere Lachaise cemetery, Jim Morrison's grave is by far the most visited,

70. much more so than Victor Hugo or Oscar Wilde or others.

71. Thatcher's grave will be a urinal to all decent people.

72. Won't it be, in fact, a dance floor?

73. What they should put on Thatcher's grave is one of those machines

74. where the lights flash up and you have to put your feet...

75. But the bongo player in T. Rex... No? No idea.

76. The bongo player was called Steve Peregrin Took.

77. A Ladbroke Grove hippy named after a character in Lord Of The Rings.

78. Mark Bolan was devoted to Lord Of The Rings but was dyslexic so he never read it.

79. How can you be obsessed by a book and never read it?

80. His fiancee read it to him.

81. Maybe he couldn't read cos he was off his nut.

82. "Read us a bit of the book, dear."

83. Considering you owe him your hairstyle, Alan,

84. you should be a little bit more...

85. There we are.

86. What is the South African pastime, bokdrol spoeg, in which antelopes

87. play an indispensable role?

88. The only interesting South African pastime I can think of

89. is leaving the country when it becomes a democracy.

90. All the pub landlords in the West End who used to be Irish. "Ah, come on now. It's nearly half eleven."

91. Now, they're all South Africans and at the stroke of 11 it's ding,

92. and there's buckshot, tear gas, Landrovers come out the kitchen

93. "Haven't you got no townships to go to?"

94. I'll give you the answer because bokdrol is actually Kudu dung.

95. Kudu is a type of antelope.

96. And bockdrol spoeg is Kudu dung spitting.

97. Oh, shit!

98. It involves who can spit the poo the furthest.

99. Is it little pellets? It's pellets,

100. but it's pellets of poo, there's no getting away from it.

101. Maybe it doesn't taste too repellent.

102. An old lady gave me a Kit Kat recently

103. and it tasted exactly like old ladies' cupboards.

104. Exactly. And I looked on the sell-by date and it was 1998. Bless.

105. Are you using the phrase, "old ladies' cupboards" in any kind of euphemistic sense?

106. Oh, dear!

107. The old ladies' cupboards... under the stairs.

108. Time to paint your butt white and run with the antelope.

109. Or "Shut up and do as you're told." Time to move on to another round.

110. Now, before they were famous both Clive James and Sylvester Stallone

111. cleaned out lion cages for a living.

112. And before he discovered Uranus,

113. astronomer William Herschel was an oboe player in the Hanovarian army.

114. And before unifying Italy, Giuseppe Garibaldi was a spaghetti salesman in Uruguay.

115. What career advice would you, gentleman and lady,

116. give a short, left-handed, epileptic, Albanian bisexual with a very high-pitched voice. DING!

117. Ring the Arts Council for a grant straight away.

118. Giuseppe is Italian for Jesus. No, it's Joseph. Joseph.

119. Why do you want to know? Are you thinking of having an Italian son?

120. Can you do that? Yes, of course.

121. The internet's brilliant.

122. The question was he is Albanian, short, epileptic,

123. high-pitched voice, bisexual and left-handed.

124. You can't have invented those. Someone must have them.

125. Wasn't John Belushi Albanian? Of Albanian stock.

126. But Albania, as you know...

127. its borders are under question from various different neighbours.

128. Macedonia. Who are the famous Macedonians?

129. Is it Celine Dion?

130. Philip. And his son..? It's not Celine Dion!

131. So this epileptic, left-handed short is a Macedonian?

132. Was? His father was Philip of Macedon.

133. Is he a singer? Oh, now, Jo!

134. Somebody extremely great had these qualities.

135. Alexander the Great. Alexander the Great. Thank you.

136. You know Eric Bristow, the darts player? Eric the Great, yes.

137. The commentator whose name I can't remember. Sid Waddell.

138. Eric won the World Championship and he said, "Alexander the Great conquered the world when he was 33.

139. "Eric Bristow is only 27."

140. Rather disturbingly, Sid Waddell went to Cambridge.

141. And wrote the children's footballing drama, Jossy's Giants.

142. Ten points for knowing a play written by Sid Waddell.

143. Were I a left-handed midget bisexual I'd be saying, "Call me the Great."

144. People make up their own nicknames. Someone named Sebastian will say,

145. "My name's Sebastian but everyone calls me Big Knob." Or "Knuckles."

146. We move in very different circles.

147. I'm sorry to drag this down to classical civilisation but we ought to talk a little about Alexander.

148. According to one book he was the 33rd most influential human being who ever lived.

149. Is that him there?

150. Yes. So he was great because there were four of him.

151. No, he was just in an early boy band.

152. He did that trick where he puts his eyes down so you see the whites.

153. What did Alexander do with the banana and a ring-necked parakeet?

154. Partied all night long. I'll bet that was a hell of a night.

155. Was he one of those people that go into casualty and say,

156. "I was just hoovering and I slipped and it went up my arse?"

157. It went up. I put the parrot in to get it out.

158. No, The answer is that Alexander the Great introduced them to Europe.

159. He brought along the ring-necked parakeet, the banana, sugar, cotton and crucifixion.

160. All of these useful things came from India apart from crucifixion which was invented by the Persians.

161. Persia's Iraq now, isn't it? Iran.

162. God, you're like George Bush, aren't you?

163. Back to Alexander. What was his hair regime?

164. And which part of him was dipped in honey? Henna.

165. Lemon juice. Like henna as redheads were very common... Jojoba!

166. Where I come from that's the month after September.

167. Very good, Billy Connolly.

168. He washed his hair in saffron. Saffron! I was trying to think of saffron!

169. .. Which was up-market shampoo, as at the time it was as rare as diamonds

170. and more expensive than gold.

171. And all of him was dipped in honey. When he died he was embalmed in it.

172. How many crocuses does it take to make a kilo of saffron? A million.

173. It takes about 1,400 poppies to make a kilo of good heroin.

174. Right. The good scag, so I'm guessing about the same amount.

175. So 1,400? Yes. You've got to sort out all the white and purple ones

176. otherwise your saffron would be an icky kind of beige colour.

177. Possibly that's true.

178. I'll give you the answer as to how much it takes.

179. About 85,000 and 140,000 crocuses go to make a kilo.

180. Not as many as a million. Even today top-grade Spanish Mancha saffron retails at £8,250 a kilo.

181. For three years, Alexander was taught by Aristotle.

182. For some 2,000 years after Aristotle's death,

183. virtually all of European science was based on his teachings.

184. What did he teach about flies that is absurd and wrong?

185. They caused the First World War by assassinating Archduke Ferdinand.

186. In fact, it was a Serbian group called the Black Hand Gang.

187. No. He never made such claims.

188. It's quite interesting. Such was his influence on the world for thousands of years,

189. he claimed flies had four legs and was so trusted that nobody counted.

190. He did have some strange... He thought snot was brain matter.

191. He might be right. Because the brain is grey and squashy

192. when you blew your nose, your brain came out.

193. There are 200 types of common cold and they are all spread by sneezing

194. and things coming out of your nose.

195. You don't get them by standing in the rain,

196. but, it is true that if your nose is cold,

197. those germs that cause the common cold prefer cold temperatures

198. and are more likely to take hold so...

199. if you keep your nose warm, you'll be all right.

200. Ten points to Dr Davies for being interesting.

201. Have you thought about going on This Morning with all this knowledge?

202. I like Fern. I like Fern as well.

203. What's fern got to do with it? She presents it. It's a person?

204. It's a person.

205. No, Fern is a plant that presents a programme.

206. This is my show and for all my oddity I'm more interested

207. in what Aristotle thought about flies than some fatuous bint who presents morning TV.

208. That's just me and I'm odd but there you are.

209. Aristotle is connected to Alexander the Great how?

210. Umbilically. No.

211. Same sculptor. Went to the same sculptor.

212. For their driving licenses. They got them sculpted.

213. Sitting with a bloke next to you with stone. "Going away this year?"

214. "I don't do the eyes, I'm afraid."

215. "The fella who does the eyes has gone away."

216. He was his teacher. OK, who cares? Let's go on. That's the end of that round.

217. Right, from Aristotle to auricles.

218. Anyone know what an auricle is?

219. It's the ear or an ear-like thing. He's absolutely right.

220. It's a nice name for the ear or ear lobe. Oh, dear!

221. There's an unfortunate person. Yeah, "Oi, four ears!"

222. You live in Norfolk, Stephen. You must see that all the time.

223. Thank you!

224. No, this round is, in fact, all about ears.

225. Here's an interesting cutting from The Independent.

226. Police were called to a disturbance outside a pub in Southampton and found a severed ear

227. which they packed in ice.

228. When the ear's owner rang the next day he was told it was too late,

229. the ear had gone off. But he didn't hear them. He was going, "Sorry?"

230. Detective Inspector Ray Burt said,

231. "Unfortunately it was in there too long. It was next to an egg roll

232. "that had gone off as well. There was nothing we could do."

233. After Van Gogh, or "Van Hooch" as the Dutch say,

234. cut off his own ear lobe what did he do with it?

235. He posted it to the lover who'd spurned him. That's very close.

236. He delivered it rather than posting it. He put it in an envelope,

237. took it to a prostitute at a brothel and gave it to a particular girl...

238. "Now look what you've made me do!"

239. He didn't sever the whole ear off. He sliced it in half.

240. Didn't he die a pauper? He committed suicide. He shot himself.

241. He was not a happy bunny.

242. Well, it was a bit more than that.

243. He was seriously mentally ill rather than "not a happy bunny."

244. All right! If you want to put it that way. If you must dress it up

245. in your scientific way.

246. As an ex-psychiatric nurse I feel I must distinguish between the two.

247. You used to talk to your patients. Not-a-happy-bunny syndrome.

248. "He tried to commit suicide. Oh, dear! Not-a-happy-bunny syndrome."

249. Can I say, I do like his beard. It's...

250. It's a fine beard. Actually... Isn't that incredible?

251. Dave Gorman. Not a happy bunny.

252. It's very good. Well, well, well.

253. The reason he cut his ear off was a violent argument with Gauguin,

254. who'd been staying with him.

255. But two days after the ear instance, he left without saying goodbye.

256. Now, butterflies have ears on their wings.

257. Grasshopper's ears are on their abdomens, crickets' are on their forelegs. Where are snakes' ears?

258. I presume it hasn't got any. Very good. Five to you.

259. They must be able to hear. The fall of Eve. The serpent says, "Eve!"

260. And she says, "Bugger me. A talking snake." And... I'll do a puppet.

261. It says, "Hath not the law..." And she says, "Hath?"

262. And he says "Don't take the pith, it's not my fault I'm a serpent."

263. Before we get all the way to Revelations at the end of the Bible,

264. Keith Harris and Wristy the snake, ladies and gentleman.

265. Snakes don't have ears.

266. Maybe they can lip-read. And they don't have legs.

267. How would you go about washing the ears of an Okapi? With good cheer.

268. That's good. And it would be a happy Okapi. There's an Okapi.

269. Just take it to the garage would be best.

270. Rather than messing around with Q-tips.

271. Just pay the £4. It's gotta be worth it.

272. He can wash his own ears so you don't need to.

273. His tongue can go inside his ears and give them a good old clean out.

274. Enormously long and versatile tongue.

275. What were the huge ear-like growths that Galileo discovered in 1672?

276. Did he find them on himself? No, he found them a long, long way away.

277. Asteroids. Not quite.

278. Planets.

279. Connected there too. Debris. You could say debris.

280. 380ft wide, thousands of miles long.

281. Very thin but thousands of miles that way. The rings on Saturn.

282. He discovered them? He spotted them on his new invention,

283. the telescope. He thinks they look like ears? Look at them.

284. Not unlike ears.

285. The first telescope ever invented and you see something... You don't see it that clearly.

286. Just that roundy shape. He thought they were ear-like.

287. I don't think he's that stupid.

288. Galileo, you don't match up.

289. You discovered more about the Universe than we'll ever know, but not good enough for our panel.

290. We can tell much better arse jokes than you.

291. We owe our civilisation to men like Galileo and I won't have him mocked.

292. Galileo was the first man ever to see the rings of Saturn.

293. He couldn't understand what they were and who can blame him?

294. 172,000 miles wide but only 328ft thick.

295. But more topical ear news now from the London Times.

296. John Bennett was ordered to seek treatment at a psychiatric hospital

297. after biting off the ear of a Danish labour exchange official.

298. The court was told that when the official recovered consciousness

299. he found his ear on a desk with a note that read, "Your ear."

300. And we come now to our exciting final buzzer round.

301. To remind you that if you give any answer deemed to be obvious

302. then you'll be forfeited ten points. Who was the first king of England?

303. Alfred. Oh! Oh! Dear-oh-dear! How extraordinary.

304. Alfred the Great. You lose ten. Sorry about that.

305. No, the first king of England was...

306. Ethelred. Not quite. First few correct syllables.

307. Ethelbert. No.

308. Ethel Merman.

309. It was in fact Ethelstan.

310. 924 to 939. He was Alfred the Great's grandson, but Alfred was only king of Wessex.

311. Now, according to Aristotle, how do hedgehogs make love?

312. Carefully. Oh, you've done it again!

313. O-o-o-o-oh! Oh, Alan!

314. I'll tell you what happens. Get a bit pissed. Put some music on.

315. I'll give you the answer. Here it is.

316. They do it face-to-face with the female lying on her back.

317. That's disgusting!

318. That's how Aristotle thought they made love. He was actually wrong.

319. It's not true.

320. They do it in the normal way but the female lays her quills flat.

321. So flat that they're not prickly. He has to bite her neck

322. because they become slippery. He could slip off.

323. He bites her neck in order to get on her, does the deed and gets off.

324. Ducks do that. Do they? Yep, they hang on to the back of the lady duck's neck.

325. "Lady duck" - how sweet. Strangely, they have pricks on the penis.

326. A barb? Yes. To interlock?

327. Yes. They can catch fish as well!

328. What is the most dangerous animal in the history of the world?

329. Yes? Sloth driving a petrol tanker.

330. Very good. Listening to Radio 2!

331. I'll give you ten for that. Human beings.

332. You could argue that's true. Lions. Not lions.

333. Japanese fighting tortoise!

334. No. This animal is responsible for half of all human deaths.

335. Mosquito. Goldfish.

336. Close! Yes, it is the mosquito.

337. Half of human beings who've lived are reckoned to have been killed by them.

338. Malaria kills 3,000 a day. Depends on what you mean by people,

339. how far you go back in our history. Homo erectus. Right.

340. Glad to hear about that! Could you introduce us?

341. Er, no.

342. Um...

343. It's arguable the most dangerous animal is the common housefly.

344. "Common" housefly! Yes! Drops his h's!

345. Leaves washing up for days! Who are the lords of shouting?

346. I like that!

347. You can have five each for that.

348. The answer is they are angels, unlike you.

349. According to Jewish mysticism, 10.5 million of them sing to God every dawn,

350. led by the Angel Jeduthun, the master of howling.

351. Who cut off Samson's hair?

352. Nicky Clarke. No!

353. Anyone? Delilah?

354. Oh!

355. No. No, she didn't. Not in the Bible.

356. I know about this because it's an old American con trick.

357. You get a couple of con artists. One goes into a bar

358. and he would get drunk, or appear to get drunk and be obnoxious.

359. His partner would come in and they'd have this discussion.

360. The sober one would mention his haircut, "Like Samson having his hair cut by Delilah."

361. The drunk one would go, "What?"

362. "In the Bible, she cuts off his hair."

363. "It doesn't say that!" And he makes a bet, "I bet you $10,000."

364. Everyone's so pissed off by him that they join in the bet.

365. In the Bible, Delilah asks a servant to cut it. It's a trick!

366. It is a trick question. Is he played by Mel Gibson?

367. Um... Victor Mature.

368. It's time now, ladies and gentlemen, for that exciting moment where I announce the scores.

369. In fourth place, I'm afraid, is Alan with ten.

370. Second equal - Jeremy and Jo, but our winner is Dave with 20 points.

371. That about wraps it up. Thank you, Jo, Alan, Dave and Jeremy.

372. One last pertinent question - what's long and pink and hard in the morning?

373. The Financial Times Crossword. Good night.