18x02 - Ruff and Reddy

[bunniefuu]

Welcome to QI, where tonight's show
is rather Ruff and Reddy.

At the ready, Tom Allen.

Hello.

Good and ready, Zoe Lyons.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Ready for action, Susan Calman.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Their buzzers are rough stuff.
Tom goes...

LOUD SCRAPING

Ooh. What's that?!

It's a concrete brick being dragged.

Oh, dragged up, like, with a wig
and a dress?

High heels.

Of course.

I have to put up with that
every morning! Every morning.

Susan goes...

HIGH-PITCHED METALLIC GRINDING

And Alan goes...

DOG WOOFS

Oh, "ruff, ruff," you see.

You should see the other guy, Sandi.

What's happened to your nose?
Come on.

I tripped over my own feet,

and I suppose, at my age,
that is a fall, isn't it?

Yes.

Log the time and date and
then the frequency of future falls.

Yeah. Did a social worker
come round

to see if you needed any
handles anywhere?

Actually, my wife is a nurse and it
was really interesting to see her

go to complete and utter pieces.

If there's any silver lining to
this cloud, the peas that have been

in our freezer for the last 15
years, got used.

Has anybody ever been
in an actual fist fight?

Um, well... No!

Why do you think I'm wearing
this neck brace?

No, but I've been doing boxing
lately and... What?!

Yes, Sandi! You wouldn't believe it,
but I have.

And I'm very good at it...

..so the man I do it with says.

Right. I thought we might start
with a little bit of soup to begin.

So you've each got a bowl here
of beetroot soup.

So, what I want you do is, I want
you to demonstrate, please,

how to eat this bowl
of beetroot soup

without getting your ruff all red.

Ooh, that...seems to be very wise.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Zoe, I think you've
definitely nailed it.

I think that is the... Whoa!

I bought one of those La-z-Boy
sofas... Yeah.

..and I can eat
completely horizontal.

OK, well, they didn't have those
sofas in Elizabethan times.

What they did have, in fact, was
a spoon specifically for eating...

Are you just going
to drink the whole...?

Do you like beetroot soup?
I love all soup.

Yeah, but be careful with beetroot,
cos, in the morning,

you'll think you need a colonoscopy.
Oh, yes.

It's a terrible thing.
See if that's any easier.

This is a ruff spoon.

So, ruff's were...
Actually very small.

Do you like that? Hm. It's rather
lovely, isn't it?

There's more wobble
with a longer spoon.

Oh, do you not like
the longer spoon, then?

I find it more difficult.

And what about if you fed each
other? Would that be easier?

Oh, yes! Oh... Oh, yes!

SHE LAUGHS EXCITEDLY

I don't know
if that would be easier.

This is like...
Oh! I think that's rather beautiful!

I think... Yes.

APPLAUSE
Yeah, I think that's rather lovely.

It's like Lady And The tr*mp. Oh.

No! It's gone all down Susan's ruff.

Oh, Susan, I'm sorry. Tom!

But the sight of
you slurping, that was

so disgusting that
I kind of dropped the spoon.

So, they were ubiquitous
in high society...

Oh, Susan, for goodness' sake!
Susan, I'm sorry.

We're talking 1560s to 1620s,
but everybody wore them -

women, men, young people,
old people. Dogs.

Well, dogs still do, in
a funny sort of way, don't they?

The big cone. Yeah.

Throw a biscuit in the cone,
drives them mad.

They will not rest.
They will not rest! No.

I saw a dog walking down
the seafront the other day

in one of those massive cones, and
it was a really, really windy day,

but he was walking with the wind
at his tail

and he was going along
quite happily.

I thought, "Yeah, well, wait till
you turn round, mate!"

So, the biggest ones were worn
by Elizabeth I,

because, frankly, nobody else had
the money to be able to.

How big? How big did she go?
Oh, look at...! Wow!

They were enormous.

So you have to imagine, it's up
to seven yards of cloth,

so imagine at least between Susan
and Zoe,

that kind of length of cloth.



so unbelievably difficult to wear.

You did it with something
called a goffering iron,

and this is what it looked like.
Wa-bang! Yeah.

Wooow!

Well, I think once you've done
the ruff,

you think, what shall I do now?

But a modern theatrical costume
designer takes about three hours

to set a ruff. It shows
how wealthy you are.

Yeah, and literally looking down
your nose at people, aren't you?

Yeah. This would be
the worst part of it,

because I already struggle.
The other day, I took off my bra

and there were biscuits in it.

I'm sorry, biscuit pieces
or you were hoarding?

I'd eaten some shortbread,

and when I took off my bra, it
was like bonus biscuits. I ate them.

If I was going to pick a biscuit
for you, it would be shortbread.

It's difficult enough for me
to eat without...

I always slitter on myself. What?

You what? Slitter on yourself.

Slitter on yourself? You eat...

There was a rule against that
at boarding school.

The starching was brought in...
It was a Dutch speciality.

It was introduced by immigrants
into this country.

Sorry - somebody can't
keep their spoon in their bowl.

Have you got soup all over
the table as well?

What about if you get
just a big straw...?

Or a reed, you know?

HE SLURPS

Yeah, some reed would work well,
wouldn't it?

Eurgh, soup through a straw!

Eurgh!

Well, it'll come to us all, Zoe!

I've had a fall.

Did you get these on Tudor airlines?

Under your seat in case of
an emergency.

You might have to sit on this

if you'd had some sort
of operation... Yes.

..presumably involving
that very implement.

So, there was a Dutch woman called
Mistress Dinghen van den Plasse,

and she came to London in 1564.

She used to give lessons
in how to starch ruffs.

She charged £5,
which doesn't sound like a lot,

but it was £1,500, equivalent,
today.

And then if you did
the extra starch-making module,

that was another pound,
so that was 300 quid.

So even just to learn how to do it
was fantastically expensive.

Now, you've all got white ruffs on,

and the paintings often show them
as white,

That you're better than us?

No, I'm a prost*tute!

And/or from Scotland. Oh!

Oh...

I'm just putting it out there.

prostit*tes wore blue ruffs?

So, one of the reasons why we have
lots of white in paintings

is because of
successive restorations,

but, in fact, there were
lots of colours of ruffs.

They were principally pink
or saffron yellow.

Queen Elizabeth I did not like blue

because they were associated
with what used to be called

Winchester geese,
which is prostit*tes.

Why were they called
Winchester geese?

Because the Bishop of Winchester
owned so many brothels.

So, if I wore it to come down to
London town, I would have been

a Scottish wh*re, basically?

Because I would have worn
a blue ruff.

That's quite unfair, I believe.

Well, the big question is, what did
prostit*tes wear in Scotland?

Yeah. It must have been
very confusing.

Yes. "Are you a prost*tute?"
"No, I'm just Scottish."

That's the name of my autobiography.

It was started
by Philip IV of Spain.

That's just a collar.

Well, he just wanted to dial back
on the ostentation.

The ruff had become such a symbol
of upper-class idleness

that they thought they'd better
dial it back a bit.

And in Britain, we had another
successor to the ruff,

and that was the piccadill.

And where do we remember that
in London?

Oh, Piccadilly Circus.

Piccadilly Circus - absolutely.

There was a place called
Piccadilly Hall

that was owned by a man
called Robert Baker,

and he provided piccadills
to people.

And what were Scottish prostit*tes
wearing about this time?

Just so I know, Sandi,
so I can go back home and just say,

"You'll never guess what
I found out on QI -

"it's what Scottish
prostit*tes wore."

And ruffs, of course, as we said,
still worn

by dogs and - very strangely - by
ministers of the Church of Denmark.

I don't know why.

I thought you were going to say
Scottish prostit*tes!

I tell you, you go out in Glasgow
any night of the week,

you can tell them a mile away -
you really can.

While we're on the subject
of prostit*tes,

who wants to hear about
some "ruff" sex?

I am talking about
the rough sandpaper...

Sorry, I'll say it again.
Not rough sand...

You said it
with some degree of relish.

I did, yeah. She did! I did.

That was one of the sexiest things
you've ever said on QI.

Nothing I like more, I find more of
a turn-on than carpentry.

No... Um...

Which is weirdly true.

A ruff sandpiper,
is what I meant to say.

This is nature's most
gender-fluid bird.

So, you can see they've got the ruff
a bit like

the sort of Elizabethan ruff,

but this particular bird,
there are three types of male

and they differ in mating behaviour.

So the one that you've got
on the left there

is called a territorial,
or an independent male.

They've got the dark neck ruff
and they make it stand up.

The satellite males,
they've got the white neck ruff.

They will, frankly, go after
any woman who will have them.

And then we have the faeders.

The faeders look identical to
females and they will very quickly

have sex with a female who hadn't
spotted that they were coming.

But they also are quite happy
to have h*m* pairings

with the independent
and territorial ones.

That's fantastic. Yeah.

Right, ruffs off, soup away!

Just pop those down there.

Right. Name an animal
that will attack... Dog!

I think, extra point to Alan.

I mean, he was fast.
Do you not think? He was.

What do you think, audience?
Extra point to Alan?

CHEERING

Yeah.

APPLAUSE

One!

Ready? Name an animal...

Horse!

Name an animal
that will attack anything red.

Bull.

KLAXON BLARES

Ah...

Why do you think that?

Because I've seen clips of
those dreadful matadors,

where they wave the red
and then the bull goes for it.

Yeah, it's the movement, not
the colour, that is attracting...

Really?! Yes, darling. I know!

They're not bothered by
any particular colour.

It just gets irritated
by the cloth-waving.

It would be a nightmare in
a curtain shop, wouldn't it? Yes.

I'm surprised that's not a saying,
isn't it?

"Like a bull in a curtain shop"?

The one animal which does
see red in both senses

is the tiny little robin.

And huge, they're huge as well!


are due to fractured skulls

from altercations with other robins.

I thought it was when they were
stapled to Christmas cards. Yeah.

So there were some experiments
done by a man called

David Lack in 1943, and he showed
that a robin would attack

a stuffed robin placed
in its territory.

But the robin attacked, and the head
came off the stuffed robin,

and the robin carried on.

He began to wonder how little
stuffed robin you would need

in order to prompt
this particular response.

So he mounted various body parts
on trees and so on,

and he found, as long as red
feathers were present,

the robin would attack.

A headless, wingless, tailless,
legless, bodiless bundle

of red feathers was still
a legitimate target... Wow.

..as far as a robin was concerned.

In fact, the robin would
sometimes attack a tomato

left on the bird table.

I bet the Nazis were terrified,
weren't they? I know!

So robins can't look
in mirrors, then, clearly?

Cos that would just set
themselves off. It would.

They'd be like, "Oh! Oh!
What are you...?! Come on, then!

"Come on, then, now.
Let's have a go!" Exactly that.

You'd think the red breast is
something to attract before mating?

Yeah. It isn't that at all.
It's a warning to stay away.

So a robin's breast gets bigger
and redder with each year,

so the bigger and redder the breast,
the more fights it's had.

And you don't want to...

It's like working with...

It's like working with children!

You just said "big and "red"
and "breast" together

and it set me off. Yeah.

And "bigger every year"!
See her round the pool.

Look at that -
big, red breasts. Wahey!

Do you think that robins come back
to your garden year after year? Yes.

Oh, yes, they love it.

Well, they don't last very long.

So only 25% of newborns get through
the very first year,

less than 1% make it
to the age of five.

The lifespan is about 1.1 years
for a robin,

so they don't actually live...

I thought it was the same robins
coming back to my garden,

fat robin and thin robin. Yeah.

No. No? Not a thing, I'm afraid.

Well, no, probably
the robin you know is dead.

And so is the other one!
Yeah.

Sorry about that. Jesus Christ!
Happy Christmas!

Jesus Christ! She was
really quite harsh there.

"No, it's dead, Susan."
It's dead, Susan.

I was a terrible parent.

"No, the gerbil died." Now...

On the subject of animals
being able to see in colour,

how do tigers get away
with being orange?

That seems an extraordinary colour
to be, does it not? Ooh!

Such a bright colour,
you would imagine impossible

to sneak up on your prey.

I think being a tiger probably puts
other animals off.

Yeah. Yeah, it's that. You can
choose your own outfit. Yeah.

I mean, they can pretty much
have neon lights, high heels

and party hats on
and still be a tiger. Yeah.

are orange-green colour-blind.

So they've only got two colour
receptors in their eyes,

they are dichromats.

Now, we wanted to try and recreate
the jungle for you, so...

So, if you imagine
that the tiger is hiding, right?

Look, can you see, it's hiding?
You can see it hiding there?

So, this tiger seems very louche.
You can see him cos he's orange.

Look at his eyes -
he's not out to get anything!

No, well, but, when you...

He's out to complain,
maybe in his local Pret a Manger.

I want you to see
what a deer would see,

because they cannot see
those colours - orange and green.

So there's what we might
be able to see. Yeah.

But what they would be able to see
is a slightly fuzzier picture. Oh!

It sort of would blend... I know.

And, in fact, it wouldn't
even be that green.

It would be more of a sort of
muddy colour,

so that the thing would hide.

So, you might think to yourself -

have you ever seen pictures

of American deer hunters,
for example,

and they wear those bright
fluorescent orange vests?

They wear those so that

d*ck Cheney doesn't sh**t them.

But also because... There they are,

and you'd think that surely all
the quarry will see them,

but of course they can't, because
they are trying to sh**t deer,

and deer cannot see
orange and green.

The friendly garden robin -
redbreast by name -

headcase by nature.

I'll pop him down there.

Let me just put the rainforest
away as well. There we go.

Right. What's red and black
and a complete racket?

Ooh, Dennis the Menace
falling down the stairs!

That's so sweet.
I love that. Extra point.

Thank you, Sandi!

Sorry, do you get extra points
for being cute? Yes!

Yeah, good luck with that!

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Black and white and red all over -
I know that one.

What is that? Newspaper.

What goes black white, black white,

black white, black white,
black white?

Is it a nun falling down the stairs?

Table tennis rackets. Oh...

They are, aren't they? Wonder why!

Any shape, any size, any weight,

but they have to be red on one side
and black on the other.

Sorry, any size, did you say? Yes.

If you wanted to, you could play
with an enormous... Are you serious?

Yes. So the rule is...
Why wouldn't you?!

Because it's difficult.
You can't spin it and...

No, cos the ball's tiny.
That's why I'm really bad at it.

Get a tea tray and a broom handle.

Just a massive...
Any weight and any size?

Yeah. Any weight, any size...

You'd have a lightweight one
that would be 18 foot in diameter -

that's what you'd have.

And just stand at the other end
of the table. Yeah.

And just, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum,
dum, dum, dum!

But the red and black thing -
anybody know why?

Oh, is it so they can also be used
to park an aeroplane?

I'm going to say something now,

and it's something that someone
said to me once and...

You can spin it differently
depending on the different side...

Yes. That's what I was
told at the youth club. Is correct.

Oh! Susan!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

So, they introduced this rule
in 1986

because players were using rubbers

with different characteristics
on the different sides,

and the opponent needed to see which
one you were using in each shot.

What happened was, in 1980, there
was a player called John Hilton,

and he won the European men's
singles title,

and it was a shock result.

And the reason it was a shock result
is that he was only

But he had one of these combination
rackets and nobody could work out

which side he was using, and
what they needed to do was to see

which side you were using,
because it mattered to the opponent.

But what we really want to do
with our rackets

and we can see that they have

one red side
and they have one black side. Oooh!

Now, what I want you to do
is hold your rackets red side up,

like this. OK?

Smells funny. Oh, it does!
Oh, yeah!

You could get high as a kite.
Oh! Yeah.

What is that? Glue?

You don't need to know what I was
doing in the back of Kwik Fit.

But it wasn't quick
and it didn't fit!

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Have we got any ba*ls?
No, we're not doing that.

We are going to toss them in the
air, so that the rackets spin over,

and I want you to catch it
red side up again.

Oh... Oh, OK. OK?

Argh!

So, mine's come up black.

Black.

Can you...?

LOUD DRILLING

Oh, sorry!

Mine keeps coming up... Black.

It's black every time. It's black
every time, Sandi! Why is it?!

So you cannot do it.
Fundamentally, you cannot do it.

If it starts red,
it will end up black.

Whoa, it's so weird!

and it lands the opposite side
each time.

Does anybody know why?
Because of the smell.

It's like toast and butter,
cos it's heavier on one side.

No, so you'd think it was something
to do with air resistance

or gravity
or the weight of the thing.

There's an American theoretical
physicist called Richard Feynman,

and he was asked if anybody could
explain this in a simple way,

and he thought about it for
a bit and he went, "No."

It is called...

And I'm going to pronounce it wrong,
cos it's a Russian name.

It's called, near enough,
the "Johnny Bake-Off" effect.

He was a Soviet cosmonaut,

and he was up in the Salyut 7
space station in 1985.

He spun a wing nut in order
to remove it from a threaded bolt,

it spun right off the bolt,
it continued to spin

after it had come loose,
and it suddenly flipped over

and started spinning
in the opposite direction,

and then it flipped back to
the original orientation,

and kept flipping
from one to another.

This had never been seen before.
Let's have a look at a video.

It is the most bizarre thing.

So there it is. Look at it.
Wow!

It's in the air in the...
It's simply spinning.

And then it starts
to spin the other way

and then it spins the other, and
it spins the other way like that.

Now... But is it paired with
a wing nut in another galaxy?

This would work with
a tennis racket as well.

It's to do with it having
an axis here,

and an axis here, and an axis here.

And this one is the one
that we sort of

don't think is going
to come into play.

But it's weird, isn't it? Yes.
It is weird.

So let's put the tennis
rackets away.

OK, here are two squirrels.
There they are.

Which of these is the most recent?

It's the grey, isn't it? Uh, oh.

KLAXON BLARES

Oh!

Zoe, what were you thinking?

See, I knew that was going
to happen.

That's why I didn't say anything,
Zoe. QI trap, right there.

So it is absolutely true that
the red squirrel is native

to Britain, whereas the grey one
is North American.

However, the native reds were
regarded as an absolute pest

and they were hunted
pretty much to extinction

in the 18th and the 19th centuries.

So, in order to restore
the population,

..and Central Europe, and we now
know, from DNA studies, that's where

most of the reds that we have
have actually come from.

so the reds are, in fact,
the modern interlopers

and not the native species.

The greys, I'm afraid, outlast
the reds by quite a long chalk -

they're better at problem-solving,

the greys also carry
a terrible pox virus

which the reds have no immunity to

and the reds get really stressed.

He looks stressed, though,
doesn't he?

He does look stressed.

He's like, "Hey, Brian,
how you doing?

"Things aren't going well at work.

"I've mislaid a couple of nuts.

"I don't know what's going on.

"I think my tail is thinning."

The result is that we now have about


I think they're mostly, actually,
in Scotland and in the north.

In the islands, so...
In big blue ruffs! Yeah.

So there's some on Arran,
for example, that you see,

but mostly on the islands,

cos in Glasgow, for example,
it's just grey squirrels.

There's a lot of people
eat them now.

I was going to say,
can you eat them?

There is a restaurant in London -
I can't remember which one it is -

they do a lot of game

and very occasionally
they'll have squirrel on the menu.

There's nothing to stop you
eating a squirrel at all.

This kind of thing of eating locusts
and bugs and things like that,

about finding alternative
sources of protein...

I've tried locust.
That is not pleasant.

I had a locust bhaji,

and it was one of the worst things
I've had in my life.

What's a "badgie" ? Well, it's like
an onion pakora thing,

so it's an Indian dish.
Oh, did you mean bhar-ji?

A "badgie". Oh, I...

Sorry...

I honestly...honestly
thought you said "budgie".

When she said "badgie",
I was thinking like a badger,

but you wouldn't call a badger
a "bar-ger", would you? No.

RP ACCENT: I ran over
a "bar-ger" the other day.

It was delicious.

Because... You need to
remember the BBC is funded,

you hear all sorts of voices
on the BBC,

RP accent:
"I had a locust bhar-ji."

Is that better?
I just misunderstood, forgive me.

Was that more understandable?

Forgive me, it's my mistake - not
yours. "I had a locust bhar-ji..."

I'll do the whole show
like this now.

He hasn't understood
a word I've said.

"I had a locust bhar-ji
the other day and..."

The thing is, darling,
you don't need to do that,

because when we put this show out,
we'll use subtitles...

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

You are such b*stards!

No, we're "bar-stards",
we're "bar-stards".

So this is the Ruff and Reddy show,
but what's red and roughy?

It's mine.

Can I tell you something in
an incomprehensible accent?

Well, why ask now?

When I did Strictly Come Dancing,
the one thing that I had to do,

and I wasn't told to do it,
but someone said to me,

"You know they film it in 4K?"

And I was like, "All right..."
"And you wear a leotard."

And I thought, "Got it."

What they were saying was,
"Please do something."

Because the first time I got to
the fitting I was wearing shorts,

and so I had to go for the very
first time, at the age of 43,

for a bikini wax,
and it was the most terrifying thing

that's ever happened in my
entire life, it really was.

It was exposing and strange,
and afterwards, I was so cold!

To be fair, Susan, if somebody
suggested you have a wax

if you're wearing shorts... Yeah...

"These are going to get shorter,
babe, and I think..."

"Unless we are transporting
tarantulas, I think..."

Isn't it one of those things that

when you've been married
for 17 years,

and you just kind of stop caring

cos neither of you is going
to find anyone else,

so you just kind of let it all
kind of join up.

Well, it's also knowing
what's in vogue

if you haven't been on the "market"
for a while, isn't it?

Cos, you know, I've been with
my partner for 20-plus years,

and back then, it was plaits
and beads.

A sort of Willie Nelson,
if you will.

So did you...? I mean... OK.

Did you go...? What's the thing -
Bermudan? What's the thing?

Bermudan!

Bermudan?

A Bermuda Triangle
where everything disappears.

There's a ship disappeared up there!

Pilots walking out.

"What year is it?"



The things I've seen!

What's it called?
Brazilian! Brazilian!

Not Bermudan Triangle - Brazilian!

So, the Hollywood's nothing,
the Brazilian's the strip,

and there's something
where you just go,

"Just make me a bit, like..."

The Macclesfield.

Deal with that!

Moving on...

Enough! Enough!

The question was,
what's red and roughy?

It is... No, but we are heading
in more of the right direction.

We're heading in to
the animal kingdom.

A red animal. Why are we looking
at this picture, then?

Well, it was meant to spark
conversation, and weirdly it did.

I know about a red panda.

OK, no. So we're...
It's fish, right?

Don't know why... It's fish. Um...

Red snapper. Red snapper.
Red snapper.

No, it's called the orange roughy.

Oh! Oh... Oh, so it's not red, then?

Well, it is actually red.
It's weirdly...

These questions are sh*t!

What's red and roughy?
Nothing at all, it turns out!

A smooth, orange fish!

The orange roughy is the answer.

How about if the question had been,
"Tell us about your pubes"?

"You've got to do 15 minutes
on your pubic hair. Go!" Go!

This fish caught on
in American restaurants after 1979,

when they changed its name
to orange roughy.

Do you have any idea why they
might have changed its name?

Cos all the other fish
were also called Dave.

No. Its original name
was slimehead. Well...

Oh, yeah... Yeah.

It's about 30 inches long,
it's a member of the perch family.


How big is 30 inches?


Big! Wow! It's a very big fish.

And they are extremely long-lived...

I mean, assuming that
they don't get eaten.

The average lifespan
is more than 120 years.

No way! No way!

There were two caught recently
near Tasmania

and one off New Zealand -
turned out to be, we think,

about 250 years old, meaning
they were born in the late 1700s,

so at the same time as the first
Europeans arrived in the area,

is the age of these fish.

How do they age a fish, Sandi?
What do you do?

You cut through it
and you count the rings.

Yes. You're very nearly right.

So fish have something called
an otolith, so we all have otoliths.

We have one in our ear system
which enables us

to basically stay balanced.

So we can tell how old
the fish is

It's a bit like tree rings
you can count.

That is amazing. It's amazing.
Well, this is the really sad thing,

because if you eat an orange roughy
in a restaurant,

there is a likelihood
that your lunch

is older than your grandparents.

Well, you should eat
the older thing first. Yeah.

If you've got two pots of hummus,
you'll eat the one that's... Yeah.

So then you eat the fish,
and then you eat your grandmother.

Can you date every fish?
All fish can be aged.

All fish can be aged by their...?
By their otolith.

That's amazing! I know. It's so
extraordinary, isn't it? Yeah.

It doesn't work the same in humans.

Our otolith stops growing
after about a week.

And then, in fact, it deteriorates
as we get older

and it's why old people sometimes
have balance problems,

is because their otolith
is deteriorating.

Zoe, that's why you fell over.
That's it.

I'm like an old slimehead.

The other fish that kind of goes in
and out of fashion is the mullet.

Like the hairstyle.

It looks so surprised, doesn't it?

What - the mullet? Yeah.

It looks like it's previously gone
into something very hard and flat...

and the reason that they liked it -

the fish changes colour
when it dies,

so if you bring a mullet
to the table alive

and watch it suffocate, it...

AUDIENCE GROANS

This is extraordinary.
I'll have that grilled.

Actually, I've changed my mind.

I'll have the tofu.
But there's extraordinary stories.

Martial has a story about somebody
who sold a sl*ve

for 1,200 sesterces

and spent the proceeds
on a 4lb mullet. Wow.

Yeah. I know.

But the mullet haircut
actually comes from

a Beastie Boys song.

Oh, really? Mullet Head,
the New York hip-hop group.

Say that again, sorry, Sandi.

The New York... BOTH: Hip-hop
group.

Does hip-hop not sound right
out of my mouth?

No, it's fine -
I just couldn't understand it

cos of your accent!

Anyway, one final red fish -
the red-lipped bat fish.

It walks on those pectoral fins
rather than swims -

and this is the bit that made me
so happy -

there is honestly nothing
on the internet that you can't get.

You can get a cuddly toy. Aw!

Oh, wow.

let's make it into a cuddly toy.

Yeah, it looks like it could talk
at any minute.

"Hello!"
Cheap children's television.

"Hello, children!"

It looks like he's had
his lips done.

Or a wax. It's about to say,

"Give us a tab, will you?
I'm gasping for a tab."

Do you want that for one
of the children? Yeah.

They'd love that. OK.

Do you have children, Alan,
or is that just a random...? No.

How do I know
when you are "reddy" for sex?

When I'm finished at the buffet!

Is it, you hear
the Antiques Road Show music?

Anybody know what being raddled...?
Raddled is?

Now, I sheared a sheep recently...

Oh! Oh, Susan! Why?

It was Sunday, I was...

If you can do that,
why can't you sort out your pubes?

Yeah.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

I was... Sorry.
Extra point for Alan.

I was hand shearing a sheep
on Skye...

On the island of Skye or
the television channel?

On the Isle of Skye. Not Sky!

I've got my own series on Sky
just shearing sheep.

And it's something to do with sheep,
isn't it?

Yes, it is. It's ewe, as in E-W-E,
rather than "you". Oh! Oh, OK.

So it's to do with
something called reddle.

It's a pigment which was originally
made from ochre,

so it has a sort of reddish tint,

and it's been used for centuries
by shepherds to tell

whether or not the sheep have...been
mated. There's the way to put it.

Right. So what they would do...
Oh, yes!

..they would smear this stuff, this
ochre, this reddle, onto the chest

of a ram and then release him into
the flock of ewes to have his fun.

And as he worked his way around...
Oh, no...

..you could see, if you look at...

She's got it on her nose!

I mean, that's not criticism...

Well, there are three of them.
I mean, there's not... Yeah.

So, nowadays the technique
has been refined.

and then green on the second week
and red in the third.

You can tell which ewe...
She's got blue and yellow!

Yeah. And red.
She's been very busy.

But it helps you work out
when the lambing is going to happen.

There's even a harness now -

where they put a sort of crayon
or something - they put on them.

There it is.

It very much reminds me of a trip
I once had to Berlin.

Look at those genitals.

Thank you!

Look at the size of them.

That is... What am I looking at?

The genitals. Whoa!

Surely that's a pair of
baby's feet in socks.

What's happened there is a baby has
gone up the back of the sheep.

Oh, yes. I think it's that.

Its feet are hanging out.

I don't know if any of you can
remember one of my favourite books -

Return Of The Native, Thomas Hardy.

There's a character in it -
Diggory Venn -

he's a reddleman. That's not him -
that's Thomas Hardy.

So, he's a dealer in reddle, and
he's got his skin stained all over,

and it was a sort of semi-magical
figure, like some sort of devil.

And the word raddled -

to mean old -

comes from the same red dye,

so it's - you've used too much
rouge make-up

or you've got a red countenance

because you've had a lifetime
of overindulgence.

It's exactly the same as, um...

As shagging sheep. I don't know
what else to say about that.

OK.

Just, eh...

We're not going to be able to keep
this a secret, are we?

That's what you brought
that boy on for!

Yes, I did.

No expense spent.

Here is my question -

who has an unhealthy obsession
with redundant technology?

A luddite. A luddite of some kind.

Redundant technology?

What kind of technology might that
have been if it had not been a man?

It looked like a fax machine.

Fax machine, yes.

Well, it's certainly true that
it cannot be hacked,

so it is used in... People who want
to be off the grid, man.

It is the NHS. They are still
the world's largest purchaser

of fax machines,

although they have been ordered to
be phased out in 2020,

so it remains to be seen...

Who are they sending faxes to?

I would imagine... Each other? Each
other, I would imagine. That's it.

Didn't football transfers used to
have to be done by fax?

Yes, the fax had to get through

to headquarters of the FA
by the deadline.

Yeah, but they've got some online
platform now, presumably?

Text - we've signed him
for 80 million.

Ping! Ping!

Still huge in Japan, faxes,

and pagers were very big in Japan.

They closed their final
pager service in 2019,

and a Tokyo funeral company

set up a memorial

so people could lay flowers
and pay their respects to the... Aw.

To the end of technology. Wow.

I know. But with the pager also
still going strong

in the NHS, still, yay
we still...

Yeah, doctors get paged, don't they?

Yeah, 10% of the world's pagers
are in the NHS.



Apparently the reason is
that reception is very reliable.

Other things that have
gone redundant - cheque books.

Certainly the use of them

gone down by about 75% in the
last... Public telephone boxes.

I would say landlines.

Landlines, cassette tapes,

What do short people stand on
to kiss?

I know!

Each other. Each other.

And there's one branch
of Blockbuster Video still open.

Where? In Oregon.

It's a long way to go. Wow.

And I reckon we are probably the
last generation to stand at a till.

I reckon that will go. You'll just

go into the shop, you'll take your
things and they'll know somehow.

Yeah. I don't like that,

cos I like someone's job to be

to count it up and ask me
for my money,

and then I give them my money

and it's all very clear
that I have paid for things.

You pay in cash?

Yes, I do.

I think this is a really important
and fundamental issue.

Not everybody wants to use
technology in their lives.

I like to have the interaction of
speaking to someone.

Sometimes that lady at Morrisons is
the only person I speak to
in 24 hours.

I like to go and I say, "How are
you doing?" "I'm doing fine."

"Jammie Dodgers again?"
"Yeah, it's a Thursday."

And I like that.

Do you pop them in your bra?

Does the lady at Morrisons do that?

"Shall I just pop them in there,
Susan?

"Tins in there,
Jammie Dodgers in your bra."

Now get ready for rough weather.

We're heading in to a perfect
storm of General Ignorance.

Fingers on buzzers, please.

How can you tell the difference

between a raspberry
and a blackberry?

LOUD DRILLING

Yes, Zoe?

Uh, flavour!

Do you know what? Can I just say,
we discussed this,

a lot of highly intelligent
graduates,

We went for something
really clever, but...

It's flavour, isn't it?
They taste different.

They are different, look at them!

Has one got a hole in the middle,

so you can place it
on the end of your finger?

That is the correct answer.

But, you can't do it by looking
at them,

because you can get a black
raspberry - that is a thing.

Oh! So you can't tell
by looking at them,

but you're right
about the hole in them.

So, when you pick a raspberry,
the middle,

the stem, or the torus, pulls out.

But when you have a blackberry,
it does not. But it's the flavour!

Yes! Surely, it's the flavour!

All right, nobody mentioned flavour!

Oh, I feel so foolish. Um...

So here's the thing with
raspberries.

If a raspberry bush needs to
disperse its seeds

by encouraging animals to eat them,
why does it have prickles?

Surely you would want the animals to
come and eat and disperse.

DRILL

It wants a particular sort of animal
who isn't put off by a prickle.

Correct. Wow.

You are nailing the
raspberry-blackberry.

round them and they are the ones
that will take the seeds long
distances.

That is what the bush wants.

If you get a bear, a large mammal or
something, they digest the seeds

and then dump what is left in
a single pile of manure

and they don't disperse the seeds.

Or they make them into jam
and sell them.

Very well done, Zoe, you scored
highly on that particular

soft fruits section. I like a berry.

What about a currant?

I'm not fond of currants,
I've tried them...

OK, moving on.

Honestly, it's like being in an old
people's home.

A blackberry with no middle is
simply a funny-coloured raspberry.

When it comes to sauce, I know
what I like and I like what I know.

What is the key ingredient in
Sandi's Good Old Fashioned Ketchup?

Yes?

Is it tomatoes, Sandi?

So, ketchup, originally made with
mushrooms and anchovies and oysters

and nuts and other things but not
tomatoes, not tomatoes at all

until the 19th century.

People were rather suspicious of
tomatoes because they thought

they were poisonous, so people
didn't eat them.

But there were a lot of tomatoes
around... I love tomatoes.

I love tomatoes.

But, like, tomatoes from about 30
years ago

when they tasted of tomato.

Do you remember the old tomatoes,
back in the day?

Everything tasted better.
It tasted better.

It tasted like raspberries,
funnily enough.

But making actual tomato ketchup
takes forever

and so when Heinz launched their own
version in 1876,

it was marketed as a time-saver.

"Blessed relief for Mother and the
other women in the household."

They no longer had to make ketchup.

They put in a sort of thickening
agent, it's called xanthan gum.

And it makes ketchup into that
gloopy stuff, what we call

non-Newtonian liquid, so it's thick
in the bottle

and then it becomes briefly liquid
when you pour it out.

Anybody know where you should hit on
the bottle when you...?

Shake, shake, ketchup bottle,
none will come and then a lot'll.

LAUGHTER

With all these healthy eating fads
going on,

it can feel like you're
constantly playing "ketchup".

GROANS

We're losing them, people,
start the car.

Are you ready for the scores?

Let's see.
Oh, yeah. Can't wait.

So, in fourth place...
I mean, a long way down.

With -13,

it's Susan!
Yes!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Come on!

In third place, with -5, Tom!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Thank you, thank you.

In second place,
with 5 points - Alan.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And that means the winner,
with a full 6 points,

So, it's thanks to Tom, Susan,
Zoe and Alan.

And I leave you with a fact
by American clown Red Skelton,

that's roughly true.

AS RED SKELTON: "Did you know that
when van Gogh cut off his ear,

"He actually went blind?

"Because every time he put his hat
on, it slipped down over his eyes."

Thank you and goodnight.