18x06 - Ridiculous

[bunniefuu]

Good evening!

Tonight's episode of QI is even
more ridiculous than usual,

partly because Ridiculous
is our theme

and partly because
we're filming in March 2020,

without an audience because
of the coronavirus outbreak.

So bear with us
as we bring you a show

replete with ridiculous riddles.

Welcome to a really ridiculous
episode of QI

with the absurd Holly Walsh...

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

..the preposterous Maisie Adam...

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

..the ludicrous David Mitchell...

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

..and, no, but seriously,
Alan Davies.

APPLAUSE

And their buzzers are a right laugh.

LAUGHTER

Holly goes...

LOUDER LAUGHTER

Maisie goes...

LOUDER LAUGHTER

David goes...

SUSTAINED LAUGHTER

BRAYING LAUGHTER

And Alan goes...

Extra point. Who is that?

Jimmy Carr. Aw!

Is it a fox on heat?

No point in saying anything amusing,
there's no-one to hear it!

OK. It's Jimmy Carr,
that's a factual answer.

You get an extra point. Thank you.

What is the funny thing
about not having an audience?

That exact noise.
That noise? That silence.

That silence. I mean, it's a sort of
interesting experiment.

I mean, I've definitely done shows
in the Edinburgh Fringe

where this would count
as quite a good audience.

Yes.
There's nearly ten of them.

And, you know, only some of them
are part of the team.

The smallest audience
I've ever played to,

I did a gig once in which
my mother-in-law turned up.

Oh, God.
Just your mother-in-law?

Just my mother-in-law, yes.

Are you sure
that wasn't an intervention?

No, I'm not sure at all.

Sandi's still calling it a gig.
ALAN: It turned into one.

What's the smallest gig
you've ever played?

Oh, it was probably a preview
just before Edinburgh.

And my flatmate from uni, Hazel,
turned up,

HOLLY LAUGHS

and it was just her.

And then these two guys
had come to exit-flyer my show.

But, obviously,
my audience was just Hazel.

Yeah. Well, Hazel went home
with about 40 flyers for a show.

And both the guys. Yeah.

Yeah, and both guys.
It was a great night for Hazel.

This does have the feel of, like,
when you used to put a play on

for your mum and dad
in the front room. Yeah.

It does sort of feel
a bit like that.

Only, surreally,
you have David Mitchell

and Sandi Toksvig and Alan Davies
in it.

Yeah.

So there is canned laughter,
but not for us.

We never use it on QI.

But laugh tracks for TV shows
were first created in 1950,

and there was an American sound
engineer called Charlie Douglass,

and he invented what was called
a laff box -

L-A-F-F.

And it was just loads of different
laughs that you could use

if you weren't recording
in front of a live audience.

We're still not going to use them.

Can I just say, and without
wishing to blow my own trumpet,

because I was only one of
a team of contributors,

but I had a radio show
in the late '90s,

and we were so funny that
the people at BBC Comedy said,

"We can use those laughs on nearly
every other programme we make."

And sell them on? Sell them on!

Just fill them in.
Feeding off that laughter bank.

Yeah, that was the best compliment

I've ever had
in my whole career.

"We've kept your laughs, and
we're using them on other shows."

DAVID: "There's real joy
in those laughs.

"That'll save a load of programmes."

I think most of them were for
Kevin Eldon.

Weekenders was like, "Thank God."

But this guy, Charlie Douglass,
he monopolised

the Hollywood laugh-track market.

And, apparently, there was
a limited number of laughs

and you could recognise them.

They came up repeatedly,
the same laughs over and over again.

Some people don't like it,

but the research suggests
it works in principle.

The UCL's Institute
of Cognitive Neuroscience,

they exposed people to a list
of deliberately weak dad jokes.

So they ran the jokes
with no laugh at all.

They ran them with a recording
of being told to laugh

at nothing in particular,
so a fake laugh.

And then with
another recording of people

who were genuinely laughing,
so a real laugh.

And the ones with the real laughs
rated higher than the fake ones,

and even the fake ones
rated higher than the no-laugh.

So we're going to have
an experiment now.

I'm going to tell you the actual
jokes that the researchers used,

and we'll try it with and without
a laugh track. OK?

So, what do you call
a sleeping dinosaur?

I don't know.

A dino-snore.

Wow, OK.

I think it might have been
the delivery, actually.

Do you think it was my fault? Yeah.

You should have got
a professional comedian to do it.

If only I could have found
somebody who can tell a joke.

Also, it's not fair to do it
in front of comedians,

because I don't know about you,

but I'm so hardened
to watching comedians say jokes.

So someone could do the best joke
in the world,

and I'm like,
"Yeah, that's a really good joke."

No, I've lost all sense
of joy in comedy.

Yes. Yeah.

And so have most of my fans. Yes.

But that would be a great way
of testing comic delivery,

because there's virtually
no humour in the joke,

yet it is a joke.

People know where
they're supposed to laugh.

You've got a terrible joke, though.

Well, it's...

Yeah, I do have a...

This is a joke I tell sometimes
for radio recordings.

I didn't even think of it.

And the amount of thought
that goes into it is so small,

but it is not mine.

The joke is, "What's a ghost's
favourite country?"

What is a ghost's favourite country?

Fra-a-a-ance!

MAISIE LAUGHS

It did better than dino-snore,
didn't it?

It did WAY better than dino-snore.

Yeah, but I think
that was a pity laugh.

MAISIE: No...
I mean, take what you can get!

I think I was more laughing
at David's pure commitment

to the punch line.
I think that's it.

It's the way he tells them.

You sort of delivered yours like,
"I know this is bad,

"but it's for the experiment."

Yours was, "This can work,
I'm willing it to work."

OK, let's try my joke
with a laugh track.

OK. See if that goes better.

What do you call
a sleeping dinosaur?

I don't know. A dino-snore.

CANNED LAUGHTER

ALAN: Oh, yeah, that's much better.

I feel like
we're on an American sitcom.

David, let's try your joke
with a laugh track. OK, go ahead.

What's a ghost's favourite country?

CANNED LAUGHTER

I don't know.

People... People just love
the whole vibe of it!

It's like the best
of Ronnie Corbett.

You get laughs on the way
to the punch line.

This is what I'm talking about -
women are not as funny as men!

CANNED LAUGHTER

We did have a complaint last year
from a viewer about canned laughter,

which we do not use,
as you can hear.

And there wasn't any,

and we investigated the confusion
about why this woman was so upset,

and it turned out she didn't like
the sound of Jimmy Carr's laugh.

Really? I know.
It was his girlfriend.

In Argentina, they have teams
of professional laughers,

who are employed to go to
television recordings and laugh.

That's quite common, though,
that's an old tradition,

theatrical tradition,
they used to call it a claque,

which is a French word.

So if you opened a play or an opera
or something,

there'd be people scattered around
who would encourage people...

Really? ..to know when to laugh
or when to cry, you know. Cry?!

Yeah, because if
you don't understand the opera,

you don't know
when it's getting sad.

So if people around you
are going, "Oh!

"Oh...!"

Things like that, I'd be good at it.

I'd do that on ferries.

"Oh, no...!"

"We're too close!"

"To the tanker, we're too close!"

Yeah, it's so vital,

cos otherwise ferry journeys
can be boring. Really boring!

The last time I was on a ferry,
I was 45 minutes

queuing with a tray
for the worst meal of my life,

and if someone had been causing a
panic cos we were too near a tanker,

it would have gone
much more quickly.

"Such a long wait
and yet so disgusting!"

People who'd eaten could be going,
"Don't bother!

"Look out the window!

"The Isle of Wight
is ten minutes away, just wait!"

Are you OK?!

I'm now thinking back
to every show I've seen, though,

where people have cried in it
and wondered... Were they moved?

Yeah, you know those, like,
Edinburgh shows where they're funny

but, about 40 minutes in, there's
a really hard-hitting moment?

I HATE those.
I went to go and see one,

and everyone around me was crying,

and now I think,
"Were they a plant?"

Were they the equivalent
of canned laughter, a claque?

No, you don't need it,
because people are very suggestible.

Let's be honest, there isn't canned
laughter used in British television.

It sometimes gets accused of it,
and it's very, very annoying

to those of us who feel that
we've elicited a genuine laugh.

But the truth is,
we've elicited a genuine laugh

from people who've come along
excited, it was free,

and they want to be helpful. Yeah.

So they know
they're supposed to laugh...

It's British manners.
..and people are nice, so they...

Studio audiences are
very rarely ill tempered. Exactly!

"That was clearly
meant to amuse me,

"I'm not going to sit around
working out whether it actually did,

"I'm going to make
the required noise!"

And that's what they reliably do,
and God bless them!

CANNED LAUGHTER

There is an interesting thing,
though,

there's a guy who's the world's
leading expert on laughter,

which is a sort of interesting job,
a guy called Robert Provine.

And he found that we are


when we're in company
than we are on our own.

Oh, that's definitely true.

I can watch, like, films or TV shows
that I find genuinely hilarious,

but if I'm on my own,
like, nothing'll come out.

Also, that inverse is true,

because you're probably 30 times
more likely to cry on your own

than you are in company.
Yes. That is true.

I made myself laugh so hard
the other day.

Did you, Holl? Go on.

I did a fart, and it sounded like...
Oh, brilliant!

It sounded like somebody was
calling out my name,

as though they were dying,
like, "Holly..."

Like that, it was the funniest fart
I've ever done in my life.

I once did a poo that made me cry.

Maisie, I'm so sorry.
I really cried for ages.

Maisie's new to the show.
Feel free to join in, Maisie.

Have you ever pooed and cried
at the same time?

Who hasn't, I think?
I feel like when I know, I'll know.

Like, I look forward to it.
You will. It's like love.

Yeah, I'll text you all
when it happens.

You might cry out as well -
"Help me!"

I'll just hear canned laughter
over it as well.

I think farts are funny,
but I don't find my own funny,

and I don't know
if that's a failure as a comedian.

Now, it's just a failure of timing,
it's a failure of timing.

Sorry? It's a... Failure of t...

Oh, very good.

LAUGHTER

Extra point to David!

Failure of timing. Yeah.

I don't find my farts funny,
because I don't fart.

What?! That's not true! It's...

There's almost
a continual release of gas.

It's not what you would call a fart.
I'm just going to...

It's an emission,
a constant emission.

I don't fart,
and I think it's a worry!

I... I think that is a worry.
Yes! I don't let gas out.

Are you able to dive
to the bottom of a swimming pool,

or are you constantly floating?

What's going to happen is that one
day something will ping like that,

and I'll just float
around backwards...

Oh, one day you're going to fart.

Oh, my God,
I hope it's not in isolation.

Do you know what? If you're going
to go, what a way to go.

I know, just go flying back
around the room.

Um, laughter, it...

You'd return to Denmark
like a salmon.

"Where did she land?
Denmark, of course."

Anyway, salmon would go to Norway,
that doesn't matter.

A sleeping dinosaur is a dino-snore,

and anyone who finds that funny
must be having a laugh.

CANNED LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

Oh, I like the applause,
the applause is good. That was nice.

Here's a riddle-iculous question.

Why is a raven like a writing desk?

That's a quote, isn't it?
It is - from what?

I think it sounds sort of
Lewis Carroll or something.

It is Lewis Carroll-y.

So, where are we going? Lewis Carol?
Narnia.

Alice's Adventures In Wonderland.

Who did Narnia? CS Lewis. CS Lewis.

I always get them
two mixed up as well.

And Lewis Collins, I get mixed up.

Alice in Wonderland, Narnia,
and The Professionals.

And The Professionals?

Are those your three
cultural go-tos?

Well, I think if I was to
self-isolate for three months,

that wouldn't be a bad start.

So, it's a question
that the Mad Hatter poses

in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Why is a raven like a writing desk?

And it wasn't originally
meant to have an answer.

And then, in a later edition,
Carroll included this note,

"I may as well put on record here

"what seems to me to be
a fairly appropriate answer,

"because it can produce a few notes,
though they are very flat,

"and it is never put
with the wrong end front."

So, what happened was, it was
supposed to be an internal joke

because look at the way he
spelled "Nevar".

He spelled it like that,
which is backwards...?

Raven. Raven.

But the publishers incorrectly
corrected the spelling,

so the joke was completely missed.

And, in fact, nobody noticed the
error until 1976.

But it's a meta-riddle.

It doesn't mean anything.

I mean, is that really a riddle?

It's just a stupid thing to say.
You just found it annoying?

Yeah, it's just, like,
too smart-arse.

There was a very popular one
in the 1890s.

"When is a mouse, if it spins?"

To which the answer was, "Because
the higher it gets, the fewer."

I mean, they're just ridiculous.

They don't really...

This is the sort of humour
that develops

in non-studio audience conditions.

Yes.

One time, Lewis Collins

and Martin Shaw were on
a stakeout in a hotel room,

and you could hear The Professionals
theme being played,

very, very slowly,
on a heavy brass instrument.

I think possibly a tuba.

So it was kind of...

THE PROFESSIONALS THEME

IMITATES THE FIRST THREE NOTES OF

NEXT TWO NOTES

NEXT SIX NOTES

And then Martin Shaw went to the
window, to look out, like that.

And if there'd been a man there
with a tuba, it would

have been the funniest thing that
had ever happened on my TV.

And I know that's not a high bar.

But, as it was, they didn't even
cut to the outside.

So we never knew if there
was someone with a tuba.

And, judging by his reaction,
I'd say there wasn't.

That would have been a great joke.
Would have been a great joke.

Especially if Lewis Collins had
said, "I hate the tuba."

Yeah. Or something.
And then had a cigarette.

Tonally, would it have
been right for The Professionals?

Oh, no. That's the question.
No, no.

Earlier on, he been in a Capri,
and on a date with a young woman,

and he got a call to say there's
an urgent terrorism,

and he just dropped
her off at a bus stop.

He didn't even run her home.

When it's your next big birthday,
I think

we should all club together and film
you playing a tuba, and cut it in.

And then wherever it goes
out on Gold or whatever,

everyone will be, like, "What?"

It could totally supersede the
original cut of that episode, right?

Like with Blade Runner.

It's impossible to get
the non-director's cut.

The version without Alan Davies
playing a tuba 40 years later...

Is no longer available? Yeah.
It'll make people furious.

In fact, they'll say,
"Where's the guy with the tuba?"

He should crop up in every episode.

There will be an opportunity.

It's like "Where's Wally?", but in
'70s TV shows. There's always a...

ALAN HUMS THEME TO THE PROFESSIONALS

I don't think you need a tuba.
You can just make that funny noise.

HE CONTINUES TUNE

The most famous riddle of all must
be the riddle of the Sphinx,

which is in Oedipus Rex.

Does anybody know what
the riddle is?

ALAN: No, I can't remember.

Isn't it something about what walks
on four legs in the morning?

Is that right? Yeah.

"What has four legs in the morning,
two legs at noon,

"and three legs in the evening?"

To which Richard Osman has suggested
a poorly organised darts match.

But you needed to get it right

because the Sphinx would strangle
and eat anybody

who couldn't answer it correctly.

There's some pressure, I think. Yes.

What if you were like,
"I don't care"?

It would just eat you. Fine.

What is it, then?

"Man, who crawls on all fours
as a baby,

"then walks on two feet as an adult,

"and then uses a walking stick
in old age."

There's always, like,
more than one answer, though,

to every riddle, isn't there?

Like, the one that goes,
"I'm tall when young

"and I'm short when I'm old.
What am I?"

Yeah. What?

Well, it's a candle.

But it could also be, like,
my Auntie Sue.

You're right. Also, what happens is,
you get the answer

and you think, "I can't believe
I paid attention for that long,

"because I don't care."
It gets really in your head.

And then the payoff
is so very little.

You really need the extra, not being
eaten by the Sphinx...

Yeah.
..to make it worth bothering.

Yeah, you need the stakes. Yeah.

Yeah, you need to be pressured
into thinking,

"I'm going to sh*t myself
if I don't get this right."

Yes. So you'd be fine
because you don't pass wind.

No, no, nothing at all.
You'd be fine.

You could just go... Well, that's
a riddle in itself, isn't it?

..tuba your way off.

HE MAKES TUBA SOUNDS

Never not funny.

Sandi?

And now for a really risible
question.

Who was doing the best stand-up


Was it you?

KLAXON

Well, Ken Dodd must be
on your klaxon, surely?

KLAXON

I sat next to Ken Dodd at the most
glorious dinner one time,

we were together for about
four hours.

He didn't stop. He'd just done
a show, and he just carried on.

Yeah. It was astonishing.

We saw him, like, two months before
he died, or something.

And it was about three hours after
the time it was meant to...

It was about one in the morning.
Oh, yeah.

Frequently.
Coach-loads of pensioners,

with the driver saying,

"I've got to drive you back
to the hotel."

"But we haven't seen the Diddy Men!"

It was one of the best evenings
of my life.

Was it endearing,
or was it quite irritating?

Well, I had Julian Fellowes
on the other side,

so it was terribly endearing.

What is this dinner?!

Honestly. It's a dream.

It was the Illuminati annual... I
was on the other side of the table

with Martin Shaw and Lewis Collins.

The best stand-up 500 years ago.


So we are talking the 16th century.

Luther.

Martin Luther. Luther?

Well, German priests.
German priests?

So we're in the right...

This is, like, Henry VIII's time.

Is it?
Yeah, Henry VIII's time.

Because Germany went a bit crazy in
the early 16th century.

Not the craziest it's ever gone. No.

But...

I mean, they've got form.

Yeah, but, relatively, because there
were huge, horrible wars

and fighting between
the various Protestant

and Catholic bits, weren't there?
There were.

But this is a proper thing called
Risus paschalis -

so the Easter laugh.

And the idea was to put jokes
into the Easter sermons.

It supposedly reflected a perception

that the resurrection
was a practical joke

played on the devil.
It's not going down well.

Look at him! He's fantastic.

We've all had an audience like that.

He's going, "Stop!"

So, the sort of shtick that they
would do from the pulpit -

there was a preacher
who ate pancakes

while doing cuckoo impressions.
Oh, brilliant.

There was one who lay in cow dung
and pretended to give birth

to a calf while hissing
like a goose...

Oh, that's a bit try-hard.
I know.

..and one church where the priest
got a layman to dress in a hood

and convinced him he was a priest,
which, I think, that's not as good.

But there were loads of lewd jokes
about nuns,

that was general bad language,

and lots of serious-minded
churchmen at the time,

people like Erasmus, they thought
it was a dreadful thing.

Erasmus denounced the sermons.

"So full of obscenities
that a decent man

"could not tell them at
a dinner party without shame."

So this practice of Risus paschalis
was banned.

Where did Jesus stand on
obscenities?

Is there a view expressed in
the Gospels about obscenities?

Well, he must be a bit annoyed his
name is used as an obscenity.

Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, if everyone was like,
"Alan Davies off!"

Yeah. "Alan Davies!"

No-one says, "Jesus off."

It counts as taking
the Lord's name in vain.

Yeah. Jesus off?

People go, "Oh, Christ!"

And if someone went, "Oh, Davies!"
I wouldn't go,

"I've never been so insulted."

We need to start that being a thing.

Is that when you tell someone
to go away,

but come back three days later?
Yeah.

Was he easily offended?

Who, Jesus?
No, he was pretty...

He was pretty cool.

Cos the Anglican Church
is so easily offended.

I don't think they are. No?

My mum's a vicar,
I don't think they are.

She's not easily offended? No.

She watches this!
Is that true? Is your mum a vicar?

Yeah, my mum's a vicar.

The Elves have just given me a quote
from Matthew 5:34.

"But I tell you not to swear
at all."

No F-words in the Bible, are there?
No F-words or C-words.

Is your mother an Anglican priest?

Yeah, C of E.

That's Anglican, isn't it? Yeah.

Wow, you've really paid attention
while you were growing up.

That's...

I get muddled up between
all the different denominations

and sort of tributaries.

But it's good to know which one
your mother is, I'd just say.

Well, she's Church of England.

So, I suppose, yes, that's Anglican.
In answer to your question.

Yes, my mother is Anglican.
I suppose, in a way, it is, yes!

Yeah. OK.

There are lots of excellent,

hilarious Anglican priests who were
in the Church of England.

I'm trying to help you here.

There was a guy called the Rev
Robert Hawker, he was a Cornish

Anglican priest. He particularly...
I mean, look at him.

You can tell by the pasty on his
head. Isn't he great?

He liked to moonlight as a mermaid.

So, for several months, he dressed
in a seaweed wig and he sat

every evening on a rock in
Bude Harbour, singing

mermaid songs. Aw! Yeah, but he was
obviously stark raving mad

and needed help. Well...

No, I'd be in church every week
if that was my... Would you, though?

Yeah! That's not where he's doing
it, in church.

In church he's doing the normal
stuff, you know.

He was not doing the normal
stuff in church. Oh.

So he...first of all,
he did this mermaid singing,

he was naked apart from a cloth.
Oh, no, I'm out.

A waterproof cloth, wrapped around
him, for his tail. "I'm out."

Like Dragons' Den. "I'm out."

And then, apparently, there was
a local farmer who was

so irritated by the singing that he
threatened him with a shotgun.

So he concluded his time
as a mermaid by doing one rousing

rendition of God Save The King
and then swam home.

But in the church his
ten cats made up

most of the congregation
at his church services, and he saw

one of them catching a mouse on a
Sunday, so he excommunicated

the cat. He's marvellous!
Oh, my God!

And then I like this one very much.

Reverend Edward Drax Free.

He was the rector at
Sutton in Bedfordshire.

He impregnated a succession of
housemaids. Oh!

I mean, he was very busy. He was
perpetually drunk. Good God.

He did?! Yeah. He stole the lead
off his own church roof.

Has he got the biggest
head in Christendom,

or have they got tiny, tiny heads?
It's not pleasant, is it?

He was fantastic.

He kept the church locked because he
didn't want anybody to try

and attend a service. Anyway, in


bishop to remove him and they found
he'd barricaded himself into the

rectory, together with his favourite
serving girl and two pistols.

And they tried to lay siege on him.

He held out for two weeks until his
claret ran out.

Oh, my... I'm surprised the
claret lasted two weeks by the

look of him. Yes. Yeah.

Anyway, sad story,
he died penniless.

Aw! Oh, no sh*t?
It was all going so well.

He couldn't get a job after that.

It's a sort of... He died in 1843.
It's the sort of lovely detail

from history, he was run over by a
varnish maker's cart.

Of course he was going to
go in a weird way, wasn't he? Yeah.

He was not going to go quiet. No.

What's improved by extra rhubarb?
Extra custard?

Using rhubarb in a different sense.

Rhubarb, as in the noise people make
to sound like a crowd is talking?

ALAN: As in waffle?
You get an extra point.

That is exactly right.

It's actors' jargon for the chat
that extras do

in the background.

Does anybody know why the rhubarb
thing started?

"Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb..."

A good sort of noise that sounds
like talking?

I think so. I mean...

A more talkingy word than
other words.

Sorry, so, do they do it
for a sound thing?

Or is it that your mouth looks...?
No, it's that your mouth is moving.

When they were doing Japanese
prisoner of w*r films

after the w*r,
they were all shot in the UK.

They got anyone in
who looked remotely Asian

because they just needed to fill
the background with extras

who might be in a Japanese
prisoner of w*r camp.

And, obviously, these people were
from many different countries

and nobody spoke Japanese.

So they just got them to say,
"I tie your shoe, you tie my shoe."

I knew a comedian from Dublin,

and he taught me how to do
a Northern Irish accent.

And you just say,
"Bor defore de w*r."

Bor defore de w*r?

Bor defore de w*r. Bor defore de
w*r. Bor defore de w*r.

A good way to say Spice Girls in
Glaswegian...

Oh, it's so good, isn't it?

..is to say, "space ghetto"...
In an American accent.

..in an American accent.
Right.

IN AMERICAN ACCENT: Space ghetto.
Space ghetto. Space ghetto.

Good, isn't it?
Oh, yeah, that is good.

Blows your mind. Blows your mind.

Extras are not highly paid
individuals,

but, if you have a large crowd,

that's obviously
extremely expensive.

So lots of films use
something else now.

What do you think they use, instead
of hiring extras,

for if you've got a massive
crowd scene?

Computer graphic people?

No, it's inflatable dolls.

No! Yeah.

Like, what you get on a hen party?

No, there they are. Look.

This is the film Seabiscuit.

You know, the one about
the horse race?

"I'm not a sex doll,

"I'm an extra."

So, genuinely, THAT'S easier?

Blowing up a load of sex dolls?

Well, apparently.
Easier than computers?

You can get a crowd of 10,000...
Or humans.

..in a truck, and they can be
reused.

I mean, I'm sure they've got pumps.

Yeah, I don't think it's somebody
going... But still.

Mind you, if you were an extra

and you could send an inflatable
version of yourself,

you'd be foolish not to.

I think I've been on panel shows
where I might as well have.

Sorry, we're supposed to just go,
"No, no!"

Not this one.

There's lots of films that it's been
used in.

I think The King's Speech
was another one.

I thought they always CGI'd them
nowadays.

Ah, very expensive.

I thought it was sort of just like
copy and paste.

I thought they used crowds from
Alan Davies' show in the '90s.

They just used them as cutaways
for Gladiator.

If it was my film, they'd just
copy and paste Hazel

over and over and over
in the background.

So, from the height of
ridiculousness

to the ridiculousness of height -

how will short people
save the world?

Is it by going on a baking show

and becoming a national treasure?
Oh, extra point!

There we go! We got it.

Eating less?

Yes, it is sort of to do...
Breathing less?

Yes, it's to do with all of those.

Breathing less, did you say?

It's got to be better, basically,
overall,

because, broadly speaking,
a short person

functions like a medium-height
person or a tall person

and takes less fuel
and uses up less space.

That is exactly right.

They'll be the heroes of the moment
with the stockpiling.

They're not going for
the top shelves.

They can't get there.

No, exactly. If we all die out,
it's my lot's fault.

Yeah. Are you very tall? Yeah.

So there's a theory called
reventropy,

which is that humans ought
to be shorter.

There's a guy called
Thomas Samaras.

In 1994, he wrote a book called
The Truth About Your Height,

and he argued that people
were getting taller

because they had excessive protein
in their diet.

And this was leading to much greater
consumption of everything.

So you needed more land for farming,
you get more waste,

you get more pollution, and,
in order to preserve resources,

really, you need to control the size
of human beings.

And that being shorter is good
for you, because it's...

Look at that, that's me
and Richard Osman!

Being short is good for you,
it slows ageing.

Shorter people do have
longer lifespans.

Really? Yeah.

You hit your head a lot less,
though.

Probably. That's true.

I've never hit my head on a doorway.
Not once.

But you've probably caught the
corner of a table a few times.

And the lid on a toilet. Yes.

Anyway, this idea of reventropy,
as in reversing entropy,

it seems to be
that his means of restoring

order in the world specifically
was by making people smaller.

Not working, because all of my
nephews and nieces are all massive.

I think we were shorter because
we only had biscuits for tea.

People got shorter
when we started to farm, didn't we?

Oh, really? And live in cities,
because we were basically healthier

and taller when we were
hunter-gatherers, and then,

when we started to civilise and city
dwell and farm and all that,

our population numbers were able to
expand but our basic

level of nutrition went down
and we became shorter people.

But it's gone up again.

And we've got gradually taller
and taller as the nutritional...

Malnutrition is the key.

We malnourish a generation,
they'll shorten right up.

Maisie, how tall are you? 5'11".

Do you have, like, strict rules
about people you go out with

or marry or whatever, who are taller
or shorter than you?

Because my tall girlfriends
all refuse

to go out with somebody
who's shorter than them.

I think shorter men can be
really attractive,

but I would just feel cumbersome,
I reckon.

My boyfriend is six foot.

And was that a deal-breaker,
as it were?

You had to...?
I'd love to say no,

but it absolutely was.

I like the shallowness of it.

I'm really shallow.
No, I'm fine with that.

Very tall, very shallow.

Yeah, I think that's marvellous.
I'm like a candle. Yeah.

There was another lonely voice
campaigning against

something the rest of us take
for granted.

A man called Roger Babson.

He was an American stock market
guru.

He was the guy in the Q series that
invented little hammers

so that typists could wear mittens
and work outside.

He what?

Yeah, he was obsessed with fresh air
and he got his secretaries

to work outside on typewriters,

and their hands were too cold so he
invented a series of little hammers

so they could wear mittens
while typing.

If you think that's crazy,

his real passion was that
he campaigned against gravity.

Oh, wow!

So, he had a couple
of very disturbing events.

His sister and then, later, his
grandson died from drowning,

and he devoted his
considerable fortune

to fighting against the evil
"Old Man Gravity",

which, he argued, k*lled millions
of people every year.

And he paid three investigators to
sit permanently

in the US Patent Office,

scanning incoming applications
for anti-gravity inventions,

anything - costumes, shields,
whatever it might be -

that could be used to insulate
people from gravity,

because he hoped one day to
eliminate aeroplane accidents.

But it was drownings in his family?
Yeah.

And he blamed gravity, not water?

No, no, he didn't have
an anti-water thing.

In fact, he set up...

It's gravity that pulls you under,
isn't it?

I'm not sure that the water's
trying to help them.

If there was no gravity,
you'd float.

And, also, the water
would be in the air.

If there wasn't gravity,
the water would be in the air.

He started something called
the Gravity Research Foundation,

and the idea was to give out
grants to universities,

but it had to be used specifically
for anti-gravity research.

And lots of people didn't know
how to do this,

so the money didn't get used.

Tufts University used it to set
up their Institute of Cosmology,

and what they do is they acknowledge
this grant from the Gravity

Research Foundation every year
in a ceremony in which the doctorate

graduates have an apple
dropped on their head in front

of a monument to Babson.

I mean, he wasn't completely crazy.

In a way, he was also a good guy.

He set up the very first women's
business school

in the United States. But I like
these campaigns that you just think,

"Wow, is that a thing?" There was a
campaign in the United States called

SINA, S-I-N-A, and it was the

Society for Indecency to
Naked Animals.

It was founded in 1959 with the
slogan,

"A nude horse is a rude horse."

And it campaigned for clothing of
any animal that stands higher

than four inches or is longer
than six inches.

There were campaigns
right across the United States.

So, little, tiny, nude animals.
Yeah.

You can have a nude hamster... Yeah.
..but...

That dachshund should be dressed,
just.

It went on for four years,
this campaign.

And then Time Magazine found
out it was a hoax

perpetrated by a comedian
called Alan Abel.

But I quite like it,
I'd have joined in, I think.

It's true that the
penises of horses

and dogs are very
prominent in society.

You see them more then you see the
penises of humans.

That is true.

In general life, you walk around,
you don't see many penises.

No, and I'm fine with that.

If you see one, it's likely to be
a dog's p*nis. Yeah, that's true.

Or it could be a horse's p*nis.

There would be so many more
horses in the Edwardian era,

the penises would go
past like scooters

on Oxford Street. Couldn't move for
penises. You imagine it.



And this is the Victorian age
not long ended, which was very,

very anti-p*nis, as we know.

And yet, all these horses' penises,
all the time, everywhere.

It's logical, let's get some pants
on those horses.

Just pants? Not clothes...?
Start with the pants.

A Geeeeeee string!

If you ignore a p*nis,
it will go away.

That's certainly
been my experience. Now...

Short people are just better.

Fact.

Why can't a robot work out how to
tick a box marked

"I'm not a robot"?

That is a very good question.

Also, why can't it tell
what a traffic light looks like?

I don't know, I'm not a robot.

I don't think I'm a robot.

But I find friendly
text messages stressful.

I've got a lot of the signs of
a robot.

So, it doesn't make any sense.

The Elves quoted a letters page
of Viz.

"Surely robots can figure out how to
tick a box on a website

"saying, 'I'm not a robot.'

"I've seen Terminator 2,
and that one could fly

"a f*cking helicopter."

So...

..ticking the box is not the point.

It's how you behaved
before you ticked the box

that is analysed.

So, to be honest, I can't tell you
all the details,

because they keep it secret,

because they don't want people
trying to cheat the test,

but, broadly speaking,
you tick the box

and it prompts the website to check
your browsing history.

So, let us say, for example,
just before you tick the box

you watched a couple of cat videos,

you like to tweet about
Greta Thunberg,

you checked your Gmail account
before you got down to work,

all of that makes them think
that you must be a human.

And checking the box can even
spur it to analyse

the way in which you moved your
mouse across the screen.

No! Slightly spooky, I think.

Essentially, when you are clicking
"I am not a robot,"

you're instructing the site to have
a look at your data

and decide for itself. Wow.

If the machine is not sure,

that's when it directs you to click
on pictures of fire hydrants

and sort of secondary...

So, if that comes up, it means
that your browsing history...

Is slightly worrying.
..looks like you're a robot.

It looks like you're in
a Russian warehouse.

If you regularly clear your
browsing history,

or you browse in incognito mode...

Why would you do that?

That is not the sign of a robot.

That's the sign of a w*nk*r. Yeah.

But it's a bit weird, isn't it?

It's an automated humanity check.

It's called CAPTCHA.

CAPTCHA, and it stands
for Completely Automated

Public Turing test to tell
Computers and Humans Apart.

But you can do some good with it.

You know those distorted letters
that you sometimes have to say,

"What is that word?" Yeah.

It's quite a good way to digitise
old books, OK? So if you've got an

old or torn piece of paper from an
old book and you're not entirely

sure what the word is, sometimes
with CAPTCHA, they'll give you two

words to solve.
You get one after the other.

One test is to establish whether
you're human, and the other word,

they're just looking for your
opinion. Oh!

So, if 1,000 people say that the
word is catacomb,

then the chances are it is catacomb.

So it's a way of analysing text.

They can't fold towels very
easily, though, can they?

No, that is the major flaw in
robots. Yeah.

Now for a ridiculous loser.

What can we say about
Mr Irrelevant, 1991?

It's a sought-after title,
in some ways.

Mr Irrelevant.

Is there some sort of, like,
a paradox?

That it's like being, you know,
the most boring person.

That's something interesting
if you're the most boring person.

So the second-most boring person
is more boring

than the most boring person,

which makes them the
most boring person,

which is something interesting
about them.

I love that.
I think that's fantastic.

All I can say with confidence
is that he was Wanke.

Which is his name, Mr Wanke.

Mr Wanke? Yeah, Mr Wanke.

Well, that's so relevant. Yeah.

So, every year, in US football,
professional teams choose

new players from that year's
college leavers.

So it's called the draft.

And the last-placed team
from the previous year

gets the first choice.

The idea is to even out
the teams' prospects,

so it's not like you can just
buy the top players.

They try and keep it kind of level.

So the opposite of the
Premier League, really.

Yeah. So the player chosen last
from the pool,

the least-sought-after player
in that year,

is called Mr Irrelevant. Oh.

And it's a rather dubious honour.

It fell to Larry Wanke in 1991.

I was really hoping he had
a better first name,

but Larry Wanke...
Yeah, Larry is not good, is it?

What would a better first name be?

Willie. Barry?

Willie is better. Willie Wanke.

Wee Willie Wanke.

They get a prize! They get flown out
for Irrelevant Week

with their family to California
and they have, you know...

"Introducing the Wankes!

"Give a warm round of applause for
the Wankes, as they join us!"

Well, it's a thing in sport.

The last-placed competitor in the
Tour de France, for example,

since 1920, has been awarded
the Lanterne Rouge.

But there's so much publicity
with being that person

that people want to be it.

When they know
they're not going to win,

they know they're right at the back,

they sometimes hide in barns
and things to make sure.

When I've watched
the London marathon,

there's so much attention
on who wins it.

But I am interested often
as to who is the last person.

Yeah. Like five days later. Yeah.

"And a man in an iron lung..."
It's that.

"..finally rolls over
the finish line."

But there's loads of
wonderful things.

You get a salted anchovy
if you're the loser

of the Siena Palio horse race.

And it used to be that you got
a wooden spoon at Cambridge

if you got the worst honours degree
in the Maths Tripos.

No!

This is the last one ever awarded,
to the magnificently named

Cuthbert Lempriere Holthouse.

Who then went on to become
Prime Minister.

He became an Anglican vicar,

which is like being
in the Church of England.

And, so, what? He...

And, so, what? He got the worst
score on his degree?

He got the worst degree.

In fact, they made the spoon out
of a rowing oar

because he blamed it on the fact
that he spent so much time rowing.

It's amazing that they actually
gave degrees to Borrowers.

Well, also, nobody's going to ask
a question about who came first

in the Maths Tripos, right? Yeah.

It's just so lovely.

I think it's much more interesting
to talk about Cuthbert.

And now for the bit where our panel
accidentally fall

into a lens grinder and make
spectacles of themselves.

General Ignorance.

Fingers on buzzers, please.

Watch this.
Have a look at the screen.

That text has got the entire answer
to the question.

Can anybody pick out any of it?

OK, it's going at 1,500 words
per minute.

What do you call someone who is able
to read at that speed?

Fast.
My mother-in-law.

Fast is good, yes. Is your
mother-in-law very fast?

She goes on holiday,

she literally
can read a book a day.

Can she understand it?
Yeah, she's incredible.

It's insane how good she is at it.

I mean, you can in principle train
yourself to read pretty quickly.

But speed reading, that they used to
talk about,

it was a thing that people thought
you could be taught.

In fact, there was an American
proponent, Evelyn Wood.

She was an educator from Utah
and she made a fortune

at these Reading Dynamic workshops.

She said you could increase
the speed of reading three times,

maybe as much as ten times,

and she had hundreds of outlets
across the United States

in the 1950s and '60s.

And it was partly because JFK
had a reputation

for being able to read 1,200 words
per minute.

Nixon and Carter, both presidents,
both endorsed it.



Well, there are various techniques.

Four pages of a novel?

I mean, it's slightly mad.

One of the techniques is reading
down the middle of the page.

I mean, it makes you wonder,
as a writer,

why you bothered with the words
at the side.

The other thing is to eliminate
sub-vocalisations in your head.

Reading aloud will slow you down.

I think I'm quite a slow reader
because I worry I've missed a bit.

Yeah. I'm forever going back
and doing a paragraph again.

But you're worrying about
the comprehension,

and that is the thing about
speed reading

is that, probably, people
are reading quite quickly,

but they're not really fully
taking in all the detail.

But the technique now,
of speed reading,

has been pretty much debunked.

It is not a thing.

What did it say,
that fast-moving thing?

Everything I just told you.

Ah, so all of that was just...?

Yeah, everything I've just told you.

But, basically, people get the gist
but not the nuance

if they are speed reading.

So they sort of go, "Oh, there's
something about tigers

"in that paragraph." Yeah.

"This one's all about cheese."
Exactly.

"I've got it. Tigers and cheese."
I love that book.

I'm afraid speed readers
are missing the point.

Who made the most expensive
and best-sounding violins ever?

Stradivarius.

LOUD LAUGHTER

That's my boy.

KLAXON

Take one for the team.
Yeah, what a guy.

Marks & Spencer's.

Yamaha. Sports Direct.

It was a guy called
Bartolomeo Guarneri.

He was the grandson of one of
Stradivarius' apprentices.

So Stradivarius did make
beautiful violins,

but this guy has the edge.

In 2010, one of his went
for more than $18 million.

What?!

This $18 million violin is on loan

to a brilliant woman
called Anne Akiko Meyers.

I think we have a little
tiny bit of her playing.

ALAN GASPS,
ORCHESTRAL MUSIC PLAYS

That sounds like a normal violin
to me.

Well, so, that is the thing
about it.

Because they did a test to see
whether people wanted to buy

one of those very expensive ones or
whether they wanted a modern one.

They got 21 professional violinists
to play in a dimly lit room

wearing goggles,

and only 38%, so eight out of
the 21, chose to take the old ones,

and the rest chose
the modern instruments.

So, not necessarily, actually,
does it sound any better.

That's like those taste tests
when people think

they're drinking some incredibly
expensive wine,

but it's just from Aldi. Yeah.

In 2016, a violin made from
Winston Churchill's cigar box

was sold for £6,500. No!

It didn't have any strings.

Oh, God.
It probably smelled nice.

And, finally,
a ludicrously easy one.

What the Dickens was the first
name of the famous English writer

who gave us
the expression "What the Dickens?"

Yes? William.

LAUGHTER

Yes! You're absolutely correct.

William...? Shakespeare.

William Shakespeare, indeed.

Do you know what play?

Is it Merry Wives of Windsor? It is
indeed Merry Wives of Windsor.

How did you know that?
He is William Shakespeare.

Do you like this picture?

Yeah, that's
me from the recently closed show!

Yes, so Merry Wives of Windsor,
Mrs Page is referring to Falstaff.

She's on the cusp of stuffing him
in a laundry basket.

"Where had you this pretty
weathercock?" says Ford.

Mrs Page says, "I cannot tell what
the Dickens his name is."

Do you know why Dickens?
No, I don't.

It's a diminutive of d*ck.
It's a euphemism for the devil.

So, "What the Dickens?" just means
"What the devil?"

"It hurts like the Dickens,"
we used to say.

It was an old expression.
So, "It hurts like the devil."

There was a sort of tradition
in medieval plays that

if you spoke the devil's name then
he would appear.

That's where we get the expression
"speak of the devil".

Oh, really? Yeah.

There are just so many fantastic
words that Shakespeare invented.

Merry Wives, actually you get the
first appearances of "hot-blooded",

"the world is my oyster",
that phrase.

That's Shakespearean? It is
Shakespearean, yeah, absolutely.

So it was not Charles Dickens.

People might think,
"What the Dickens?"

It was Mr Shakespeare. He was the
first to come up with "SCART lead".

Yes.

That is correct.

Enough Dickensing about!

It's time to reveal
this week's scores.

In last place...

Oh, it's a noble thing.

With minus seven,

it's Maisie!

In third place, with minus six,
it's Alan!

In second place, with minus three,
David!

I know!

With one whole point -
a ridiculous number of points -

it's Holly!

It only remains for me to laugh
in the faces of

Maisie, David, Holly and Alan,

and thank them all
for their good humour.

And I leave you with these words
from Dostoevsky -

"There is no idea and no fact
that could not be vulgarised

"or shown in a ridiculous light."

And that pretty much explains
QI's existence.

CANNED LAUGHTER

Goodnight.

The show you've just seen was
recorded without an audience

because of social distancing rules.

Next week, we're back to normal,
so see you then.

And, in the meantime,
mind how you go.