21x06 - Ultras

[bunniefuu]

APPLAUSE

Hello and welcome to

the ultra-compact, ultra-competitive
ultra episode of QI.

And joining me today are the
unsurpassed Jason Manford.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

The unrivalled Jordan Grey.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

The utmost Sara Pascoe.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And the ultimate Alan Davies.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

- Ultra.

- Let's hear their ultrasonics.

Sara is ultra refined.

MUSIC: The Arrival Of The Queen Of
Sheba by Handel

- Oh, I am, actually!

- Jordan is ultramarine.

JAUNTY SAILOR STYLE MUSIC

That's rather cheery! I like that.

Jason is, I'm afraid, ultra
nationalistic.

MUSIC: Land Of Hope And Glory
- Hello. I'm Nigel Farage.

I don't look French!

- LAUGHTER

And Alan is in the Ultra Low Emission
Zone.

FART NOISE

LAUGHTER

JASON:
- I love it.

- A new low.

- Sorry.

Let's get things running with question
one.

How can you identify an ultramarathon
runner by their feet?

- Ooh.
- Ugly. Ugly feet.

- Oh, why ugly?

- Because they run too far.

- And that makes your feet ugly?

- Well, my Auntie Juliet once went on
a really long walk,

and her toenails came off.

- OK. That is exactly the right
answer.

CHEERING

- Do they come off in their socks?

- What happens is, as you take your
socks off sometimes..

- AUDIENCE EXCLAIM

- Sometimes over the next couple of
days...

But, yeah, you're not supposed to use
your feet that way.
- Yeah.

But it's an occupational hazard for
ultramarathon runners.

Anybody know how long an ultramarathon
is?

AUDIENCE: Ugh!

- Oh, no, that's triggering, that.
That's triggering.

- Imagine that from your Auntie Julie,
WhatsApping the family.

"Anyone who's forgotten to sponsor
me..."

- Think how satisfying it'd be to slip
them back on, though.

Like little pieces of Lego,
just...back in.

- 100?
- Is what 100?
- 100 miles?

- No, it's anything that's longer than
a marathon, which is 26.22 miles.

But I mean, they are hundreds and
hundreds of miles sometimes.

But in order to avoid this unpleasant
and painful thing...
- Don't do marathons.

- Yes.
- Just do one marathon, and stop.

- Or do what I do when the marathon's
on.

Just go and watch other people doing
it.

- Are you a runner, Jordan? Do you run
at all?
- No.

And I've got all my toenails.
- Yes.

- I actually can't run.
- What do you mean, you can't run?

- I had an operation on my ankle a
couple of years ago,

and the doctor did an MRI on my feet

and he said, "These feet are not for
running."

Honestly!
- Medical opinion.

- That was it. He said, "These are not
runner's feet."

- Did you say, "Don't look at my
p*nis, whatever you do!"

"I don't want to know!"

- APPLAUSE

- The other thing I had was in my
heart, which is the opposite,

which is that I've got a really low
resting heart rate, super low

like to a point where sometimes I get
like an email off Fitbit

saying, "We thought we'd lost you last
night, Jason!"

It's that low. So I went to the
doctors because

I was worried about this low heart
rate, but he actually said to me,

"What you've got, Jason, is an
athlete's heart."

- Wasted!
- Wasted! I know!

Wasted like a Ferrari engine in a
Skoda.

- You could do pommel horse.

- I could do.
- Is that you doing pommel horse?

- It's the international gesture for
pommel horse!

- I mean, it looks like pizza-making,
but OK!

- You could do pizza making.
- I could do lots of things.

- So there are some ultramarathon
runners,

in order to avoid this unpleasantness,

they have their toenails surgically
removed.

I know.
- So like cosmetic surgery?

- Yeah. You can buy a T-shirt if you
are an ultramarathon runner

that says "toenails are for sissies".

- I don't think they should toenail
shame other people.

Some T-shirts are very offensive.

- Yes.
- It's not to do with being cis,
right?

Oh, such a minefield.

- No, no, it's not to do with that.

- So annoying!

- Here's a quick question. Who runs
faster, men or women?

- Well, she's running faster than him.

- So if she's running faster than him,
what does that tell you

about the actual race that they are
participating in?

- She's winning?

- Who would you imagine, men or women,
are going to run faster?

- I think men.
- Well, men are faster in, like,


- Average.
- In the running races.
- Yeah, the running races.

So...
- We think men.

- I want to tell you what I think,

but I also don't want to get
cancelled, but...

Is it men?
- Yes.

- Well, as a transgender person, I
used to be able to run a lot faster

than I can now.

- But is it just that you can't be
arsed now?

- That's very much the case, yes.

- Women have a lot of shoes that are
hard to run in,

in our defence.
- Yeah.

- Why don't we have a race, see what
happens?

- We're going to do you...
- No, not me!

I couldn't be in it.
- You do the pommel horse. I'll run
round.

- It depends. In a shorter race, say a


men tend to run 20% faster than women,

but the longer it gets, the difference
gets diminished.

So in a marathon, it's about 10%
faster, men.



Once you get to a race that's over 195
miles -

and why would you, is the thing? -

women typically run faster times.

Now, why do you think that might be?

- Because when we say we're going to
do something, we actually do it.

- CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

- If we say we're running 200 miles,

we run 200 miles.

- I mean, you're not wrong.

A lot of it is about your attitude,
but there's other things as well.

Women's muscles tend to fatigue less
quickly.

Oestrogen probably helps us to utilise
fat stores better.

And women's stomachs are smaller,

and that means that we cope with
extreme stress better.

There's an amazing woman in 2018
called Courtney Dauwalter.

She won the race in Utah that covers
more than 200 miles

and it took her 58 hours, which sounds
like a lot,

but it was ten hours less than anybody
else.

- Wow.
- I know. I mean, that's quite a
thing.

She's astonishing.

For one of the races, she lost her
sight in the final 12 miles

because it was so extreme,

and her husband had to run alongside
shouting instructions.

- If you were just passing by that and
you didn't know...

You didn't know there was a race going
on.

"Hey, mate. Leave her alone!"

- "Run!" "I can't see!" "Run!"

- The most athletic bit of
mansplaining you've ever seen.

- I tell you the one that's most
impressive. You'll find this
impressive, Sara.

In 2019, Jasmine Paris won the Montane
Spine,

running along the Pennine Way.

She beat the record by 12 hours, which
is impressive.

But she also stopped at all of the aid
stations along the route,

not to take on water - that as well -

but to express milk for her


- Oh, my God.
- I know!
- But the trouble is,

there'll be women at home at that
stage

of postnatal going, "What? How?"

- "I can't even get dressed for the
shops!"

- "I haven't brushed my teeth for
three days!"

- Making us feel bad, yeah.
- Yeah.
- Yeah. Gosh.

- Now, what ultra useful uses can you
think of for empty crisp packets?

- Oh.
- Yes?

- I'm going to lower the tone
slightly.

At school we called them Essex
condoms.

- Oh, wow.

Once you pop, you can't stop.

- All the uses of a crisp packet, they
become exponentially more

when you turn it inside out, and
you've got a shiny thing.

Like a broken wing mirror. Pop that
on, it's a wing mirror again.

- OK, so you are going to get a point
for that,

because that is exactly where we are
heading.

I have an inside-out crisp packet,

and I've been told to be very careful
and not do that.

- The sound man's going, "Aaaaagh!"

- You're absolutely right, darling. It
is the inside-out bit.

But where could we use these that
might be incredibly useful?

- Like a solar panel for mice?
- Tiny solar panel for mice. Why
would...?

- If you wanted to heat something, you
know, with a magnifying glass.

- Yeah.
- Or the other way round, of course.

Get rid of the heat because it bounces
heat away.

- Yes.
- We did it. We done it together.

- I mean, between the two of you,
there's a whole brain happening.

I mean...
- It's more than is happening over
here.

- I'm just thinking of crisps.

- What flavour? What flavour was that?

- While we're on the subject,

do you not think prawn flavour is just
all wrong?

- The prawn c*ck?
- I think it's fantastic.

- I love it.
- No, I'll tell you what annoys me,
actually.

- Oh, go on, then.
- I hope somebody at Walkers is
listening.

Cheese and onion is in a green packet.

Salt and vinegar is blue.

- APPLAUSE

- No, no...

- So Gary Lineker and everybody at
Walkers, sort your colours out.

- Do you know, people say,

how do you know when you've arrived in
a country that you've understood

all the shibboleths? Which bit of
society really matters?

It's when the British applaud colours
of crisp packets.

- Here's another crisp packet fact
while we're at it...

- Can I just say, this side, it's like
you're in a pub.

There's two old men with half a
pint...

"Tell you another thing!" And this
side we're trying to have

an intelligent conversation with a
white wine.

- I'll tell you another crisp packet
fact.
- Go on, Jase. What?

- All packets of crisps go out of date
on a Saturday.

- LAUGHTER

Can I just say, Jordan, it's normally
a higher level of conversation.

- You started off with a fart noise!

- FART NOISE

It is one of those things, isn't it,
it's like they have the A-Z

of London or of any city, and I only
know people who live

on the crack of the map. I don't know
anybody in the middle bit.

Right. Get back to the crisp packets.
- Sorry, yeah.

- You can use them to reflect UV
light,

and that can be used to disinfect
water.

It is an astonishing thing.

So it stops bacteria and viruses from
reproducing.

And a group in Australia came up with
this system

of using the shiny inside part of a
crisp packet to reflect

the sun's rays into water tanks in
Papua New Guinea.

- Wow.
- It's amazing, isn't it?

The crisp packet worked so well, it
reduced the very high E coli

levels in one sample of water to
almost undetectable levels

within 30 minutes.

Can you imagine the change this would
make in people's lives?

- And you can't recycle crisp packets,
either.

So it's also a use for them.

- There you go. Wait till Saturday.
Get 'em in the pond.

Solved!

- So why can we not see ultraviolet
light?

- Does it vibrate too fast or
something?
- It's the wavelength.

The lenses in our eyes will only let
light through that's coloured

from red to violet. So we really can't
see it.

But here's a curious thing, is that
people who have their lenses

replaced or have artificial lenses,
which is what I have.

They put an artificial lens in.

And my view of colour is that the
world is astonishing now,

and it is sometimes that the range of
colour that you can see is a bit

more than before.

- Could you get one hawk-eye?

You could see the urine of rodents in
the grass.

- That is mainly why I had it done.

- You're not getting in the X-Men
mansion with that.

"Excuse me, Professor, I'm one of you.

"There's a rat over there that's just
had a piss."

"Where's Wolverine?"

- But you don't want to hawk-eye, you
want to be bee-eye.

So bees can see ultraviolet light.

This is roughly what this flower would
look like to a bee,

the knapweed flower.

And it's just so vibrant.

- Yeah.

- I mean, when I had the bandages
taken off and I had my eyes done,

I literally could hardly stand up, the
world was so astonishing.

- Did you start buzzing?
- I did.

- Just shot up vertically. Zzzzz!

Where's Sandi? She's in that daffodil.

- So, wolves' fur absorbs UV,

and therefore shows up black against
the snow.

And that means that reindeer can see
the predators.

- I remember hearing a fact about when
they're looking for

life on other planets,

they say if that alien's got eyes on
the front facing the same

direction, that's dangerous because
that's obviously evolved

to be a predator because it doesn't
need long peripheral vision.

If the eyes are on the side, give it a
cuddle.

If its eyes are on the front, run away
really fast.

Because that's...

They imagine that would be a
biological imperative

that would go across the universe.

- That's good advice.
- I love that.
- Oh, I like that.

- Right, moving on.

What's the most expensive thing in
this painting?

- I'm going to say the pearl.

- KLAXON

Jordan?
- Oh, I've seen this programme before,
so I think it's probably

something outside the box.

Is one of those shades of paint

really expensive when it was painted?

- That is in fact it, yes.
- Is it right?!
- Wow.

- CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Girl with a Pearl Earring. Who's it
by?
- Vermeer.

- Vermeer, yes.
- Good point. Well done.

- Did you just say that, Jason?
- I did.
- Said it out loud.

- That was seriously clever.

LAUGHTER

It's the ultramarine made from lapis
lazuli,

and it was the most expensive paint in
the world.

So it's made of crushed, this is lapis
lazuli.

And at the time, it was only found in
certain mines in Afghanistan.

It was sort of eye-wateringly
expensive.

So it was used in things like the
construction of the Taj Mahal.

It was used for the eyebrows on
Tutankhamun's death mask.

It was very common for the Virgin Mary
to be painted in blue.

And that's because the church was
showing,

look how much money we have.

And patrons wanted it to be seemed
that they had spent a lot of money.

So the paint was actually listed
separately on the invoice

for the painting.

So this is a Titian and just shedloads
of lapis lazuli used

in this particular painting. I mean,
what a party that was.

But anyway, more important than that,
it's the blue,

it's the ultramarine in it.

And then they began to search for
something similar

that was cheaper.

And in 1824, somebody came up with a
substitute, and that is now

known as French ultramarine, and it
reduced artists' costs by 90%.

Let's go back to Vermeer's painting.

There's a couple of things about it
that are really interesting.

He never called it The Girl with the
Pearl Earring.

It's simply described as a tronie
painted in the Turkish style.

So a tronie is a Dutch word for a sort
of face or head or whatever.

And it's basically an ability to show
somebody's expression.

We don't know who she is. We have no
idea.

What do we think about the pearl
earring? Any thoughts about the pearl
earring?

- Big.
- It's not very pearly.
- It's not very pearly.

So both of you are correct. It's too
big for a pearl.

It looks like it's costume jewellery.

It looks like it's probably the girl
with the tin earring.

- They wanted to save money on the
lapis lazuli paint.

- We'll go to Claire's Accessories.

- "And you're not having two, cos I'm
only doing one half of your head."

- That last time it was sold, 1881.
What do you think it went for?

- 50 quid.
- Less than that.

- Five guineas.
- Just under a pound.

- Wow. 85p.
- Yeah.

- Which is about a packet of crisps!

- Two Dutch guilders.

We know very little about Vermeer.

He died when he was 43.

He died in debt because...paint,
expensive.

- Yeah.
- He was known as the Sphinx of Delft.

There are no journals, no memoirs
about him.

We think this is a portrait of him.
So, The Procuress.

It was a common practice in this
period

for the painter to look out from the
canvas and it may be him

on the left in this picture. But we
don't know.

There are no definite portraits of
Vermeer, so he's sort

of a mystery. He looks fun, though.

Do you not think?
- I don't trust him.
- No?
- No, sorry.

- He only did about three dozen
paintings in his life.

- No wonder he was skint.

- We all know a Tarzan sound when we
hear it.

Can anybody make a Tarzan sound,
please?

- Ahhh-aaaahhh...

- LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

- Ohhhhh, oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-ooohhh....

- CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

You sounded like a girl ultramarathon
runner losing a toenail.

Let's all make a Tarzan noise. It must
feel good.

Come on, let's all do it. Here we go.

AUDIENCE AND PANEL ROAR

OK. That's very good. I enjoyed that.

Now, can you make a tarsier sound?

- Oh, that's what I was doing!

Ahhh, ah-ah-ah...

- Do you sing falsetto when you're in
musicals?

That's quite high.

HIGH:
- Ahhhh....

I can get up there, yeah.

- CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

- Is that a tarsier?

- Well, I'll make a tarsier sound.
It's like this.

SANDI MOUTHS

- Oh, very, very high.
- Very high.

- Do you think he needed that length
of loincloth,

or was that just bragging?

"Oh, I'm going to need a very, very
long one."

- What's a tarsier? Anybody?

- A silent thing.

- No, it's a small primate found in
Southeast Asia.

- I love a...
- Oh, wow.
- Oh, I love these guys!

- About ten centimetres, tiny little
thing.

- A couple of Walkers crisps as ears.

- Their eyes are about 10% of their
body size,

and one single eyeball is as large or
larger than the brain.

- You said if they're looking forward,
they're predators. Now...

- Well, Alan's just been... I don't
think you realise you were doing it.

You're doing an impression of it while
you were looking right at me. And it
was terrifying!

- But if you're an ant or something,
he is an awful predator.

- I guess there is that, yeah. OK.

- So they are able to turn their head


So they have 360-degree vision, which
they need because there's

lots of things that want to eat them,
like owls

and snakes and lizards.

- One eye in the back of your head,
that would solve so much.

How long is this going to take,
evolution?

- I know. But also, I think the not
knowing is better.

If it's your time, it's your time.

You know, I think if you know it's
coming.

- Also, if their eyes are bigger than
their brains, they're probably

not that aware that they're alive at
all, are they?

On a philosophical level.

- They actually communicate quite a
lot.
- Do they?

- So, we used to think that they open
their mouths and yawn a lot.

In fact, what they're doing is they're
vocalising in ultrasonic,

so frequencies that are so high -


that we can't hear it.

And tests have now shown they are
screeching

at 70,000-90,000 hertz.

That's like echolocation in bats or
dolphins or whatever.

And it's to warn each other that there
might be some predators.

- They're screeching, "Owls! Snakes!
Everywhere!

"Why do we live here?!"

- Gary Lineker is trying to eat your
ears!

- There are other creatures that emit
sounds which we can't hear.

The North American Richardson's ground
squirrel, which is also known

sweetly as a flickertail.

And there's a guy called Dr Lloyd
Davis, and he worked out

that the calls that they're making,
the ones we can't hear, are,

in fact, warnings to other
flickertails.

But he encouraged them to emit these
warning calls by throwing

Frisbees at them.

- No, that's someone catching you in
the lab and you pretending

it's an experiment.
- Yeah.

- It's making up an experiment really
fast.

"We're just trying to teach them to
catch it."
- Yeah.

- Oh, what a trick that would be.

You'd be an absolute YouTube
phenomenon.

- To get a squirrel to catch a
Frisbee?

Yeah, that is very good.

So before they were used to track an
unborn baby, what are ultrasound

machines used for, do you think?

What would we use them for before we
used them for babies?

It's locating welding faults...
- Right.
- ..in shipyards, and they're also
used

to check on the foetuses of non-human
animals like the manta ray.

It turns out that foetal mantas fold
their wings about themselves

in utero and it makes what the
researchers called

a manta burrito.

And they had to attach the ultrasound
machine to manta rays

and they didn't know how they should
do this.

And in fact, it turns out what they
use is peanut butter.

I know! So, because you know how
peanut butter can kind of

suck the moisture out of your mouth
and it gets sort of tacky and sticky?

And it sucks the moisture from the
slimy skin of the fish.

And that's what they use. They use
peanut butter.

- I hope they don't put them back in
the sea being all tasty, covered

in peanut butter.

- That would not be good.

Can you guess any problems with
ultrasounding animals?

Any things that are...
- This is...?

- Oh! Is that one going in or coming
out?

- This is a pregnant elephant called
Tamar.

- Why do they have to put the elephant
on a stool?

They just need a lower table
themselves!
- Yeah!

- They get on and say, "Oh, no, I'm
too high now.

"You have to get the elephant on the
stool."

- No, it's the guy... It's the guy in
the front there. He's gone,

"No, I've put him on the stools.
You'll just have to get a table."

- They both go...like that. Yeah.

- "He won't get off the stool. We'll
have to get a table now."

She. She, obviously.

- There ARE some issues.

If they use it for okapis, they tend
to lick the gel off themselves.

A rhino has too much fat, apparently,
for the ultrasound to penetrate.

And so you can go up the rectum
instead, which is presumably

what they're doing with the...
- Oh...
- That is a difficult conversation

with the patient.

- 22 months' gestation for an
elephant. That's a lot, isn't it?

- And also, they quite often lose
their first baby, don't they?

The first gestation, they give birth
to a live calf who dies,

and then they have to do it all again.
- Gosh...
- I know.

- Wow, that was a downer.
- Sorry. Sometimes nature's
depressing.

- LIVELY POLKA MUSIC PLAYS BRIEFLY

- Yeah!

- It was getting a bit... Yeah.

- OK, here's a fantastic thing.

There's a German designer called
Rebecca Weiss, and she developed

an ultrasound contraceptive for men. I
don't know what you're

going to think about this.

So, basically, it involves dunking the
testicles in warm saltwater

for a few minutes every single day
while this machine shoots

ultrasound at them.

And apparently, after two weeks, the
man is no longer fertile,

or - I'm going to guess - in the mood.

- I've kind of changed my mind, love,
actually...
- Yeah.

- And it lasts for about six months,
so...

- Who's going to believe you when
you're on your gap year,

going, "Oh, I'm all right for another
five and a half months."

- Yeah, honestly. Check them, they're
salty.

- That's why they're in blue
underpants.

- So we're going to try a little
experiment with the audience.

- Are we going to dunk their ballocks
in saltwater?

- The way it's going to work - the
boys are having the experiment,

the girls are having crisps. That's
it.

No, we're going to play with some
ultrasound.

So, Alan, because it's too heavy for
me, can you pick this up,

darling, and put it on here for me?
- Why, certainly.

- So this is a Holosonic speaker.

So a Holosonic speaker is a bit like a
spotlight with light -

it can focus sound exactly.

All right, so what SHOULD happen is
that you might be able to hear

something that I'm pointing it
directly at you, but the person

either side of you will not be able to
hear it, OK?

So the way it works is that the
speaker fires out

a very narrow beam of ultrasound, so
that is inaudible in the air.

But when it hits something solid like
a person or a wall,

it becomes audible.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going
to start over here.

If you hear the sound, I mean, really
hear it loud and clear

as if it was on headphones for you,
please, can you put your hand up?

And when it disappears, please, can
you put your hand down

and we'll see if we are able to direct
the sound exactly.

So I'm going to start over here and
I'm going to move it and just...

MUSIC PLAYS SOFTLY

- Wow, that's so cool!
- Wow!

That was the most calm Mexican wave
I've ever seen.

- So we're going to go back the other
way.

And if you, again, could you raise
your hands?

And my friend, Sarah Lloyd, is sitting
there with

a microphone in order that the
audience can hear

what's happening.

OK, let's try again. Here we go...

SOMEONE WHISPERS:
- That's so neat!

- We have control of the news.

- It's the weirdest thing!

But what could happen, you see, for
example,

it could be that a whole group of
people

are all watching a film, but they
could all be watching it

in different languages. You could
direct the sound.

AUDIBLE GASPS, SOUNDS OF AWE

Exactly.
- Oh, good noise!
- I know!
- Good noise.

You know what, I actually think
they've been having them

at my gigs lately, cos...

- LAUGHTER

- ..I just feel like not everyone's...

- I love that, and thank you for
participating in our experiment.

Next time someone catches you yawning
in a meeting,

just explain you are making an
approving comment,

ultrasonically.

Right. It may seem ultra-cautious, but
why didn't London's

oldest umbrella shop let you open one
indoors?

JASON:
- I'm not saying it.
- Unlucky. Because it's unlucky.

- Yes!
- Thank you.

- Have you been to the shop?
- Yeah.
- It's fantastic. James Smith and
Sons.

I've been in many, many times and
they're the most glorious people.

I hurt my leg once.

They made me a cane that was exactly
the right height...
- Oh, wow.

- ..for me. They're just phenomenal.

They've been there since 1830...
- Did they just saw a bit off

an ordinary cane?
- Yes, basically.

Yeah. And then put a little rubber tip
on it. That was the end of it.

But what about opening it up indoors?

- A bit dangerous?
- Have your eye out.

- Well, HE'S doing it!

- Yes.

And they have chairs so you can try
the umbrella in a sitting position.

This one is perfect.

- The truth is, umbrella sellers
wanted you to believe

that you shouldn't open it up indoors
because then if you left

a wet umbrella closed, it would go
mouldy

and you'd have to buy a new one. ALL:
- Ohhh!

- There is absolutely no reason
whatsoever not to open it indoors.

And what they say in the shop is, "Oh,
well, we have countered

"the superstition about the opening of
umbrellas indoors

"because we have a massive horseshoe
in the shop."

They have a massive horseshoe and that
makes it all OK.

But the original shop, the very first
shop,

was too small to actually open an
umbrella,

and this is a marvellous large shop.

It doesn't have proper foundations,
and the story goes that

during the Blitz there was a b*mb, and
the entire shop

jumped off the ground and landed in
one piece.

It's basically a pop-up umbrella shop.

But it was a gentleman, the very first
male umbrella user

in Britain, a man called Jonas Hanway.

And he decided, "I'm going to use an
umbrella."

- Hang on a minute.
- What?

- There's a basket with legs there.

I think that rather stuck-up,
hoity-toity man with the

expensive blue paint is being mocked,
ridiculed,

by an urchin in a basket.

- I think you're right, and
"ridiculed" is exactly right.

He would walk around London and he
would be ridiculed

by everybody because there he was, a
bloke carrying an umbrella.

And there was one time a cab driver
actually tried

to run him over, he was so incensed by
him carrying an umbrella.

So he hit the cab driver with the
umbrella.

There's a fascinating piece of
Japanese folklore

that neglected items - if you left an
umbrella, for example -

they start to cause mischief, OK?

And a sentient umbrella is known as a
kasa-obake,

and it comes to life after 100 years
of abandonment,

and it has a massive tongue, and it's
harmless unless it witnesses

someone being wasteful.

But if you pick it up after 100 years
of abandonment and use it

as a regular umbrella, it will carry
you up into the sky.

- Don't do drugs, kids.

- And they have a phrase, I guess it
means "under one umbrella"

and apparently it sounds a bit like
"love",

so it's very common for Japanese
sweethearts to write each other's

names under an umbrella, and it
symbolises love.

So the one on the left is Sandi and
the one on the right is Alan.

- What's the rules about the hotel
umbrella?

I often wondered that, you know...
- What, nicking it?
- Well...

You know, you're not coming back here,
you're leaving.

And it's raining, he gives it to you,
what are you supposed to do?

- It's only going to go mouldy if it's
been left...

- They'll give you a mouldy umbrella.
- ..in there wet.

- Well, there was a start-up Chinese
business in 2017,

and it was for umbrella lending.

They put 300,000 GPS-tracked umbrellas
around 11 cities,

but they forgot to tell people how to
return them,

and they didn't charge a fee if you
didn't return them.

And apparently after three months,

they were all gone. Every single one.

Yeah. Lost $9 per umbrella.
- I'm out.

- Yeah, millions...
- I'm not investing.

- Now, what use is a shaved Dalmatian?

- Faster than a normal one?

- Yes, by a lot.

- Probably not good to race dogs,

but if you're going to race them, give
them a little shave.

- Have you ever been to the dog races?

- No, I don't think it's a good thing
to do, is it?

- OK, I was going to tell you how much
fun it is, but no.

That's right. It's all wrong.

So, we're talking about an ultra thing
in terms of shaved Dalmatians.

This is sort of extraordinary.

There's something called
ultramicrotomy,

and so this involves basically slicing
things into very, very thin

pieces so that you can view them under
an electron microscope.

I mean, we are talking about 50-70
nanometres thin.

Try and imagine cutting a human hair
into 2,000 pieces lengthwise and

you can have some understanding of how
tiny it is.

And to move these items around without
damaging the sample,

they use chopsticks with tiny, tiny
hair on the end and apparently

sometimes taken from your own
eyelashes, but the hair

from a Dalmatian, tiptop, because they
taper

to a very fine point.

- If you shave one, do all the spots
come back in the same place?

- The spots are on the skin. Yeah,
absolutely.

Yeah, so they don't... I mean, it
would look exactly the same.

- Disappointing.

If you ever join the dots on one, what
picture do you get?

- I tell you what, what is...
- Another dog.

- A different breed of dog, yeah.
You'd get a King Charles Spaniel.

- In this whole world of sliced up
things, you'd see

everything completely differently, so
have a look at this.

These are some examples of sliced up
things.

Anybody, any thoughts about what those
things might be?

- Ooh!

- Look at one on the left, the blue
one. It's beautiful, isn't it?

- Really beautiful.

- JORDAN:
- It's not lapis lazuli, is it?

- It's your colon.

- Mine?

- Well, not YOUR colon, no.

- You know when we made you stand on
those little stools?

- That'll be a testicle in the middle
then, will it?

- Well, no, it's the root of the lily
of the valley, so...

- Oh.

- The one on the left is a mouse
colon, in case you're worried

that anybody has unnecessarily had
something sliced.

- Sorry, I've not quite understood
this.

So this is a cross-section of it?

- Yes, so unbelievably thin, otherwise
you wouldn't be able to see...

- I see.
- ..all of those beautiful fractals.

- Like Ant-Man.
- Like Ant-Man!

- I thought it was a slice...

- If you didn't have Ant-Man, you'd
have to do this,

but if you've got Ant-Man, you could
say to him,

"Go and have a look in that mouse
colon, will you?"

- How much can a hawk eye see?

Can it see in this kind of detail?

- Don't pretend you don't want a hawk
eye.

You want a hawk eye.
- Of course I do!

- I have moments, Jordan, when I feel
like a complete saint.

Just saying.

- One of my favourite things about
this,

seeing your disapproval this close up
is the most enjoyable thing.

I love it. It's so sweet.

- APPLAUSE

- I was hoping that's what the picture
on the right was going to be.

Sandi's disapproval.

- No, the one on the right, which is
the most colourful,

is the small intestine.

Dalmatians, named after...?

- Dalmatia?

- Yes, which is where? Modern day...?
- Germany?

- No, Croatia. Modern day Croatia.

Dalmatia is the bit in red.

This is a map of the Roman Empire.

It was the latest map we could find.

There used to be a speaker of the
Dalmatian language...

- Woof, woof!

- APPLAUSE

- Woof!

- Dalmatian crisps, spotted packet.

- The last known speaker died in 1898,
and it drew me to the island

that he was living on, it's spelled
K-R-K, pronounced, "Kerk."

And it has this dry white wine, which
I had never heard of.

Have you ever heard of this? So this
is the Zhlatina grape.

It's found nowhere else in the world.

And they make this particular
sparkling wine and they ferment

it underwater because it's guaranteed
the perfect



And when they bring the bottles up,
it's sold straight from the seabed.

It's got coral and shellfish attached
to the bottle.

Don't you want to try that?
- Yeah.

- Yes! We don't have any, but I
really...

- You get it from Majestic Warehouse.

- There you have it. That's your
Dalmatians 101.

Can I just say, that looks better
written down?

It does, it looks better written down.

- Good joke, that.
- That was a good joke.

- British intelligence used the word
"ultra" to refer to

their most top-secret intelligence
during World w*r II.

But which item of underwear was most
useful to a spy?

JORDAN:
- Oh.
- Yes, Jordan?

- Well, I suspect no underwear.

And I'll tell you for why.

Because in order to qualify as a spy,

you do have to spend some time as a
commando.

- LAUGHTER, CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

- I would imagine that it's something
invisible

because they love invisible stuff.

- What about bras?

If you have a Wonderbra or something
similar, it has pockets

where the pads can go, and you could
remove the pads

and then put secrets in it.

- I mean, you're right.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

- Unbelievable!

We are getting trounced here.

- There's me going on about invisible
knickers like a prick.

- Unbelievable. Unbelievable!

You've lost this game for us!

- I don't know what I'm doing any
more. I've totally lost the plot.

Do some pommel horse, distract them.

- So, I once met a very elderly woman

and her job in the Second World w*r
was to make maps on silk.

She drew them on silk.

That was her thing.

And silk, fantastic, durable, can be
kept in very small containers.

And when the information on them was
out of date,

they repurposed them as underwear.

They made bras and pants

In fact, this is a set here, belonged
to Countess Mountbatten.

It's in the Imperial w*r Museum.

I love it. You'd be comfortable,

and you can get around central Italy
with no trouble whatsoever.

- All your friends would live in the
cleavage.

- Yeah.

Let me tell you, I'm fine with that.

World w*r I responsible for a great
surge of the popularity

of the bra in North America

because there was a campaign to save
steel for battleships,

so the corset went out of fashion.

They collected 28,000 tons of steel
that was from corsets,

enough to make a couple of
battleships.

- What?! 28,000 tonnes of corsets?!

- I know, I know.

Women were very restrained.
- Oh, they must have been!

And couldn't go on aeroplanes.

- HE IMITATES AN ALARM

- Clang!

"Chainmail bra you've got on there,
love."

- The N95 face mask, which we all
became extremely familiar with,

I think you've got some.
- Oh, I love them. Love them.

- Originally used for bra cups by the
company, 3M.

- Hang on a minute. I've got an
elephant one.

- Yeah, that works.

I mean, I'm quite new to this whole
boob thing,

but I think this is how it works.

Yeah.

- Oh, there we go!

Amazing woman called Sara Little
Turnbull.

She was one of the first American
industrial designers.

She designed everything from medical
masks,

she came up with these in 1958, to
space suits and unbelievably rare

that she was a woman.

Plus, she was called Little Sara
because she was only 4ft 11,

which is tiny. I mean, I'd hate to be
that small.

Here's a really weird thing.

When Disneyland opened, we're talking
about 1955,

they had a lingerie shop.

I know. It just seems really unlikely.

It was called the intimate apparel
shop.

So, this is fantastic.

They had the Wonderful Wizard of
Bras...

..and it was a mechanical character
who spoke from a revolving stage,

utilising the marvel of tape recorder
technology.

Anyway, shop lasted six months and
closed down.

- It was run by Goofy, though, wasn't
it?

- HE CHORTLES AS GOOFY

- He's pulling them all out now after
the Tarzan fiasco.

- I can do Goofy.
- You can only do dogs.

- Very good on dogs.

This is a really weird bit of British
law.

So, in Britain, houses that back onto
each other

have to be at least 21 metres apart.

That's the law.

It was written in 1902 and it was
written to protect women's modesty.

So two men decided to walk away from
each other until one of them

couldn't see the other's n*pples under
their...

..under their shirt,

and it hasn't been updated since!

- What year was that?

- 1902.
- Wow.
- n*pples were much smaller then.

- Also, eyesight's improved as well,
so...

- I'm confident I could see a nipple
at the end of our garden.
- Oh, easy.

- If you are ever lost in Italy, just
ask someone if you can see

their pants and you just might get
lucky.

Now it's time for some ultra unfair
unknowns

in the round we call General
Ignorance.

Fingers on buzzers, please.

Which airline flies to the most
destinations?

ACCORDION

Yes, Jordan.

- Santa.

- APPLAUSE

I mean, you're just stealing the show
today.

No, so it's the American courier, UPS.

- UPS!
- They have UPS airlines, and they fly
regularly to a total

of 755 destinations.

So the nearest commercial airline,
probably American Airlines,

which is a mere 350, but less than
half they have.

The headquarters, I like, of UPS, is
at Louisville International Airport,

from which there are no international
flights whatsoever.

- I actually did a corporate gig for
UPS.
- Did you?

- Yeah, about three weeks ago. It was
on a Tuesday,

but I went on Thursday. See how they
like it.

- LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE

CHEERING

- Oh, my goodness!

- What, I get nothing?

- To the nearest thousand, how many
elvers are eaten each year

at the Elver Eating World
Championship?

- Oh, they shouldn't!

- ALAN AND JASON:
- What's an elver?
- A baby eel!

- Can I just point out here? Not one
woman.

That is something blokes go,

"I'll tell you what we should do. We
should eat them."

- We'd run 200 miles to get away from
that.

- I'm going to go zero.

Cos they're not actual ones.

- Oh, nice. Good one, Alan!

- That is correct.

- Yes!

- CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

- Shake it, shake it, shake it, shake
it!

- ALL:
- Shake it, shake it, shake it!

- CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

So, elver, indeed, baby eel.

And there used to be these
competitions

in the town of Frampton on Severn,

and they would see who could eat a
pound.

It's about 900 in total, fried in
bacon fat.



But huge decline in numbers in the


and so they've started eating a
processed whitefish

instead called surimi.

Now, how many horns did the
Pentaceratops have?

- Five.
- Five, yeah.

- Three, three...
- I mean, badly named.

- Well, there's six there. I'm going
to say six.

- What did you say?
- I said three.
- Three is correct.

So...
- Good one.

- So, they lived about 80 million
years ago.

- Thanks, over there.

My jokes are directional.

- You're on one of those speakers.

- Yeah, it's only the paid people who
are laughing.

- So similar to triceratops, but they
had three horns,

but they also had two very sharpened
cheekbones.

Largest skull of any land vertebrate
that ever lived.

I mean, just massive.
- Very, very strong neck.

- There are lots and lots of
ceratopsians, so...

LAUGHTER

So...

- Otherwise you'd just keep going,
"Oh, God, no..."

"I'm so tired."

- There are lots of lots, of which my
favourite is the one called

the Unescoceratops.

It's named for Unesco.

- It's all guesswork, though, innit,
dinosaur stuff?

Know what I mean? Like, you get a few
bones and that...

Like that thing that looks like a
pineapple there,

some guy's just gone, "Ah..."

"Probably looked a bit like this."

- I do think that's probably fair

because the Unescoceratops,

they basically found one bit of one
jawbone and that's it.

- Fleshed it out from there.

- "It must have looked like this."

Pentaceratops is not as horny as we
thought.

So, it only remains for me to give you
the scores.

Let's have a quick look.

In last place, screaming though nobody
can hear them, with -15,

it's Jason!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

- That's why I'm booked.

Just to help you out.

- Left in the shade, holding the
umbrella, with -14,

it's Alan!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

- Thank you very much.

We knew it was bad.

- Next in second place, always in
someone's shadow, with -13,

it's Sara! CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And in first place, with an ultra-fine
performance,

and a full-on ten points,

it's Jordan! CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Thank you to Jordan, Sara, Jason and
Alan,

and I leave you with this undeniable
Dutch proverb.

"If all fools could fly, the sun would
be eclipsed forever."

Goodnight.