21x08 - U Animals

[bunniefuu]

This programme contains some strong
language

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

Hello. Welcome to QI.

On tonight's episode

we're unearthing the untamed, the
unfriendly

and the utterly unique in the world of
U animals.

And my guests tonight are "udderly"
brilliant,

the unflappable Ahir Shah.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

The unmistakable Lara Ricote.

CHEERING

The unbeatable Rhod Gilbert.

CHEERING

And the unerringly unbelievable Alan
Davies.

CHEERING

And their buzzers tonight are all
provided by ungulates,

which are large mammals with hooves.

See if you can guess which ones they
are.

So Ahir goes...

MOOING

What do you reckon?

- I mean, it sounds pretty sacred to
me.

- OK.

Lara goes...

BAAING

Aw.
- Aw, the famous goat.

- The lovely goat. Rhod goes...

DEEP GRUNTING

- Sorry, just getting in a bit of
exercise.

That was a hippo.

- No, hang on.

MOUTHS: camel, camel.
- What?

A camel?

- Say it with more confidence.
- Yes, hang on.

A camel.
- Yes!

APPLAUSE

And Alan goes...

MUSIC: Crazy Horses by The Osmonds

# Crazy horses! #

That's so fantastic. So now you know
what an ungulate is,

which has the most useful urine?

- It depends what we're needing it
for.

- Oh, OK.

So the one that provides the most use
in the world

is what I'm looking for.

- Ooh, that's narrowed it down.
- Yeah.

- Is it used for ammonia?

- It's used for all sorts of things.

We like what's in it, so we like
nitrogen, for example,

phosphorus.

- Got to be a lot of animals to get a
lot of urine.

- Yes.
- So an animal that's bred for other
things, food, maybe?

- No.
- No, OK.

Deer.

- Bigger than that.
- Oh, camel.

- Big, bigger than that.

- Elephant.
- Bigger than that.

- What? A whale?

- Yes.
- A blue whale?

- Yes.
- Oh, shut up!

- APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

- Hold... Hold on.

Hold on. Wait. Have we...

Have we really glossed over

the "fact" that blue whales have
hooves?

- So here's the thing about ungulates,
right.

They are hoofed animals and the whale
has no hooves,

so you'd think, "Mm, mm."

But a common ancestor of all hoofed
mammals includes

whales and dolphins.

I know, that's really weird, isn't it?

- Just retracted. They retracted them.

- So about 60 million years ago they
had an ancestor

and that means that there are several
groups which don't have hooves.

That includes elephants and whales and
dolphins.

- Somebody has really messed up there.

- Yeah. That they don't have hooves?

- Yeah, somebody...

What's it? Is it genealogy? Is that a
group...?

- Genealogy is more like your
grandfather was in the army. It's more
like that.

- He was, actually, the Home Guard.
- Was he?!

Extra point for Rhod.

AUDIENCE:
- Hurray!

- So in 2019, they found this
incredible fossil.

It's a four-legged whale with hooves.

It was found in Peru.

And it just shows

how the ancestors of the Earth's
largest mammals made the transition.

So this is a semi-aquatic creature.

It is 42.6 metres long,

so that's four fifths the height of
Nelson's Column.

- With the four little horse legs?
- And had little hooves.

Can you imagine? Something the size of
Nelson's Column

comes out the water going, "Hello."

- You just said, like, "Oh, they found
a whale with legs and hooves.

At what stage do you just go, "Well,
it's not a whale"?

- Yeah.

- Like... All right, so there's this
type of whale, but it's got

arms and legs and a beard.

It's just Rhod. It's Rhod.
- Yeah.

- A little question on the subject of
useful urine.

- This doesn't surprise me.

- I get ear infections quite a bit,
right.

- Please stay with the ears.

- And my wife...
- Yes.
- ..always

wants to urinate in my ear.

- Wow, that is something specific to
your wife.
- No.

Well, is it?

I don't know. She says that her
grandmother

used to urinate in her ears

and their ears

when they had ear infections and
earache as kids,

their grandmother used... I mean, I
don't think...
- Are you saying...?

- I think she put it into a vehicle
first.
- Yes.
- And then a funnel.

I don't think she just squatted over
their heads.

- Are you saying your wife comes from
a family of pissheads, is that it?

Blue whale urine is very important for
the health of the oceans.

So very high levels, you mentioned
ammonia, it's phosphorus and nitrogen,
incredibly high.

And it produces 1,200 litres of pee
every single day.

- Whoa!
- But it basically helps to feed coral
reefs.

It helps seagrass meadows, all the
various underwater ecosystems.

- How do you know how much pee...?

Because as soon as it comes out,

it's into the sea, isn't it?
- Yeah.

- I hate the sort of, like, double
standards

because it's like, they piss in the
water...
- Mm.

- ..and it's thank you for saving the
coral reefs.

And I'm banned from the leisure
centre.

- It doesn't...it doesn't seem right,
does it?

But they help phytoplankton to grow

and they create about half the world's
oxygen,

plus also food for things like krill
and small fish and so on.

And they travel great distances,
whales.

So it's known as the Great Whale
Conveyor Belt.

It is probably the most useful urine
in the world,

but on the subject of your wife,

so lots of people use urine
medicinally.

Cow urine, for example, is used in
lots of countries.

India, there are Hindu organisations

that believe cow urine is basically,
it's a sort of cure all.

There was the Cow Commission of India.

They produced a leaflet saying, in
- Cow Commission of India?

- Cow Commission of India.
- The CCI.

- Yeah, as they're known.

- My father's on the board.

- Little cup of urine next to every
man.

- Well, I mean, if you'd like, I have
some here.

So this...
- No!

- Yeah.
- That's cow piss?

- This is cow piss, yes.

- I've got coffee. Is that what you
normally have?

- And the CCI believe it's good for
diseases of the eye,

the abdomen, the... Wow!

Treating leprosy, asthma.

I mean, pretty much everything.
Cancer.

There were people who thought...
- Let's try it.

- Don't actually drink it, darling, I
promise you...

- Listen, when you've got cancer,
you'll try anything. Give it here.

- No, don't please don't drink it. I
really...

CHEERING

- That's so British. "Down it, down
it!"

- Do you want to smell it? ALAN:
- Oh, yes, I want to smell it.

Of course I want to smell it.

I've seen these in vending machines.
- Yes.

- At the leisure centre.

I don't want to smell it. What am I
smelling it for?

I'd do anything!

- RHOD:
- In Australia they all talk about

the box jellyfish, don't they?
- Yeah.

- They say don't get stung by a box
jelly...

- Isn't something, if you get stung by
a jellyfish,

people are supposed to pee on your leg
is the thing?

- Yeah, they pee right on your leg.
- Do they?
- No...

- I mean, my dad...
- Only...only.

- I mean, for men, it's easier.

If my mum did it, I'd be way harder.

- So, wait a minute. Your wife pissed
in your ear

and your father pissed on your leg?
- No...

- My dad has pissed on my leg.

- No-one has ever peed on me in any
manner whatsoever.

- They always say that if you get
stung,

that's what you're supposed to do,
urinate on...

- ALAN:
- I think we've had it on this show
and it doesn't work.

- Doesn't actually work.
- I've just had a look at this bottle

and for the benefit of anyone who
can't read Hindi,

that says "sell only to white people".

I'm not sniffing it.
- No.

- It does actually smell very strong,
doesn't it?

- Do you want to smell it, my darling?

- I smelled it twice.
- Oh, OK.

- Why did you smell it twice?

- Because it passed again and I was
like, "Maybe another."

- Maybe it'll get better, yeah, like a
fine wine.

So this is not anywhere near as thick
as camel urine,

which is more...
- Thick?!

- Yeah.
- What a word.

- I know. Well, camel urine, more like
maple syrup, darling.

Yeah.
- Oh!
- AUDIENCE:
- Oh!

- Oh, good noise, good noise.

Yeah.
- Oh, it's viscous, isn't it, camel?
- Yeah.
- I would call it.

- So it's been used medicinally in the
Arabian Peninsula for centuries.

Apparently, the urine of the pregnant
female is the best.

- Yeah, I've been saying that for
years.

- Er...
- Don't flush it! Don't flush it!

I'm coming in.

- When your dad pissed on your leg,
um...

..did it feel better? Did it help?

- Yeah, it really did.

We found out later that you can also
just put vinegar on it,

but, like, my whole... What a gross
thing to say,

but my whole family has peed on each
other when we've gone...

But I grew...
- Do they...?
- But...

Wait... Wait...

- Do they literally just stand there
and...?
- Yeah.

But also, when you're at the beach...
- Whistling.

- When you're at the beach and you
get, like,

you get stung by a jellyfish,

you're, like, freaking out.
- Yeah.

- You've got to get pee quick

and so whatever, the quickest way to
get pee on you.

- So vinegar will work?
- Or pee.

- If this happened so often, why
didn't you just take some vinegar?

- Yeah.

100% the right thing to say.

- Yeah.
- Well, also, can I just pass this on
to your whole family?

According to scientists, sea water is
the best thing

and there's lots of that right where
the jelly...

- No, that is not true!
- It is true.
- That is not true.
- It is true.

APPLAUSE

- Oh, no!

- Your dad has been peeing on you...

- For no reason.

- ..all this time for no reason,

and he knows about that.

- Rhod's suddenly taking a very
haughty position

on family members pissing on each
other.

- Now, from urine to ursine.

What kind of bear is this?

MOOING

- Trick question.

It's not a bear, it's a whale.

- LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

It's a whale being excused behind a
tree.

I like that. What colour bear do we
think it is?

- Light brown.

- Golden.
- Cream?

- No, it's a black bear with white
fur.

It is known as a Kermode or a spirit
bear.

But it is a variant of the American
black bear.

So it's got a recessive gene that
turns the fur white.

But everything else, they've got full
pigmentation.

You can see, the eyes are brown.

It's not albinism. It's just the fur.

- Looks like he's still struggling to
come to terms with it.
- I know.

Where would you find them, do you
think?

- Behind that tree.

- You find them in the Great Bear
Rainforest, which is in Canada.

So British Columbia's north and
central coast - it's an area

roughly the size of Ireland.

And one of the things they do is that
they carry salmon carcasses

deep into the forest.

And so the forest floor gets all the
nutrients from the ocean,

which is effectively transferred to
the trees.

Don't you think that's extraordinary?
- Yeah, that is.

- Canadian trees are pescatarian?

- I mean, that's one way of looking at
it, yes.

- This show. You really do learn
something.

- I know, you're learning a lot.
Whales have got hooves

and trees eat fish.
- Yeah!

- Who knew?

So, why might it be an advantage to be
a white bear?

- Are you really asking us what
advantages there are to being white?

- LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

- How long have we got?

- The...the second that I saw you lean
forward, I was just like,

"Rhod's got there first."

- Well, as is my prerogative.
- Yeah!

- It's a joke! It's a joke!

- So, you have to imagine if you were
a salmon in the water

and you're looking up at the pale blue
sky,

you will not see a white bear

as easily as you would see a black
bear.

So that is one of the reasons. It is
ill*gal to hunt them,

so that helps to protect them, because
they are...
- Oh...

- Because they are...
- That's r*cist.

- There's about 400 of them today
because there's just not that many.

- All behind the one tree.
- Yeah.

Now, which underwater creature has the
most teeth?

- Is it Esther Rantzen on a scuba
diving holiday?

- Excellent '80s reference.

- Rylan Clark on a submarine?

Bang up-to-date there.

Is it going to be tiny teeth in a
tiny, tiny, toothy creature?

- It is, my darling. You've done this
show before.

It's called an umbrella slug.

Umbraculum umbraculum.

- It looks like a daffodil.

- Don't you think it looks like it's
dressed for a sort of

Gone With The Wind party?

It has more than 10,000 teeth

and, in its lifetime, it will go
through three quarters of a million,

possibly more than three quarters of a
million.
- What?!
- What?!

- So the shark, by comparison, if it
was the toothiest shark,

it'll have only a few hundred in its
mouth at any one time.

It'll grow to about 30,000 in its
lifetime.

This one, a quarter of a million
teeth. So...

- Why?
- Well, human teeth are made of
calcium phosphate.

The umbrella slug's teeth are sort of
long ribbons of chitin.

So that's the same material that make
up...

- Kites.
- Kites, yes.

Crustacean exoskeletons or insect
exoskeletons,

squid beaks, things like that.

And the slug's mouth is located at the
bottom of its foot, OK?

And it's in a cleft which opens up as
it crawls

on top of sea sponges.

So, they are able to scrape food off
the floor.

And, basically, the teeth are
constantly worn down

and replaced by an ever-growing
chitinous conveyor belt.

So it's constant teeth renewal.

- Chitinous conveyor belt!
- I know. That's good, isn't it?

Yep.
- I mean, for it to be a tooth,
doesn't it need to have,

like, at least some quality of a
tooth?

- Not on this show.

- It's not made of calcium...
- That is an existential question,
that.

- Yeah.

- So what are teeth used for?

They're used to grasp at the food.

They're used to break the food up.
- Yeah.

- And it does do that. It scrapes at
the food and...
- Right.

- ..and ingests it, so...
- Right.

- Are you happy with that?

- I mean, I guess. She said it really
sternly.
- But, like...

- I'm sorry.
- Sandi...
- Have some cow urine, all right?

- You sounded incredibly convincing,

providing a definition of teeth that
would extend to hands.

- So, the umbrella slug has the most
teeth of any creature.

The umbrella octopus is unusual among
smaller molluscs in what?

There it is. Look at that.
- Ooh!

- DEEP GRUNTING

- I just thought nobody's used a
buzzer for a bit.
- No.

Mr Camel.
- He's unusual cos he's only...

He's only got seven legs.

- No, we're on, we're on teeth.
- Oh, we're still on teeth?
- Yeah.

- He's got no teeth or one tooth?
- He's got no teeth.

Got no teeth at all.

- He's got one tooth!

- They can swallow small fish and
worms whole.

They live deeper than other octopuses,

and so they've lost their ability to
squirt ink.

They're so cute, they're also known as
adorabilis.

AUDIENCE:
- Aw!

- Yes. Oh, suddenly...
- Can they not squirt because they're
too deep?

It's too much pressure? They're
trying...?
- It's too dark, darling.

You couldn't see.
- It'd be pointless squirting.

- Pointless squirting.
- "Ditch the ink.

"We've gone too deep. Ditch the ink."

"Where are your teeth?" "sh*t!"

"Whose idea was this?"

- Right. What's it like being an owl?

- I imagine it's quite hard going.

- Hard going in what way?
- Just the hours.

- Rhod's done a lot of jobs.

I know one thing about them. It's just
their faces.

They're concave.
- Yeah.
- So they... So sound goes in and
reverberates

and they can hear heartbeats
underground.

- OK, so...
- What?!
- So, inadvertently,

you've headed towards the actual
answer of the question I asked.

- This is good. This is like...
- What's it like being an owl?

What do you...?
- Quite noisy.
- Quite noisy.

Yes, OK, so here is the thing.

We're talking about something called
umwelt.

So it's the idea that every single
living being on the planet

has its own unique way of
understanding its surroundings.

And we can objectively analyse the
senses that an owl has,

but we could never really know what it
is like to be an owl.

Super-sensitive about sound and they
can pick up the location of sounds

so much better than we can.

- And they can pick up on your
attitudes and opinions,

your political leaning.

- RHOD:
- Florence Nightingale carried an owl
around, didn't she?

- She did. She had a pet owl. Yes,
absolutely.

- Why is she known as The Lady With
The lamp, then?

- It was a...

- I would've thought the owl would
have been more memorable.

- It was, as a matter of historical
fact, it was entirely made up

by a Times journalist and nobody ever
called her

The Lady With The Lamp.

So she was actually known to the men
by a completely different name.

- Yeah, Weird Owl Lady.

- She was appalled to realise that
only officers were being given

medicines, and the medicines were kept
in a cabinet.

She was so angry about this,

she took a hammer and she smashed the
lock on the cabinet

and gave the medicines out to the
soldiers.

And the men called her The Lady With
The Hammer,

which is so much better than The Lady
With The Lamp.

- Good story.

- APPLAUSE

So, "umwelt" means "environment" in
German,

but there was a 20th century zoologist
called

Jakob von Uexkull, and he wrote...
It's so interesting.

If you imagine life as an oyster,

the world is all about the water
coming and going.

The world for a jellyfish would be
electricity and pee, basically.

- It's also interesting to connect
that to the idea in Hinduism

of, like, maya and the subjective
illusions of reality that surround

us, and trying to go through that and
having vidya, like the true

knowledge of what's... And this is,
like, thousands of years prior to

this concept coming up in a German
zoologist all that time later,

and it's like, "Oh, there's nothing
new under the sun."

- But don't you love that?
- Yeah, it's great.

- We should pay attention to what the
Hindus

have known for generations, all of
those things...

- Yeah, pass me that cow piss.

- Lara, I'm going to ask you a
question.

Why do you think dogs might struggle
to play poker?

- Colour-blind.

- Is exactly right. You get a point.

- Oh!

- APPLAUSE

- Thank you.

I thought it was just going to be,
come up, and the klaxon.
- No...

- Everyone was going to be like,
"Stupid, stupid."

I'm...
- Why did you point at me when you
said stupid?
- Yeah, sorry.

I meant to point at everyone.

- It's specifically red and green
colour blindness,

but it is colour blindness.

They have a sort of 20-75 vision.

- They haven't really got a poker
face, have they, dogs, either?

- No.
- They get a good hand, they're
like...

- HE PANTS

- It's called a tell, that is, in
poker.

- ALAN:
- Tail starts wagging.

"It's involuntary! It's involuntary!
sh*t!"

The professionals have their tails
lopped.

"You're arse-twitching. Your arse is
twitching."

- But they don't see well, and if they
were to drive,

they would legally be required to wear
glasses. So...

- Or you could just get another dog to
sit next to you

in the passenger seat and tell you
what's coming.

- That's the thing. OK, the subjective
experience of the world.

I wear hearing A*DS in my ears,

and so I know that I hear the way that
people are supposed to hear.

Right? So that would maybe be the
objective view of the world.

There would be what we all agree to
be, like, the normal.

Does this matter?
- Well, it's... No, it's really
interesting

because we'll never know.

We'll never know, with or without your
hearing A*DS,

do you hear what I hear?
- Yeah.

- We'll never know if we see each
other in the same way.

- # Do you hear what I hear? #

- Now, what did the governor of Uganda
find on his unicorn hunt?

- Was it a unicorn?

- KLAXON BLARES

RHOD:
- A horse with a cornetto on his head.

- Anybody able to name any governor of
Uganda?

- Dave. There was Dave.
- Dave, Dave.

We're going back a bit.

- Governor of Uganda?
- Yeah.

- That was when it was a colony?

- Yes, so...
- That's why it's called the governor?
- Yeah.

And it's going to probably start with
Sir.

So, it was Sir Henry Hamilton
Johnston.

And, from a very early age, he was
desperate to find a unicorn.

Henry Morton Stanley had referred to a
creature called an atti by locals,

and Johnston began to wonder if the
atti was in fact Africa's unicorn.

In 1899, he apprehended a German man
who had kidnapped some members

of the Mbuti tribe, and he heard them
talking about this creature,

looked like a bit like a zebra, had a
dark upper brown body,

and they called it an okapi.

So Johnston never found one, but the
Belgian authorities did,

and they sent the full skin and skull
of an okapi.

And it is the only living relative of
the giraffe.

It's known as the forest giraffe.

So he went looking for a unicorn but
this is what they found.

They found...
- They've got those in London Zoo. I'm
sure they have.

- The okapi? I think there is one,
yeah. I think they're extraordinary.

- I think that 1899 is too late to
believe in unicorns.

- You didn't know about that whale
with legs.
- No.

Here, I can tell you about the Asian
unicorn, the saola,

which was discovered in 1992.
- OK.

- And it's quite big.
- What was he doing till then, then?

- Hiding. Behind a tree with a bear.

It's really large. It's a
forest-dwelling bovine.

It's found in the Annamite mountain
range of Laos.

- They didn't find...?
- And they didn't find it till 1992.

They're so hard to find.

There's one. So it's called a unicorn
because of its rarity

rather than because it's got one horn.

The best way to find one -

this is how difficult they are to find
- is to find some leeches.

Right? And check the blood in their
bellies

in the hope that they've recently
sucked on one of these creatures.

That's how difficult they are to find.
- Wow.

- But, talking about how long ago
people have been looking for

the unicorn, it's about 3,500 years.

So there was a female pharaoh in Egypt
called Hatshepsut

and, in the 15th century BC, she sent
a fleet of ships out

to the land of Punt. It was probably
Somalia.

And they were looking for the African
unicorn.

So that's how long human beings have
thought there must be one

out there somewhere.
- But who cares?

- RHOD GASPS

- Like, there's the rhinoceros.

Why couldn't we just be happy with
that one?

- RHOD:
- Have you ever seen this programme?

- Yes, I really have. I really...

- I mean, "Who cares?" goes for every
single thing.

- No, but...
- 20 years, we could have used the
same answer.

"Who gives a sh*t, Sandi?"

- No, no, but you know, like...
- Yeah.

- What is it about the unicorn that's
so intensely special

that we need to send ships out and
stuff?

- It's magical.
- It's magical.

And that you could have a horse that,
when you get off,

you could hang your coat on. I don't
know.

ALAN:
- I think Lara's on to something

because I don't know why we have this
yearning for the Yeti

or the Loch Ness Monster

or the unicorn.
- RHOD:
- Aliens, aliens, we're still...

- We create things that don't exist.

Otherwise, if the world's finite,
what's the point?

- It is the thing that gets you up in
the morning.

I think one day I'll find a country
with equal pay,

but so far...

Anyway, moving on, what use did
ancient Britons find

for a 150-foot horse?

- That's not 150 foot, that horse.

- That's...
- Unless that girl's 74 foot.

- That is a very sizeable horse.

- It's a big horse, but it's not 150
foot.

- ALAN:
- It's not one of those chalk horses

you see on the...
- Is exactly right.

- Is it?
- Yes, it's exactly right.

- They used as a stencil and drew
round it on that...

- Have you seen this chalk horse?
Famous chalk horse?
- No.

- She doesn't care.
- No, I care!

- It's called the Uffington White
Horse.

- Yeah.
- You really don't care, do you?
- No, no, I do, I do!

- It's a chalk carving in the hillside
in Oxfordshire.

It's over 3,000 years old.

There are some people who think it was
a dog,

some people who think it was a dragon.
- It was a golf course.

- A golf course!

Do you know what they call the hill
with the white horse on it?

- Horse Hill?

- It's called White Horse Hill.

- The local pub? White Horse.

- So, one of the reasons we think the
horse was possibly created

and certainly kept is because it
provided a ritualistic centre

for the local community.

So you had to make it and then you had
to keep it clean and so on.

And so long as the horse existed, so
too would the local community.

- Could've done that with a six-foot
horse.

They got going, and they put the head
so far from the tail...
- Yeah.

One guy started with the tail and one
guy started with the head.

- "How long have you made the tail?!"

"Sorry, I got carried away. I just got
into the zone. I don't know."

"This is going to be a massive f*cking
horse now!"

They met in the middle and went,
"Bonjour!"

- But it was originally carved
somewhere around the Bronze Age.

- Why didn't they do it in bronze,
then?

Who's still using chalk in the Bronze
Age?

- HE SCOFFS

It's the oldest chalk figure by a
really long stretch.

So it's more than 3,000 years old.

The next-oldest, the Westbury White
Horse,

it's only about 300 years or so.

- It's a lot better.
- Do you think?

- A lot better. They really got the
hang of it there.

- But the one that's lasted so long.

They used to have these marvellous
scouring festivals.

So, every seven years, certainly
between the 17th and the 19th

centuries, the community would go

and there'd be, I don't know, greasy
pole climbing.

There'd be cheese rolling, pipe
smoking...
- Greasy pole!

- And now the National Trust do it,
and it's a little bit more serious.

- Oh... You have to be a member.

LAUGHTER

- Can't go in anywhere, can you?

"Are you a member?" "Yes, probably."

"Where's your card?" "No-one knows
where the card is!"

Health and safety. "No grease on that
pole, please."

- What do you think they did during
the Second World w*r?

- They hid it from the Germans.
- How?

- They turned it into a cow.

What did they do with that in the
Second World w*r?

- It'd be a great navigation aid - a


- So they turned it around, put the
head at the other end.

- No, they just covered it in grass.

That's it. Literally...

It's very straightforward.
- They just re-turfed the area?

- They put turf over the top of it.

Right, moving on. Where on your body
would you get the most benefit

from rubbing udder balm?

MOOING

- My d*ck!

- What?

ALAN:
- He said his p*nis.

- RHOD:
- Did you say "my d*ck"?
- Yeah, he did.

- OK, erm...

LAUGHTER

I'm sorry. I apologise.

So it's udder balm.

- It must be your mammary glands.

- Are you saying your udders?
- Mm-hm.

- RHOD:
- Don't do it, Alan. Don't do it!

I've never really seen the point of
the word balm.

- Balm? You don't like the word balm?

- There's only lip balm, Tiger Balm,
oh, and udder balm.

There's only three balms.

You could just use another word,

like a rub, a more widely used word.

- I like it.
- Cream.

- A cream, do you prefer?
- Cream, gel, rub.

- Yeah.
- And salve - salve is even worse.

There's only lip.

Why bother having a word that's only
used for lip?

Get rid of salve, get rid of balm.

- Right, I'm all over it.

- It would make my Wordle a lot
quicker in the morning.

- This is something.

This is a balm that I have here. It
says so on it.

It's called Bag Balm.

- Oh, there's bag! Four.
- Bag Balm.
- Bag Balm - where do you put that?

LAUGHTER

Here is a weird thing.

Cows sometimes get chafed udders.

- Oh...
- And Bag Balm was invented...

..for chafed udders. And then what
happened,

it became really popular with human
beings, OK?

There's a beautician called Janice
Qualkenbush

and, in 1994, she said...

LAUGHTER

- Quacking bush?

Janice with the quacking bush?!

"Quack, quack!" "Here comes Janice."

- "Do you have a quacking bush? Try
Bag Balm."

- "Try Bag Balm."
- You need those noise-reducing pants.

"Quack, quack!" "Shut up, Janice!"

"Quack!"

- So, basically, in 1994, she did an
article in the LA Times.

She's called Qualkenbush.
- Qualkenbush...powder.

LAUGHTER

..reduces wrinkles, smooths out rough
spots.

- Bag Balm reduces wrinkles?!

Can I borrow it?
- You can try.

- And I'll come back next time and
tell you what I've learned.

- So, this was developed for cows'
udders.
- For chafed udders.

But the country singer Shania Twain,
she absolutely swears by

its effectiveness. It's been featured
in films.

It's now been rebranded and they don't
mention cows

or udders on it.

- She has got a smooth nutsack, Shania
Twain.

- That's one of her B-sides!

- TO "THAT DON'T IMPRESS ME MUCH":
- # I've got a smooth nutsack. #

- Well, you say...

- Oh, my God, it's since 1899, your
favourite year!

- They can't be looking for unicorns
in a world where Bag Balm exists.

- You mentioned your nutsack, just out
of interest...

- It was his nutsack.
- Oh, it was his nutsack, OK.

- No, it was Shania Twain's nutsack.
- OK.

Bicyclists have long used it to stop
chafing on long rides.

- Oh, you've got to use something down
there.

- It was sent to the troops in World
w*r II

to stop their weapons corroding...

RHOD LAUGHS

APPLAUSE

- Is that going to be, like, a public
service announcement where they go,

"Is your weapon corroding?

"Try Bag Balm."

- "Lucky you!"

- I take it back about getting rid of
the word balm.

Now there's four balms...
- Yes, there's Bag Balm...

- Such a multipurpose balm you've got
there.
- Yep.

Made from lanolin, which you get, of
course, from sheep wool

and then mixed with petroleum jelly.

Now, while we're on the subject,
what's unusual about cow udders?

- This is what I keep saying to my GP.

- OK.
- They're man-made.

- They have one calf as a rule, don't
they?
- Yeah.

- Sometimes they have two.
- Yes, so you're on the right track.

- So, why would you need four teats?
- What's the right track?

- So broadly speaking, the number of
teats that a mammal has is roughly

double the common litter size, OK?
- LARA: Yes.

- So humans tend to have one child at
a time.

We tend to have two...

"Tend to have," we do have, but we
tend to have two teats.

Cats have three or four kittens in a
litter.

They have six or eight teats.

So it's usually, it's roughly double
the common litter size.

Cows have one offspring and they have
four teats,

which is bizarre.

And that is because the udders are so
heavy

that they have to have extra
suspension

in order to hold them together.

So they're divided into four
compartments with two ligaments.

It's because it weighs such a lot.

And the cow's stomach is enormous.

75% of their abdomen is taken up by
stomach,

so they have to hold the milk outside.

It's basically like a shopping bag.

- You ever see that documentary

where the guy cut a hole in the side
of a cow?

- Yes, isn't that extraordinary?
- And you can see all the grass
inside.

- Yeah.
- And the cow is just looking about,
didn't seem to be...

- Yes, they literally made almost like
a window in a cow.

- Yeah, they made a circular window.
- What, the cow's still alive and they
put a window in the side of it?

- Yes.
- Put a window in the side and you
can...
- Like a fish tank?

- Honestly, the grass looked like
someone had just mown the lawn

and chucked it on a compost heap.

- Yeah, honestly, it is really
extraordinary footage.

- Now they give cows chemicals to make
them produce ten times the amount

of milk they're meant to have,

but carry on drinking your cow's milk,
folks, ya weirdos.

- You want to see what they do to
almonds.

- Wired up to a machine, being
squeezed.

- HE SCREAMS

- One almond at a time!

- I saw a documentary where they saw
the side out

and put a window in there.

- And that brings us to the unerringly
unfair General Ignorance.

Fingers on ungulates, please.

How do hollow bones help birds fly?

MOOING

- It makes them lighter.

- Are they stronger?

- It is stronger. They're not lighter
at all.

- What?!

- Uh... "What?!"

- They're obviously lighter.

They've got massive holes in them!

- So, this is one of those
extraordinary things.

They've got a sort of crisscross
structure and it results

in these large air pockets and these
gaps allow oxygen to flow

throughout the body and it gives more
oxygen to the blood

and more energy to help the bird fly.

And we used to think that the
structure made the bird lighter,

but bird skeletons are no lighter at
all than the bones

of an equivalent sized mammal.

In fact, they're usually heavier.

So, they did a study, there's a woman
called Elizabeth Dumont,

she's a bat specialist from the
University of Massachusetts,

and she examined the density of
various bones of similar sized

songbirds and rodents and bats and so
on.

Birds had the densest bones, followed
by bats and then rodents,

and it makes them heavier, but it also
makes them sturdier.

What causes the holes in Swiss cheese?

DEEP GRUNTING

Wow.

- Just...just poor cheese-making
technique.

Shoddy Swiss cheese-makers.

- You are heading in the right
direction.

- Same with their cuckoo clocks.

That's the only reason they put
cuckoos in them,

was to hide the holes in a normal
clock.

- So what do you think you would need
to do when you're making cheese?

- Squish it.
- Squish it?

Is that a technical term?

So most people think it's carbon
dioxide

produced by bacteria.
- Yeah, that's what I meant.
- Yeah.

It's actually tiny bits of hay falling
into the milk bucket.

- What?!
- What?!
- That's what I said, sloppy!

- Well, I mean, you know,

we're talking about going back a
while.

Basically, if you drop tiny bits of
hay into the milk bucket,

it weakens the cheese curds as they
ripen and spaces are created.

These days, you...
- They must do it on purpose now.

- Well, these days they don't get so
many holes

because they have to be much more
hygienic.

So you're right, it has to be created
on purpose.

So here is a randy Scandi, random
Scandinavian fact.

In this case, it literally is a randy
Scandi, OK?

There is a cheese which I have here,

which is called Vasterbottensost,

and it requires alternate periods of
stirring and rest.

It is absolutely delicious. Would you
like to try?

So, it was invented in 1872, and I
love this reason.

There was a dairy maid called Ulrika
Eleonora Lindstrom,

and she kept getting distracted from
her work in order

to have amorous encounters with her
lover.

- Oh, I thought you were going to say
a cow.
- No.

This is the cheese that resulted,

and that's how they make it now.

They make it by...
- Oh, you stir it a bit, go and have a
shag,

stir it a bit, go and have a shag.

- No holes in it, but I have found a
pube.

- LAUGHTER, GROANS

It's a bit like Parmesan, isn't it?

- It is a bit like Parmesan.

A pubey Parmesan.

- I've still got Bag Balm on my
fingers.

- Swiss cheese gets its holes from the
hay,

while Swedish cheese comes from rolls
in the hay.

UNENTHUSIASTIC LAUGHTER, SCATTERED
APPLAUSE

LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE

OK, which animal is most likely to
survive a nuclear b*mb?

- BAAING

- No, don't do it! Don't say it.
- Really?
- No!

It's going to thing, it's going to...

- But it's the one we're all thinking
about!

- What are you thinking about?

- c*ck!
- Yeah, no.

- Someone had to do it, and it had to
be me.

- No, I appreciate it.

I appreciate you joining in.

It is not the c*ck.

- Is it, like, Keith Richards?

- People always say c*ck, but
I've got ants in my house

and I've got a bottle of Raid, and it
says ants and c*ck-...

If they can't cope with a puff of talc
in their face,

they're not going to cope with...

- They can actually survive 15 times
the amount of radiation

that human beings can survive.

- Why am I puffing talc on them, then?

- Well, stuff in the deep sea would
probably be fine, right?

- You're right, you're heading towards
the sea.

These are aquatic creatures and they
are microscopic.

They're called bdelloid rotifers.

They can withstand 100 times the
lethal amount of radiation

that most humans can.

- How'd you put him back together?

- When you get the box, these are all
the parts.

"Put A into H. Oh, God."

- That bit in the bottom right goes on
top of that bit there.
- Yeah.

And do you need your own Allen key or
does that come with it?

- They're all female. They produce
asexually.

This is a creature that's not had sex
for 25 million years.

You know the feeling, Alan.

SHOCKED LAUGHTER

About a quarter of a millimetre long.
I mean, really tiny.

The reason they can do so well with
nuclear radiation

is that they have a really slow cell
cycle,

so their cells grow and divide much
more slowly than ours,

and that stops things like cancer

spreading through their bodies so
quickly.

So, basically, the smaller and more
simply constructed a living thing is,

the greater its nuclear survival odds.

- So Kylie Minogue would be all right,
probably?
- Yes, she would be fine.

I'd be fine.
- You'll be fine.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.

- June 2021, this is extraordinary,

some scientists brought back to life
some bdelloid rotifers

that had been frozen in the Siberian
permafrost for 24,000 years.

And there is stuff in here that may

be useful to human beings in the
future.

So there's a mould, Cladosporium
sphaerospermum,

actually absorbs radiation in order to
grow,

and Nasa have been experimenting with
this.

Imagine if they could create a
protective outer layer

for spacesuits that could shield
astronauts from cosmic rays.

- So this is a fungus that grows when
it's been subjected to radiation?

- Yes.
- So basically, it used to be like,

"Oh, there's been a meltdown at the
nuclear plant,

"this is the worst thing that's ever
happened,"

and one day it's just going to be
like,

"There's been a meltdown, mushroom
risotto?"

- Yeah, yeah, basically. A mould
that's OK with it, yeah.

- Does this mean we might be immune to
a nuclear attack one day?

- I doubt we'll have enough...
- I'm jumping ahead a bit.
- Yeah.

- There's also, like, the expl*si*n
bit.
- Yeah.

- Unless you're already wearing all of
the mushrooms on your body

at all times, just in case.

But then you've got to be that guy.
- Yeah.

Now, you should have beside you...

..spoons. Don't touch them, please,
just pick up the board.

We've got a metal spoon and we've got
a wooden spoon.

Before you pick them up, Lara,

which one do you think is colder?

The wooden spoon or the metal spoon?

WHISPERING:
- Don't do it, Lara.

- I'm not going to... The metal one.
- No!
- You think the metal one?

- No, no, I meant to say the other
one!

I meant to say the other one, but
because...

You know when you think about the one
you shouldn't say?
- I know!

- Lara!
- Ay!
- I'm the thick as sh*t one!

- Let's pretend...

Lara, let's pretend you never said
that.

So, Lara, which one is the colder one?

- I have a feeling that it's the
wooden one.

No!

What do you mean?!

What are you talking about?

- They're obviously going to be the
same, aren't they?!

- So, they are the same. Why are they
the same?

- Because they're in the same room.
- LAUGHTER

It is exactly right.

So, we're talking about the law of
thermodynamics.

If two bodies are in equilibrium with
a third body,

they must be in equilibrium with each
other.

- Unless one of them's a freezer.

- So, these spoons have been in
this...

LAUGHTER

- They're in the same room.

- They've been in the same room,
touching the same air.

They will be the same temperature.

- I did not know that.

- Let's pick them up and see which one
you think is colder.

ALAN SHRIEKS

What do you think?

- Oh, I've made the mistake of picking
them up in different hands.
- Oh.

- You've got your hot hand and your
cold hand.

This is colder. This feels colder.

- OK, so we come on to the second law
of thermodynamics.

Basically what happens is that heat
will naturally flow

from a warmer area to a colder area,

because your hands...

LAUGHTER

- Christmas number one, Sandi!
Christmas number one.

It's the one thing we haven't done on
this show.

Oh!

- LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE

Because the metal spoon is a better
conductor of heat

and because your hands are warm,

the heat from your hands will flow
more readily into the metal spoon.

It'll make it feel, for you, as if it
is colder.

But in fact, that isn't the case.

- Say that... So the...?
- Don't say it again, don't say it
again.

Make him watch.
- Who cares?

- There always used to be someone
playing the spoons on the telly,

didn't there?
- Yeah.
- There was someone playing the
spoons,

someone hitting themselves with a
tray.

What's happened to television?

- Well, it seems to be doing just
fine.

So does that make sense to you?

- I mean, it makes sense to me, but
it's still amazing.

- Well, that's it, see?

You've gone on a journey from "who
cares" to,

"I don't care, but it is amazing."

- Because you've gone on that journey,

I'm going to give you some Bag Balm of
your own.
- Oh!

- There you go.
- How exciting.
- Thank you.

- Right, and with that, we come to the
undeniably ugly upshot...

..of the scores.

And in last place,

with a phenomenal and creditable -35,

it's Lara!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

- I didn't think that was going to
happen!

- In an unimpressive third, with -23,

it's Alan!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Very close to the top, unlucky second
place with -7,

it's Rhod!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE HE MOUTHS

And in first place, tickle my udders
and call me Ursula,

with -6, it's Ahir!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And with that, I'd like to thank Lara,
Rhod, Ahir,

and of course, Alan.

I'll leave you with this slightly
upsetting thought about ungulates

from Billy Connolly.

"Who discovered we could get milk from
cows,

"and what did he think he was doing at
the time?"

LAUGHTER Thank you very much, and
goodnight.