This programme contains some strong language.
Good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening.
Welcome to QI.
Now, you mentioned the gluteus maximus. Yeah.
The ass muscles there. This a true thing, right?
It is physically impossible for the human buttocks to break an egg.
LAUGHTER That is true.
That is absolutely, 100% true and I've tried it and...
And...the beautiful thing...
You mean put it in the crack, in the cleavage? As much as you want.
He's not allowed to work in kitchens any more.
Yeah, if you put the egg between the buttocks and it doesn't matter
how hard you squeeze, impossible to crack the egg.
Now, here's the thing, I know that to be true.
There might be people watching this who question that,
and I'd like to think all over the country... People are now.
Introducing eggs into the area...
"Is Noble lying or not?"
I mean, if you got somebody laying there, you put an egg there,
if somebody else is there to go like that...
But then that's not the muscle doing it. Ah, OK, yeah. That's the point.
You can't... It's the muscle. Can you by a twitch, pulling in?
Exactly. I'm doing it now.
The problem would be...
"Oh! That Cadbury's Creme Egg is gone."
That's probably melting rather than...
I think the worry is that you do it, the egg could go right up.
Is that a worry? You see, that's interesting.
Now, what mania was started by a few myopic Merseysiders?
BUZZER But weirdly...
No, keep going... Does this buzzer stop Jimmy speaking? Try again.
I was just going to say... BUZZER
APPLAUSE
There's some support for it.
I find the buzzers really disconcerting.
It does feel like somebody's about to get murdered.
BUZZER: 'Oh, go to bed.' LAUGHTER
There's a childish ghost cries. BUZZER: 'Mice!'
LAUGHTER
Myopic Merseysiders. Myopic's short-sighted, is it?
Yes, short-sighted. Partially sighted.
So what M could help you with partial sightedness?
My glasses? LAUGHTER
Yes.
Any particular type of ophthalmic instrument that would help the...
Monocle. Monocle is the right answer.
There we go. Very good.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Yeah.
I only knew that cos there happens to be a monocle next to me.
It was a bit of a giveaway. There you are. Pop them in.
It was a fashion thing that seemed to sweep Liverpool...
I can't imagine it taking off again, to be honest.
You do look very...
"George, me old pal."
Jimmy, you have never looked more like a ventriloquist's doll.
APPLAUSE
THEY MOUTH WORDLESSLY
He really did look like Lord Charles there.
HE LAUGHS
I now feel slightly haunted.
The word meteorology comes from the Greek for things high up
and in terms of high up, they used to use frogs
for telling weather forecasts.
They built them little ladders and put them in a jar.
They thought if they went up the ladder, it was going to be fine.
If they went down the ladder, it was going to be a bit wet.
You are getting an idea here. LAUGHTER
Did frogs even know what ladders were?
I don't think they had to know what they are. Did they just...?
Instinct to climb. It could've been anything,
it didn't have to be ladders? It didn't have to be.
"Where's the frog?" "It's halfway up."
"Well, which way is he looking?" "He's looking down."
"Just say scattered showers. Scattered showers."
I think you're right. "Sunny spells, sunny spells.
"Just do a cloud with a bit of the sun, half of the sun."
What if it was foggy. "He's got an escalator, it's foggy."
Maybe he's just trying to get out the top. He's trying to escape.
One day, the ladder is right up to the top
and the frog has fucked off. Then what's going to happen?
He's left a note, "I have no idea what the weather is going to be.
"I'm out of here."
There we have it.
I'll tell you an interesting thing about Queen Victoria. Yeah.
When she died,
towards the end of her life... LAUGHTER
Go on. I feel guilty about telling you.
She won't find out.
She was wider than she was tall.
Really? So?
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
No, tell us more about old...
She was 59 inches tall
and she was 66 inches wide.
Wow. Bless her. Really?
But wide or...? Well, in circumference.
Yeah, I was going to say. Sorry, not wide.
Couldn't have possibly been...
LAUGHTER No, sorry.
No, circumference. Yeah.
I don't mean width. Here she comes!
All the way round was 66 inches.
"We're going to have to knock through." Yeah.
Can't get through any of the doors.
And that's how the Victoria line starts...
LAUGHTER She needs a pew of her own.
The Albert Hall was just a cast of her body.
This is her bust size I'm talking about. 66.
66 bust? Wow. Yeah. Crikey. Good lord.
She was very short. Ooh, yeah, some loving there.
Alaska's state motto is "North to the Future".
Don't know what that means, but it's... There it is.
They all have mottos, these states,
and my favourite one is Kentucky.
Kentucky's known, really, for two things. It's called...
Fried chicken. Well, yeah, apart from that.
It's called the Bluegrass State,
but it's bourbon and the Kentucky Derby, the race.
And somebody came up with a two-word phrase for Kentucky
which encapsulates both those things,
which I think is rather brilliant.
Pissed horses.
LAUGHTER That would do it.
No, it's Unbridled Spirit.
Ah! Isn't that clever? Very good. Genuinely clever. Yeah.
No, that's great.
That absolutely shits on North to the Future.
It does, doesn't it? It's got to be said.
Because if there's one place you do not want to head north from,
it's Alaska
cos there's fuck all of the world there.
You want to go south.
You want to see stuff... South to the Future. Yeah.
North to the Future, maybe you'd say from Argentina.
Yes. Alaska, South...
North in Denial of the Rest of Humanity.
Head into the Snow and Die. North to the Massive Tundra. Yeah.
Wishful thinking, exactly.
But, in terms of anagrams... This isn't an anagram,
it's actually a limerick composed by someone,
which I invite you to recite to me. Oh. Oh.
See if you can.
Eh? Yes. Oh. That's a shock, isn't it? Yes.
And you can do it. Can you? Yes, you can.
It is a limerick. OK. OK.
You have to ask yourself what these numbers are, in fact.
They have some other... A dozen and 12 dozen... Ah!
But 144 is also called a...?
A gross.
So, a dozen, a gross, a score
plus three times the square root of four.
SUSAN LAUGHS HYSTERICALLY Divided by seven.
You're all right. You're doing well. That's five...
Calm down. Do I have to slap you? Yes.
LAUGHTER
The episode of QI where Stephen just slapped me.
So, say it again as a limerick. You can do it now. Yes, yes.
Go on. Go on, then, Susan. SUSAN LAUGHS HYSTERICALLY
A dozen... A dozen... A dozen, a gross...
A dozen, a gross and a score...
ALL: Plus three times the square root of four.
Divided by seven plus five times 11 equals nine squared...
Plus not a bit more.
There you are. Yeah! Well done.
APPLAUSE
Now, who would like to see some milky magic?
Cos I want to show you...
LAUGHTER
Stranger danger!
APPLAUSE
I wish I hadn't put it like that.
If a man says this to you in a park, say no.
IN A MENACING VOICE: Would you like to see my milky magic?
You know what I meant.
Would you like to see my milky magic?
OK. I've got some... Mm, yeah.
Mm, lovely milky things.
LAUGHTER
Stop saying it!
Well, now, because... Here we are.
Now, this is just a thing about milk -
there's never enough, you always want more. Yeah. But...
LAUGHTER
Bear with me. Milky magic!
Here we have...here we have some milk.
Now, what I'd like you to do
is just transfer it along the way
from smaller to larger glasses,
as you can see.
And, well, this'll fill it about halfway up, maybe.
Just checking the size, really. Let's just see how much...
Oh, well, that fills it up completely. Oh, that's weird.
That's all right, that's good,
because we've got more than we started out with.
and that's got to be a thing... Fast forward...with milk.
We've got... No! What?!
There we are. Oh, that's weird. Got to have that, haven't you?
No! That makes sense.
And then see if we can get even more,
because what we're doing is earning ourselves lots and lots of milk...
Wow! Oh, man. ..which has good to be good, surely.
There we are. Can you do this with wine?
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Here we are. Oh, no! You're Jesus! We've got even more.
LAUGHTER That's it.
APPLAUSE There. Do you like that?
After World War II, in America they used surplus parachutes
to help repopulate beavers into the wild.
The idea was that they'd shove them in a box.
They first thought, "We'll shove them in a box, they'll fall,
"and they'll gnaw their way out of the box."
This doesn't sound like sexy times to me.
LAUGHTER "Shove them in a box."
They worried they'd eat through the box while they were still in the air.
Then they chucked them out of a plane? Yeah.
To repopulate...? Yeah. Huge areas of wilderness.
It's incredibly hard to get them out... Yes, makes total sense.
..give them their own territory.
Couldn't they have driven them there, Stephen?
No, they... Wilderness, huge areas of wilderness.
They're bigger than countries, they're bigger than England...
What, beavers?! No, the parks. LAUGHTER
IN AMERICAN ACCENT: "Bring me some massive beavers."
In the parks in which you wish to drop them. OK.
And you want to sort of get them disposed evenly around.
Why have they been dying out? Oh, gosh...
People have been throwing them out of planes. Yeah.
"If you don't fall out, you can gnaw your way out of your crate."
You go, "Oh, thanks a lot.
"Well, this is the middle of f...cking nowhere.
"I've got to go all the way back to Ottawa."
Until another beaver lands on your head at high velocity.
LAUGHTER
They had tried moving them into new territories for them by mule,
and they just simply got too hot, and they really didn't like it at all.
They put a beaver on horseback, essentially? Yeah.
They've got to transport it somehow. How would you transport...?
I don't understand why the beavers...
I don't understand any of this. LAUGHTER
So they thought, "OK, there's no way we can drop them into a park
"other than from the sky..."
Or by mule, which you found also incomprehensible.
Is there a man with - or a lady - with a beaver on horseback,
or is it just a beaver on horseback? Well, no.
LAUGHTER Of course there's a person.
I'm confused!
So, is it one beaver per mule?
Because, then, we're repopulating the place with mules
as far as I can work out. LAUGHTER
The beavers didn't want to stay.
The mules have forced the beavers further along.
They're relying on the mule to find its way back.
More complicated than you think, this beaver transportation.
Yeah, it is.
Well, that was harder work than I expected.
Erm... LAUGHTER
But, on the subject of Mary Queen of Scots,
do you remember who her husband was, by any chance?
Darnley, his name was, her husband.
He was murdered. He was actually blown up.
This is a very extraordinary story.
One of the presumed architects of the explosion
was a fellow called Archibald Douglas -
a pair of his shoes were found at the scene of the crime.
ALAN GIGGLES
"Where's your shoes, Archibald?"
"Oh!" LAUGHTER
You've always got to take your shoes off before a dynamite -
that's what I say.
But he later gave an account of Mary's reaction.
So, this is Mary, her husband has been blown up. Mm-hm.
"She sent for a number of light ladies and women
"to come to Holyroodhouse
"and participate stark naked in a ball.
"Then they had cut off their pubic hair
"and had put it in puddings
"to be eaten by the male guests,
"who were sick."
LAUGHTER
Is that what you do when your husband's blown up?
Was she just trying to...
you know, like, trying to get back to normal life?
LAUGHTER
"First, let's just carry on as we were."
"Get your pubes and put them in that pie."
"It's what he would have wanted." LAUGHTER
Actually, I think this might be quite clever.
Probably, if your partner is killed in a horrific way,
all anyone is ever going to talk to you about is,
"Aw, what happened to your husband?" But, now, no. Yeah.
"Why did you have that pube party?" LAUGHTER
"What? Why was it in...?" It's all the detail we have.
"Two things, Mary - number one, condolences, number two..."
It's all the detail we have, sadly.
But the actual person who took the rap for the murder,
he was hanged, drawn and quartered
on the basis that he was the one who discovered the scene,
which seems a bit unfair.
His name was William Blackadder. Oh!
AS GENERAL MELCHETT: Meh!
It's true. LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE Oh, stop it. Don't.
Now, show me the symptoms of bicycle face.
Bicycle face? Mm-hm.
That's with goggles.
No, these are wheels.
Oh, I see! Sorry. Of course they're wheels.
What is bicycle face? When you get sucked off by your grifter?
LAUGHTER
Wow!
Wow! I better go. Yes. No.
That's the right answer. That's what I've got written on the card.
That's amazing.
On my card, in this universe, on the other hand,
I've got something else.
The Literary Digest in 1895 warned women cyclists...
Don't know why I'm looking at you. I'm a woman. That's OK.
You've identified me as a woman.
It's going to get worse, I'm afraid, this thing is.
"Overexertion, the upright position on the wheel
"and the unconscious effort to maintain one's balance
"produces a wearied and exhausted bicycle face."
"No-one will marry you!" Yes! LAUGHTER
"The main symptoms are a hard, clenched jaw and bulging eyes..."
Wasn't sure where you were going to stop at
after "hard, clenched" there.
"..as well as being flushed or pale."
Either of those. Right. Yeah.
And, "Wearing a haggard, anxious expression."
That's just the fear of patriarchy - that's what that is.
"I'm under so much pressure."
Some doctors said that,
"Cycling would irritate the pelvic organs
"and stimulate women to disturbing lusts."
LAUGHTER
If you can't get it at home, you get it on a bike, right, ladies?
Get your stimulated pelvic organs, right?
Well, there's a downside, according to a French expert... Of course.
..who said, "It would ruin the female organs
"of matrimonial necessity."
LAUGHTER
Now, Cariad, tell me, your organs of matrimonial necessity...
Excuse me? What are you asking me? I'm just hoping that...
"Hello, Wembley, we're the Female Organs of Natural Necessity."
It's funny, cos the clitoris... STEPHEN GASPS
LAUGHTER
I'm just going to draw a picture. La-la-la-la...
She said it! She said it! She said it!
SHE IMITATES ALARM
I've drawn a rainbow, everyone - it's all right.
LAUGHTER
Where's Sue Perkins when you need her?
The clitoris is actually a very large organ...
Shush, Cariad!
..and...it's just literally the tip of an iceberg.
When you say, "LITERALLY the tip of an iceberg"...?
I knew I was looking for it in the wrong place.
LAUGHTER
There was an artist in New York... In the Arctic Ocean.
Yeah, an artist in New York?
..and she made, like, this, obviously not to scale, clitoris,
and she got women to ride on it.
But it literally...it's huge.
It's like there's this bit
and then there's these two other huge bits that are in the body...
I was looking behind you. Yeah.
LAUGHTER Behind me just here.
Wow. It's way bigger.
But you have two, don't you? It's one under each arm?
LAUGHTER Have I...have I got this wrong?
Alan, help me out. It's OK. I didn't bring mine with me today.
So to say it damages the marital organs, is, again...
So, how much more of it is there, then, going...?
Oh, my God. Guys, do we have to, like...?
Is this the bit where I tell you about...explain it to you?
A woman, at some point in your life,
should've explained this to you, but perhaps...
I've never seen such fear in all your faces!
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
A man called Miura, who's an aeronautical designer,
was doing solar panel foldings
and he came up with this way of doing it.
And you...all you have to do is that, and it folds.
You just push the corners together.
And it doesn't matter what... I bet...
What's more, it doesn't get, it doesn't get... Sorry?
It wouldn't work if you gave it to me.
Stephen, did you...? Well, I'll give you one.
The one that you've got there, is that a map of Mars?
LAUGHTER You've got one there.
And you just take the top right and bottom left corners
or any other way.
Is that, that way? It's so folded, it just does it by itself.
Take the corners and push them together.
J EREMY GASPS That's it! Jeremy, you did it.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
But this man is the greatest genius who ever lived. Isn't he?
I know. It's fantastic.
Who is he? He's called Miura. He's a...
LAUGHTER
God.
Of course, what you don't realise, he was trying to make a crane.
LAUGHTER
Koryo Miura, his name is, and they are very handy.
I would've been so fucking pleased
if I'd invented that. LAUGHTER
Well, there are other things you can do with folding.
I've got some tissues here, and...
Oh, what are we doing now? Oh, origami.
I'm going to give you each a tissue, right?
So, I'll pass... OK.
There we are. Pass down. Oops.
What are we doing with the tissue? What are we doing?
I'll have one here. OK. So, what are we up to?
What you're trying to do is scrunch it up...
Oh, yeah. OK. ..Iike this in your hands.
You scrunch it up.
And then... You stick it right up your bum. No.
LAUGHTER You don't...
You try and think of an animal. Then think of an animal.
I'm thinking of a swan or something.
I've really scrunched mine up. Think of a swan.
You see? Like that. Can you see my swan?
Do I have to think of a swan? There you are.
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
And we've heard the marsh warbler.
The monotonous lark is so-called cos it's monotonous...
A monotonous lark.
"Come on, we're going on a monotonous lark."
LAUGHTER
We're going on narrow boat holiday in Norfolk.
Hey! THAT is a monotonous lark.
I went on one of those.
"Oh, that'll be fun."
"Yeah, let's go on a narrow boat holiday,"
and everyone was taking turns doing the engine.
Cut to a couple of hours later, everyone downstairs drinking wine.
Me, upstairs...
HE IMITATES ENGINE
..for three days! Three days!
There... HE IMITATES ENGINE
Oh, golly. "Do you want a glass of wine, Bill?"
"No, no, I'm fine. I'm here, I'll be fine."
HE IMITATES ENGINE Worst weekend of my life.
LAUGHTER
It begins with M, this particular life form.
It got rid of all the oxygen... Mouse.
Sorry? Mouse. It wasn't a mouse.
You've got the right consonants.
Consonants. All right.
M...m...m...m...
M and a S. M and a S.
It's wonderful how he's coming on, isn't it?
LAUGHTER
It's moss. Moss! Moss. Moss!
Moss is the answer. Oh, how boring. Yeah, hard to believe. Moss.
It was like a phage. It ate away at rocks... Right.
Hey, look, Cariad - there's an iceberg like your clitoris.
LAUGHTER You're learning!
I mean this, Alan, you can get more...
If you've just joined the show...
I can usually predict almost everything
that's going to be said on this show, but,
"There's an iceberg like your clitoris," is a new one.
That's exactly what I was talking about.
Don't just work with what you see.
Now you've got to work with more, underneath it.
There's not moss on it, is there? Yes, mate. Keep the moss on.
What's wrong with you? Don't want to look like a child.
Wear your moss and be proud, ladies. You're right.
Interestingly, you only get moss on the north side of a lady.
LAUGHTER
That seems fair. Oh, Lord.
Depends how long she's been at the bus stop.
I went on a bus once.
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
End of anecdote.
It wasn't a bus, it was a coach,
and it had a lavatory in the middle of it.
You know, you go down some stairs into the bowels of the thing.
And the driver was a very, very, very large man
who could barely get behind the enormous wheel.
And he pulled the bus over,
and he prised himself out from behind the wheel
and went down the aisle - a bit of a squeeze -
went down the...stairs,
disappeared into this cupboard.
And we all waited. LAUGHTER
Then when he came up, he said,
"No-one can use the toilet. It's full."
LAUGHTER
Charming!
And then he got behind the wheel and drove off.
Where are most missionaries positioned?
LAUGHTER
GREGORIAN CHANTING Matt?
I'm going to guess that most of them are in Utah,
where the Mormons tend to kind of congregate,
because they haven't yet been assigned their places to go to.
Interesting, interesting answer,
but I'm talking about which is the country
that receives the most incoming...
Well, I'm not talking about that.
No, no. LAUGHTER
I'm talking about them before they've gone.
So, I'm not asking where the most missionaries come from, I'm asking...
I know, but I am still getting to that point.
This doesn't work by you answering the question that I haven't asked.
OK.
My guess is China. Yeah, it's a possibility. Well, it's not...
It is a possibility, but it's not a fact.
Is it in Africa? It's not Africa, no. Is it England? No.
England's a much, much closer... KLAXON BLARES
South America? Not South America. Not SOUTH America.
Central! North America? North! North America!
America. United States. Really?
Well, I think you'll find Utah is in America.
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
ALL: Ooh! Yeah, impressive.
Ooh! Look.
It looks like a happy face that's taken a lot of drugs.
LAUGHTER
It does a bit, doesn't it? Yeah.
But what is it, Stephen?
Well, I just want to know who first wrote the theorem
that this model demonstrates?
Pythagoras. Pythagoras.
KLAXON BLARES Oh!
My grandfather, who was from Hungary,
always pronounced it Peeta-goras. LAUGHTER
IN HUNGARIAN ACCENT: "At school, doing the mathematics,
"are you studying Peeta-goras?" LAUGHTER
And I thought this man, Peter Goras. Who is Peter?
No, it wasn't Peter Goras who first proved it. Ah.
What is it, the theorem that needs to be discussed here?
A squared equals B squared plus C squared.
Yeah. It's the... The sum of the two...the squared...
The sum of the two squares is equal to the sum on the hypotenuse.
You can see that. That big one should go into the other two.
So, you can see here, the yellow, that's the triangle.
These are its two sides.
And these are the squares of the two sides.
They are literally geometrically expressed as squares
rather than just mathematically as if that was, say, X,
it's just not X squared, but it's literally the square there.
Then there's Y squared
and it's supposedly equal to Z squared,
which is the longest side, the hypotenuse.
Cos here's the right angle. Here.
These are not right angles, obviously.
And...there's that...
How can we show they're equal?
Well, there are all kinds of ways, but here's one way.
Drumroll, please. Oh, yes.
THEY TAP ON DESKS All right, let's go.
ALL: Ooh!
Oh, that's very clever.
There it goes. Pouring into the first square.
Wow. Expensive. Is it going to fill it up?
Oh! Well, it definitely equals X squared. Yes!
Does it equal Y squared as well?
I need to go to the toilet.
LAUGHTER
There's a Y squared. It's filling up.
It's filling up, it's filling up. It's full. And there it is.
APPLAUSE There it is.
Isn't that satisfactory?
Highly satisfactory.
Now time for a short interval. Who wants an ice cream?
There we are. Me, me, me, me. Pick me.
Yeah, go on. Take a couple.
We've got some leftover, of course.
Wow. There you go.
Johnny? Oh, yes, please. Thank you, my love.
I've got chocolate. I don't really like chocolate.
I've got raisin. I don't like raisin.
Do you want to swap? Yes. No, I'd like vanilla, please. Oh.
LAUGHTER
Just swap. You can have another flavour. Yes!
I've got strawberry. That'll do me. All right.
Oh, you've already had a bit! Yes!
LAUGHTER
How else would I know I didn't like it?
Well, do what I did - just sniff it and lick it.
Don't do that!
People who sniff... Don't take a lump out.
You must have very warm hands cos this is already melted.
I'm having a hot flush!
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE It's one of my superpowers!
Mine's turned into a slushy! Yes!
You're going to a dinner party
and they've forgotten to get the ice cream out of the freezer -
I just hold it against my neck... LAUGHTER
and it's spoon-soft in seconds.
While there's barely any... THEY BOTH SHOUT OVER EACH OTHER
LAUGHTER
Right... I don't want to do this in front of Stephen... No.
..but the next time, we're having ice cream. Just...
LAUGHTER
Don't have her on my team.
Do you have any HRT-flavoured ice cream?
No, this is delicious. Thank you very much. Good.
This is what I think life would be like in a nursing home.
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE Anyway...
What flavour have you got?! Bingo!
So what was the biggest nuisance in the Victorian theatre? I like peas!
I've got a fly in mine. What was the biggest nuisance
in the Victorian theatre? I've got to tell this.
What was the biggest nuisance in the Victorian theatre? I've got to...
What was the biggest nuisance in the Victorian theatre?
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE Please...
HE SHOUTS: What was the biggest nuisance in the Victorian theatre?!
LAUGHTER
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Yes? Any thoughts?
Ice cream?
APPLAUSE