Series 3, Episode 12
Transcript by: Sarah Falk
With thanks to: Erin, for the French transliteration of the names of Dara's twelve Frenchmen.
TRANSCRIPT
Stephen
Good evening! Good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, and welcome to QI, the show which plucks the low-hanging fruit from the groaning tree of knowledge. Plucking my plums tonight will be Phill Jupitus . . . Dara Ó Briain . . . Bill Bailey . . . and Alan Davies. And now, let's see what you actually will be plucking tonight, so if you would, Phill goes:
Phill
[presses buzzer, which plays an upbeat banjo tune]
Stephen
Dara goes:
Dara
[presses buzzer, which plays a melodic strumming of a harp]
Stephen
Ahh. Bill goes:
Bill
[presses buzzer, which plays a twangy guitar tune]
Stephen
Alan goes:
Alan
[presses buzzer, which plays the sound of a chicken clucking]
Stephen
Good.
Phill
Can Alan and mine be played together?
Stephen
Try!
Alan and Phill
[press buzzers simultaneously, giving the impression of a chicken clucking to the sound of a banjo]
Alan
And you can see the visual accompaniment on the website!
Stephen
Now, as to bonuses, we have a special wrinkle tonight. Erm, one of the pieces of information I will give you will be false, and you have a QI Doubt Card in front of you.
[Viewscreens: A picture of the QI Logo with a flashing crossed-circle overlaid on the magnifying glass.]
Stephen
If you think that, erm, what I've said is untrue, you may show your card--
Alan
Just one thing will be untrue?
Stephen
Just . . . yeah.
Phill
[fluttering QI Doubt Card coquettishly] Oh, Mister Fry, you spoil us with your bonus points!
Stephen
I have to look after my little guests!
Now. Erm, what I want you to do first is tell me all about the twelve Frenchmen and the twelve mosquitoes.
Dara
[presses buzzer, which harps]
Stephen
Dara Ó Briain.
Dara
Once upon a time . . . there were twelve Frenchmen, called [in French accent] 'Apee, Sleepy, Arrogant, Furieux, Choses comme ça, Bof, and Zut Alors. And . . .
Phill
[writing on pad] That's six!
Dara
Fenêtre. . . er, Boulangerie, er--
Alan
Le Table!
Dara
La Table, of course, and Jambon et Fromage, the twins. And they used to travel around with mosquitoes, solving adventures.
Phill
And what were the mosquitoes called?
Dara
Er . . .
Alan
Buzzy!
Bill
Stingy!
Dara
It was a very, very low-rent 1950s French detective season, er, that involved, at some point, the extraction of a tiny amount of blood from one of the suspects.
Stephen
Do you know what else a mosquito can be, other than a--
Alan
It was a World War II plane.
Stephen
Ahh.
Alan
Made out of wood.
Stephen
Made out of wood. Exactly. Made out of balsa wood and plywood. What was their great raid?
Phill
Tuck shop!
Alan
I dunno. Was it made into a film?
Stephen
It was. They were twelve members of . . . ?
Dara
It's . . .
Stephen
Le Résistance! The Maquis. And they were due to be shot by the Gestapo. And the Allies would send in these twelve mosquitoes to bomb the chateau in Amiens, so that all the prisoners would escape.
Alan
I can't believe that they'd just blow the bloody doors off.
Stephen
I know! Basically, that was it.
Alan
I would think they'd flatten the whole place, with twelve bombers!
Stephen
You're right. What happened was, it had to go down an avenue of poplars. It was so narrow that they had to fly--
Alan
"Down the avenue of poplars! Perpendicular to the ground!" [extends arms as wings and leans sharply sideways]
Stephen
Yeah, exactly like that. That's what you'll have to do. Erm, there were 700 prisoners in the prison. 102 were killed by the raid to start with, 74 were wounded--
Bill
Yeah.
Stephen
--then 258 escaped, of which 179 were rounded up within the next few days by the Germans again.
Dara
My girlfriend's grandfather flew one of those, and he actually goes now and visits, in Germany, with the Luftwaffe pilot whose plane he shot down during the War.
Stephen
Oh, wow.
Dara
And they go and they sit around and, you know, go, "Hah! Great days." And, er, neither of them speak the other language. Like, the, er . . . like, he doesn't speak German; the Luftwaffe pilot doesn't speak English, but they sit there and--
Alan
What do they do? Sit there and go--[mimes holding a gun and making shooting noises]?
Dara
Yeah.
Alan
[pretends to be shot and wounded in the arm]
Dara
The temptation, if you're standing behind there--
Alan
[makes the sound of a parachute deploying and mimes slowly wafting to the ground]
Do a whole reenactment!
Phill
And for over 50 years, that German man has been peeing in your granddad's tea.
[pretends to surreptitiously pee in a teacup]
Alan
We had an Airfix model of one of those. I gave it to my dad for his birthday, and he made it before breakfast.
Phill
Did he put the transfers on?
Alan
Yep. Painted it and everything.
Bill
Yeah.
Phill
That was a pain, because you had to put them in hot water and wait for them to slip off.
Stephen
Yes.
Phill
And then, of course, with chubby, six-year-old fingers, you just end up covered in swastikas. You go to school and they think you're in the BNP, and it's, "No, I've been trying to make a Heinkel, sir!"
Stephen
The raid was a partial success, but now, let's look at a complete catastrophe. When the Titanic sank, what was the first thing that happened to the crew?
Phill
[presses buzzer, which banjos]
Stephen
Phill.
Phill
Terrible luck for them, but they actually had their six-month review, and, er . . . [shrugs]
Bill
[presses buzzer, which twangs]
Alan
They drowned.
[Forfeit: Klaxons sound. Viewscreens flash the words "THEY DROWNED".]
Stephen
[pointing to Alan] Did you say "they drowned"?
Alan
I said "they drowned", yes.
Stephen
Oh, dear, no.
Bill
No, I was going to say, they were fired.
Stephen
Every single member of the crew had their wages stopped at the moment of the sinking. They stopped paying them. The moment a ship sinks, it is no longer a ship, and therefore you can't work on it, and therefore, the White Star Line paid them up to the minute of the sinking and not beyond.
Phill
I . . . I would imagine that, in a sinking situation, you'd hope to be getting time and a half!
Stephen
You would! Frankly. Double bubble.
Phill
It's just a little something in the back end.
Alan
As soon as you're in the water, you've gotta be looking for work!
Stephen
True! Get on your pedalo and look for work.
But apparently, at the time, White Star were considered one of the more generous employers. I think it was £5 a month; not very much. Do you know about the Dove-Gordon family on the Titanic?
Phill
And their terrible gin?
Stephen
Very good! Er, no, they offered the crew of Lifeboat Number 1 £5 to save their lives, erm . . . Nobody's quite sure whether this was just greed, saying, "I'll give you £5 if you save my life!" or whether it was a thank you 'cause their lives were saved. But whatever the result, the crew themselves were in terrible trouble for accepting a bribe. Erm, one poor lad, Albert Horsewell, survived--he was one of the lifeboat crew--got home, went to see his mother, who slammed the door in his face and never spoke to him again, because she was ashamed that he'd taken a bribe.
Alan
She was also bonkers, I would say. "That Mrs Horsewell!" [makes loopy noise]
Phill
Is it true someone dressed as a lady?
Stephen
Supposedly, someone did, because it was women and children first.
Bill
I thought you said somebody dressed as a baby!
Stephen
A lady!
Bill
[holds his pen up to his face as though it were a lollypop]
Phill
[in posh voice] "Yes, goo goo, indeed. I have a lollypop, and, er, I have no control of my bowels or urination. I am indeed an infant. And I know you think I'm Lord Albermal, but actually, I am a little baby, with a beard."
Alan
Yeah.
Phill
"Goo goo. Bah. And madam, might I tell you I've been a very naughty baby?"
Stephen
Following along that path, erm, they . . . the ones who were paid £5 were only the Able Seamen. How . . . how can you tell "Able" from "Ordinary" seamen?
Phill
Well, erm . . .
Stephen
When you applied for a job as seaman on . . . on a . . . [breaks off from laughter] . . . merchant marine . . . you are either registered as an Able Seaman or an Ordinary Seaman, and they accepted your word. But you kept a log of your work, which was the real proof of it, and it was called a Certificate . . . a Certificate of Continuous Discharge.
Well, staying with the subject of "catastrophes", erm, how would you sink a ship using pistachios?
Alan
Cargo pistachio nuts goes a bit manky or something--
Stephen
Ah, now, Alan, you are so close on the tail of this!
Alan
[laughs in surprise, hand still extended]
Stephen
Ooh ooh ooh! You could almost feel it--
Alan
It's something with the hull, and the--[claps hands together] . . . reaction--
Stephen
It is to do with the very quality of pistachios en masse . . .
Bill
They become highly volatile, almost explosive!
Stephen
Yes! Absolutely! They do. Absolutely. I think you share many marks--
Alan
[holding up QI Doubt Card] Rubbish! That's complete rubbish!
Stephen
Do you not believe it? Are you playing your Doubt Card?
Alan
[hurriedly puts it down] No, never!
Stephen
All right. Very wise. Very wise, young Alan.
They are classified under class 4.2 of the International Maritime Dangerous Goods Code, as "Flammable Solids"-brackets-"substances liable to spontaneous combustion".
Bill
Yes.
Stephen
They will explode.
Bill
A lot of nuts. Very much . . . like . . . that.
Stephen
Yeah. Ice cream is green, isn't it? And they're very rarely that green, pistachios. Why are they so green, the ice creams? I don't know.
Alan
They only use the green bit.
Stephen
They only use the green bit.
Alan
[looks shiftily at Bill]
Stephen
Vanilla is black, and yet, vanilla milkshake is white! [makes sound of supreme bafflement, with arms outstretched] . . . As I believe stand-up comedians do. [repeats sound of disbelief] [enunciates carefully] "What's that about?" Huh? Yeah!
But, erm, my next question is: Name another dangerous nut.
Bill
[presses buzzer, which twangs]
[sits very still until buzzer stops sounding]
Er . . . the, er, walnut!
Stephen
Yes!
Bill
Is it?!
Stephen
Yes! Extraordinary! Like pistachios, they also can spontaneously combust!
Bill
Yeah. They explode on contact with fondant. So Walnut Whips are time bombs waiting to go off!
Stephen
An amazing guess, if it were a guess.
Bill
It was a guess.
Stephen
Fantastic. Walnuts, yep. Coconuts are dangerous if they fall on your head, obviously--
Bill
Of course.
Stephen
--but they're not nuts. They kill about 150 people a year, though. 10 times more than sharks do.
Phill
I can't imagine, er, the, er, the Discovery Channel doing a series of documentaries on "The Deadly, Deadly Coconut".
Bill
Yeah.
Stephen
"Killer Coconuts!"
Bill
And also, people going, "The walnuts had a bad press. Save the walnut!"
Alan
They could do adventure holidays where you sit under a palm tree full of coconuts, in a cage! Filming them. [mimes holding a camera pointed up into a tree]
Bill
I actually won a coconut. I did. I went to the fair, with . . . with a child, now--
Alan
You threw a child?
Bill
No, I threw the . . . Yes, obviously, a little bit easier. [pretends to be a child hurtling toward the coconut shy stand] "Whoaa!"
Alan
[mimes being hit violently in the face]
Bill
I thought I'd get a little bit more incentive to win the coconut, and I chucked it as hard as I can and pinged it off. When I picked up the coconut, he just looked at me, glared at me, like . . . [makes irritated face].
Stephen
[triumphantly] Because he looks like a coconut, he can somehow have a mystic power over them!
Bill
[silently leaves his seat]
Stephen
Oh, no. [laughs, cringing behind his forearms]
Bill
[gets back in his seat]
A '70s coconut!
Stephen
Ye-es. Is a coconut a nut?
Alan
No. You just said it wasn't!
Stephen
That's right. Well remembered. Peanuts, almonds, pistachios, Brazils, cashews, coconuts, horse chestnuts, pine nuts -- are not nuts.
Bill
Tiny . . . shoes.
Stephen
[laughs] You weird man! No, they're . . . they're just kind of seeds, or fruits. Well, a Brazil nut is a kind of seed.
Bill
Yes.
Stephen
Peanuts are actually peas. They really are dried peas.
Alan
Peas split in two the same way that peanuts do.
Stephen
That's right. They do.
Alan
[in response to the audience's laughter] I might get a point for that. You never know.
Stephen
True nuts are walnuts, erm, butternuts, hickory, pecan, wing nut, chestnut . . . not conkers!
Bill
No, no.
Stephen
Beech, oak, stone oak, tan oak, hazel, filbert, hornbeam--
Alan
Acorns, you mean?
Stephen
Yes, acorns. Exactly.
Alan
[mimes nibbling on an acorn] Mmm.
Bill
Beetle. What about beetle?
Stephen
A beetle? Oh, I don't know, actually, a beetle nut. They might be.
Bill
Ahh!
Phill
Imagine if the acorn tasted as good as it looked. In its own little cup.
Stephen
Ohh.
Phill
Little green fellow. [mimes opening an acorn and licking gingerly at it]
Bill
Ahh.
Phill
[closes eyes in bliss] . . . Sadly, they taste like shit.
Stephen
Beetle nuts are not nuts, it says on my special screen. The little QI Elves are . . . are hacking away at the, er, emerald mine of knowledge as we speak. Erm . . .
Now. Why would Rolls Royce have any use for a chicken farm?
Alan
They probably use the feathers to fill the seats with.
Stephen
Interesting thought.
Bill
[presses buzzer, which twangs]
Stephen
Ooh.
Bill
Erm, I just . . . this is just off the . . . I'm going on . . . I'm on a roll with the walnut . . .
Stephen
Yeah.
Bill
Er . . . is it something to do with Rolls Royce engines--
Stephen
[extends arm amazedly at Bill]
Bill
--and they test 'em by throwing chickens into the engine?
Stephen
Give the man a peanut! He's absolutely right!
Bill
[incredulously] Is that right?
Stephen
Yep. We have to make clear we're talking about Rolls Royce PLC, which is an Arrow Engine Company, as opposed to Rolls Royce Motor Cars Limited, which is owned by BMW--
Dara
To . . . to see the . . . the everyday occurrence of a chicken being caught in your radiator as you're driving down the road . . . it's just bird strike.
Stephen
"Bird strike". Ooh, that sounds so butch when you put it like that, doesn't it?
Dara
You'd have to be relatively butch to do the job--
Stephen
Yes.
Dara
--just . . . just to get over the emotional difficulty of throwing a live chicken into an aircraft. It . . . it would take a fair amount of detachment, anyway, at the very least!
Stephen
Yeah, there are chicken cannons. They use cannons . . . they really do! You see, because it is an absolutely vital--
Alan
[mimes being a chicken daredevil shooting out of a cannon]
[Viewscreens: Picture of Mel Gibson's character from "Chicken Run" being shot out of a cannon.]
Stephen
[at viewscreens] Hey hey! Very good.
I mean, the fact is, you probably wouldn't want to go in an aeroplane where they hadn't tested for what happened when a bird got sucked into the engine, and the only way they can test it is to do it. So when they have a new engine, they hurl birds at 180 miles per hour out of a cannon . . . dead, they died, we hope, of natural causes--
Bill
Ahh.
Phill
It's very, very easy to get someone to take the job, though, if you say, "You're gonna be sucked in a Rolls Royce . . ."
Stephen
Oh! Very good.
Dara
Presumably, before they developed the . . . the chicken cannon, the only other way would be to send the plane up and then have it scout around for birds.
Stephen
Exactly. Exactly.
Alan
They hang a little net . . . bag of peanuts over the engine!
Stephen
With a sign saying, "By the way, these are not nuts! They are peas!"
So they have their own chicken farm, so they control the weight and size, but they also use duck and turkey.
Dara
Turkey! Er . . .
Stephen
Seems unlikely.
Dara
Not . . . not the most adventurous of birds, er, altitude-wise, er . . .
Alan
Chickens don't get very high either, though, really, do they?
Bill
No, they do if they're fired from a cannon!
Alan
Whatever happened to firing a bloke with a little helmet out of a cannon? That was all the rage when I was a kid.
Phill
I think . . . I think that--
Alan
Health and Safety?
Phill
--he would not do that another time once he'd been in the engine once.
Bill
Yeah.
Stephen
It was invented by a man called Ildebrando Zacchini . . . was the real inventor of the human cannonball, and the Zacchini family did it for generations.
Dara
It . . . it shortens your back.
Stephen
You're right, it does.
Dara
It compresses your spine, which is not--
Stephen
Even worse was when two Zacchini girls were fired simultaneously, in a kind of dispersed . . . they hit each other!
Alan
"Have you had an accident at work?"
Phill
Obviously, now, on the advert, Mr Zacchini--[compresses head into his neck]--"Well, I've been shot out of a cannon for the last 20 years!"
Stephen
"I am speaking in such a--"
Phill
[gives thumbs-up sign, shuffles fingers to signify money, then pretends to juggle balls]
Stephen
Chickens get fired out of cannons at about 186 miles per hour, which is pretty fast, but only 1/360,000th the speed of light, or "c", as it is called, because it is the universal constant, and not relative to anything else. My "c" question is: Who invented the Theory of Relativity?
Bill
Oh, er . . .
Phill
[pointing an accusing finger] Ah, this is one of your . . .
Bill
[points at Stephen knowingly]
Stephen
Oh, so little trust in the world!
Phill
[fans himself with his QI Doubt Card]
Bill
It was Albert . . . Egg-mont. . . . I'm not -- going to say.
Stephen
He was a very great physicist.
Dara
Which one?
Stephen
The Theory of Relativity.
Dara
Which one?
Stephen
Ah, the Theory of Relativity. Not the "Special" one, not the "General" one. Very good question. The first Theory of Relativity. That put to rest Aristotle's Theory of Absolute Rest, in fact. 'Cause you . . . you're a bit of an old science bod--
Dara
Yeah, but, you know, not in a way that I like to be quizzed on television about, er . . .
Alan
I bet it turns out to be Einstein in an elaborate bluff.
Stephen
[laughs sneakily] Do you . . . how much do you want to risk . . . the . . .
Alan
[holds up QI Doubt Card defensively]
Stephen
Erm . . .
Alan
I have the Cloak of Doubt!
Stephen
A big, big hitter. The biggest, really.
Alan and Dara
Newton.
Stephen
Second-biggest, then.
Alan
Einstein.
Stephen
Oh, did you say "Einstein"?
[Forfeit: Klaxons sound. Viewscreens flash the word "EINSTEIN".]
Stephen
All that care! You took so much care not to say "Einstein"!
Alan
You know? Fish bite hooks; what can you say?
Stephen
No, Galileo Galilei. I'm thinking of Galileo.
Alan
He just did telescopes.
Stephen
He--[splutters incoherently toward the opposite side of the table]! Tell him. Put him right about Galileo. Just founder of more modern physics.
Alan
Could he make a good pasta sauce?
Stephen
[playfully flips his hand at Alan]
Anyway, there we are. Erm, Einstein was responsible for the Special and the General Theories of Relativity, in 1905 and 1915 or -16--
Dara
-15.
Stephen
-15, I think you're right, yes, respectively, but the original idea of relativity was Galileo's.
What happened--this is my question to you--what happened to three quarters of the people accused of witchcraft in England?
[Viewscreens: Two black and white pictures of a movie witch.]
Alan
Drowned? Burned? Killed?
[Forfeit: Klaxons sound. Viewscreens flash the words "THEY WERE BURNED".]
Stephen
Oh! Mm. We were much gentler than you might think: They were acquitted.
Dara
Really?
Stephen
Yeah.
Dara
Isn't that sending the wrong message to witches?
Stephen
We were, apparently, rather resistant to the idea of, erm, destroying witches in . . . in England, and unlike, erm, views espoused in so-called books . . . And I use the word "book" very loosely, like [with utmost disgust] The Da Vinci Code. [pretends to spit] Erm . . . It is complete loose stool water. It is arse-gravy of the worst kind. Erm . . . er . . .
Bill
Well, that's a bit harsh!
Stephen
Anyway.
Alan
He's a blues singer. "Please welcome . . . Loose Stool Water!"
Bill
[presses buzzer, which twangs]
[rocks to it as though he were a blues singer]
Stephen
Very good! Excellent.
Well, that particular pan full of that material did claim that about five million women were burned or hanged around Europe for being witches; there's absolutely no evidence of anything like as much as that. Probably about 500, probably less, in England, and they weren't burned: they were hanged.
Bill
[at viewscreens] The lawyer might have said, "Maybe not go to court dressed like that."
Stephen
Two, possibly, burned. That's the only evidence that two were burned. The rest were hanged, probably about four- or five-hundred at the most.
There were lots of Hammer Films--"The Devil Rides Out" and those kind of things . . . usually Peter Cushing and, sometimes, if you were very lucky, they would have--[inhales]--Charles Gray in a huge, white smock.
Alan
Peter Cushing lived in Whitstable. And I lived . . . and I lived in Whitstable. And a local band had a song about him which went [semi-melodically], "Peter Cushing lives in Whitstable / I have seen him on his bicycle / I have seen him buying vegetables / Peter Cushing lives in Whitstable!"
Stephen
[laughs heartily] What a great song.
Alan
And then it just goes up! "Peter Cushing lives in Whitstable . . . !"
Stephen
You see, this is the first rule of pop music. Write about what you know, what you see out of the window . . .
I worked with him. He was extraordinary. He was one of the few people who could . . . when he was introduced to a woman, could kiss their hand, and he was just from another era.
Alan
Whereas Christopher Lee'd bite their finger off!
Stephen
I was about to do a film with [as Christopher Lee] Christopher Lee, who was rather scary. And he said [as Peter Cushing], "Oh, Chris isn't scary at all; he's lovely! Erm, I'll tell you what: I'll call him up!" And I said, "No, no no no no!" And he picked up the phone and said [as Cushing], "Chris, darling. Chris. It's Peter." [imitating his excitement] It's great! You know, it's Van Helsing and Dracula on the phone together. He said, "I've got a young actor who is going to work with you in a film and he's rather scared of you. So talk to him!" [mimes handing the phone over; reenacts his immense, squeamish frenzy at being forced into the situation]
[as Lee] "Hello, who are you?" [as his scared self, extremely quickly] "Oh, my name's Stephen and I'm really looking forward to working with you in a film." [as Lee] "Yes, well, I'll see you, I expect, on the set. Could you . . . pass me back to Mr Cushing, please?" [puts on frightened face and mimes passing phone back]
Alan
[with "phone" to ear, as Christopher Lee] "Peter. I have seen you buying vegetables."
Dara
Was there a moment, when he said, "Oh, I know Peter, I'll call him up," do you expect him to go--" [goes into demonic incantations, extending arms, rolling eyes, and breathing heavily] "You sought me . . . !!"
Stephen
Another man I was very proud to have met . . . the Hammer Film of the "Witchfinder General", starred [as Vincent Price] "Vincent Price." You just wanted him to say things like [as Price], "Could you pass the mustard, please? . . . I would greatly appreciate it . . ."
Alan
Thunder and lightning--[mimes huge bolt of lightning crashing down]!
Bill
[laughs demonically]
Stephen
And . . . one of the . . . I got him to say the line that I loved. It was from one of those films where he's kind of strangely bound up in some weird bandages: [as Price] "Pray, speak quietly; every sound you make is exquisite agony to me!"
And so now to our own little backwater of superstition, heresy, and horror: The infernal nether regions of General Ignorance, so fingers on buzzers, please, if you would. Name a softwood.
Alan
[presses buzzer, which clucks]
Stephen
Alan
Alan
Balsa wood.
Stephen
Oh!
[Forfeit: Klaxons sound. Viewscreens flash the words "BALSA WOOD".]
Stephen
Dang nabbit! Although it is--
Alan
[unperturbed, again presses buzzer, which clucks]
Plywood.
Stephen
Oh, bless!
Alan
[presses buzzer, which clucks]
Pine.
Stephen
Ah! You get some points back for pine, which is a softwood. Balsa wood, although it is the softest . . . almost the softest of woods, is actually a hardwood, technically.
Bill
Ah.
Stephen
It comes from a broad-leafed deciduous tree, er . . . Balsa is a soft wood, not . . . a softwood. Erm . . . it's mothproof as well. Unlike my trousers!
[suddenly stands and points to the crotch of his trousers, which has small moth-eaten holes] Why do they go in that area?
Bill
I dunno!
Stephen
They're only flesh and blood, I suppose . . . [laughs with gusto]. "While you're down there, my dear!"
Bill
Do you have a light bulb in your underpants?
Stephen
Good heavens above. Erm, now. So, there you are. Yes. Balsa wood is mothproof.
What happens, though, if you cut an earthworm in half?
Alan
You get two earthworms.
[Forfeit: Klaxons sound. Viewscreens flash the sentence "YOU GET TWO WORMS".]
Stephen
No, you get one . . . one dead worm in two pieces. They do have death throes that last a long time, but they . . . they're dead. You don't get two worms, I'm afraid. There is a flatworm called the planaria, and a man called T. H. Morgan found that a piece of planaria, which was 1/279th of its original size, could regenerate into a whole, originally-sized planaria.
As I say, if you cut an earthworm in half, you get two halves of a dead worm, usually. Sometimes, the head end will survive, but, er, you can't get two worms from one.
[Viewscreens: Video of an astronaut bouncing around on the moon.]
Stephen
Now, moving on, erm . . . I'm . . . Oh, I'm holding a pen. That brings me cleverly to the Fisher Pressurized Space Pen of which you may have heard tell. It was developed after a lot of expensive research to enable astronauts to write in zero gravity. What alternative writing implement could they have used instead?
Phill
[presses buzzer, which banjos]
[sticks thumb behind him, pointing at viewscreen] Here comes the big noise: A pencil! [smiles directly at camera]
Stephen
No!
Phill
[holds his QI Doubt Card in front of his face, flipping it over so that the word "BOLLOCKS" can be seen]
Stephen
Yeah. There is a kind of urban myth that the Americans spent millions on building a pressurized, gravity-free Biro while the clever Russians just used a pencil, but in fact, they started off, both of them, using pencils, and the tip broke, and when the tip breaks, it floats around and it gets into and short-circuits things; gets into peoples' eyes and bodies; is very dangerous indeed.
Phill
But what a laugh that must be to have a pencil sharpener on the space shuttle!
[mimes repeatedly sharpening a pencil and watching the remains curl away in flight]
Stephen
Exactly! "Fun things to do in zero gravity."
So, it's sadly not true, that story. An ordinary Biro would have worked. They didn't need a special pressurized one. If you need to write upside-down, it needs to be pressurized when there's gravity, but when there's no gravity, an ordinary one will work.
Here's something quite interesting not many people know: Neil Armstrong, when he first set foot on the moon . . . he was heard to say, "Good luck, Mr Gorsky." And when someone said, "What do you mean by 'Good luck, Mr Gorsky'?" he said, "When I was a boy, I used to play baseball with my brother, and, erm, our neighbors were called the Gorskys. And I once hit a baseball into their garden and I went to retrieve it and they were in the bedroom, and I heard Mrs Gorsky said, 'Oral sex? I'll have oral sex with you the day that kid next door walks on the moon!'" Erm . . .
Alan
[with narrowed brow, indignantly holds up his QI Doubt Card on the side that reads "BOLLOCKS"]
[The Bollocks Alarm sounds, consisiting of the QI Doubt Card logo flashing on the screen with the voiceover "BOLLOCKS!"]
Stephen
It is bollocks, indeed, it's bollocks. But it is surprising how many people believe it to be true. Neil Armstrong himself is constantly being asked about it, saying, "Is it true about this Gorsky, or whatever the name was?" He says [in American accent], "Oh, for God's sake, no, it is not true."
Which brings us to the scores! Now, actually, Dara, you did rather well last time. Er, you astounded us with your knowledge on the triple-point of water. Do you remember?
Dara
Yes.
Stephen
What was it again?
Dara
The triple point of water is the . . . is the first temperature at which water can exist in all three states at the same time.
Stephen
And what is it?
Dara
It's zero.
[Forfeit: Klaxons sound. Viewscreens flash the number "0ºC".]
Stephen
Ah, now, you see! You see.
Dara
You're actually going to go back--
Stephen
We never forget. That's what you said last time, and we gave you points for it! But we're now gonna take those points away . . .
Dara
From a previous--
Stephen
. . . from a previous series!
Dara
From a previous series!
Stephen
Plus the forfeit, of course! Because some of our eagle-eyed viewers wrote in to point out that the triple-point of water is actually, by definition, nought-point-nought-one degrees Centigrade. That's twelve points off. But it's hardly your f--
Dara
But I was rounding off!
Stephen
When you were at school, the definition of the triple-point was nought degrees Centigrade; the new International Temperature Scale--
Dara
[laughs in incredulity]
Stephen
--has adopted, in 1990, the new definition, which is nought-point-nought-one.
Dara
How many people sat at home watching that and said, "It's just a comedy show, but I'm not letting that fecker get away with that!" [tightens jaw in anger]
Stephen
You'd be surprised at--
Dara
"He got points for that!" [mimes typing furiously on a keyboard]
Stephen
But, for now, I can give you scores. In first place, with plus-three, it's Bill Bailey, ladies and gentlemen!
Bill
Oh! For the first time, I've won. Thank you.
Stephen
In second place . . . and he would have been a resounding winner. With minus-eight, it's Dara Ó Briain, ladies and gentlemen. Pipped to the post. Third place, with minus-eighteen, Phill Jupitus. And our super, soaraways lack of success: Alan Davies, minus-forty seven in fourth place!
So, it's good night from Phill, Dara, Bill, and Alan. And I leave you with this sobering thought from astronaut John Glenn, the first man to orbit the earth. When asked to describe his last thoughts before taking off into space, "I looked around me and suddenly realized," he said, "that I was sitting on a million tonnes of fuel, in a rocket that had been built by the lowest bidder." Good night.