21x02 - Upside Down

[bunniefuu]

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Good evening

and welcome to an episode of QI that
will turn your world upside down.

Having a flipping fabulous time
tonight

are the topsy turvy Urzila Carlson!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

The higgledy-piggledy Romesh
Ranganathan!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Head over heels, it's Aisling Bea!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And bottoms up, it's Alan Davies!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Right.

Let's hear their upside-down buzzers.
Urzila goes...

- # I said upside down you're turning
me

# You're giving love instinctively...
#

- Romesh goes...

- # I wanna turn the whole thing
upside down... #

- Aisling goes...

- # Upside down, bouncing off the
ceiling... #

- I love this track.

- And Alan goes...
- Oh, God.

- LAUGHTER

- Use your core.

- # I come from a land down under

# Where beer does flow and men
chunder... #

- Oh, that'll do. That's enough.

I'm exhausted. Anybody else? I'm
shattered.

Oh, time for a sleep.

The blood rushed to my head right
there. Thank you.

Right. OK, let's have a question.

Can you spot the problem with the
image on the screen?

What's the problem here?
- OK.

Don Felipe King of Spain.
- Yeah.

- How did you know that?
- It says so.
- It's written...

- LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

CHAT DROWNED OUT BY APPLAUSE

- I have got a feeling you are going
to smash this.

- But something's wrong with the whole
image, OK? What is it?

- Is it anything to do with these two
companions

who hanging upside down?
- Yes.

So, this is really a curious thing.

- Are they from New Zealand?

- How dare you?

- We don't actually know who's upside
down, do we?
- No, that's fair.

- It's the Europeans who decided they
were on top.

We might not be on top.
- That's what I say to all my lovers

when I'm like, "Look, technically in
New Zealand, I am on top..."

- LAUGHTER

So we have rotated the entire image


it is the central painting which is
the one that is upside down.
- Oh.

- So it's a portrait of, as you quite
rightly pointed out...

- Don Felipe, yeah.
- Yes. It hangs in The Almodi Museum
in Xativa,

near Valencia.
- In Valencia.

- LAUGHTER

- I posit a potential theory that
might...

I genuinely think might be right.
- OK, go.

- Is it that he was, like, done for
treason and so to discredit him

his painting was hung upside down?
- So, you're not a million miles away.

Not a million miles away.
- 999,000 miles away.
- No, no.

So it is a sort of sign of disrespect
towards him.
- Yes.

- So in 1707, during the w*r of
Spanish Succession,

King Philip's forces massacred the
citizens of Xativa,

which is where the portrait now hangs,
and they burnt the town

to the ground. Many years later, 1940,
the museum curator,

a man called Carlos Sarthou, he was
rather cross about this,

and he decided that the king's
portrait should hang upside down.

And so it has stayed that way ever
since.

- 200 years later, I'm going to get...
- "I'm going to get him.

"I'm going to hang...
- It's almost like he's just about
Irish

but we go, like, 500, 600 years.
- That king can be glad.

If it was my mum, she would have just
ripped him out

and reused the frame for the dog.
That's what she did

with all my dad's photos. I don't want
to talk about it.

- LAUGHTER

- Burning the town to the ground,
massacring all the inhabitants,

this is a small payback, really, isn't
it?
- Yeah. I'm surprised

they had a picture of him at all.
You're quite right. So bearing that

in mind about artworks being upside
down, let's play a quick game

of Is This Artwork Upside Down?

Right, let's have a look at the first
one.

I'll give a point if anybody knows
quickly who it is.
- Er...

- # Upside down... #

- Rothko?
- No.

- # Down under... #
- My six-year-old.

And, yes, it's upside down.
- Anyone know who it is?

INDISTINCT CHATTER

Piet Mondrian. It's Piet Mondrian.

- # Upside down... #

- Yeah?
- Piet Mondrian.
- Yes, point...

APPLAUSE

So the thing about it is, it's upside
down.

But it was like that for 75 years
before anybody noticed.

And it was a curator in 2022 called
Susanne Meyer-Buser

at the Kunstsammlung
Nordrhein-Westfalen Gallery

in Dusseldorf.
- Wow.
- Wow.
- Well done.
- And she said... Thank you.

"Once I pointed it out to others, it
was obvious."

- So this is it upside down?
- Yeah. So it's made of coloured tape

and it's supposed to be night-time.

And so that's the dark sky,

the bit at the bottom.

But they now can't turn it round the
right way.

- Oh, cos the little hook thing's at
the bottom.

- LAUGHTER

Well, here's the thing. It's not
paint, it's tape.

And they're really worried that it'll
come off.

- They can't turn around cos it's
sellotape?

- I'd suggest they go to a shop...
- Yeah.

- ..get some red and yellow and blue
tape...
- Yeah.

- ..and make another one.
- Make another one.
- Yeah.

- Take about an hour.
- Yeah.

LAUGHTER

- Some year sevens...
- Yeah.

You mentioned Rothko.

So the next one..
- I did, and that wasn't the answer.

- There is a Rothko.
- # Upside down... #

- Rothko?

- APPLAUSE

Or, as his mum knew him, Markus
Rothkowitz.

- That's where they keep the keys.
Just going to lock up the gallery.

"Where are the keys?" "Top of the
Rothko, usual place."

- So this is...
- But is it actually the bottom of the
Rothko, though,

is it the bottom of the Rothko?
- Black On Maroon, it's called.

Do we think it's upside down or the
right way up?

- I think it should be horizontal.
- I reckon it's the right way up

because, as you can see, the ladder is
pointing the right way.

- LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

- Thank you.

- Bloke on the right is looking, "Why
are people looking at that?

"Look at the actual painting I've got
in my room."

- So for years it was hung
horizontally.

And then they decided... They did some
research and they decided to hang it
vertically.

And since then it's been hung
horizontally and vertically and nobody
actually knows.

And Rothko didn't leave any
instructions.

The paintings by Rothko are usually on
display at Tate Modern in London.

What about this one? Is this artwork
upside down?

Name the artist.
- I'm out because nobody said it
before.

- Say Georgia O'Keeffe. Just say
Georgia, please.

I think it's the right way up.
- Romesh, do you know who it is?
- I think it's Georgia O'Keeffe.

- CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

- That was the most laddish "yay" for
a lad...

"Georgia O'Keeffe, yay, go on, Rom."

- "Romesh knows his artists, go on,
you absolutely legend!

"You are smashing QI, mate!"

- LAUGHTER

As you're an expert, her middle name?
- O.

- LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

It's Totto. Georgia Totto O'Keeffe. I
really love that.

It's Oriental Poppies by Georgia
O'Keeffe.

It is the most valuable painting in
the Weisman Art Museum

in the University of Minnesota. And
for years, they hung it like this,

right? They hung it, I suppose

you call it portrait mode, for about


And then they discovered the mistake
in 1986 by finding a photograph

of Georgia O'Keeffe standing next to
the painting,

and they had to rehang it.

- But now you can see the importance
of taking selfies.
- Yes.

So what's one of the things on a
painting that we might look for

to decide if it's upside down?
- Arrow.
- Yeah.

LAUGHTER

- The autograph.
- Yeah, the signature. But the thing
about the signature,

well, I suppose it can help. Have a
look at this picture here

and tell me whether it is upside down.
- That's upside down, yeah.

- Let's have a look at the signature.

And the signature is...

- Oh.
- ..just there. So...
- So, hang on. So HE'S upside down?

- LAUGHTER

- How's his hat staying on his head?

- I like that this painting was done
in '69,

which suggests it could go either way.
- Oooh!

- SCATTERED APPLAUSE

APPLAUSE

It's a German artist, Georg Baselitz,

and he specialised in painting people
and places

and objects upside down. That is the
painting of his wife, Elke.

- He paints it upside down?
- Yes.

- Or does he paint it and then hang it
upside down?

- No, he paints it upside down. That
was his speciality.

Or IS - he's still with us.

Where would you find this statue?

- Fallen out of a plane, has it?

- It's in Australia.
- Yeah, Australia.

- Yeah, it's a statue of Charles La
Trobe.

He was the first Lieutenant Governor
of the Colony of Victoria.

It's 16 foot tall. It's made of
fibreglass and polystyrene,

so it's painted to look like stone and
bronze.

I feel sort of sorry for the guy,
Charles La Trobe,

who is depicted here.

He suffered with a terrible lack of
confidence during his life.

And he'd hate this, wouldn't he?
- What did he achieve?

- He was the first Lieutenant Governor
of the Colony of Victoria.

- First leff-tenant?
- Yes.
- What happened to the first
right-tenant?

- That's actually... That's not a
thing.
- OK. Thank you, Romesh,

for correcting me.
- Do you know what?

You're proving invaluable.
- No, I just want to get stuff right.

It's all right to have fun, but let's
get the facts out.

There is no right-tenant, and this
nest of pricks are applauding it.

- LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Now, what is the upside of having
almost nobody

come to your show?
- Don't have to do it.
- Yeah.

Well, the Equity rule used to be that
you didn't have to do it

if there were more people onstage than
there were in the audience.

- When I first got a website as a
comedian,

I put a question on the website.

So you get two free tickets to my work
in progress in Brighton,

and some, like, a kid that I used to
teach, answered the question

and got the tickets, and him and his
mate were the only two people

that turned up.
- Did you do it?
- No.

No, because I wasn't allowed to be
within 500 yards of him.

- LAUGHTER

- But at least you knew the website
worked.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.

- I did a show once with Jan Ravens
and Tony Slattery,

and only my mother-in-law turned up.

She made us do the show.

LAUGHTER

- Did she go to the bathroom at any
point?
- No.

- I just wonder logistically, if
there's only one person

and they go to the bathroom, do you
carry on or do you wait?

- You have to go with them, it's
Equity rule.

Keep doing the show outside the stall.

- I'm trying to get you to the world
of magic, OK?

So here's the thing. Magicians very
rarely copyright their tricks

because you'd have to write it down on
the patent application.

Right? So what you are going to do is
you want to patent it,

but you don't want anybody to know
what it is.

So Harry Houdini, what he would do is
he would put on a one-act play

in London called Houdini Upside Down,

and he would put it on to one paying
customer.

That's it, only one person.

And that allowed him to copyright the
play and thus protect the trick.

So what you want in those instances,
you just want one person to turn up.

This particular trick in question was
the Chinese Water t*rture Cell.

The first public performance took
place in Berlin in 1912.

You can see there his feet are in
stocks and he's lowered upside down

into a tank of water. And he would
then escape

and he said he would give a £200
reward to anybody who could prove

he was receiving air during the
performance

and nobody claimed the prize.

And he was very, very aggressive about
protecting his copyright.

So between 1911-1914, he registered
three of his tricks as little plays.

That was his way of making sure that
they were his...
- It's a cool trick

but quite an intense thing to watch on
your own.

- sitting there with an axe in your
hand.

"If I tap on the glass, you're going
to get me out, all right?"

- "I've got you, Harry, I won't fall
asleep, I swear."

- "Sorry, I'm just going to go to the
loo."

- "You going to be in there for much
longer?

"I need to go for a wee."

- HE MUMBLES

LAUGHTER

- He trained himself to hold his
breath.

He could hold his breath for three and
a half minutes, and he'd keep

the key in his mouth and he could do
all the padlocks.

So holding the breath was difficult.
But he said that some tricks,

they don't look dangerous, but they're
unbelievably dangerous.

And other tricks look incredibly
dangerous and aren't.

- I'd focus on those ones.
- Yeah. Some of it we've discovered

over the years because people have
bought the props.

So Teller, of Penn and Teller, he
bought this big black cross

that had belonged to Houdini and he
thought it was just kind of a fun prop

and the guy who sold it to him, it had
little holes in it

where you put the rope through to tie
somebody to the cross,

and the guy said, "Do not put your
fingers in the holes."

And what it had, it had a mechanism
inside that you operated

with your foot and it sliced through
all the ropes

at exactly the same moment.

- God, it'd almost make you think that
magic isn't real.
- I know.

LAUGHTER

Right. Alan, are you familiar with the
unusual properties

of the number 5,318,008?

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

- Alan, what is it, Alan? Alan, what
is it?

Do you know? Alan, we're all just
going to speak to you.

- What kind of what kind of bees make
milk, Sandi?

That's what I say to you.

- LAUGHTER

DROWNED OUT BY LAUGHTER

It's a language based on upside-down
numbers.

So if we turn that upside down, it
becomes...

- The kind of bees that make milk.

- The kind of bees that make milk.

- Thought this was a family show.

- So we've each got a calculator to
create some words.

Try this - 0.7734.

What have you got?
- "Hello."
- Hello. There it is. Hello.

Romesh, try this - 577 34 5663.

- What the hell does that say?

Oh! "Eggshells."
- Yes!

That says eggshells. OK, Alan, you
ready?

- This is what we used to do at
school.
- What's that one?

- It says "Shell Oil."

I remember doing that in 1978. It's
just come back to me.

- I love that.

Aisling, you try this one. 370 4608.

LAUGHTER

- OK.
- What you got?

- Oh, "boghole."

How did you know my private name for
my an*s?

- LAUGHTER

The longest word that you can spell in
this way on a calculator

is 13 numbers long and it's "heebie
jeebies."

- Oh, that's nice.
- Have a look at this picture.

This is a Sator Square and examples of
this have been found in graffiti

all over the Roman world. You can read
it any way you like.

It basically says something like, "The
farmer Arepo

"uses his plough to work."

I mean, it doesn't matter which way
you read it,

horizontally or vertically or back to
front or whatever,

the only thing about it is, is the
name Arepo is almost

certainly made up. It's just to make
the square work.

That's why they have the name Arepo,

which is called a hapax legomenon.

- Shall certainly be remembering that.

- So hapax - once -

and legomenon - said -

so a word that is only said one time.

And there are a surprising number of
them. The Bible has loads.

So you know when we say, "Give us this
day our daily bread"?

In fact, it's a word, Epiousion, which
is in both Matthew and Luke,

it only appears the one time and we
say "the daily bread"

but we genuinely don't know. Epiousion
is the word,

but we don't know what it means. It
could be sufficient.

"Give us sufficient bread."
- Sounds like fruit toast.

There's, like, a variety of fruit
toasts.
- Yeah, so it could be that.

- That's always nice in the morning.
- "Give us our brioche."
- Yeah.

- Yeah, we just don't know.
- So, wait, are you saying to me...

- LAUGHTER

- ..that there is something in the
Bible...
- Yeah.

- ..that might not be exactly real?

- LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

One of my favourite stories about
things that are upside down,

so there's a story of Beethoven and he
was challenged to a piano duel.

Don't you love that?
- Just hitting each other with pianos.

"I shall k*ll you this..."

- Steibelt, this guy on the right,

sat down and he played a piece that he
had written. And it was

a sort of thunderous display of this
fabulous piece of music.

And Beethoven sat down and he hadn't
got any music,

and he took Steibelt's piece

and he turned it upside down and
improvised for an hour,

just based on the upside-down piece.
And apparently Steibelt stormed out

and never returned to Vienna while
Beethoven was still there.

But there's lots of things about
people playing upside down.

Left-handed Jimi Hendrix rather
famously

played a right-handed guitar.
- Didn't Paul McCartney do that as
well?

- Did he? I mean, it's a common issue
for lefties.

There is a lefty who played the guitar
upside down, and I think

she's a legend and we should know
about her.

She's called Elizabeth Cotten.

She received her first Grammy in 1985
at the age of 90.

- Whoa.
- She was left-handed,

so she was playing the bass with her
fingers

and the tune with her thumb. And it
became known as Cotten Picking.

She went into domestic service when
she was nine years old.

And then one day when she was an
adult, she found a child

who was lost in a department store.

And the child was a girl called Peggy
Seeger.

The Seegers, very famous American folk
family.

They took Elizabeth Cotten in and she
became their housekeeper

and they realised what a brilliant
guitarist she was.

And only in 2022 was she posthumously
inducted

into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

I think she's just a remarkable...

Fantastic.

What's the most healthy thing to order
first in a restaurant?

- I'd say gin and tonic.
- Oh, just get it out there straight
away.

- Yeah, just start happy.
- I can't drink gin and tonic.

Makes me literally crazy.
- Yeah, me too. That's...

That's what it does.
- What do you reckon,

first thing you should order that's
the healthiest thing?

- Custard. Something with custard,
something hot with custard.

- I mean, you're... You're exactly
right.

A stodgy dessert would be the very
best thing to order first.

So they did some research at the
University of Arizona.

- This is a game changer.
- I know.
- Yeah.
- See you later, salads!

- So they asked people to choose their
starters and their mains

and their desserts, but in different
orders, OK?

So people who ordered the dessert
first,

if you order a fatty dessert, then you
think,

"Oh, I've already had the unhealthy
thing.

"I'd better have something healthier
afterwards,"

because you've sort of already blown
it.
- Right.
- And, overall,

people will eat fewer calories

if they start with the high-calorie
thing first.
- Cos don't you have

as well different bellies? Like, you
know, like after Christmas dinner,

you're like, "Couldn't eat another
thing.

"So I think to mop it all up, I'll
have three slices of toast."

It'll just all, you know, you find the
way.

- Yeah. Just make it work.

- How strong is the schooling system
in Ireland?

- LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

You're not far off, actually,

the truth is we do have different
appetites...
- Oh, well, well, well!

- LAUGHTER

- I often think that we shouldn't be
allowed to choose how many poppadoms

we ask for at an Indian restaurant,
because you turn up and they go,

"How many poppadoms go you want?" You
go, "I'll have 1,000."

Then the meal arrives and you go,

"I don't want to see a curry. I'm full
up."

- I quite often used to say to my
children,

"Let's have ice cream first,"

cos I do think that the dinner's going
to spoil it

if we don't have the ice cream first.
- God, I wish you raised me.

- LAUGHTER

- I wouldn't be able to move...

- There was a really nice Vietnamese
restaurant

near where I used to live and we went
in there one evening

and Mo Mowlam was in there

and I'd met her once before on a
programme and I said hello

and she was with her husband

and they were eating this delicious
food

and then they said, "We better go."
And I said, "here are you going?"

They said, "We're going to a friend's
house for dinner."

- LAUGHTER

- She goes, "We've been there before.

"There's no way there'll be enough
food."

- LAUGHTER

I'll tell you one of the best nights
of my entire life.

I got very drunk with Mo Mowlam and
Betty Boothroyd,

who was a Tiller Girl and Speaker of
the House of Commons.

The whole thing of having an
upside-down dinner,

there's a wonderful story, in January


there were a group of flying
enthusiasts.

They were known as the Hendon Aviators

and they wanted to celebrate the very
first British inverted flight,

right? So the very first time

a plane had been able to fly upside
down, and they celebrated

with an upside-down meal.

So, I don't know if you can see in the
photograph,

but they've actually got the tables
upside down. There's the table legs.

- Oh.
- And the meal began with a toothpick
and a round of cognac

and the singing of God Save The King.

And then they had a musical comedian.

He sang standing on his head and so
on.

So I thought we would toast to them.
if that's OK?

We can have a little...

Now, can I just say it's quite common
if nobody wants to drink

to turn the glass, so just turn the
glass upside down briefly

and then, actually...

- Oh.
- Oh!
- Oh, hello.

- Nothing's real.
- Oh!

- Upside down glasses.

- This makes it very easy to do a
generous pour.
- Yeah.

- How fabulous is that? Cheers,
everybody.

Here's to the Hendon Aviators.

APPLAUSE

- How does it work? It's genius.
- It's brilliant, isn't it?

I really love those. That's great.

- Much easier to put in your cupboard.
- Oh, yes.

It's quite tricky to drink from, isn't
it?

- You'd be afraid that someone would
make a gif out of you like this.

- LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

OK. Let's take a look at this front
row of the audience

and see if you see anything
distressing.

So, audience, I think you have your
flags,

if you can get them out and wave them
to us.

- I can tell you right now I find that
distressing.

- LAUGHTER

- Is it going to be that the flags are
upside down?

- Just one is upside down.
- Can't see.
- No.

So we'll come on to figuring out which
one is upside down.

Now, it is commonly thought that
flying the Union Jack upside down

means what?

- Your pants are going to fall down.
- The king is drunk.

- It's thought to be a signal of
distress.

So if the flag is upside down, people
must be in distress.

But there's nothing in the King's
Regulations

that says that that's true. And, in
fact,

because you simply couldn't tell which
one was upside down,

it would be a really lousy distress
signal.

- Yeah.
- I mean, it would really be hopeless.

Why don't you take out your flags?
You've all got a flag. Which one...

- Come on, Aisling, grin and bear it.
- I'm just not going to be this gif.

- Oh, this is the gif we all want.
- I can't. I'll get...

- CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

This one is more like being in Les
Mis.
- Yeah, exactly.

I'll swap you.
- You can have that one.

- Have a Danish one.
- Look, I love living here,

but I also, you know, like...
- How's that? There we go.

Fantastic. Now...

COMEDY ACCENT:
- I love Danish languages and living
in Denmark.

- LAUGHTER

I was being nice to you!

- I love being a Danish l*sbian.

It's one of my favourite things to do.

- LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

So, one of your flags is upside down.

Let's figure out how we can tell.

Because the truth is, most people
absolutely have no idea.

So let's have a look at how the Union
Jack was created

in the first place. So it is the time


James VI of Scotland has just gained
the crowns of England and Ireland.

So first we get the heraldic cross of
St Andrew of Scotland,

then we add the red saltire, which is
Patrick of Ireland.

- Famously his colour!
- I know, weird, right?

And then Sir George of England goes on
top,

and that is how we get the Union Jack.

What bit of the United Kingdom is
missing?

- Wales.
- Wales. There's absolutely nothing
for Wales in the flag.

They had already got Wales, as it
were, the crown, so they just...

They didn't really bother.

There have been suggestions that a
dragon on top. I don't know...

Yes.

But the way you can tell whether it's
upside down or not,

so this is the what's called the fly
end of the flag,

and this is what's known as the hoist
end.

This is the bit next to the flagpole
here.

And the way you can tell is if the
Irish bit is at the bottom,

that's how you know the flag is flying
up the right way.

So let's have a look and see who's got
the flag that's upside down.

- But if you're in distress, it's cos
Ireland is on top, whey!

- Romesh, can you tell? Your flag is
upside down.

- That's exactly what I was about...

- # Upside down... #

- LAUGHTER

- This one's upside down, isn't it?
- Yeah. Your one is upside down.

That's how you can tell.
- Absolutely masterful.
- I know.

LAUGHTER

But flying it upside down, honestly,
nobody would know.

Who had the flag that was upside down
in the audience?

You had the flag. But we couldn't... I
mean, Alan can't see anyway,

but it was simply impossible. I mean,
there are some flags

where it's easier to tell. The
American flag you can tell.

That IS a signal of distress, because
if you fly it upside down,

all of the stars, the bit that
represents the union,

is upside down...
- They all fall out.
- ..and they will get very upset.

There are some flags you simply
couldn't tell. Japan,

I mean... Just put the Danish flag in
for no reason again.

COMEDY ACCENT:
- I love my country more than
anything.

- LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

- I just love the hell out of pickles.

- LAUGHTER

- Somebody get her an Indian flag.
Let's see if she does it.

- LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

If you fly the flag of Indonesia
upside down,

it becomes the flag of Poland.
- Oh!

- So the one on the left is Indonesia
and the one on the right is Poland.

So if Indonesia was in distress,
they'd become Polish.

AUDIENCE MEMBER:
- Whoo!

- One Polish person is in.

Flags away, please.

Why is an upside down sneeze so
dangerous?

- Uh, cos your bum can explode.

- LAUGHTER

- Are we talking about sneezing if
you're hanging upside down

or is upside down sneeze a euphemism
for something really terrible?

- It's something which is upside down
and sneezes.

- A bat.
- Oh.
- It sneezes and then falls.

Atchoo!

- LAUGHTER

- They did it in one of the Ben
Affleck films

but it's the deleted scene.

- LAUGHTER

No, it's not a bat. We're in the sea.
- Upside down in the sea?

- It's a particular kind of jellyfish
known as a Cassiopeia.

So it's a creature that lies upside
down - there it is -

with its tentacles pointing upwards.
And it does it to catch algae, OK?

So you can find them in the mangrove
forests and lagoons of Florida,

Hawaii, the Pacific, the Caribbean.
They like it warm.

- They don't have any control over
their tentacles -

I've recently learned this. They can't
grab anything.

They're just lying there and their
tentacles wave about.

The Portuguese man o' w*r's tentacles
go quite a long way.

They can't get you with them.

They're just drifting about, like
hair. What a way to try and eat.

Just try and catch things with your
hair.

- Anyway, snorkelers who swim near
these jellies sometimes develop

an itching sensation on the skin as if
the water has stung them.

And it turns out it's the jellyfish
sneezing.

They've only just realised this in the
last three years

that the jellyfish release a cloud of
mucus and it contains

these little microscopic spheres
which, when touched,

they leak a venom and it stings
anything that touches them.

But it's basically jellyfish snot.

- Apparently, if you quicken up whale
music

or the sound of whales underwater,

They're just saying, "God bless you,"
because of all the sneezes.

- LAUGHTER

- Aisling, you know you're awake and
you said that out loud, right?

- There's a whole host of fascinating
upside down stuff in the sea.

So Antarctic krill. These are tiny
crustaceans, right?

And when the ocean is covered in ice,
they basically graze

upside down and they take all the
algae from the underside.

And when they're full, they start to
sink down

and they splay out their legs and
they've got a sort of feeding basket

that they put all their food in

and they use it as a parachute to just
sink down going,

"Oh, I've really had enough."

And then they get to a point where
they want to eat again

and they just come back up to the
surface again.

They do that sort of two or three
times a day.

- So it's like Christmas Day,

you start and you have to wear the
elasticated pants

and then you go lie on the couch.
- Yeah.

- And then you come back up again.

- LAUGHTER

Anyway, what do you reckon is your
best side in photographs?

- Backside.

- KLAXON WAILS

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Anybody?

- I'd say wherever my boobs are in.

Sort of this bit.
- That bit?

- Yeah, cos then you get the good
smile and the boobs.

You know, it's hard not to look, isn't
it?

- I know, immediately I'm...

- "Hey, I'm down here."
- Yeah!

- I think if you go past, say, a shop
front where there's

a window and you catch a glimpse
yourself, it's always horrifying.

- Yes.
- No-one wants to see themselves,
ever.
- Yeah.

- And for 300,000 years of human
history, no-one ever did.
- Mm.

- Now, it's all this... Trying to find
an image of yourself

that's appealing to you is almost
impossible

and then thinking, "I absolutely have
to share this with the world,"

this is a mass mental illness.

- You know the selfie thing that I
find absolute incredible?

On Instagram now... people started
doing selfies and obviously,

originally, people found it absolutely
abhorrent,

then, gradually, it's sort of been
accepted and now it gets

to the point where somebody will post
a photo on Instagram,

so it'll be like, somebody'll go, "Had
a great time whale watching,"

and the photo's just THEIR face.

- There's no whale in the picture?

- Well, the whales are there,
obviously, but they've gone.

"This was incredible to see,

"but I think what you want to see
captured from this

"is my face looking at it."

The idea that everything in the world
is not worth

photographing as much as your own face
repeatedly,

it's bananas.
- But do you know what?

They did all these tests about, you
know, actors' faces on cinema

screens, and humans follow eyes and
faces more than they follow

absolutely anything on a screen,
except for if a dog, specifically,

crosses a scene, people will go, "Oh,
a dog,"

and then back to a face.

So the algorithms for things like
Instagram show

that the more face you have,

it's more likely to get attention.

- I'm going to show you all how you
could look better

in a photograph and the best way is to
turn your faces upside down.

Have a look at this.
- Oh!
- Oh.

- OK. Now, is there anything you
notice about yourself upside down?

- LAUGHTER

OK, but it is to do with how you
perceive yourself.

It doesn't help if you turn your own
head upside down now, darling.
- Oh.

I see myself like that all the time

cos we've got a mirror on the ceiling,
so...

- LAUGHTER

Wow. Information.

So most people, if you look at it,
will see that the person

that is upside down looks thinner, the
face looks thinner...
- Oh, yeah.

- ..than it does when it is the right
way up.

And apparently it's because when the
face is in its usual orientation,

we recognise it, right...
- Yeah.

- ..but the only way we can recognise
it when it's upside down is that we

look at the eyes and the nose and the
mouth,

and the bit that we don't really look
at is the external stuff,

is the jaws and the chin, and
apparently the fatter the face

normally, the more it seems thinner
when you turn it upside down.

- So I'm not fat, I'm just walking the
wrong way up?

- LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

It's the same when you place two
identical faces,

one above the other, the right way up,

so most people will find that the
lower face seems

a little bit fatter and we're not
really sure why.

It seems to be related to an illusion
called the

Jastrow illusion, named after a
Polish-American psychologist

called Joseph Jastrow.

So I'm going to hold this up and I
want you to tell me

which one is longer.

- The...

..bottom one.

- Which... This one here?
- Yeah.
- What colour is it?

- Black.
- The black one.

And now I want you to tell me which
one is shorter.

- Well, you've painted me into quite
the corner here.

- LAUGHTER

They're absolutely identical and it's
a trick that our eye plays.

It's just weird because you know
perfectly well they're the same size

and yet your eye will tell you
something completely different.

It doesn't seem to work on
chimpanzees.

Just good to know.

I mean, you do this trick with a
chimpanzee and it just, "Meh."

- It'd rip your arm off.

- "You try that bloody track thing on
me again, mate,

"I'll have your arm right off!"

- Your best side might be your
upside...down.

Now it's time to turn our attention

around to the flip side of knowledge
that is General Ignorance.

Fingers on buzzers, please.

Which country do Sphynx cats come
from?

- Oh, God...
- # Upside down... #

- Egypt.

- KLAXON WAILS

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

And it's a pleasure, isn't it? It's a
pleasure.

What do you think? Do you think
they're good-looking cats?

- No, I think they're hideous.

- Oh, is it going to be Persia or
something like that?

- No, no. So this is...
- Kent.

- # Land down under... #

- Can I have a go?
- Yes.

- For the trophy, which I haven't seen
yet, but, erm...

- Sorry, what?
- Get the trophy, get the trophy!

- I'll say America.

- Yes. Why do you say America?

- Just because they do weird sh*t like
this.

- LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

So I'm going to say North America.

Do you know which bit?

- Erm... No.

- High up?
- New York?
- Canada.

- Canada!
- Yeah.
- Yes, absolutely, they come from
Canada.

- I was talking New York bordering
Canada,

so I was getting there.
- Yeah.

- Really snatched defeat from the jaws
of victory there!

- They're probably scratching the
engraving off that trophy right now!

- Oh, God, I wish we had a trophy.
Erm...

- So did they tell you that...
- Wait, what?
- ..it doesn't matter

how you do on the rest of the show

as long as you get the cat question
right?
- Yeah.

- Well, they look like you're staring
into the eyes of death

or a gone-off chicken or something.

- Looks like the skin doesn't fit,
doesn't it?
- Yeah.

- So it's a breed of cat known for its
lack of fur.

They were discovered as a genetic
mutation in a litter of domestic

cats in Ontario in Canada, 1966.

The kitten was called Prune.
- Ugh!
- Was known as Prune.

- Come on, you know a cat found a rat
sexy and that's where it came from.

- And these are the kittens just ready
to be breaded.

- GROANING AND LAUGHTER

Most of the cats are descended from
two kittens born in Minnesota,

another genetic mutation.

In 1975, they were called Dermis and
Epidermis.

- Wow.
- Oh, no.
- And three kittens found in Toronto
in 1978 called

Bambi, Punkie and Paloma.

- So wait, now, the original two,

like Game of Thrones, is from a
brother-and-sister combo?

- I mean, I hate to disturb you,

but that is quite often what happens,
yeah.
- Oh, gosh.

- I know.
- And Dermis is an Irish name as well.
- Oh, yeah.

- And people think they're good for
allergy sufferers,

but only if you're allergic, of
course, to the hair.

- Yeah, or allergic to attractive
cats.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.

- I mean, a lot of people are allergic
to cat saliva

or dander or just cats generally.

- Mmm.
- Yeah.

- If you want to see a Sphynx, go to
Canada.

- Or just regularly shave your normal
cat.

- With a bit of Immac.

- Wow, that's a throwback!
- Wow!

ROMESH:
- "Oh, it's time to Immac the cat
again."

- "Let's just do its legs! Do its
legs!"

Gives it a baggy sock look.

- Great name for a Sphynx cat - just
call it Immac.

OK, moving on.

Which profession has the worst
handwriting?

Yes.
- # Land down under... #

- It has to be doctors.

- KLAXON WAILS

No. They did a study in 1966 and
doctors don't have

particularly bad handwriting,

certainly not by comparison to other
health professionals.

The worst handwriting was found to
belong to males

in an executive role.

- Uh-oh.
- Those pricks.

- Yeah.

- Am I right, guys?

- Why do we say doctors? What is the
thing about handwriting and doctors?

- Can't read the prescription, can
you?
- Well, it matters.

That's the point, isn't it?
- Ahh.

- So the National Academies of
Science's Institute of Medicine

in 2006 reported that 7,000 Americans
were likely to have been

k*lled by illegible doctors' notes,

so usually due to the wrong
prescription, that there were

1.5 million preventable injuries a
year due to an error in dosage,

so it really matters.

- Imagine doing, like, seven years of
medical school, then doing like,

you know, GP practice, junior doctors,
all that,

- SHE GRUMBLES

LAUGHTER

It's the doctor who only writes on a
calculator.

- "Another prescription for boobies?"

- Lesbians lining up around the block!

- "I'm here to collect my
prescription."

- Dr Boobie!

- Doctors' ha... Sorry.

Doctors' handwriting is, erm...

No, I can't read it.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

How are honeybees getting along?

- Thriving?
- Yeah, they're doing OK.

So lots of pollinators are in trouble,
including lots of species

of bee, but not honeybees.

In fact, there are more honeybees now
than at any other time

in Earth's history, and that is
because we use them for farming.

So it's a bit like, I don't know,
chickens, sheep, cows and so on -

if we need them for food, we make damn
sure that they don't die out.

- Is this one doing a song?
- It's just hanging out.

- # I'm a busy bee, busy bee making
honey. #

"I'm thrivin'! I'm thrivin'."

- You do get colony collapse and you
do get it in honeybees,

but not enough, er...

LAUGHTER

- Erm...

I'm going to wipe you off the Gif map.

- LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

- Any time somebody wants to send a
text that has "thriving" in it,

"Oh, I remember - Alan."

- I is thrivin'!

- It's the gift that keeps on giving.

So colony collapse is a real thing.

It can affect honeybees, but not
enough to threaten them.

I mean, it's much worse for other bee
species.

There are at least 3,600 species of
wild bee in North America,

for instance, and lots of them are in
danger of extinction.

Many of them are in serious decline.

The really weird thing about bees is
that male honeybees,

they always die after sex, OK, always,

so after mating, the bee's endophallus
- so that's its p*nis...

AISLING WHISTLES

- Oh... I was just trying to keep it
family, but...

- What shall I call it? Todger?

AISLING WHISTLES

SANDI WHISTLES

- Thank you. Out of respect for Alan
and Romesh.
- Yeah.

..stays behind in the queen and it
rips a hole in the drone's

abdomen, and they fall to the ground
and obviously die.

- What a romantic story!

- And they've only got a 1% chance of
being successful at reproduction.

Anyway...
- "I was thrivin', baby!"

- Can I just show you...?

- HE WHISTLES

I'm going to show you this.

This is... I'm going to get my pointer
out again.

This is... this is bee porn.

- Wow.
- I've never seen this before.

- Whoa.
- That's the queen.

This is the successful boy.

- Oh, well done. Look at him.

- Yeah!
- Look at his little...

- That's the money honey shot right
there.

I've never seen bee porn before.

- In comparison to his whole body,

that's a lot of a percentage of...
- SHE WHISTLES

- Oh, that's normal. That's normal.

- Oh, right.

- Another gif. You see that?

- It's the same when honeybees sting
you.

The sting rips a hole in the...

I mean, this...
- They're so badly designed, aren't
they?

- Yes, mating, stinging...
- Massive, snap-off c*ck

used as a self-destruct weapon.

Evolve, you pricks!
- Yeah.

- They don't need to evolve, they're
thrivin'!

- Just go on Pornhub and put
"honeybees" in the search bar.

- How do you find Pornhub? Is it just
literally...?

- It's on t'Internet.
- OK.

- You can't miss it.

- Right, all that's left to do is to
look up the scores.

In last place, not knowing up from
down with -18,

it's Romesh.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

In third place, just about keeping his
balance with -14, it's Alan.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

In second, things are looking up -
with -7, it's Urzila.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And turning that frown upside down,

in first place with two whole
points...

..for Danish flag-waving alone, it's
Aisling!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

- Oh, my God!

- LAUGHTER

- Oh, my God!

You know, I spend, honestly, an
hour-and-a-half in hair and make-up,

trying to look lovely.

- My thanks to Urzila, Romesh, Aisling
and, of course, Alan.

And I leave you with this from
American comedian Mitch Hedberg -

"I always wear a necklace because I
want to know

"when I'm upside down."

Thank you and goodnight.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE