09x16 - Ice

[bunniefuu]

Good evening, good evening,
good evening, good evening,
good evening, good evening,

and welcome to QI, where tonight,
once again, the "I"s have it.

So, which international head
of state snubbed Jesse Owens

after his triumph at
the 1936 Olympics?

DING-DONG

Yes, Jack? Hitler. Ahhh!

BUZZER HOOTS

Oddly enough, it's not true.

It's what the whole world
thinks but it isn't true

and we know this from no greater
source than Jesse Owens himself.

In fact, it's a really rather
sad and a very typically,
I'm afraid, unfortunate story.

Jesse Owens, as you probably know,
won four gold medals at
the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

The Olympics was staged-managed,
of course, by Hitler.

Now, on the first day, Hitler
congratulated only German winners.

And someone said to him that he
should either congratulate all
the winners or none of them.

So he said, "Well, in that case,
I won't congratulate any winners."

So he didn't snub
Jesse Owens at all.

In fact, according to
Jesse Owens, he said,

"When I passed the Chancellor,
he rose, waved his hand at me
and I waved back at him."

"Hitler didn't snub me. It was..."

King of England.

No. FDR.

Oh, b*stard!
The president of his own country.

He didn't personally
congratulate Jesse Owens.

LAUGHTER

Who are you looking at there?

The bloke on the far right is
just going like that...

He is a bit.

That bloke on the far right
is called Hermann Goering.

Surely they're all on the far right.

Ya-hey!

B-r-r-rilliant!

It's usual amongst George Formby
fans, I believe, that they teach
themselves the banjolele.

And as you are one,
we have a banjolele.

Can you delight us with some Formby?

Am I on the spot? I don't know
if it's tuned or not but
just do what you can.

Oh, don't worry about that.
We'll be very happy.

My dog has fleas, is what you
need to remember. My dog has...

Well, this one doesn't have fleas.
He has distemper.

When I'm Cleaning Windows has
got another bit that goes,

# Eight o'clock, a girl awakes
At ten past eight, a bath she takes

# At quarter past, my ladder breaks
When I'm cleaning windows... #

Heh-heh heh-heh hey! Wahey!

There's a bit that goes

# There's a famous movie queen
She looks a beauty on the screen

# She's more like 80 than 18
When I'm cleaning windows

# She takes her hair down all behind
Then takes down her never-mind

# And finally takes down the blind
When I'm cleaning windows. #

Cheeky!

Brilliant.

Now for something
terribly important.

Why did the MoD want
the PM to join the AA?

This present, David
Cameron, PM, or any? No.

The Prime Minister at the
time was Harold Macmillan.

Did the MoD want the country
to become part of the
temperance movement?

Ha ha! No, it's not that AA.
The Automobile Association.

The Automobile Association, exactly.

It's that AA. Really? Yes.

So when Harold Macmillan was
Prime Minister, what was going
on in the world around that time?

The Cold w*r. The Cold w*r
was at its absolute height.

And they knew that Kennedy had
this system where, wherever he was,

he could retaliate in case
the Soviets sent missiles.

And they thought, "Well, we
better have a similar system."

And they thought...

There's Lord Mountbatten who was
the chief of staff at the time.

And they said, "Well, you know,

"you better have men going round
with the Prime Minister who

"have got radios and things in case
there's news of a Soviet attack."

And he said, "Well, that's
far too expensive."

The Prime Minister said,

"I don't want people following
me around all the time."

"I tell you what, we'll
use the system the AA use."
So, basically, the idea was

that they would get a signal from
the AA to the car if the Soviets
had launched a strike.

That would mean the Prime Minister
could then stop off

at the nearest telephone and issue
the order for a counter-strike.

And there were some
very exciting memos.

This is very British.
You'll like this very much.

Brian Saunders, private secretary
to the Prime Minister, said,

"It will presumably be necessary for
someone to make a daily or weekly
call to the AA control station

"as a check that they
are in working order.

"And I understand that,

"if an emergency arose while the
Prime Minister was on the road,

"the proposal is to use the radio
to get him to a telephone.

"Perhaps we should see that
our drivers are provided
with four pennies."

They'd gone and thought it through.

So imagine them stopping and going,
"All right, we've got the signal.

"There are bombs on the way
from the Soviet Union."

"Stop off at the nearest kiosk,"
and nobody's got any money.

But they thought about that.
Bligh, the Prime Minister's private
principal secretary, replied,

"Shortage of pennies should not
present any difficulties,
such as you envisage.

"In such cases, it's a simple
matter to have the cost

"of any telephone call transferred
by dialling 100 and requesting
reversal of the charge."

This is all true!

"And this doesn't take
any appreciable extra time.

"The system works in both normal
and STD telephone kiosks. And our
drivers are well-aware of it."

So we were safe all the time.

The Prime Minister would
have got a message and said,

"Look, there's a red kiosk,"

would have stopped, got in
and called... called up
the operator and said,

"I want to call the Ministry
of Defence armed bunker.

"And could you reverse the charges?"

Scouting for Boys has got
something on suicide? It has.

It has an amazing entry on suicide.
Maybe you'd like to hear it?
I would love to hear it.

"When a man has gone so far
as to attempt suicide..."

They don't count women for some
reason - "..a scout should know
what to do with him.

"In a case where the would-be
suicide has taken poison,
give milk and make him vomit,

"which is done by tickling
the inside of the throat with
a finger or a feather.

"In the case of hanging,
cut down the body at once,

"taking care to support him with
one arm while cutting the cord.

"A tenderfoot, which is scouting
for novice..." That's not hard.

To me, that sounds very simple.
It does, doesn't it?

"A novice is sometimes
inclined to be timid about

"handling an insensible man or
dead man, or even seeing blood.

"Well, he won't be much use till
he gets over such nonsense."

Slaughtering cattle. Advice to young
boys on how to slaughter cattle.

"If you're a beginner
in slaughtering with a knife,

"it's sometimes useful to first
drop the animal insensible

"by a heavy blow with a big hammer
or the back of a felling axe
on top of the head."

The kindest thing to do, really.

Stopping a runaway horse?

He doesn't give advice on that,
does he? He does, yes. Lie down.

That would stop the horse?
Oh, no. They don't tread on you.

What you don't do is stand in front
of it waving your arms. That's
the mistake to make.

What you should do is go to the side
and basically ease it towards the
side of a wall or side of a house.

What, when it's running? Yeah.

You ease a running horse
to the side of a wall?

Don't worry, mate, I'll just
ease this running horse
to the side of the wall.

It'll see you and will be pushed
towards it. That will slow it down
naturally according to Baden-Powell.

"Give us a hand."

"I can't. Uncle Pete's hung himself."

What about saving someone who's
fallen in front of a train?

Oh, well, I know this. You ease
the train up against the wall.

"If the train is very close,
lie flat between the rails.

"Make the man do the same
till the train passes over,

"while everyone else will be
running about, screaming and
excited, and doing nothing."

You're supposed to jump on
the track with him. Yeah.

And push his head down? Yeah.
Yeah, sure. I'm going to do that.

Does that work, though? Is there
such a big gap between the wheels?

It does in movies but I
wouldn't be the one to try it.

It'd be great if you hung yourself
and then a Scout cut you down

and you went, "Oh, don't worry,
I'll jump under a train."

And, again... He's here again!

All right, mate?

I've just done voice for them.

So if you have Tom-Tom or Garmin...

Huh-huh! No!

You'd drive along and it goes,
"Now the interesting thing is..."

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE DROWNS OUT SPEECH

"The most daft thing. You
would not believe it but..."

Did you do it as if you were
talking to me? That's the worry.

"Left, you moron!"

If you take a wrong turn
instead of making a U-turn,

does the hooter come on?

I've put my voice on Katie's.
When she drives, it's me.

Oh, that's nice, because you can
put your own voice on, can't you?

Yeah, you can record it.
"Left, left, left! LEFT!"

Which is funny the
first couple of times.

Yes, that's the problem.

I had a sat-nav and the Nullarbor
Plain in Australia, the big, long...

Between Adelaide and Perth.

Yeah, the longest straight
road in the world.

And I started my bike,
turned it on and it said,

"Drive forward for two days."

But the best bit was,
it went, "Then turn left."

But the stupid thing was,
it was such a long road,

I missed the left-hand turn!

Patrick Lichfield once told
me a very good story.

Oh! Beautiful name-drop, if I may say
so. He was lovely. Did you know him?

I did. Such a lovely man. He'd been
asked to photograph a royal wedding
at Hampton Court.

The Queen told him it'd be
the first time all the crowned heads
of Europe

were together, available
for a photograph. He said,

"Well, I know
them all, ma'am. Everyone except
Princess Catherine of Greece.

"She's very elderly.
She's in a wheelchair." She said,
"Oh, right."

"It's very difficult with all these
heads, about 60 of them and
everyone's ma'am," and so on.

And he noticed in the corner
an elderly lady in a wheelchair.

He said, "Oh, marvellous!"

He went over and pushed her
into the photographs like this

and he took the picture.

And the Queen said,
"Patrick, who's that woman?

"Princess Catherine of Greece."
She said, "No, it isn't."

Anyway, apparently some bloke had
been on a tour of the house
with his mother...

..and needed the lavatory.
And he just opened the door
and shoved his mother through,

just to keep her quiet while
he went to the lavatory.

And Patrick gave her a Polaroid
of this elderly woman with all
the crown heads of Europe.

That's fantastic!

Have a look at this
glass tank behind me

and tell me how many
ba*ls there are in there.

One.

Two, three. Well done, Alan.

Four. So far, so good. Yep. Five.

The worst episode of the
National Lottery, ever.

So how many are there
in there, would you say? Five.

Five? Five. Well, it looked
like five, didn't it?

HOOTER BUZZES

But you might be rather surprised
to know that there are actually
over a thousand.

A thousand. And we can show you,
perhaps, a better view
of how many there are.

Watch that.

They're all invisible and, in fact,

we have an example of
precisely these kinds of...

There they are.

Yeah, they're gooey.
They're really weird.

They're called hydrogel beads.
Are they edible?

I wouldn't want to take
responsibility but I don't think
they'll do you any harm. Try one.

What are they used for?

Well, they have
a commercial use, actually.

Oh, I broke it! Oh, no!
Has it burst? Yeah, burst.

No, it's sort of gone
into pieces, actually.

It's a rather strange
material. Can you guess
their commercial use?

Packing things.
No, flower arranging is one.

Is it for packing goldfish, when
you get them through your...

Why aren't they making battleships
out of it?

All kinds of new uses may be found.
Submarines.
Make a submarine out of it.

I have to say, this feels gorgeous.

JACK: It's quite good, isn't it? It's
actually quite addictive, isn't it?

Something quite
gorgeous about that. Yeah.

JACK: Might have a play around
with that later. Yep, you might.

Another use
is the manufacture of...

Behave!

That's disgusting.

Another use...

Jack's going to put his willy in it.

Oh, dear!
I've already put it in that one.

It's weird because when he
put it in, you couldn't see it.

Ohhh!

It's the refractive index.
I need time to think of a comeback!

What variety of lettuce did
they serve on board the Titanic?

Iceberg.

GROANS

BUZZER HOOTS

Well, bless you for...
I took one for the team, as it were.

You did take one for the team.

The iceberg lettuce had been
developed in Pennsylvania

but was not available in Europe
until many years later.

Was it is rocket, lollo rosso?

The answer is, we don't know. Oh.

We do know there were 700
heads of lettuce on board.

You make them sound like heads
of state. I know!

The most grand of all the lettuce,
the head of lettuce.

Why did they only have 700 lettuce -
how many were on the Titanic?

Either they'd already eaten that
much and that's how much was saved,
or they just didn't order that much.

What, they saved
the lettuce, but not the people?



"Get the lettuce, for crying out
loud!"

I have a horrible
feeling I misread my card.

It was, "Hold the front page.


No wonder the bloody thing sank,
then, if it was full of lettuce.

Lettuces float.

Well, why did it sink, then?

What is wrong with these people?

What about the durable Mike Malloy,
have you heard of him?

Now here's a man who
really wouldn't die.

This is a very extraordinary story.

The durable Mike Malloy.

We're in the age of Prohibition.

And we're in New York City.

And we've got a g*ng
of criminals because, obviously,

anyone who runs a speakeasy
is a criminal by definition,
during Prohibition.

And they hit on a scam.

They thought, "We'll get some
drunks. We'll get them to sign
life insurance forms to our benefit.

"And then we'll just feed them
so much alcohol that they'll die."

"And we'll get all their money."

What can go wrong?

Had they never
met Irish people before?

That's the problem.
They were bankrupt.

They ran out of booze!

So owner Anthony Marino hatched this
plan. "We're going to need
a bigger pub."

He got this Irishman called
Mike Malloy. They befriended him,
they plied him with free drinks.

And they got him to sign three
different life insurance policies,

amounting to nearly $2,000, which
was a lot of money in those days.

After several weeks of free booze,
they started to get a bit impatient
because, because he wasn't...

He kept singing the same songs!
So they started...

"God, he's doing that one again"!

# Oh, Danny boy
The pipes, the pipes... #

They started adding antifreeze.

He collapsed a bit but he kept
coming back for more drink.

So they then gave him drinks that
were filled with turpentine,

horse liniment, rat poison,
rotten oysters in wood alcohol

and sardines mixed
with carpet tacks.

Do we have any record of...
"Oh, thanks very much." None of this
would have any effect.

I suppose if it's on the house...
Yeah.

He's downing that.

So, next, they got him drunk,
they stripped him naked - this is
midwinter in New York - and

they poured five gallons
of cold water on him, before
dumping him on a snow bank.

New York in midwinter is seriously
cold, minus 20 degrees sometimes.
Why didn't they just sh**t him?

A b*llet hole might have been a...
..a bit of a giveaway.

Oh, I don't know. I think naked on
a mound of snow is quite a giveaway.

Well, he was very drunk. So drunk
he was having sex with a snowman?

But the police found him and
he turned up the next day saying,

"You'll never guess what happened.
They found me in Central Park,
on the snow, naked.

"Dunno how! They took me to a hostel
and got me these nice new clothes."

So he carried on drinking and they
were really getting desperate.

They paid a cab driver


After two attempts, they left
him sprawled in the road,

awaiting news of his death.

Several weeks later, he came fresh
out of hospital and turned up,
looking for a drink.

So, finally, they challenged him
to a rigged drinking contest.

They got him really, really pissed

and then pushed a gas hose in his
throat and gassed him to death. Aw.

So they cheated. Yeah.

But a few months later, don't worry,
they started squabbling
amongst themselves

and all went down the river to Sing
Sing and got fried in the electric
chair, the whole g*ng of them.

The thing I find interesting about
that story is when you said they put
a gas hose in his mouth and cheated,

the audience went, "Aww."
But, before that, when they were
trying to k*ll the man,

you were going, "Well, that just
sounds like bloody good fun!"

Then, the gas hose, you went,
"Now that's not playing straight."

Not cricket.

It's an interesting morality
you're working with there.

Take a good, hard
look at yourselves.

There it is. That's the
story of durable Mike Malloy.

A hero of his time.

I've got a little task for you to
do. A little Christmas party game.

I've got these phonebooks here
and they've been interleaved.

That's all it is.
There's no glue or anything.

They've literally, like a pack of
cards, one page inside another...

That must have taken ages.
It did. Our props people are very
proud of their work. There you are.

We'll share. All I want you
to do - you've got ropes there -
is just pull them apart.

So you can take one each.
Can't be done. Go on, pull
them apart. It can't be done.

Go on. Try. You can't, can you?
It can't be done.

You literally can't.

It's quite extraordinary.

Strong as Brian is...
Go on, pull, Brian, pull!

Sean's alive!

How come your water wasn't spilt?
That's magical.

Yes. Yes, it's an old trick.

Me and Brian have been
doing this trick for years.

That is, I think, proof positive...

I'm trying to sit on top
of me tipped-up chair.

A man as strong as Brian,
he may pull Sean off his chair,
but it can't be done.

In fact, you need 8,000lbs
of force in order to do it.

Really? Why?
It really is quite bizarre.

It's friction. And it's just
replicated each time by...

If you loosen them...

STEPHEN LAUGHS

This time it's me.
This time it's personal!

He's having a tantrum.

ROSS: You can't, can you?

BRIAN: Still can't do it!

Hooray!

How can you tell which of these
chicks is male and which is female?

Oh this must be, this must be.

Oh, I'm afraid not.

In the 1920s, the answer would have
been "Nobody knows".

Oh, for crying out... But in 1929,
the Japanese astonished the world

by revealing that they
found a way to sex chicks.

In other words, to determine
their gender. It sounds...

It sounds so wrong, doesn't it?
I know how to sex a chick!

It seems impossible
to the naked eye to do it

because you have to wait until
they're six weeks old.

In the egg-laying industry,
that's a heck of a waste

because male chicks
are of no use whatsoever
to the egg-laying industry.

Gassed on the first day?

Enjoy your eggs!

That's why... Ha! Quite.

So how do you tell the sex,
how do you sex a chicken?

Well, it's very complex.
That's the point. It's highly...

No, we do know. It's highly paid.

And the discovery lowered the price
of eggs worldwide overnight.

That's how important it was.

And the Zen Nippon Chick-sexing
School was founded.

That is true.

You're looking at a graduate.

And they taught their sexers
in such a rigorous way that

only 5 to 10 percent of applicants
received accreditation.

When you passed,
you were paid huge sums of money.

COD-CHINESE ACCENT: You're
a chick master. Yeah, hundreds
of dollars a day.

It was a really big business. Boy.
It still is. How do you know?

I know.

You don't know.
There was one handsome...

The best in the business can sex
around 1,200 chicks
an hour and there

are some incredibly talented ones
who can have one in each hand...

Boy. Girl. Boy. Boy. Girl. Girl.
Girl. Girl. Boy. Girl. Girl. Girl.

Boy. Girl. Boy. Girl. Boy-y-y.

The point is, the point is you pick
them up and you just go like that
and pop them in bins.

Girl bin, boy bin.
Girl bin, boy bin.

And you can do 1,200.

So, something to do with the weight?

No, it's not. They look, they
do a slight squeeze... A girl.

You won't like this,
they do a slight squeeze.

Eek! And if they go,
"Ow," they're a girl.

That's naughty. If they go,
"steady on, mate..." ..it's a boy.

They have a cloacal tract,
which is their reproductive
and their excretory tract,

and there is a slight difference
in the ridges and bumps - sort of
innies and outies that they have.

So you do a slight squeeze.

If it's too big, you throttle them
or the outie becomes an innie,

so it's a real skill.

This is something I vaguely
knew about growing up in Norfolk.

Because, in Norfolk, there is
a community of Vietnamese
turkey-sexers who live...

I know it sounds mad!

I can never watch Platoon again!

You've ruined Apocalypse Now for me.

I'm sorry about that.

What sexy chicken?

You tell me now!

This is this.

I know it sounds bonkers.

They live in tunnels under the Fens.

This is not in the Fens, it's in
Norfolk, he said, defensively.

The Fens are in Cambridgeshire,
I mean Huntingdonshire.

Tell me they work
for Bernard, please.

Well, of course. Bernard Matthews
is the largest employer for...

Mr Matthew, this one beau-iful.

Imagine being conned
by a pig salesman.

It's called buying a pig in a poke.

There is actually a phrase for it.

Pig salesmen used to be dishonest.
Really? Yeah.

Can I say that, Nina?

What, pig in a poke? Can I say that?

Is that what that means?
Go on, say pig in a poke.

That is a challenge
to a ventriloquist. Come on.

No, if I said pig in a poke,
it's fine. You say it, Gran.

No. Ohhh!

Go on, Gran. Pig in a poke.

Yay!

That was impressive.

Oh, indeed.

How long do the best hugs last?


That's a very long hug.

I would start getting embarrassed
and restless if someone hugged
me for 20 seconds.

Do you want to test that?
Can we test that?

Yeah, no, please.

Oh, hello. Here we go.

That was lovely.

I'm on the clock.

I'm on the clock.

Yep. That was...
Oh, God, this is too long.

It is really bad.
This is too long. This is really
long. Oh, I'm embarrassed now.

Dave, did you say,
"I'm on the clock"?

On the clock, yeah.
And, lovely! Thank you.

That's got to be at least 20
seconds and that was embarrassing.
That was very uncomfortable.

See if you can beat it! Oh, God!

Oh that's lovely. Lovely.

Gather round. Come on.

Group hug.

Heavens above!

I've been waiting years to do this.

Well, if you lot are all hugging,
I'm playing tiddlywinks
so sod the lot of you!

Right, that was love...
That was unusual.

RONNI: Aw, that was lovely.
I wasn't expecting that response

but it was charming. You're both
wearing very nice aftershave,
by the way. Want your watch back?

Which well-known invention is

"the wickedness which lurks
in the belly and deserves
to dwell in the cesspool"?

"The wickedness which
lurks in the belly..."

Nina's cooking? Sunny Delight.

Oh, I know! Yes, Gran?
We know cos this is...

Er, yes, because, erm,

I'm a belly-speaker.

You are a belly-speaker.
Ven-tril-o-quism.

That's it.
So you're a tummy-speaker.

And it was considered to be
possession by demons if someone

could have this voice come
from their tummy, that didn't seem
to come out of the mouth,

or throw their voice,
as you used to say. Ah.

And there was a Patriarch
of Constantinople
by the name of Photios

who once ex-communicated the Pope.

LAUGHTER

And he was the one...

There you are! Have a go. Have a go.

Oh, have we all got one of these?

Pig in a poke. Yes.

I'm very impressed.

The weird thing is...

ELECTRICAL BUZZ

That puppet is a ventriloquist
and its lips didn't move
when you said that.

Really?

So it is operating you,
which is fantastic.

It really is a lot...

It really is a lot
harder than it looks.

Give me hope.

You've had a stroke, dear. Hello.

It's like ET. Hey!

Ohhh! Hig in a hoke.

No, don't, Gran.

Oh, no, let's not kiss.

I am Bogdan. I like you very much.

You are attractive lady.

You're too small for me, dear. Oh.

For certain, you'd never see
the light of day again.

Come with me.
I have Oyster card.

Are you, are you moving your lips?

How about that?
Urgh-urr, der, er, der.

You do look like you're
in a state, you really do.

Sean, let's see if
you can do any better.

SILENCE

LAUGHTER

Are you hoping we're going to...
I'm not moving my lips. I'm just...

Oh, sorry. It's a left-handed
puppet, isn't it? Sorry.

I'll speak.

Oooh.

It looks like he's...
Ooh.

That's the only thing I
tend to do, this "oooh".

This is great. This is great!

You don't actually have
to stretch your mouth to do it.

It's the only way I can do it.
I can't do it any other way.

BELL DINGS

Wa-hey!

Oh, no. Oh, I've broken it.

Oh! Oh, Bill Bailey.

What the hell's he doing?

Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear.

What a wretched disappointment
to us all, you are.

I can't get the talking to...
I can't get to talking to you.

Well, you're an idiot.

It's very difficult.

You have to look like you're
listening when you're talking.
You look at her when she's talking?

You have to look like you're
listening when you're talking.

It's quite difficult.
The first rule of showbusiness -
make everything look easy.

Yes, that's true.
Like this half-wit over here.

I'm milking it for all
it's worth, dear.

APPLAUSE