QI, Series Two [B]

Stephen Fry:
[about woodpeckers' tongues] How does it fit into its mouth, you may wonder? Well, it has to wrap it round its brain and the back of its eye sockets. Funnily enough, woodpeckers are very popular on creationist websites, because they argue that this is such an extraordinary creature designed so fit for its purpose, and so on, that only a designer could have made it, it couldn't have evolved. Apart from everything else, when it moves, sometimes up to fifteen or sixteen times a second it beats the wood to make a hole, which is incredibly fast and generates immense forces-two hundred and fifty times more forces than an astronaut is subjected to. It's a thousand Gs. And it has these extraordinary kind of little muscles and cartilages around its brain to stop it from shattering. [suddenly laughs] If the pecker's got wood, why go for tongue, you may argue! Um … [giggles as everyone stares at him] … but it is pretty astonishing …

Jo Brand:
Could we maybe have an offshoot of this program called Quite Unnecessary? Can I be on that?