QI, Series Three [C]

[on the Ordnance Survey map]

Stephen Fry:
Well, each town is 30.000 pounds, and...

Rob Brydon:
For Talbot? They're not gonna charge 30.000 pounds for Talbot, Stephen. They're not gonna get that.

Stephen Fry:
Talbot, is that on the south Welsh coast, by any chance?

Rob Brydon:
Yes. No, you'd be lucky to get 15 quid for that.

Stephen Fry:
Well, Port Talbot may be less than 30.000 pounds, but it's like that old joke isn't it? About the atomic bomb going off in Cardiff, and causing seven pounds worth of damage.

Alan Davies:
Did you know all the rats in England all face the same direction at any given time?

Stephen Fry:
Oh, come on.

Bill Bailey:
No, that's right. Because they're magnetic, aren't they, rats?

Alan Davies:
They spent so long in lead lined sewage pipes, that they move with the curvature of the earth.

Bill Bailey:
Hence the phrase "there's rat, and true rat. And absolute rat."

Rich Hall:
For five million pounds, I'd want a map that showed me looking at the map I'd just bought.

[on non-newtonian fluids]

Stephen Fry:
...the harder and firmer it becomes. You could slowly [gestures with protruding finger] put your finger through it...

Rich Hall:
Oh boy. Here we go.

Stephen Fry:
The finger slips in smoothly...

Rich Hall:
Wow.

Stephen Fry:
It's... No. [embarrassed] Please, help me out here. But if you slap it hard... [realises, double facepalms] Oh, dear.

Alan Davies:
Are all the stars round?

Stephen Fry:
I can't answer that. Um, I think probably most-

Alan Davies:
Yet you know what people thought five hundred years ago?

Stephen Fry:
Do I read books? Yes. Have I visited every star in the universe? No. Is this something you find difficult to understand? [A few moments of silence pass.] You've set me off.

Stephen Fry:
What is a taffy pull?

Rob Brydon:
Is this another dig at my forefathers?

Stephen Fry:
You've got four fathers? The Welsh are weird.

Stephen Fry:
Who, or what, is Cummingtonite?

Alan Davies:
[Giggles.] I don't know. The night is young, Stephen.

Arthur Smith:
It's marvellous to be six because you're not aware of your own mortality. You think you're the centre of the universe... Days last a hundred years! It's always summer! You can put your head in some custard and no one cares.

Doon Mackichan:
I'd quite like to be, sort of … a minute … old. After the smack and everything's washed off, you're straight on the tit, you've got entertainment, you've got sleep and you can cry all the time without anyone thinking you're weird.

[Guessing the contents of the Queen's handbag]

Doon Mackichan:
The Little Book of Calm … and mace spray.

[Rory has been displaying his knowledge of the periodic table.]

Rory McGrath:
Selenium is 34, arsenic is 33.

Stephen Fry:
Very good. Isn't he good? They should really put railings around you and have children come and stare at you.

Stephen Fry:
(sing-song, about 10 Downing Street) There's always someone in there!

Jimmy Carr:
Well why did you sing that?! It was a little bit scary! There's always someone in there!

Stephen Fry:
I wanted to frighten you.

Jimmy Carr:
I am frightened. I think someone might be under the desk!

[About Mr. Chicken, the last private resident of 10 Downing Street]

Stephen Fry:
Sadly, nothing else is known of Mr. Chicken.

Jimmy Carr:
He was a philatelist, and he worked in a bank. And he used to sail. So there's three facts, so I should get some points for those. Little-known facts, but true.

Rory McGrath:
I think he also played the tenor banjo.

Sean Lock:
He had eleven knuckles!

Alan Davies:
And, in fact, was actually a chicken.

Stephen Fry:
[exasperated] So, the most biographed man in the 18th century...

Alan Davies:
Something's 98% water, I know it is.

Jimmy Carr:
Is it the sea?

Stephen Fry:
Do you remember anything he said?

Sean Lock:
No, not a word. He said something about calcium, there's a tree with a funny name, I don't know. Koalas invented rice. Um, other stuff. He's like a robot!

Stephen Fry:
So tonight we have three astronauts, and one astro-minus-25. Ha, the things I do with words.

[Jeremy Clarkson holds up a sign saying "I like Stephen".]

Stephen Fry:
It's like having your own little performing donkeys.

Stephen Fry:
In 1900 there was a sport where Britain won a gold medal, in which the only other country that competed was France. Can you imagine what that might have been?

John Sessions:
Arrogance?

Stephen Fry:
What do you get when you cross a camel with a leopard?

Jo Brand:
You get a fireside rug you can have a good hump on.

Sean Lock:
You get sacked from the zoo?

[On how the ancient armies caught elephants]

Rich Hall:
Well, the truth of the matter is many of these elephants volunteered. They came from small towns, there was no future, no … no circus coming through town …

Stephen Fry:
Now, tonight any flamencos you give in Pyong score barney. And I'll also give you two Sundays...

Alan Davies:
What the f*** are you talking about?!

Stephen Fry:
So, the question is, how does the U.S. government look after its sequoia groves?

Bill Bailey:
Er … lions … and tigers are let loose to roam the surrounding areas …

Alan Davies:
Do they try to win the hearts and minds of the sequoia?

Stephen Fry:
Why shouldn't I strip Alan naked and cover him in gold paint?

Phill Jupitus:
You win your Oscar properly like everyone else!

Sean Lock:
I got the worst Christmas present ever, ever in my life. My sister gave me a "Grow Your Own Luffa" kit.

Stephen Fry:
God bless her!

Sean Lock:
It was a clay pot, a bag of earth and five seeds. And I think the clay pot hit her hardest.

[discussing the luffa]

Sean Lock:
If you're a nun...

Stephen Fry:
[appalled] Oh no, don't go there.

Sean Lock:
[grinning] I didn't say anything!

Stephen Fry:
Oh please.

Sean Lock:
It's obviously a reason that in Victorian bathrooms they had articles like that, it's a huge excuse for sexual jollities, isn't it? [gestures] "Oh no, I use it for my back!" It would feel like, you know, like sometimes if you sit on your hand, and you feel like someone else is doing it, it would feel like someone with a stump is playing with it. [makes provocative wagging gesture]

Stephen Fry:
Mummy, make the nasty man go away... Very odd.

[Alan makes bashing gestures with luffa]

Stephen Fry:
No! Give me that luffa.

Alan Davies:
Now you want it.

Stephen Fry:
That's going in the art cupboard and you're going in the naughty corner.

Rich Hall:
It's going in your penis tin isn't it?

Stephen Fry:
You are very bad children indeed.

Stephen Fry:
What colour was the Model T Ford?

Jeremy Clarkson:
[Whispering to Alan] Don't say, don't say, don't say...

Alan Davies:
Black?

Jeremy Clarkson:
Oh.

[forfeit alarm goes off]

Jeremy Clarkson:
Did you know a veal has to have more space to be transported to the abattoir than a human being in the back of an aeroplane.

Sean Lock:
...yeah, but to be fair, we have a holiday, they get killed.

Jeremy Clarkson:
I had a puffin last week, that's not delicious, but the point of eating it was because I never had one before...

Sean Lock:
...have you tried one of my turds?

Stephen Fry:
Did you just say what I thought you said? Get out. Out now.

Jeremy Clarkson:
D'you know what I had for my starter when I had the whale?

Stephen Fry:
With grated puffin?

Jeremy Clarkson:
I had a seal flipper, and it looked exactly like a marigold glove filled with wallpaper paste. And it sat and you thought, "Ooh …!" And it tasted exactly like licking a hot Turkish urinal.

Sean Lock:
I'm very concerned that you used the word "exactly"...

[looking at the aries star sign]

Stephen Fry:
Ah, there we are. It's some sort of goat. It's a goat waiting to be f***ed from behind.

Sean Lock:
It's a provocative goat.

Stephen Fry:
Quite clearly a Greek goat.

Alan Davies:
If you ask a lady for directions, she'll ask you a question back. So if you say "do you know where the post office is?", she'll say, "do you wanna buy a stamp?"

Stephen Fry:
Sweet.

Alan Davies:
And you'll find you're having a nice chat, and everyone's friends, but you've no idea where the post office is.

[On fortune cookies]

Phill Jupitus:
I wish they'd be a bit more honest-I mean, snap, "With the amount of MSG you've just had, a massive coronary is on the way"!

[After Alan has related a tale of him being a member of the pub quiz team]

Phill Jupitus:
Wouldn't it be great if you walked into a pub with him, though … [points at Stephen] … with Fry on your team? "Yeah, this is Barry from down the road. Yeah, he does look like him." And Fry would be there having to fake it in the pub-"Oh, blimey!"

Bill Bailey:
Giving it away by swearing in Latin!

[There's a picture of a statue on the screen.]

Stephen Fry:
Who is this?

Alan Davies:
Eros.

[The klaxon goes off.]

Stephen Fry:
Well, thank you for falling into our little heffalump trap there. It's actually the Angel of Christian Charity.

Alan Davies:
Eros.

Stephen Fry:
Eros was the Greek god of love. This is the Angel of Christian Charity.

Alan Davies:
Why is it called Eros, then?

Bill Bailey:
I saw a goat up a tree in Morocco. They go right up the top! I couldn't believe it, I thought it was somebody in the pub having me on, but no …

Stephen Fry:
And you're sure it was a tree, not a goathanger?

Stephen Fry:
What does a pair of pygmy chimpanzees do when they see a box?

Helen Atkinson-Wood:
Wear children's clothes and have a tea party.

Stephen Fry:
An octopus the size of a volleyball can fit into a soft drink can.

Bill Bailey:
Er, bluff.

Stephen Fry:
After a lifetime working with radioactivity, what did Marie Curie have two of?

Alan Davies:
Lesbians.

Stephen Fry:
She had two lesbians? She left them in her will to someone.

Stephen Fry:
What is the Italian for cuttlefish? Do you know by any chance??

Alan Davies:
Cuttlefishio?

[after a question barrage from Alan]

Stephen Fry:
I'm looking at my information card here because you're really pumping me, Alan. You're pumping me.

[On opening champagne bottles the correct way]

John Sessions:
I was always taught to do that. You actually twist it …

Stephen Fry:
Yeah, twist, exactly. That's it.

Mark Steel:
Where do you get taught these things?

Stephen Fry:
Well, where did you go to school, Mark Steel?

Mark Steel:
I went to Swanley Comprehensive, and that was every Tuesday morning we did Double Champagne Opening!

Stephen Fry:
This was at a party given by their graces the Duke and Duchess of Westminster-

[Whistles go off and the words "Luvvie Alarm" flash on the screen.]

Stephen Fry:
Oh, no! Come on! No! No! Fair dos! No!

Clive Anderson:
The richest man in the country apart from Roman Abramovich.

Stephen Fry:
I never penetrated his intimate circle, but …

Stephen Fry:
Anyway, Celtic nations but especially Caledonia are rightly praised for their creativity, so name three Scottish inventions.

Clive Anderson:
Oh, and you're gonna say they weren't invented in Scotland, are you?

Stephen Fry:
I don't know, depends on what you say.

Clive Anderson:
Well, the television is always the one that's sort of claimed...

[forfeit alarm sounds]

Stephen Fry:
[After revealing that neither Television, Haggis nor Whiskey was invented in Scotland] Scottish inventions and discoveries include: Adhesive stamps, the Australian national anthem, the Bank of England, bicycle pedals, the breach-loading rifle--you'll notice I'm going in alphabetical order--Bovril, the cell nucleus, chloroform, the cloud chamber, cornflower, a cure for malaria, the decimal point, the Encyclopedia Britannica, fountain pens, fingerprinting, hypnosis, hypodermic syringes, insulin, the kaleidoscope, the lawnmower, lime cordial, logarithms, lorries, marmalade, matches, motor insurance, paraffin, piano pedals, the postmark, pneumatic tyres, RADAR, the reflecting telescope, savings banks, the screw propeller, the speedometer, the steam hammer, raincoats, tarmac, teleprinters, tubular steel, typhoid vaccine, ultrasound scanners, the United States Navy, universal standard time, vacuum flasks, wave-powered electricity generations, and wire rope!

Alan Davies:
Why is pussy another word for front bottom?

Stephen Fry:
I don't know, it's not my area of expertise.

Stephen Fry:
Anyway, back to Cleve Crudgington and his corks.

Alan Davies:
Did he insert them into his person?

Stephen Fry:
You will never know how thin the ice upon which you just skated was, there. We had a little forfeit all ready for you.

[Without the klaxon noise, the forfeit flashes on the screen. It says 'Rams them up his arse.']

Stephen Fry:
Oh, there it is. We know that's what you were thinking.

Stephen Fry:
I leave you with this cautionary snippet about paying attention. A radio interviewer from GLR radio carried away with news of a possible discovery of a cross between an elephant and a woolly mammoth, asked a palaeontologist "so it'd be like some sort of hairy gorilla, would it?" To which the palaeontologist replied "Yes, pretty much! Except elephant shaped. And eh, with tusks."

[On treating phobias]

Phill Jupitus:
So I'll have to get into a bath full of spiders?

Jo Brand:
You can do it two ways. You can do a graded desensitization, where you're gradually exposed to spiders, or you can do something called flooding, where you just get chucked in with them.

Stephen Fry:
This is cognitive therapy, isn't it?

Jo Brand:
Well, it's more sort of behavioural therapy really, because it's cheap.

Phill Jupitus:
I think I'll settle with just screaming like a girl and running around the house, if that's alright with you.

[On the subject of cockfighting]

Stephen Fry:
[reading from a card] It says here a good cocker would think nothing of cleaning his cock's wounded head by sticking it in his mouth and sucking it clean.

[The audience laughs and Clive murmurs in agreement.]

Phill Jupitus:
You're watching QI for the Straight Guy!

[On the original story of Cinderella]

Stephen Fry:
The original stories were quite gruesome. When the ugly sisters tried to slip into the slipper, they cut off their toes and their bunions to try and squeeze in, and the slippers filled with blood.

Jo Brand:
They probably got that idea from Trinny and Susannah.

Stephen Fry:
What I want you to do first is tell me all about the twelve Frenchmen and the twelve mosquitoes.

Dara Ó Briain:
Once upon a time, there were twelve Frenchmen called... 'Appy, Sleepy, Arrogant, Furieux, Un Chose Comme Ca, Bof and Zut Alors. And...

Phill Jupitus:
That's six!

Dara Ó Briain:
Fenètre, Boulangerie...

Alan Davies:
Le Table.

Dara Ó Briain:
Le Table, of course. And Jambon et Fromage, the twins. And they used to travel around with mosquitoes...

Phill Jupitus:
And what were the mosquitoes called?

Bill Bailey:
Buzzy, Stingy...

Dara Ó Briain:
It was a very, very low-rent 1950's French detective series, that involved, at some point, the extraction of a tiny amount of blood from one of the suspects.

Stephen Fry:
When the Titanic sank, what was the first thing that happened to the crew?

Phill Jupitus:
Terrible luck for them, but they actually had their six-month review...

[On what happened to the crew of the RMS Titanic]

Stephen Fry:
Every single member of the crew had their wages stopped at the moment of the sinking. The moment a ship sinks, it is not a ship, therefore you can't work on it, therefore the White Star Line paid them up to the minute of the sinking.

Phill Jupitus:
I would imagine that in a sinking situation, you'd hope to be getting time and a half.

[On the Titanic]

Phill Jupitus:
Is it true that someone dressed as a lady to escape detection?

Stephen Fry:
Yes, apparently it is true, because it was women and children first.

Bill Bailey:
[chuckling] I thought you said "someone dressed as a baby".

Phill Jupitus:
[posh accent] "Yes, goo-goo indeed. I have a lollipop and I have no control over my urinary functions. I am, in fact, an infant. And I know you think I'm Lord Albemarle, but I am in fact a little baby. With a beard. Yes, goo-goo, gaa-gaa. And madam, may I tell you I've been a very naughty baby?"

[On the novel The DaVinci Code]

Stephen Fry:
... and I use the word books very loosely, like... The DaVinci Code. (spits) It is complete loose stool water. It is arse-gravy of the worst kind.

Alan Davies:
He was a blues singer... "Please welcome Lou Stool Water!"

[Bill Bailey presses his steel guitar buzzer]

Rob Brydon:
There a map, which I think MI5 had, that shows not just Hadrian's Wall, but Hadrian's Conservatory and Hadrian's water feature, which is very nice, it sort of cascades down over pebbles.

Stephen Fry:
Yes, Carlisle is in a sense Hadrian's sliding patio door, isn't it?

Rob Brydon:
Is this a reference to the joke about "What is a sheep tied to a lamp post in Cardiff"? It's a leisure center.

Stephen Fry:
I remember the first time I heard my father say the word fuck, my brother and I couldn't believe it. Because we thought we made the word up.

Rich Hall:
The first time I said the word fuck, my dad heard me. Walked by my bedroom door and I said "Dad shut the door, I'm trying to fuck in here."

[On the Isle of Wight being the last place in Britain to be Christianized]

Stephen Fry:
It was in 686 AD, almost a century after the rest of the country. Subjugated by Cædwalla who was king of the West Saxons and who had killed most of the Pagan population to Christianize it. Good ol' Christianity.

Jimmy Carr:
I'll tell you what though, the only indigineous mammals in Australasia are marsupials.

Stephen Fry:
They're therefore not mammals.

[The audience laughs and Jimmy looks stunned.]

Sean Lock:
Did you not know that they're cats! Hahahaha, Hahahaha, they're cats! All of them!

Jimmy Carr:
I'm sorry for trying to be clever. Sorry, back to the knob gags.

Alan Davies:
What's your favourite bit of the koala. Do you like the hands, the little hands?

Jimmy Carr:
I like the cock.

Stephen Fry:
Oh stop.

Jimmy Carr:
Told ya.

[Rory has been getting several answers correct by now.]

Jimmy Carr:
Now, this is a team game, isn't it? I'm on his team, is that right?

[Rory puts his hand on Jimmy's shoulder whilst everyone laughs]

Jimmy Carr:
This is my team mate here. We're killin' them, aye? [He swears using his hand at Sean and Alan]. Come on! You want some?

Sean Lock:
Yes, but, later on, when we go out, people will talk to us.

Stephen Fry:
What’s quite interesting about the sperm of fruit flies?

Alexander Armstrong:
It smells of guava.

Stephen Fry:
The Chinese also invented the loo roll. Name 3 other Chinese inventions

Alan Davies:
Pot Noodles

Bill Bailey:
Whispers

Stephen Fry:
How do you tell able seamen from ordinary seamen? [Laughter] When you applied for a job on a merchant vessel, you registered either as an able seamen or an ordinary seamen, and they accepted your word. But you kept a log of your work, which was the real proof and it was called a Certificate of Continuous Discharge.