Good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening and welcome.
Welcome one and welcome all once again to Never Mind The Buzzcocks.
I'm Natasha Kaplinsky and I'm not wearing any pants.
No, no, I fooled you. Actually, I'm Stephen, really,
and this IS QI, though I'm not wearing pants.
Tonight, we are playing footloose and fancy free
with the facts as we filter the fabrications of fakes, frauds and fakirs.
Let's meet our four finagling fraudsters.
We have World Heavyweight boxing champion, Sean Lock.
We have the President of Mauritius, Jimmy Carr!
His identical twin sister, Marcus Brigstocke.
And the late Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd.
All right. Now, you might like to reveal who you really are,
but, before I sell you all, thank you, you can bring that down.
Thank you very much.
Before I sell you all a pup, let's hear your suspicious noises.
Sean goes...
Jimmy goes...
Marcus goes...
And Alan goes...
Which brings me to my first sleight of hand. Could you tell me
all what your buzzer noises are? Jimmy first.
What's that noise?
A camera, like a like.
- No, actually... - It's a...
- That's a phone. - Is it not...
Is it not a... It's a bird that can mimic sounds and it learned
- how to do the camera shutter. - So what sort of bird would that be?
A Kodak bird.
- It's not that. It's from Australia. - Oh, the kookaburra.
No.
- Sheila. - No. The audience knows, say again loudly?
Lyrebird!
Lyre, they're all shouting 'lyre' at you!
You've robbed my point.
You get one, the audience gets five.
In fact, they're a specific breed of lyrebird called
- the superb lyrebird. - It can mimic anything?
- Almost anything. - I'd make it woof.
How funny would that be if you had a bird that woofed?
I'd get it to do limericks.
- It does dogs. - I'd probably get it to do Bill Oddie.
Surely that should be a bearded tit if it was any bird.
You're thinking of Rory McGrath.
True! Yours was a superb lyre.
Marcus, let's hear yours.
It could easily be a builder, couldn't it? Seeing a lady go past,
but it sounds like a car alarm.
- Oh. Thank you for joining in. - I just wanted to see that happen.
Lyrebird!
Yes! He's right!
And here it is making that noise.
It's lyre, incidentally - L-Y-R-E, not...
I knew that. Would I have got a point if I'd said that?
Uh... No. Because it's tail is said to resemble the shape of a Greek lyre,
the plucking instrument, a lyre.
And let's hear your buzzer, Sean, if we may?
It's a lyrebird.
- I don't know what it's mimicking. - It's doing a saw, isn't it?
- It's doing logging. It's mimicking logging. - Chainsaw.
It is indeed doing a chainsaw.
Is it a lyrebird?
It's a lyrebird. You seem to have got the hang of this.
- That's very annoying. So Alan... - The thing about...
- That's a lyrebird. - Nooo!!
- No. No. Oh, dear. No. - Even as I said it, I knew it wasn't.
Even as it was coming out of my mouth, story of my bloody life.
- That was a telephone. - Yeah?
- Couldn't you tell? - No, I thought it was...
Ironically, Alan, the big siren that went off there - it was a lyrebird.
I can't see that bird surviving for much longer - if it's doing
impressions of the chainsaw that's coming towards it.
'Oh, I do... I can do chainsaws...'
But how does it benefit it, in the wild...
How does it benefit it being able to mimic the noises of other things?
It does a lot of kids parties and a lot of...
It seems to be a useful mechanism for it... And for other birds, like parrots as we know it,
and myna birds, and something called a 'drongo'.
The drongo imitates the alarm calls of other birds, and cleverly it knows which bird is with,
and only will do the alarm call of the kookaburra, if it's with a kookaburra, say.
That's clever, but it's also an insult in Australia.
- To be called 'a drongo'. - Do you know why?
N... No, I wish I did, I've been called it several times by...
An Australian friend of mine.
It is, actually... It's the proper name for a bird and always was, but in the 1920's there was a race horse
- called 'Drongo'. - Right.
Who seemed to loose every single race...
- That he was put in. And in Australia, the word 'drongo'... - That explains it, I was doing hurdles at the time.
You didn't get any horses called 'Fred', do you? Or 'Sam'?
- Gerard. - Gerard?
- 'The brigadier Gerard', even. - There was one called 'Simon'. In the Grand Nationals,
- this year. - Simon?
- Just 'Simon'? - Yep, that had MY forty quid.
'Simon the horse'.
- He's not anymore, dog food now. - Yeah.
There's one called 'Eric', in a joke.
- Oh, a lovely joke. One of my favourites. - I love that joke.
Would you like to share it with us,
- just for the sake of it? - Yes! A white horse goes into a pub. And er...
Enters the pub, and the landlord says: 'We've got a drink named after you!'
And he says, 'What, Eric?'
- That's... That's it, really. - Simple, whole and pure...
- Yeah, I like the way you threw it away. - Yeah.
The world record for any talking bird appears to be 1728 words,
which is the same vocabulary as a it happens, of an estate agent. Apparently. Um...
There was a budgerigar named 'Puck', in 1995.
- Who had this... - Who sold three semis.
- Yeah! Who sold semis... - But can he do sentences? Or just... Just words?
I don't know. I don't know.
I simply, don't know. Um...
- So, do you know this one, or not? - I don't know.
- You don't know? - I don't have the...
- Well, do you or not!? - I don't.
They're not really words, though, are they? They're not words, are they?
What aren't?
Well, when birds say words, they're not words,
- they're noises. - No, to our ears they, er, they sound like...
Do you know people want to learn to talk to the animals, don't they,
people say 'I'd like to talk to the animals' would actually be quite dull, wouldn't it?
Talking to animals, 'What do you do?'
- 'Just go out, eat some food..' - 'Eat grass...'
'Grunt and squeak and squawk...'
'Didn't get killed. Turned out allright.'
'Got out of bed, shat right next to the bed, got back in to it.'
- It's the sort of thing they do. - Yeah, disgusting.
Yeah, I think you're right. Anyway, moving on.
The first three were the work of the finest fib in the forest, the superb lyrebird,
which can imitate just about any sound it hears.
So now, what was unusual about the pig-faced lady?
She had eight tits.
As well... She wasn't really a lady, she was a pig.
Yeah, if that's her, that is a pig.
No no no. There was a very famous...
In fact, there were a number of famous pig-faced ladies in the nineteenth century.
Might be a curiosity in a tent, and have...
Thank you, that's it. Say that again...
- so that the ladies and gentlemen can hear. - Pleasure. A curiosity in a tent.
- Exactly right, it was a... - My favourite sort of curiosity. A tented curiosity.
A tented curio... It was a big draw in the nineteenth century for people to go, pay money to see the pig-faced lady.
The thing, obviously, about those freak shows is, rather than pay to go into the tent,
why don't you just wait for them to finish work and they go down the shops?
You don't get all the build-up, though, do you? If they're just down the shop,
you don't get someone saying
'Prepare for the wonderful... Oh, she's just buying biscuits'. It's not...
It's not the same thing.
Was it, was it a bearded lady that they shaved?
No, but it was a shaved...
- Did they... - Pig.
- No. - Monkey?
- She was like a pig... - Chimp?
No, not a monkey, monkeys would have to be huge, it'd have to be a gorilla.
Horse?
All right, a gorilla.
- Horse? - Cow! Cow!
- Not a cow. - A pig!
No, a pig would be too small to be convincing...
- No, pigs... Pigs are massive. - Donkey. A donkey.
- You're thinking about little pigs in cartoons. - Yeah but they're not going to stand up on two legs, though,
and... Look like a human.
You put a dress on most things, they can pull it off.
Take mine, I've put a dress on.
- I think I've heard of this one. - Yeah?
- Is it a bear? - Yes, thank you it's a bear.
They shaved...
- They would get a bear drunk, - A bear?
- shave the bears face... - Get a bear drunk? And shave it?
They've got this show backwards, that's what you want to see!
I don't care about a pig-faced woman, I want to see a man trying to shave a bear!
'Have another drink, I'm not going to do anything to ya!'. That's insane!
And then, then they stick his arm in a beehive.
When they got them drunk, was this, like, paraletic, so it would then pass out and they'd shave it,
or drunk enough to persuade it that this...
- One or the other. - Would work?
Drunk enough for it not to wipe your face off with it... One swipe of it's claw.
'Hot towel, sir?' 'Rrrrawwwrrr!'
'I got it. God, what've I got? It's a bootiful life I got'. Here's a quite interesting thing.
- Yeah? - Water softens beard bristle up better than shaving foam.
- Does it? - Yeah. Shaving foam is a con.
I think there's a current advert on for some skin preparation for men,
it goes on about how your skin can get 'stronger'.
Obviously they don't want to market moisturiser to men, so they call it 'face protector'.
Yes.
Like it's, it's stopping bullets hitting your face.
Put this on, it's not to do with making me all soft and lovely,
it's actually 'bang' and 'bosh' it away. People are throwing kettles at me, I'm going 'bing'!
They have, of course, bearded ladies you've mentioned, there's been a long tradition of those.
There was one rather sweet story of a bearded lady who fell in love with a contortionist in the, erm...
This sounds like an old joke, doesn't it?
I know, it really does sound like a...
But it wasn't a joke.
He wouldn't marry her because he couldn't really face the idea,
every morning, of staring at a bearded woman,
but also if she shaved they couldn't get married because they wouldn't have enough income,
because her income came from the fact that she was a very successful bearded lady, and er...
So he shaved a bear and married that?
No, some else suggested that she shave and cover herself in tattoos and she became the first tattooed lady
and they married and lived very happily ever after. Which was rather touching.
But if he was a contortionist, they could've had sex and he could be in a different room.
That's, indeed, the nature of exactly that.
Samuel Gumpertz was considered the king of the freak show people at Coney Island,
he had a 1911 show that included 'Ursa, the bear girl', 'Bonita'...
- Was she a naked lady? - No, no.
- Bare girl is misleading I think. - B-E-A-R.
I imagine a lot of people paid their money and went,
'Aw, this is rubbish. She just looks like a bear. If anything, I'm turned off.'
There was 'Bonita', I don't know why this is funny, 'The Irish Fat Midget'...
You don't know why that's funny?
Yeah, yeah I would've said that.
'Lionel the dog-faced boy' and, um, 'Schrief Afendl - The Human Salamander'.
Salamanders can go in fire, can't they?
- Yes, that was the legend, - So he would stand in fire.
presumably that's what happened.
How long can a salamander go in fire?
'Till it's cooked.
Well there you have it anyway, the pig-faced lady was neither pig-faced nor a lady,
she was in fact a drunken bear with a shaven head.
Now, what was Count Victor Lustig's dastardly scheme for Guy de Maupassant's favourite restaurant in Paris?
Did he put a creepy black-and-white cardboard cut-out of himself in the middle of the place?
Guy de Maupassant, nineteenth century French writer, like many French writers...
A surprising number of French writers and artists in the nineteenth century objected to something new
- that hit Paris in 1889... - The Eiffel Tower.
The Eiffel Tower, they absolutely loathed it, Guy de Maupassant loathed it so much, his favourite restaurant was...?
'The Eiffel Tower is Crap Bistro'
No, it was in the Eiffel Tower...
Oh, so he didn't have to look at it.
- So, exactly, it was the one place in Paris, - The Jules Verne restaurant.
where he couldn't see the Eiffel Tower, was inside the Eiffel Tower.
Could he not just ask for, perhaps, a chair facing the other way?
But he was a French writer trying to make a point and therefore a git.
But that's only half the story, what did Count Victor Lustig do to the Eiffel Tower ?
- He sold it to someone. - Oh! Alan, you're on fire tonight!
- On fire! I'm a salamander! - You are on fire, you are a salamander.
He did indeed sell it, congratulations, many points!
That's quite a good salamander.
They do that foot thing?
They probably do.
Cooling foot... Cooling foot...
A salamander is amongst us.
So he... He sold the Eiffel Tower?
To a gullible tourist or something.
Well, actually in this case it was scrap metal dealers.
He claimed that he had the single right given to him by the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphy to the sale
and he could personally decide who would get the scrap metal rights and he told this to two scrap metal dealers,
and they both realised that as he was a French official he could be bribed, and so they paid him a large bribe
for the rights to it.
He told them that it was going to be pulled down and that he had the right...
- ...to dispose of the structure. - It was never a permanent thing, was it,
- they put it up for, like, a couple of years... - It wasn't, exactly, so it was a pretty convincing con.
It's like that big wheel on the South Bank, that was meant to be up for two years and they went
'Do you know what, I like it, let's keep it'.
They were fairground people, the, New Labour, when they came in, they went
'Yeah what we need is a Millennium dome and a big Ferris Wheel.'
'Come on, if you want to go faster, you gotta scream louder'.
And there's loads of... Pregnant teenagers knocking on number ten going 'Where are you? You've moved on'.
There was a great former actor from Glasgow called Arthur Furguson, he sold Nelson's Column, lions included,
to an American tourist for £ 6,000 and on a trip to Paris he managed to sell the Eiffel Tower as well, also for scrap,
- to another gullible American... - I love these people.
He then moved to the U.S.
Do you think they try lots and lots of people and eventually someone bites?
- He sold the White House to an American... - It's just brilliant.
Sell me! Sell me!
He then tried to sell the Statue of Liberty to an Australian and that's where it fell down. But, er, he went...
- You'd be suspicious. - 'Ah now, come on mate...'
He didn't even have the keys.
'How am I gonna get it home?'
'Where's the guarantee?'
Well in case we think that this is something that's gone away, only this year, 2008, ladies and gentlemen, as we go...
Two businessmen called Terry Collins and Marcel Boekhoorn
were conned out of £ 1,000,000 by an unemployed, bankrupt lorry driver named Tony Lee who claimed to be acting
for the real owners in the sale of the Ritz Hotel. And they paid one million pounds as a sort of down payment on the Ritz.
A million.
Now, what kind of animal might be interested in buying some snake oil? I have some here.
Yes.
Pigface lady.
Good point.
- Is it made from snakes? - Yep.
- The oil of a snake. - Oil from a snake.
- I imagine you'd just wring 'em out, they're quite long. - Yeah.
You'd get someone at the other end like do the towel, just keep turning.
Plenty, exactly. Like a... Is that a Vileda mop you where doing there?
It's not venom or anything, is it taken from the venom, or...
No, not from the venom, no. It's, it's an oil from the snake.
But, there's a particular animal that has shown to benefit from it, and maybe we would too?
Is it.. Is it a snake with bad joints?
No, Jimmy. Not...
- Not a snake? - No.
What do we mean by 'snake oil' when we use the phrase these days?
It means that it's something that's not what it says it is. It's... It's a con, it's a fraud.
- Yeah. A sort of Payton Nedson... - Snake oil salesman.
In the 19th century, when the Chinese arrived in America in large numbers,
they used it as a kind of potion, a health thing amongst themselves.
And the snake oil salesman, as it where, had their own nostrums,
their own tonics, and they dismissed snake oil, that's precisely what they said, you know,
'Don't listen to people who try and sell you snake oil. This is the real stuff.'
But in fact, the irony is; snake oil has been shown to be rather good.
Particularly, Chinese snake oil, 'cause it's full of omega 3.
And on mice, it's shown that it's improved their abilities to negotiate mazes
and strengthen their muscles. And increase...
- They can swim better... - In real life, of course,
they're probably not even IN mazes.
No, in real life...
You put them in mazes, 'There, look! They're better at getting out of mazes.'
And they're just going, 'God, get me out of the maze, and stop giving me this stuff to drink.'
The idea of saying to mice in nature, 'Yeah, what you want is more... Eat more snakes.'
- And the mouse is going, 'Yeah, the thing is...' - Yeah.
- 'They can be a bit aggressive'. - Yeah.
'I tell you what, do I get this one from the inside?'
The most famous woman faced, some believe, in the 19th century, was a woman called Lydia Pinkham.
Who was responsible for a very famous Peyton medicine, called her 'compound'.
Is that where 'Lily the Pink' comes from?
Where 'Lily the Pink' comes from. A sixties song by The Scaffold.
And it's her vegetable compound. It was a huge success. And her face was on it.
And of course, most of these things had alcohol in, which by the earliest 20th century
meant they where very popular in prohibition.
It turns out, ironically, that snake oil empirically has been discovered to be good, at least for mice.
It comes from the Chinese water snake and it's a source for omega 3, highly healthy acid.
Now, let's move on.
Er, describe the Scandal of Mrs Pankhurst and the rhubarb jam.
Pankhurst, she was a... Suffragettes and jam?
We don't say 'suffragettes' anymore, we say 'favours the flatter shoe'.
Did she make her own jam? 'Pankhurst own rhubarb jam'?
- Did she keep the leaves? - Well, no. But, actually...
In the 19th century, and in the early parts of the 20th century, there was an enormous industry...
Involved around making fake jams. Would you believe?
- Fake jams? - Fake jams.
They're a particular kind of jam that was very popular, but rather expensive for ordinary people.
And so, fake versions of it where produced. And it was a particular fruit jam.
Strawberry. Raspberry.
Raspberry is the answer. Raspberry was very popular,
- very, very popular. - Points...
But rather expensive. So, instead, people used rhubarb was your best shot.
- The worst shot was sweetened turnips. - Did they put the pips in it?
And, as Marcus said, under his breath there...
- Yes, did they... - And I caught it, yes they did put wooden pips in.
Not real pips. But fake pips.
- 'Mmm, what lovely wood.' - In order to make it look more like...
And... This is why it gets so weird.
So prevalent was this habit of making false raspberry jam,
out of sweetened turnips and rhubarb, and adding the wood bits, that there was a trade.
Of making little wooden pips.
And it was sweated labour. That Mrs. Sylvia Pankhurst, one of the leading women's movement people,
who'd, you know, fought for votes for women and rights for women, and so on.
That she made an enormous fuzz about... This indeed opened her own jam factory during the first world war.
Selling real jam instead of this. And...
It does sound like a euphemism for something else.
'Yeah, she's opened her jam factory...'
Oh, stop it!
- This... - You're a very disgusting young man.
- I just think it sounds... - And i you the world 'young' quite wrongly.
I like the idea that you could have a job as a pip maker.
Yeah, and... Yeah, I know, that's exactly... A pip maker.
Five years apprenticeship.
Making pips, starting with a great big pip like that, wearing it down, smaller and smaller.
And... And being very badly paid. At it. Anyway, there...
Presumably, they got away with it, if it lasted that long. So it must have been raspberry-ish.
I guess, it was sugary. It was sweet and it was red.
What do they call jam in America?
- Jello. - 'Jaaaam'.
Jello.
No, no. They don't.
- Jelly. - Jelly.
- 'I want some jaaaaam.' - Jello.
'Put some jaaaam on my pancakes.'
Jelly. They call it 'jelly'.
- I'm still saying 'jaaaaam'. - Yes, you are.
You're still saying 'jam'. In your way.
I think it's funny when I say 'jaaaaaaam'.
They make it with, um, they mix it with peanut butter as well.
Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
- Got an interesting fact about peanut butter. - Tell me.
You know, when they make those commercials using chimps?
- Like for tea and things, yes. - For tea, and stuff.
So what they do is they get a little bit of peanut butter and the put it on the top,
- Oh, yes. - on the roof of their mouths, for the monkeys,
and the little bit, they go... And that is also how they make 'Hollyoaks'.
Very good.
Very good, indeed.
There we have it, the pips in fake raspberry jam, often made from rhubarb,
where little bits of wood processed by sweatshop female labour.
Now, you are the detective for these questions coming up.
Er, we all think we can spot a con, tell me how you would have dealt with these situations...
You become suspicious of three buxom young women who are coming out of the telephone exchange,
carrying heavy suitcases and jangling. Where is the jangling coming from,
is it coming from, A: The telephone exchange.
B: The suitcases,
or C: Their bosoms?
D: My trousers.
Right, and we're in Miami in 1950. This was a very well-known scandal at the time. These women were
responsible for the money that got collected from the phone boxes and their job was
to put the money into these counting machines, and they worked out that, er,
as long as they stole the money before it went into the counting machines, the phone company had no idea
of how much money there was.
- So they would take money and put it... - Put it into their bras.
In their breasts and then put it into the counting machine.
Once it's in the counting machine, it's accounted for, but over a number of years, no-one quite knows how much
they got away with, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars, in their breasts.
And eventually they got found out, though... There... There we have a picture...
Looks like she's gone to a really bad strip club. People have only got change.
'There you go, love. That'll do ya, might be cold, sorry about that'.
'I want notes!'
The headline on the day that this happened was:
'Justice as elastic as the items in which they carried their loot, snapped back today
on members of Miami's brassiere brigade'. That's what...
That a headline?
That was a headline.
- It was a huge story... - Now, for a start, they'd go 'Money in their tits'.
Yes it would be, I'm afraid it would be exactly that.
'Titty cash'
'Tit bag grab scare'.
And then there's be a girl on page three and it would say
'Zoe is very disappointed by the Brassiere Brigade, she thinks it's wrong to steal'
You seem to know their ways very well. I'm impressed.
I liked it when Saddam Hussein was found in a hole, that was one of my personal favourite ones.
'Stephanie is delighted that Saddam Hussein has been captured'.
I laughed for hours.
'When I found out he'd been captured'...
A little moment, to celebrate.
I'm ashamed of you.
It's not real, it's your imagination. I'm just doing that...
That, will not answer.
- However... - I wish that I could do that.
- I can, oddly enough... - Really?
- But unfortunately, - Do you celebrate like that?
my nipples are going in the wrong direction, they're dropping an inch a year,
it's terrible. However, I have...
Can you get a pencil underneath them?
I can get Colin Montgomerie under them.
He must've been livid about that.
In 1950 the 'brassiere brigade' defrauded the Southern Bell telephone company line
by hiding the takings in their bras.
This is your next question: You're in the bath and the king of Syracuse calls,
and he's got a dodgy tiara for you. What do you say?
- 'Always when you're in the bath'. - Yeah!
My first... Is it a trick question? 'Cause if I'm in a bath, I've already got a tiara on.
Indeed. This dire, damnedest coronet, that the king of Syracuse wants you to have a look at.
Sorry, and he's called me, and I've got reception back to the 13th century?
No, it's a lot earlier than that.
- How early is it? - Oh, it's way back.
Oh, way back. Okay. I didn't wanna get too specific, that was enough information.
'Bout 200 B.C. That kind of thing.
200 B.C.? And he's called me in the bath, and he's going "You wanna buy a tiara?"
- No, he's got a dodgy gold crown or tiara. - Right.
And he needs... Something from you. He needs information from you about this crown.
- To see whether it's allright? That it's a decent crown? - About whether it is the real crown or not?
See whether it's gold or not. Yeah.
- So, where you saying, how would I prove it's gold? - Yeah.
- Something to do with the bath? - Yeah.
- I put it in the bath? - N... Yeah...
What, does gold go small and wrinkly in the bath?
That's your crown jewels.
- Yeah. - Oh, so...
Is there something to do with the density of it?
- And the displacement of the water? - The density of gold is unique to itself,
so if you had two crowns that weighed the same, you couldn't tell whether one was gold or not,
just by their weight, even if they where the same size.
But they would displace different amounts of water, when placed in the water. And so, this particular man,
Archimedes, pondering this problem, that he've been given by the king, gets in the bath,
sees the water rise, and leaps out of the bath shouting...?
- Eur... - 'Eureka!'
Exactly! That's...
I really thought you where going to say 'Arsenal' then, Alan.
Eh, yes. Eureka. Archimedes famous bathtime moment
came from trying to think of a way to check how 'gold', a gold crown really was.
Now, let's see how well you know yourself. I'm going to describe one of you,
and I want you to buzz when you think you know which one it is that I'm talking about.
- You tend to be... - Oh, that's me!
You tend to be too critical of yourself.
You have considerable unused capacity that you not yet have turned to your advantage.
At times, you have serious doubts whether you've made the right decision, or done the right thing.
Some of your goals are rather unrealistic.
Um... You have a need for other people to like and admire you.
Stop looking... You keep looking at me, really.
To all... To all comedians, everything you've said is... Is... Exactly... Er, all of us.
Exactly. And not just comedians, but of course, everybody else. It's an example of what...
- No, no, no. We ARE special. - Well, we are. Obviously.
- Ridiculary special. - Yes.
It's an example of what's known as 'Barnum's statements' or, 'cold reading'
as used by fraudulent 'psychics', clairvoyants and so on...
- Real ones don't need it, they contact the dead. - Yes.
You really look like you've been arrested at an foreign airport for drug dealing, there.
Yes, I'm trying desperately to look innocent. 'Eh, there, someone put them in my bag.'
- Yes, yes. - And this... This bear, I didn't shave that.
That's just my wife.
Erm, there are classic types of Barnum's statements, like, 'rainbow statements' which describe...
So many people, like cover all the bases. 'You have a very generous and giving nature,
although if you're honest about it, there have been times when you've acted in a rather selfish way.'
There's 'devanishing negative'. Where they say, 'You don't work with children, do you?'
- So, whatever the person says... - I don't know what you've heard...
If they say...
If they say, yes, you say, 'Yes, I thought so', and if they say 'No', you say,
- 'No, I didn't think so.' - 'No, I thought not.'
Put people fall for it. All the time.
- 'How do they do that?' - Yeah. Exactly.
What if you said, 'Have you ever laid an egg?'
Just the once.
Yeah, and they go, 'No'. You go, 'Oh, got that wrong.'
- That would be a much better act, though. - It's really out on a limb.
And then are escape hatches, 'Does the name 'Wendy' mean anything to you?'
- Yes it does! - 'Yeah, I thought so'. Exactly.
- I've got a cousin called Wendy. - 'There, you see, I thought so.'
- Right. - I thought so.
And, of course, if you say 'no'...
- Say it to Alan! - Have you got a Wendy in your life?
- No. - You will have, very soon.
'I'm getting a 'Wendy'. There will be a 'Wendy''.
People who've just tuned in from 'Living TV', going 'Oh, it's the same show.'
Exactly!
- It is... - 'This is on again, it's brilliant!'
They're actually called 'Forer questions' as well, there was a man called Forer, who died in 2000,
who was this sort of psychologist, and so on. And he got his students to mark out of five,
various statements that he gave for each one of them. And... Uhm, the where, of course, all identical.
- They all got the same one. - I'm going rather over this, this sounds fantastic.
'cause they do tour round. I've been going a tour, and there, all... All these people sell out the same venues.
- They're all in huge venues. - I know.
Going, 'Yeah, I'll tell ya. Tell ya...' 'Oh, you're mother says she's happy now.'
They never go, 'Oh, she's... She went to hell!'
'Screw this, she went to hell!' 'Turns out, oh, wrong... Wrong, and your mum!'
'She loves it!'
'She's actually married the Devil!'
- Oh no... - They never say that!
- No, they tend not to. - Yeah. But I will!
'Forer effect' or 'personal validation fallacy' is a technique used by astrologers and fortune tellers
and other liars. To create apparently specific, but in fact, almost universal statements.
Some things are obvious trickery. Now, what's the trick behind sword swallowing?
Wipe it first.
Stop when you reach the handle.
Never use a scimitar.
Doesn't it just fold up?
No no, there are people who believe...
There are people who insist on believing that it is sort of fakesome, but it is genuine. People do...
What if, when it comes out, it's got a bit of meat on the end?
I think the, the actual secret of doing it is to do it really quick
and if it gets caught on anything, just jab it.
What do you think the most common complaint is when they go and see doctors?
I imagine it's gastric.
It's a sore throat. Pretty obviously, but they genuinely do suffer from sore throats.
Erm, and they pop it down, and there's a limit, 61 centimetres, any longer than 61 centimetres
you could gravely injure yourself but anything less than 40 centimetres and you are not recognised
as a sword swallower by the association of sword swallowers.
What if you're short? I mean, surely height...
You'd think, but unfortunately the society of sword swallowers has laid down...
- 40 centimetres... - Yeah because if you're a midget,
you're going to stab yourself through the arse.
Nice.
I mean, how do you not just gag immediately?
That's, that's the point, if there's a trick to it, not a trick to it but the secret of it is
you have to learn how to overcome your gag reflex, it's the first...
That's a very horrible, hard thing to do, I have that with the...
That's why I can't wear contact lenses because I actually gag when I touch my eye.
You're putting them in wrong.
- Do you? - Yeah.
Really?
It's gotta be in the front.
You know, if you... If you pull a Pekinese's tail it's eyes pop out, you know that?
That's the rest of my week sorted, I'm buying a Pekinese.
I line them up, I line them up.
It's like that... I touch my eye and actually go...
Really?
It's a four thousand year old art, it seems, sword swallowing, it's not a trick at all,
it's a real skill, that's the point.
Now, what is... Tell me about 'The vegetable lamb of Tartary', anybody?
Is it the... The bastard child of a lamb and a turnip?
Not a turnip.
Wandered lonely until it was... Came across a pigfaced lady.
There were many people.
There where sheep who did have a go at a cauliflower, when it was pissed or something, did it?
Is it a kebab?
Not a kebab no, but, when...
If you have a... Like this, might be made out of wool, a suit.
But, the shirt, it would be made of...?
- Lamb. - Cotton.
Bless! Bless you, Sean! For trying.
Cotton. And there where a lot of people, who thought the idea, and indeed,
if you've ever stood in a cottonfield, you can understand it, thought the idea
of a plant that exploded with that kind of fabric,
was just ridiculous. And that it must be really be a sheep. A sheep plant. And so was born, the legend,
which was much... There, you see a drawing.
And that was...
Believed by some people to exist, but then, when you...
Consider in the 16th century as, people where discovering new animals
some of them astounding, and new plants, ehm...
That is by no means as odd as some of the things that nature does draw.
I think, that's... Sort of the equivalent of creationism, isn't it?
People going, 'Yeah, that's probably how it happened.'
Yeah! Exactly.
- One was the other. - She might have just wandered on top of that plant,
and then it grew really fast.
It's a very surprised little...
What's 'Tartary'?
Tartary is the sort of far east, where the Tartars come from, sort of Mongolia area, really.
- Is that where cotton comes from? - No, I...
- It's where tartar sauce comes from. - I think it's where it comes from.
- It might be. - I thought that a 'tartary' was a brothel.
Hehe, very good. Very good. A tartary.
But the vegetable lamb of Tartary came from nowhere,
it was believed to be a cross between a sheep and a plant.
And was used to explain where cotton came from.
And so we reach the toast of conmen, fraudsters and swindlers everywhere, General Ignorance.
What's New London Bridge doing in Arizona?
It was bought as a tourist attraction.
And, er, and it's the third most popular tourist attraction in America.
And it acts as a dry way of getting across some water.
That sounds pretty good to me.
Nothing's... Nothing's gone off, what's the...
No, sometimes the obvious answer is the truth.
Is it true that they thought they were buying Tower Bridge?
- Oh! No. - That's the wrong one.
It was a man called McCulloch of 'McCulloch's Oil' who bought it,
and he bought it after much negotiation and indeed there are photographs of him looking round it
and working out how to transport it, so he knew perfectly well what bridge he was buying.
It was called 'New London Bridge' because the Old London Bridge
had been crossing the Thames at that point for how long?
Million years.
Three hundred years or so?
Since the time of the dinosaurs, they built it.
Six hundred years, it...
It's big enough for a blue whale to go under.
It held good for six hundred years and was covered in shops and buildings.
It was much quicker to get a ferry across than to try and walk across the bridge,
it was so filled with entertainment and shops and all that...
I want a bridge like that again.
And pubs, I know, isn't it wonderful? I wish it was still like that. Anyway,
Robert McCulloch his name was, he took New London Bridge to Arizona to promote his new settlement at Lake Havasu,
which has been a huge success, contrary to the myth, he never thought he was buying Tower Bridge.
Er, a lot of what we eat seems to be faked these days.
If I send you down to the shops for some butter and they don't have any, what could you get me instead?
Some beer, get some beer.
- Yes, you could, but instead of butter what would... - Margarine, get margarine?
Ah!
You can't palm me off with margarine, I was about to say, but that sounds rather weird...
Erm...
You can, um...
No, you can't, you literally can not buy margarine in England any more.
Can you get it on the Internet?
- Possibly, but not for Britain. - Yeah there's dodgy... Dodgy margarine sites.
Yeah, 'The U.K. Spreads Association'...
They used to be called 'The Margarine and Spreads Association'.
'We would like to make it clear,' their spokesman told a startled QI researcher,
'We would like to make it clear that there are no brands of margarine on sale in Britain today.'
- You see, because margarine contains... - Changed the name of...
Contains 80 to 90% fat. It's natural colour, margarine, is...?
Blue.
White, in fact. And in America the dairy industry was so horrified by it
in the nineteenth century when it was invented,
that they had various laws insisting that it not be coloured yellow to look like butter, so it stayed white,
or indeed in some extreme states where the dairy industry was very powerful like New Hampshire, they insisted that
it be coloured red so it really put people off spreading it on their toast.
Now, how many commandments are there?
Ooh.
Yes?
Are we talking about the commandments that God dictated to Moses on Mount Sinai?
- Yeah. - Literally none, never happened.
I'll go along with that.
How many... How many are there in the Bible?
Oh... Yeah and well, now, you see, I've buzzed, but I fear if I said 'ten'...
...that might happen.
I think the Catholic church have just added some new ones.
No, I'm talking about the original...
- The original ones. - Nine.
Eight.
Oh, oh...
There used to be that story where the angel is sent down and he goes to the French and says to them
'I've got some commandments' and the French say 'Well give me an example' and they say
'Well, erm, thou shalt not commit adultery' they say 'I'm not interested, go away.'
And goes off then to the Germans, says 'Look I've got these commandments I'm trying to shift'
and the Germans say 'What do they say?' and he says 'Well, for example, thou shalt not kill'
'I don't think so' Er, he goes to the Italians and says 'Would you like some of these commandments'
and they say 'What do they say?' he says 'Well here's one that says thou shalt not steal'
'Ah, go away'. Then he goes to the Jews and says 'I've got these commandments' 'How much are they?'
'They're free' 'I'll take ten'.
It's quite interesting... If you look at the ten commandments, 'thou shalt not kill', which should be the major one, really...
Should be at the top, comes in about number five. It's got quite a low billing.
- And it should be in bold, shouldn't it? - You think that's the most important...
The other stuff is like nicking, staring at other people's wives or girlfriends/boyfriends...
Well, in the list of those commandments that were taken down from the mountain,
there are actually fourteen in both Exodus and Deuteronomy, not ten, but in Exodus generally speaking
there are 613 commandments, including the really important ones which should be, as you say, put in bold,
like 'You shall not suffer a witch to live' or 'You shall not vex a stranger'...
Or 'This show should be taken off'.
Yeah, or 'Whosoever lies with a beast shall be surely put to death'.
- Well, especially when it rolls over. - Yeah!
Exactly...
In the night.
Does it say anything about...
'Listen, I didn't know she was a bear'.
'I thought she was a pig'... Er, no, that doesn't do. Er...
Why do we think there's ten, then?
It's referred to as ten in other books...
But no, there's a list of ten, I mean, there's a list of ten commandments.
Yeah but if you go to Exodus 20 Deuteronomy 5, it's not 10,
they're actually divided, some of them are divided...
Doesn't mention anything about smoking, does it?
It doesn't. It doesn't.
And where can you smoke now?
Why doesn't it say 'Be good, if you can't be good, be lucky'?
Nice.
'Always wash your brushes and put your ladders away'
So anyway in the story of Exodus Chapter 20, there are fourteen commandments,
if you include the rest of the book you get up to 613.
Er, when I flip this coin that I have handily perched here, what are the chances of it coming up heads?
50/50
Oh!
You just keep walking into that lamp post, Alan.
I'm with Alan, everything's 50/50 isn't it?
What everything?
Well, winning the lottery's 50/50, either you win it or you don't.
Rolling a six... You either roll a six, or you don't. 50/50.
Mmm yeah. Naturally tossed coins obey the laws of mechanics and their flight is determined
by their initial condition and it's been discovered that if a human is flipping them as opposed to a machine,
and you do it thousands and thousands of times, rather than exactly 50/50,
it will actually be 51% the one that's upwards, in this case heads...
If you did it 100 times, it would never come down 51/49.
Never? Are you saying that? I think most people would say 100 isn't enough for 50/50 to establish itself.
It could easily be 50 heads in a row.
This is true, but what are the chances?
Besides, I don't... I still can't get my head around
the notion that it's just as likely to have 1-2-3-4-5-6 on the lottery...
Yes...
You might as well go... It just wouldn't happen.
You know why... You know why? Because it's a lottery. I mean, the clue's in the title.
It is, yes.
And, after all that, I hope you believe me when I tell you that's all we have time for.
Our 100% guaranteed authentic winner this evening...
Wow, this is so close, it's very exciting... With minus sixteen points,
- it's Sean Lock! - Thank you.
Yes, this is a night of firsts, still as sound as a pound, with minus eighteen,
- is Jimmy Carr... - Thank you for that.
But in third place, far from last, with minus twenty-one,
Alan Davies! Wow!
You probably think you know who is coming last, I will tell you, in fourth place with minus twenty-six,
- it's Marcus Brigstocke. - Thank you.
So it's goodbye from Jimmy, Marcus, Sean, Alan and myself,
we hope that this show has been a warning to you all against choosing the paths of fraud and fakery.
As Groucho Marx said; 'The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made'.
Good night.