"APPLAUSE" "Good evening." "Good evening." "Good evening." "Good evening and welcome to QI." "The 640-pound gorilla of panel shows." "Joining me in the quite interesting enclosure in the zoo tonight" "Bill Bailey." "CHEERING AND APPLAUSE" "Sean Lock." "CHEERING AND APPLAUSE" "Sandi Toksvig." "CHEERING AND APPLAUSE" "Alan Davies." "CHEERING AND APPLAUSE it's Mr John Hodgman." "APPLAUSE" "each of their buzzers is more beastly than the next." "Bill goes..." "APES SCREECH" "Sean goes..." "CHIMPS SCREAM" "Sandi goes..." "PARROTS SCREECH" "Alan goes..." "PUPPY YAPS" "John goes..." "DUCK QUACKS we are on the hunt for G animals." "Any animals that start with a G are fair game." "What use is a goose?" "PARROTS SCREECH Sandi Toksvig?" "Is it toilet paper?" "LAUGHTER no." "Seriously." "that is bizarre." "Why did you say that?" "I once read this book by Rabelais." "It was called Gargantua." "And he recommended that the best thing for toilet paper was a live goose." "And I have yet to check into a five-star hotel without a sense of disappointment." "I have the quotation from Rabelais's Gargantua." "I'll give it to you in full because it's pretty extraordinary." "by a long and curious experience the most excellent and the most convenient with a montero..." whatever that is!" "The inside of his toilet must have a whole load of... ..with a falconer's lure..." "And that's why he was thrown out of the pet shop." "You're barred." "Get out!" "Come on!" "there is none in the world comparable if you hold her head betwixt your legs. "a most wonderful pleasure..." Yes. in so far as to come even to the regions of the heart and brains." "Why do we need swear words when you've got nockhole?" "is it alive?" "I fear it probably is." "That adds a frisson to it." "It has to be alive." "Then you can turn it and laugh in its face." "Ha-ha!" "We are the master race!" ""What's wrong with geese?" "Why are they so furious?" "Now we know." "it would be a goose." "There's so many other animals you don't want near your nockhole." "Scorpion." "that could be fun." "Get a scorpion to do it and he can get all those tricky little nibbly bits." "Oh!" "He's got the claws." "It's not absorbent enough." "What about a hedgehog?" "Is that absorbent?" "That would get all the bits and it's absorbent." "You could get the bits with the top half and whip it round and get the..." "Brilliant." "Brilliant." "You may be on to something." "but we have just heard that a man did wipe his arse with a goose." "one to polish." "Yeah." "Perfect." "There are other things geese can do." "Goose fat." "What do you use goose fat for?" "Frying potatoes." "Frying potatoes." "The best roast potatoes possible." "Another use for goose fat that used to be common." "if I was to say." "swimming." "Swimming the channel." "they slip out of their grasp." "Let's go..." "Watchdogs." "Aren't they good watchdogs?" "They're great watchdogs." "apparently." "a guide goose for the blind." "A seeing-eye goose." "they were very popular for...?" "Aim." "They had a brilliant aim." "They have." "Very steady hands. according to legend?" "Robin Hood." "Puff Daddy." "isn't it?" "I once opened the goose fair." "It was Robin Hood." "Thank you." "You're teacher's favourite tonight." "but what was Robin Hood famous for?" "Killing geese." "Do that lovely mime again." "This is wiping his bum with a goose." "exactly." "The goose feathers on the arrows." "so that's a good one." "Why has it got orange feet?" "Because they eat oranges." "It's like flamingos with prawns." "Geese eat oranges." "Air safety." "Air safety." "So they can wave each other in." "There's the bar-headed goose." "They can fly unbelievable distances." "Up to ten miles." "They..." "And they can fly backwards." "they fly." "Their eyes tightly shut." "They have a technique for increasing their range by 70%." "What is it?" "Landing on a boat." "Landing on what?" "On a boat." "no." "It's not..." "Imagining that before man had any method of technological transport." "Gliding on hot air." "Grabbing on to other..." "Lying." "Birds used to lie about where they'd been." "Yeah." "I've been miles over there." "They'd fly over the mountain and just wait there." "HE WHISTLES there's a shape." "A V. A V formation." "It reduces wind shear." "Extra points to our popular American visitor." "Exactly right." "You're right." "It's the vortices." "It calms the air and all the ones behind have less to fight against." "That's a bit of luck"?" "There's a goose going like that." "He's got his phone out." "That's a good one." "yeah." "They fly up and whoosh!" "They're used as chimney sweeps." "How?" "Don't you drop them from the top?" "Yeah." "They used chickens for that." "they clear the chimney." "as well." "Do they use horses for that?" "Clean as a whistle." "but they get them down there." "or the "eese" of geese..." "Is the next question the habits of rabbits?" "I wish that it were." "How far can you shove a dove?" "Hats of cats." "That's my offer. not to mention excellent roast potatoes as John pointed out." "Which brings us to giraffes." "Tell me why giraffes have such short necks." "Short necks?" "Mmm." "Uh..." "Uh..." "Is that...?" "They've got long necks." "leading up to their head is not their neck?" "No." "That's their neck." "Why would I say they had short necks?" "Because it's annoying." "their necks are short. they don't have to splay out in that very vulnerable and unbalanced they would just dip down and drink." "Because their legs are so long is the point." "in the odd public house." "It looks familiar." ""I'm not wasting that." "why is it important to have long legs?" "That might bring us to the next question - why do giraffes have such long necks?" "I presume so they can eat things in the trees." "CLAXON SOUNDS" "Oh!" "To reach tree tops." "Is that not true?" "they don't eat from the tops of trees." "They bend their necks to eat." "The giraffologist community is rather split along two lines." "many people believe..." "See if you can guess." "So many things..." "Seeing a long distance." "Seeing over things." "It's useful to see each other and over things." "See who's on the top deck of the bus. but the groups were just very spread out because they can see each other." "the most notable thing about them is there for what reason?" "Why does a rhino have a horn?" "Why do deer have antlers?" "Do they fight?" "They fight." "They fight other males." "ow!" "That's what they do." "It's unbelievable." "They can kill each other with one swipe of their neck." "ALL:" "Ooh!" "Isn't that a shock?" "Come on!" "but look at that." "really." "They haven't got the fundamental ducking principle." "now." "This is like that footage show on ITV of town centres on a Friday night." "People fighting at bus stops." "They should clear Horse Guards and have this at the Olympics." "Marvellous." "Much better." "Much more interesting." "That's a long way down." "they...?" "They are born the size of six foot and they drop head first out of their mother's...passage." "I would have thought." "Their necks are so long to stop the fall." "Maybe you've got it once and for all." "They plant those horns in the ground and stand on their heads until they can walk." "Wait a minute." "Evolution is amazing." "There are these beautiful animals." "they're graceful and sweet and long-eyelashed and sexy and rather desirable in many ways." "And they use their necks..." "It's a good job you're tall." "Yes and giants use them in the latrines." "What do giraffes eat?" "What is their main staple?" "Children." "plants." "Particular plants." "It's not tree tops?" "which has developed a brilliant strategy for trying to put the giraffes off eating them." "it warns its neighbours when giraffes are coming." "giraffe." "yeah." "It sends out chemical signals and that provokes the bitter..." "And what do they do?" "Run away?" "thanks."" "Thanks." "I'll be all fearful before I die." "I'm just telling you." "It's the wind-borne warning burst." "yes." "I feel." "What's the commonest cause of death...?" "DUCK QUACKS" "APES SCREECH Wow!" "Is it snowboarding accidents?" "you'd have a devil's own job getting a helmet on." "Is it assassination?" "Not assa..." "Some of them are assassinated." "You said it." "Falling off?" "Falling off mountains." "but..." "They show off." "No." "It's worse than that." "They're big drinkers." "they..." "They flip over like those toys that you wind up." "They try and fly!" "They use their horns to..." "Scratch their arses." "Fight." "Fighting." "Fighting." "Fight!" "They fight." "Fighting." "There they are." "Look at that." "And that's what..." "Knock each other off the mountain." "heavens." "Who put them up there?" "So that is an example..." "Help!" "Help!" "It's the fastest-growing tree in the world." "They all stand there and it goes... dear." "shall we?" "Very little left here." "I used to be a goat herdsman." "So I could get them down for you." "Wouldn't that just be a goatherd?" "Sorry?" "Wouldn't that just be a goatherd?" "sorry." "When I was a goatherdsman... no problem." "What goat-herding technique would you use?" "Doo-doo-doo be-gat!" "Really?" "That one moved!" "goats." "they found me more and more attractive." "Do you know why?" "Is it because they know we've got money?" "Money and cars." "They're actually quite shallow." "They see the cars and the sexy clothes and the music and the gold." "They're like WAGs." "Wives and goats. we have a sort of goaty smell and female goats go mad for it." "yup." "Waft a bit of your underarm at her." "I used to be in a forest with 26 goats and I never got one approach." "Not one." "Not a nibble." "Nothing." "Now I feel quite hurt." "Because you were using the Lynx." "What did seagulls contribute to the war effort?" "Seagulls?" "!" "You give a television technician Photoshop..." "Did they steal food out of the hands of the enemy soldiers so they'd starve to death?" "Is it like parrots in the Eiffel Tower?" "They kept parrots in the Eiffel Tower" "Aircraft coming." "That's true." "They did." "or something?" "obviously." "I was translating for the audience." "Fair enough." "we have to be in the right war." "'14 to '18." "A message service?" "No." "There was a new threat which had never been seen in warfare before." "Aeroplanes." "That was one." "In another medium." "Submarines." "yes and..." "What good is a seagull with a submarine?" "shall we?" "LAUGHTER is that you can't see it." "There was no sonar in the First World War so how do you know where they are?" "If they surface." "Before they surface another thing that a submarine does is pop up..." "Pop up a periscope. the seagulls would flock towards it." "There must be a submarine over there." "Did they train every seagull in the world to do this?" "This is the problem." "on ships?" "The flaw in the plan is putting food all over your periscope so you can't see where you're going." "sorry. but to poo all over it so that it would blank out the lens." "THEY GIGGLE" "That's a terrible plan." "It will never work." "Sounds like something out of Blackadder. "That will do it." "That will work." "IMPERSONATES LORD MELCHETT" "I'm afraid." "The gulls couldn't distinguish between enemy..." "They were idiots." "They couldn't distinguish between enemy submarines and home ones." "I was making an ornithological mistake." "they're not seagulls." "Terns." "Terns?" "Gulls." "They're just gulls." "gulls." "They're land birds." "on cliffs." "Do they have webbed feet?" "They don't go that far out." "So if you're looking for a submarine..." "Is this upsetting your world view?" "Seagulls!" "I'm not going that far." "Yes." "They don't go that far out." "seagulls were trained to find German submarines but what is this camel trying to tell you?" "What's going on?" "ALL:" "Eurgh!" "A very disgusted audience." "They don't like what they see." "Is he saying Jeremy Kyle's on in a minute?" "What are we looking at there?" "I presume it's a tongue." "Or is it a sausage?" "it's his palate." "He can blow part of his soft palate out." "It's called the palatinus diverticulus." "It's known as a "gula" and it's used in mating." "It's used to attract females." "you." "It's a heck of a thought." "It's not working for me." "It appears to be sticking out its tongue." "The camels with the most testosterone have the biggest gula." "That's what they tell you." "It's like that nonsense about bald men being full of testosterone." "Bless!" "you know..." "What?" "Oh..." "Way-hey!" "He's not insulted cos he doesn't know." "Bill doesn't know he's bald." "luscious head of hair." "Down my back there is." "I've got that." "they blow out their gula and they make a blib-blib noise." "That's the best they've come up with after all these years." "why would they cut the gula out?" "To stop it..." "So they breathe better for camel racing." "camel racing." "they import camels from..." "Kent." "Stephen." "That's very kind of you." "No." "Not from Kent." "From..." "BILL:" "Hertfordshire." "yes." "Thank you." "But why would they import them?" "What do they need them for?" "Um... the Australian ones." "Australian camels are much fitter than the..." "AUSTRALIAN ACCENT:" "We like sports." "The big outdoors." "No." "They don't use them to race." "They don't use them for transport." "They import them for..." "Food." "Breeding?" "Meat." "Camel meat." "They tell them they're going to have a lovely camel race." "mate." "Away you go." "Good luck." "Give us a call when you've won your first race." "the Saudi Arabians..." "Something else." "Barmen." "barmen in Saudi Arabia." "Sand." "Sand?" "Sand?" "don't they?" "They always see the other side of a joke." "It's because the sand in Saudi Arabia is the wrong kind of sand for..." "Golf." "Throwing in people's eyes." "Building." "Male camels impress the ladies by blowing a balloon called a guia out of their mouths." "why don't goldfish swim into the side of their bowls?" "They're not stupid." "Because they're not stupid?" "!" "Yeah." "so what do they use to know it's there?" "The pressure of the water or..." "The pressure of the water is the right answer." "similar to the ones we have in our ears and they activate little gelatinous caps that activate hairs in the same way as our cochlear fluid to tell us there's pressure in our ears." "Goldfish don't have hairs." "You don't see them with different styles." "Emo fish." "Love what you've done with your goldfish." "It seems they do." "Sharks have the same thing." "They have neuromasts as well." "They're called the ampules of Lorenzini." "but..." "Fear." "no." "Electricity." "Because a lot of fish give off electricity as a weapon." "They know when you've left a light on." "look at him." "He's a biggie." "He's a biggie." "There's a nurse." "Is that a nurse?" "Is that a nurse?" "!" "I was referring to the brand of shark." "I suddenly had an image of you in a home." "Nurse!" "Aah! fish use a system of pressure detectors along the side of their body to navigate." "So the light fades and our guests head bravely for the waterhole they are likely to be dragged underwater so fingers on buzzers." "Why are there no insects in the sea?" "LAUGHTER" "Bill." "Because the..." "It's too far..." "JOHN:" "Yes." "Yes." "That's right." "Because it's too far." "It's too far." "Because water makes them explode." "But there are insects in rivers." "Saltwater." "It's not the saltwater because there are saltwater spiders." "Plenty of sea spiders." "The currents are too strong." "Spiders are not insects." "Ha-ha!" "That's what I'm saying." "There are spiders." "it seems to be because there are no trees and no flowering plants." "Nothing that they have evolved to deal with exists in the sea." "Spiders could live in the sea because they hunt." "really." "Yeah." "There you go." "Who goose-stepped their way across Europe in the 1940s?" "PARROTS SCREECH" "Was it a goose?" "No." "CLAXON SOUNDS" "It was worth a try." "It was." "I mean..." "You know." "What?" "What?" "Alan?" "uh..." "Hitler?" "No." "CLAXON SOUNDS" "The Nazis didn't goose-step in the 1940s." "The Russians." "That's right." "But why?" "Because they had incredibly stiff starch." "but why was the Nazis wrong?" "Surely they did goose-step?" "They didn't do the goose-step." "but not in the 1940s." "They stopped it in the 1930s." "They only goose-stepped in the early years in the Nuremberg rallies." "Did it fall out of fashion?" "No new recruits were asked to do it." "They called it their "stechschritt"." "Very high impact." "That's Chinese or Korean." "That's Korean." "North Korean." "That's the point." "disciplined and clever you are." "You need tremendously flexible hamstrings to do that." "You'd all have to be the same height." "You do have to be the same height." "apparently." "Korean or Russian or Chinese or Cuban or Vietnamese or Chilean or Iranian." "The Nazis dropped the goose-step in 1940." "Only the Soviets goose-stepped for the rest of the war." "So I know all you care about now are the scores they are fascinating to behold." "Sean and Bill." "APPLAUSE" "it's Alan Davies." "How respectable is that?" "APPLAUSE it's Sandi Toksvig." "APPLAUSE my God." "Which means that our glorious winner is John Hodgman." "APPLAUSE" "Bill and Alan and me." "I leave you with a simple truth gleaned from the blogosphere." "but only you can feel its warmth." "Goodnight." "Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd" "E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk"