"APPLAUSE AND CHEERING" "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." "and this though I'm not wearing pants." "we are playing footloose and fancy free with the frauds and fakirs." "Let's meet our four finagling fraudsters." "Sean Lock." "APPLAUSE" "Jimmy Carr!" "APPLAUSE" "Marcus Brigstocke." "APPLAUSE" "And the late Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd." "APPLAUSE you can bring that down." "Thank you very much." "let's hear your suspicious noises." "Sean goes..." "ELECTRIC SAWING" "Jimmy goes..." "CLICKING AND WHIRRING" "Marcus goes..." "SIREN BLARES" "And Alan goes..." "PHONE RINGS" "Which brings me to my first sleight of hand." "Could you tell me all what your buzzer noises are?" "Jimmy first." "CLICKING AND WHIRRING" "What's that noise?" "like a like." "ALARM BELLS RING actually..." "ALAN BUZZES" " PHONE RINGS" "That's a phone." "Is it not... is it not a...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." "the kookaburra." "No." "say again loudly?" "Lyre bird!" "they're all shouting lyre at you!" "You've robbed my point." "the audience gets five." "CHEERING AND APPLAUSE" "they're a specific breed of lyre bird called the superb lyre bird." "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." "let's hear yours." "SIREN BLARES but it sounds like a car alarm." "ALARM BELLS RING" "Oh." "Thank you for joining in." "I just wanted to see that happen." "Lyre bird!" "Yes!" "He's right!" "APPLAUSE" "And here it is making that noise." "BIRD SINGS LIKE A SIREN not..." "I knew that." "Would I have got a point if I'd said that? a lyre." "if we may?" "It's a lyre bird." "ELECTRIC SAWING isn't it?" "It's mimicking logging." "Chainsaw." "It is indeed doing a chainsaw." "Is it a lyre bird?" "It's a lyre bird." "You seem to have got the hang of this." "That's very annoying." "So Alan..." "PHONE RINGS" "That's a lyre bird." "Nooo!" "ALARM BELLS RING" "I knew it wasn't." "story of my bloody life." "That was a telephone." "Yeah?" "I thought it was... the big siren that went off there - it was a lyre bird." "I can't see that bird surviving for much longer - if it's doing impressions of the chainsaw that's coming towards it." "in the wild - being able to mimic the noises of other things?" "It does a lot of kids parties and a lot of... they are." "Cos people want to learn to talk to animals." "I'd like to talk to animals." "talking to animals." "had some food." Grunt and squawk." "turned out all right." "got back into it." "Oh." "It's the sort of thing they do." "Yes - disgusting." "the work of the which can imitate just about any sound it hears." "what was unusual about the pig-faced lady?" "She had eight tits." "she was a pig." "no." "There was a in fact there were a number of famous pig-faced ladies in the 19th century." "They'd be a curiosity in a tent." "so the ladies and gentlemen at home can hear you." "A curiosity in a tent." "Exactly." "My favourite sort of curiosity." "A tented curiosity." "It was a big draw in the 19th century for people to go pay to see the pig-faced lady." "rather than pay why don't you just wait til they finish work and go down the shops?" "You don't get all the build up. she's just buying biscuits." "It's not the same thing." "Was it a bearded lady that they shaved?" "but it was a shaved...?" "Pig." "No." "Monkey." "She was a..." "Not a monkey." "Monkeys would have to be huge." "It'd have to be a gorilla." "a gorilla." "Horse!" "a pig pigs are massive." "You're thinking about little pigs in cartoons." "They're not going to stand up and look human." "they can pull it off." "I put a dress on." "I think I've heard of this." "Yeah?" "thank you!" "It's a bear." "They shaved a bear." "shave the bear's face." "Get a bear drunk and shave it?" "!" "They've got the show backwards!" "That's what you want to see." "I wanna see a man trying to shave a bear." "A drunken bear." "I'm not going to do anything to you." "That's insane!" "And then they stick his arm in a beehive." "was this like paralytic so it would then pass or drunk enough to persuade it that this..." "Drunk enough for it not to wipe your face of with... sir?" "Rrrrrrarr." "go on." "go on." "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 that goes on about how your skin can get stronger." "so they call it face protector." "Yes." "Like it's stopping bullets hitting it. it's actually bang and bash it." "People are throwing kettles at me." "you've mentioned - long tradition of those." "There was one rather sweet story of a bearded lady who fell in love with a contortionist in..." "This sounds like an old joke." "It does sound like it." "But it wasn't." "He wouldn't marry her because he couldn't really face the idea every morning of staring at they couldn't get married cos they wouldn't have enough income because hers came from the fact that she was a very successful bearded lady and..." "So he shaved the bear and married that?" "No." "Someone 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. they could've had sex and he could've been in a different room." "the nature of exactly that." "Samuel Gumpertz was considered the King of the freak show people at Coney Island." "Bonita..." "Was she just a naked lady?" "no." "The bare girl is misleading." "B-E-A-R." "this is rubbish." "I'm turned off." "the Irish Fat Midget." "I was going to say that." "the human salamander." "can't they?" "That's the legend." "So he would stand in the fire?" "Presumably that's what happened." "How long can a salamander go in fire?" "Till it's cooked." "anyway." "The pig-faced lady was neither pig-faced nor lady." "She was in fact a drunken bear with a shaven head." "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 - 19th century French writer - like many French in the objected to something new to Paris in 1889." "Eiffel Tower." "The Eiffel Tower." "They absolutely loathed it." "They hated it." "Guy de Maupassant loathed it so much that his favourite restaurant was?" "The Eiffel Tower Is Crap" bistro." "No - it was in the Eiffel Tower." "the one place in Paris where he couldn't see the Eiffel Tower was inside the Eiffel Tower." "a chair facing the other way?" "He was a French writer trying to make a point and therefore a git." "That's only half the story." "What did Count Victor Lustig do to the Eiffel Tower?" "you're on fire tonight!" "I'm a salamander!" "On fire!" "You are a salamander." "He did indeed sell it." "Congratulations." "A million points." "I'm on fire." "actually." "Do they do that foot thing?" "They probably do." "cooling foot." "A salamander is amongst us." "So he sold the Eiffel Tower?" "To a gullible tourist?" "it was scrap metal dealers." "He claimed that he had the single right given to him by the Ministry of Posts and that he could personally decide who would get the scrap metal rights and he told this to two scrap metal dealers so they paid him a large bribe for the rights to it." "He told them it was to be pulled down and he had the rights to it." "It was never permanent." "They put it up for a couple of years." "so it was a convincing..." "It's like that big wheel on the South Bank." "Meant to be up for two years - when they came in." "We need the Millennium Dome and a big ferris wheel." "you've got to scream louder. you've moved on?" "." "There was a great former actor from Glasgow called Arthur Furguson." "to an American he managed to sell the Eiffel also for scrap to another gullible American." "I love these people." "He then moved to the US." "Do you think they try lots of people and eventually someone buys it?" "He sold the White House to an American." "Just brilliant." "sell me!" "He then tried to sell the Statue of Liberty to an Australian and that's where it fell down." "mate." "He didn't even have the keys." "How am I going to get it home?" "Where's the guarantee?" "only were conned out of" "£1 million by an unemployed lorry driver named Tony Lee who claimed to be acting for the real owners in the sale of the Ritz Hotel and they paid £1 million for a sort of down payment on the Ritz." "you are the detective for these questions coming up." "but 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. their bosoms?" "my trousers." "and we're in Miami in 1950 and 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 as long as they stole the money before it went into the counting" "the phone company had no idea of how much money there was." "So they would take money and..." "Put it in their bras." "but and eventually they got found out." "There we have a picture." "It looks like she's gone to a really bad strip club." "love." "sorry about that." "as elastic on members of Miami's Brassiere Brigade." "Is that a headline?" "That was a headline." "It was a huge story." ""Money in their tits!" "I'm afraid it would be exactly that." "Titty cash"." "Tit bag grab slag." "Zoe is very disappointed by the Brassiere Brigade." "She thinks it's wrong to steal." "Alan." "that was one of them." "That was my favourite one." "Stefanie is delighted that Saddam Hussein has been captured." "When I found out he'd been captured... ..I took a moment to celebrate." "I'm ashamed of you." "I'm just doing that." "That will not answer." "oddly enough." "Did you ever celebrate with them?" "My nipples are going in the wrong they're dropping an inch a year." "It's terrible." "However I have..." "Can you get a pencil underneath them?" "I can get Colin Montgomery underneath them." "APPLAUSE" "He must have been livid about that." "the Brassiere Brigade defrauded the" "Southern Bell telephone company line by hiding the takings in their bras." "what's the trick behind sword swallowing?" "Wipe it first." "Yeah." "Stop when you reach the handle." "Never use a scimitar." "no." "There are people who believe..." "Euuuuhhhh!" "There are people who insist it is a fake somehow but it is genuine." "I wonder if it ever comes out and it's got a bit of meat on the end?" "Yeah." "I think the actual secret of doing it is to do it really just jab it." "What do you think the most common complaint is when they see doctors?" "I imagine it's gastric." "It's a sore throat." "Is it?" "but they genuinely do suffer from sore throats and they pop it down and there's a limit. but anything less than 40cm and you are not recognised as a sword swallower by the Association of Sword Swallowers." "surely height... but unfortunately the Society of Sword Swallowers had laid down 40cm." "you've got to stab yourself in the ass." "How do you not just gag immediately? first." "because you're putting them in wrong." "Put them in the front." "its eyes pop out." "I'm buying a pekingese." "I line them up." "HE HUMS CIRCUS TUNE" "I touch my eye and I actually go... it seems - sword swallowing." "it's a real skill." "That's the point. general ignorance." "What's New London Bridge doing in Arizona?" "PHONE RINGS" "Yay?" "It was bought as a tourist attraction 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 gone off." "No." "Sometimes the obvious answer is the truth." "Is it true they thought they were buying Tower Bridge?" "ALARM BELLS RING" "APPLAUSE that was the 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." "300 years or something?" "Since the time of the dinosaurs." "They built it." "600 years." "It was big enough for a blue whale to go under." "It held good for 600 years and was covered in shops and buildings." "It was much quicker to get a ferry across than to try and walk across ragamuffin pubs." "I want a bridge like that again." "I know." "I wish it was still like that." "Robert McCulloch." "He took New London Bridge to where it's been a huge success." "he never thought he was buying Tower Bridge." "A lot of what we eat seems to be faked these days. get you some beer." "but instead of beer..." "Margarine?" "People get margarine?" "ALARM BELLS RING but that sounds rather rude." "you can't." "You literally cannot buy margarine in England any more." "Can you get it on the internet?" "but not from Britain." "Yeah." "There's dodgy... dodgy margarine sites." "The UK Spreads Association used to be called the Margarine and Spreads Association." "their spokesman told a startled QI we would like to make it clear there are no brands of margarine on sale in Britain today." "Is it because margarine contains..." "Did they just change the name?" "Because it contains 80 to 90% fat." "is?" "Blue." "the dairy industry was so horrified by it in the 19th century when it was invented that they had various laws insisting so it stayed they insisted it be coloured red." "So it really put people off spreading it on their toast." "how many commandments are there?" "Oh." "Yes?" "Are we talking about the commandments that God dictated to Moses on Mount Sinai?" "none." "Never happened." "I'll go along with that!" "APPLAUSE yeah..." "I've buzzed but I fear if I said ten..." "ALARM BELLS RING" "I think the Catholic church have just added some new ones." "I'm talking about the original." "The original ones." "Nine." "Eight." "ALARM BELLS RING where the angel is sent down and he goes Thou shalt not commit adultery." "go away." "I've got these thou shall not kill. "I don't think so." "Would you like some commandments?" "go away." "Then he goes to the Jews with these commandments. "How much are they?" "They're free. "I'll take ten. it should be at the top." "It comes in about number five." "It's got quite low billing boyfriend." "in the list of those commandments taken there were actually 14 in both there including the like you shall not suffer a witch to live or you should never vex a stranger." "this show should be taken off." "Whosoever lies with a beast shall be surely put to death." "especially when it rolls over." "Exactly." "It just happened by accident." "I didn't know she was a bear." "that doesn't do." "Why do we think there's ten then?" "there is list of Ten it's some are divided." "does it?" "It doesn't." "Where can you smoke now?" "be lucky." "Always wash your brushes and put your ladders away. there are 14 commandments." "we'd get up to 613. what are the chances of it coming up heads?" "50:50." "ALARM BELLS RING" "everything's 50:50." "Everything?" "Winning the lottery's 50:50." "You either win it or you don't." "you either roll a six or you don't. 50:50." "Yeah." "Naturally tossed coins obey the laws of mechanics and their flight is determined by their initial conditions and it's been discovered and you do it heads." "it would never come down 51:49." "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." "but what are the chances?" "I still can't get my head round the notion that it's just as likely to six on the lottery it just wouldn't happen." "you know why?" "Because it's a lottery." "yeah." "I hope you believe me when I tell you that that's all we have time for - our 100% guaranteed authentic it's very exciting." "it's Sean Lock." "Thank you." "APPLAUSE" "This is a night of firsts - still as sound as a pound with -18 is Jimmy Carr." "APPLAUSE" "Alan Davies!" "APPLAUSE" "You probably think you know who is coming last." "I will tell you." "it's Marcus Brigstocke." "Thank you." "APPLAUSE" "Alan and myself." "We hope that this show has been a warning to you all against choosing the paths of fraud and fakery." "The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing and you've got it made." "Goodnight." "Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd" "E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk"