This programme contains very strong language.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening,
good evening, good evening,
and welcome to QI for an episode which is all about Justice.
Members of the jury, the just Brian Cox.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
The judicious Rhys Darby.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
The judgmental Jason Manford.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
And a jailbird, Alan Davies.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Well, in case I nod off during these proceedings,
you all know how to catch my attention, it's with a buzzer.
And Jason goes...
HAMMER POUNDING
Brian goes...
'All rise.'
Rhys goes...
'Order! Order!'
And Alan goes...
GUILLOTINE
LAUGHTER
Excellent. So let's start laying down the law.
Describe the rules...
Oh, he's free! Escapology.
I'll tell you what, being a copper back then,
- when everyone dressed like that, was well easy... - It was, wasn't it, really.
I think it might be him, I might be that guy.
- I'm going to take this off, cos the bridge of my nose is rubbing. - Oh, you don't want that.
Oh, my God, it's Alan Davies!
Hello, everyone.
Noel Coward was at a rehearsal when one of the actors was picking his nose, he thought, secretly,
and Noel shouted, "Wave when you get to the bridge!"
LAUGHTER
Anyway, describe the rules on a pirate ship.
Rules?
Yeah. But what sort of rules would they have?
- Obviously, they've got a captain. - Yes. - So he's in charge.
So I imagine he gets most of the gold and whatever they find.
Well, oddly enough, no. They had two senior officers - the captain and the quartermaster.
And the captain could be vetoed by the quartermaster
- on all matters except battle, except rules of engagement, when fighting. - Oh, OK.
And they had strong laws.
And the quartermaster was, he was about how much they divvied out,
including he decided how much the captain got.
The captain had no special quarters,
he didn't have a, you know, wonderful room,
such as you imagine in movies.
So it's not exactly hierarchical, it's kind of a rule of two, the quartermaster and the captain.
Otherwise, it was more or less a democracy, in a strange sort of way.
But with strict rules.
For example, in Captain Bartholomew Roberts' ship, the Fortune,
there was no gambling, it was like a boarding school -
no smuggling girls into the dorm, no playing music on a Sunday.
And lights out at eight o'clock sharp in the evening.
- It's rubbish being a pirate. - I know.
- It's not quite what you imagine is it. - Sack the captain, that's rubbish.
- But also... - Where are you going to smuggle these girls from anyway?
- That's true. - Mermaids.
- If you rescue one from the sea... No, no, no, no. - There is a wonderful book that Vic Reeves mentioned.
- He's an expert on pirates. - He's love a pirate.
He loves pirates, and it's a book that both he and I had read,
called Sodomy And The Piratical Tradition.
- And it's a very well-known work. - I'm so sorry, Brian. No, it is!
LAUGHTER You thought we were quite highbrow and intellectual.
It is a very serious work of history and very interesting,
which goes into the way these things were run.
But, obviously with the emphasis on the sodomy.
But there was also...
Were there rules surrounding that particular pursuit?
There were rules, indeed there where, absolutely.
Very strict rules. You couldn't just take whomever you please, no.
- What were the rules of sodomy? - Not on Sundays. LAUGHTER
I, I... It's eye-wateringly complex.
LAUGHTER You're too young and too innocent to know.
- Honestly, really. - For future reference!
Stick to small things like supernovas,
this is really too explosive.
"Eye-wateringly complex."
When it came to women aboard, the articles of Captain George Lowther,
who was a famous pirate of his day said,
"If at any time you meet with a prudent woman,
"that man that offers to meddle with her,
"without her consent, shall suffer present death."
So meddling with a prudent woman without her consent got you death.
So they really were very strict with each other.
- So meddling was rape, really? - Essentially, we're talking about rape.
- That lost its meaning by the time Scooby Doo came on. - Exactly.
LAUGHTER
Why if you pesky kids hadn't meddled!
Notorious gang rapists.
LAUGHTER
That's just terrible. I'm ashamed of you.
Do they have pirates in New Zealand?
We've been attacked by pirates on occasion.
And you didn't have anyone transported to New Zealand, like Australia?
- No, it was a destination of choice for those seeking adventure... - Yeah.
..and death.
LAUGHTER - Nothing's changed. - Nothing much has changed, no, exactly.
Why is the pirate's voice similar to the farmer's voice?
Why, is there something, "Aarr, get off my land!"
The same sort of...
There's one man responsible, do you know who it is?
- It'll be a film actor. - Yes.
Oh, OK.
- In Treasure Island? - He played in a great performance of Treasure Island,
and, in fact, Tony Hancock, the great comedian,
he first started out as an impersonator of this actor.
- Laughton? - No, not quite as well-known as Laughton.
In his own day, he was very, very well-known,
but now, less well-known.
Anybody?
AUDIENCE: It was someone mentioned on QI before.
Someone, we've mentioned it on QI before.
Ah, hang on a minute, we're getting heckled.
The chances of Alan remembering it are remote.
Someone at the front is saying, "You've done this!"
LAUGHTER
- Who are these...?! - This was on Dave on Tuesday!
LAUGHTER
New facts! New facts!
- Well, it was Robert Newton anyway, the actor. - Robert Newton.
GUILLOTINE
- Thank you, yes. - Robert Newton.
Robert Newton is the right answer, but it doesn't count cos we've had it before.
David Prowse almost did that, didn't he, to Darth Vader.
- He had a West Country accent, didn't he? - Yes, he did.
- And he thought that it would be used, didn't he? - Yes.
With his West Country accent, it got re-dubbed by James Earl Jones.
IN A WEST COUNTRY ACCENT: "I am your father."
LAUGHTER
IN A WEST COUNTRY ACCENT: "Aarh, I'm your father and I'm your brother as well."
LAUGHTER
Sorry, for when I taught there. Joking!
- See? - Darth Vader on a big tractor.
Trundling down the corridors of the Death Star chewing a bit of straw.
- IN A WEST COUNTRY ACCENT: - "Darth."
- "Darth." - "Darth."
- "Mr Darth to you." - "Mr Darth, Mr Darth."
LAUGHTER
It's, yeah, anyway. Um...
LAUGHTER
You know the skull and crossbone flag?
- Yes. - Did they really have that? Cos that's giving it away.
- We definitely covered that in the last series. - Really? I must have missed it.
- Yeah, Alan will tell you all about it. - Go on.
GUILLOTINE
Jolly Roger.
Well, everyone knows it's called the Jolly Roger. LAUGHTER
Or is that a proposition?
LAUGHTER
- Maybe later, Alan. - It's been, it's been ten years, Stephen,
and I've finally come round to it.
LAUGHTER
- Hurrah! At last. - It's time for a Jolly Roger.
An eye-watering Jolly Roger.
All right, now, what's the difference between a Californian prison and a medieval dungeon?
You can see we've very cunningly placed the Tower of London,
which is a medieval dungeon, next to Alcatraz, which is, of course, a famous Californian prison.
Is it anything to do with the fact that you can't get out?
- Alcatraz is famous, isn't it, of being, like... - Of prison!
LAUGHTER - No, not out of prison. - How do you get out of prison?
If you're popped in the dungeon, you're given manacles like you had earlier,
and you're given board and lodging, essentially,
and we go on today about prisoners...
"It's like a hotel, look at how much it costs the government."
- They've made them work. - Not just made them work, they made them PAY.
They had to pay for their manacles, they had to pay for their foot gyves,
everything, they had to pay for their accommodation.
- So they had jobs? - No, that was the awful thing.
A lot of them, pretty obviously, were not very rich,
so what happened was they usually then ended up in debtors' prison
cos they couldn't afford to pay the fee.
Is that a picture of the returns desk? Those are a nightmare.
- Really hurt. - When they closed the Fleet Prison in the '40s,
they discovered some people had been there 40 years for what was
a small debt they couldn't pay. Anyway, the point is,
medieval dungeons, you had to pay your fee, and in California,
at least in Riverside County, they have reintroduced such a system.
- Its county jail now charges inmates 140 a day to be in jail. - Wow!
- That's more than, like, a Premier Inn. - It's more than a Premier Inn.
That's more than Lenny Henry pays to stay in hotels.
So that is quite a lot of money. Yes.
Then again, there's no table tennis at Premier Inn.
- You got to weigh it up, haven't you? - It's true.
Pamela Walls of the council, noted it may prove hard to collect
reimbursements because "those defendants who are convicted
"of crimes and incarcerated typically have limited funds."
What a system!
The supervisor, Jeff Stone, he thinks these are very challenging economic times
and it could be a great source of revenue, could return three to five million dollars a year.
But, unlike in Britain where you still had to pay even if you were innocent,
at least in California if you turn out not to have been guilty, you get your money back.
- Oh, do you? - Yeah.
But, like, where are these people getting their money from?
From crime, isn't it? So all it's doing is encouraging them to rob more stuff.
"I'm going into prison, right, I'd better rob a load of stuff, it could cost me a fortune."
"They're just about to catch me, I'd better rush into this shop and take the till."
They can work once they are in prison, though, can't they?
- From in prison. - Indeed, in most prisons prisoners work.
- When I was in prison I worked. - Set up a little lemonade stand or something
in the basketball court.
I had to paint soldiers when I was in prison. I was in prison when I was 18.
- Toy ones? - They were little toy ones, it was quite, sort of, relaxing work.
Then I was put on the polishing the corridor duty which was not so pleasant.
- When we were you in prison? I didn't know. - Did you not know?
- Oh, I have a chequered past. - Is this a can of worms. - It was four years ago now.
LAUGHTER
We've moved on, Brian. We've moved on.
Many people think I should still be.
You go through an institution for several years and you come out in debt?
- Rather like being a student. - Yes, exactly. Very well put.
Except you learn probably a lot more in prison than you would...
LAUGHTER
- You learn a trade. - You come out with a trade.
Useful trade. Bouncing. You learn how to be a bouncer.
Don't take this question personally, Alan,
- I didn't write this question. All right? - OK. - OK.
Now, what sort of person would say that Alan has a very small penis?
LAUGHTER
I'm sorry.
My wife.
No! No.
And this is a legal question?
- It is very much a legal question, yes. - Oh, OK.
I'll tell you the world we're in, we're in the world of defamation, right?
Let's say I was to write a novel
about someone who presented a quiz show called KI,
who was called Simon Dry.
And he had a regular sidekick
with curly hair who was called Andrew Devons,
and had a very small penis.
The idea is that he'll never sue
cos he'll never say this is obviously based on me.
Cos no-one will say, "It's obviously based on me,
"because my name's like that and I've got a small... Oh, hang on."
LAUGHTER
- Oh, I see. - So that's the idea, is that when you want to slander somebody,
you put in certain things that they would never admit to.
They'd be too embarrassed to say that it's like them.
There was a writer who was snubbed by Martin Amis,
the great novelist, that's Martin Amis, there.
Peter James was snubbed by him and he got his own back by creating a character
called Amis Smallbone, whose manhood is compared to a stubby pencil.
- And presumably Martin Amis has not sued. - Was it Martin Amis...?
Who was it wrote about Norman Mailer and put a little, sort of,
to the appendix, to the index, because he knew that Norman would always look,
- Norman Mailer, and it just said, "Hi, Norm." - That's right.
It's a bit like the Jewish joke, isn't it, about will being read out.
"To my brother-in-law, Louis, who always wanted
"to be mentioned in my will - hello, Louis!"
LAUGHTER
Why do we get away with that, as stand-up comedians,
when someone heckles you and you have a go back
and you say something in front of a room, you know...
Well, it's a kind of understood contract
between an audience and a comedian,
that someone heckles and you go,
"If I want any shit from you, I'll squeeze your head,"
- or whatever, you know. Some story... - What was that?
LAUGHTER
So...
LAUGHTER
What else would you say? What other things?
- Just one example. - I'm not going to give away my best heckler remarks.
But what I mean is, if you made a joke heckle,
- that's not defamatory. - OK. - I mean, that's the point.
So, tit for tat doesn't stand up in court, does it?
- No, I don't think so, exactly. - He started it.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. LAUGHTER
But there are various defences.
And in the case, which is an obviously untrue one, of Alan's small penis, for example,
one defence is the truth... LAUGHTER
..that the person does have a small penis,
the other is parliamentary privilege.
So a Member of Parliament can get up and say, "Alan Davies, Mr Speaker, has a small penis."
And another Member of Parliament will get up and say,
"He's a grower, not a shower!"
LAUGHTER
- Yeah, lovely. Yeah. - Point of order!
The point is, you couldn't sue either of them,
because under parliamentary privilege, there is no action that can be taken.
There's increased privilege in peer reviewed scientific journals as well.
Oh, that's privileged?
Yes, it is, to some extent.
So that if you are quite rude about a fellow scientist...
Yeah. As long as it's in a peer reviewed journal,
and it's not malicious, then you are allowed to do it.
In the interests of freedom of debate.
I could publish a paper reviewed by my peers about your penis
and I would be relatively immune unless I was being malicious about it.
Right. Now that's the phrase, of course, they use in American defamatory law,
is "absence of malice".
If you can prove absence of malice, then, you can say almost anything which allows...
IN WOMAN'S VOICE: "I like your small penis."
LAUGHTER
And that's...
It's very, very tiny, but it's wonderful.
Surely at some point sarcasm must come in.
Well, there's that. If you can prove that, exactly.
So the other one is good faith.
I...I genuinely thought he had a small penis,
I didn't mean it as defamatory, it was said in good faith.
That's one thing. The other is opinion, which is -
it was just my opinion. Compared to mine, it's small, OK. Right.
LAUGHTER
- It's a review. - It's a review, exactly.
One star.
The other is public, the public interest.
The public has a right to know the size of Alan Davies's penis!
LAUGHTER
That might be a defence. The other is consent.
He agreed with me about the size of his penis.
LAUGHTER
The other one is vulgar abuse.
Surely, you didn't believe me when I said you had a small penis.
I was just being rude to you. It was not, I was not defaming you.
It would be like if I called you, you know, one of the unacceptable taboo swearwords,
if I called you a motherfucker, you know, is not defaming you,
whereas if I actually wrote down
that I believed you actually incestuously did have sex with your mother, that would be defamatory.
Do you see? So that's the difference.
Not with a penis that size!
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
That's just going all over the place.
Can we see the evidence?
LAUGHTER
I just...it's all about evidence.
- Not from there, it's minute. - Oh, no!
- Just let me, let me... - No, no, now, Brian. - Let's settle this.
No, but the first person at home going,
"I should never have gone HD."
LAUGHTER
Oh!
LAUGHTER
"Rise..."
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
Very good.
Thank you. Thank you. There is...
LAUGHTER
Is this on BBC Three these days?
LAUGHTER
I'm so sorry, Brian, I know.
Anyway, that's the point.
Saying a character isn't very well-hung could save you from a libel action.
Which reality TV format was invented by Charlemagne's father?
There's a picture of Charlemagne.
- Big Brother? - It's not as well-known as Big Brother,
I will give you a clue.
Celebrity Big Brother?
LAUGHTER
On Channel 5.
I'm a king, get me out of here?
That would cover it. I can tell you it was presented by Dale Winton.
Supermarket Sweep?
No, I...
LAUGHTER
Total Wipe Out? What else has he done?
Ah, you're pretty good, you're good on...
- See, I know the workings of... - Big fan. - Yeah.
- You're good on Dale. - Yeah. - Who was this?
You probably don't know who Dale Winton is, do you?
Uh... Chap or lady?
LAUGHTER
Audience, behave!
LAUGHTER
- He's a very charming gentleman, Mr Winton. - OK.
Well turned out, crisply well turned out gentleman, very nice man.
Who was his father...?
Charlemagne's father is a good question.
Unlikely to have heard of him, I'll be very impressed if you've heard of him.
He was called Pepin the Short, unfortunately,
but if you go back to, this is even pre-medieval, this is the dark ages,
if you go back to that time, justice was meted out in all kinds of odd ways.
And one of the odd ways it was a system of testing,
which was called an ordeal.
- An ordeal. - Ordeal. - Ordeal.
- There were various kinds of ordeal. - So it's ordeal or no ordeal?
LAUGHTER
Hey, hey!
If only... If only it were Noel Edmonds we were talking about,
- then that would be... - He really is an ordeal.
- Is he a lady or a man? - Is Noel Edmonds a...?
LAUGHTER
Well, ordeals. This particular ordeal involved...
two people had a quarrel
and they both had to make the shape of a cross, you see, and stay there.
- I don't know what that's about. - What's happening there?!
LAUGHTER
Someone said he's got a small penis and they're just checking.
Yeah. Are you a real doctor?
LAUGHTER
It was called Judicium Crucis, "the justice of the cross" in Latin.
And, basically, it's a bit like those school punishments
where they make you do that, if you ever did that.
And the one who just dropped his hands first was wrong.
And it happened to the Archbishop of Paris with the Abbot of St Denis,
only they would use champions to do it for them,
so they would say, "You on my behalf
"stand for as long as you can in a cross,"
and, in this case, the Archbishop of Paris won.
It's a pity you have to nominate somebody,
cos if you didn't, you could just pick on old people in those days, you know...
LAUGHTER
I won. It would be brilliant.
You could have ordeal by tickling, they genuinely had all kinds of ordeals,
ordeals by water, ordeals by fire and so on.
But there is a car game...
Is it that one where you have got to keep your hand on the car?
- Ah! - Yeah, and then the last one wins it.
- You see, you do know it. - Yes, I do.
Dale Winton presented, I think on Channel 5...
That rings a bell, yeah.
..an endurance game show based on a Japanese original
called Touch The Truck.
That's Dale there, on top of it.
I'd love to watch that. Just loads of people touching a car and then, that's it.
- Yeah. - For an hour.
For an hour? 81 hours. It's because...
Well, I'd Sky Plus it and fast forward through it.
Yeah, I was going to say. It's basically the last one to give up on touching the truck.
- It doesn't do anything, you just stand... - No, you have to touch it.
Yeah, it's going 80 mile an hour.
LAUGHTER
- Now, that would be a game. - Now, that's a game show.
You were allowed...
LAUGHTER
You were allowed a ten-minute break every two hours
and 15 minutes every six hours.
But this is made-up, no-one would put their hands on...
If you fell asleep, you were disqualified,
so you had to stay awake.
You couldn't just lie on the car with your hand on it,
so you had to be consciously touching it.
And if, the idea was, the last person left touching it won it.
And the winner, you'll probably want to know all about him, I expect,
he won the truck, obviously, and he sold it,
in order to raise funds to stand as a political...
- For arm surgery. - No.
..to stand as a political candidate.
He stood for Kingston and Surbiton at the 2001 general election.
There was a turn-out of 49,093 people and he secured 54 votes.
Wow.
LAUGHTER
We do it in New Zealand,
that's a radio show contest that quite often happens.
- Yeah, we're probably the last country still doing it. - I have to say...
That's the only way you can get your cars, back in New Zealand.
LAUGHTER
Doing it on radio sounds even weirder to me, I have to say.
They're still touching it. They're still touching it...
Do you have to drum on it?
No, they interview the people who are touching the car.
So, "I've got John here, how's it going?
"Ah, good, I'm still touching it." You know.
"How many hours now? Seven."
LAUGHTER
Anyway, that's it,
that's basically a game show inspired by a dark ages...
- Endurance sort of thing. - ..endurance test, yeah. Extraordinary, isn't it?
What sentence would you recommend in Jedward Justice?
- Life. - Life!
I feel very sorry for Rhys, we're giving you all kinds of cultural references
that can mean nothing to you. Have you heard of Jedward?
Are they judges?
LAUGHTER
- They look very young. - They are, I believe, Irish.
- Are they twins or just brothers? - They're conjoined twin judges.
- Are they, they're not conjoined, are they? - Well, they've done well, haven't they?
LAUGHTER
- Sorry. I didn't know! - Yes.
That's the whole thing about them, that they're conjoined.
- Oh, they are Siamese twins, are they? - They're conjoined twins, yeah.
LAUGHTER
- Is he having me on? He's having me on. - No, it looks like they are.
- Come on! - Who has the arm in the middle?
LAUGHTER
They do look a little strange, I have to say,
but that's probably because of the wig business.
No, no, nothing to do with the wig.
LAUGHTER
- Right, OK. - The wig's got nothing to do with it.
There really is such a thing as Jedward Justice. This pre-dates these twinsters.
- Maybe that's where they got their name from. - Oh, I don't think so.
This is a town which was originally called Jedward,
and then it changed its name to Jedburgh.
It still exists. Jedburgh, you may have heard of it?
- In the northeast. - It is, it's on the Borders, in fact.
It's a Border town, and that's the clue, really.
But the Borders, as you know,
suffered, throughout history, incursions and raids from England...
From the rain.
..raiding through Scotland, stealing and vice versa.
And they were often summarily hanged without a trial.
And it was known as Jedward Justice.
And our name for that, where someone is especially killed without a trial
is... What word do we use for that?
- Oh, a lynch mob. - Lynch, lynch, lynch.
Now, where does the word lynch, why is it called lynch?
I have absolutely no idea.
Well, there's a claim to the origin of the term lynch,
which is a man called James Lynch Fitzstephen,
who was the mayor of Galway, in Ireland.
And he hanged his own son from the balcony of his house
after convicting him of the murder of a Spanish visitor in 1493.
- So that's pretty bold, isn't it? - Wow.
A bike...
It's extreme. "He learnt his lesson. He never did it again."
LAUGHTER
No.
Did you say hanged his own son for stealing a bike?
- No. - No! - Did you, what did you think I said? - Did you nod off?
I misheard you, because I'm so hungry, I don't know what I'm saying.
- No, for killing a... - I can't concentrate when I'm hungry. ..killing a Spaniard.
- For killing a Spanish visitor, yeah, a Spaniard. - Has anyone got any food?
- He killed... - Do you not listen to...? - No, he doesn't.
- I'm starving hungry. - Are you?
And now I can't concentrate because I'm having a blood sugar crash.
I hope you never get called up for jury service
and you're hungry in the afternoon.
What was it, killed a Spaniard or stole a bike?
LAUGHTER
It's quite an important difference.
- I'm starving. - Yeah... - Can I have an apple?
- Where did that come from? - I don't know. - Stole a bike? - He was, your mind was wandering.
I was just drifting off, I was thinking about pasta.
LAUGHTER
When his brain sugar drops,
I'm afraid all kinds of weird things start to happen.
Has no-one got something to eat here? Can we not...
- Are you bringing something down? - Here you are.
- Thank you very much. - What have we got?
APPLAUSE
- Some homemade flapjacks. - Oh, flapjacks!
- Flapjacks. - Yes! Thank you.
- Can I have a kiss? - Yeah, go on. - Oh, she has to have a kiss.
Very good.
APPLAUSE
Have you got something to eat for Stephen as well?
- No, no, honestly, I'm fine. - When was the bicycle invented?
- It wasn't invented in 1493, was it? So it's doubly... - No, it wasn't.
Doubly ridiculous.
LAUGHTER
I love the fact that you were questioning Alan's,
as if Alan's mind works on logical rails.
He wouldn't be found guilty of that.
"Stole me bike. You what? I don't know."
- Don't even know what one is. - Don't know what it is.
It should be just enough sugar to get your mind
to tell the difference between somebody murdering a Spaniard and stealing bikes.
LAUGHTER
Before the invention of the bike.
Yeah, exactly. All right.
- Let's just do the question again, come on. - No, no.
LAUGHTER You don't get away with it that easily.
Anyway, moving on, why should you never leave a judge in a room on his own?
He might sentence himself.
LAUGHTER
- As it were. - As it were. - As 't were, yeah.
- You're not allowed to. Well, if you're a barrister, you're not allowed to. - That's right.
I used to work at the Crown Courts in Manchester, as a...
As the accused. LAUGHTER
- No, my dad and auntie were stenographers. - Oh, right!
- So I used to, over the summer... - Oh, they used those machines. Oh, my goodness! That sort of palaver.
And if you were the last barrister knocking about,
you weren't allowed to leave if the judge was still in.
Exactly right. It's called dressing the judge.
You don't actually dress him, it's just known as dressing the judge.
Smug looking lot there, aren't they?
The one at the back's had a lovely moment.
LAUGHTER
He really is... It's a bit of a bliss-out, isn't it?
He's really very happy. But in fact, in actual terms of dressing a judge,
it's a very expensive business.
The High Court judges' attire can amount to £14,920.
That's quite expensive for your work year.
It includes the cost of two scarlet robes like this, and a silk one.
The horse hair wig costs £1,295.
They have court britches with buckles at £665.
Stockings, suspenders.
- Well, they do have to wear stockings. - Bras.
When you take silk, you have to wear
two pairs of stockings as a barrister, and the reason for that
is that Queen Victoria was very offended by the sight of
- men's hairs sticking out from their legs through the silk tights. - JASON: That is horrible.
So they have to wear two pairs of tights so their hairs didn't stick out.
And this tradition continues to today. Isn't that interesting?
Yes, it is, Stephen. Thank you. Good. LAUGHTER
But the wig sort of doubles up now.
I don't know if it's always been the case, but in a sort of Superman type disguise,
if you ever see a judge out of his wig and robe, he looks completely different.
So he can sort of have a little wonder around Manchester city centre
even though everyone hates him, and no-one knows that it is him.
That is one of the reasons they cling on to this whole business,
they say it gives them a kind of anonymity.
- Barristers are not allowed to shake hands with each other either. - I didn't know that. That's a good one.
They're not allowed to shake hands with each other.
RHYS: They fist pump, do they?
LAUGHTER
Out-of-court, they don't shake hands with each other.
- How interesting! - I think it must be down to just, well, if he's looking after me,
I don't want to see him fraternising with the enemy, sort of thing.
Do you know about this one? If you're not properly dressed as a barrister,
if you've not got the right black-and-white,
or you're wearing a colourful tie or something like that, the judge, as it were, can't see you.
- Oh, right. - He actually says, "I cannot see you."
Also, "I cannot hear you."
If he's not properly dressed. "I cannot hear you".
You can shout as loud as you like, if he's not properly dressed,
"I can't see you." LAUGHTER
"Can't hear you."
All of that.
So until they wear the right clothes they cannot be seen or heard by the judge.
Weird situation if you didn't know what item of clothing you had on
- that was offending him. - Yes. - And you'd be going, "Is it the bow tie, is it...?"
And then the second you took it off, he went "Hello!"
LAUGHTER
- There you are! - They're you are!
Anyway, now, what happened when the biggest miser in the land forgot his reading glasses?
He made an error in which he gave away his fortune,
or something happened...?
No. Because he had forgotten his glasses,
he wasn't able to sign a document, because he couldn't see.
So he said, "I'll take the document and I'll sign it at home."
What might that document have been?
- His will maybe? - His will, yes.
So, there he is, he's got his will, he said,
"Oh, I'll take it home and sign it at home."
- He got home... - Died. - Yes.
CHUCKLING
Now, that case...
HE LAUGHS
His name... His name was Jennens and he was very, very rich,
and he had quite a lot of family.
So there was a case called Jennens v Jennens,
or as a lawyer would say, Jennens and Jennens.
And it started in 1798, when he died,
and it ended in 1915.
Wow.
- Wow. - Why did it end?
The jury all died.
- No. - The Jennens died?
- No. - Oh, they found his glasses.
Because...
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
It died for the same reason that the fictional version of this case,
that Charles Dickens made famous in his novel Bleak House,
Jarndyce versus Jarndyce,
which he based exactly on this story, for the same reason.
The estate ran out of money.
The lawyers had used up every penny of the estate.
Wow.
That... Doesn't that tell you everything you need to know,
and Bleak House, of course,
which is one of Dickens' absolute masterpieces,
has this court case running through it, Jarndyce versus Jarndyce.
And it's been going for dozens of years in Chancery.
But he wrote that in 1852.
And this Jennens case had been going on for 54 years.
And Dickens was little to know
that it was to carry on going till the First World War!
I mean staggering, isn't it?
And all because the man forgot to sign his will,
these people were so desperate, so rapacious.
They didn't forget that he'd died.
LAUGHTER
- Here there are. - There they are.
Must be very good glasses if they're going to help you read that book.
Have you done your wills? Have you had that chat?
It's actually depressing.
We had a lady come round to the house and sat down with her.
And because she's so used to talking about death,
she's sort of, like, not bothered about it.
- Nonchalant. - Yeah, I'd say so. And she sat there and she said,
"Right, so if you die, where do you want your money and house and all that to go to?"
I said, "Well, the wife and kids and that." She said, "And if you and your wife both die?"
I said, "Er..."
RHYS: Steady on!
"Well, just, the kids, and then maybe kids go with my brother and that."
- And then she said, "And if you and the kids." - The whole family are wiped out.
I said, "I'd like to spend some money on some sort of inquest, to be honest."
LAUGHTER
See what the hell went on, wiped a family of five off the planet.
Mine was a bit more circumspect. They kept finding different words for die.
"And if you both...go."
LAUGHTER - Perish. - Depart.
If you're both gathered to the bosom of Abraham.
LAUGHTER well, I suppose as their job, isn't it?
I think I've made a will, I can't remember.
- You can have my collection of Wagner records. - Oh, thanks. That's very kind.
Make him sign it now. LAUGHTER
You'll be very keen for me not to sign it, I suspect.
No, he was considered the richest commoner in the land,
i.e. the richest non-aristocrat, and he lived in Grosvenor Square
in a very sumptuous and beautiful house, except he lived
in two tiny little rooms in the cellar, and kept the sumptuous rooms
because he charged visitors to be shown round them.
That's how much of a miser he was.
If only three ghosts would have visited him.
That would have sorted it out. "Give me the biggest turkey in the window!"
Exactly right, exactly. Tiny Tim last of all.
Anyway, where would you find a precocious toddler,
a fertile octogenarian and a moron in a hurry?
Is that on...?
GUILLOTINE
- Buckingham Palace. - Oh!
Yeah, like the Celebrity Big Brother.
Is that, are they calling Lee Evans a moron there? That seems very tough.
No, he's the precocious toddler in that.
Oh, I see, fair enough, fair enough. Phew.
Again, this is in law. A moron in a hurry?
- Well, we've all been that. - Yes, we have. These are sort of fictional types of people.
- That they use in law language. - That they use in law.
The most famous one is the man on the Clapham...?
Omnibus.
- Omnibus... - That's to do with advertising.
- ..i.e. what we would call the man... No, it's just the man in the street. - Oh, I see.
English common law is based on the idea of the reasonable man.
What would a reasonable person think? You know.
The man on the Clapham omnibus is not stupid,
but he's not a professor of astrophysics.
He's not a moron in a hurry,
he's just an ordinary sensible citizen,
and that is used as a standard by judges.
And a moron in a hurry is used as a standard
for another kind of problem in law that might come up.
It's in the area of passing off. Do you know what I mean by passing off?
- Like logos or something? - Yeah. So, expand.
Almost like false advertising, or maybe plagiarism.
- That's more like it. As it were, product plagiarism. - Yes.
Suppose I brought out something called Boca Bola,
and it was in a can exactly like,
with the same lettering and the same patterning, that would be against the law.
So would the moron in a hurry...
A moron in a hurry probably, would he notice that?
If it was green not red, he would notice. Even a moron in a hurry would notice,
that would not count as passing off.
But if it was very similar and he thought, "Oh, I'm buying a can of Coke."
That's passing off, you know, because you don't have to look very hard,
you can just quickly see it seems to be the same thing.
So that's just used as a sort of type.
You've got to be careful there,
because you've also got people who are not very observant.
- Well, there is that, of course. - You know, I mean that's, that's me.
Are you not an observant person?
Sometimes, well, yes,
when I was in the army there was an observation trail we had to do,
and you had to walk through the bush and they put all these things,
and you had to go through and have a look,
and then, when you came out the other end of the bush,
the sergeant would ask you, "What sort of things did you see?"
And I told him I saw three things,
including the cone which marked the exit. So...
LAUGHTER
..it was really just two things I saw,
and there were 17 things in the bush.
And one of those was a tank. So...
LAUGHTER
But, you know, my excuse was a lot of it was camouflaged.
Yeah. That's good.
- But I'm not a moron in a hurry. - No. - Because I took a long time.
You were a simple moron.
- Three times the length of time. - A casual moron. Yeah. - Yeah.
So you'd be a fertile octogenarian then, in that.
Yes. And the fertile octogenarian is a fictitious character
that presumes that anyone, even an octogenarian, can parent a child.
- So they're these kind of archetypes and... - What's the kid, why is she in a mood? Precocious toddler.
- It's like a fertile octogenarian at the other end of the scale. - Oh, OK.
To be fair, she's not a toddler, she's a bit older than that.
She is, she looks jolly cross, doesn't she? Jolly cross.
Anyway, not in the realm of fiction, and certainly not legal,
can you explain this?
Two people claim to have had sex on the moon.
Who are they, how did they do it?
Well, they are clearly under the moon. LAUGHTER
Yes, they are rather, aren't they?
It's not Armstrong and Aldrin.
JASON: Well, we hope not. It's not the astronauts.
BRIAN: It's no-one that's actually been there.
Not on the moon itself, but are there any bits of the moon on earth?
- Moon rock. Yeah, moon rock. - Yes.
In the spring of 2002, an intern at NASA at the Johnson Space Center in Houston,
three interns, stole the whole safe full of rock samples there.
The ringleader, Thad Roberts, and his accomplice with the wonderful name of Tiffany Fowler,
apparently spread the rocks on a bed
and did it on the rocks.
- That doesn't sound... It's horrible. - They got their rocks off on the rock.
It does sound uncomfortable, but it's certainly unique.
I don't suppose any other couple on earth can claim
to have shagged on the moon, or at least on bits of the moon.
- I think I own a bit of the moon. - You own a bit of the moon?
Yeah, someone got it me once for my birthday.
Oh, it's like having a star named after you.
- I don't know how legitimate it is. I'm just waiting for Branson to sort it out. - Yes.
- Then I'll go up there and have a little look. - You'll probably know more about this than I do,
but Virgin Atlantic is not the only company that's seeking
to offer at least a journey out of the atmosphere,
but it'll be quite a short time out of the atmosphere, won't it?
Yeah, you're up there for a few minutes.
It'll cost a lot, but would you consider doing it?
- I would, undoubtedly, yeah. - It's more of a thrill ride, isn't it?
About two and a half minutes and then you come down.
- Like the vomit comet, which is where you plunge down. - I did that.
Oh, yes, you did, on your show, so you did. Yes, absolutely.
And that's remarkable.
I have to say, I watched it and I admired you, you did very well.
- But I was really admiring the cameraman. - Spinning around.
Yes, managing to keep you in shot, which can't have been easy.
But there will be bits of the moon other than the bits that were brought back
on the surface of the earth.
There's quite a lot of moon and Mars, because you get meteorites...
- Of course! - ..that enter the earth's atmosphere, and it may be apocryphal,
- but there's a story of a piece of Mars hitting a dog in Egypt and killed the dog. - Really?
- Yeah. What are the chances? The unlucky dog. - Poor dog!
But it's one of the Martian meteorites, one of the famous Martian meteorites.
- Presumably it ended his life, coming in at quite a speed. - Yes.
Did it go, "bonk", "arf!"? LAUGHTER
Would have been good if he'd caught it. LAUGTER
There's also story of a woman whose leg was broken by a meteorite.
She was in bed and one came through her roof and broke her leg.
Brian, is the moon the same all the way through, or is the surface different from the rest?
It's not got an iron core, because it's thought to have been blasted off the edge of the Earth
by a collision early on in the formation of the solar system.
Did they go down very far, the Apollo astronauts, when they were collecting samples?
- No, they just scooped it off the surface. - Into a sack and off they went. - Yeah.
That's some of the evidence that tells you that the moon was
blasted off the earth at some point in the past,
because the composition of the rock is very similar.
Anyway, I should point out that the story that Thad Roberts tells of shagging on the moon,
not everybody believes him, some people think he's just a big, old show off,
and it's not true, but he certainly claims it, so who knows.
And finally, why would I encourage a psychopath to eyeball my crotch?
LAUGHTER
Look at that picture. I mean...
Wow.
- This is one of those that I don't think we want to know the real answer. - No.
It's not a nice idea.
Would it release the tension?
Well, I'm afraid we're back in the weird world of the 1960s
and we're in the world of theoretical psychiatry.
And it won't surprise you to learn that it was in California,
there was a psychologist called Paul Bindrim,
who pioneered nude psychotherapy,
in 1967, at a nudist resort.
And he devised discomforting exercises,
one of which was called "crotch eyeballing",
in which participants were instructed
to look at each other's genitals...
Oh, God!
..and disclose the sexual experiences they felt most guilty about,
while lying naked in a circle with their legs in the air.
LAUGHTER
I'm afraid there was a doctor
at Oak Ridge Hospital for the Criminally Insane,
a Canadian psychiatrist, called Elliot Barker,
who did a marathon nude psychotherapy session for criminal psychopaths.
These raw naked LSD-fuelled sessions lasted 11 days.
Wow.
11 days you'd give a psychopath LSD, take their clothes off and...
But you see, I believe in evidence-based medicine,
so if that can be shown to work, it should be available on the NHS.
Well, I agree.
LAUGHTER
It's not... It doesn't matter how ridiculous it is.
You're right, you're so right. I too am an empiricist like you.
You will be pleased to know that the average rate of recidivism
amongst psychopaths is 60%.
Amongst those who did that programme, it was 80%.
LAUGHTER
There we are. Therefore, it's a strong case.
So, we think it's a bad idea.
Recidivism is when you do it, the crime, again.
Oh, I see, I see. Yes, yes.
But why don't we try it?
LAUGHTER
Let's get up. Let's all get up and show each other our genitals.
LAUGHTER
Alan, come on, come on. Come on.
APPLAUSE
There's a lot of people getting cameras out, that's a bit...
LAUGHTER
Social networking.
He's got a very long telephoto lens as well, it's insulting.
You won't see mine from there, you'll have to come nearer.
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
Maybe the audience could take their clothes off as well.
Would you feel good about that?
Yeah, I'd feel more comfortable.
All right, OK. I hope the BBC lets us show this moment.
- So, one, two, three. - Trousers off!
BEEPING
Oh, dear! We, uh...seem to have a technical problem.
We're working to fix that as soon as we can.
Uh... Good, it's fixed now, so let's get straight back to QI.
Hopefully, we haven't missed anything quite interesting.
Oh, that was very good, that worked well. Very, very good.
APPLAUSE
- That was interesting. - Yeah. - Very interesting.
And I can see why they call you Brian Cox now.
Yes!
Absolutely.
- And a blue one is so weird. - Yeah, I know, all right.
Anyway, we've learnt a lot about each other and about the audience.
Thank you for participating as well, audience. How very kind.
APPLAUSE
It was very interesting, it was very revealing, and talking of revealing,
there is something after all to be said for crotch-eyeballing,
but there's a lot more to be said for score eyeballing.
And my goodness me, do we have some scores for you today.
It's hard to believe that a man of such intellect should be in last place,
but I'm sorry to say, on minus seven, it's Brian Cox.
Oh, God!
APPLAUSE
And on minus two, Janus... Janus?!
LAUGHTER
Jason, Jason Manford.
APPLAUSE
Oh, dear.
In second place, with a magnificent plus score of three, is Rhys Darby.
- Oh, well done, mate. - Thank you. - Good work.
APPLAUSE
Thank you.
And, can we believe it, ladies and gentlemen,
with a towering five inches, I mean, sorry...
LAUGHTER
..a towering five points, Alan Davies.
APPLAUSE
It only remains for me to thank Rhys, Jason, Brian and Alan
and may God have mercy on your souls. Good night.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd