Hello, and welcome to QI, where tonight we're enjoying
an absolute plethora of painful punishments.
Please welcome the well hung, drawn and quartered,
Jimmy Carr.
A cool cat of nine tails, Lee Mack.
Thank you.
An irony maiden, Alice Levine.
And with his neck on the block, Alan Davis.
And their buzzers are all suitably painful.
Jimmy goes...
WHIP CRACKS
Oh... Short but sharp, I think.
And Lee goes...
ELECTRICITY CRACKLES
Alice goes...
GUILLOTINE DROPS
And Alan goes...
COMMENTATOR: Tottenham Hotspur - 6, Arsenal - 0.
The most painful cut of all.
Question one is all about the place of eternal punishment.
So tell me, how many circles does hell have?
Someone just went, seven.
SIREN SOUNDS
Was that for me?
Were you trying to...
That person was wrong.
No, not seven circles.
It's like Who Wants To Be A Millionaire all over again,
with the coughing. Yes.
Seven. Five.
Five, why five?
Did you say hell or the Olympic rings?
These are concentric circles of doom that,
depending on how bad you've been...
Yeah, yeah. It just gets worse and worse and worse and worse and worse,
and then the devil's in the middle. Yeah, OK.
Who was the person who wrote about the circles of hell? Dante.
Dante, so in Dante's Inferno...
Nine, nine circles of hell. Absolutely, nine circles in hell.
So the first part of the epic poem, the Divine Comedy.
So the seventh circle is the one everybody talks about,
but there's nothing special about it.
It's where murderers are punished.
Oh... Isn't there a weird thing where murderers are punished there,
but then it gets worse if you're a fraudster,
which I'm annoyed about.
APPLAUSE
It's just made like... There's a murderer,
and then in a worse place there's me
and my accountant going, "What?!"
Well, you do strike me, Jimmy, as someone that eventually
will murder, as well.
Thank you, Lee.
Just to get out of hell one step at a time.
You're going to end up in the eighth circle of hell.
The eighth? Yes. OK.
It's where fraudsters, pimps, hypocrites,
coin forgers and flatterers are punished in, frankly, various...
Flatterers?! Flatterers?! Flatterers.
You look well, Sandi.
So what? Being a suck up is as bad as being Jimmy?
I'm using you as... I'm using you...
As bad as being...
What?!
Yeah, so flatterers get immersed in dung.
That's their thing. Oh, OK.
Quacks have to suffer the ailments that they've caused in life.
People who've tried to predict the future have to walk
around with their head on backwards.
Unable to see ahead...
What about Daily Mail readers? Are they in number nine?
We know what circle Jimmy's in, let's see if anybody else wants one
of these.
First circle is just basically limbo, it's for virtuous
non-Christians.
So... Gary Lineker.
Why Gary Lineker?
I just say that about any ex-Tottenham players.
First circle of hell.
Straight away.
Second one is lust.
This is the first of the circles of incontinence.
Can I go back to one, please?
Sexual incontinence, rather than urinary,
if I may say so.
OK, got you. So you would be spending your time with Cleopatra,
Helen of Troy, people like that.
And you get to spend time with Helen of Troy? Yeah.
That... Put me down for one of those, yeah.
It's too late, you're already in number eight.
This is quite a sexy circle, isn't it, this one?
Yeah, that's a good circle.
Gluttony, that's number three.
Trapped in a vile slush.
Greed is number four...
Sorry, what flavour was the slush?
I don't know if...
Is it the blue one? I like the blue one.
You get to be pounded by icy rain, I don't know if you fancy...
Oh, it is, it's literally slush.
Yeah. Is greed on a different category to gluttony?
Yes, and they have to push rocks around pointlessly.
Is there a way of pushing rocks around that isn't pointless?
Yes, if you say it's curling.
Number five, anger.
And people who are sullen. Sullen, angry types.
Yeah. Heresy is number six.
Violence, number seven.
The final circle, the ninth. There are four circles
within the final circle.
And they have different names as they go down.
The worst one is round four, named after Judas Iscariot.
So, hell has nine circles, but if you think that's bad,
Milton Keynes has got 130 roundabouts.
I think that's the wonderful thing about Milton Keynes,
the roundabouts, because there's lots of chances to turn back.
APPLAUSE
OK, which of these punishments would you rather receive?
The penalty of the sack, an Assyrian parking fine,
or be forced to wear a drunkard's cloak?
Are they all worse than they sound?
Well, certainly the parking fines is hideous.
So, we're talking 700 BC, what do you think the parking fine
might have been in 700 BC?
Well, I don't know, but I know after 30 days,
it doubles if you don't remember to pay.
What, what are you parking in Assyria?
Chariot or a horse or a camel or anything you like.
Where is Assyria? Is it Syria?
It's modern northern Iraq,
south eastern Turkey, north-western fringes of Iran,
it's an area that's now divided up into other countries.
And there was a king called Sennacherib,
and he announced a parking restriction
on the kingdom's Royal Road, so you
couldn't build anything on it, you couldn't park your chariot out
front, and if you did,
you were impaled on a stake
and planted in your own garden.
And that's for a single yellow or a double yellow?
What if your horse has just broken down?
Got his hazards on.
As long as he blinks like that, that's all right, the horse...
But they actually had a sign
that said, "Royal Road, let no man decrease it", in Akkadian cuneiform.
You're saying it's like it's more of a punishment,
"in your own garden". Why is that bit so bad?
You might have landscaped, you might have got your lovely front
garden sorted, and then you...
Yeah, you've just put the leylandii in, it's all looking nice.
You'd be like one of those weather cocks, wouldn't you?
You'd swing around with the wind.
And if you've died like that, you could always point
in the direction of the wind.
Just imagine, if you, I don't know, say your husband has been impaled
on a stake implanted in the garden, you spend all your time going,
"Yeah, but where have you put the car?"
Yeah, the horse is in a pound somewhere...
Also impaled on a stake.
I mean, impale the horse, not me!
Stashed all the parking tickets in its mouth,
look at them all.
Look at how many you've ignored.
Right, well the other punishments, the penalty of the sack,
or a drunkard's cloak. What do you fancy?
Penalty of the sack, that... it doesn't sound too bad.
Maybe a waxing?
I'll have that, it's not too bad.
Couple of clothes pegs.
It's called Poena cullei, it's an
ancient Roman punishment for parricide,
anybody know what parricide is?
Parricide, killing someone in the family?
Killing your parents.
It involved being whipped, stitched into a leather sack
and thrown into the sea.
The Emperor Hadrian adjusted the law by including animals in the sack,
along with the victims.
You might have a dog or a cockerel, a snake or a monkey.
We're not really sure whether that was just a deterrent,
or they really did look for the animals, but we do know
it survived into the 18th century in Germany, and monkeys and snakes,
really hard to source.
So, in 1715...
Oh, I thought you meant when you're cooking them, sorry.
Oh, I see, yes.
You'd have a bearnaise.
So, they were very difficult to source, so in 1715,
there was one man who was "sacked" with a dog,
a cockerel, a cat and a picture of a snake.
It's the thought that counts.
Drawn by a child.
What about the drunkard's cloak?
It's something metallic that is impaled upon you?
No, wooden.
In the 1640s, and I think you're going to find this hard
to credit, Newcastle upon Tyne had a problem with drunkenness
in the streets. Oh, shut up. No way.
So the initial punishment was to put the offender in the stocks,
but if that didn't work, they would take a barrel,
and they would cut the bottom off it, and they would cut holes
like this, one for the head, two for the hands,
and they would force the drunk to parade around town.
I think he's more of a medium, he's wearing an extra large there,
and it's not hugging in the right places.
That's not overly flattering.
He looks as if he's about to tell quite a fun story.
Yeah. "All I did was I parked the chariot..."
It's a very unfortunate outfit,
because drunk people fall over a lot.
If he falls over he's not getting back up very easily.
No. He could end up miles away.
Over a waterfall or something.
What's she got on her head? Scold's bridle.
She's wearing a scold's bridle and it was something that was done
for nagging women.
And you can't really see from here, but it had a piece that
went into the mouth and prevented her from speaking.
And where can you get these?
OK. What's the best punishment to keep people punctual?
I haven't encountered it yet, because I'm a very late
person so... Why?
Drives me mad! I know! Sandi, I know!
You were supposed to be on last week's show, weren't you? Yeah!
What? If you make an arrangement, why can't you turn up on time?
Because I do the thing where I think as long as I leave the house
before the arrangement starts, then it's fine. I do the same.
Wow. Hasn't started yet, we'll be all right.
Yeah, exactly. But it's in Wales.
There's a name for people like you, it's called selfish.
I'm always on time, Sandi. What about you, Jimmy?
I've been late once in my professional career.
I was late for a gig in Blackburn by two hours,
because the train just stopped.
It was... Yeah...
Did they wait?
Well, the annoying thing was I had to buy everyone a drink.
Yeah, with your audience that's only 18 quid.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Boom!
I once had a gig in Torquay,
and I was told I could fly down to the area...
You can't fly!
These magic beans, Sandi?
BA had a flight going from Gatwick.
Anyway, the flight was cancelled, so I went out to the cab rank
and I got in a black cab and I said,
"Will you please take me to Torquay?"
and we were ten minutes late.
No! Wow. Yeah.
The bill was eye-watering.
Well, that's always the cheapest way to do it, isn't it? A BLACK cab.
Anyway, best punishment to keep people punctual?
Is it impaling people and planting them in their own garden?
ALARM BLARES
It's guilt, is the very best thing.
So what does not work is fining people for being late.
So they did a study, two Israeli economists, and they found that
punctuality gets worse with a financial penalty.
So they had ten Israeli daycare centres, and some of them,
if the parents were late picking up the kids,
they just had to make peace with the teacher.
Then they changed the system and they brought in a small fine -
it was about £2 - as a penalty for lateness,
and punctuality immediately got worse.
People are happier to pay a small fine
than they are to face the guilt...
Because you feel you've your dues then.
Doesn't matter, I've paid for it! It's fine. Just up the fine.
Yeah, I'd pay £2 - I wouldn't pay £200 to be late.
I think if the daycare centre said,
"If you're ten minutes late, it's £200 quid," you'd say, "You can keep the kid!"
"We liked him, we didn't LOVE him."
"We have others. It's fine."
"They're older and can make tea."
Now, what do parrots think of the dead parrot sketch?
Oh, actually, I know this one. Yes?
Is it that they don't think anything cos they're not aware of it,
what the hell are you on about, Sandi?
I mean, they are intelligent enough to observe things.
You mean, they can see?! They can see?!
Cos I can see, and I'm thick as pig shit.
That's so a teacher writing the school report
trying to think of something good.
So they can they see more colours than us? Yes, they can.
So which ones can they see that we can't see?
There's a whole extra range in the ultraviolet range
that they can see that we can't see.
Well, if we can't see them, how do we know they exist?
Lots of birds can see ultraviolet
and they can see... animals' urine on the ground,
and that's how they know there's a burrow.
How about that! That's very good.
So when they're swooping around, looking for prey and they think,
"Oh, look, they're over there,"
cos lots of those small rodents are incontinent.
This is all God's will, right? "I'm going to set this up."
"That one can see wee, that one keeps pissing itself."
Let the games begin!
"Oh, I can't stop pissing!"
"Look at all the wee! Look at all the wee!"
"Get in the hole! Get in the hole!"
That's the only thing. If they can't get in...
It must be awful if you're a vole and running with your mummy,
and you look up and you see one, and go,
"I'm terrified, I'm going to wet myself."
"Don't wet yourself! Do not wet yourself!"
"I can't help it!"
But can you tell us this absolute crazy fact, then?
Cos I'm really going to pull you up on it, whatever you say.
Puerto Rican parrots - I'm being very specific -
are an endangered species, and what the authorities want to do
is they want to raise some in captivity
and then release them into the wild.
Here is the problem - they are not aware of predators,
so they have to be trained to watch out for predators,
otherwise they will simply be released into the wild
and captured immediately by something that wants to kill it.
Like John Cleese?
Probably more like a hawk.
So what they do is they have a programme of training them,
to be aware of predators
so they might fly a hawk-shaped cut-out over the aviary,
they might play hawk calls,
they might allow a live hawk to attack the cage.
The final stage -
they stage a parrot murder scene
and they make the trainee parrots watch, OK?
So sorry, but this is a Pixar movie, isn't it?
So we get the learner parrot
and it faces another parrot who's wearing a small leather vest.
What are you talking about, Sandi?!
You've lost your mind!
There's a straight parrot and a gay parrot... Yes.
Sandi, can I ask you a question? Yeah.
When you were painting and decorating in that blouse today,
did you inhale it?
So what happens...? So Freddie Mercury parrot, in the leather...
Yes, you've got one in the leather jacket,
and the trainee parrot, I'm going to call it.
So it's a waistcoat...? It's more like a flak jacket, really. Sure.
OK? Yeah.
So a hawk is released to attack the parrot in the flak jacket...
And he's been told just to attack the one in the flak jacket?
Don't go near the other one.
No, the learner one is being protected - it's just watching.
The one that's attacked, obviously it has a bad time, it screams,
but it's protected by the clothing, so it doesn't die.
And the trainee parrot learns to be wary of hawks in the future
and it absolutely seems to be working.
I mean... What?
I mean, it sounds to me that evolution is trying to get rid
of these little buggers anyway.
Sounds awful. It does sound awful, doesn't it?
Right, you've put up with so much punishment it's time for a prize.
Which of these would you prefer to win?
..or the Oldest Mouse Award?
I would like to win the Oldest Mouse Award.
The Oldest Mouse Award.
It's worth, actually, quite a lot of money.
There's a thing called the Methuselah Foundation,
they're a scientific body, and they are working on extending
the healthy life of all of us and fighting ageing,
and they're offering prize money if you can make the oldest mouse.
So, the current record is five years.
Average mouse lives to be three years old.
So five years in human terms would be, like, 150 to 180 years old.
And then there's another prize
if you can rejuvenate a middle-aged mouse.
They are offering a prize of 1.4 million
to the research team that can break the record
for the world's oldest mouse.
What proof do they need?
Cos that's an interesting amount of money.
I love that phrase, "that's an interesting amount of money".
Is that what you say to your agent? Yeah.
"That is of interest to me, that sum."
"Torquay, you say?"
"How much is this cab ride? I've got an old mouse - I'll pay with that."
The fact is, we are genetically very similar to mice.
Why are you looking at me now?
I wasn't looking directly at you, I was ignoring Jimmy. OK.
We are genetically very similar, so in terms of extended life spans,
it's hoped that successful work on mice can then eventually be
applied to humans, and the current prize pot stands at 4.5 million,
and the overall winner will receive a chunk of the money
for each week that that the mouse survives
after breaking the old record and setting a new one.
So what you really want is
a little, tiny mouse life-support machine.
Tiny... Clear! Ka-dush! Like, tiny defibrillator.
HIGH-PITCHED: Clear! Boom!
HE SQUEAKS COMPRESSIONS
Two wires and a AA battery. You get a straw...
HE BLOWS REPEATEDLY
So let's look at the other prizes...
There was the Aussie Non Drunk Driver Cup,
the Val d'Isere Skiing Cow
and solving the Birch Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture.
Isn't that the maths thing where you get paid a fortune
if you solve some impossible thing?
I think Rachel Riley had a crack at, but she only had 30 seconds.
It's the Clay Mathematics Institute.
Basically, there are seven maths problems -
they're called the Millennium Problems -
and you get 1 million if you can solve any one of them.
Shall we have a go?
Yeah, if you solve it, you get a million dollars straight away.
Is it eight?
Let's have a look to the other two.
The Val d'Isere Skiing Cow or the Aussie...
Now, they put a cow on skis, right? And chuck it down the mountain.
It rings its bell like mad, but no-one will help it.
So, it is the traditional prize in the World Cup downhill,
and in 2005, the Olympic skier Lindsey Vonn -
there she is - she won the cow.
Now, what usually happens... You win the cow? You win the cow.
What usually happens is the person goes, "I don't really want a cow,"
and they go we thought you might not, here's 5,000 instead.
Lindsey, however, wanted to keep the actual cow,
and everybody was very annoyed cos it was worth 20,000.
And it was pregnant, so she's basically getting two cows for one.
She named it Olympe, and it now lives on a farm in Kirchberg.
It has had other cows, it has even had grandcows,
and she's named them all after members of her family.
She is the only person who has kept her cow prize.
Surely people will now keep them, now they know they're worth so much?
It's a wonderful... I'd love to have a cow. I think it's a great idea.
You have to win the competition. Yeah.
What about the Aussie Non-Drunk-Driver Cup?
Has nobody ever won it?
No.
I liked it when they started selling...
We used to have one at home.
..the breathalyser that you could just... You could buy a thing.
You could buy your own breath... It's a great idea.
Should have one in the car.
LEE: Don't they want to put them in cars so you have to blow into them
before you can start the car?
Yes, that's one of the things, that it would actually stop the ignition if you had alcohol levels...
You'd just always have your child with you, wouldn't you? Yeah.
SLURS: "All right, son, you know the drill."
"Blow into that..."
"Now let's get you to school."
Right...
HE SLURS INDISTINCTLY
Your little seven-year-old blows into it and it still won't start.
"What have you been doing?" "Mind your own business!"
Well, in 2016, traffic police in the Australian town of Nanango
in Queensland started offering cash prizes
to any driver found to be sober.
Wow, that's...
That is pretty good. Any driver who was stopped and tested
and had zero blood alcohol limit entered into a prize draw,
and it gave them a chance of winning 500.
Is not being arrested not enough of an incentive?
Apparently not, no.
It's whether you would win money, and apparently it's spread.
Other towns in Australia have now picked this up
and think it's a really good idea.
So, now the punishment of round one is out of the way,
it's time for a quick dip in the fiery lake of general ignorance.
What's the most volcanic country on Earth?
Ooh... Oh, yes, Jimmy?
I'll go New Zealand.
No, it is not New Zealand. Good shout.
Yes?
Is it another place other than New Zealand?
Indonesia.
SIREN BLARES No...
It's weird that, because I thought it was such a stupid answer,
but the fact that it was considered an obvious answer
I see as a bit of a result.
It's like when you're watching University Challenge and you say
the answer, but it's wrong, but they say the same wrong answer.
You go, that's a point.
New Zealand's not even on my list.
Ha-ha, mine was! It was on the big board!
I'll have Hawaii?
Well, you're absolutely in the right area, cos it's the United States.
The United States has more volcanoes than any other country in the world.
It's got 173 volcanoes in total.
Are you counting it by volcano numbers
or by lava emitted?
OK, so...
This is my profile on Match.com.
If you were doing most active volcanoes,
then Indonesia would be the correct answer.
Well, that's what I thought you meant! Yay!
APPLAUSE
I've just given myself two points.
Yeah, maybe turn the fingers around. Erm...
I've just given myself two points!
It's United States first, then Russia than Indonesia and Japan -
those are the ones with the most volcanoes.
I don't think Russia's taking part, actually, this year.
In terms of active, it's Indonesia, then the Philippines, and then Japan.
There are areas where there's just a huge number of volcanoes,
so the Pacific Ring of Fire has got 452 volcanoes -
it runs all the way around the Pacific.
AS JOHNNY CASH: ♪ Ring of Fire, Ring of Fire... ♪
Place in the world with the densest region of volcanoes?
The most amount of volcanoes? Yes, the densest.
Where might you find that?
Yes?
Indonesia!
No!
Antarctica. Antarctica!
But it's so cold!
Yes, so this is the issue about it.
So in 2017, 91 new volcanoes were found under the ice sheet
of Western Antarctica.
It now has 1 volcano every 4,800 square miles,
and they're expecting to find lots, lots more.
So some of them are as tall as the Eiger. Wow.
And they were all discovered by researchers at Edinburgh University.
and it really, really matters, because it has implications
for the rest of the planet.
If one of them erupts, it could melt the ice from beneath.
Goodbye, Norfolk! Basically.
Let's cancel it, then.
I feel like we were like "Yeah, let's do that!"
"No, let's not do it." It's not a good idea.
The most volcanic country on Earth is actually the United States.
After Great Britain and Ireland, what is the third most populous
island in the British Isles?
I know that if you could get everybody in the world
on the Isle of Wight, then it would sink.
That is not the answer that I'm looking for.
And the Isle of Wight in fact would come fourth.
I'm looking for the one that would come third.
I'm looking for the most populous island.
Yes? Man.
ALARM BLARES The Isle of Man is not right, no.
Is it going to be somewhere far off?
No, it's not even far from the studio, actually... Oh!
Isle of Dogs! Isle of Dogs! No. Oh...
I meant Indonesia!
I was going to say you could get there
in about an hour and a quarter on the train.
Isle of Thanet? It's Portsea Island.
It is where the city of Portsmouth lies.
The island of Portsea has the highest population density
of any of the UK's islands.
In fact, Portsmouth is the only island city in the whole of the UK.
It's a complete island, is it? Yeah.
It was one of the most heavily defended cities in the world
during the Napoleonic wars.
And it was the world's first mass production line.
The Royal Navy made... Pulley blocks were made there by
in fact, Marc Isambard Brunel, Isambard Kingdom Brunel's father.
The other thing they pioneered was free venereal disease clinics.
Why would you pay for venereal disease?
Oh, to the... Yeah.
I've paid for venereal disease.
Well, let's...
..let's all let that settle in for a minute.
That's what the doctor said.
It sort of works for the joke.
The idea that they'd say "I'd just let it settle in."
"Let that settle that in if I were you." "That's there for the winter."
Here's a gorgeous painting by Turner. Where is this?
Yes? Is it Indonesia?
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
I'll give you a clue. Here are two paintings.
I'll give you the titles if this helps.
One is called Festive Lagoon Scene Venice,
and the other one's called
Procession Of Boats With Distant Smoke Venice.
Is it Portsmouth?
Yes, it is Portsmouth, you're absolutely right.
APPLAUSE
They were wrongly titled in the 1960s
when they were exhibited in New York.
They had nothing to do with Venice whatsoever.
You said it as a joke... No, I'm just an expert on Turner.
So annoying!
If he'd painted them in Indonesia, I'd have been laughing, wouldn't I?
No, you're totally right.
It was in 2003 that a curator at the Tate declared
that they were not of Venice at all.
They have been renamed The Arrival of Louis-Philippe,
who was King, at the time, of France,
at Portsmouth, 8th of October, 1844,
and The Disembarkation of Louis-Philippe,
8th of October, 1844.
That is also a stretch, isn't it?
You can't see him coming or going, can you?
It's not the first time it's happened to a Turner painting.
There was one which was identified as a view of Monte Rosa in Italy
for over a century, that turns out it's actually a pier in Scotland.
Turner's beautiful Venice scenes turned out to be scenes
of lovely old Portsmouth.
And with that, we've reached the end of our path of punishment,
and it's time to lick our wounds, and let's peek at the points
while I point out the penalty.
Our prize fighter tonight and the winner...
Oh, my goodness. With -2, it's Jimmy!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Yay!
Taking second prize with -3, it's Alan!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
And in third place with -8, it's the audience!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
So in fourth place with -9, it's Alice!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
We're running out of time - you might want to wrap this up. Yeah.
Finally, an absolute glutton for punishment, with -27, it's Lee!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
That's it from Alice, Lee, Jimmy, Alan and me,
and I leave you with these wise words of advice from John Hardwick.
Don't do drugs, because if you do drugs, you'll go to prison,
and drugs are REALLY expensive in prison.
Goodnight.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE