Transcript by: Tai Craven Stephen Well… hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello and welcome to QI where tonight we plot the whole history of humanity with four prime specimens of the human race. The highly evolved Jo Brand, the ho-ho-homoerectus Jimmy Carr, the creature from the black gloom Jack Dee, and the home owner Alan Davies. Let’s see what your buzzers have evolved into. Jo goes: Jo [presses buzzer, which plays the sound of frogs croaking in a bubbling swamp] I really do go like that. Stephen We recorded you when you weren’t looking. Jimmy goes: Jimmy [presses buzzer, which plays the sound of ferocious roaring and birds chirping] Well pardon me. Stephen Jack goes: Jack [presses buzzer, which plays the sound of monkey screeching] Alan [presses buzzer, which plays the football chant "One Nil to the Arsenal"] Stephen He’s evolved backwards into an Arsenal supporter. So, let’s start with this, describe the perfect man. Viewscreens: Three men with different body types: muscular, overweight, and slim. Jo [presses buzzer, which croaks] A dead one. Stephen [shocked] Jo Brand! Well there we have three specimens. Jimmy Perfect man. Are you fishing for compliments? Stephen Ah! Jo Can I just say that one in the middle is bloody gorgeous. Looks like my husband. Actually, I believe it is! Stephen Really? Alan Perfect as in what, physical specimen? Stephen Well, sort of perfect physical specimen. Jack Can you see from that that there is no such thing as being big boned? I mean they are all the same, they all have the same structure essentially. And they’ve never found a fat skeleton, have they. A big skeleton. Stephen [laughs] No, I’m afraid it’s true but we are sorry to hear that. No, actually, we’re steering you slightly awry here, it’s that humans are Homo sapiens, sapiens is a species of animal, and every species of animal has a kind of definitive version called a holotype by which all the others are judged. So all I’m saying is where is the human being which is a standard example of a human being? Jack Is he standard or is he perfect? 'Cause there’s a difference. Stephen Yes, there is isn’t there, exactly. Jack You know I don’t mind being perfect. Stephen The fact is… Jack But to just be average… Stephen The honour should go to the first person who described humanity in terms of its animal origins in a way. Which is… Jack Darwin? Stephen Not Darwin, before Darwin. Who came up with the phrase Homo sapiens? Jo Was it Henry the Eighth? Stephen What? No. Good… good effort. It was really a Swede who named everything, who gave things classifications. Do you know who this Swede was? Alan Not Nobel, obviously? Jo Ulrika Jonsson? Stephen Not Ulrika Jonsson. Jimmy It must be the other one, Sven-Göran Eriksson. Alan [in unison with Jimmy] Sven-Göran Eriksson. Stephen Nor is it the other one. Jack It was ABBA. Stephen [laughs] It was ABBA. Poor Sweden, I apologise to you. He was called Carl Linnaeus. Alan [sighs exasperatedly, as if the name was on the tip of his tongue] Stephen [to Alan] You did know that, Linnaeus. Alan [when Stephen isn’t looking, shakes his head to the audience and shrugs] Jack Oh, him yeah. Stephen The Linnaeic system of naming things And It was felt that the honour should go to him. And then, then an American palaeontologist, he volunteered. He was called Edward Drinker Cope, and it was, he left in his will that he wanted to be the holotype. Viewscreens: Photo of Edward Drinker Cope, and photos of a skull in a cardboard box. There he is. So they got his um, skeleton and he was going to be the type, but unfortunately he had syphilis, and it was present in his skeletal structure, the evidence of his having syphilis. Jack How embarrassing. Jimmy They don't put that on the little leaflet in the doctor's, do they. Stephen No, they don’t. So essentially there is none. There is no perfect human. Alan So basically the position is vacant? Stephen The position is vacant. They've suggested Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bob Hope, Raquel Welch. Viewscreens: Photos of Bob Hope, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Raquel Welch. Jimmy I think she'd be distracting for the scientists. Stephen She might. Um yeah, so it is basically a vacant position. But... [moans absentmindedly] Wwmmm... Why am I making that noise? Um, the um… who's that? [holds his arms straight out at his sides] Jo Who’s that? Jesus? Stephen With legs out as well. Alan Oh, Leonardo da Vinci. Stephen Leonardo da Vinci, do you know what he's called? Alan No, I’m, well I’ve heard of him. Stephen Vitruvian Man. Alan That’s it. Correct. Jimmy Oh, the guy that... Viewscreens: Leonardo Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. Stephen [to viewscreens] That one. Yeah. Jimmy He's done too many arms and too many legs, he's a bloody fool. Stephen [laughs] Well no he wasn’t quite such a fool. Alan [holds his arms out Vitruvian style] You’re the same width as you are height or something, isn’t that right? Stephen Well what it's showing you proportions, in one of them, the man is spread eagled and is exactly fitting a circle and the second one, he's fitting a square. When we fit a circle like that, our absolute centre of the circle is the navel, but when we fit a square, the centre is the... [clears throat] Jo Genitalia? Stephen The genit, as you rightly say, alia. Jimmy I believe ‘tubby banana’ is the term. Stephen The tubby banana. Jimmy Well it is in our house. Stephen Who was Vitruvius? Why is he called Vitruvian Man? Alan Is that not him? Stephen That’s not the name of the man, no. He was a Roman architect who wrote about man's dimensions being the kind of criteria by which you should design architecture. And it goes like this, your height is equal to the span of your arms, as the square demonstrates. Alan What I want to know is, what is the bloke behind doing... Stephen Alan, let me tell you. Alan …that's made him open his legs like that? Jack Did the bloke in front know that the bloke behind was doing that? Because that’s a bit like a very old fashioned version of doing that [makes bunny ears with his fingers] behind someone when they’re having their photo taken, but it must have taken hours. Just standing [adopts Vitruvian pose] “Oh come one, the joke’s wearing off!” Stephen [laughs] But these proportions are more or less correct. Your head is an eighth of your body height. Jo Your head's about a quarter of your body height. Stephen Is it? Jo Yeah, 'cause your brain's so massive! Stephen Oh stop it. Jimmy [laughs] Stephen Yeah, and you can see also the width of your shoulders is equal to the distance from the elbow to the tip of the fingers. It's the same as your shoulder span. So there’s a lot of proportion going on. Where would you see this mostly if you were in Italy? Alan Rome. Florence. Venice. Jack The internet. Stephen The fact is there are millions of them all over Italy. Why is that? Jack Beer mats. Stephen Not beer mats. Jack I didn't mean that as a fucking joke. That was a guess. Stephen No, it's the one euro coin, the Italian version of the one euro coin, has this on the obverse. He was so gifted, they say that when he was a boy, he was an apprentice to a master painter, one of the great painters of his age, and as typical in those days, there was a huge fresco or canvas being, that a pope or someone had commissioned and Leonardo was told just to do one of the angels so he went into the corner and did the angel and the master came and looked at it and broke his own brushes and walked out and never painted again. It’s rather wonderful isn’t it. Jack Some people are like that, aren’t they, they’re just peevish. Stephen But of course people call him Leonardo and of course Da Vinci is just the place came from. Name some other painters like that, who you only really use the first name. Jo Leonardo da Streatham. Stephen Mmm… yes. Jack Rolf of Australia. Stephen [laughs] That is true. How can I take that away from you? Michelangelo, for example, his surname was Buonarroti, but he was known as Michelangelo, and we call him by his first name. Raphael, we call by his first name. It's like cooks. Delia, Nigella, Jamie. Alan Jamie da Essex. Stephen That's the one. Exactly. Anyway, if you think you're the perfect man there may be a job for you in a museum somewhere, as long as you don't have syphilis. On your way there though, how would you spot a Neanderthal if you saw one on a bus? Viewscreens: Photo of a Neanderthal man on a London bus. Jack He'd be the one who comes and sits next to me. Nearly always. Jo He's the one already sitting next to me 'cause I'm married to him. Stephen Is this going to be the humiliate-my-husband show? Jo Yeah, he doesn't watch this, it alright. Stephen Oh fine. OK. Jimmy He doesn't really understand it. Jack Is he the one looking at the wheels, going, "What the hell?" Alan Have they got the lumpen great forehead or is that the Cro-Magnon? Stephen Well, the point is actually, we'd be very hard put to tell the difference if they wore a t-shirt. Admittedly, you’d say that’s an unusual looking person. Viewscreens: Model of a Neanderthal man Alan That's our producer. Stephen Yes but if you imagine [laughs] If, and I dream of it, we shaved and dressed our producer one day, and popped her on a bus, she might look like a normal person. The point is that they… Alan So far, we haven't. Stephen No, we've not managed that yet. Jo [points to viewscreen] So is that a model? Stephen That's a model of how they might look. Viewscreens: picture of two skeletons holding hands. Unfortunately we think of them as incredibly stupid, but they had religious rites, they buried their dead, they made ornaments. At one point we were one species that diverged, and these two branches of humanity lived in Europe. In fact, Neanderthals lived in Europe for four times longer than we ever have. They had a long period of living there. Jack And did we cross over? Where was… Viewscreens: photos of two different types of skulls. Stephen We did cross over and no one quite knows why they went extinct, whether we bullied them, whether we outsmarted them. They were stronger than us. Um… Alan We invented the bus, though. Stephen We did invent the bus. They didn't invent the bus. You can't give them that one. But about one to four per cent of our DNA is Neanderthal, so we cross bred. Jack So were there ever, for instance, Homo sapiens who married Neanderthals? Imagine a wedding like that. Stephen [laughs] Well... Jimmy That's going to be a punch up in a car park. Stephen Go to Basildon any Saturday night. Um, no! Sorry, no. Jack I'm glad you said that, I just want to tour again one day. Alan Says a resident of Norfolk. Stephen [hunches over his desk, laughing] The fact is, yes you’re right, there was interbreeding. And there are many theories, some think that we Homo sapiens, as it were, kept Neanderthal girls as sex slaves, but it’s very possible it was the other way round, 'cause they were stronger than us, but certainly there was a lot of interbreeding, but for some reason, they died out. Alan Probably the first genocide, first of many that we've proudly executed over the many centuries. Jack Maybe we teased them to death and they couldn't take it anymore. Alan [mocking singsong] Urr, Neanderthal, nerr. Jack I know I’m ugly and stupid. Stephen So politically incorrect. Alan [mocking] Little bit simple. “Ooh, I can run fast, I’m really good.” Stephen Why are they called Neanderthal? Alan Is it an anagram? Stephen Probably is. Alan [begins purposefully writing in his pad] Stephen Anagram of ‘leatherdant’. Alan ‘Leatherdant’. ‘Leatherdan.’ Stephen But, no. Jack That's a period in time, isn't it? Stephen No, it’s not actually, It's just simply a valley near Dusseldorf, in Germany where they were found. Neanderthal. There were many other, can you name other species of ours? Alan Homo Australis. Jack I do like the idea though of having another species of human who is just a little bit stupid, but you know, friendly and lived with us and were quite happy just to do all the jobs and stuff for us. Stephen Well, it's Brave New World, isn't it, exactly, the Gammas. Jack Yeah, I like the idea of it, I have to say, I mean I'm not a nutter or anything. But I like the idea of… who wouldn't mind, either, they'd be very simple and obliging... Stephen And could be your sex slave. Jack Yeah. [looks unsure] Yeah, well I wouldn’t… Jimmy Can we go back to, sorry, the picture of the man that looks like a gnome? Stephen Oh, yes. The producer. Viewscreens: Model of a Neanderthal man Jimmy There. Yeah, I don't really fancy that as a sex slave, I’m going to be honest. I'm not being overly fussy, I just think… Alan Bearing in mind though Jimmy, this is before the invention of electric light, you know, it’s gloomy. Jack You'd be in a cave. Jimmy It's cold. Alan You'd be in a cave. It's cold. Jo Have a few beers, you'd be fine. Jack He looks, he’s quite a looking friendly bloke, isn’t he really? For a Neanderthal. Alan Saw this really good series, anthropology series, it was really good. Viewscreens: photo of lots of different types of skulls. And they had this fantastic depiction of the tree of evolution, with all the different branches and all the various homo-this and homo-the other that didn’t make it. Stephen Yeah, we’re the only one left. Jimmy Presumably though, if it’s evolution, we’re not finished. Stephen No. Jimmy We haven’t finished evolving, so will we go on evolving, presumably… Jack There is hope for you, Jimmy, don’t worry. Jimmy I just think they should keep a breeding population of us, 'cause I think we’d make excellent pets. Stephen Right Jimmy When they’ve moved on. We’d be… Alan Oh, we don’t half moan, though. Who wants a pet that moans all the time? You want a dog that bounds up to you, not “Oh god, I’m tired. I didn’t like the breakfast much.” Jack Specifically having Alan Davies as your pet, that would be good wouldn’t it. Take him for a walk in the morning, “Come on, Alan.” Stephen You played a dog once, in a radio show, I remember it. Alan Yeah, I don’t like the direction this is going in. Stephen You were a very good dog. Alan [points to Jack] He wants to tease me into extinction. Yeah, I did play a dog, yeah. Jimmy What do you think we’re going to evolve next? Stephen Very hard to say. There’s a great fallacy which is that things that happen to you in your lifetime you pass on to your children. Your DNA doesn’t alter because you text a lot, you know, people say, “Because we text a lot people have flat thumbs.” That’s a misunderstanding of evolution. But anyway, fossils. Why might you take a fossil into a nightclub? Viewscreens: photo of 72 year old Peter Stringfellow surrounded by young women. Jo If you go to Stringfellows you wouldn’t need to. Stephen [laughs] Yeah. Jimmy Is it, I’m going to guess the UV. Stephen Yes. Jimmy Something in the UV light. Stephen You are so right. Jimmy Because people’s teeth look weird in clubs. Stephen You’re right. Jo [points to viewscreen] His teeth look weird anyway. Jimmy I don’t know why. Stephen Why you would take it is because there’s quite a business in fossils, people want a perfect fossil and there’s a lot of money charged for these… Jack Ammonites. Viewscreens: Photo of an Ammonite fossil. Stephen Exactly, like the Ammonites, trilobites, those sort of things, and a lot of them are dodgy and they’ve got plastic in, and you know, take it under UV light and the plastic will show up completely differently to the original fossil. So that’s a reason to take it into a nightclub. Jimmy And do you get a lot of that happening in clubs? Stephen I don’t know! But now that I’ve suggested it. Jack I have to say, my wife wouldn’t be very pleased with that explanation. Stephen “No darling, the reason I went into the back room at the harness club…” Jo Can I just say on a completely unrelated note, dear Peter Stringfellow came up in that picture, that he won’t let fat women go in his club in case they break the antique chairs. Stephen No? Jo Indeed. Stephen But fat men? Jo So all fat ladies to Stringfellows later and we’ll sit on his antique face. Alan [laughs] Stephen [laughs] But if you gave him, and when I say "him", I mean a Neanderthal man, a tracksuit and a haircut, he would attract no more attention than any of the other nutters on a bus. Which bit of you is evolving the quickest? Viewscreens: Cross-sectional illustration of the human body. Jo Is it my propeller? Jack What? Stephen You have a propeller? Jo What did you say, revolving? Stephen No, evolving! Jo Oh sorry. Jimmy [laughs] Jo Wouldn't it be brilliant, though? Stephen [laughs] Yeah, if you had a propeller? Jo If we had a propeller. Stephen It would be, rather. Jo Do you think there's any animals that have got propellers? Jimmy There's a thing that lives in the sea that has sort of a propeller mechanism. And it was used as the... Jo Is that a boat? Jimmy [laughs] Stephen The hippo's tail, it's slightly less savoury, but the hippo uses its tail and it revolves it to spread its faeces in as wide a way as possible... Jack That's what I do in swimming pools. Stephen Do you? And what do you revolve to help that happen, I wonder. Jack Just anything you can really. Always so embarrassing when it happens, but. Stephen Well, it does it to mark out more territory, literally to sort of… Jack I suppose I shouldn't do it from the top board. Stephen Ow! Jimmy It’s always been a distinction, there’s a big difference between pissing in a pool and pissing into a pool. Stephen So true, so true. Alan I pooed in the sea once. Stephen Did you? Alan [nods] Stephen I’m not going in there again. Jimmy Costs BP a fortune. Alan I was only about 12 at the time and I really needed to go, I was quite far out [mimes checking to see if the coast is clear] I go “I could just go here, I mean fish go in the sea all the time.” And I thought, that’s good, that’s gone. But I hadn’t allowed for the fact that it just bobs up. Stephen [put his face in his hands] Oh! Alan Plop! Right there next to your face! You’ve not got rid of it at all. Stephen [smacks his knee in disgust] Alan You’re swimming along, it’s bobbing along [mimes swimming away desperately] It goes right into shore with you. Stephen Ohh… Alan I strongly advise not to do that. Stephen Yeah. What was the question, again? Jimmy You were talking about evolving. Stephen Yes. Jimmy 'Cause I always thought whenever they mention on the news “Scottish devolution”, I always think that sounds like they're losing their opposable thumbs. Don’t know how they get their Tennent's Super open. Stephen De-evolving. Alan De-evolving because of breeding… Stephen Yes. Alan I can’t imagine what it is about human beings that will be changing in a way because we’ve got the sofa, the telly, the fridge. We’re kind of building our environment to fit the way we are now. Stephen Exactly. We’re not going to grow wings… Alan Are we not going to halt evolution completely? Stephen …because we build aeroplanes. Jack We’ll just be developed with a remote control in our hand. Evolution isn’t just a smooth thing, they occasionally they… Stephen You get mutations. Jack You get mutations which actually accelerates the process, does it not? Stephen Indeed. Jack So, an animal is born with a very long neck and can get to the top leaves and therefore that is a more successful creature. Stephen There’s another female that happens to have done the same thing. Jack There’s another female, and they say “Oh you’ve got a long neck as well, what about it, let’s have long necked babies.” And they call themselves ‘giraffe family’. Stephen Well what they’re… Alan I saw a Family Fortunes once… Jo [puts her head in her hand, laughing] Stephen [feigning enthusiasm] Mmm! Jimmy Finally, back to my level again. Jo Go on. Alan And the question was, ‘Name a bird with a long neck.’ Stephen Oh no. Alan And the guy said Naomi Campbell. Stephen [laughs] It’s like my favourite one on Weakest Link was ‘What are Chardonnay, Shiraz and Pinot Noir?’ and they said “Footballers wives.” Alan My favourite one was ‘Name a dangerous race.’ And the guy said, “The Arabs.” Stephen [laughs] Alan They were hoping for Grand National or… Stephen Yeah, Le Mans. Stephen Um, where were we? Jimmy What was the question? Stephen Oh yes, what… Alan Are we halting evolution? Stephen No, there's no evidence that we are. Jimmy But isn’t that the last thing, would it be our stomachs that have evolved the quickest? Because our diet has changed massively in the last 2,000 years. Stephen You're right. It seems, though, that the part of the body that has changed most recently in the last 10,000 years is the nose, funnily enough. And we're not quite sure why, it seems… Viewscreens: side by side video of three different noses. There’s some noses in case you didn’t know what they… Jimmy Are you going to tell us the more highly evolved people have got sort of a slightly bent to one side nose? Stephen Yes, there is that element, it just slightly… Jack The most highly evolved people have got three noses. Stephen By the look of it. Yeah, dogs which were domesticated about 15,000 years ago and humans have complimentary smell, and it was around the time that we were learning to cook as well. And it just seems that our noses, we lost the need to have the kind of smell that dogs have, maybe because we… Jimmy Isn’t it the most powerful sense memories? Is the olfactory memory, the idea that if you get a smell it’s really, it’s very Proustian, you’re back there immediately, and it’s the most kind of powerful sort of thing, for … Stephen Yeah, it’s very odd that isn’t it, I mean you can smell something and not be sure what it is, in a way that you couldn’t see something and not be sure what it is. You wouldn’t show someone a picture of an elephant and then go “Oh, it’s a tennis racquet. No, it’s a…” You know, it’s very odd that. Although it’s very powerful it’s also very elusive. Jimmy Yeah, it feels like smell is the one thing that’s miles away from language. It’s so difficult to sort of describe what’s going on with it but you know you like it. Jack It can trigger a memory instantly. Stephen There is a widespread assumption that we've ceased evolving, but that’s, it doesn’t, I don't think it's true, but of course, it does take so long. I mean it’s like what I was saying about Neanderthal man having lived in Europe for four times longer that we have. Jimmy Isn’t that, I mean you say that we never notice it, but people are getting taller by generation, Aren’t they? Stephen Yes. Alan That's a nutritional thing, really. Stephen It is a nutritional thing, and you can see it in the Japanese who only ate fish and things, the moment they started eating beef, and beef burgers came, the Japanese, in a generation and a half… Alan Uh oh. Watch out for them. They'll be back. Stephen …got a lot taller. Jimmy [laughs] Stephen So, it seems that our noses are evolving quicker than any other part of our body. Who knows what we will look like in the future? In fact, who are you looking at here? Viewscreens: Manipulated photo caricatures of Jack, Alan, Jo and Jimmy, with enlarged features, wearing nothing but fig leaves. Jack It’s to do with um, the proportion in which we are able to sense things from our body. The hands, the tongue, the ears. Stephen Yes. It’s the amount of brain space and processing that is given to our own bodies. These are called cortical homunculi, which is rather a nice name. Our cortex gives over a huge amount of processing to understand and feel the hands, and our ears, and our tongues, uh, quite a lot to our genitalia, [points to viewscreen] so much so that we felt the need to be decent. Jack I see the one on the left is actually a lady. Stephen That is actually Jo, in fact. Jack [chuckles] Stephen It really is. Jo How dare you. Stephen That’s Jimmy, and that’s you and that’s you. Jack Oh I see. Stephen But with your eyes made bigger, and your mouths made bigger, you are in there, that is basically… Jack I’m quite happy with that torso. I don’t mind that. Jo Which one’s me? Stephen The female one. Jo [points to her caricature] That one? Stephen Yeah. Jimmy Hang on, I think we look a lot crazier than those two, don’t we? We look properly out of control. Jo I actually quite want to shag you now. Jimmy [copying the clenched fist pose of his caricature] Little bit of that? Yeah. Stephen We’re very grateful to Steve Colgan who made these for us, the artist who’s responsible… Alan I’m not grateful. Stephen You’re not grateful? Jimmy I would like to go on record with Alan and say that I’m neither, I’m not grateful at all. Stephen No, well. Jack I think we might do a drawing of Steve later. See how he likes it. Jimmy So this is where the sensory sort of… Stephen Yeah, it was the brainchild of a man called Dr Wilder Penfield who was a Canadian neurosurgeon, who died in about 1979, and because he’d been doing surgery on epileptics, he realised he could map the parts of the brain that were responsible for the feelings, dimensions, senses of each part of the body, and that’s what he came up with, so to the brain, as it were, that’s how we are. Jimmy So it’s a good rule of thumb for a first date, isn’t it. These are the areas you should be concentrating on. Stephen Yeah, and some people, like Andrew Marr, actually are like that. Alan Just put a suit on him and there he is. Stephen Or Martin Clunes, perhaps. Yeah. The brain is, of course a remarkable complex, the most complex thing we know of in the universe. We don’t know of anything more astonishingly complicated. Viewscreens : Photos of brain scans. Jimmy Have you filled in a VAT return? Stephen [laughs] I haven’t. It’s 100 billion neurones in the brain, roughly. Jimmy Yep, that’s it. Stephen As many brain cells in your brain as there are trees in the Amazonian forest. So quite, if you’ve ever flown over the forest… Jo Maybe not anymore. Stephen Well, maybe. Each cell makes between a thousand and 10 thousand connections, so even the brain of a three year old child has about a quadrillion, which is 10 to 15 synapses. Jimmy [writing in his pad] 15… Stephen Yeah, it’s a huge number, it’s almost incalculably vast. Jimmy No, I’ve done it. Stephen [laughs] Yeah, well done. And it’s 80 per cent water, the brain. Extraordinary isn’t it. Jimmy Like a weak lager. [smacks his lips] Stephen Yeah, basically. Jack The brain works with a chemical reaction always? Stephen Yes, electricity essentially. Jack Electricity is it? Oh. Stephen Basically. Jo That’s why an epileptic fit is when the electrical impulses in your brain sort of overload, and they cause you to you know, to sort of. Stephen To have a seizure. Jo And in fact that’s how they invented ECT, because some Italian doctor noticed that a tramp he was experimenting on was a lot more cheerful when he’d had an epileptic fit. So they thought if we induce one… Jack Why was he more cheerful when he’d had an epileptic fit, was it a chemical reason for that? Jo Well he didn’t know, he just thought, bugger it, I’ll try it. Stephen They still don’t really know, but the thing about ECT is it does often work. Jo My mother went to a fete recently and someone had spelt etc. wrong, and it went “This way to the stalls and ect.” Stephen [laughs] Jo Would be great to get it at a fete wouldn’t it. [mimes electrodes buzzing] Stephen Anyway, the cortical homunculus is you, if the size of your body parts reflected how much brain power they use. How would you like to huddle up to one of these? Viewscreens: Photo of a naked mole rat in a burrow. Jimmy Oh my god, how did you get a picture of my scrotum? Stephen Ohh! Jimmy You got the teeth and everything. Jo Would a scrotum be much more attractive if it had little eyes and teeth? The only thing the scrotum’s good for; testing anti-wrinkle cream. Stephen Yes it would do. Jo It’d work a treat. Stephen Yep it would. Jack This animal was only recently been discovered, is it? Stephen It is a recent discovery, absolutely Jack. Jack Yes, in Africa, was it? Stephen In Africa, oh… Jack It’s hairless, 'cause it’s hairless, that’s what it is. Stephen Yes, it is it’s called a naked mole rat. Jo How long is it? Stephen It’s about three inches, not very big. Jimmy Wow, so exactly the same proportion… Stephen [cutting Jimmy off] Ah da da da da da! It’s neither a mole nor a rat, in fact, it is a rodent, it’s a mammal, and it’s a most extraordinary creature. Bizarrely, there was a zoologist who predicted in the 1970’s that there might be an as yet undiscovered social mammal that lived underground. And this exactly fits the bill. It has a queen who is the only one who gives birth, a harem of three males, and all the rest are diggers, are workers, and slaves, just like in an ant colony, it’s most unusual. Jack 'Cause when you said social I thought you meant it asks its friends around. Stephen [laughs] Aww. The workers they do the child rearing and the digging and the school run, as it were. Jimmy The school run. Viewscreens: Photo of dozens of naked mole rat babies. Jo I suppose its friends have to say that they’ll come over, don’t they, 'cause they can’t say “Staying in, washing my hair tonight.” Stephen That’s true. So you get a colony of about 300, and they sleep like this to keep themselves warm, 'cause they’re virtually cold blooded. Jimmy If you just glance at that it’s quite distressing. Stephen It is a bit. Jimmy It looks like something that happened at Chelsea football club’s Christmas party. Stephen Ohh! But they do look disturbingly like… Jo So do we know why they became like that? Stephen It seems it’s the best way for them to survive in what is very stuffy burrows, it’s very, very difficult, and they just huddle together for warmth and maybe sometimes it’s very hot and the fur is too much and so the way of regulating their heat is just to, to be kind of naked and sleep on top of each other. But they, they’re quite interesting for us because their genes are being sequenced because they seem to have resistance to certain forms of cancer, as well as having other interesting properties, for example…. Jack It’s 'cause they don’t smoke. Stephen [laughs] Jack Very healthy lifestyle, really. Stephen That’s probably what it is. They don’t have something called ‘Substance P’. Which transmits pain in us and other animals. Jimmy Sorry ‘Substance P’ transmits pain? Stephen Yeah. Jimmy Are you sure that’s science? Are you sure you haven’t misread that? Stephen [laughs] I know what you mean Jimmy You know, ‘Substance P’ for pain, you know. Stephen It’s a neurotransmitter. Jimmy Of course it is. Stephen But if we were able to replicate the way it works we might be able to find a very perfect painkiller for us, rather than using opiates, which we still use. Yes, the naked mole rat is a personal hero of mine, but describe the effects of hero syndrome. What is hero syndrome? Viewscreens: The QI symbol projected onto the night sky over London city. Jimmy A psychological disorder where you put your trousers on before your pants? Stephen It is a psychological disorder, I think that’s a very good description of it. Jack Oh, is it where you think you're a hero, is it? Stephen Kind... Jo Is it anything to do with Hero the person in mythology? Stephen Oh, as in Hero and Leander? No, not that. Jo Oh, I thought I sounded really intelligent then. Stephen You did! Jimmy You did. Alan Do you think you're a hero, behave like a hero? Stephen You think, yes, it's worse than that, it's really pretty sick. Jimmy Do you make something terrible happen so you can look like a hero? Stephen Yes. Exactly that. Jo So you set a building on fire and then rescue everyone? Stephen Especially fire, yes. It’s a real problem, particularly in America because in America… Alan Like Munchausen’s? Viewscreens: Film of firemen hosing a building on fire. Stephen It's like a kind of Munchausen’s by proxy, yes. Jack Sorry, are we saying this is illegal? Stephen [laughs] Jack Dee! Jack I had no idea, I'm sorry. Stephen So keen are they to present themselves as heroes, they will set fire to buildings and then be the one who goes in and... Jimmy And would these be just regular people or would it be someone that's in a profession? Stephen It's firemen. Firemen, yeah. Jimmy 'Cause firemen are sort of a hero for a job, it's a weird job when you think about it. Jack Couldn't it possibly be the other way around, that they know they're arsonists but they've got a guilty conscience so they become firemen as well? Stephen Well there is an element of that. Jack Did you hear about that Crimewatch presenter in Brazil who found that the show wasn’t exciting enough, so he started killing people. Stephen Yep. His name was Souza and he was supposed to have commissioned, if that’s the right word, five murders. Jimmy And the police got suspicious when his camera crew turned up before it had even been phoned in. Stephen Basically. And he went on the run and then he turned himself in. So yes, in South Carolina in 1993 and '94 they discovered 47 in one year had done this. Security… Alan All by the same guy? Stephen No, 47 different incidents. Alan 47 different arson stroke firemen? Stephen Yes. Yeah. Jimmy It's a weird thing though isn’t it, 'cause it's a very noble thing to want to be, a hero. Like it’s a really nice thing to want to be, but so sort of, a bit misguided. Stephen I know, it is. There's not quite related, but there was a Japanese customs officer who was training a sniffer dog, and decided to hide quite a large wodge of cannabis on a random passenger, who didn't know about it, he just basically plant it. The idea was then the passenger would go through, the dog would sniff and find it. The dog didn't get it, the passenger just walked through and got a free brick of cannabis! Got home, going [looks in his coat pocket] "What…how did that?" Very strange. Jack I'll fly with them again. Stephen Usually, it's just a pack of cashews. Jack Only got a wash bag with the other guys. Stephen [laughs] Exactly. Most extraordinary, yeah. You don't have to be a hero to be a worthwhile person but how much are you worth? Viewscreens: Photo of people shopping at a supermarket, their trolley full of human limbs. Alan What, you mean if you sold all your bits? Stephen Basically, yeah, as a human, not, forgetting your bank account and your social entity. Alan Your kidneys, and your liver and your… Stephen Let's start with, I mean the very basic, just your meat. There wasn’t… Alan Your flesh? Stephen Your flesh, if you prefer to call it that. Yes. Jimmy I don't know, I mean I don’t know who you're going to sell it to. Possibly Lidl, Aldi, maybe? Stephen Yep. Jimmy They’ll take it. Stephen In Moldova there were a couple of women stopped who were selling human flesh, and they were charging £1.30 a kilo. So that would make the average-ish human to be about £100… of flesh. Alan I think you'd go for more. Stephen I might be more. Yeah. Alan You know if you had a restaurant in Chelsea or something. Jimmy And we think there's a problem with the national debt, we're sitting on a goldmine. Stephen We are. Jimmy There's 60 million of you out there. Stephen And there's leather. There's our skin. Viewscreens: Photo of a neon sign reading “We Buy GOLD, HUMAN BODIES, DIAMONDS, WATCHES” Jimmy But there’s a, isn't there a scientific thing here? 'Cause you've got a very tiny bit of calcium in your body, but that's saleable if you could take it out, or there's tiny bits of metal. Stephen Ooh yeah, there’s gold. Jimmy Is there gold? Stephen Yes, yes. Jimmy In me? Stop it, you. Stephen .4 of a milligram. .4 of a milligram. Worth about 8 pence. Jimmy It's something. Stephen Yeah. It's a trace element. Jack Do you remember the German who advertised on the internet on, on… Stephen Oh, my goodness. Jack He said [adopts German accent] “I would like to invite you over and eat your body.” And someone said [German accent] “Yes, I would like you to do that.” So they met, and he went around to his flat and they said [accent] “Good evening, would you like a drink.” “Yes thank you.” “I’m going to kill you now.” Stephen Yeah. Jimmy Did they not get confused 'cause they both sounded alike? Jack Could be. Jimmy You know the weird thing about that though, when that guy, that did happen, he killed the guy but the guy that came first backed out of it at the last minute. He had him all tied up and he was about to kill him and he went “Oh, I don’t really fancy it.” and they watched Ocean's Twelve… instead, and then he went home. Stephen Oh, that’s sweet. Jimmy The guy that kind of got away. Jack Yeah, I’ve seen Ocean's Twelve, I’m not so sure that was a good deal. Alan I’d rather be eaten. Stephen So OK, we’ve got the meat, the meat's £100, what about leather? You’ve got skin, how much does your skin weigh? Jack Oh dear. Alan 40 quid, I'll give you 40 quid for your skin. Jimmy It’s the biggest organ in the body, isn't it? Or something. Stephen Well, it’s largish I mean it's about 8 pounds, 3.6 kilograms. Jimmy I would, I would hope mine would go to Louis Vuitton. Stephen Well, could do, it's an area about 22 square foot, about the size of an average door, say. And if you were charging the same as cow hide, that would only be about £20, I'm afraid. Jack It’d be a shame if you ended up a Bag For Life. Stephen [laughs] Yeah, it’d be most unfortunate. Jimmy I think the coin purse alone would fetch a couple of grand. Stephen The coin purse, very nicely put. Jack [as if holding it] My Jimmy Carr coin purse. Stephen Um, then we come to the big ones, the transplantable organs. A pair of corneas can be £4,000, just the corneas. So you get good money for your eyes. How much do you pay for a heart, a human heart do you think, on the black market? Alan £50,000. Stephen Not bad, £40,000 you could probably get one for. Jimmy What about a kidney? That's the classic thing. Stephen Anything from £10,000 to £20,000 for a kidney. Jimmy You know last year I donated a kidney. Stephen Did you? Jimmy Of course, they wanted to know where I got it from. Stephen [laughs] Lungs? Alan £25,000 a pair. Stephen 75. Very valuable, lungs. £75,000 Alan Very, very, very valuable... Stephen So basically all your body parts are, we reckon, about £400,000. So you've got £400,120 so far. Alan The thing is, when you get your donor card, it says, "Will you donate your stuff?" and you go, "Yeah OK, I'll donate it." Should be able to sell it, shouldn't you? Stephen [laughs] You could, I suppose. Jack I carry a donor card but I... Stephen But that's so you can got a kebab at night. Jack No no, what I’ve done is I carry it but I haven't signed it 'cause I want someone else to have the use of it after I've died. Jimmy [laughs] Stephen [laughs] VG. And then there are the chemical components which we mentioned, as you said, there’s ten gallons of water, which doesn't go for much, enough carbon for a sack of coal, enough bone… Jimmy Sorry, enough carbon for a sack of coal? In a human, that’s extraordinary. Stephen Yeah, We're a carbon based life form, that's our main feature. A packet of bone meal fertiliser, you could get out of a human, a bag of salt, a few nails from the iron, and the small trace elements, like say .4mg of gold, which is not much. You probably wouldn't get much change out of £10 but it's not really very much is it for all your worth. So frankly, you know, half a million if you're very, very... in good order. Alan Bit silly to burn it, then, at the end, isn't it? Stephen It sort of is, really, yes. Alan Quite a lot going on there. Jimmy So what would it be, if it wasn't the organ donation type thing, if it was just the chemicals and the stuff we're made of, what… Stephen Oh about a tenner. Really not much. In reality, of course, everybody's priceless. But what is the point of teenagers? Viewscreens: Photo of Harry Enfield and Kathy Burke as ‘Kevin and Perry’. Jo Are they um… the only group that you're legally allowed to punch? Are they, I mean I might have dreamt that. Stephen [laughs] I think you probably did. Jo Oh, right. Alan The thing is about teenagers is that they don't think of themselves as remarkable and strange. Stephen No. Alan So people look at them and think, now they’re odd, they sound odd, they speak oddly, but they communicate amongst themselves very efficiently. Stephen Yes, absolutely right. Alan And really ought to be breeding. In fact, in many areas...they are actually. Stephen They are. Almost pre-adolescents. Alan 'Cause they like being together, they don't want to be with anybody else, they function very well on their own, and they are sexually ready for children, they are. That's the point of teenagers. Stephen The point is, yeah, they do think differently. You can use MRI, and there were a number of experiments with adults and adolescents, with brain scans and they were both shown, for example, a woman in a particular emotional state and they were asked what emotional state it was. And all the adults answered correctly but lots of the teenagers couldn't interpret the emotion. And it was found they use a different part of their brain to do so. So when an adult is having a row with a teenager and they're not understanding each other, it's really 'cause they just have different ways of thinking. Jo They don't like it if you try and… Stephen They don't want to be understood, no. Jo …use their language. Stephen Oh god no. Jo 'Cause I remember going up to some teenagers outside the pub, going, "Look at that minge-er over there." right, and they went, "Oh, for God's sake, it's minger." Stephen Minger! Jo Yes, I know. And one of them went, "And that's my mum," so, obviously, I was... Stephen [laughs] Yeah, there are those who propose the argument, almost like Alan, that maybe they are the proper state and we've grown down from that into our rather more fixed and rigid and rational... Viewscreens: photo of a crowd of screaming teenage girls. Alan It's the best time of life, in a way. Stephen Yeah. Alan I mean when you're very sad when you’re a teenager, you feel like everything is going to end but then the next day, something amazingly brilliant happens, like you hear a new band. Stephen Yeah. You're right, absolutely. Alan And everything's just great again. Or if you see a film that you like, you really just love it. Stephen And you never forget it. Alan And you watch it eight times. You never forget it, yeah, the things you really, really love or discover at that age are the things that stay with you for the rest of your life. Stephen No, I agree, I agree with you Alan, I think the republic of adolescence is a fine place to live and it's a shame ever to leave it. Maybe teenagers are the real thing and it's the adults who are behaving oddly. Oh the humanity, it's time for General Ignorance, so fingers on buzzers if you please. Name the fastest human runner of all time. Alan Ah, now... Jimmy I'm going to go Usain Bolt. Forfeit: Klaxons sound. Viewscreens flash the words “USAIN BOLT ". Jimmy What, he really is! Did you not watch it? It was on telly. He's called bolt, for God's sake. What more do you want? Stephen The argument for him being one of the fastest is strong, but… Viewscreens: photo of Usain Bolt in his ‘Lightning Bolt’ pose. Jimmy What, him winning and being the fastest? Stephen He won that race. Jimmy He won that race, yes. Stephen But humans… Jimmy But you think you're faster, do you? Stephen I don’t think I am, I think T8 was faster. Alan T8? Stephen T8. Alan Who's that? Stephen It’s a fossilised footprint in Australia, from Aboriginal people. Alan Uh-oh. Stephen You can tell from the strides that they ran really fast. Jack What were they running from? Alan The white man. Stephen Yeah, possibly. They had good reason to. Usain Bolt can reach 27 miles per hour for a second or two. Alan Which is very, very impressive, but again, rabbits run at 35 miles an hour, and that's much more exciting. Stephen It is not as fast as a rabbit. Jack It's not as fast as Jimmy Carr when it's his round. Stephen Ha-hey! Jimmy [winks] Jo [laughs] Heyyy! Stephen 20,000 years ago on the Gold Coast they discovered these footprints and one of the males was running at 23 miles per hour, but alright, so Usain Bolt can travel 27 on a running track, with spiked shoes, whereas T8 was in mud, barefoot and was accelerating. Don't know how much faster he got, it seems likely he was faster than Bolt, and anyway, it’s quite likely also that he wasn't the fastest of his 150,000 strong tribe, so anthropologists believe that he, you know, could have gone up to 28 miles per hour. Jo I mean for all we know… Jack Usain Bolt wasn't being chased by a lion, was he? Stephen There is also that, yeah, that’s true. Jo For all we know, he could have been, like, a fat bloke who was about 45, and all the others were really fast. Stephen Exactly. Jo Like 48 miles an hour. How do they actually tell, is it the stride length, then? Stephen I think it is, yes, stride length, depth of impress. They can be pretty accurate about speed. Jo Maybe they had a rock in the shape of a foot and they did it for a laugh. Stephen Maybe. It's true, it's true. I'm not saying Usain Bolt isn't fast. Anyway, now, footprints in Australia suggest that some of our ancestors were much faster than the best athletes are today. The fastest one we know of was called T8. Now, how are saunas good for you? Viewscreens: 19th century illustration of people bathing in a sauna. Jimmy What’s going on over there? Alan Yes, quite. Jimmy What’s happening on the far right there? Viewscreen: Detail of the bottom right corner of the shows a man bending down, his head obscuring the view of a second man’s private parts. There is a woman standing next to them. Stephen I’m not quite sure. Jimmy Doesn’t the fella… if I’m not very much mistaken. And his missus is just watching! He’s probably showing her how to do it. Stephen [in unison with Jimmy] How to do it. Exactly. Alan What’s happening in the middle, that’s even more peculiar. Viewscreen: There are three figures in the middle of the drawing, two are seated and the other is kneeling in front of them with a bucket. Stephen That is a bit strange. Being sick in a bucket. Jo That woman on her own up the front, she needs to sort out her bikini line, big time. Stephen Yes, it’s an unusual sight that, I grant you. But it’s an early sauna of some kind. Jack Can I suggest to you that they’re just not good for you, it was a trick question? Stephen Well, I’m sure they don’t do you too much harm but what they’re not good at is one of the major claims that’s made for them is that they release toxins from your body, they don’t do that. This idea, you know how people say “Ooh, good for a hangover, all the toxins go out.” They don’t. There’s just... You sweat… Jack You need a fry-up for a hangover. Stephen When you sweat you sweat a little bit of salt, which is actually quite a good thing to have in your body, um, but you don’t get rid of toxins it’s just… Jimmy Is that a real thing, you can run off a… Viewscreens: Photo of two men in a sauna. Stephen Oh, lord. Jimmy …when you’re drunk? Alan [at viewscreens] Oh there they go again! Jimmy That’s the fella from the Joy of Sex. Stephen Yes, the point is that there’s people think it’s good for a hangover, 'cause you get rid of toxins and so on, and it’s got a steam, but in fact it dehydrates you, 'cause you sweat a lot. Not particularly helpful for that. Alan Extremely uncomfortable and unpleasant. Stephen And also for losing weight, who uses it for losing weight? Alan Boxers. Stephen Boxers. Jack And jockeys. Stephen And jockeys, that’s right. Well they’re, yeah, and again it’s you lose weight in a sauna just by dehydrating. Viewscreens: Photo of a jockey being weighed. Jack Are those kitchen scales? Is he really tiny that guy? Stephen [laughs] Yes, he’s very cheerful, whatever he is. Stephen A sauna won’t remove toxins from your body and if you’re hung-over you might even end up more dehydrated. Which disease could this animal give you? [Sound of a mosquito buzzing] Jack [reluctantly] Ohh… Jo Go on. Jack Malaria. Forfeit: Klaxons sound. Viewscreens flash the word “MALARIA". Stephen Oh Jack, you were doing so well. Jimmy Can’t believe you said that. Jack Well, that's how I got it. Stephen It was a mosquito, but you never get Malaria from a mosquito that buzzes. Alan Oh, silent but deadly. Stephen Sorry? Silent but deadly... Alan SBD. Stephen Silent but deadly. It's the females of some species of Anopheles mosquito that don't make a noise, and usually it's the ankle it’s usually the lower limbs, they're the ones you've got to watch out for. So if you can hear it, it's obviously a nuisance and it can give you Yellow Fever if it’s a buzzy one, and it can give you Dengue Fever, which in many respects is worse than some forms of light Malaria, so it's not that they're harmless but they won't give you Malaria if you can hear them. Jimmy Isn’t Bill Gates 'cause he’s got that foundation hasn’t he with Warren Buffett, they’ve set up this incredible thing… Stephen Huge amount of money they’ve put into it, yes. Jimmy And they think they're actually going to be able to tackle Malaria, which is extraordinary thing to do when you think about, you know, some geek in a garage starting a computer company, it’s amazing. Stephen It's marvellous, if his life is spent doing that, because they are the deadliest disease vector in history. In fact, over half the people who have ever lived on this planet have been killed by mosquitoes. Over half the people who have ever lived. If we could wipe them out, it wouldn't be good either because they are also great pollinators, and a vital pollinator around much of the world. Yes, a buzzing mosquito cannot give you Malaria, though it might give you something equally unpleasant. Which brings us to the end of the show. And before we go, let's see who's the winner in this human race. Well, it's a very exciting outcome, I have to say. The pinnacle of human evolution, with a score of plus four, is Jo Brand! Jo Oh, my Lord! [stands up and strikes a beatific pose] Stephen Very good. Colour me astonished, the missing link with a plus score of three is Alan Davies. Alan Oh, thank you very much. Stephen Slightly dragging his knuckles along the ground with minus two is Jack Dee. But heading, I'm afraid...heading for extinction with minus three, Jimmy Carr. So all that's left is for me to thank Jo, Jimmy, Jack and, of course, Alan and I leave you with this thought about being human and being happy. If you really want to be happy, all you have to do is say, "I am beautiful." So I want you all tonight to go and look at the mirror and say, "Stephen Fry is beautiful." Good night. |
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