QI · Season 1
My favourite one from the Spanish Inquisition was, they'd put a pole up your anus and they put it in such a way that it avoids all your vital organs and comes out by your shoulder and then they just leave you there for people to look at.
I like the first part of that.
The one thing you could do at home is you could do is take a foaming beer and then pop a bit of earwax into the head of your foaming tankard and then the foam should collapse.
If you're watching TV, don't listen to this man.
People think, you know, sailors fall in love with mermaids, and how can they consummate their relationship?
Fertilise the eggs, Stephen.
Exactly, it’s very simple. She lays her eggs on a rock or something, and you go and fertilise them. What’s the problem?
The sailor has to sail back to his waters where he was spawned, and take the mermaid with him. So he has to go back to, I don’t know, Dorking, find a pond, pop his new fish-wife in there.
Fish-wife!
She lays her eggs, and then he has to be arrested for indecent public exposure at a boating pond.
Why do great white sharks bite people?
To keep themselves in the news.
[After a discussion on muffs the Audience is laughing at the innuendo]
[To the Audience] Can you just control yourselves?!
[To Alan] You've got a nerve!
I haven't said anything about the vagina for four minutes!
What are meerkats a type of?
They’re a type of meer. Or possibly a type of cat.
How can I tell the age of this tree?
Chop it down.
Yeah, count the rings.
[The klaxon goes off – ‘count the rings’]
Is that not right?
Well, not really, no. It’s a sort of rough guide, but it doesn’t really tell you...
Well it’s a rough guide. Maybe that’s all I’m after. Maybe I’m not all that bothered about accuracy, Stephen. Maybe I’ve got shit to do.
What colour is the sun?
I’ve heard it’s green.
Not bad.
Tartan?
Oh, you were doing so well. Tartan.
When the universe was created...
4000 years ago.
4000 years ago as it says in the bible.
By our lord.
Only two elements were created at that time.
Gold and silver.
Frankincense and myrrh.
They are still the most abundant elements in the universe. 99% of the universe is composed of...
Helium and sarcasm.
How many human beings would you need to extract gold from before you could make of them a gold coin?
Just Mr T.
Are some people made of heavy metal?
Lemmy.
[To James Acaster] What's NuMetal?
It was rap and metal together. It went very badly.
How many paintings did Vincent van Gogh sell which he was alive.
[To Alan.] Don’t say none.
None. I’m gonna say none.
[The klaxon goes off – ‘none’]
Really, I’m afraid...
One.
A few, maybe.
[The klaxon goes off – ‘one’]
It was lots, he sold hundreds of paintings.
Hundreds?!
Yeah. When he was 15, he used to work in an art gallery.
Oh, shut up.
It’s true. I just asked you how many paintings...
This is the closest I’ve come to walking out of this show.
Alan’s buzzer?
[Alan presses it, it’s a buzzard. The klaxon goes off – ‘buzzard’.]
That wasn’t a buzzer, that was a buzzard.
That’s harsh, though.
It is harsh.
Am I on minus then already? That is a new record.
I have no... My hands are tied.
If we were on a direct flight from Madrid to Montana, which American states beginning with M would we fly over on the way?
‘Merica? Is that one?
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