Friday Soirée X: Stephen Fry is QI
I'm told that the internet is a morass, a quagmire of links into which, after just a few innocent clicks, one can disappear and never bee seen again. I'm usually much more focused in my clicking and manage to stay out of the quicksand and keep my head above water–except that tonight I succumbed.
I blame Stephen Fry. Now, I don't mind blaming Stephen Fry, nor do I mind saying he's at fault, because I think Stephen Fry is funny, literate, intelligent, and articulate–a perfect role model to my mind. It's also nice that he happens to be gay. So to my mind, an evening wasted with Stephen Fry is far from wasted.
Just last week we enjoyed listening to Stephen Fry tell us why "The Catholic Church is not a force for good" in the world. At that time I was able to control my clicking; I must have been distracted by something or other.
Tonight however, I innocently decided to watch a short clip of Fry telling some silly old woman how ridiculous her excitement about the Ten Commandments as the basis of all possible human morality was and, before I knew it, it was several hours later. The main problem turned out to be quite interesting.
"Quite Interesting", or "QI" as it seems to be familiarly known, is a BBC show previously totally unknown to me. It's described on their YouTube channel as
A comedy quiz show hosted by Stephen Fry. The questions on QI are so difficult that the panel almost never get a right answer, so points are only awarded for interesting answers.
I ended up watching available clips compulsively and I haven't had such a good laugh in some time. So for our soirée tonight, quite interesting and funny things are the theme, and Stephen Fry is our guest.
QI : What's the difference between a cake and a biscuit?
There is an organization called "Quite Interesting, Ltd", that seems to be the production company for the program "QI". I don't know yet if they actually do quite interesting things other than produce the program, but that in itself may be enough. According to their website
The activities of Quite Interesting Ltd are organised around a central concept or set of attitudes – those of curiosity, discovery and humour. These, we believe, are what make us human and they should therefore be nurtured.
Now there is a mission after my own heart. "Curiosity, discovery, and humour" are at the top of my list of important things that make the world livable.
Here's what seems a typical clip from the show (if there is anything "typical") in which we learn about the significant differences between biscuits (i.e., cookies) and cake. We also get an aside about why cookies, called "biscuits" in the UK, are also called "digestives", providing a perfect opportunity for fart humour. NB, all of this is done on a set decorated with Fibonacci spirals and such things.
[YouTube link for those who don't see the embedded player.]
QI : At what temperature does water boil?
This is such a dorky and sciency — but still quite interesting — question. How thrilling is it that Dara O'Brien should actually mention something so arcane as the triple point of water! But how horrified was I to listen to him get it wrong (just a little bit wrong, really), right there on television where uninformed children might be watching!! More on this in a moment.
[YouTube link for those who don't see the embedded player.]
Fry & Laurie : Piano Masterclass
Well, now it's time for a musical diversion; this is a musical soirée after all. What to do since tonight's guest, Mr. Fry, is evidently many, many things, which list does not include "musician"?
Aha! Here is a sketch — one of some notoriety, it seems — in which Mr. Fry proves that he is not a musician by actually performing, both on the piano (in a manner of speaking) and vocally. The sketch is performed with his long-time partner in comedy, Hugh Laurie who does, it turns out, have some skill at the piano.
[YouTube link for those who don't see the embedded player.]
QI : Dara O'Brien gets corrected
My respect for "QI" was cemented with this clip from a later episode than the one above. You'll recall (from moments ago, presumably), that Dara O'Brien thrillingly mentioned the triple point of water in answer to a question; he described it almost perfectly but got one fact wrong : the triple point is not at 0°C. It's not far away from the freezing / melting point of water, but neither is it identical.
How delighted was I that the misspoken slight untruth got corrected! I try to imagine this happening, say, on an American talk show, or even a new broadcast, and I don't think anyone responsible would think it worth doing should anyone even have bothered to point it out. Certainly no American television host would see so much potential for comedy in the situation.
[YouTube link for those who don't see the embedded player.]
Dessert : Fry and Laurie present "The Silver Dick" to John Cleese
As if Fry, or Fry and Laurie weren't funny enough, let's toss John Cleese into a sketch with them. They are allegedly giving Cleese a lifetime achievement award and so they mock him for his masterpiece of comedy, "Fawlty Towers". Fry is perfectly dismissive: he doesn't even remember Cleese's name quite correctly.
[YouTube link for those who don't see the embedded player.]
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on Saturday, 6 March 2010 at 22.26
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My goodness, I didn't realize you were not a QI junkie already or I would have informed you earlier! We are obsessive about watching QI in this household (thank goodness for youtube). Stephen Fry is a household god, and we'll watch just about anything he does. There is a nice documentary he does about the Gutenberg Press, but I can't seem to find it online at present… maybe someday it will show up again.
on Monday, 8 March 2010 at 01.13
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Jeff, you come up with some of the darnedest things. But always interesting.
on Monday, 8 March 2010 at 06.51
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"Curiosity, discovery, and humour"
What about me? I'm not curious, I don't want to discover, and I have no humor. So these things are oppressing me. Help! Help! I'm being oppressed!
I find interesting the big guffaws from the "lower gastrointestinal" humor. It seems that Garrison Keillor is using it a bit more on his show, for which he takes grief on the website. I give such jokes a mild chuckle, I don't get the big laughs. I also don't get the British debasement humor, but then the things I don't get is pretty vast.
Triple point: people, label your terms, specify some pressure.
on Monday, 8 March 2010 at 10.55
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I'm sure you would have, Melanie, but that's all right. Just think, I'm now in the enviable position of being able to watch all those clips for the first time. Oh my.
SW: Thanks! I've always wanted to be a darned thing myself, so I'm happy to accomplish the next best thing.
Fred, sorry you're oppressed; I'm sure if we keep working on that humour the rest will come along just fine. As for the fart humour — who knows if there's a sensible explanation? Farts and toilet joke always seem to play well to British audiences (despite Basil Fawlty's saying "It's all bottoms to you Americans, isn't it?"), and it also seems to have been true for several hundred years.
As for the triple point of water, Dara O'Brian did get one thing slightly off. Saying that the triple point was the "first temperature" at which three phases of water coexist, implying that there are others, was it. The triple point of water is a unique thermodynamic state, there is only one and its temperature, density, and pressure are uniquely defined, so the pressure needn't really be specified, although it is identical to the vapor pressure of water at the triple point, and we know the vapor pressure must be near atmospheric pressure because the triple-point temperature is so close to the freezing point at atmospheric pressure.
With one exception, btw, everything freezes under its own vapor pressure, so with one exception everything has a triple point; in thermodynamic phase diagrams the triple point is the terminus of the liquid-vapor coexistence curve at the vapor-pressure curve. The single exception is helium; the solid-gas line is forced away from the liquid-gas line by the superfluid transition so there is no triple piont.