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Jo Brand on the Writings of Pliny the Elder
Jo Brand is a British psychiatric nurse turned stand up comedienne. Her style and topics generally tend toward comments on feminism with the occasional reference to her own non-glamor girl appearance. It's her common sense keeps everyone on the BBC celebrity panel quiz program Qi - first hosted by Stephen Fry and now helmed by Sandi Toksvig - from going too far off the deep end and when guest host of Have I Got News For You kept the guests and regular panelists from too much irrelevant brouhaha.
Jo's sardonic humor spares no one and that includes herself. One time Stephen was asking questions about cures and antidotes proposed by the ancient Roman author Pliny the Elder. As usual Stephen's questions were extremely difficult, and he asked Danny Baker was "What does Pliny confidently expect to cure by recommending that the patient eats the heart of a black jackass outside - out of doors, that is - on the second day of the moon?"
"Mumps," Danny replied and then added he had no idea. He then said, though, that the story goes that eternal life would be imparted to anyone who could lick their own elbow. There was the idea, he said, that you cannot lick your elbow, "but they say if you can, you will live forever."
"But," Stephen interjected, "isn't that how socialism was invented? That someone said 'Come, let us lick each others elbows'?"
"The thing is," Alan Davies added, "that no young man of licking age will spend any time at all trying to lick his elbow."
(As an aside, in a later episode where Danny appeared, Stephen had invited a young lady who demonstrated she could lick her own elbow. Danny was flabbergasted.)
Stephen then brought everyone back to the question of why you would eat the heart of a black jackass out of doors. This got everyone onto the practical practical problems of the cure.
"And where do you get a black jackass, anyway?" asked Alan. "These days," added Stephen.
"Kentucky Fried Jackass," answered Jo.
"Well, I'll tell you the answer," Stephen said, "It's actually 'epilepsy'". "Although," he added, "he also prescribes for epilepsy the consumption of lightly poached bears testes, a camels brain, dried and taken with honey, and in extremist, a draught of fresh gladiator's blood."
"He doesn't mention Tegretol, then?" Jo asked.
Moving to another remedy, Stephen asked, "Who should we ask this? Jo, I think, you're the medical person here. What would you think if I touched the tip of your genitals with linen or papyrus?"
"To be honest, Stephen, I'd be bloody impressed if you found the tip".
The correct answer - which Jo got right - was that this was the ancient cure for incontinence. "Although of course," concluded Stephen, "you might opt instead of the linen or papyrus for the alternative cure for incontinence which is to knock back a glass of sweet wine mixed liberally with the ash from a burnt pig's penis and then urinating in your or your neighbor's dog's bed."