Here's a very special teapot which I got in 2007, it's called the Assassin's Teapot, an amazing
Chinese invention; a wonderful idea this. It's got a little lid here,
and it's got a place here where you put the wine, or I did tea actually, put tea in it;
but now here's the interesting thing - there's two compartments in it,
and to get to the second compartment you first of all turn it over - I need a plate to pick
up the drips - and notice that there's another hole here, a secret hole which you can't see,
and which you put your finger over, and that stops the poison coming out; so we've got to put two
liquids in here, first of all the poison; well I'm just going to use some red Ribena and call
it poison, and then the white stuff will just be clear London tap water. So here's the poison,
well it's just Ribena actually; I'll put some of that in the base first of all, in this compartment
here, and then I'll turn it over and put ordinary tap water in the other one ... a little bit [more]
That's probably enough, I'll put my finger over it to stop it from dripping down, like that,
and then over the other end we put some London tap water, is that all right with you?
When I did this last time I had tea in one and milk in the other, so I was able to fill up
tea with and without milk which is a lovely idea.
Obviously best in both cases not to have too much of either of the liquids;
so that's all set up now and it's all a matter of fingering; let me just show you
how the fingering goes with this. I'm going to put them into two different glasses as well,
just so you can see the contrast, we'll see how well it works. So when I'm going to put ordinary
water in here, or ordinary wine, I've got to put my finger secretly over that hole at the bottom,
and hold it like this with the other two fingers. I'll do it with my little finger actually,
that's right, will that work? No, I'll use the next finger as it is bigger and broader.
And keep the top [hole] here open like this, and we'll pour it and see;
I just want to make sure that it's [the hole] really, really well covered;
that's right okay, this is ordinary London tap water coming out the first time.
Here we go.... [Tim pours clear liquid from the teapot]
Clear stuff, okay? Now for the poison what I want to do is, I've got to take
my finger away from the bottom, so that's open to the air, put the thumb over here,
and see what happens when this stuff comes out...
oh ... it's getting darker ... oh ... that's nasty stuff; I'll see if I can swap it back
and forward a few more times; I've got to put the finger over here to stop the
dark stuff coming out, the poison, [no] finger at the top - that should be just water coming out...
and then I swap it over, and take the finger away so there's nothing underneath,
and just I'll put my finger over there actually, to help it, there we are, and that darkens fairly
quickly, and that's a reasonably dark cup of stuff; so one is poison and one is good wine,
and that's how the Emperors got rid of their generals, if they fancied the general's wife,
you know! They quietly poison him - click like that - and the Emperor would drink the good wine,
and the poor old general would drink the poison. What a dastardly thing to do isn't it? But
it means that there's an extraordinary history to the thing, and an extraordinary function which no
one's ever made before; there's two compartments in there, one which allows the liquid to come
out from the top here, and the other one which allows the liquid which you secretly put in at
the base of it; so... marvellous stuff isn't it? [laughs] The Assassin's Teapot, they call it. Wow!