(applause)
Well, hello and welcome
to this special Christmas-shopping- coach-trip and office-lunch edition of QI
which, as tradition dictates, takes place in mid-November.
Let's meet the people who are going to be sick on the pavement later.
- Phill Jupitus. - (applause)
John Sessions.
- Sean Lock and Alan Davies. - (applause continues)
Now, the four rules of Christmas
are we're going to be a bit disappointed by what we get from each other,
there'll be the usual long rambling argument, one of us will go out in a sulk about losing,
and it'll all go on much too long.
Each of you has been given a strange unwanted present by a mad aunt.
- Phill's goes... - (bells jingle)
...and John's goes... - (church bells ring)
- Sean's goes... - (bells tinkle)
...and Alan goes...
(car horns blare)
And I go to the lavatory, having eaten too many figs.
Now, seconds out, fists clenched on those buzzers.
What would you do with a bag of Gripples at Christmas?
- (bells jingle) - (Stephen) Phill?
You'd be the most popular person at an S and M Christmas party.
- Because the Gripple, it grips... - (laughter)
The Gripples have arrived! The Gripples have arrived!
It sounds a bit northern, because it sounds to me something like pork scratchings.
Because pork scratchings, originally, you weren't supposed to eat them.
Originally they were... You put them together,
you got a bag of them at Christmas, and it was like a sort of pig Meccano set.
Put all the pork scratchings together...
- You get a whole pig. ...and you've have a whole pig.
- Add water, it starts running about. - (laughter)
If I said Gripple, or if I wrote Gripple,
I'd probably have to put R with a circle round after it, which would mean what?
- A circle round your R? - Oh, dear. Oh, dear.
- What? - Can I turn for sanity?
Is that mathematical? What does a circle round an R mean?
- Registered trademark, dear! - Oh!
The only time I've heard the word before was when I saw an evangelical ventriloquist act
saying, ''And Jesus healed the Gripples.''
It's the only time I've heard it before. And you can't have a bag of them.
Well, at Christmas time you would use it in one of London's main thoroughfares.
What happens famously in London at Christmas time?
- (John ) A Gripple? - Lights.
Lights in Regent Street use Gripples.
Something rather like from a bulldog clip, to hold up lovely Christmas decorations.
- (Stephen ) I'll give you five points. - It's a gripping device?
(Stephen ) It's a gripping device. The longest fence in the world uses Gripples.
- Does it? - (Stephen ) Yeah.
- Two points if you tell me the longest fence. - (John ) The Great Fence of China.
It's to keep people off the Great Wall. About ten feet away from it.
- Australia. - (Stephen ) Australia is the right...
I'll give you two for that, indeed. It's the great Dingo Fence, 5,000 kilometres long.
Gripples are small but revolutionary wire clips, invented and made in Sheffield.
They're used to string up the Blackpool Illuminations,
support air-conditioning ducts over false ceilings,
suspend Brazilian coffee beans off the ground to dry them,
and hold together the world's longest fence.
So, now, at the end of the programme,
I'm going to be judging the QI Christmas colouring competition,
and I want you all, each of you, individually, to draw a Christmas tree.
Now, a puppy is for life, not just for Christmas, as we all know.
Apart from dogs, what was the first domesticated animal...? Ah, there are puppies.
What was the first domesticated animal
that you could've found, as a human being, nestled around your Christmas fire?
- (church bells ring) - (Stephen ) Johnny?
In the very early days of Christmas, before the Victorians really laid in with it,
turkeys would be brought into the house, around the tree, and pampered and stroked
because of their lovely feathers, and this was lovely for centuries.
Then suddenly they were ripped open, had an apple shoved up their arseholes
and it all went horribly wrong.
- (Stephen ) It can be fun though. - Yeah.
(applause)
Unfortunately I missed the question because I was sniffing the pens. Could you repeat it?
Yes. Which was the second species of animal for humans to domesticate after the dog?
- The cat. - (Stephen ) No.
Prove it!
- A mouse, a pig. - You'll have to take my word for it.
- The chicken, the hens. Cows? - No. He's on a list again.
- Gerbils, hamsters, budgies? - No.
- A sheep. - (laughter)
- We've all cuddled sheep before. - (Stephen ) Blitzen, Comet...
- (Alan ) You can't buy animals... - (Stephen ) Rudolph!
- Reindeer. - Oh, well done!
(applause)
Fabulous.
How did you pluck that out of the air?
- When you said Rudolph, it reminded me... - (Stephen ) Did it?
- ..of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. - I must be more guarded with my tongue.
But when you shouted ''Blitzen'' at me, I was just scared.
- (Stephen ) Fair point. - That's why you shouldn't be a teacher.
- You're right. Yeah. No, no. - Let's go back again. Reindeers were pets?
They were domesticated. Not quite the same as pets.
Did they have a big wheel in the lounge for the reindeer?
- You know, reindeer flap in the back door. - Yeah, yeah.
A massive water bottle strapped to the side of the house with a funnel that came through.
What's that Tony Hancock joke? Where he sees the reindeer head on the wall and says:
''Cor! He must have been shifting when he hit the other side of that wall.''
(Stephen ) Very good.
I'll give someone two points if they can give me another common name for a reindeer.
- (church bells ring) - (Stephen ) Johnny.
- A snow horse. - (laughter)
- I call them snow horses all the time. - (Stephen ) Yes. No.
- A buck. - (Stephen ) No. In North America.
- Moose. - (Stephen ) No.
- Elk. - No. Other one.
- (John and Phill) Caribou. - (Stephen ) You said that together.
One each. There we are.
All right. No, a reindeer. About 14,000 years ago,
hunter-gatherers on what is now the Russian-Mongolian border
learned to lure caribou away from their huge migratory groups
- and bred them to create their own herd. - Psst! Caribou.
Psst! Caribou.
- Are you being a Mongolian? - No, I'm being a caribou now.
- (Stephen ) Oh, right. - Me?
(laughter)
- Like that. That's how they lured them away. - That's how they lured them, yes. Yes.
- Very nice. Excellent. - (applause)
And they were, to those early tribes, they were the kind of walking corner shop,
offering meat, milk, fur for clothing, shelter, friendship.
Today there are three million domesticated reindeer, mostly in the wastes of Lapland,
which stretches across Sweden, Norway, Finland and Russia.
The Lapps, who herd them, prefer to call themselves the Sami,
even though they seem to be unaware that it means ''the plebs'' in ancient Swedish.
Now, why would a male reindeer fancy Rudolph?
The female genital organs will be round and bright red,
much like Rudolph's nose.
That's why the male will be attracted to Rudolph, cos he'll think it's female genitalia.
Oh. A quite, quite intelligent answer.
It's not true, but it's good. Any other thoughts? Why would a male reindeer...?
- Rudolph was a girl. - Yes! Is the right answer.
Whoa!
- Absolutely right. - (applause)
- Was he? - Yeah. We know this...
we know this because in countless representations of Rudolph,
he is represented at Christmas Eve with antlers,
and only female reindeer have antlers at Christmas time.
The male reindeer shed their antlers at the very beginning of winter.
So all of them must be female if they have antlers, or possibly eunuchs,
because if you castrate a male reindeer, they keep their antlers.
Also you'd see the silhouette of the bollocks as it went across the moon.
(applause)
- They really do have great big ball sacks. - Nadgers. They have nadgers.
- Oh, dear. - (Alan ) They're enormous.
- Are they? - They swing. I've been behind a caribou.
- Have you really? - (laughter)
- In the Rocky Mountains. - And you've noticed its plums. Yes.
- They swing about. - Looks like a bag full of Gripples.
They're the biggest...
The only other ball sack I've seen that was even comparable was on a red kangaroo.
- (Stephen ) Really? - And it...
Are you a scrotumologist or something?
It was lying... You brought it up. It was lying on its side scratching its nuts, like that.
That's because at Christmas...
When Alan was ten, at Christmas he got an I-Spy Knackers of the World.
- I tick them off. - He ticks them. ''Oh, I've seen those now.''
- ''I've seen the park keeper's.'' - (laughter)
(applause)
''Yeah, that's quite a rare one.''
I misunderstood spot-the-ball competitions.
They were obviously much more educational than I thought.
Well, that's enough reindeer. Why - Alan, for you - why, in days of yore
did the people of rural Yorkshire gather near their beehives
late on Christmas Eve?
York... It's probably some sort of money saving.
Congratulations for alienating the largest county in the country.
They won't be alienated. They're proud of their thriftiness.
(Yorkshire accent) They wouldn't watch a Southern poof like you anyway, would they?
You've got no common bloody sense! No gumption. Oh, you've got your book learning.
- You're in trouble now. - (Stephen ) Oh, I don't care.
That Bernard Ingham type of Yorkshireman who goes on about common sense,
it drives me (bleep ) nuts!
- It's so annoying. So annoying. - (applause)
- Sorry. - Yeah. I agree.
- Yeah. - To listen to the Queen's Speech.
Listen to the Queen's... That's very good. I like that. That's very good, Sean.
Do they just gather round in a little sort of huddle around the hive
and they just listen to the... (buzzes )
And then they go, ''Two, three. # Kumbaya, my Lord, kumbaya''
- Do you know, you're just about right? - You're having a laugh!
Not exactly, but just about. They do indeed listen for the humming.
They believed that the bees would all start humming to mark the birth of Christ
at midnight on Christmas Eve.
Honey, of course, as you know from Yeats' poems, is often associated with semen.
(Stephen ) Yes.
- I just thought I'd throw that in. - (Stephen ) Yes, very nice. Thank you.
Thank you. Because they take it onto their boats when they're sailing.
- Yes. - (Stephen ) Yes. That's right. Good.
(laughter and applause)
So, yes, they would have the ''bee-loud dale'' in Yorkshire, where the bees would hum.
Amazingly, they really believed it happened. And even the bees, apparently -
according to the Yorkshiremen who claim that they did hum at midnight -
even after 1752, when the calendar changed and 12 days disappeared,
the bees noticed the change from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar
and still buzzed at exactly midnight on Christmas Eve.
(hums )
(Yorkshire accent) Your brother's killed your kestrel. Go and warm up the bees.
The Romans called York ''Eboracum'',
which I always thought was just them misunderstanding locals saying:
(Yorkshire accent) ''Eeeber-I-come.''
Still, anyway, why might you have thought twice about accepting the offer of a mince pie
if it was made, this offer, in 1657?
Or, indeed, if the mince pie... If someone offered you a mince pie? Yes?
Well, because that's three minutes before teatime and it would just spoil your appetite.
Hey. Very good.
- Very good. No, the year of our Lord, 1657. - (church bells ring)
Yes?
Let's look at the date for a moment. 1657 was the year before the death of Oliver Cromwell.
- (Stephen ) Very good. That is relevant. - Who was a huge hater of poofs.
So even to put a hand,
even if it wasn't in a particularly Cecil Beaton kind of a way, near a mince pie
might be enough to indicate that you are a lover of the lavender passageway,
- which might indicate that... - (laughter)
- ..you were for it. - (Stephen ) Yes.
Which led to the euphemism of slinging the mince pie up the lavender passageway.
- Brandy butter? - (laughter)
Take this clue. Oliver Cromwell was running the country.
Oliver Cromwell barred them?
- Yes, he did ban them. - No mince pies for anyone.
There is a particular reason, though. They had a particular connotation, which wasn't sexual.
They had... Cromwell, Commonwealth, made his own money and you didn't have...
They were big coins. Big, big. Commonwealth money? Massive, whoppers.
One of them in a pie, oesophagus... (chokes )
I'll tell you what it is. Mince pies were said to symbolise something
that Cromwell stood foursquare against.
- (John ) Catholicism. - Catholicism. Five points.
- Why? - ''Why'' is a very good question.
Well, Catholics did use them as discreet ways of displaying their membership
- of the mother of churches. - Who's he?
He is some species of cardinal or Monseigneur, by the look of it.
Oh, so they're not Siamese twins that have just been separated?
- They're both cardinals. - (Stephen ) No, they're not.
- What made him do that? - (Stephen ) That's a blessing. They do that.
(Phill) He's waiting for someone to throw the mince pie.
He's hailing an altar boy.
(Phill) He's at the other end of the lavender passageway.
- Mince pie. Mince pie, please. - They were hated papist symbols.
It was derived from the... Pastry sweetmeats were given by the people of Rome
to the priests of the Vatican on Christmas Eve,
and so they were symbols of Catholicism for that reason.
The English versions were often topped with graven images,
and baked in the shape of a crib and a manger and a little pastry baby Jesus.
- In the mountains of Nuremberg in... - (Alan ) Germany.
Well done, there.
- Where they have the rally. - Yes, that's right. Every now and again.
Sadly discontinued.
There's a village in Nuremberg whose name means ''eavesdropper'' in German.
Now, what did this village provide the whole world with
for more than 100 consecutive Christmases?
- (Sean ) War criminals. - (laughter)
- (applause) - Oh, dear.
You know, the old tradition of roasting a war criminal.
With a glass of sherry. ''Cheers, Mr Pumblechook.''
(Stephen ) God in heaven!
- Oh, Lord. - Compliments of the season.
- (Stephen ) Did they...? - (German accent) ''I was obeying orders!''
(Alan does impression of a German war criminal)
Good. Anybody got any...?
A Klaus Barbie.
(Stephen ) ''We're having a Klaus.''
- ''Everybody's welcome to our winter...'' - Come round. We've got a Klaus on the go.
Santa Klaus, in fact.
- So, no. - Now, erm...
- (Stephen ) Johnny? - (church bells ring)
Nuremberg, of course... One instantly, if one is a Wagnerian,
thinks of one of Wagner's last operas, The Meistersingers.
Would they possibly have provided the world
with the leading songmeister,
the Liedermeister, like Hans Sachs in the opera?
- Oh, I see. No, no. - (John ) No?
No, no. No, no.
You were just saying what everybody else was thinking, but in fact it obviously is not true.
- Walnut Whips. - (Stephen ) Nor Walnut Whips. No.
Christmas. At Christmas time for 100 years, this village devoted itself...
Brazil nuts.
You can't manufacture brazil nuts in a German town.
You can't do it. No. Come on.
- Baubles, tinsel. - Baubles is the right answer.
- They were the only place that made them? - Baubles, the only place.
Almost the only place.
No, between 1840 and the end of World War II,
a single German village, Lauscha, and Lauscher is the German for ''eavesdropper'',
supplied the entire globe with them.
Local glass-makers were the first to have the idea
that balls might look cute on a Christmas tree, and it became the village's principal export,
with almost every house in the village converted into a small factory.
At its peak, 95% of Christmas-tree balls in America came from Lauscha.
Do you think Hitler's Christmas tree only had one ball hanging on it?
Or did he sort of...?
(Stephen ) It's highly likely. Highly likely. But there you are.
What Christmas tradition did American insurance companies
try to ban in the year 1908?
- (church bells ring) - Johnny?
I was given this thought earlier by something Phill said, and I think I've got this, actually.
They banned the placing of dimes, not sixpences, in Christmas puddings,
because too many people were choking.
No. It's an intelligent answer and it had, oddly, nothing to do with Wagner, again,
but it's not right. It's not right. No. It's not right.
Did you know that the first ever life-insurance policy was taken out,
I think, in about 1863?
And a man called... Was it Stanley Gibbons? No, he's the stamp bloke.
Anyway, he was called Gibbons,
and he insured his life for ?383 or something, for a year.
And he died four weeks short of the year,
so his family turned up to claim the first ever life-insurance policy,
and the underwriters - there were 16 underwriters - they all got together
and they decided that the only way they were gonna avoid paying this huge sum of money
was to define a year on their own terms.
And they decided that a year was 12 times four weeks,
because that's a month approximately. So they said no.
Strictly, by defining a year, he lived for the full term.
But they've changed, insurance companies, haven't they?
- Yes. - (Stephen ) Now... now they love to pay out.
And they say, ''Oh, to hell with the small print. Here's your money.'' If that's true... Yes?
I have an image of an early black-and-white film, a Christmas film.
- They had live candles all over the place. - Ah! Johnny, I smell five points. Quite right.
Chicago Hospital burned down in 1885, the whole hospital,
because of a candle on a Christmas tree.
Three separate Father Christmases died - and this isn't funny, by the way -
by bending down to pick up presents under the tree and their beards catching fire.
There's a Christmas to remember. You're that kid, Santa bends down, comes up:
''Aargh! Aargh!''
''Aargh!''
Now, when Paris - the city in France -
when it was under siege in 1870 from the Prussians, all the food ran out.
What Christmas dinner was improvised by Voisin's, the fashionable Parisian restaurant?
Ratatouille.
Now, there you are. That's an old Blackadder joke,
and oddly enough, you're absolutely right again. Rat.
- They had rat? - They had rat.
Well done. Ratatouille. They raided the zoos and the sewers
and they prepared things like consomme of elephant, literally,
braised kangaroo, antelope pte
and whole cat garnished with rats.
That's why Chinese cooking is so varied, cos during times of famine they improvise.
And there's a famous Chinese dish called ''three-squeak''.
What it is, is they get a pregnant rat and they wait for it to have its babies, little baby rats,
and the reason it's called ''three-squeak'' is cos it squeaks three times.
Once when you pick it up. (squeaks )
Once when you dip it in the chilli sauce. (squeak)
And once when you bite into it. (squeaks ) And it's called ''three-squeak''.
Oh, my goodness. Well done. Two points for that for fascinating information.
If you time it right, you can do the ''Birdie Song'', if all the family's going...
- (Stephen ) Excellent. - (John ) Can I try my... my pausing joke?
- Please do. - The late, lamented, great Sir John Gielgud
was directing a young actor in the West End once,
and the young actor was pausing a lot, as young actors tend to do.
And Gielgud said to him, ''Oh, stop. No, no.''
''No. no, you must never pause. Never pause in the West End.''
''I paused many, many years ago,
and during the silence I heard a voice from the third row go:
'Oh! You hideous beast! You've just come all over my umbrella!'''
(laughter)
That's very odd. That's fantastic.
Wonderful.
Time once again to bang our collective heads against the brick wall of understanding
in the quick-fire round they call General Ignorance.
Which is the odd one out here? Paris, London, Poland or banana?
- (bells jingle/church bells ring) - Phill got there first.
Poland and banana are both the odd ones out, Stephen,
because Down and Out in Poland and Banana would be a terrible book.
That's very true. Good thought. Yes, hello?
I think it's got something to do with Help the Aged.
They've got branches in Paris, London, Poland. Banana...?
Hitler never invaded or planned to invade Banana.
That's true. That's a very good answer. None of them is the odd one out is the answer.
Do you know why?
What kind of a hellish quiz is this?
- (Stephen ) Fair point. - What one's the odd one out? None of them!
Ha, ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha!
(laughter)
- (Stephen ) Hey, is that me? - That's you.
Oh, bugger you! I don't sound like that.
- Baa, baa, baa. - Baa.
- What is there that's called Christmas? - (John ) Islands. Where the bananas grow.
- (Stephen ) No. - Or don't grow.
- Where the Pope grows. - They're planning to grow.
They're all places in the Christmas Islands.
There's a place called London, a place called Paris,
a place called Poland, a place called Banana.
It's the largest atoll in the Pacific and has the fastest-growing population in the world, 7.7%.
How about that? Amazing. Now, what is the youngest age...? Think carefully.
What is the youngest age that a child can knock back a pint of mulled wine
or a couple of double brandies in a restaurant beer garden in the UK?
(car horns blare)
- 18. - (alarm bells )
- No. No, dear. No. - (bells tinkle)
- (Stephen ) Yes? - 12 if you met them on the internet.
(laughter and applause)
- (Alan ) Oh, dear. - (Stephen sighs )
You can't have double brandy in a pub unless you're 18.
- The answer is five years old. - (Sean ) Yeah?
- What? - (Stephen ) Five years old. Yes.
It's only illegal for children between five and 18
to consume alcoholic drinks in the bar - a place defined by the law
as chiefly or exclusively for the sale and consumption of alcoholic drinks.
Pub restaurants and gardens don't count,
provided the child has the drink bought by an adult.
They're not allowed at the bar. How does the child get the round in then?
(Stephen ) They don't. That's the beauty of being a child.
That's why the whole practice died out, because they wouldn't get a round.
Drink, drink, drink. Not you.
Drink, drink. Not you either.
Now, lastly, where does Santa Claus come from?
- (church bells ring) - Yes?
From St Nicholas. Saint Nicholas.
- (Stephen ) Yes. What place? - Bohemia, Czechoslovakia. No?
- Not quite, no. Any thoughts? - (Alan ) Russia?
- No. - (bells tinkle)
- He's an Aborigine. - No.
- (Alan ) Woking. - (Stephen ) No.
- Lapland. - (Phill) Bavaria.
Did you say Lapland? Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear, oh...
- And I saw North Pole on that other card. - Yes, so you're not going to say that either.
- Syria. Turkey. - (Stephen ) Yes!
- Bingo! - Quite right. Turkey, yes.
And that is the real Santa Claus, St Nicholas.
- (Turkish accent) Happy Christmas. - (Stephen ) Yeah, but he was...
Tzatziki. Vine leaves.
Sinterklaas, as they call him in the Netherlands, yes.
''Sinterklaas is aangekomt'' is their little song.
(laughter)
I'll give you some points if you can tell me where precisely our modern view,
as it is, of Father Christmas, comes from.
(church bells ring)
Does it derive from the Gemutlichkeit culture
that Prince Albert brought to Britain in the 1840s?
Again, you're just chiming with the thought that fills the room, but no.
- No, it's... - (laughter and applause)
The...
The... No, the Schleswig-Holstein Gemutlichkeit culture is not an issue here.
It is a very extraordinary thing. I want to take you to the year 1822.
Oh, when Schubert wrote the ''Unfinished Symphony''.
Something else happened. A poem was written which gave us,
for the first time ever printed or ever recorded as far as we know,
the idea of the white beard, the red coat, the stockings, the chimney,
presents on Christmas Eve, the whole thing. Americans still quote it every Christmas time.
- '''Twas the Night Before Christmas''. - '''Twas the Night Before Christmas''.
By Clement Clarke Moore, who was a professor of Hebrew.
The poem was called ''A Visit from St Nicholas''.
Off his face on laudanum, just sitting there:
(slurring) ''A big fat man with a beard and a red coat.''
(cackles )
''This is fantastic.''
- ''And he's got a sack full of Gripples.'' - (laughter)
''No, no, no, no. Presents, presents.''
It's almost beddy-byes, but not before our last treat,
the QI Christmas colouring competition which I announced earlier.
Gentlemen, can I have your trees please? Now, look. Johnny's is brilliant.
- That is minimalist from you there, Phill. - It's actually a very long way away.
- (Stephen ) Ah. Of course. - (laughter)
(applause)
We are very impressed. I'm particularly impressed, I have to say,
particularly impressed with Sean.
Alan, surprisingly, has fallen into the trap into which we all fall, which is a very odd one,
which is supposing that the branches go down.
We're going to ask Jamie to come on with a Christmas tree. There, look at that.
That's a beauty, isn't it?
- Thank you, Jamie. Yes. - (applause)
You'd think you could find a better one in the middle of the winter.
- The point is, the branches go up. - Was I holding it like that?
- (Stephen ) Were you? I think you were. - I'm so sorry.
So, I think, ladies and gentlemen, we have to agree the runaway winner from Johnny.
Look at that. Look at that, ladies and gentlemen.
(applause)
Children, it's time for the last sad little parcel of Uncle Stephen's final scores.
- I'm afraid in last place, Alan... - Hm?
It's Alan. Minus six.
- I'm so sorry. - (applause and cheering)
And next...
in third place, Phill Jupitus with five.
(applause)
And in second place with seven,
- it's Sean Lock, ladies and gentlemen. - (applause)
But...
four times better than that, our impressive runaway winner with 28 points,
- John Sessions. - (applause)
I'll leave you with this charming seasonal inquiry
made last Christmas by an elderly American couple
in the tourist office at Stratford-upon-Avon. True.
''The map is great, but do you think you could show us
the quickest route to Shakespeare's manger?''
- Merry Christmas, everyone. - (applause)