(Applause)
Well, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening
and a very hearty, cordial and warm welcome to Ql.
Tonight we're talking Cockney rhyming slang,
so without further tea for, let's have a butchers at our four bulletproofs.
- We have Phill Jupitus... - (Applause)
Bill Bailey...
Rory McGrath...
- and Alan Davies. - (Applause)
They're all three stops down from Plaistow,
but never mind, let's Georgie their Orientals
- lf you would please, Bill. - (Alan) What are you talking about?
You want me to, Ursula Andress me Jensen?
- (Stephen) No, we'll start with Phill. - Shall l Eartha my dingly?
# Henry the eighth l am, that's me #
- And Rory goes... - # Knees up Mother Brown
- # Knees up, Mother Brown # - And Bill goes...
# Bill Bailey, won't you please come on home
# Come home, Bill Bailey #
That's very clever what they've done there.
Has anyone ever pointed out that?
No one's ever pointed that out before!
- lt's the same name as your name. - Yes!
- And Alan. - # Chim chim-in-ey, chim chim-in-ey
# Chim chim cher-ee #
Now, tonight any flamencos you give in Pyong score Barney,
- and l'll also give you two Sundays... - What the (Beep) are you talking about?!
(Applause)
lt's Cockney rhyming slang. Any flamencos...
- Flamenco... - Dancers, answers.
ln Pyong...
- (Phill) Pyong Yang. - Slang.
Score Barney, rubble. Double.
- Yes! - l'll give you two Sunday roasts, posts?
Sunday joints, points, if at any nickel and dime, time,
you woman...
- Woman, woman who does, buzz. - (Phill) "Woman who does"?!
That's all l can think of.
Oh, we're doing middle-class Cockney rhyming slang!? A woman who does...
(Applause)
(Alan) A woman who does...
Want to lubricant me?
- Lubricant gel, tell. - (Alan) Lubricant gel?
Who can tell me what l'm on about.
lt's a whole new genre of "argot".
Yes, a Labrador groomer, rumour.
What would your pantomimes translate as?
Pantomime dames, names. Phill Jupitus is Cockney rhyming slang for hypochondriac.
lll? Dubious.
lll dubious, very good, that's good, l like it.
- Rory? - There are two official Rory McGrath's,
there's having a laugh, Rory McGrath. He's having a Rory.
And l'll have a Rory, that's a half.
(Stephen) And Bill?
Er, well, the only thing l can think of might be scaly.
You know, your skin's gone a bit Bill Bailey, scaly.
- That's good. - You've got a bit of an Arthur Ash
on your Roberta. Er, you know, it's gone a bit Bill Bailey.
- What does Alan Davies gives us? - lt only really rhymes with Mavis.
So unless you know someone called Mavis - oh, there's Alan Davies.
- Mavis is the old word for a thrush. - (Stephen) Yeah.
So you can say, l've got a bit of Alan.
- (Stephen) Yes, that's true. - lt's gone a bit Bill Bailey.
For Sunday lunch, you could ask for several types of Alan Davies - gravies.
How many different types of gravy do you know?
Well, it's good to go into a sushi bar and say,
"bring me several types of Japanese wine and don't get all sake."
- But, um... - (Phill) Oh my God!
Well, but what is the point of rhyming slang?
Why did it arise, for points?
Wasn't it to deceive very thick policemen?
- Yes, it's true. - Criminals in pubs sit around,
and in case there was a copper or a nark listening, they'd say,
"We're planning a, um... a snobbery."
"Oh yeah, what... what are we planning to snob?"
"Er, we thought a Jodrell."
"A Jodrell? Oh, which Jodrell?" "Barclays, Lewisham High Street."
Do you know where the word Cockney comes from?
A cock's egg. Something you can't trust, i.e. an egg laid by a cock.
So cock and ey, and the "ey" is the egg.
Yes, a cocken-ey was a cockerel's egg.
- How do you know if you're a Cockney? - The sounding of the bells.
- That's not a trick question. - (Bill) ls it a trick?
- Where is the sound of it? - The Strand?
Well done. lt is not in the area of London called Bow.
- lt's St Mary-le-Bow Church. - St Mary-le-Bow Church.
People use them without knowing, like, if you say scarper, that's rhyming slang.
- Yeah, but is it, Stephen? - (Gasps)
A lot of us think it comes from escappare, the old Spanish meaning to flee.
- (Stephen) Escape. - Yeah.
Yeah, or is it Scapa Flow, go?
Opinion is, as you rightly say, divided.
Where do you think My Old Dutch? lt's actually Duchess of Fife.
- (Phill) Really? - Yeah. Anchor?
- Butter? - (Stephen) Nutter.
But there's a more modern one which means you don't believe something.
Anchor Spreadable, incredible.
lf you do well in a degree what do you get?
(Rory) A Geoff Hurst.
And an upper second or a 2:1 is an Attila.
- And you've got a Desmond. - A Desmond is the famous one for a 2:2...
And l'm afraid l got a Richard.
- A Richard? - A Richard lll.
They call it a Douglas these days in honour of
the manifestly marvellously charismatic and memorable Douglas Hurd.
One thing that Cockney's have a taste for is rock salmon,
which is in fact dog fish.
But that brings us neatly on to pin the taste bud on the cat fish.
You each have a cat fish
and you each have some little stickers.
You have to find out where they go.
- Not just in its mouth then? - l've hypnotised mine.
l've put some on its little things, there you are, just in case it might taste with those.
lt's something to get on with while we get onto the next question.
Would a cat fish come out of the pond
and try and get in your bedroom at night by scratching on the window?
- lt... - (Miaows)
Look, this is not a kindergarten,
l'm not going to sit here while you get on with handicrafts
and l have to answer fatuous questions!
- Please, sir, can l do plasticine instead? - (Stephen) No.
Anyway, now, sticking to our sea theme,
how is Cherokee pronounced in the Cherokee language?
- # Come home, Bill Bailey # - Oh, no!
- (Alan) You can borrow mine if you like? - Can l?
# Chim chim-in-ey, chim chim-in-ey Chim chim cher-ee #
There is no word for Cherokee in the Cherokee language.
(# Shave and a haircut)
l know that the sound T-S-H, which is the "ch" sound phonetically.
Like, if we pronounced the word "much", it would be the same as M-U-T-S-H,
A lot of languages can't pronounce it, the Chinese can't pronounce ch,
so their word for tea, which we call cha, from the Chinese is Tsa.
R's and L's are interchangeable outside Western Europe.
- Absolutely right. - And K's can be voiced
so you could say that Cherokee can be pronounced "Tsoi."
lf you want a proparoxytonic stress.
A paroxytonic stress is "tsoyogi." Or Tsoi if you want an oxytonic stress.
Whichever stress you want, ladies and gentlemen.
l'm suffering from proparoxytonic stress, actually.
l have to give Rory a lot of points
because "Tsalagi" is exactly how they pronounce Cherokee.
(Applause)
They cannot, as you say, pronounce "Ch" or "Rr",
so it becomes "Tsal".
A man felt very sorry for the Cherokees,
because they had given a great service to the American Army
and they couldn't send letters home because they had no written language.
And they were called Cherokee by the Cree, it meant people with another language.
Their name for themselves was "Aniyounwiya"
which means "the principal people".
But the man who founded the language, gave it to them,
he decided on 85 different "leaves", he called them, which were these letters,
and within a year most of the entire nation of the Cherokee were literate.
And his name was Sequoyah, which means pig's foot.
Maybe it was pink, maybe he had been injured, no one knows.
But giant sequoia trees, as you may well know,
are the heaviest living things ever to have existed on earth.
Apart from Fern Britton.
- (Audience) Ohh. - That's cruel.
They can weigh more than 6,000 tonnes
and the tallest are as high as a 26 storey building.
Their bark is up to four foot thick,
but their seeds are one 3,000th of an ounce each.
Approximately one billionth of the weight of the tree.
So, the question is, how does the US government look after its sequoia groves?
Er, lions and tigers are let loose
to roam the surrounding areas.
Do they try and win the hearts and minds of the sequoias?
- What a lovely thought. - What's going to happen?
- Do people try and steal them? - ln the 50's and 60's
they very nearly died out in their native...
- (Alan) California. - Correct.
They weren't breeding and no one could understand why.
- Was it forest fires? - Yes, give the man a big bonus!
(Applause)
The United States Forestry Commission, their fire department, started in 1905,
thinking they were doing good, stopped forest fires,
and the sequoias need forest fires every five, ten, fifteen years, in order to breed
because they clear all the other trees, they survive them
and they clear air and space and light for these tiny, tiny little seedlings
- to bear this enormous redwood fruit. - How does that work then?
Because they must grow really fast.
Or do they grow underground and then pop up?
They are the fastest growing trees on earth.
While we're talking now, one will just go...
l had a neighbour who got annoyed with some leylandii that l didn't even plant,
He went mental over them, so if l can stick some sequoias
in the back garden, without him knowing
and then, as an excuse ten years later, set light to his garden, l'm quids in.
That's very good indeed.
They don't grow as fast as bamboo but bamboo isn't a tree is it?
- lt's a grass. - Well done.
(Bill) lt's an insect. - You've learned little one.
Little?!
Even faster growing is kudzu,
k-u-d-z-u we would spell it.
lt's the only plant that's measured in miles per hour in its growth.
lts shoots grow 60 feet in a single season.
lt's a vine, it's a member of the pea family grown in China and Japan.
Anyway, the trees also rely on the heat of the fires
to open their tough seed cones, that exposes the bare soil.
Now coal is made from ancient forests.
Have any of you used coal to brush your Bexleys?
# Henry the eighth, l am, that's me #
- Never. - (Alarm)
Oh, hello. Oh hang on.
(Alan) Were you doing Bexleyheath?
- Yes, teeth. - lt's Hampstead's usually.
Stephen, Stephen. Oh, Stephen, my love, Stephen,
the toothpaste is so sparkling white, how can it have coal in it?
lt doesn't. lt's the brush.
- What are the bristles made of? - Coal!
Well, they're made of something which is a mixture of coal and air and water.
Oh, it's all easy when l've set the siren off, isn't it?
Are we talking about some complicated hydrocarbon
which is a derivative of a petroleum? (Mumbles)
Not petroleum, no, coal.
lt's fossil fuel, which is coal.
Toothbrushes used to be alive millions of years ago.
lt's a substance that man has developed which he uses to...
- Nylon. - ls the right answer, well done.
(Rory) lt was developed in New York and London at the same...
You get points taken away, that's not why it's called nylon.
- Oh! - (Bill) Ah-ha ha!
Oh, you did fall into that one, Rory, thank you.
lt was originally called "No Run", by its inventor, he was called Carothers.
Du Pont wanted to call it nylon, though they didn't trademark the name,
you can use the word nylon, unlike another of their famous products.
- Used to describe human characteristics. - (Bill) Tef... lon.
(Stephen) Teflon exactly, non-stick Teflon is a Du Pont invention.
lt's a thought that you could just get a new head for your brush.
You could have a handle made for you,
perhaps perfectly moulded for your own grip.
Yeah, so you use ivory... Oh, no, hang on.
But yes...
- Rhino horn. - Yes, or panda fur or...
- The beak of an osprey. - (Stephen) Yes.
Stephen Fry's all endangered species bathroom cabinet.
- l'll use this coelacanth to scratch my back. - (Stephen) Cheeky.
Poor old Carothers gave us neoprene He was a Harvard professor at age 28.
- Wet suits. - Wet suits are made of neoprene.
He invented that when he was a young man and then committed suicide
- by taking saliva. - (Rory) Taking what?
- Did l say saliva? - (Rory) You said saliva.
A Freudian blow-job - er, slip.
The poor man Carothers took cyanide
and killed himself and obviously that's very funny.
Why did he take cyanide, had he run out of saliva?
"Where's the bottle of spit l've been saving?"
Oh dear, l've made a bit of an arse of myself.
You've made me laugh. One thing we can't tell
is whether the Laughing Cavalier ever brushed his teeth,
because his mouth is shut. But he's pleased about something.
What's he on? What's he on?
He's on the wall of the Wallace collection in Manchester Square.
- That is literally true. - He was on nitrous oxide,
which is laughing...
- You're close, he's actually on cannabis. - You're kidding.
He's spent eight hours doing that to his moustache, "Yeah, that's really nice".
l'm being literally true, he is on cannabis.
Are you saying that he's sitting on something made of hemp, like a cushion?
That painting is painted on canvas
and the word canvas comes from the Greek cannabis.
ln fact the word hemp also derives from the Greek word cannabis.
lt seems odd but the old Swedish is "hanap" from cannabis
and "hanap" became hemp.
But of course the cannabinoids, that make one apparently very merry
and then for some reason want to eat a lot of Lion Bars is, er...
is actually very, very little of it in that. Modern canvas, in case you're tempted
- to smoke... - Very over-priced.
...ls a) over-priced and is made out of cotton or linen,
so will not give you any kind of high.
Returning to our matters of special interest -
Cockneys - what was the capital of England in the year 1381?
- (# Shave and a haircut) - (Stephen) Rory?
lt's got to be Winchester or Chelmsford.
Oh, it is indeed Chelmsford. Very good for knowing that.
lt was only the capital for five days.
But then, Rory,
apart from being a very knowledgeable young man,
well two out of three, um...
you were author of a series called Chelmsford 1-2-3. So you should know.
During the time we were writing about, Colchester was the capital.
- Called Camulodunon then. - What was Chelmsford called?
- Caesaromagus. - Beauvais, in France, was also called that.
lt's the only town in England named after Julius Caesar.
Charles Dickens called it the dullest and most stupid spot on the face of the earth.
Why was it capital of England? Richard ll.
- The Peasant's Revolt? - The Peasant's Revolt was going on.
He moved away from London because Wat Tyler was coming...
(Stephen) He defeated the peasant's revolt at Billericay.
First ever factory making what? ln the world?
- Radios. - Radios, well done, five points.
Marconi set up shop in Chelmsford.
Chelmsford has the largest burns unit in Europe.
Oddly enough, the MP for Chelmsford West is called Simon Burns,
though because he got a Douglas at university, he is known as?
- Third Degree Burns. - (All groan)
- Hey. - (Cackles)
lt is now time, fortunately, for General lgnorance,
so it's fingers on buzzers.
Now, what happened to Barbra Streisand's moustache?
# Henry the eighth, l am, that's me #
Yentl.
- She played the boy in Yentl? Did she... - Oh, yeah!
lt's in a display case in Planet Hollywood.
lf l were to tell you that she ate it and then poohed it out.
(Bill) Disgusting. (Rory) l want to see that video.
l want to tell you that Carol Vorderman also ate her moustache and excreted it.
What's more, l happen to know that Alan Davies did the same thing.
l did it, you and everyone in the audience did it, and everyone at home...
- But whoa, whoa, look, oi. - (Bill) Yeah...
You've already eaten your moustache and poohed it out.
- l beg to differ... - You've grown another.
- l've grown another one? - Yes.
When you're a baby in the womb you have a full 'tasche.
Groucho Marx number and a cigar.
Hair starts on the upper lip, then the eyebrows
and then it covers the whole body,
and it's called lanugo, as in woolly.
And then, during the last weeks of pregnancy,
the baby sheds all its little wool and eats it.
- (Phill) Mm. - lt does, honestly.
And the hair, along with mucus and bile and bits of intestine
and cells shed from the skin.
Oh, wow, can l have the recipe again, Stephen?
And amniotic fluid and cells form little baby's first stool.
We, er, yes, we laminated it and, er...
- Put it in the baby book? - Yes.
Baby's first little turd.
- Wh-Why Barbra Streisand - (Stephen) Why Barbra Streisand?
Why not, she's a person, it just... Barbra Streisand ate her moustache and poohed it,
it seemed amusing to me. Now, from one shocking image to another,
why shouldn't l strip Alan naked and cover him with gold paint?
# Henry the eighth, l am, that's right #
You win your Oscar properly like everyone else.
(Applause)
- (Alan) ln the film - (# Shave and a haircut)
- ln the film she died from it. - She died from it. So it would kill you?
- (Alarm) - lt happened in the film...
the small of her back needed to be left exposed so she could breathe through it.
Exactly, that's right, and it's a complete load of old toss.
- Like everything in James Bond. - lan Fleming does make things up.
The skin does not breathe. You'd get very, very hot and couldn't sweat.
Any other lan Fleming peculiar opinions?
You can't kill someone with a flying bowler hat, that's rubbish.
Yes. There are extraordinary ones.
At one point he says homosexuals can't whistle.
- (Blows) - (Phill) Why, what would he?
Also, Tiger Tanaka in You Only Live Twice tells him,
when they go to see sumo wrestling, he says, " Mr Bond, at the age of 14,
"junior sumos are taught that they can cause their testicles to re-enter the body
"via the inguinal canal from which they originally descended."
And it's just nonsense. l mean it's just, you know.
No, it's fun for the sumos to give it a go though.
"He wins by pushy back inny."
l think it was From Russia With Love
there's a scene where they go to this gypsy encampment
and two girls have been fighting over a man, and he says to Bond,
"Yes, they will settle it the gypsy way."
Which is just a lot of, grr! lt's just like a bundle in a car park.
- Like a normal fight but near caravans. - Yes.
And at one point, she stops and sells someone a little bit of heather.
Grr! Lucky heather? Grr!
- Fingers on buzzers. - (Bill) Oh no.
How many senses do you have?
# Chim chim-in-ey, chim chim-in-ey Chim chim cher-ee #
(Bill) l sense a buzzer coming.
- Five, obviously. - (Alarm)
- (Stephen) No! - Six, seven, eight, nine, four, three,
two, one, ten, eleven.
Nine, anything between nine and 21. Just think... Aristotle said five.
Seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching.
Right. What about balance? Hunger? Thirst? Why aren't they senses?
- Feedback from the world. Pressure. - Disappointment.
There are lots of other ways. Feeling heat. Where do you feel heat?
You don't touch heat. So there is "thermoception".
"Nociception", - pain. "Equilibrioception" - balance...
So why do they teach me that there are five?
(Laughter)
Aristotle said there were four elements, earth, air, fire and water,
but we don't believe that now.
- (Rory) l do. - l'd go along with that.
"Proprioception" - when you close your eyes and move your hand, you know where it is.
- What about the sixth sense? - Back then they only thought of five senses.
So what, it should be the 22nd sense?
- How are you doing that? - l don't know!
lt's like some strange power! Where is my arm? l don't know.
l knew this bloke, he fell asleep drunk,
and sometimes your arm does something weird? And he fell asleep like that
and he woke up and he went like that
and his arm dropped down and he broke his nose.
- (Applause) - (Stephen) Very bad luck.
This man mowed his lawn with one of those things that whiz round.
- (Rory) Lawn mowers? - And he was in open-toed sandals
and he cut his toe off - but, the thing is, it flew up and took his eye out.
l mean... why is it so funny? l mean... - (Applause)
A toe being cut off is kind of, "Ohh". Quite funny, but it's...
but the fact that the toe should just... like that. lt's somehow...
"How did the lawn mowing go?" "Don't ask."
Now, lastly, who's the oldest man in the Bible?
# Chim chim-in-ey, chim chim-in-ey Chim chim cher-ee #
- Noah? - No, not Noah, he was quite old.
# l'm Henry the eighth, l am, that's right #
- Methuselah. - (Alarm)
- (Rory) You didn't fall for that one, did you? - l fell into the bear pit.
- How old was Noah? - Noah was 950.
Older than Adam then?
He was older than Adam, oh yes. Adam was 930 years old.
- How old was Methuselah? - Methuselah was 969.
Well, that just sucks, why do we go, "He's old as Methuselah?"
Well, because Enoch... is still alive.
Enoch never died. Enoch was 365 when, it quite specifically says in the Bible,
that the Lord "took him".
God decided not to give him death because he was a good man.
- St Paul wrote about it, he said... - Stephen...
- bring him to me. - (Laughter)
On Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? he'd be a good phone-a-friend.
Wouldn't it be great if you phoned up - (Deep voice) " Hang on, l'll see if he's in.
"Enoch, it's your friend."
Well, French philosopher Descartes believed that all humans
could live as long as the patriarchs, as those old Bible figures are known.
And he believed he was right on the brink
of inventing a way to make us live for at least 1,000 years
when he died, aged 54.
So there you are. That would make Enoch 5,387 years old.
Finally, to the pin the taste bud on the catfish competition.
Show your work, please.
Wouldn't it be lovely to eat something and taste it right along your body? Mm.
Catfish do have a lateral line.
And a kind of scattergun... Oh, you missed one.
Ah, the end of the dorsal fin, eh?
Yeah. Catfish.
Alan's craft work has really come on this term.
But the closest is probably Rory, because the fact is
there is no part of a catfish which is not covered in thousands of taste buds.
He is basically a swimming tongue. And that is rather close. Hold yours up.
That is rather close. That is eerie how close that is.
- l'm very surprised. - (Applause)
Which brings us to the pancake of the Bobby's. Um, and, er... Which is?
- Bobby Moore's. - Yes! Pancake, batter...
- Toss. Pancakes... - The matter of the scores.
l don't think l'd ever really cut it as a Cockney, would l?
Let's have a look at the British Home Stores.
- ln first place with three points, Bill Bailey. - Oh!
(Applause)
ln second place, with minus one, Rory McGrath.
(Applause)
ln third place with minus twelve, Phill Jupitus.
(Applause)
But our runaway not winner this week, Alan Davies with minus nineteen.
(Applause)
So, it's Hi-de-hi and baked potato from Ql.
(Laughter)
My Tom Hanks go to Phill, Rory, Bill and Alan.
(Applause)
l'll leave you with this castle and fort on the origins of London slang.
ln the early years of the 20th century, Meccano, was sold in two kinds
labelled box-standard and box-deluxe.
And that, or so they say and persuade me
is where we get the two phrases "bog standard" and "dog's bollocks".
Language is strange but she's my mistress. Goodnight.
(Applause)
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