(Applause)
(Cheering)
(Whistling)
Well, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello,
and welcome to Ql, or "Da Jia Mun Hao" as they say in Chinese,
because tonight's menu has a very distinctive Chinese flavour.
So let me introduce our four mandarins of mirth. Ha-ha.
Phill Jupitus.
David Mitchell.
Bill Bailey.
And Alan Davies.
So let's hear your gongs, gentlemen, please. Phill goes...
(Gong sounds twice)
(Stephen) Oh, twice.
- David goes... - (Harp flourish)
- That's lovely. - Bill goes...
(# Shrill singing)
And Alan goes...
# Ying tong, ying tong, ying tong, ying tong
# Ying tong iddle l po #
(Stephen) Oh, of course he does. Oh dear me.
Actually l've been doing a little research on Chinese,
and l have your Chinese names, as it were,
Alan Davies, for instance, is "A Lun Dai Bi Si".
- Allo Daba? - (Stephen) Yeah.
Which means "lazy great slave child".
Erm... Or, rather bizarrely,
"two dozen blue combs".
l'm, interestingly, "Si Fen Fi Lai",
meaning "stiff fragrant husband come",
literally true.
Or "private suite bend over pipe". Erm...
Bill, "shabby plum shellfish texture".
"Low hedge, sad hedge", That's "Bi Li Bai Li".
Of course, "Bi Li Bei Li".
Phill Jupitus is "Fu Li Zhu Pi Ta",
"vulgar dwarf skin couch".
- Nice. - (Stephen) Yeah.
And you've also got the hedge, because of the Li, of course,
so you're "bend over hedge master ruffian foetus."
(Stephen) Not bad.
And "Dai Bi Mi Chao" is "slack slave rotten dynasty".
Or "Fry borrows narrow spoon".
Now the Chinese are amongst the most inventive people on earth,
the first to make silk, paper, brandy, matches, bells,
gunpowder, wheelbarrows, kites, compasses, calendars, crossbows
and, of course, china.
So name something beginning with C that was invented in Corby.
Chow mein.
No. Nice thought, though.
(Gong)
The Rank Organisation.
(Stephen) Hey!
(Bill) Steel, was it something in steel?
(Stephen) A lot of steel, yes.
- There are lots and lots of Scotsmen. - Very true. Do you know why?
Because they all came and moved there to get jobs.
About 40% of the people are Scottish.
There's a Celtic supporters club and a Rangers supporters club.
lt's the second largest Rangers supporters club in the world.
And there's also the Rockingham raceway, racetrack.
- These are the things l know of Corby. - (Stephen) He's good. You see...
Could this be anything to do at all with the sainted trouser press?
- (Stephen) Ah! No! - (Alarm)
Argh! Argh!
We were hoping someone would say it. No.
The sainted, as you say, trouser press was invented by a man called Corby
and has nothing to do with the great town of Corby.
John Corby in Windsor invented it in 1930.
Can l just say, it does work absolutely beautifully if you need to keep, er...
- food warm in a hotel room. (Bill) Yes.
- (Alan) Platter foods mainly. - Yeah.
- No, a panini, held for hours. - (David) Oh, yes.
The new ones have got a little flip-out ironing board
- and a mini iron. - (Stephen) The Executive.
The Executive, yes. The Hodgkiss 4000.
Something beginning with C was invented in Corby?
No, we can't find anything. We were hoping you would say Corby trouser press.
- Crisps? - Crisps, it's funny you should say crisps.
- l mean, they weren't invented there. - They are eaten there, though, aren't they?
(Stephen) Yeah.
ln 1980 they closed the steelworks,
and 11,000 Corbyites were thrown out of work.
But within little over a year, 15,000 new jobs were created,
including at Golden Wonder.
lts main claim to fame, of course, is that it's the largest town in Europe
not to have a railway station.
(Stephen) Gasps. (Phill) Did they ever have one?
Well, they did, it was closed in 1963,
and they claim it will open again in about 2010.
Surely that'll mean Corby will lose its only claim to fame?
- True. - lt hasn't got any steel,
it's just crisps and the no station.
- 1963 did it close? - '63.
(Alan) You remember getting off a train there in '64
lt'll re-open and the first thing they'll say,
"We apologise for the late arrival of..."
(Stephen) They do have another claim to fame though.
What's the connection between Corby and an enormous amount of porridge
found on Mars?
Well, that would be definite evidence of life on Mars
- if they found a bowl of porridge. - (Stephen) Yes.
- (Bill) And then three bears, perhaps. - Yeah.
And then the probe would be able to determine
whether it was too hot or too cold, or indeed just right.
- Just right, yes. - ls it the Scottish space programme?
"We'll send them porridge to Mars."
Cast your mind back to June-ish 1969,
what happened then? Big famous thing.
(Phill) The old moon landing.
Now, in the 230-odd thousand miles from earth to moon,
there's a lot of boring time in which
the three sitting in their podule are chatting to Mission Control.
Houston said, "And in Corby, England, an lrishman, John Coyle,
"has won the world's porridge-eating championship
"by consuming 23 bowls of instant oatmeal
"in a ten-minute time limit. Over."
Which is the actual transcript.
And Apollo 11 said, "l'd like to enter Aldrin
"in an oatmeal-eating contest next time.
"He's on the 19th bowl. Roger."
Which deathless conversation led to NASA getting rather obsessed
with Corby and porridge,
and so it named a crater on Mars Corby.
lf there is any life on Mars, aren't they going to be angry
that everywhere has been named
according to some NASA-based in-joke system?
The rules that govern the naming of craters on Mars,
they have to be named after towns in the world
with a population below a hundred thousand.
The ones beginning with C include Cadiz, Cairns...
(Alan) Cadeeth. (Stephen) Cadeeth, thank you.
Cadiz.
(Chuckles) Minus five. Erm...
And, er, Cairns. (Australian accent) How do l say Cairns?
(Alan) Kiiins. (Stephen) Oh, Kiiins.
- Canberra, Canberra. - "Kiiinbruh".
Er, Charleston. How are you going to say Charleston
- in your best Southern Belle accent? - Charstnn.
- Charrstnnn. - lt's like a drunk aunt, isn't he?
Erm, and...
and Crewe.
- Crewe. - (Stephen) Crewe, right.
Do they have, when you go into Crewe,
is there a sign that says twinned with a crater on Mars?
Was that photo taken from the moon, or is that taken from Mars?
Cos the earth's probably too big, isn't it?
Well, it could be a graphic image, and if it is a graphic image,
whenever you see on the news graphic representations of Mars, it usually says,
"courtesy NASA JPL", jet propulsion lab.
But by a weird coincidence that only happens in the land of Ql,
the name of the senior graphic programmer at NASA
is Corby Waste. That is his name.
We're all gonna live on Mars in the end.
Are we?
Are you sure about that?
(Bill) Yeah.
That 1950s boys' adventure book isn't necessarily the truth.
l didn't get it from there. l got it from Channel 5.
- Open your desk. - (Alan) They said the sun...
(Bill) Wait a minute, you can get Channel 5?
- (Stephen) That is you. - That's me?
(Stephen) That's an Alan Potato Head.
(Stephen) l don't know.
l watched this documentary and they said, eventually the sun will explode
or implode or something, and everything will be gone.
- (Stephen) That won't help Mars, will it? - lncluding earth.
On the way out we have to stop at Mars.
Oh, l thought you meant there was a services there.
There'll be someone trying to get you to join the RAC in the car park.
Humans will leave this planet, Stephen, they will.
The wise one has spoken, ladies and gentlemen.
There we were in space, near Mars, on the crater Corby.
Now, porridge was invented, in fact, in China.
The city of Qian'an, spelt queue-ee-nan,
but pronounced "chinan", in China,
is about the same size as Corby, you can see it behind us,
and is also, by coincidence, the site of one of the country's largest steelworks.
But what quite interesting material do they make their houses from?
- (# Shrill singing) - (Stephen) Yes?
l don't know, is it dinosaur eggs?
l'm almost inclined to tear up the real answer and say yes, but...
- Oh, cos l've got one. - A Chinese dinosaur egg?
Yes, it was a birthday present from my wife.
Every evening, Bill, four hours on the egg, just in case.
l'm thinking about taking it abroad, you know.
Taking it through the airport, you know, see if l can get it scanned for free,
just put it through.
And somebody goes, "My God! What the?"
l thought of doing that when the tortoise was ill.
lt's a stone, it's fossil, obviously it's stone,
l thought it was askull at first, when l opened it,
l thought, "That's a bit of a weird present, but, er, l'll go along with it."
"Yeah, great!"
And they're huge and they make very good building blocks.
Well, it wasn't as gibberingly drivellingly stupid an answer
- as it first sounded, was it? - (Bill) No.
No, it's not that, it is a very famous Chinese thing
- that these houses are constructed of. - (Alan) Bamboo.
- (Alarm) - Oh dear, not bamboo, no.
- Oh, oh, oh! Sir, sir! - (Gong)
Bootleg Coldplay CDs.
- lt's not. - (Alan) Bits of the Great Wall.
(Stephen) Yes, it's the right answer, help yourself to ten points, absolutely right.
(Bill) Oh, well. Well done.
Yeah, it's a rather sad thing, this Great Wall of China,
it's disappearing, there's only 20 per cent of it left.
(Phill) Where has it gone?
Well, people have just cut bits off to build pigsties
and walled barns, and farmers just take bits,
cos it's handy material.
The Gobi desert is encroaching upon the Great Wall.
(Alan) ls it? (Stephen) Yeah, unfortunately.
- How rude. - (Stephen) l know, l know.
(Bill) How does a desert encroach?
Sort of like, you sort of look away and then...
(Stephen) lt plays grandmother's footsteps.
l'm sure that wasn't there, anyway...
lt's the same way you get the armrest on a train.
They should convert it into flats or something, you know, something useful.
- (Stephen) Wouldn't that be brilliant? - lf they converted it into flats, look,
it's thick enough for flats, you just need to knock a few windows either side,
and you could probably have, four or five hundred thousand flats all the way along,
and then people would look after their own bit with window boxes and everything.
Or a retail opportunity, the Great Mall of China would probably do it.
But, no. But there you are.
Points all round to everybody who deserves them, and none to those who don't.
Now, what do we have Thomas Crapper to thank for?
(All) Yes...
You're so wary these days.
Come on, you're a new boy, David, yes.
He invented the flush lavatory.
- (Alarm) - Ah!
My mother and family thank you for saying lavatory and not toilet,
but it's not true. The Chinese did, of course. Who else?
- But he did invent the ball cock. - Ball cock.
The ball... cock.
Sorry, l don't know why that's funny, it just is.
Sorry, but it's funny to say ball... cock.
So, er...
Yes, l learnt at the University of Rowan Atkinson, me.
Anyway, yes, 206 BC there was a flush lavatory
- from the Han dynasty. - Bet it wasn't any good.
l bet we're talking about a bucket on a shelf
that you poke with a stick, aren't we, and it falls on you?
lt had a seat, an armrest and a system of pipes for flushing.
But the weird thing is, the verb "to crap" was used as early as 1846,
and Crapper was born in 1836,
so it's a kind of coincidence.
Or maybe it's something called nominative determinism,
which is where if you're called Mr Bun,
it increases your chances of becoming a baker.
(David) That's why you run that caff.
That's why l run a fish and chip shop on the side.
- Thank you. - (Applause)
Excellent, well, the flush toilet, invented in China.
The Chinese also invented loo paper.
Now name three more Chinese inventions, that's all you have to do.
(Alan) Pot Noodle.
(Bill) Whispers.
(Stephen) Very good. (Alan) Chess.
(Stephen) Chess is good. (Alan) Acupuncture.
- Acupuncture's obviously very much one. - (David) Fireworks.
- Fireworks, good one. - Little tinfoil cartons with a cardboard lid.
But things they didn't invent are quite interesting.
They didn't invent the rickshaw, an American invented the rickshaw.
Chop suey is an American invention.
Was the rickshaw invented by a bloke called Rick Shaw?
- (Stephen) That would be good. - That would be great, cos you grow up
to do what your name is, you know.
His name was Jonathan Scobie.
Oh, l'd much rather be pulled around on a Scobie.
Fortune cookies are also American.
l wish they'd be a bit more honest. You know, snap,
"With the amount of MSG you've just had, a massive coronary is moments away."
Do you know why MSG was developed? Monosodium glutamate.
- Why it was? - (Stephen) Yeah.
- Do you know about umami? - Umami?
(David) Oh, it's the other flavour. (Stephen) lt's the other flavour.
There's salt, sour,
- bitter and sweet and umami. - (Phill) Umami?
- Yes, umami. Not uvavu... - ls that the noise you make
when you eat it? "Ooh, Mammy!"
They say you have it in... Parmesan cheese has umami,
that meaty savouriness called umami.
Would a Scotch egg have umami?
ln that gas that it releases when you bite through, you know,
we don't know what it is, it doesn't occur naturally in the atmosphere.
lt's the gas between egg and sausage in a Scotch egg.
lt's a bit like the dry-roast peanut gas, isn't it?
They have a man at Golden Wonder, farts in a bag for you.
Real Chinese inventions include the abacus, chess,
the decimal system, drilling for oil, fireworks,
the fishing reel, flame-thrower,
the helicopter, the horse collar, the iron plough, lacquer,
the mechanical clock, hot-air balloons,
negative numbers, the parachute, printmaking, relief maps,
rudders, seismographs, stirrups, the suspension bridge,
the umbrella, the water pump and whisky.
Now, what was the name of the Dalmatian that discovered China?
- (David) ls it Marco Polo? - Yes, Marco Polo.
- l thought that might have been a... - Very good, well done.
He came from Dalmatia, he was born probably Marco Pilic,
or Marko Pili, which means?
Chicken, Mark Chicken was his name.
A lot of people thought he was Dalmatian, he was actually lrish.
He was "Mark O'Polo. Hello!"
l was in a pub quiz team once, very much making up the numbers...
No, no.
My friends were in this team and they were in a pub in Kennington
and they were coming from Croydon. Anyway, they got lost and they were late,
and one of them said, "Cor, l feel like Marco Polo coming up here."
And l said, "Who's that, then?"
And they all looked at me... l was joking, l know who it is,
l just thought it would be funny, as a pub quiz team,
be funny to say, "Who's that, then?"
There was a deathly hush.
l bet they're in despair watching this show.
(Stephen) Yes.
Wouldn't it be great to walk into a pub with him, though, with Fry on your team.
"Yeah, and this is Barry from down the road. Yeah, he does look like him."
And Fry would be there having to fake his way in the pub.
"Oh, blimey."
(Bill) Giving it away by swearing in Latin.
(Stephen) Ahhh...
Mastemone! Mastemone!
So, anyway, hasting on,
Marco Polo, otherwise known as Marko Pilic,
was born in Korcula in Dalmatia in 1254,
then a protectorate of Venice, which of course,
sticking like porridge to our C theme,
made him a Croatian.
Now a group of Croatian mercenaries invented something
which no successful Chinese businessman, or any other kind of businessman,
- would want to be without. What is it? - (Alan) The attaché case.
(Bill) Attaché case.
Do you know, l mean, you're not a million miles away.
(Bill) The mini bar.
Well, that's a little further away.
(Alan) Five minutes freeview on your hotel porn.
That should be enough, shouldn't it?
- (Bill) Not the trouser press? - (Alarm)
Who said? What? He? Who? Trouser press, did you say?
Oh dear. He said it... (mumbles)... like that.
(Alan) No businessman would want to be without it.
- The tie. - (Stephen) A tie, yes.
- ls it? - (Stephen) Yes.
- The Croatians invented the tie. - (Applause)
Fantastic.
Yep. The Croatian for Croatia is "Hrvat"...
(Alan) Hang on a minute, who's that?
That's not a businessman.
Well, the Croatian for Croatia is "Hrvat".
From which the word cravat comes from, exactly.
Cravat is Croat in fact.
And yes, in the court of Louis Xlll of France,
there were Croatian mercenaries who wore this neckgear,
which the French courtiers thought was rather...
(French accent) Oh, l will wear this also, and...
(French accent) Did they not speak in their own language?
They spoke in a crazy French accent.
What kind of mercenary wears a cravat?
(Effeminate) "Gimme me your money, l'll fight your war."
How many ways do you think there are to tie a tie?
- How many different knots? - There are hundreds.
l know from the Cub Scouts there's at least 24.
- There's something like 283 ways. - No, it was only 85 different knots.
The four well-known ones, the standard one,
the Windsor, the half-Windsor and...
- (Alan) And the footballer. - The footballer, yes.
lt's somehow wider than their head.
Modelled by Frank Lampard.
So, erm, ties.
Now we know, of course, that Croatia really means "tie land".
Ho-ho, do you see?
Another prerequisite, of course, aside from ties, for modern commerce
is a regular dosage of caffeine.
Can you tell me what are coffee tights?
- Hmm, coffee tights? - Coffee tights.
Maybe a prudish person might place them
over the legs of a coffee table?
Coffee tights, it's, erm... it's women's...
it's some sort of ludicrous treatment, isn't it,
- for their fat cellulite treatment. - (Stephen) You're absolutely right.
A pair of tights made of coffee,
as it were, or at least with caffeine in them.
(David) Are there going to be other items of clothing made out of liquid,
like custard socks, or...
or a nice... a vodka hat?
Custard socks, now you've said custard socks, l want them now.
Well, you can't have any custard socks till you've put on your gravy cardie.
Body heat releases caffeine micro-capsules into the skin,
much as a nicotine patch releases nicotine into the skin.
lt apparently increases the metabolism of the legs,
supposedly, so that you lose, as you say, cellulite, that orange-peel look.
Yeah, decaf coffee tights, they're just tights.
lt does seem unlikely that slipping on a pair of tights is gonna dissolve a fat arse.
At least it'll stop your leg going to sleep.
(Stephen) Yeah, it would...
Very good. Excellent.
Let's burn off some of those unsightly points now
by slipping into some thermal forfeits, shall we?
ln Chinese, Ql is pronounced "chi",
and you probably know the word, it means "the life force".
The Ql, the "chi".
The Korean for that is Gl,
which of course stands happily for General lgnorance,
which is where we're going now, so fingers on buzzers, please.
Who is this?
- Eros. - (Alarm)
Yeah, well, thank you for falling into our little heffalump trap there.
lt's actually the angel of Christian charity.
Eros.
Eros was the Greek god of love,
this is the angel of Christian charity.
Why's it called Eros, then?
Because people mistakenly thought it was Eros cos it has a bow and arrow.
Eros is Greek for Cupid, and they thought it was like Cupid's dart.
Originally the arrow pointed up a particular avenue
- and the idea was the... - (Alan) Shaft.
lt was bearing its shaft up Shaftesbury Avenue,
which was named after Lord Shaftesbury, Ashley-Cooper,
- (David) l know who he was. - Tell em who he was.
He was the bloke that passed all those acts in the 19th century
to stop children having to work 95 hours a week.
Exactly right.
lt was a first, that particular statue. Do you know why?
(Bill) The first one on one leg. (Stephen) No, not that.
The material we're after.
- Bronze, copper, metal, steel, wood. - lt's metal certainly, not wood.
That wouldn't be the first wooden or metal statue, would it?
(David) Aluminum. (Stephen) There you are, take five points
- young David Mitchell, very good indeed. - l know something about, erm,
statues of military personnel.
- Yes? - (Alan) On horseback.
lf they're up on their hind legs like that,
it means they died in battle,
and if they've got one leg up, it means they died on service, but not in a battle,
and if they've got all four down, it means they just died after, years later.
(Stephen) ls that really true? lt sounds true. (Alan) lt's really true.
l shall have the little elves, the Ql elves...
Oh, they're flashing me now. "This is an urban myth and not true," it says there.
They're very quick.
lt feels like everything that l know is wrong.
(Stephen) Oh, l'm so sorry.
ls that Socrates? Did he say that? Or am l the first?
That's what comes when you acquire your knowledge
- by overhearing blokes in pubs - (Stephen) Yes.
lt is a general rule that if any fact given you
starts with the word "apparently", it is always untrue.
Apparently, right, the ClA can control gravity.
While on the subject of the ClA, where does the name America come from?
(Gong)
Watch me crash and burn with Amerigo Vespucci.
- (Alarm) - (Stephen) Thank you for that.
Yes, many, many have believed this is true,
but current research shows that it's actually named after a Welshman, in fact, called?
(Phill) Dai America.
No, Richard Amerike, probably meaning son of Maurice, ap Merik.
Not everyone believes this theory, but it is quite convincing.
One of the reasons it's not convincing that it was Amerigo Vespucci
is that countries were never named after somebody's Christian name,
unless they were Royal, like Prince Edward lsland or Victoria or something,
but otherwise it's Cook lslands and it's all those, Magellan Straits,
- it's always the surname - (Bill) Abel Tasman.
Exactly, Van Diemen's Land, so it should be Vespuccia,
if it were to be named after him.
John Cabot, who was the first European to set foot
on what we now consider mainland United States,
was commissioned by this man Amerike,
who probably had his name on the map,
and it would have been known as Amerike's Land, and then America.
- So it's a Welsh name. - Evans the Country.
Talking of which, who was the first President of America?
(Alan) Washington. (Phill) Oh, another trap.
- (Alarm) - (Stephen) Oh, no.
Surprisingly not. No, he was probably the 15th.
- (Alan) Was he? - He was the first president
of an independent United States of America,
but there have been many presidents of United States
in Congress Assembled,
presidents of the Continental Congress of America,
and the first one was called Randolph, Peyton Randolph.
The second one was called John Hancock.
And what does John Hancock mean, fingers on buzzers quickly,
- if you're an American? - (# Harp flourish)
- (Stephen) Oh, you got there, David. - lt means a signature.
Yes, l was just very alarmed when l first went to America
and was told to put... l just heard "Put your John Hancock on there."
My what, where? "Just put your John Hancock down."
Whoa! But that's what it means, they use it all the time.
Well, it's the reason being is that on the Declaration of lndependence,
they all signed it and everyone went sort of,
"Da da da, that's me." Hancock came along...
"John! Hancock!"
You can actually see it from space.
But you're right, his is the big signature on the Declaration of lndependence.
So there you are. There were 13 others after Peyton,
and then on 30th April 1789 George Washington was sworn in
as the first president of the independent United States.
lt's time for the scores.
ln first place, with a very impressive nought,
it's David Mitchell, ladies and gentlemen.
ln second place, with minus eight, Bill Bailey.
Ooh, minus eight.
And in third place with minus nine is Phill Jupitus.
And in fourth place with minus 14,
Alan Davies, congratulations.
Well, that is "wan an" from another edition of "chi",
so my thanks to Phill, David, Bill, Alan,
and the people and naturally the trousers of Corby.
Finally, to another city with cosmic connections,
a man recently went into one of the largest bookshops in Manchester
and strode up to the counter in the cartographic department,
"Do you have any globes?" he said.
"Over there on the shelf, sir," the assistant replied.
"No," he said, "These are all of the world,
"l want a globe of Salford."
Zaijian! Goodbye.
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