Well, now, young lad, eh? What would a young shaver like you want for Christmas?
Tell me first: have you been good?
- Yes. - You have?
- Yes. - Then what would you like?
- QI compilation show, please. - What's that you say?
A QI... compilation... show.
Oh, a QI compilation show! Ho ho ho! You're not the first to ask for that, you know.
Oh, yes, I think we can manage that. No question. [laughs manically]
Now, remember, what you have to do is show me the proper Italian way to eat spaghetti. You can use any of the things...
- Phill is doing very well. - Isn't it... Isn't it...
- No, you chomp in. - Like that, isn't it? Against the side of the plate, and then...
- Exactly. Twist it round. Don't... - Oh! Oh, Johnny Vegas.
- Oh! - Those are some mad skills, Johnny!
- My jaw comes apart! - Can I just...
Can I just say, this is the best quiz I've ever been on!
- And how are you eating yours, Alan? - You want to see me with ostrich eggs!
- By hand. - Do you know, the thing is, Alan gets 20 points,
- ...because that's how Neapolitans eat spaghetti! They lean back and drop it into their mouths by hand! - That's not fair!
- That's not fair: Alan thinks mashed potatoes are finger food. - Yeah.
- Parmesan, please.
- I'll offer you parmesan. - Parmesan's a weird food, 'cause it tastes delicious;
smells like the gym socks of, er, a child with some sort of glandular problem.
I find that it's actually the other way around!
You know, I never buy, you know, pre-packaged... from the, erm...
- From the shop. - From the places that sell foods.
- From the spaghetti seller? - Yeah. I buy it off people in the street.
- Do you? - They tell me it's original... oregiginano.
- Lovely. - And they dangle food over me, and they dance around,
and they go, "Look, a bloke with a house, and we get to play games with his mind."
What? Brilliant. Another round of applause, I think.
Now, cast your eyes over these little things.
See what you can tell me about them. I'd like to know how you think they could help you cross the Pacific Ocean.
- Are they like a very early credit card? - No, they're not.
- Is it a... rudimentary... - Some sort of star map.
You're on the right lines. It's not a star map, though, although knowledge of the stars would certainly be combined with this.
- Is it a dream catcher? - Dream catcher. Yeah.
- It's not. You can use your scrotums. It would help. - Wet dream catcher!
Euugh! Eurgh! That's disgusting!
- Polynesian and Micronesians in the south seas of the Pacific. They use them for navigating. - Right. You put it--
- On the horizon... The sun... the moon... - Actually, you want to turn it 90?.
- Like... that? - Like that?
About another axis! Yeah.
- Ah! - And look down... Islands in the sea...
The way the sea flows pasts them creates a pattern of waves, so that even if the islands are out of sight,
and you know the wave patterns well enough, you can tell, by the way the water swirls, where each island is,
and you can actually navigate. It's a map of waves, and you use your scrotum by getting out of the boat
and feeling the swell of the water, and the scrotum is the most sensitive part.
- So it's-- - It feels the way the water swells.
- It's quite gender-specific, then, this thing! - Yes!
You might... You might say it's a new... gives a new meaning to "ball bearings"! Erm...
Could women do it with their... with their breasts, though? Could they do it?
- I should imagine they probably could, but I suspect-- - Well, I think it's very important that we find out!
- You're the man to do it, Davies! I'm going to send you out into-- - Come on, ladies! Tell us where the waves are going!
- "Yes, I'm, er..." - It's certainly chilly in there, isn't it?
- Dear me! - Actually, I don't care where we're going, really.
- We'll just stay here, shall we? - We'll just stay here for a few days.
Take in the sights. What do you think, Kate? "Okay!"
Now, what's the biggest Banana Republic in Europe?
There's an elephant in the room!
How is an elephant connected to a Banana Republic in Europe?
Well, I dunno. Elephants like bananas...
- I fear... - It's the only thing I could come up with.
Iceland!
- Iceland? - Iceland.
- Ah, the "Elephant nation". - They go mad for 'em.
I... Volcanos, covered in elephants, guzzling... Oh. No wonder that Björk's weird!
- Growing up around all them elephants, eating... - Phill. Phill. Phill Jupitus.
This is... You've put me in a really weird position here. Because there are no elephants involved...
but the largest banana-producing country in Europe... is Iceland!
- Come on! - That's extraordinary! Absolutely remarkable.
- Is it to do with the thermal-- - The geothermal heat, yeah, exactly.
- They can grow a lot of bananas. And they grow more bananas than anywhere else in Europe. - I withdraw my pachyderm.
- Yes! You gain a point. You've taken a few forward and one or two back. - Some... Some go, some back.
Exactly, but it's an inspired guess, 'cause one wouldn't have thought Iceland was home of the banana, anyway.
Which European country is the largest exporter of bananas?
It's... the Dutch.
Noo... There's a country in Europe that buys the entire banana crop of Belize every year and sells it on to the rest of Europe.
- Austria. - It's Ireland!
- Ireland! - Ireland?
The biggest exporter of bananas in Europe! You buy the whole crop of... Not you, personally.
Of course not! I also don't remember this ever going to a vote, er...
It's a multi-national private company. I don't think every...
- You're not totally nationalised. - Yeah, Fyffes's a... Fyffes's a really famous banana company in Ireland--
--and now that you mention it, I was always confused that we had a very famous banana company in Ireland, er...
'Cause the Dutch is, er, Geest, pronounced... er, spelled "Gee-st", isn't it,
but that's... that's their big one, but Fife's even bigger, I think!
But wow! They should tell us this in school! We would be so proud!
- I'm very touched that you're so proud of your country. - My step-grandad worked at Stratford Fruit and Veg Market,
and he used to do very long shifts, and sometimes, it was quite cold, and he'd stay there all night,
and he would sleep in with the bananas, 'cause it was warm.
- Oh! - And he told me that story, and I thought,
"This sounds like a hellish existence," and he... then he said to me, "The unions put a stop to that!"
I like the expression "sleep in with the bananas"! It implies that the bananas are asleep as well.
- Nothing nicer than being woken up by a friendly banana! - Gently--
- Well, quite! - That's why there's--
Or in... in some sort of Belizan Godfather movie where they go: - "He's sleeping with the bananas tonight!"
- What's the biggest banknote the Bank of England prints? Do you know? - That one.
No, the... I should say "the highest denomination"!
- The highest denomination. - The... Isn't there a £100 note that no one's ever seen? Never used? - Oh, but we can go a bit higher than that.
- 50,000. - Oh, bigger than that.
- A million. - Squillion!
Bigger than a million.
Two million, three million, four million, five million, fifty million, a hundred million...
- A hundred million is the right answer! - A hundred million!
Yes. There are 40 one hundred million pound notes in the Bank of England.
- Oh, what a fantastic... - And they're all owned by Elton John. - Get into a taxi...
and--. "I can't break this up!" "Oh, I'm terribly sorry. I think you'll find it's legal tender!"
- Well, that's-- - "No tip for you! And I've got some... and I've got a £50,000 note as a tip!"
- It's known-- - I've got one of them, actually. - Have you got one?
I did an extra shift in the Golden Egg in 1972.
It's known as "the Titan". And they do have million pound notes as well, which are known as "the Giant".
- There are 4,000 of the million pound notes. - Yes.
- And, as I say, 40 of the hundred million-- - Have you got any? - I don't have any, no.
What would you get if you used an ejector seat to escape from this helicopter?
- Oh. - Yes.
A very short headache. "Ooh!" And then, gone.
Is that... Is that the human equivalent of one of those slicing machines you see advertised on shopping channels?
[American showman accent] "Look what I'm doing! I'm doing four, I'm doing five, I'm doing six!
I'm putting cucumber, I'm putting tomato in. I could slice and slice and slice! Take an old shoe! You could slice a shoe. It'll keep on slicing."
The ejector goes out, er, sideways. The... No, down. There's a trap door. There's a trap door?! You go, "Whoo-aa!"
What could possibly be happening outside of the helicopter that you think,
"I'll tell you what. I'm gonna press this button." I just don't know how bad it could be in there to...
for you to go, "Oh, this is rubbish, this helicopter thing."
- Take a chance. - "I wonder if I could fly."
How would you design a helicopter in which it was possible to use an ejector seat that took you up?
- You would-- - Tip it a bit? Or turn it? You'd have to...
- You'd simply have to get rid of the rotors. You'd simply have to blow them away... - Turn it upside down?
...milliseconds before the ejector seat. - Ah.
- So they simply disappear. - Wow.
- They just - blow away. - That's what it says in the manual, Stephen.
- Yeah. - And obviously, they've had very few complaints.
That one is called "the Black Shark", that particular make of helicopter.
There are a few others where this is the case. They're not very popular.
7,000 airmens' lives have been saved by ejector seats. Not bad, is it?
Martin-Baker is the company that makes them for the... in Britain. Not for helicopters.
- There they are. - Can't you get them for your, er...
just for your house? For just, sort of, domestic use? You know. If you... There's nothing on the TV; it's just an old re-run of Hollyoaks or something like that;
and you've eaten a Marks and Spencer's deal; not very nice... "You know what? This evening's very disappointing."
What is the world's most expensive meat?
- Be, er, a unicorn steak. Or a mermaid fillet. - Yes.
- Or a griffin burger. - Possibly.
- There's an elephant in the room! - Ahh...
- Is it... mammoth? - It's not what I have.
- You mean, I have... - Wasted your elephant.
- You can use it again. - It's actually Alan's. My one's down here.
- Very good! No. - Ooh, ooh! Ooh ooh!
- Yeah? - Is it the...
the special, beautifully-reared, er, Japanese beef?
- The special-- [Forfeit: Klaxons sound.] - Oh! Not Kobe. No, no.
I actually said "Japanese beef", and then it appeared in big letters behind me. That's--
- Yeah. Predictable. - It's horrible when that happens. - That's--
I had this recently. I had it in New York. They're crazy for it. They're crazy for the expensive Kobe beef.
- Kobe beef, yeah. - Yeah.
- So they've got, like, the-- - Kobe beef burgers, and--
Yeah, burgers for a hundred dollars or something ludicrous.
What's the difference between Kobe beef and...?
They claim that the cattle are massaged and fed on beer. It's actually nonsense.
They used to be fed...
- You want to be one, don't you? I know. You want to be a Kobe-- - No, I was one in a previous life!
I've just come back, and this time, people can't eat me!
They used to be fed on hops that had already been used in the brewing process.
Now, in 1932, Winston Churchill predicted that "fifty years hence, we shall escape the absurdity
of growing a whole chicken just in order to eat the breast or wing,"
and would do it "by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium."
And the kind of food I'm talking about is precisely what he predicted.
In other words, it is a manufactured food, made from something called myoblasts, which are a kind of stem cell-- - Ahh.
- Normally do them in the bath. - Yeah.
Do you see, these myoblasts are pre-programmed to grow muscle. So the cell is removed from a living animal,
just a cell, and it multiplies in a... in a stew of, sort of, amino acids and minerals,
but the point is, these cells are capable of multiplying so many times in the culture,
that it's theoretically possible for a single cell to produce enough meat to feed the whole world.
At the moment, however, a single kilo costs $10,000, whereas it's only £85 a kilo for Kobe beef.
- But... But I have to go home after this. - Yes. You do.
- I have-- - Believe me!
And... I have to convince me brother that crisp butties are wrong. You've just explained the way... the future of food.
- Yes. There's no place for crisp butties in the future. - There isn't going to be Monster Munch on... on white bread for the next 20 years, that way.
- Monster Munch on white bread. - Who's gonna remove...
Nobody removes a stem cell from a Monster Munch. It's a purebred animal!
- Is it? - It's like God has...
God has gathered up the footsteps of... of... of a dinosaur, and put 'em in a bag!
- That's a Monster Munch? - That's a Monster Munch! - I want one now!
No, but I don't want one that's been meddled with and... and had needles put into it.
- No. - I want a fresh bag!
Preferably pickled onion. And... And some Hovis and thick butter.
Right! Okay, it's a deal.
Do you know about Yan Tan Tethera? That'll get you some points back.
It's a counting system, possibly Celtic in origin...
- What, the counting? - Is it... sheep counting?
Yes. It's for counting sheep. It actually goes: Yan,Tan, Tethera--this is the Borrowdale version--
Yan, Tyan, Tethera, Methera, Pimp, Sethera, Lethera, Hovera, Dovera, Dick,
Yan-a-dick Tyan-a-dick, Tethera-dik, Methera-dick, Bumfit... suddenly appears, which is 15.
- And it goes all the way up to Giggot, which is 20. - So one in every 15 will--
- Will be a bumfit. Absolutely. - ...be a bumfit.
I think you actually might have just summoned up the devil, Stephen.
Are the last three sheep Cuthbert, Dibble, and Grub?
Me and Alan did a play in Edinburgh, and we had to share the stage with some Korean dancers.
And the stage was sprung for these dancers, so that they were able to do their leaps and everything.
Which was fine for them, but we were just doing a play! Just a play, in...
It was supposed to be in an apartment, that was on dry... on the land.
On the land in an apartment, on dry land, and every time we...
We were walking about like this! And there was a... there was a...
They were all sitting around playing poker, and I had to walk behind them, and if I walked heavy enough, they'd go up and down.
There was a drinks cabinet in one corner. Every time everyone walked, the whole thing went--
"Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding!" And then we had to, sort of, walk about, like this.
"Hi!" "Well, here's your sandwich." "Well, thank you!"
- That's why the critics said, "I finally understand why it's called the Odd Couple." - Yes, the Odd Couple.
You made it odder. The great stages; I... The other thing, when they're raked down.
- Yes. - I... I went to a... a matinee performance of The Tempest, er,
that the Royal Shakespeare Company were doing. There's a fabulous actor called Paul Brooke.
I don't know if you know who I mean. Slightly boss-eyed. And it... 'Cause it was a...
and I've since discovered this--I was a child at the time-- but actors in matinees get very frisky, and...
and just like to take the piss out of the play because they're bored stiff and have done it for three months or whatever.
And, er, in The Tempest, all the sprites, you know... there's a sort of human pyramid.
And Paul Brooke was playing one of these lords with a big fur coat, you know, that went all the way down,
and he decided, for the matinee, to be naked underneath it. And at one point, he had to look upstage,
so that the--obviously, the audience couldn't see-- at this pyramid, and go, "Oh, it does amaze me!"
and all this kind of thing, and he just opened his coat, like that.
And the... the girl at the top of the pyramid urinated with laughter, and it went all the way down the pyramid,
and all the way down the stage, and it dripped off the edge of the stage.
It was fantastic. Just great. You couldn't have hoped for a better response.
- Like wheelie trainers. - Oh, yes. Have you ever tried those?
I mean, it's only children who wear them, but have you ever--
It's that weird thing. You see them walking along, and then suddenly, they point their feet up.
It's like the Children of the Damned with the weak ankles. They're just walking along normally, and then suddenly,
their legs go rigid, and the feet do that, and they go: -
- The Gliding Children of Death. - They do it at length. They should hold the national championships
at Bluewater to see how quick they could get around it. - That's right!
But don't you feel cheated that our generation... I mean, it's not as if it's a difficult invention. - We had skateboards.
- We had skateboards, yes, ish, but I mean-- - Did you have a skateboard?
No. But, erm...
Did you try and buy one, and they went, [posh accent] "I don't think this is for you."
No! It's not the kind of thing I liked.
They actually had a Bentley skateboard made of teak. With fine, original, Birmingham wheels.
I had a space hopper! Well, I did! I liked it!
"Baah! Baah! Baah! Baah! Baah! Baah! Nearly to Garboldisham! Baah! Baah! Mother! A bicycle next time!"
You're, like, nine feet tall! Your knees must have been here! It must have been like...
- When I was eight! - Turned out it was just a terrible haemorrhoid.
We've got a guined pig at home, and every time, it... It's just...
It lives its life in a state of extreme terror. The whole time.
You go to pick it up, and as you pick it up, sort of...
"Please don't kill me, please don't kill me, please don't kill me! Please don't kill me!"
And then you put it down, and it goes, "Oh, thank God!"
- I just couldn't live like that. - Stop picking it up! It doesn't like it!
Bill wears his falconry gloves. Like that.
They're very fragile, aren't they? You can kill them with anything.
- You've gotta put a sticker on them. - Yes. Dressing up as an eagle: That's the wrong thing to do.
- "Please don't kill me, please don't kill me!" - Hang from the ceiling above it, flapping. Like that.
Pick it up like this.
Then go like that.
- Aww. - "Please don't kill me, please don't kill me!"
- If you milk men... - Hullo.
- Oh, yes. - That's not the way to do it, Phill. - You're not gonna get MSG out.
- You might, because it's present in milk, and if a man lactates, which men do... - Hello? Yeah.
It's one of the reasons babies like milk, is because it's full of glutamate, in fact.
This is why I don't wanna do shows like this!
Why is that, Johnny?
Well, 'cause now, I'm gonna lie awake at night, fearing that I'm lactating poison!
I feel like I've already hurt people enough in my lifetime.
It's not poison; it's good. We're trying to suggest that MSG is not as bad as it's been painted.
- You may not like the flavour, in which case, certainly, don't have any. - Yeah, but I don't want meaty-tasting breasts!
- I fear nature made this-- - I don't want men running round to butcher shops...
and taking me shirt off and going-- "Taste him! He's like sirloin."
Well...
- That would be a very bad daytrip to Walton Towers! - It would, wouldn't it!
There's nothing we can do for you. I'm afraid your breasts do taste slightly meaty if...
if you're lactating. But let's face it, they'd be meaty anyway, because they're flesh... Johnny. Don't be scared of your own flesh.
Polar bears aren't attracted to black.
No. It would be a waste of time.
Because they're colour-blind. They're the ugliest animals I've ever seen.
Polar bears?
Do you... Do you know the best way to escape a charging polar bear?
Shoot it in the face.
- I know! I know! - Yes, go on.
- You take your clothes off. - Exactly. It stops to pick up your clothes and smell them,
and you just get further away from them. - That is the biggest load of nonsense...
- And then you die of... - You would obviously be chilly, I suspect.
- But you won't be eaten, so... - You'd be very chilly, and it would eat you, and go,
"That's good; that one didn't have a wrapper."
Who's Frank Lampard looking at through that keyhole?
- Is that how you view the Museum of Pornography? - Not... No, to be honest. - It's a tiny, tiny museum... fit into a keyhole.
[as David Frost] As we go through... the keyhole.
- He can't do many, but they're good! - They're very good.
Can you do Loyd as well?
No, I wouldn't want to do Loyd. [as Loyd Grossman] "Whose house it uhs!" Erm... But it's, erm...
- What did he eat as a kid? - [as Grossman] "David, it's oever to you!"
He's got such a strange voice. I think, as a kid, he got stuck in a helium balloon or something.
His voice is just bizarre. What is his accent? Just to digress.
- It's, erm-- - Massachusetts.
Oh, it's American.
Yes. Yes! That is in America. He claims they all speak like that in Massachusetts.
It's obviously nonsense; they don't. But he came over quite young to England,
and to a very Fulham-y part of England, where people
[in his public school accent] really, you know, talk like this, the English people.
[as Grossman] So he kind of mixed it up with American, and got out with this strange Loyd Grossman way of talking. - He's got the weirdest voice in the world!
[as Grossman] "It is. It's ve-ery odd." Erm... I don't know.
- It is. It's the-- - He got a bang on the head, and that's what happened.
Is he gay?
- No. No no. - Oh. I just thought it would be great if he got married to Brian Sewell.
- What a ménage! Oh. - And then they... they had a thing with Brian Blessed!
[does a rapid and unintelligible impression of Brian Blessed] But, erm... No! Stop it.
Can I just do a Brian Blessed story quickly? It won't get in... It's great, though.
- He climbed... tried to climb Everest a few years ago-- - Yeah.
...and he said at one point, they had to sleep overnight, kind of, at the edge of a glacier,
so they were all in a tent that was, like, hanging off a washing line.
And so, in order to go for a poo, erm, you have to actually get out of this tent and,
kind of, go along the washing line a bit, and just sort of do it, into, sort of, outer space,
and there was a howling gale. And one guy went, "Uh, I want a shit," at about 3:00 in the morning,
so off he goes, out the tent; does it; gets back in; and they're all, kind of, in this tent,
kind of, hanging off this washing line together. And after about ten minutes, when they'd all warmed up a bit,
someone went--[sniffs]. Like that. "What's going on?" And what had happened was,
he'd done a poo, it had flown 'round space a bit, and landed in the hood of his jacket!
Oh, dear me! Ooh! What a shithead. Anyway! What... No.
What's this for?
- It's not four; it's three! - Hey!
- Brilliant. There you go; you get a sweet. That's very good. I like that one.
Some sort of support for the building? It used to be... There used to be more of it?
It's the close up of the road from... It's the speed bumps on the way to China.
No, it's an architectural feature you will see all over Europe. All over the world, actually.
Oh, is it above... That's a column, underneath it.
There would be a column underneath it. It's in one of the architraval... The entablature. - And that goes along the top,
and that gives you specific information pertaining to the relation between the column and the...
Not exactly. It's what's called a triglyph, erm... - That's right.
And what is quite interesting about triglyphs is that they are a sort of vestige
of what was left over from when Greeks used to build temples in wood--
- Yeah. - ...and... and they would have three planks in a line-- - Three planks. Yep.
- ...supporting... - Supporting. - Supporting... ?
- Go on, Steve! Go on! - Supporting the roof.
- The roof. Yeah. - And so, when they then started working in marble...
- Marble. - ...they just echoed...
- And, er... So, there you are. - There you are.
That's the last time you're allowed to do that. You understand. - I love it in the early...
In, sort of, Hollywood movies, when they do something set in Ancient Rome or Ancient Greece-- - Yeah.
...when they... they, sort of, rebuild ruins.
- Yes! I know! - It's a wonderful sort of thing when they go,
"Yeah, we're going to build a film. It's set in Ancient Rome... They lived in ruins." Well, not at the time!
- No! - That was years later they were ruined! You bloody fool.
They say of the Acroc--Ap--Acropolis, where... where the Parthenon'n is
They say of the Acropolis, where the Parthenon is... - Are those the magic words?
They say of the Acropolis, where the Parthenon is, that they...
It's all been to my... - It turns out, they didn't say anything at all!
- They say of the Acropolis... - ...where the Parthenon is!
- They... say of the Acropolis-- - Everyone... ! - ...where the Parthenon is!
[singing] They say of the Acropolis, where the Parthenon is!
Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!
Bloody hell, Stephen. This better be good!
Moving on! So. The triglyph is a remnant of the stone, er... oh . - Sorry... Stephen.
I've just got a question. What do they say... about the Acropolis, where the Parthenon--[musically]--iiis?
They say--
- They say of the Acropolis-- - What do they say? What do they say?
He's gonna say! He's gonna say! He's gonna say! He's gonna say! He's gonna say! He's going to saaaay.
- I can't breathe! My tummy hurts! - What do they saaaay?
- About the Acropoliiiiis? - Where the Parthenon iiiiiis?
Oh-h! Can I write it down? Read it! It says it there. It's...
- You've gotta tell us now! - It's... They say of the Acropolis, where the Parthenon is--
--that there are... no... straight... lines! - Yay!
Oh! Damn, that hurt.
- Yeah. Do they? - Yeah.
Whatever!
Well, that's your lot for the year. From Alan and me and all our guests on the "E" series, good night.
Happy Christmas. See you next year. [laughs manically]
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