2 00:00:33,500 --> 00:00:37,240 Bonsoir, bonsoir, bonsoir, bonsoir, bonsoir. 3 00:00:38,500 --> 00:00:42,080 Bonsoir, mes dames et messieurs! Et bienvenue à QI. 4 00:00:42,080 --> 00:00:45,500 Or "Coo-Eee", as we should properly call it. 5 00:00:45,500 --> 00:00:49,960 Because tonight, tonight we fare forth into our favourite foreign fiefdom, 6 00:00:49,960 --> 00:00:54,500 land of fromage, froideur and flageolet, la belle France. 7 00:00:54,500 --> 00:01:00,440 Avec moi, ce soir, je suis delighted to welcome: Le grand legume, Phill Jupitus! 8 00:01:04,480 --> 00:01:09,120 Et le bourgeois gentilhomme, Hugh Dennis! 9 00:01:12,500 --> 00:01:13,500 Merci. 9 00:01:14,500 --> 00:01:16,500 La femme fatale, Jo Brand! 10 00:01:20,960 --> 00:01:23,960 And Babar the Elephant. 12 00:01:29,880 --> 00:01:36,440 But before we laissez les bons temps rouler, les champignons musicales, s'il vous plaît!. 13 00:01:36,440 --> 00:01:37,440 And Phill goes... 14 00:01:44,520 --> 00:01:47,560 - Hugo va... - "Hugo"? 15 00:01:48,680 --> 00:01:49,500 D'accord. 17 00:01:59,440 --> 00:02:00,480 Et Jo va... 18 00:02:04,480 --> 00:02:06,520 I have plenty! 20 00:02:11,520 --> 00:02:12,560 And Alan goes... 21 00:02:25,680 --> 00:02:28,680 Colour me very touched, Alan. Thank you. 22 00:02:28,680 --> 00:02:30,500 - Can I take my onions off now? - You can take your onions off. 23 00:02:30,500 --> 00:02:34,280 - They are slightly restricting mon tête. - Yeah. 24 00:02:35,280 --> 00:02:39,500 Of course you must. Uh, it's "ma tête". It's feminine. Minus five. 25 00:02:45,560 --> 00:02:50,500 - I said "mon" because I am masculine. - It doesn't quite work that way, I'm afraid. No. 26 00:02:50,500 --> 00:02:53,600 For example; the word vagina is masculine. Whichever sex you are. 26 00:02:53,600 --> 00:02:55,600 And you're likely to be female if you have one. 26 00:02:56,600 --> 00:02:58,600 So you would say, "mon vagina"? 27 00:02:58,600 --> 00:03:03,500 - You'd... As it were, yes. - It makes it sound like a mountain somewhere, doesn't it? 28 00:03:05,500 --> 00:03:07,680 - Funny looking mountain. - I was climbing Mon Vagina. 29 00:03:08,680 --> 00:03:13,080 Many have. And many have fallen off. 30 00:03:14,080 --> 00:03:15,720 So. Bon. Allons-y, mes copains. 31 00:03:15,720 --> 00:03:20,720 Alors, a ce moment ci, je vous donne, des bonus points 32 00:03:20,720 --> 00:03:24,560 si vous pouvez repondre en Francais. 33 00:03:24,560 --> 00:03:25,500 OK? 34 00:03:27,500 --> 00:03:29,500 Oui. 35 00:03:31,500 --> 00:03:32,500 Very good! 36 00:03:34,500 --> 00:03:35,500 Already a bonus point for Hugh. 38 00:03:38,400 --> 00:03:39,000 Non. 39 00:03:41,500 --> 00:03:43,960 Plus tard, nous verrons. Phill. Comment ça va? 40 00:03:44,960 --> 00:03:45,600 Er... 42 00:03:50,240 --> 00:03:51,720 - THAT was French. - That is fluent. 43 00:03:53,120 --> 00:03:57,760 Jo, voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir? 44 00:03:57,760 --> 00:04:01,000 Er, pas demi! Not half! 45 00:04:02,000 --> 00:04:03,040 Excellent! 46 00:04:03,040 --> 00:04:05,200 Quatre points! 47 00:04:05,200 --> 00:04:10,400 Alain, donne-moi un mot, s'il vous plaît, 48 00:04:10,400 --> 00:04:13,720 Un mot pour un mammifère marin 49 00:04:15,360 --> 00:04:21,240 qui ne peut avaler aucun plus grand qu'un pamplemousse. 51 00:04:29,080 --> 00:04:31,760 Pamplemousse? What's a pamplemousse? 52 00:04:32,760 --> 00:04:35,480 - Ask the audience. What is a pamplemousse? - I think... 53 00:04:35,480 --> 00:04:38,720 - What's a pamplemousse? - It's French porn. 54 00:04:38,720 --> 00:04:42,800 - Grapefruit. - Grapefruit. Do I? 55 00:04:42,800 --> 00:04:48,520 You see, Alan, for the last six years you have yearned for the answer to a question to be, 56 00:04:48,520 --> 00:04:50,500 - and it never HAS been... - The blue whale. 56 00:04:50,500 --> 00:04:51,840 And that is the answer! 57 00:04:55,120 --> 00:05:00,500 I asked you, in my broken French, to name... A marine mammal that couldn't swallow 58 00:05:00,500 --> 00:05:02,500 - anything bigger than a grapefruit. - Right. 59 00:05:02,500 --> 00:05:08,640 And that is a blue whale. Oh, you could have had such pleasure and joy. Never mind. Never mind. 60 00:05:08,640 --> 00:05:11,480 I'm gonna show you a picture of some Frenchmen. And I just want to know, 60 00:05:11,480 --> 00:05:13,480 what they're looking for in the swamp? 61 00:05:15,680 --> 00:05:20,120 Where they've hidden their cameras, I think. 62 00:05:20,120 --> 00:05:24,840 Does the tide come in really, really quickly there? Is that what it is? 62 00:05:24,840 --> 00:05:25,840 The sea is not far away. 63 00:05:25,840 --> 00:05:31,080 We're in Gascony. In an area of France called Les Landes, south of Bordeaux. 64 00:05:31,080 --> 00:05:36,500 - Je pense que ils cherchent un mouchoir. - They're looking for a handkerchief? 64 00:05:36,500 --> 00:05:37,500 Yes. 65 00:05:37,500 --> 00:05:42,760 That's not 'cause I think they are, but I don't know any other French words than the one for "handkerchief". 66 00:05:42,760 --> 00:05:46,680 Oddly enough, the first three letters of the thing you think they're searching for are correct. 66 00:05:46,680 --> 00:05:47,680 Handjob? 67 00:05:49,680 --> 00:05:53,400 - No, no. You said "mouchoirs". And it's mou... - Moutons. 68 00:05:53,400 --> 00:05:56,360 Moutons is the right answer! They're lookin for sheep. They are shepherds. 69 00:05:56,360 --> 00:06:00,760 - They are Les Landes shepherds and... - No, they are not! 70 00:06:00,760 --> 00:06:03,320 Are all the sheep on stilts as well? 71 00:06:04,320 --> 00:06:07,480 Is there a French programme called "One Man And His Stilts"? 72 00:06:10,000 --> 00:06:14,040 If you see the one on the left, you can see he's got two stilts tied to his legs quite clearly, 73 00:06:14,040 --> 00:06:18,880 plus a stick. The stick is there to make himself a tripod so you could stand still. 74 00:06:18,880 --> 00:06:22,500 But, essentially they can go really fast around this 4000 square mile area of France 75 00:06:22,500 --> 00:06:25,500 where their sheep are; they can see their sheep better 'cause they're higher up. 75 00:06:25,880 --> 00:06:31,120 And they negotiate this boggy terrain brilliantly. And they carried on doing this up to the 20th century. 76 00:06:31,120 --> 00:06:34,500 When the pole finally got stuck right up their arse. 76 00:06:34,500 --> 00:06:37,500 I bet you they were delighted when someone invented the Land Rover, weren't they? 77 00:06:39,200 --> 00:06:44,240 I don't know if any French shepherds might be watching... Get dogs! 78 00:06:44,240 --> 00:06:47,500 - You'd think. - Might save you a bit of time overall. 78 00:06:47,500 --> 00:06:50,500 - Dogs on stilts. - Oh, don't get me started! 79 00:06:51,640 --> 00:06:56,280 - Tiny dogs, like Corgis, on... 18-foot stilts! - Massive stilts! 80 00:06:57,280 --> 00:06:58,500 Towering over bigger dogs. 81 00:06:58,500 --> 00:07:00,500 - Yeah! - "At last!" 82 00:07:02,500 --> 00:07:04,500 Well, they... They tie... 83 00:07:04,500 --> 00:07:06,500 Then they would... Because you know how the little dogs sometimes try 84 00:07:06,500 --> 00:07:08,500 - and mount the bigger dogs, don't they? - Oh, they do. 85 00:07:08,500 --> 00:07:10,500 Yeah, they'd take that opportunity straight away. 86 00:07:10,500 --> 00:07:14,500 Well, they'd be too big, so they'd probably mount buses. Imagine a... A... 87 00:07:14,500 --> 00:07:18,500 - Giraffes. - A corgi on stilts, knobbing a bendy bus. 88 00:07:19,500 --> 00:07:21,500 - "Imagine if you will..." - I was a dream, wasn't it? 89 00:07:22,500 --> 00:07:26,500 There was a famous shepherd who walked to Paris and climbed the Eiffel Tower in his stilts, 90 00:07:26,500 --> 00:07:30,500 and then walked all the way to Moscow in 58 days, in his stilts. 91 00:07:30,500 --> 00:07:34,000 - What a remarkable man! - Wasn't he? 92 00:07:34,000 --> 00:07:35,000 In 58 days? 93 00:07:35,000 --> 00:07:40,500 58 days he walked to Moscow. That's 1,830 of your puny English miles. 94 00:07:41,500 --> 00:07:45,500 However, now you can go to Les Landes and you can see them dancing in their stilts; it's a tourist attraction. 95 00:07:46,500 --> 00:07:49,500 Until the early 20th century, they used stilts to herd their huge flocks, 96 00:07:49,500 --> 00:07:54,500 in country that was too rough and boggy to have tracks. 97 00:07:54,500 --> 00:07:57,500 Now, what did French country people like this do in the winter? 98 00:07:59,500 --> 00:08:00,500 They got... 99 00:08:04,500 --> 00:08:05,500 "Nurse!" 100 00:08:06,500 --> 00:08:07,500 "Nurse!" 101 00:08:08,500 --> 00:08:09,500 "She's out of bed again." 102 00:08:13,500 --> 00:08:14,500 Jo. Jo Brand. 103 00:08:14,500 --> 00:08:18,500 I...I'd like to quote a man that I met in the Aran Islands just off Galway, 104 00:08:18,500 --> 00:08:22,500 and I said to him, "What do you do in the winter?" And he went, "Fishing and fucking." 105 00:08:22,500 --> 00:08:23,500 Nice. 106 00:08:23,500 --> 00:08:24,500 So, is that possible? 107 00:08:24,500 --> 00:08:29,500 You'd have to find a lady who was wearing stilts, for a start, wouldn't you? Would be very difficult. 108 00:08:29,500 --> 00:08:32,500 - That is a major problem. - Or, a lady in a first floor window. 109 00:08:43,500 --> 00:08:45,500 Wow. Are you tempted? 110 00:08:45,500 --> 00:08:47,500 "Oh, here they come again, the bastard shepherds." 111 00:08:50,500 --> 00:08:56,500 No, it's very extraordinary. Again, until very recently, a lot of French country people did this ex... 112 00:08:56,500 --> 00:08:59,500 Not... Not extraordinary for certain animals, but pretty extraordinary for humans. 113 00:08:59,500 --> 00:09:00,500 - Hibernated. - Did they hibernate? 114 00:09:00,500 --> 00:09:01,500 - Hibernated, yes. - Oh. 115 00:09:01,500 --> 00:09:05,500 I mean, not true hibernation... Their body temperature didn't drop and... And so on... 116 00:09:05,500 --> 00:09:11,500 But they essentially kind of slept. They would wake up once or twice, have a biscuit, 117 00:09:11,500 --> 00:09:13,000 and go back to sleep again. They would... 118 00:09:13,000 --> 00:09:16,500 Did they, erm, have to go in a cardboard box with a lot of straw? 119 00:09:17,500 --> 00:09:19,500 - Lot of shared bodily warmth. - You got them out in March 120 00:09:19,500 --> 00:09:22,500 and had a look and looked underneath: "Oh, no. Not ready yet." 121 00:09:22,500 --> 00:09:26,500 So they... They didn't hibernate "as such"; they were students. 122 00:09:28,500 --> 00:09:31,500 Basically. Basically, yeah, that's true. They all crammed together for body warmth. 123 00:09:31,500 --> 00:09:33,500 "Ooh, Lorraine Kelly's on! Quick, get up." 124 00:09:37,500 --> 00:09:40,500 Can I just... That is a really shit life, isn't it? 125 00:09:40,500 --> 00:09:43,500 You spend six months of the year on stilts, and the rest of it, you're asleep. 126 00:09:44,500 --> 00:09:45,500 It is tough. 127 00:09:45,500 --> 00:09:48,500 As long as the other six months you're watching Lorraine Kelly, pas de problème. 128 00:09:50,500 --> 00:09:55,500 Well, there you are. So French peasants used to hibernate in rural France until well into the 19th century. 129 00:09:55,500 --> 00:10:01,500 Now, what were 80% of French people unable to do in 1880? 130 00:10:01,500 --> 00:10:05,500 - Count. Add up. Do sums. - No, we're in the wrong... Wrong discipline, as it were. 131 00:10:05,500 --> 00:10:06,800 - Write. Read. - Write their own name. 132 00:10:06,800 --> 00:10:09,500 They... Well, they couldn't write their own name and they couldn't read their own, most of them, 133 00:10:09,500 --> 00:10:14,500 but more importantly, if they could read and write... 80% of them didn't read and write in...? 134 00:10:14,500 --> 00:10:15,500 - French. - Exactly. 135 00:10:16,500 --> 00:10:17,500 That's odd. 136 00:10:17,500 --> 00:10:18,500 A hundred and... 137 00:10:18,500 --> 00:10:22,500 A hundred and twenty-odd years ago, 80% of French people did not speak French. 138 00:10:22,500 --> 00:10:25,500 It was not the majority language of France. 139 00:10:25,500 --> 00:10:27,500 What did they have? All kinds of regional dialects? 140 00:10:27,500 --> 00:10:30,500 All kinds of regional... Not just dialects, but languages. 141 00:10:30,500 --> 00:10:32,500 - Like the Basques. - Those people in Les Landes, 142 00:10:32,500 --> 00:10:34,500 they probably spoke sheep, didn't they? 143 00:10:34,500 --> 00:10:37,500 A "stilted" version of it, yes. 144 00:10:38,500 --> 00:10:40,500 Yeah. Very good. 145 00:10:40,500 --> 00:10:45,500 Hey. They spoke... Occitan. Breton, of course. 146 00:10:45,500 --> 00:10:48,500 - OXY-tan's what you put on spots. - It is, yeah. 147 00:10:48,500 --> 00:10:50,500 It does sound... There is something called that, isn't there? 148 00:10:50,500 --> 00:10:52,500 - It used to be a language you knew. - Yeah. 149 00:10:52,500 --> 00:10:55,500 Particularly acne-ridden area of France. 150 00:10:56,500 --> 00:11:02,500 Franco-Provençal. Erm, Flemish. Basque, of course. 151 00:11:02,500 --> 00:11:05,500 They were some of the major languages which were completely unrelated to French, 152 00:11:05,500 --> 00:11:11,500 and this is a sort of map of linguistic areas of France here. And there were fifty at least, er, dialects, 153 00:11:11,500 --> 00:11:17,500 and hundreds of sub-dialects, so le bon Français, as they call it, proper French, was only spoken by 20%. 154 00:11:17,500 --> 00:11:20,500 Where did they speak Flemish, then? Up the... 155 00:11:20,500 --> 00:11:22,500 Up near the Belgian border. Wallonia. 156 00:11:22,500 --> 00:11:24,500 What's the difference between a Belgian kiss and a French kiss? 157 00:11:24,500 --> 00:11:25,500 Go on. 158 00:11:25,500 --> 00:11:27,500 A Belgian kiss is like a French kiss but with more "Flem". 159 00:11:27,500 --> 00:11:32,500 Hey! Very good. Why, thank you. 160 00:11:33,500 --> 00:11:35,500 Are we accurately representing the French? 161 00:11:35,500 --> 00:11:38,500 I don't... Don't think we are. 162 00:11:38,500 --> 00:11:41,500 I'm wearing ladies' knickers; that's probably a more accurate representation. 163 00:11:43,500 --> 00:11:47,500 Are we more accurately representing the cast of the film 'The Wild Geese'? 164 00:11:48,500 --> 00:11:49,800 Yeah, special forces. 165 00:11:50,500 --> 00:11:55,500 - "Broadsword calling Danny Boy." - Now, that's not The Wild Geese. 167 00:11:56,500 --> 00:11:58,500 That's very good. Excellent. Man has gone... 168 00:12:02,500 --> 00:12:04,500 That's what you do when you're playing Germany. 169 00:12:06,500 --> 00:12:08,500 - I can do one from The Great Escape. - Go on. 170 00:12:08,500 --> 00:12:12,500 "Let me come with you. I can see; I can see perfectly." 171 00:12:17,500 --> 00:12:20,500 Very good. Donald Pleasance to a T. 171 00:12:20,500 --> 00:12:24,500 Jo, have you anything to offer from the world of war films? 172 00:12:25,500 --> 00:12:26,500 Mary Poppins? 173 00:12:27,500 --> 00:12:29,500 "Get back to work, you slag." 174 00:12:33,500 --> 00:12:35,500 Maybe I'm thinking of the porno version? 175 00:12:36,500 --> 00:12:38,500 "Mary Popshot". I've seen that. 176 00:12:40,500 --> 00:12:42,500 Oh, dear. "Mary Pops In". 176 00:12:45,500 --> 00:12:48,500 - "Mary Pops In and Out." - Yeah, well, quite. Erm ... So... 177 00:12:49,500 --> 00:12:52,500 Please! Let's pull ourselves together. 178 00:12:52,500 --> 00:12:54,500 "It's so nice to fornicate with Mary..." 179 00:12:59,500 --> 00:13:00,500 Oh, dear. 180 00:13:01,500 --> 00:13:06,500 In 1880, most French people couldn't speak French. According to a census in that year, 181 00:13:06,500 --> 00:13:11,500 only about 1 in 5 residents of what we now call France were fluent in French. 182 00:13:11,500 --> 00:13:17,500 French, famously, has only a quarter as many words as English, so they quite often have to use ours, 183 00:13:17,500 --> 00:13:21,500 but sometimes they get it a little wrong and a little lost in translation, 184 00:13:21,500 --> 00:13:26,500 so traduisez, s'il vous plaît, er... What means... 'Un people'? 185 00:13:26,500 --> 00:13:30,500 Look at that typical English person. This programme's really falling backwards. 186 00:13:30,500 --> 00:13:31,500 Absolutely. 187 00:13:31,500 --> 00:13:35,500 - "We in no way confer to stereotypes here on QI." - No! 188 00:13:35,500 --> 00:13:39,500 "Yes, here is an accountant and, for some reason, Arthur Daley." 189 00:13:40,500 --> 00:13:42,500 That's not a Frenchman! It's like, 190 00:13:42,500 --> 00:13:49,500 "All right, I'll tell you, I've got two fingers for you here, you cunt. Look at that. 191 00:13:49,500 --> 00:13:53,500 Look at that fucker, look at the cunt in the hat over there, fucking look at him." 192 00:13:54,500 --> 00:13:55,500 He doesn't look at all French! 192 00:13:56,500 --> 00:13:58,500 I dunno. The white polo neck's quite French. 193 00:13:58,500 --> 00:14:00,500 He's dropped his fag and he doesn't even notice. 194 00:14:02,500 --> 00:14:05,500 - D'you know, I wouldn't be sur... - "I can smell burning." 195 00:14:05,500 --> 00:14:07,500 I wouldn't be surprised if he had a cigarette... 196 00:14:07,500 --> 00:14:08,500 An invisible cigarette. 197 00:14:08,500 --> 00:14:13,500 But it's been Photoshopped out because the British public aren't allowed to see cigarettes anymore. 198 00:14:13,500 --> 00:14:17,500 The only advert I would agree to do is one for fags. 199 00:14:19,500 --> 00:14:23,500 "They're bloody lovely and you might not get cancer." I mean, you know. 200 00:14:24,500 --> 00:14:27,500 That's a very fine slogan. Excellent work. 201 00:14:27,500 --> 00:14:28,500 It is, isn't it? It's a gamble. 202 00:14:28,500 --> 00:14:30,500 So don't listen to me, listen to sweary Bob. 203 00:14:30,500 --> 00:14:35,500 "Yeah, she's fucking right. Look, they've Photoshopped this cunt out. Oi oi." 204 00:14:37,500 --> 00:14:42,500 "Hatty over there ain't fucking smoking; we do, 'cause it's fucking lovely. Oi oi." 205 00:14:42,500 --> 00:14:44,500 He's not French, Stephen, please! 206 00:14:44,500 --> 00:14:46,500 Okay! But... 207 00:14:46,500 --> 00:14:48,500 Let's at least get someone with onions in. 208 00:14:48,500 --> 00:14:52,500 We're no closer... We're no closer to discovering what 'les people' means. 209 00:14:52,500 --> 00:14:55,500 Les people. Oh, the in crowd, the pop... The... The... The kind of... The... 210 00:14:55,500 --> 00:14:57,500 - The hip, now, happening kittens. - It's even worse than that. 211 00:14:58,500 --> 00:15:01,500 - Oh, the upper classes! - What is our current obsession with in England? 213 00:15:01,500 --> 00:15:02,500 - Celebrities. - Celebrities. 214 00:15:02,500 --> 00:15:05,500 - Celebrities are 'le people'! Pathetic, isn't it? - Oh, merde. 215 00:15:05,500 --> 00:15:08,500 Er, what is... What is 'un brushing'? 216 00:15:09,500 --> 00:15:11,500 - 'Un brushing'? - 'Un brushing'. 217 00:15:11,500 --> 00:15:14,500 Is it this dental thing, is it, or not? 218 00:15:14,500 --> 00:15:17,500 It's not dental, but it is... It does involve the... The headal area. 219 00:15:17,500 --> 00:15:18,500 Cut your hair. 220 00:15:18,500 --> 00:15:20,500 And someone would do it to you in a salon. 221 00:15:20,500 --> 00:15:21,500 - Lick your hair? - Oh, how lovely. 222 00:15:22,500 --> 00:15:25,500 Somebody licks your hair in a salon? 223 00:15:25,500 --> 00:15:27,500 - If you pay them enough. - I pay for it. 224 00:15:27,500 --> 00:15:28,500 Oh, fair enough. Erm, no. 225 00:15:28,500 --> 00:15:30,500 "I'll give you 40 quid to lick it." 226 00:15:35,500 --> 00:15:37,500 Stop... It... Now. 227 00:15:39,500 --> 00:15:40,300 No, it's... 228 00:15:40,300 --> 00:15:42,500 "And for 50 quid we'll get a cow to come in and lick it." 229 00:15:43,500 --> 00:15:45,500 I'm not talking about the hair on my head! 230 00:15:45,500 --> 00:15:49,500 - Oh! - Oh, my. Please... Enough already. 231 00:15:49,500 --> 00:15:51,500 - It's a blow dry. - On my legs, not my bikini line. 232 00:15:51,500 --> 00:15:52,500 Blow dry? 233 00:15:52,500 --> 00:15:56,500 Brushing is a blow dry. And what is 'un relooking'? 234 00:15:56,500 --> 00:15:58,500 - A blow job. - No. 235 00:15:59,500 --> 00:16:01,500 Is it a double-take? 236 00:16:03,500 --> 00:16:06,500 An excellent example of the breed, if I may say. Erm... 237 00:16:06,500 --> 00:16:07,500 A repeat. 238 00:16:08,500 --> 00:16:10,500 Not a repeat. It's another thing which was very popular. 239 00:16:10,500 --> 00:16:12,500 There were television shows devoted to... 240 00:16:13,500 --> 00:16:14,500 Oh, a clip show. 241 00:16:14,500 --> 00:16:17,500 - No, no, no, that's more logical. - "It's Stephen Fry!" 242 00:16:17,500 --> 00:16:19,500 It's... It's weird. It's... It's a... 243 00:16:19,500 --> 00:16:21,500 Is it a sort of reinterpretation of something? 244 00:16:21,500 --> 00:16:23,500 Yeah, it's a makeover. 245 00:16:23,500 --> 00:16:24,500 Oh, right. Well, okay. 246 00:16:25,500 --> 00:16:27,500 A makeover is a 'relooking'. 247 00:16:27,500 --> 00:16:28,500 Is it? 248 00:16:28,500 --> 00:16:30,500 'Un re-looking' is a make-over. 249 00:16:30,500 --> 00:16:31,500 How... How does this... 250 00:16:31,500 --> 00:16:33,500 Un relooking extrême. 251 00:16:33,500 --> 00:16:34,500 Yeah, exactly. 252 00:16:34,500 --> 00:16:37,500 - How does this Académie française allow... - It doesn't. 253 00:16:38,500 --> 00:16:41,500 The Académie française would not accept these; they wouldn't go into a French dictionary, 254 00:16:41,500 --> 00:16:45,500 but they are used all the time. Usage in the end is the arbiter final, surely. 255 00:16:46,500 --> 00:16:48,500 Finally, vaseliner. 256 00:16:49,500 --> 00:16:51,500 To grease yourself up, Stephen. 257 00:16:51,500 --> 00:16:53,500 Oh, dear. No. 258 00:16:53,500 --> 00:16:57,500 Vaseline, no, that's like the two Spanish firemen Hose A and Hose B. That's my favourite... 259 00:16:59,500 --> 00:17:01,500 That's my favourite Spanish joke. 260 00:17:01,500 --> 00:17:03,500 Oh, very good. Hose A, Hose B. 261 00:17:03,500 --> 00:17:06,500 - To butter someone up. - Yes, exactly right! 262 00:17:06,500 --> 00:17:08,500 To flatter, to butter someone up. Very good. 263 00:17:09,500 --> 00:17:13,500 Excellent. Excellent, excellent, excellent. 264 00:17:13,500 --> 00:17:18,500 Now, er, this is the original design for a familiar French object. What is it? 265 00:17:21,500 --> 00:17:22,500 Oh! 266 00:17:22,500 --> 00:17:24,500 - There's an elephant in the room. - Oh, no. 267 00:17:24,500 --> 00:17:26,500 How did you find that elephant? That's from the last series! 268 00:17:27,500 --> 00:17:31,500 That was like a year ago we were offering bonuses for elephants. 269 00:17:31,500 --> 00:17:34,500 Must've been there for a year, is all I can surmise. 270 00:17:34,500 --> 00:17:40,500 Well... Just for cheek I'll give you 10 points. I think it's brilliant. Erm... Extraordinary. 271 00:17:42,500 --> 00:17:47,500 Erm... This... This was a design for, er, an object that was going to go in a place 272 00:17:47,500 --> 00:17:49,500 where now a more familiar landmark is. 273 00:17:49,500 --> 00:17:51,500 Est-ce que le Tour Eiffel? 274 00:17:51,500 --> 00:17:53,500 Non, c'est ne pas la Tour Eiffel. 275 00:17:53,500 --> 00:17:55,500 - L'Arc de Triomphe. - Moulin Rouge? 276 00:17:55,500 --> 00:17:57,500 - Not the Moulin Rouge. He got it. - L'Arc de Triomphe. 277 00:17:57,500 --> 00:18:01,500 The Arc de Triomphe. Where the Arc de Triomphe now is, in l'Etoile at the end of Champs-Élysées, 278 00:18:01,500 --> 00:18:04,500 this was a design to celebrate the glorious achievements 279 00:18:04,500 --> 00:18:09,500 of Louis XV in the shape of an elephant, as you may have noticed. 280 00:18:09,500 --> 00:18:10,500 Really? 281 00:18:10,500 --> 00:18:16,500 Yes. It was a grand kiosk to the glory of the king, erm... And... 282 00:18:16,500 --> 00:18:18,500 - A kiosk? - Yeah, they called it a "kiosk". 283 00:18:18,500 --> 00:18:20,500 What, selling fags and stuff? 284 00:18:22,500 --> 00:18:27,500 It... It... It was to have a form of air conditioning, and furniture that folded into the walls; 285 00:18:27,500 --> 00:18:31,500 a drainage system in the trunk, which would also serve as a fountain. 286 00:18:31,500 --> 00:18:33,500 You could hold balls and banquets inside it. 287 00:18:34,500 --> 00:18:36,500 A drainage system serving as a fountain? 288 00:18:36,500 --> 00:18:41,500 Well, kind of, I guess. There is a large elephant, I believe, in Bangkok; a building in the shape 289 00:18:41,500 --> 00:18:45,500 of an elephant in Bangkok, huge building. But... This, sadly, never happened. 290 00:18:45,500 --> 00:18:49,500 Instead, the Arc de Triomphe, which is the largest triumphal arch in the world, 291 00:18:49,500 --> 00:18:54,500 was placed a little later, 50 years later by Napoleon to celebrate 292 00:18:54,500 --> 00:18:57,500 - which particular triumph? - You see, now, the Arc de Triomphe just looks shit. 293 00:18:57,500 --> 00:19:00,500 Doesn't it? So dull. It's basically the Marble Arch, isn't it? 294 00:19:00,500 --> 00:19:03,500 It's not much more than Wellington's victory arch, but it's bigger. 295 00:19:03,500 --> 00:19:05,500 Do you know what it celebrates? Which victory? 296 00:19:05,500 --> 00:19:06,500 Austerlitz. 297 00:19:06,500 --> 00:19:08,500 1880, Austerlitz is exactly right, yes. 298 00:19:08,500 --> 00:19:10,500 Crikey, well done. 299 00:19:10,500 --> 00:19:11,500 Very good. He's smart. 300 00:19:13,500 --> 00:19:18,500 And in 1919, Charles Godefroy, an aviator, flew this plane through it to celebrate the end of the war. 301 00:19:18,500 --> 00:19:21,500 Bet he was pleased there wasn't an elephant there. 302 00:19:22,500 --> 00:19:24,500 Very. And unfortunately, of course, Hitler marched there... 303 00:19:24,500 --> 00:19:27,500 To celebrate the beginning of the war. 304 00:19:27,500 --> 00:19:29,500 Well, kind of, yes, to celebrate his... His... 305 00:19:29,500 --> 00:19:30,500 - Occupation of France - Newfound friends. 306 00:19:30,500 --> 00:19:32,500 Yes, his new friends, exactly. 307 00:19:34,500 --> 00:19:36,500 So the answer was the Arc de Triomphe. 308 00:19:36,500 --> 00:19:41,500 Er, it was planned in the shape of an enormous high-rise elephant with air conditioning, 309 00:19:41,500 --> 00:19:43,500 a spiral staircase draining system in the trunk. 310 00:19:43,500 --> 00:19:50,500 Now, then. What are the symptoms of Paris syndrome? It exists. Paris syndrome. 311 00:19:51,500 --> 00:19:53,500 There, they had to explain to me who that was. 312 00:19:53,500 --> 00:19:54,500 Yeah. 313 00:19:54,500 --> 00:20:02,500 Is it auditory hallucinations in the third person, knights-move thinking, and an inability to crochet? 314 00:20:03,500 --> 00:20:05,500 Wow... No. 315 00:20:05,500 --> 00:20:08,500 But very specific, and I like that. 316 00:20:08,500 --> 00:20:13,500 You have to picture the Japanese, who are taught, as many people are around the world, 317 00:20:13,500 --> 00:20:21,500 that Paris is the centre of sophistication, elegance, artistry, cosmopolitan élan, and savoir faire... 318 00:20:21,500 --> 00:20:28,500 And they arrive in Paris, and almost everything the French do is something that Japanese people find very difficult. 319 00:20:28,500 --> 00:20:33,500 Almost everything in the French language in the way it's spoken is to them somehow kind of offensive; 320 00:20:33,500 --> 00:20:39,500 plus, they have to walk miles; they've got jet lag; and they suffer from Paris syndrome, and at its most serious, 321 00:20:39,500 --> 00:20:47,500 an average of twelve people a year have to be expensively repatriated to Japan. There is a 24-hour helpline 322 00:20:47,500 --> 00:20:53,500 in the Japanese embassy in Paris for Japanese people who are traumatised by the experience, 323 00:20:53,500 --> 00:20:57,500 the disappointment, the horror, the offence to their sensibility, of Paris. 324 00:20:57,500 --> 00:20:59,500 - That's extraordinary. - Isn't that fabulous? 325 00:20:59,500 --> 00:21:01,500 That is fabulous. 326 00:21:01,500 --> 00:21:03,500 I think it reflects well on the Japanese, myself. 327 00:21:03,500 --> 00:21:06,500 I don't find it... I... I definitely had that when I went there. 328 00:21:06,500 --> 00:21:07,500 Yeah. 329 00:21:07,500 --> 00:21:08,500 Miserable bastards. 330 00:21:09,500 --> 00:21:14,500 If you're... If you are traumatised by Paris, you're gonna be traumatised by the French medical system, aren't you? 331 00:21:14,500 --> 00:21:18,500 Because what the French always do, whatever ailment you have, they give you a suppository. 332 00:21:18,500 --> 00:21:20,500 Up the bottom, you're quite right. 333 00:21:20,500 --> 00:21:21,500 Don't they? 'Cause they want to get it... 334 00:21:21,500 --> 00:21:23,500 - It's their answer for everything. - Yeah. 335 00:21:23,500 --> 00:21:28,500 So Paris syndrome is an extreme form of culture shock that affects Japanese tourists. 336 00:21:28,500 --> 00:21:32,500 Now. Who were described as "a bunch of lunatics and a woman"? 337 00:21:35,500 --> 00:21:36,500 Now, now, now. 338 00:21:36,500 --> 00:21:37,500 The words right out of my mouth. 339 00:21:37,500 --> 00:21:41,500 Yeah. We're in France, still. In Paris, in fact. 340 00:21:44,500 --> 00:21:45,500 Yes? 341 00:21:45,500 --> 00:21:48,500 Is it the first revolutionary committee? Er, Marat and that lot, 342 00:21:48,500 --> 00:21:50,500 - all those people? - No, it wasn't. Nice thought. 343 00:21:50,500 --> 00:21:53,500 The woman's name was Berthe Morisot: does that help? 344 00:21:53,500 --> 00:21:55,500 Ah, er, er... 345 00:21:55,500 --> 00:21:56,500 Who was Berthe Morisot? 346 00:21:56,500 --> 00:21:59,500 Er, she was the sister of someone, wasn't she? 347 00:21:59,500 --> 00:22:00,500 - She was. - Was it...? 348 00:22:00,500 --> 00:22:01,500 She was, erm... 349 00:22:01,500 --> 00:22:06,500 She was the painter who was, in her own right, erm, an Impressionist painter and... 350 00:22:06,500 --> 00:22:08,500 And there was a bit of a clue in the, er... 351 00:22:08,500 --> 00:22:11,500 It was the Impressionists. The Impressionists generally were described as this. 352 00:22:11,500 --> 00:22:16,500 Now, of course, amongst the most valuable art in the world and amongst the most agreed upon 353 00:22:16,500 --> 00:22:24,500 in its lusciousness, but at the time was considered absolutely horrific... Horrific unfinished nonsensical drivel, 354 00:22:24,500 --> 00:22:30,500 artless in fact and, and valueless and... And valueless, and, er, the word "Impressionist" was an insult, er... 355 00:22:30,500 --> 00:22:33,500 It was given by a... By a critic... 356 00:22:33,500 --> 00:22:34,500 Hello... 357 00:22:37,500 --> 00:22:38,500 Very nice. 358 00:22:38,500 --> 00:22:41,500 It was just getting really itchy. 359 00:22:41,500 --> 00:22:42,500 Oh, well, we can't have that. 360 00:22:50,500 --> 00:22:52,500 You look like a Greek Orthodox minister, there. 361 00:22:53,500 --> 00:22:54,500 That's exactly what I was looking for. 362 00:22:54,500 --> 00:22:57,500 You were going for the archimandrite look. 363 00:22:58,500 --> 00:22:59,500 It's Archbishop Makarios! 364 00:22:59,500 --> 00:23:01,500 I miss Makarios. 365 00:23:01,500 --> 00:23:06,500 Yeah. Lovely. Whoops. Super. Erm, anyway, yes, er... 366 00:23:09,500 --> 00:23:15,500 In the world of the... Impressionists. Do you like them? 367 00:23:16,500 --> 00:23:19,500 No, well... 368 00:23:19,500 --> 00:23:21,500 They've made no impression on me, Stephen. 369 00:23:21,500 --> 00:23:23,500 Then, the... They've not done their work. 370 00:23:23,500 --> 00:23:24,500 - No. - No. 371 00:23:24,500 --> 00:23:27,500 The reason I knew the answer to that is because when I was, er... 372 00:23:28,500 --> 00:23:34,500 When I was 18, when I'd finished my A-levels, about 4 mates and myself went to Paris for a week 373 00:23:34,500 --> 00:23:39,500 and went to the Jeu de Paume or wherever the Impressionists museum was at that point, 374 00:23:39,500 --> 00:23:44,500 and stood in front of all these pictures by Manet and the kind of views of Rouen Cathedral 375 00:23:44,500 --> 00:23:47,500 or Reims Cathedral or something, and started doing that really awful thing of going, 376 00:23:47,500 --> 00:23:52,500 "Oh, what tremendous use of light," and at that point I actually did think, not for the first time in my life, 377 00:23:52,500 --> 00:23:56,500 I just thought of myself... "What a tosser..." 378 00:23:58,500 --> 00:24:02,500 "...I am being." And it sort of effectively cured me of that sort of thing. 379 00:24:02,500 --> 00:24:04,500 - We had Mr Bradshaw for art... - Yep. 380 00:24:06,500 --> 00:24:12,500 And on the first day, he gave us all... This is double art, so it was 80 minutes of art... 381 00:24:12,500 --> 00:24:18,500 And he gave us each a copy of the Observer Book of Artists and told us to read it in silence. 382 00:24:20,500 --> 00:24:24,500 And really bored, we were all bored and started actually ironically doodling... 383 00:24:28,500 --> 00:24:32,500 And doing stick men football matches and things like that, and then he said, 384 00:24:32,500 --> 00:24:38,500 "Do a size of a postage stamp painting of something you'd like to paint properly," and I did a steam engine. 385 00:24:38,500 --> 00:24:42,500 I was quite pleased with it, but I couldn't, after a while I didn't like it so much, 386 00:24:42,500 --> 00:24:46,500 and I did a black line all round it... And then I thought it looked great. 387 00:24:46,500 --> 00:24:52,500 Quite dramatic and he came and said there wouldn't be a black line around it, would there? And painted it out. 388 00:24:52,500 --> 00:24:53,500 What? 389 00:24:53,500 --> 00:24:57,500 And then I went to an art gallery somewhere one day for no reason other than it was raining, probably, 390 00:24:58,500 --> 00:25:03,500 and there was some really famous painter and everything in all of his paintings had a black line round it. 391 00:25:03,500 --> 00:25:06,500 Yes, the famous painter Bradshaw. 392 00:25:12,500 --> 00:25:18,500 I went to, er, oddly enough, to the Louvre, to the Hogarth exhibition, 393 00:25:18,500 --> 00:25:21,500 and what they don't like at the Hogarth exhibition is when you go from print to print and you go, 394 00:25:21,500 --> 00:25:24,500 "There's Wally! There's Wally!" 394 00:25:24,500 --> 00:25:25,500 "There he is!" 395 00:25:25,500 --> 00:25:28,500 Really easy to see 'cause he's in red and black and they're black and white. "Oi oi! There he is." 396 00:25:30,500 --> 00:25:33,500 You think with Hogarth, the thing he must be most pissed off about is that he's basically 397 00:25:33,500 --> 00:25:38,500 remembered for being a roundabout on the A40? No, the A4, isn't it? 398 00:25:38,500 --> 00:25:40,500 - All that work. All that gin. - Poor Hogarth. 399 00:25:40,500 --> 00:25:41,500 All that work. 400 00:25:41,500 --> 00:25:43,500 I know more about theatre. 401 00:25:43,500 --> 00:25:44,500 Right. 402 00:25:44,500 --> 00:25:49,500 - French theatre people. Ask me about them. - Ah, Roger Blin, and Jean-Louis Barrault. 403 00:25:49,500 --> 00:25:51,500 - No, not them. - Oh, right. 404 00:25:52,500 --> 00:25:53,500 Sarah Bernhardt? 405 00:25:54,300 --> 00:25:57,500 We did Genet, Ionesco... Yeah, ask me about them. 406 00:25:57,500 --> 00:25:59,500 - I was just saying earlier... - Not about the Impressionists. 407 00:25:59,500 --> 00:26:03,500 Jean Genet. I... I... A friend of mine was at a dinner party with the novelist Anthony Burgess, and said, 408 00:26:03,500 --> 00:26:04,500 "What do you think of Jean Genet?" And he said, 409 00:26:04,500 --> 00:26:07,500 "Masturbator and excremental narcissist." 410 00:26:09,500 --> 00:26:13,500 Fair enough! It's a good thing to have on your gravestone, isn't it? 411 00:26:13,500 --> 00:26:14,500 I wish... 412 00:26:14,500 --> 00:26:16,500 "What do you do?" "I'm an excremental narcissist." 413 00:26:17,500 --> 00:26:18,500 - Wish I'd thought of that in a seminar. - Yeah. 414 00:26:18,500 --> 00:26:19,500 That would've gone down a treat. 415 00:26:19,500 --> 00:26:21,500 Do you know what the great influence on the Impressionists was? 416 00:26:21,500 --> 00:26:26,500 What really, in a way, kick-started their entire way of painting and looking at the world? 417 00:26:26,500 --> 00:26:27,500 Was it alcohol? 418 00:26:27,500 --> 00:26:31,500 No, I think that sustained many of them. It was a complete export. 419 00:26:31,500 --> 00:26:36,500 It's something we've been talking about. It's Japan. When Japan opened up again in the 1850s, 420 00:26:36,500 --> 00:26:41,500 all kinds of Japanese artifacts flooded into Europe, and the British, but particularly the Parisians, 421 00:26:41,500 --> 00:26:46,500 were absolutely obsessed with it, right up to Van Gogh had an enormous collection of Japanese prints. 422 00:26:46,500 --> 00:26:49,500 And they particularly were astonished by the wrappings, 423 00:26:49,500 --> 00:26:52,500 the ordinary wrapping paper that was used for objects that came in: 424 00:26:52,500 --> 00:26:56,500 combs and hairbrushes were wrapped, and they had this extraordinary way of... 425 00:26:56,500 --> 00:27:02,500 This rough, simple way of painting and conveying things that completely transported these people. 426 00:27:02,500 --> 00:27:06,500 And how did they reward them? By being rude to them in restaurants and not serving them. 427 00:27:07,500 --> 00:27:14,500 Now, what comes from Paris, has short legs and a big head, wears a permanent grin, and refuses to act its age? 428 00:27:15,500 --> 00:27:17,500 President Sarkozy, I think. 429 00:27:22,500 --> 00:27:27,500 Er, no. Not him. We're thinking of something that isn't human. 430 00:27:27,500 --> 00:27:28,500 Madame Cholet. 431 00:27:29,500 --> 00:27:31,500 Ah, very good. 432 00:27:32,500 --> 00:27:34,500 Is it a panda or something ridiculous like that? 433 00:27:34,500 --> 00:27:38,500 No, it's a Mexican creature and it... It... It... If you think of a... 434 00:27:38,500 --> 00:27:38,900 Chihuahua. 435 00:27:38,900 --> 00:27:43,500 Er, no. It's a really nice, crunchy, Aztec-sounding word, like their mountains. 436 00:27:43,500 --> 00:27:46,500 What are their mountains called in Mexico? You know? Popo... 437 00:27:46,500 --> 00:27:47,500 Popo... Popocatepetl. 438 00:27:47,500 --> 00:27:53,500 Popocatepetl. Cotopaxi, popoca... All that sort of names. This animal has a name like that. 439 00:27:54,500 --> 00:27:55,500 - It's a... Haddock. - Axolotl. 440 00:27:55,500 --> 00:28:00,500 - "Axolotl" is the right answer! Well done, Jo. - Oh, I'm being so intelligent tonight. 441 00:28:00,500 --> 00:28:01,500 Yeah! 442 00:28:01,500 --> 00:28:04,500 - What's come over me? - Oh, five points to Jo for "axolotl". 443 00:28:04,500 --> 00:28:06,500 There they are. Yay. Hear hear. 444 00:28:06,500 --> 00:28:14,500 Aren't they cute-looking? They're a species of animal that sort of... Branched off from the main. 445 00:28:14,500 --> 00:28:20,500 They stopped metamorphosing. You know the way a tadpole turns into a frog? Well, this is how... 446 00:28:20,500 --> 00:28:25,500 This should be halfway through the life of a salamander, but instead, 447 00:28:25,500 --> 00:28:27,500 there's a sort of sub-species of salamander that's... 448 00:28:27,500 --> 00:28:32,500 That decided it liked being halfway through and not turning into a salamander. 449 00:28:32,500 --> 00:28:37,500 But it can be... If you inject it with iodine, it will turn into a salamander. 450 00:28:38,500 --> 00:28:40,500 It'll also go bright yellow, presumably, will it? Or not? 451 00:28:40,500 --> 00:28:43,500 It will go, er... I think it's a tiger salamander; it'll go a rather mottled colour. 452 00:28:43,500 --> 00:28:45,500 So it's a really extraordinary... 453 00:28:45,500 --> 00:28:48,500 'cause they're very popular pets, because they've got little cheeky grinny faces. 454 00:28:48,500 --> 00:28:50,500 What a great hobby. 455 00:28:50,500 --> 00:28:56,500 "I'm an axolotl transformer. I walk around with a syringe full of iodine looking for axolotls." 456 00:28:56,500 --> 00:29:01,500 "Salamander! Salamander! Salamander!" 457 00:29:01,500 --> 00:29:05,500 And they have other extraordinary properties that make them very interesting. 458 00:29:05,500 --> 00:29:09,500 They heal without scarring, and if you cut an arm off, it grows a new one. 459 00:29:09,500 --> 00:29:15,500 Because in a sense, they're almost made of stem cells so they teach scientists an enormous amount 460 00:29:15,500 --> 00:29:18,500 - about the way stem cells work, because... - And they unbelievably cheerful. 461 00:29:18,500 --> 00:29:23,500 They... They're so cheerful, and they... Partly because they can regenerate. 462 00:29:23,500 --> 00:29:26,500 They're like the cheerleader in Heroes, aren't they? That's essentially right. 463 00:29:26,500 --> 00:29:29,500 They are, exactly that. They're like her. 464 00:29:29,500 --> 00:29:31,500 If you inject her with iodine, she might become a salamander. That'd be an interesting... 465 00:29:31,500 --> 00:29:34,500 - She might well. - Season 3. 466 00:29:34,500 --> 00:29:35,500 Yeah, season 3. 467 00:29:35,500 --> 00:29:38,500 They're popular pets, especially in Japan, oddly enough. 468 00:29:39,500 --> 00:29:42,500 I bet they're not smiling when they get there, are they? 469 00:29:42,500 --> 00:29:47,500 No. They come from Mexico. There's one particular lake... Well, two, but one... 470 00:29:47,500 --> 00:29:49,500 One of them's dried up, and the other one is now a series of canals and things. 471 00:29:49,500 --> 00:29:52,500 It's under Mexico City and in the 19th century, 472 00:29:52,500 --> 00:29:56,500 six axolotls were taken to this French scientist who examined them, 473 00:29:56,500 --> 00:30:01,500 and almost all the axolotls in the world that are used as pets and everything are descended from those six. 474 00:30:01,500 --> 00:30:04,500 Oh, they breed them, do they, and you can buy them in... 475 00:30:04,500 --> 00:30:05,500 - They're very popular... - The Paris equivalent of Loot. 476 00:30:05,500 --> 00:30:10,500 They're very popular pets. They... They live underwater, and they're cheerful, as you see. 477 00:30:12,500 --> 00:30:13,500 And have they all got dreadlocks? 478 00:30:13,500 --> 00:30:16,500 Well that's the ferny bit I mentioned, and it is ferny, isn't it? 479 00:30:16,500 --> 00:30:19,500 - Well what does it do? - It's... Those are the gills. 480 00:30:19,500 --> 00:30:20,500 - External gills. - Right. 481 00:30:20,500 --> 00:30:21,500 Yeah. Yeah. 482 00:30:21,500 --> 00:30:23,500 My ears are starting to look a bit like that now. 483 00:30:23,500 --> 00:30:29,500 Now. Axolotls, was the answer. A species of salamander that have refused to grow up. 484 00:30:29,500 --> 00:30:32,500 Most of the world's surviving population are descended from six 485 00:30:32,500 --> 00:30:37,500 that were imported into a Parisian lab in 1863. 486 00:30:37,500 --> 00:30:43,500 Napoleon once said, "An army marches on its stomach." Why would you want a Frenchman by your side in a fight? 487 00:30:45,500 --> 00:30:48,500 There is a Frenchman. Give you five points if you know who that Frenchman is. 488 00:30:48,500 --> 00:30:49,500 That's André the Giant. 489 00:30:49,500 --> 00:30:53,500 It is André the Giant, you're absolutely right. He was a well known... 490 00:30:53,500 --> 00:30:54,500 - He was a... A wrestler. - Wrestler. 491 00:30:54,500 --> 00:30:57,500 And also starred in an excellent film called...? 492 00:30:57,500 --> 00:30:58,500 The Princess Bride. 493 00:30:58,500 --> 00:30:59,500 The Princess Bride, you're right. 494 00:30:59,500 --> 00:31:03,500 - Points to you, I think. - Trivia points, yes, but not real points. 495 00:31:04,500 --> 00:31:05,500 Excellent. 496 00:31:05,500 --> 00:31:06,500 Which is his normal body colour? 496 00:31:06,500 --> 00:31:07,500 Ehrm, I think... 497 00:31:07,500 --> 00:31:12,500 He's going for a party at Judith Chalmers' house in one, and then in the other, he's going round the Smurfs. 498 00:31:13,500 --> 00:31:18,500 Yeah. I'll give you 50 points if you can tell me who used to drive him to school when he was a boy. 499 00:31:18,500 --> 00:31:20,500 - Was it, er... - President Sarkozy. 500 00:31:20,500 --> 00:31:22,500 - John Wayne. - Vanessa Feltz's aunt? 501 00:31:22,500 --> 00:31:28,500 No. It was a Nobel Prize winner. And... Who's in Wisden, as a cricketer. 502 00:31:28,500 --> 00:31:32,500 Allons, on ne peut pas, pourquoi? En attendant Godot. 503 00:31:33,500 --> 00:31:35,500 - Oh, Beckett? - Samuel Beckett. 504 00:31:35,500 --> 00:31:36,500 Is in Wisden? 505 00:31:36,500 --> 00:31:40,500 Yes, he is in Wisden. The only Nobel prize winner in Wisden, I believe. 506 00:31:40,500 --> 00:31:41,500 What's he in Wisden for? 507 00:31:41,500 --> 00:31:46,500 He was a fine cricketer in his day. In Ireland, er, as a young man. He was an excellent cricketer. 508 00:31:46,500 --> 00:31:48,500 - What was it? - The Mick doesn't play cricket, Stephen. 509 00:31:48,500 --> 00:31:49,500 It's in... It's in... 510 00:31:50,500 --> 00:31:53,500 And what did he used to do to André the Wrestler? 511 00:31:53,500 --> 00:31:57,500 He... He used to drive him to school. And he had this condition, André, 512 00:31:57,500 --> 00:32:03,500 which meant that his growth hormone couldn't be stopped, and so he had 13-inch wrists, for example. 513 00:32:03,500 --> 00:32:05,500 - He was huge. - He was really huge. 514 00:32:05,500 --> 00:32:07,500 But we use him as an example of 515 00:32:07,500 --> 00:32:09,500 - a French soldier, which he wasn't, really. - A French soldier, so... 516 00:32:09,500 --> 00:32:11,500 But why would a French soldier be a good person to have by your side? 517 00:32:12,500 --> 00:32:13,500 Are they good at fighting? 518 00:32:13,500 --> 00:32:18,800 Well, that's really the point. Yes, they are. Despite their reputation for being miserable cowards... 519 00:32:18,800 --> 00:32:19,500 Always losing. 520 00:32:19,500 --> 00:32:25,500 Yeah, er, for always losing, they didn't. It seems, according to Niall Ferguson, the historian, 521 00:32:25,500 --> 00:32:31,500 of the 125 major European wars fought since 1495, the French have fought in 50, 522 00:32:31,500 --> 00:32:37,500 more than Austria, which was 47, and England, 43. And they achieved an impressive average. 523 00:32:37,500 --> 00:32:46,500 Out of a total of 168 battles fought since 387 BC, they've won 109, lost 49, and drawn 10. 524 00:32:46,500 --> 00:32:47,500 Ste... Stephen... 525 00:32:47,500 --> 00:32:48,500 That's pretty good. 526 00:32:49,500 --> 00:32:51,500 Put... Put the glasses back on. 527 00:32:51,500 --> 00:32:53,500 - Yeah. - Just pop them back on. 528 00:32:54,500 --> 00:32:59,500 Now people flicking over the channel may suddenly think that they're seeing a Benny Hill retrospective. 529 00:33:01,500 --> 00:33:03,500 "Hello, viewers!" 530 00:33:06,500 --> 00:33:07,500 There's a touch of that. 531 00:33:07,500 --> 00:33:10,500 Oh, if only Henry McGee was on tonight, what a show you'd have. 532 00:33:10,500 --> 00:33:11,500 Yeah. 533 00:33:11,500 --> 00:33:13,500 "We are speaking with Mr Fred Scuttle." 534 00:33:14,500 --> 00:33:18,500 "Yes, we are sir! I've been hosting quizzes..." 535 00:33:20,500 --> 00:33:26,500 "For some 20 years! My father used to build concrete barriers to stop cars." 536 00:33:26,500 --> 00:33:28,500 "Bollards?" "It's true, sir!" 537 00:33:29,500 --> 00:33:34,500 We miss him, we miss him dearly. The world needs Benny. Anyway, that's... That's the point, despite... 538 00:33:34,500 --> 00:33:36,500 What did Groundskeeper Willie famously call them? 539 00:33:36,500 --> 00:33:38,500 Ah, "cheese-eating surrender monkeys". 540 00:33:38,500 --> 00:33:42,500 "Cheese-eating surrender monkeys." And despite that reputation for not being... 541 00:33:42,500 --> 00:33:48,500 In fact, there was a time when if you Googled "French military victories", er, Google returned... 542 00:33:48,500 --> 00:33:50,500 'cause someone had written a very clever little programme inside it... 542 00:33:50,500 --> 00:33:54,500 They returned "Did you mean: 'French military defeats'?" 543 00:33:56,500 --> 00:33:57,500 It was extremely unkind. 544 00:33:57,500 --> 00:33:59,500 They've had a bad recent record, though, haven't they? I mean... 545 00:33:59,500 --> 00:34:02,500 - Well, some... - If you're going from 387 BC, but... 546 00:34:02,500 --> 00:34:08,500 Obviously Napoleon ultimately lost a lot of victories on the way, but then we got the cane out of the cupboard 547 00:34:08,500 --> 00:34:10,500 and we gave him a damn good thrashing. 548 00:34:11,500 --> 00:34:14,500 Erm, and that was, er... 549 00:34:16,500 --> 00:34:22,500 Now. Le jeux sont fait, rien ne va plus. Nous sommes arrivés à le point in le show 550 00:34:22,500 --> 00:34:27,500 where the TGV of savoir-faire hits the brick mur of "je ne sais quoi", 551 00:34:28,500 --> 00:34:32,500 avec le rond qui s'appelé "General Ignorance", so fingers on buzzers. 552 00:34:32,500 --> 00:34:34,500 Alain. What did the Romans like to wear? 553 00:34:36,500 --> 00:34:37,500 - The Romans. - Togas. 554 00:34:39,500 --> 00:34:42,500 Er, sandals. They wore sandals. 555 00:34:42,500 --> 00:34:45,500 Sandals. They did wear sandals, but togas... 556 00:34:45,500 --> 00:34:48,500 Although they did wear togas, they expressly did not like wearing them. 557 00:34:48,500 --> 00:34:50,500 They were huge and unwieldy... 558 00:34:50,500 --> 00:34:51,500 "I'm sick of this thing." 559 00:34:51,500 --> 00:34:57,500 They... They actually... Augustus the emperor had to pass a law making Romans wear them within the Forum, 560 00:34:57,500 --> 00:35:00,500 because he didn't like them not wearing them, but they were huge things; 561 00:35:00,500 --> 00:35:02,500 they were vast and they were very hard to put on. 562 00:35:02,500 --> 00:35:07,500 You had to keep your left arm up in order for it not to slip off you, and they were totally unwieldy. 563 00:35:07,500 --> 00:35:08,500 That is a toga, that... 564 00:35:08,500 --> 00:35:10,500 - What? - Semi-circle, sort of... 565 00:35:10,500 --> 00:35:11,500 Oh, good grief. 566 00:35:11,500 --> 00:35:14,500 That Mandarin slice, there, is a toga next to a human being. 567 00:35:14,500 --> 00:35:16,500 It's a great semi-circle of material. 568 00:35:16,500 --> 00:35:17,500 That's a man windsurfing. 569 00:35:19,500 --> 00:35:22,500 We had a toga party at my house in 1982. 570 00:35:22,500 --> 00:35:25,500 And I'm sure you used much more convenient togas. 571 00:35:25,500 --> 00:35:26,500 Sheets. 572 00:35:26,500 --> 00:35:28,500 - Sheets, exactly, à la... - Duvet covers with a hole in. 573 00:35:28,500 --> 00:35:32,500 My friend Danny, only had a pink sheet with "Pontin's Holidays" embroidered in the corner. 574 00:35:33,500 --> 00:35:34,500 How stylish. 575 00:35:34,500 --> 00:35:37,500 - He did not get off with anyone. - No. I could imagine. 576 00:35:38,500 --> 00:35:41,500 I laughed all night every time I thought of it. 577 00:35:42,500 --> 00:35:47,500 Would they have different tog ratings of toga for the, like, winter? Big old Romans just like... 578 00:35:47,500 --> 00:35:53,500 Well, they had the toga pulla, which was the dark toga, and they had the toga picta, which was a patterned toga, 579 00:35:53,500 --> 00:35:57,500 and they had the toga candida, and, er, "candida" is the Latin for "white". 580 00:35:57,500 --> 00:36:02,500 But the toga candida was worn by those who were entering an election from which we get the word...? 581 00:36:02,500 --> 00:36:04,500 - Candidate. - Candidate! 582 00:36:04,500 --> 00:36:06,500 - Points! - Comes from that. Points. 583 00:36:06,500 --> 00:36:09,500 Definitely a point or two for that. 584 00:36:09,500 --> 00:36:11,500 Now, why do racing cyclists shave their legs? 585 00:36:12,500 --> 00:36:16,500 Well, I hesitate to say "for aerodynamic purposes". 586 00:36:17,500 --> 00:36:21,500 You may well have hesitated, but you still said it. 587 00:36:21,500 --> 00:36:23,500 That's what the do in that film Breaking Away. I love that film. 588 00:36:23,500 --> 00:36:24,500 You should know, because haven't you... 589 00:36:24,500 --> 00:36:26,500 You've done the Tour de France, haven't you? 590 00:36:26,500 --> 00:36:29,500 I've done a leg of it, yeah, but I believed that it was for the reason Alan said, 591 00:36:29,500 --> 00:36:31,500 and I'm not gonna let the buzzer go off again. 592 00:36:31,500 --> 00:36:32,500 No, no, it won't twice, don't worry. 593 00:36:32,500 --> 00:36:34,500 - You're safe there. - Is it a sweat thing, then? 594 00:36:34,500 --> 00:36:38,500 Not quite that, it's... It's a sort of odd series of reasons, it appears, 595 00:36:38,500 --> 00:36:41,500 but there's absolutely no aerodynamic advantage, and they know it, apparently, 596 00:36:41,500 --> 00:36:45,500 because they all obviously have their doctors and scientists helping them. Swimmers, of course, 597 00:36:45,500 --> 00:36:50,500 they have a 2% advantage by shaving in water. But the main reason given is that it makes it easier 598 00:36:50,500 --> 00:36:56,500 to clean out a wound, is one reason; sticking plasters stay on better and pull off less painfully; 599 00:36:56,500 --> 00:36:59,500 they also, cyclists, have their calves massaged an enormous amount... 600 00:36:59,500 --> 00:37:00,500 It also looks far better in stockings, 601 00:37:00,500 --> 00:37:02,500 - once you've finished. - And it's more comfortable on a shaved... 602 00:37:02,500 --> 00:37:08,500 And, yes, you're right, personal aesthetic considerations may also be a consideration. It's a part of "le look". 603 00:37:09,500 --> 00:37:14,500 Erm, Austrian cyclist René Haselbacher had his shorts ripped off in the 2003 tour... 604 00:37:14,500 --> 00:37:19,500 and it emerged that he shaved the whole area, as you can probably see. Rather a Brazilian... 605 00:37:19,500 --> 00:37:22,500 - Oh, hello. - But still designer stubble. How odd is that? 606 00:37:23,500 --> 00:37:26,500 Shaved from neck to toe. 607 00:37:26,500 --> 00:37:29,500 It's a shame it doesn't make any difference, 'cause I've been using the fact that 608 00:37:29,500 --> 00:37:33,500 I didn't shave my legs as an excuse for going five hours slower than the guy who won. 609 00:37:33,500 --> 00:37:35,500 Yeah, sorry, what did... Which stage did you do? 610 00:37:35,500 --> 00:37:39,500 I did what was the... It's... There's... There's an open stage every year... 611 00:37:39,500 --> 00:37:40,500 Where... An amateur stage. 612 00:37:40,500 --> 00:37:42,500 - And you do... - And you're allowed to join in? 613 00:37:42,500 --> 00:37:44,500 You do... Well, you do it two weeks before they do it... 614 00:37:44,500 --> 00:37:45,500 - Right. - So it's 8000 of us. 615 00:37:46,500 --> 00:37:55,500 And by the end, there were 4000 of us left at the end of it. I started in 2400th place, and I finished in 3400th place. 616 00:37:55,500 --> 00:37:56,500 Oh no. 617 00:37:56,500 --> 00:37:57,500 - You mean 1000 people overtook you? - So I was passed... 618 00:37:57,500 --> 00:37:58,500 I was pounced... 619 00:37:59,500 --> 00:38:05,500 By 1000 people, and it took me... It took 11 hours to do this stage. The winner... 620 00:38:05,500 --> 00:38:10,500 The winner of the actual proper stage when they did it the next week was a guy called Vinokourov, I think his name was. 621 00:38:10,500 --> 00:38:15,500 He did it in five hours, but he was using someone else's blood and he was... 622 00:38:16,500 --> 00:38:20,500 He was thrown out the stage that night for blood doping, but it took me nine hours... 623 00:38:20,500 --> 00:38:22,500 - Someone else's blood! - It took me nine hours... 624 00:38:22,500 --> 00:38:24,500 To catch up the bloke with the one leg. 625 00:38:25,500 --> 00:38:31,500 Oh, Hugh! Well, I'm full of admiration for you, Hugh. I mean, it's absolutely wonderful. 626 00:38:32,500 --> 00:38:35,500 Now, why do Spaniards lisp when they speak? 627 00:38:35,500 --> 00:38:38,500 Because the king lisps and everyone copied him. 628 00:38:42,500 --> 00:38:45,500 There's always a delay. Yeah, there is no evidence whatsoever for this; 629 00:38:45,500 --> 00:38:48,500 and if it were true then they would lisp all the time. 630 00:38:48,500 --> 00:38:52,500 They wouldn't say "Espania"; they'd say "Ethpania", but they don't, except in... 631 00:38:52,500 --> 00:38:57,500 There are very small areas where they lisp on the "s" as well, but that's considered very bumpkinish in Spanish, 632 00:38:57,500 --> 00:39:01,500 so it's just somehow one of these stories that's got around that isn't true at all. 633 00:39:01,500 --> 00:39:03,500 Do you know that story about Arnold Schwarzenegger? 634 00:39:03,500 --> 00:39:07,500 When they'd made Terminator, and they did a German version of it, and he said, 635 00:39:07,500 --> 00:39:12,500 "Can I please dub it back into German because I speak German?" 636 00:39:12,500 --> 00:39:18,000 And they said "no", because he's Austrian and he sounds like a farmer. 637 00:39:20,500 --> 00:39:23,500 "Now where's John Connor? We're looking for John Connor." 638 00:39:24,500 --> 00:39:26,500 "I'm from the future!" 639 00:39:28,500 --> 00:39:31,500 "Hasta la vista, baby!" It's a hell of a thought. 640 00:39:32,500 --> 00:39:33,500 "I want your jacket." 641 00:39:35,500 --> 00:39:38,500 Well, it certainly has nothing to do with sucking up to the king. 642 00:39:38,500 --> 00:39:41,500 It isn't technically a lisp, but a feature of pronunciation in Castile, 643 00:39:41,500 --> 00:39:46,500 no different from the curious northern British pronunciation of bath and grass; or, if you prefer, 644 00:39:46,500 --> 00:39:49,500 the curious southern pronunciation of bath and grass. 645 00:39:49,500 --> 00:39:54,500 Talking of kings, what did they call the man who won the Battle of Hastings? 646 00:39:54,500 --> 00:39:55,500 Harold. 647 00:39:56,500 --> 00:39:57,500 Oh, no. They called him... 648 00:39:58,500 --> 00:39:59,500 - Oh no, he lost, didn't he? - Yes. 649 00:40:00,500 --> 00:40:03,500 - What did they call the man who won? - William the Conqueror. 650 00:40:03,500 --> 00:40:07,500 Oh, no. No, the... We call him William the Conqueror; 651 00:40:07,500 --> 00:40:09,500 - what did they call him in the day? - He was called William of Normandy, I think. 652 00:40:09,500 --> 00:40:11,500 William le Conqueror. 653 00:40:12,500 --> 00:40:17,500 But the fact is, no, the word "William" didn't exist at all as a name at the time of the conquest. 654 00:40:17,500 --> 00:40:20,500 He was known as Guillaume Bâtard, William the Bastard, in fact, 654 00:40:20,500 --> 00:40:24,500 was how he was universally known by the other French. 655 00:40:24,500 --> 00:40:25,500 It wasn't as rude to call him that. 656 00:40:25,500 --> 00:40:31,500 The bloke on the left appears to be riding a llama. I mean, that's definitely a horse on the right... 657 00:40:33,500 --> 00:40:37,500 And he's got a parrot... He's a random pirate who's arrived in the middle. 658 00:40:38,500 --> 00:40:42,500 "Well, I arrived on a busy day here in Hastings." 659 00:40:42,500 --> 00:40:46,500 "Who's that doing the embroidery over yonder? Get my good side." 660 00:40:46,500 --> 00:40:53,500 As you might see in the top left corner, the word William is kind of developing; it's become "Wilgelm". 661 00:40:53,500 --> 00:40:56,500 - Wilgelm. - That was "Will 6 Elm". 662 00:40:56,500 --> 00:40:59,500 - Wilgeml... - "Normanno". I like that. 663 00:40:59,500 --> 00:41:01,500 - Normanno. - Yeah, is it Normany or...? 664 00:41:01,500 --> 00:41:06,500 Is that like medieval text speak? They never put the whole thing in; they just put, you know, "c u l8r". 665 00:41:06,500 --> 00:41:09,500 We have been "conquRd". 666 00:41:09,500 --> 00:41:11,500 "We've invaded Britain. LOL." 667 00:41:17,500 --> 00:41:20,500 O-M-G. Very good. So... 668 00:41:21,500 --> 00:41:24,500 They have indeed. Erm, that's basically the point. 669 00:41:24,500 --> 00:41:28,500 But all the Norman names, all the Saxon names, disappeared within 50 years of the invasion. 670 00:41:28,500 --> 00:41:32,500 All the Earwigs and Ethelreds and all those sort of names disappeared, 671 00:41:32,500 --> 00:41:37,500 and it became Hugo and Robert and Richard and William... Became the most popular names. William... 672 00:41:37,500 --> 00:41:42,500 One in every seven men in England was called William within 50 years of William's conquering of England. 673 00:41:42,500 --> 00:41:48,500 Anyway, nobody called him William. The French called him Guillaume le Bâtard. As for the English, er, 674 00:41:48,500 --> 00:41:52,500 there was no equivalent name in Anglo-Saxon, so they just probably referred to him as "the bastard". 675 00:41:52,500 --> 00:42:00,500 But sacre bleu! And zut alors, it is that time, ladies and gentlemen. Garçon, l'addition, s'il vous plaît. 676 00:42:00,500 --> 00:42:04,500 And I have the scores right in front of me. Here is the damage. 677 00:42:04,500 --> 00:42:06,500 Well, well, well, well, well, well, well. 678 00:42:06,500 --> 00:42:10,500 We have an outright winner, ladies and gentlemen, with fifteen clear points, 679 00:42:10,500 --> 00:42:11,500 it's Hugh Dennis! 680 00:42:14,500 --> 00:42:15,500 Wow. 681 00:42:18,500 --> 00:42:23,500 In second place... In second place with cinq, 682 00:42:23,500 --> 00:42:24,500 it's Jo Brand! 683 00:42:27,500 --> 00:42:28,500 Not bad for a girl. 684 00:42:30,500 --> 00:42:34,500 In third place with minus deux, 685 00:42:34,500 --> 00:42:35,500 it's Phill Jupitus. 686 00:42:40,500 --> 00:42:46,500 But with a magnifique minus trente-neuf, minus thirty-nine, 687 00:42:46,500 --> 00:42:47,500 Alan Davies. 688 00:42:52,500 --> 00:42:53,500 Well, there you have it. 689 00:42:57,500 --> 00:43:01,500 Then it remains for me to wish you au revoir, à bientôt, adieu, 690 00:43:01,500 --> 00:43:04,500 and to say thank you to Jo, Hugh, Phill, and Alan. 691 00:43:04,500 --> 00:43:11,500 I leave you with the perfect French-baiting headline from the Daily Telegraph of 1929: 692 00:43:11,500 --> 00:43:17,500 "Great Storm in Channel, Continent Isolated". Salut maintenant. Merci.