CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello!
Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel.
"Hell is empty, all the devils are here," to quote Shakespeare.
Welcome to the QI Christmas Show, otherwise known as
"The Feast of Stephen". Let's meet our merry players.
Miss Scarlett - Jo Brand!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Colonel Mustard - Phill Jupitus!
Mrs Brown - Brendan O'Carroll!
And the lead piping in the bathroom - Alan Davies!
And the buzzers are adorable. Jo goes...
WOMEN SING "O COME, ALL YE FAITHFUL"
Brendan goes...
MEN SING "O COME, ALL YE FAITHFUL"
Phill goes...
MEN AND WOMEN SING "O COME, ALL YE FAITHFUL"
And Alan goes...
MEN AND WOMEN SING "RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER"
LAUGHTER
Thank you, Alan. And so, to our first question.
Ooh, you've been given a truly horrible sweater for Christmas.
Oh, sorry, that's the question.
What's the best way to get rid of it?
Some comedic unravelling that they used to always do in films
when I was little, on the telly, and you never see that any more.
It's always someone getting a thing and...
STEPHEN MAKES UNRAVELLING NOISE
- That definitely would do it. - Tom and Jerry. - That would do it.
Any other thoughts?
Well, you can get in touch with the people at CERN,
- who have been working on the Higgs boson. - Yeah.
Which I'm fairly sure will lead to time travel.
And then you can turn them back into sheep.
- Reversing time is a very good idea, that would do. - It's complex.
- What would you do? - Just say "Thank you very much" and burn it.
LAUGHTER
Ever the practical, positive solution.
I'd do the same, I'd set fire to it, but I'd make sure my
least favourite relative was trying it on at the time.
You could give it to charity.
There was a lady who lived on our road who used to donate three,
four shirts a week to charity, and then she'd go back and buy them back
for 50p each, because it was cheaper than leaving them into the cleaner's.
That's brilliant.
Well, the funny thing is,
between you you've oddly got near the truth of it.
Unravel it whilst travelling through time?
LAUGHTER
You sort of do the effect of travelling through time,
if you take a sweater on a journey back through time,
eventually it becomes a ball of wool.
Is there a machine that can take a pullover
and unravel it back into its constituent woollen parts?
- Or a scarf, for example. - Why would you make such a thing? - Why indeed!
The only person on the planet we know who has done it...
Imogen Hedges, ladies and gentlemen!
APPLAUSE
Lovely to see you. Now, to explain ourselves, you're a student at...?
Kingston, I just graduated.
And one of your projects was an un-knitting machine.
- And this is something you built yourself? - Yeah.
She's fantastic, what a mind.
Most people think, "I'll try and make something,"
but to unmake something, to go back in time...
So could you take, say, Alan's scarf,
and return it to a ball of wool?
- Yep. - Seriously? - Yep. - Oh, charming.
- And once you've un-knitted it, can you knit it again? - Yeah.
She can do anything! Can we see your machine?
There it is, and I believe that's your brother there.
Tristan, give us a wave! Hello, Tristan.
- And he's going to be operating. It's pedal-powered? - Yes.
- PHILL: - Do they not have electricity in Kingston?
Has the recession bitten that hard?
It's like a wind-up radio, it's for use around the world.
Can I ask a question? Has Tristan got a girlfriend?
- He is quite... - He's very cute, isn't he? - One would, one feels.
LAUGHTER
He's going to pedal fast now, I tell you that!
ALAN IMITATES TRISTAN PEDALLING FRANTICALLY
Stop it, stop it, stop it at once!
..across the studio!
Stop it, stop it.
Imogen, thanks very much, take the scarf away
and we'll be looking in on you.
- Oh, dear. - I just hate it when you two get all Christmassy like that.
We'll be looking in on her from time to time.
Now, we're all loyal servants of Her Majesty here.
What do you think the Queen's going to give you for Christmas this year?
A message.
She will certainly be giving us all a message, that's true.
That not a klaxon? I felt certain that would be a klaxon.
For years it's actually been a robot.
She only gives things to people when they're 100. She gives Maundy money.
She gives Maundy money on Maundy Thursday, well, her staff, which is
obviously extensive, it used to be they could choose from a catalogue.
Argos?
And with value between ?20 and ?25, according to length of service.
That's a very small window! "26.99?" "Nope."
- IMPERSONATES THE QUEEN: - "Too much."
In 2006, it changed, they all get the same thing.
These are her butlers and so on,
obviously her family it's different, but this is if you're her servant.
How many staff?
- I don't have the number, but it's pretty enormous. - You don't know?!
- I'm sorry, I have failed you, Brendan, on the first fence. - Sake.
I thought you would know every light bulb in the place.
- I'll just say a number and you'll believe me. - Yes.
There are over 4,000 light bulbs in the palace, I can tell you that.
My God. That's some bill.
Have you not met the Queen yet?
Yes, she nudged me once, quite hard in the ribs.
It was quite funny.
At her son's wedding, to Camilla, at Windsor Castle,
and she made this very funny speech, she stood on the table.
- She got on a table? - Yeah, she stood on a chair, got on the table...
Then she made a very funny speech and got down,
and I was chatting to someone and got this rib,
"Isn't anybody going to give me cake?"
LAUGHTER
So I said, "Of course, ma'am, I'll get you some cake."
This must be a dream, you dreamed all of it!
I know it sounds mad, but it's absolutely true.
"I'm going outside for a fag! Come on, Fry."
That was in the days I smoked, and I'm afraid
I was caught by a photographer in the buttresses of Windsor.
Buttresses?!
In my big top hat and everything, smoking a cigarette.
Coming out the top of your hat.
You can take your woolly hats off now, if you're getting hot.
THEY TALK OVER EACH OTHER
- Shall I pop it under? - Or you can keep it on.
Let's see how Imogen's getting on, shall we?
Imogen, have you started your machine?
There it is, and there's Tristan pedalling away.
BRENDAN: Yes, indeed!
- LAUGHTER - He's looking so shy now, I feel terrible.
That is absolutely amazing, it is unravelling before our eyes.
Brilliant.
APPLAUSE
Wow.
I think they would have got it done ages ago
if Tristan wasn't quite so relaxed.
Whoa-oh-oh - no, no!
Jo Brand...
Oh, the humanity!
You deliberately spilled boiling water on his trousers
so you can mop them down.
You wicked, wicked woman!
As soon as they go off screen, Imogen is going to beat him!
Is Tristan wearing corduroys so the heat generated by the whiff-whiff...
LAUGHTER
..is powering the kettle?
We've embarrassed the brother and sister team almost to death.
- Sorry, Imogen. - If he gets snagged up in that
he might get unravelled himself.
A full human being being unravelled.
- I'm going to build one of those for next Christmas. - You should!
Thank you very much, Imogen and Tristan.
Sorry about that, we'll let you replace it.
Let's go back to Her Maj.
Now the fact is, if you work for the Queen nowadays you all get
the same present, instead of being able to choose from the catalogue.
We've done a little montage of them.
Bottle of bubbly, silver plate.
2008 reflected the mood of financial restraint, which was coasters,
and in 2012, Jubilee year, a special themed trinket box.
You all get the same thing,
monogrammed...cigar box or whatever it was.
You can't expect the woman to go down
the high street shopping, can you?
No, especially not if she's in one of her cake frenzies.
"CAKE! Cake! I want cake!"
Have to pull her away from Greggs.
- Oh! - It takes three equerries.
Or are they eclairs, is that a cake? I dunno!
Aaanyway. Which of these looks most like Jesus?
- I'd say the toast has to be the best. - The toast is certainly...
Well, we bow down, yes?
- Any other thoughts? - They look a bit westernised.
As far as the Bible, he was a Jew obviously,
and that on the right is what's known as a forensic reconstruction.
Is there any truth to...
it could be a myth, but you can tell Jewish people
because their ear lobes are higher than their nose?
Well, I'm Jewish, my mother's fully Jewish,
so that makes me fully Jewish. Is my ear lobe higher than my nose?
It's very hard to tell with your nose.
Well, as my grandfather used to say, and he was Jewish...
- YIDDISH ACCENT: - "You know why we have big noses? Air is free!"
How many specifically are we looking for?
It's basically images of Jesus, it's extraordinary difficult
to know, the Bible doesn't furnish us with any description of him.
We just know he was a Jewish man who lived at a particular time.
And that's the best that forensic people can do, given that's
the sort of average...
But one very Christmassy person we DO know more the features of,
because unlike Jesus we have the skull - who is that?
- Santa. - St Nicholas.
St Nicholas, and what can you tell me about the real-life St Nicholas?
- There was about three of them. - Right.
One was Roman, and he used to throw coins in the windows of poor people.
One was Russian, I think.
And he would collect fire wood and carve things out of it
and leave them around the village for children.
And then there's the most famous one of all, of course,
the Coca-Cola Santa.
Well, the canonical St Nicholas was actually from Lycia
- L-Y-C-I-A - which is actually part of Asia Minor, which is now...
- Iran. - No.
- Asia Minor is...Turkey. - Close.
LAUGHTER
That St Nicholas there, who was the bloke before then?
The bloke before is the facial reconstruction on the
- basis of the skull. - Right.
He was a bishop, and the story is that he gave money to
young girls, to daughters of people of his episcopacy...
Did he work for the BBC?
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
- He paid the parents of the girls in order to stop them... - I bet he did!
..in order to stop them becoming prostitutes,
and he is therefore the patron saint of prostitutes.
Hurrah!
I'm pleased that there's a patron saint of tarts, I think it's good.
Did he have a hairdresser with OCD though?
Look at it.
And also quite a thick, broken nose, which he could have got...
people believe he fought with a heretic at Lycia.
More likely did it coming down the chimney though.
- Or being beaten up by the Emperor Diocletian. - What's his era?
Mid-fourth century, I think, AD.
But when did Santa Claus become Santa Claus?
Well, the idea that he was the patron saint of children caught on
and he became the patron saint of sailors, children and prostitutes.
LAUGHTER
- That's a good group, that's a good group. - It's a good portfolio.
Sailors and prostitutes is a very difficult combination!
I just love the idea that he's the patron saint of prostitutes,
and then a child goes, "I love you, Santa." "Shut up, baby, I know it!"
"I never, ever kiss..."
He's, he's, he's...
He was, erm, by the Dutch...
LAUGHTER
The Dutch call him "Sinterklaas", but where does the modern depiction
of Father Christmas with the red and white and the beard come from?
Ah, this is where I could get my first screen. Coca-Cola.
- Mmmm, you're not getting a klaxon... - Ugh.
..because it was certainly reinforced by Coca-Cola in the 1930s,
but there are plenty of images from the 1890s of Father Christmas in
red and white with a white beard.
Santa rewards good little boys and girls,
but what happens to the bad ones?
There is a culture not far from us where they really go
a long way towards celebrating this anti-Father Christmas.
Waterboarded.
"I shall waterboard all the bad children."
This is surprisingly close to waterboarding, what they do.
PHILL LAUGHS HYSTERICALLY
- Snowboarding! - Snowboarding would be OK. - Do they not drown them?
We're talking about Germany. No, they don't actually drown them!
But their threats are pretty medieval.
There he is. Does anybody know the name of this character?
Several names, but...in German he's mostly known as "Krampus".
I don't know who he is,
but with a tongue like that he's not the patron saint of prostitutes.
He's also known as "Schmutzli", and Santa gives good gifts to
children, Krampus punishes naughty ones, include pulling hair.
- It's not that bad, is it? - Swatting with chains. - Quite bad.
Pulling hair, swat with chains.
Leading naughty children off a cliff.
He'd obviously have to be able to fly to be able to
- get back and do it again. - I think I went to that school.
LAUGHTER
Putting them in a sack and taking them to his fiery lair,
which sort of explains why German children are so well behaved.
- You like fiery lairs? - That can be fun. Mammy used to say.
- When is this practised? - Christmas Eve? - No.
- Is it on their birthdays, for extra irony? - No, it's December the 5th.
The 5th is when Schmutzli or Krampus...
And there's the kind of figure he presents,
and they terrify children.
They run down with whips and threaten children and glare at them.
It is a peculiar way to treat children at Christmas time,
but I suppose it has produced a nation of extremely efficient
and obedient citizens who now rule Europe, so...
LAUGHTER
..maybe we've been missing something.
Now why is Santa off the Rich List?
LAUGHTER
- Aww. Poor Santa. - Cutbacks? Austerity drive? - Only works one day a year.
He used to be on the Rich List until 2006.
Forbes Magazine famously invented the idea of a Rich List.
MEN SING "O COME, ALL YE FAITHFUL"
- Yes, young Brendan? - Is it because...
(..he may not be real?)
STEPHEN GASPS
ALARM RINGS
APPLAUSE
Yes!
Thank you! Thank you.
Oh, poor Phill.
LAUGHTER
Phill, that got a klaxon, so that can't be right.
Don't worry, back you go.
APPLAUSE
Poor little soul.
Forbes Magazine genuinely publishes a fictional Rich List,
and Santa Claus used to be on it
because they reckon he must be infinitely rich,
because he is able to distribute presents every year to
all the children of the world, they said.
- I don't believe he does. - Richie Rich. - Scrooge, I guess, on the left.
- Father Christmas himself. - The late Bernard Manning on the right.
LAUGHTER
Can you name - I've got the top five -
name any that you imagine might be on the list?
- Real people or imaginary? - Fictional, that's the point. - Scrooge McDuck.
No, but his great rival.
If you can remember his name you'll get lots of points.
- Tony Stark out of - Iron Man. Yes, is number five, absolutely right!
APPLAUSE
Yes, 9.3 billion, apparently.
Number four's from a black and white TV show
with a wonderful old banjo opening theme song.
Oh, the Beverly Hillbillies, so Jethro Clampett.
Jed Clampett, I'll give you the points for that.
And they were worth 9.8 billion.
So at number three, Carlisle Cullen from the Twilight Saga,
is worth 36.3 billion, apparently.
Wow, dude.
But number two is the enemy of Scrooge McDuck.
BRENDAN MIMICS SCROOGE
Good one. Flintheart Glomgold is his name.
Flintheart Glomgold?
And number one, played by Benedict Cumberbatch,
the richest fictional creature in the world, human or...
They know in the audience.
- AUDIENCE MEMBERS: Smaug! - Smaug.
Smaug the dragon in The Hobbit, 62 billion worth of gold he
sits upon, until of course - well, I'm not
going to tell you the ending. Cos I happen to be in it.
But why's Santa taken off? Cos surely he must
be really rich to be able to give everyone a present.
- It's a very simple reason. - Tax evasion. - Not tax evasion!
The usual answer.
It's because it's a fictional list, and Santa is real.
ALL: Awww!
So there you go. Good result, Santa.
Let's see how Imogen's going.
Oh, you've spooled it back up, he's turning slowly...
BRENDAN: Oh, he's doing two tasks now.
He's growing it back into a ball,
it actually doesn't just unravel it, it balls it up as well!
"Balls it up." Sorry.
LAUGHTER
Beautifully! Look at how cunning that little thing is.
- The little shuttley... - He's called Tristan, Steve.
APPLAUSE
Imogen, what do you call that unit that winds it up?
Her brother.
- Did you design the way that it moves like that? - The little tiny thing?
- Yeah. - That's from eBay.
LAUGHTER
I think British industry in the future has nothing to fear.
We're going to win over the world. Congratulations, we'll come back
to you when that ball of wool is complete. That's brilliant.
Now, how can a Christmas tree get you into trouble?
Grass you up.
- Very good. - Falling needles, and their disposal.
Drying out and the chances of fire.
Falling over and giving an elderly relative brain damage.
We're talking about the once-beloved institution,
the giant, magnificent cultural gift to the world that is the BBC.
Oh.
And the BBC now, of course, is so open that you can literally
look up everyone who works for it and see how much their salary is.
In the old days they all had a personnel file, and there was
a figure from another institution, far more sinister even than the BBC.
- Broadmoor. - Not Broadmoor!
MI5 is the right answer,
and if they thought anyone who worked for the BBC was...
- Gay. - Communist. - ..dodgy... - They would ask them to join immediately!
There would be a symbol put onto their personnel file which
resembled a Christmas tree.
- Like that. - Oh. - Oh, no(!)
The reason people thought it might be a Christmas tree was...
Do you know what the German for Christmas tree is?
- "Tannenbaum." - Do you know the tune of the song?
# O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum... #
SHE SPEAKS GIBBERISH
Exactly. Which is also the tune to?
# Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer
# We'll keep the red flag flying here. #
The Red Flag.
- "Power to the people!" - Can I just do my version of the Red Flag?
# Neil Kinnock's hair is deepest red
# Though most of it's not on his head. #
APPLAUSE
It isn't actually the reason that it's the Tannenbaum, Red Flag.
People thought it looked like a Christmas tree,
called it the Christmas tree,
but the two arrows actually just mean "Refer upstairs".
So if anyone was thought to...
For promotion, you saw their personnel file,
you'd have to go up to a senior person and say...
- I'm up for promotion. - Anna Ford had one of those on her, the newsreader.
It was because she'd once had as a boyfriend a Communist,
which, Jesus, in a free society...
And they allowed her on the television?
I know. There you go.
The BBC used Christmas trees to keep lefties off the telly.
The practice stopped in 1985 and, sure enough, they're everywhere!
Now, historic moment.
BAAS LIKE COLONEL MELCHETT
- What's Baldrick brought for me this Christmas? - Right, bought for you...
- Melchett? Are we Melching? - Well, it's for me.
- It's for you. - And who is that there on the screen?
- Tony Robinson. - Tony Robinson.
And there is a Tony Robinson, Baldrick, who's about to come on.
But in the First World War, as you probably know
and we've covered before, there was a Christmas football truce.
But what happened later, in 1915, was that, because football had been
banned on Christmas Day, a soldier smuggled into the trench a football.
It was deflated, so that no-one would spot it,
and then he blew it up before the Battle of Loos.
And in the morning,
when the whistle blew to commence the offensive,
he threw it out of the trench, shouting,
"Play up, London Irish!", cos he was from the London Irish regiment,
- which I'm sure you'll be aware of. - I am. Great regiment.
And they found the football when they got to the German trench,
they kept it, and it
so happens that a member of that London Irish happens to be
called Tony Robinson, is therefore always called
Baldrick by his fellow...and he has brought that football along today.
APPLAUSE
SPEECH DROWNED OUT BY APPLAUSE
Do your flies up, man.
Oh, Christmas came early for Stephen!
Darling, take that man's name. And address.
- This really is, Tony, the football. - It is, indeed, it's the football.
And where is it kept?
It's kept in the museum, which is now down in Camberwell,
at the London Irish Rifles.
Is it the London Irish Regiment or the London Regiment?
We're D Company London Irish Rifles of the London Regiment.
Right, D Company.
And it's still an active regiment in the British Army, and we have
some of your fellow soldiers over here,
if you'd like to stand up. Here they are.
APPLAUSE
Fabulous to see you guys.
They are all recently back from Helmand Province in Afghanistan
and they're wearing combat uniform,
but what's most noticeable is the, how do you say it, caubeen?
Which you must NOT call a beret, I believe.
And can any of you tell me what is distinctive about that particular
piece of head joy, I shall call it, as opposed to other British...?
- Pain in the arse in the cinema. - Well, yes.
But this is different from other headwear.
The people behind those lads are, like, "Oh, now they've stood up.
"It was bad enough with the funny hat."
- PHILL: - "Tell 'em. Tell 'em." "I'm not going to..."
Are they worn on the opposite side to the others?
It's the only one with the cap badge on the right.
- This is a very historic year for Irish soldiers. - Tell me why.
Well, last May, all Irish soldiers who deserted the Irish...
- Oh, yes, have been... - I haven't finished! - Sorry!
I'm so sorry, carry on.
All soldiers who deserted the Irish Army in both the First World War
and Second World War periods and joined the British Army
to fight for the British Army were granted a pardon.
- That is extraordinary, isn't it? - It's too late now, they're dead.
Almost all of them are dead, but it was true,
that if you were Irish and anti-Fascist, say,
and you wanted to fight for the Allies against Germany,
and so joined the British Army,
it was considered by the Irish Government that you were a traitor.
You got no pension, you couldn't work for the Government.
- You could barely go home. - Yeah.
There was a great cartoon,
and it was two Irish guys fighting for the British Army,
in the trenches,
and de Valera was the President of Ireland at the time,
and the two boys were there, ducking the bullets, and one said,
"Well, fair play to de Valera, he kept us out of this."
That's very good.
So thank you very much and please sit down, members of D Company.
Thank you so much.
- Anyway, Baldrick. - Sir.
I've never seen you looking better.
Yet, you're still an absolute disaster of a human being.
Thank you so much for bringing me lunch.
- I'm not very hungry, you can take it away. - Thank you, sir.
Thank you very much indeed. Wonderful.
Tony Robinson.
So, yep, that football you've just seen was kicked right across
No-Man's Land by Rifleman Frank Edwards and the London Irish
in 1915 and our thanks to Rifleman Tony "Baldrick" Robinson.
So it's time for a Christmas drink, I think.
So take a glass, each of you. There you go.
And all I want to know from you
is which ones you should use at Christmas.
You've got a drink, you can pour out your drink.
- HISSING - Holy moly...
It's not about the capacity, it's about the shape.
Can I just say, as an ex-nurse, that looks like someone with cystitis.
Darling, have you got...?
I think whereas I have had one Berocca too many.
Suspiciously like Irn-Bru, actually, the colour, isn't it? Maybe...
- Oh, it's like piss. - Oh, right.
The issue is an Oxford psychologist who assists Heston Blumenthal,
- in fact... - Oh-oh.
..has studied extensively the effect
of one of our sense organs on food and drink.
It's not the tongue. What do you think it is?
- It's the feel, the feel. - No, not the feel. - Eyes. - The eyes.
So much more of our mental processes...
- We eat 80% with our eyes. - Exactly, goes with our eyes.
And he has discovered remarkable things by observing people
who don't know they're being watched,
is that you drink more quickly out of a curved glass,
cos you're not aware of how much there is.
And also you drink more quickly with loud music playing.
And you drink more quickly if you're an alcoholic.
- And if you're an alcoholic. - LAUGHTER
You don't care what shape the glass is. You drink from the bottle.
I find you drink much more quickly if you've had three drinks already.
LAUGHTER
But there are also many other extraordinary things about colour
and sight which influence food which are quite startling
which this same professor has discovered,
whose name is Charles Spence.
Erm, the colour of a plate can affect the taste of food.
So, if you, for example, have a
strawberry mousse served on a white plate, it tastes more
flavourful and sweeter than the same thing on a black plate.
Nearly everything does.
A chef prefers to serve on a white plate
because it hails what you're going to taste.
It somehow does, exactly.
The restaurants have all got a bit weird lately.
- I've had fruit served to me on planks... - Oh, yes. - On slate.
- Slates and planks. - Please, wash the bird shit off it first.
LAUGHTER
That was the sauce.
LAUGHTER
It was Heston Blumenthal...a little squeeze of sparrow.
LAUGHTER
Blowtorch...
I always put my mayonnaise through a pigeon before I...
In the Jamie Oliver ones, they hang them on the wall
and offer them for sale afterwards.
- The pigeons? - No, the planks.
LAUGHTER
I think that's crap about stuff tasting worse off black plates.
- It isn't. - I think it's racist towards plates.
LAUGHTER
Let's have a taste challenge.
We will move on now, but there are various other things,
for example, it is as you rightly said cortical real estate
- taken up by visual is much, much more. - Did I say that?
Well, you didn't say it quite like that.
LAUGHTER
Wine doesn't taste as nice in a mug.
Wine, no, that's very true
and I think tea doesn't taste good out of a...
That's cos of the amount of air you take in.
Yes, that's probably true, isn't it?
- No, it IS true, Stephen. - Yes, no...
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
It's the thinness of the glass.
It's the amount of air you're taking as you sip.
If you like tea, just make one cup in a glass
and try the tea out of the glass. It is divine.
My wife likes a thin mug.
Well, that's your own business but I'm just saying...
LAUGHTER
LAUGHTER DROWNS OUT SPEECH
Who thought that Fry and Carroll would be a double act?!
LAUGHTER
That's why when they taste the wine they go...
HE BREATHES THROUGH HIS TEETH
- Yeah, that's right. - To maximise the air that gets in.
OPERATIC VOICE SINGS FAINTLY
- Is that your phone? - Yes.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
It's Heston Blumenthal.
LAUGHTER
- Minus how many points, I'm wondering. - I'm so sorry.
I didn't even know I had it on me.
I'm very sorry.
Anyway, now, let's test your beer goggles, as it were.
We have a man in the audience who's going to hold up a picture
and I want you to tell me who's that of.
- Marilyn Monroe. - Marilyn Monroe, yeah.
You can see the picture behind it there, Marilyn Monroe.
Now, it's Sam. Sam, walk towards us, if you'd be kind enough.
I don't think... I think it's supposed to look like her but I'm suspicious.
Albert Einstein.
- Albert Einstein. - Holy crap!
- It is rather extraordinary, it's both. - They're related. - No.
LAUGHTER
Never in the same room, Brendan.
They would be, would you...
I think Marilyn Monroe did have quite a bad facial hair problem.
LAUGHTER
From a distance, the image does look like Marilyn Monroe because
what they do is...it's created by the MIT, this illusion,
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as I'm sure you know.
- Thank you. - They remove Marilyn's fine-grained features
like wrinkles and little blemishes
and they remove Einstein's coarser features,
like the shape of his mouth and nose and then they superimpose the two.
And from a distance we see all the broader strokes and see her,
Marilyn Monroe, and close up, we see the fine details of Albert Einstein.
And we've done another version to show this really does work,
it's not just Marilyn. Erm, who's that?
- Handsome man...that's Stephen Fry, I know him well. - That's me, hooray.
And if you come towards us, hello...
It's Alan Davies.
APPLAUSE
How about that?
That's fantastic, an extraordinary illusion.
- I hope they've done two, so we can have one each in our bedrooms. - Yeah, I want one in my house.
What distance do you want it, though?
I want to be far away from it.
LAUGHTER
Toss you for it, erm...
LAUGHTER
Thank you very much indeed.
APPLAUSE
And thank you, Albert and Marilyn.
So, the take home message tonight is don't trust your eyes,
even when you're sober.
In fact, you probably shouldn't really trust anything,
because we've come to that bit we call general ignorance.
Fingers on buzzers for very quick ones. What year was Jesus born?
CHOIR SINGS
- Yes, Brendan. - 5 BC. - Oooh, it's not the right answer.
- Damn close, though. - Four. - No. - Three. - No...
LAUGHTER
- Two. - No.
- Other direction, eight. - Six. - Yes. - Ah, come on.
He was born six years before Christ.
- Well done, Jesus. - How crazy is that?
Now, how do we know?
Somebody told us.
LAUGHTER
It's the only authority we could possibly have.
- There's a book about him, come on. - It doesn't give the date, though.
Doesn't it?
It's been worked out by the only man we've ever been able to call,
certainly for over 1,000 years, I think, Pope Emeritus.
Who's he? Emeritus, what does Emeritus mean?
- An ex-Pope. - An ex-Pope. Is there an ex-Pope in the world?
- We've got one now. - We have, Benedict.
They call him Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.
His Holiness wrote a book with the catchy title
Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives.
And the calculation made by Dionysius Exiguous, which is
- basically Latin for Dennis The Small... - LAUGHTER
This modern dating system is based...was wrong by several years,
he says, and so he puts the date at 6 BC,
which you eventually got to, Alan,
in your usual method. What was the year before 1 AD?
- Yes, Jo. - Nought.
Ohhhh! Dear, oh, dear, oh, dear.
No. Hooray! Yes, well done. Touch of pride.
APPLAUSE
- 1 BC is the right answer. - Oh, I was going to say that!
Well... It went from December 31st 1 BC to 1st January 1 AD.
The BC-AD scheme doesn't have a zero. Anyway, here's an easy one.
Is zero an odd number or an even number?
It's not a number.
- No, it is a number. - I give up. - No...
LAUGHTER
- So it is one of them. - Hang on. It's even. - Yes!
- Oh! - Is it?
By the criteria by which you judge an even number, it is even.
An even number is divisible by two without leaving a remainder.
Well, nought over two is nought.
There's no remainder.
Or it's a number that ends in 0, 2, 4, 6 or 8.
0 obviously ends in 0 cos it is 0.
Also, it has either side of it -1 and 1, which are both odd numbers.
Our maths elf at QI thinks this is the easiest question that's
ever been asked on QI.
Yeah, yeah! Take away my glory now. I got my points.
The easiest question that's ever been asked.
- But he is a maths elf. - Yeah. The sun isn't there.
I had that about 40 years ago.
I'm looking at it and it's not there, but this is easier.
- No, I know maths people are odd. - I hate this show!
LAUGHTER
I'm so sorry, Phill.
You feel bad - I got it wrong!
STEPHEN LAUGHS
That's true, where does that put you?
Now, who wants to see one of my knick-knacks?
- My first knick-knack is for you to do. - Ohh!
I want you to create some extraordinary, magical,
Christmassy things using the power of chemistry alone.
- Chemistry, let's not forget, means magic. - Ooh! - Ohh!
Al-kimia, the magic. So, you should have...
- Stephen, are we going to make a seasonal meth lab? - Maybe.
LAUGHTER
Take out your little chemistry lab.
You have to put on your gloves, I'm afraid, for health and safety reasons.
Oooh, the gloves are...
- While you're doing yours... Yours takes a bit of time. - What are we doing?
- You pour the contents of your smaller into the larger. - A-ha, the usual!
Yeah. What it is, is there's...
- Get it straight, we're providing a sample. - No!
That should turn brown. Put the lid on.
Just swirl, gently sort of twist
and swirl.
You need to do that for about two minutes. Not too violently.
I've done this before.
While you're doing that, I'll just do my demonstration of dry ice,
which as we know makes a marvellous reaction with water.
What are the chances of us being busted by the Feds
while we're doing this?
- I've got this. - Fry's crack house! - Look at this.
- I've got this. - Ohhh!
Christmas party!
I'll have some of that.
OK, there'll be quite violent action to this, as I'm sure you've
all seen - dry ice, as they call it, going into...
I've got here... This is a sort of bubble.
Like blowing bubbles. What we are trying to do is make little smoky bubbles.
That sort of Christmassy effect.
- God, I hope I can get the lid on in time. - Oh! Wooo-hooo-hoooo!
WHOOPING
Whoa! Hey, yay, whoa!
What are you doing, Fry?! Get the lid on!
- Go, go! - Get the lid on!
APPLAUSE
Lid is on, lid is on! Lid is on.
It's going everywhere!
Bubbles! Here's my little bubbles.
- Oh, oh! - There's one, look! Big one. Pop it! Ping!
Whooo! Aw!
- Bubble... Smoky bubble! - Ohhhh!
- Ohhh! - Smoky bubble!
APPLAUSE
There we are.
- I've gone completely reflective. - Ohh?!
- There you are, look at you, you've made a bauble. - Look at that!
You've made a bauble, because your little experiment, invented by Mr Torrance, is...
One of the things he used was silver nitrate, the same thing used in film photography.
- That is silver. - Wow!
That's a beautiful silver bauble you've made just by mixing
- those two chemicals. - Can I just say, I've just seen myself.
I didn't realise that I looked like
Last Christmas by WeightWatchers Wham!
LAUGHTER
- It's hideous. - It is very beautiful, isn't it? - Gorgeous.
They used to use exactly that for lining
the inside of thermos flasks.
- You know how they're silvered on the inside? - It's lovely. - And mirrors.
There it is, you've made your own little home-made silver ball.
And I've finished my little bubbles. And there we are.
BRENDAN: Cool, man.
So - there's only one last thing to check and that...
Has anyone got any worries?
Just one last thing to check, what happened to Alan's grand scarf?
Imogen. What do you have for us?
There is it! Literally.
APPLAUSE
Thanks very much(!)
Brilliant invention. I hope they gave you First Class with Honours.
They didn't.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Well!
For the New Year show, I want to see what the one who got a First made.
- Meanwhile, thank you, Imogen. - Thank you.
APPLAUSE
The one who got a first probably made a scarf.
You're absolutely right.
That brings us to the little,
not inconsequential matter of the Christmas scores.
And they are very interesting.
I'm afraid, in last place, though it is his first appearance,
unfortunately his phone went off, which may have cost him some points...
In last place, with a very credible -19, it's Brendan O'Carroll!
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
In third, with -9, Jo Brand.
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
Fat WeightWatchers.
In Santa's second place, with -6, Alan Davies!
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
But our big Father Christmassy winner, with plus 3,
it's Phill Jupitus.
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
So that's it from Brendan, Phill, Jo, Alan and me.
Merry Christmas to you all everywhere. Bye-bye.
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING