Hello! Welcome to the QI Christmas party.
We're all gathered at the QI Arms
for a good old-fashioned festive shindig.
Let's see who's joining me round the old Joanna tonight.
First of all, our mate Josh Widdicombe.
The life and soul of the party, Cariad Lloyd.
Cor blimey, he's a laugh, it's Noel Fielding.
And our favourite regular, it's Alan Davies.
Now let's hear their jingle bells.
Josh goes...
♪ Jingle bells, jingle bells Jingle all the way. ♪
Cariad goes...
♪ Ding dong merrily on high In heaven the bells are ringing. ♪
Noel goes...
♪ Just hear those sleigh bells jingling... ♪
Nice. ♪ Ring ding-a-ling-a-ling too
♪ Ding-a-ling-a-ling a ding dong ding. ♪
That's got some funk.
Alan goes...
Time, ladies and gents, please! Go on, clear off.
Ain't you got no homes to go to?
As it's Christmas, we may have some P series pigs in the show
so, if you spot a question
that is about pigs, do not forget to play your porker.
There he is. OK?
Meanwhile, here is a special Christmas treat.
We've got a piano player in.
Play it, Sam!
Oh! Fantastic!
- Do we all love that tune? - Yes!
What was it written for?
Christmas!
This is why we don't ask the audience questions.
It wasn't written for Christmas.
Does anybody know who wrote it?
Elton John.
Anybody know the tunesmith?
Mr Tunesmith?
Felix...
Felix Tunesmith? Felix Mozart.
Mendelssohn. Mendelssohn! Felix Mendelssohn.
It was originally written not at all for Christmas.
Does anybody know what it was written for?
It's not Easter. Birthday, his birthday...
A special occasion. Yes, special occasion.
Wedding, a coronation.
It was the 400th anniversary of the invention of the Gutenberg
printing press.
Oh! So the song is called the Gutenberg Cantata.
Why didn't you get that?
I don't know what's wrong with you.
Do you know what, I'm not at my best because I was out last night getting
hammered because it's the 500th anniversary.
Only three of the printing press manufacturers could read.
I have to say, the man on the left who can't read,
he does look like he's trying to pull one of those three, doesn't he?
Anyway, what they're trying to read, which is very long,
is probably the German title for the song,
as the Germans like a snappy title.
Festgesang zur Eroffnung der am ersten Tage der vierten
Sakularfeier der Erfindung der Buchdruckerkunst.
Ja, ja, ja. Thank you very much.
A festive song for the opening of the first day of the fourth
secular celebration of the invention of the art of printing,
is the snappy title to Hark The Herald Angels
in the beginning there.
That tune was written to celebrate that? Yes.
But the words were written...
The words are completely separate, so Mendelssohn said
he didn't mind what lyrics were put to his rather marvellous tune
as long as they weren't religious. Oh.
Yeah.
Didn't really work out.
Eight years after he died, the words were paired with a poem
by probably the most famous hymn-writer in the English language.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, the big one.
What's his name?
Him.
Sylvia Plath. Cliff Richard.
Charles Wesley. Charles Wesley. The Wesley... Come on!
Yes, the one on the right. He wrote over 6,000 hymns.
It was kind of his... Wow. Wow.
He was your go-to hymn guy, really.
Yeah. Although the current wording is by his co-worker,
George Whitefield, who wrote them in 1753.
So that's Felix on the left and Charles on the right.
And who are those eight people in the middle?
And it's six! How bad is the...?
I was counting Cariad and Noel.
OK, you are building the world's first ice rink,
so you're going to need a rink and some...
♪ Ding dong. ♪
Josh. Well, I've never seen the show before, so this can't go wrong,
but ice.
Oh!
♪ Ding dong. ♪
Yes. Yes!
No! Yes!
Yes!
Play the pig!
Play the pig.
Why do you think you need the pig?
Oh. Ah.
I didn't know I had to show my workings.
Bacon ice.
You don't know the ice is safe to skate on,
so they'd slide a pig out...
..and see if it will go through.
If it's safe for the pig, it's safe for the kids, right?
No. Pigs can ice-skate really well, a few of them.
They go on their back so they screw down into the ice.
What did you say, though, Noel? You said...
Bacon ice. Yes.
That was quite abstract, I know.
And weirdly is the correct answer.
What?!
I feel like I'm the nana at the table
and you've just given that to me as some sort of...
Bacon ice, bacon ice, Nana.
Get another Bailey's for Nana.
The very first artificial rinks,
they didn't have the technology to freeze large amounts of water.
It hadn't been invented.
So the ice, in inverted commas,
was made of pig fat and salt,
so The Glaciarium, which was the world's first
permanent artificial ice rink, it opened in Baker Street Bazaar,
Portman Square, 1844, was one shilling to get in
and one shilling to go on the ice.
Except look at the wonderful kind of notice
they've put at the top. They've put, not-ice!
Not-ice!
So there was alpine scenery painted on the walls,
but you did have to put up with the smell of pig lard, basically.
So, yeah. It would be all right.
It wasn't until 1876 that they developed the technology
to freeze large amounts of water.
It was developed by a man called John Gamgee.
He was a vet and an inventor, and he had been trying to find a way
to freeze meat so he could transport it from Australia,
and he suddenly realised that his technology
could be used for recreation.
I bet the pigs sent him some flowers.
Thanks!
And he had this wonderful tent off the King's Road.
He had live bands to entertain the skaters.
It only lasted two years, but the technology that he invented
is very similar to the system used in ice rinks today.
The only problem was, in the summer, the ice used to evaporate
and people used to skate around in a bit of a fog.
They couldn't really see each other. Exciting!
Yeah. Like Stars In Their Eyes.
I love that bit! Tonight, I'm going to be Torvill and Dean.
Yes! Tonight, I'm going to be Jack the Ripper.
Anybody a fan of Lord Of The Rings? Yes.
Yes. Yes. So the guy who came up with the technology,
Gamgee...
Samwise Gamgee. Yes, very good.
Frodo's best friend. So...
Who never let him down, no matter what anyone said.
"I'll stay with you, Master Frodo. Give me your hand."
The other one I do...
I don't know if I fancy you more or less now.
I'm going to go with less.
"Havo dad, Legolas."
That's, "Sit down, Legolas."
It's definitely less.
Anyway, he is named after... That man!
No, not after him, after his brother.
His brother was called J Sampson Gamgee... Yeah.
And he's the person that invented that surgical dressing where you get
cotton wool between two pieces of absorbent gauze. Oh, yeah.
And so he was known as Sampson Gamgee,
and Sam Gamgee, it is most likely that Tolkien got the name from him.
Which is my connection between the hobbits and ice-skating
just for you, as a Christmas present.
I love it! Brilliant.
I auditioned for The Hobbit. What?!
Did you?
I don't know if I fancy you more or more.
You were nearly in The Hobbit?
Yeah, well, I didn't get it. To be what?
The main... The hobbit.
Bilbo, you auditioned to be Bilbo Baggins.
I auditioned to be Bilbo Baggins, and the day before...
I'm going to blow your mind now, but go on, carry on.
..they brought down the maximum height, and my agent phoned me
and she said, "How tall are you?"
I said, "I'm five foot six and a half."
"How tall do you want me to be?" That's what you tell them.
Never accept the premise of the question.
Find out what they want before...
..you say anything.
So you didn't go? No! They said,
"We've brought down the maximum height," but I still qualified.
I was short enough to be a hobbit. And?
I went and...
..I was dogshit.
I also auditioned for something in that.
Did you?
They said, "You'll be four hours a day in make-up in New Zealand."
"Is that OK?" And I went, "Yes."
"How tall are you?"
"How tall do you want me to be?"
I went for the part of Frodo.
Did you? Yeah, and they went, "You're a bit tall."
"You look more like an elf. Get out."
You're clearly from the Elven realm.
Exactly! Yeah.
Apparently.
Rivendell, you look like a Rivendell elf.
A Riverdance elf. Riverdance!
Cariad? Yes?
Stop now.
I really wanted an audition!
You're the right size and everything! I know!
I don't think you'd have been professional on set.
I wouldn't have been.
Yeah, it'd have been like, "Can someone remove this crying woman?"
The first ice rink was essentially a giant raw pork scratching.
Which reminds me, anyone for nibbles?
Now, you should have some peanuts there.
American inventor and botanist George Washington Carver came up with
over 300 uses for peanuts.
I will give you an extra point for each one you can think of.
Cleaning? Cleaning is absolutely right, cleaning.
Noel? Football for hobbits.
Any other thoughts or things that you could use it for?
♪ Jingle bells. ♪
Medicine. Yes.
Well, indeed, it is possible that the Aztecs turned roasted peanuts
into a toothache remedy so it has had an astonishing number of
things it can be used for.
This amazing guy, George Washington Carver,
he published in 1916 a book called
How To Grow The Peanut And 105 Ways Of Preparing It For Human Consumption.
There was chilli sauce,
there was shaving cream, there was glue, there was caramel,
there was coffee, shampoo, axle grease -
it is an astonishing catalogue of things that he was able to conceive.
But he was born into slavery in Missouri in the 1860s and he
is one of the first African-Americans to go to university and to
study botany and he is known for promoting alternative crops
to cotton, like peanuts, and he has the credit of saving the entire
economy of the southern United States. Wow.
Yeah, he's amazing. He's an astonishing fellow.
Lots of other uses, can you think of any other?
♪ Jingle bells. ♪
Yes, Cariad? If you get chewing gum in your hair... Yes.
..peanut butter gets it out. Oh, wow. Yeah, chewing gum remover.
The range of stuff!
Squeaky hinges, it can oil squeaky hinges. Oh, cos the oil, yeah.
It can help get superglue off your hands,
it can be used as shaving cream, leather cleaner, you can also
try wiping it onto a scratched DVD and it will just go into the scratch.
Would you have to have a smooth peanut butter not a crunchy, though?
I think so.
My favourite one is if you've got an ice cream cone.
If you put a tiny bit of peanut butter
down to the bottom of the cone,
it will stop the ice cream dripping through
the bottom of the cone... Very good.
..and you get a delicious treat at the end of the cone.
That's brilliant!
Yes, that's very good, isn't it?
The most ingenious use of all, and I love this story, in 2017,
there were 12 inmates in an Alabama prison
and they used peanut butter to escape.
So there was a new guard on duty and the prisoners used the peanut butter
to alter the number on a door so he thought it was a cell door
and actually it was an exit.
And they asked him to open the door and they legged it, they just ran.
And they just had it written in peanut butter!
Like someone had done a dirty protest!
I have to say 11 of the prisoners were caught within 12 hours
and the final one was caught two days later
But they made a statement about it, the prison,
"Prison doors have now been renumbered so that"
"peanut better won't have any effect on them."
"Well, it says exit and it tastes nice too."
"Off you go, boys, see you later!"
Here's the thing that I didn't know,
is that peanut flowers are extremely beautiful. I didn't know that.
And they only bloom for one day in the year. Wow!
Look at that, isn't that a gorgeous thing? Looks like a peanut!
It's just a beautiful thing. OK, peanuts away.
OK, let's have another festive singsong.
We all know the words.
♪ On the 12th day of Christmas my true love sent to me
♪ 12 drummers drumming
♪ 11 pipers piping
♪ Ten lords a-leaping
♪ Nine ladies dancing
♪ Eight maids a-milking
♪ Seven swans a-swimming
♪ Six geese a-laying
♪ Five gold rings
♪ Four calling birds Three French hens... ♪
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
♪ And a partridge in a pear tree. ♪
My kids sing, five golden rings. Do they?
It annoys me, because it's five gold rings. OK.
And I can't let it go. I just... They go...
♪ Five... ♪
Gold!
♪ Always believe in your soul. ♪
Do you sing four calling birds, though?
Yeah. Yeah, that would be incorrect.
They should shout at you.
Is that because you're not supposed to call prostitutes that any more?
No, the original thing is colly birds.
It means blackbirds, like collier, like coal. Oh.
It's another word for black,
and their presence predates "calling birds" by about a century.
But I have to say there's been loads of different versions.
Four canary birds, four mockingbirds...
My favourite is a Scottish version
of the song which features three plovers, a parrot and a baboon.
Three plumbers...
Plovers. Plumbers?
I was thinking it can't be plumbers!
"Three plumbers and a baboon, yeah, put that in."
That's like an awful version of Noah's ark.
Now, from calling birds to pouring pints,
how can you enjoy unlimited glasses of beer
without getting completely pie-eyed?
Is it one of those fake glasses? No.
Real beer, unlimited glasses.
I have half a Smirnoff Ice and I pass out.
I'm out of this equation. Well, here we are.
We can show you how to do it for real.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome mathematician Katie Steckles.
Hi there. Hello. Katie, what's the plan?
Well, to explain this, I'm going to tell you a joke. OK.
So the joke goes, infinitely many mathematicians walk into a pub,
and the first one orders a pint and the second one orders a half
and the next one orders a quarter and the next one orders an eighth
and the next one orders a 16th.
And the person behind the bar says, "I'll stop you there,"
and pours two pints and puts them on the bar
and, if you're a mathematician... That's hilarious!
Yes, hilarious. Come on, let's all sound like we know, which we do.
OK.
I can show you why this is funny.
I've got here a pint...
OK. Oh!
Do you like a pint, Josh? Easy, Josh, easy.
Oh, man, that looks so good.
I've got a half and a quarter and an eighth and a 16th.
I've also got 1 over 32, 1 over 64, 1 over 128,
1 over 256,
and I also have this empty pint glass.
And the reason why the person behind the bar pours two pints
is because all of these and the infinite chain
of following drinks will all fit into that glass,
so, if I pour a half into there...
Right, and then I think, "Well, I'd better slow down a bit more",
"I'll have a half of that." Yeah, so this is a quarter,
and that fills half the remaining space.
Can I just ask a quick question?
This other one here, is that going begging?
The space that's left is a quarter, so I can fit this eighth in there
and it fills half the remaining space.
You're having an endless amount of beer, but you're having
half as much each time. Yeah.
And so what have we got down to now?
That's one 64th of a pint. One 64th of a pint.
It's not a common drink order. No.
Do you know what? If I was queueing behind you at the bar...
Well, there's an infinite queue of mathematicians.
This is the drinks order for the Fellowship Of The Ring, guys.
So you'll never fill the whole glass up?
Yeah, it's that common sensation that, no matter how many drinks
you have, there's always just a little bit of space left
for a little bit more, and it gets closer and closer to two pints,
but it will never go over two pints.
If you had infinitely many drinks,
it would add up to exactly two pints.
That's one of the nice things about infinite series of things,
that you can have an infinite number of things that add up to a finite number at the end.
See, I love that, cos the next time I hear that joke,
I will actually understand why it's funny.
We say that the limit of this sequence of numbers is two.
That's why the end of the joke is that the barman says,
"The problem with you mathematicians is you need to know your limits."
There we go! Katie Steckles!
Thank you, Katie Steckles!
Cheers. Cheers. Cheers.
So it's a bit like Zeno's paradox from about 450 BC.
The same thing that Katie's talking about now,
that we're talking about in terms of pints, the Greeks were occupied
with the same kind of questions 2,500 years ago.
So there's a wonderful story from that time that Achilles
is challenged to a race by a tortoise, right?
What, the tortoise said, "I reckon I can beat you in a race?" Yeah.
Go on.
Sorry, Noel, are you saying this is too surreal?
You've reached your limit!
A terrapin maybe, but...
In the zoo, they've got long-necked ones.
Long-necked terrapins or baboons?
Terrapins.
And I can't really work out why cos they still want to go to
the surface, but they're just that little bit further down there...
..than a normal terrapin. There must be some predator that's beak's
just a little bit too short.
Is it more like a periscope? A terrapin periscope?
Do you think all the other terrapins go, "Wind your neck in"?
Yeah, I think the keepers get the terrapin by the head
and then they go...
They chuck them in and they write, "Long-necked terrapin."
There you are, one more breed!
So are you happy if it's a tortoise or do you want it to be a terrapin?
I'll go with the tortoise, it's fine. Go with the tortoise.
I just think it's probably factually untrue.
OK, so it's a paradox. Achilles can run ten times as fast as the tortoise
and he challenges him to a race, and Achilles thinks this is hilarious
so he says, "I'll tell you what I will do",
"I'll give you a ten-metre start."
So they start off
and Achilles has travelled ten metres but in that time,
the tortoise has moved one metre.
So he's still ahead.
By the time Achilles has covered that additional one metre
the tortoise has moved ten centimetres
and it's the same ad infinitum. Ahh.
So Achilles will never catch the tortoise.
What about the terrapin?
He might be in with a chance with the terrapin.
We could not find pie in the sky but we can find beer.
Where would we find beer in the sky?
In space.
In space, about 10,000 light-years from Earth.
Did someone lob a can up? It's just landed.
It's an incredible thing.
There is a giant cloud of alcohol with enough ethyl alcohol
for 400 trillion trillion pints of beer.
That is enough for every person on Earth to drink 300,000 pints
every day for a billion years.
Why are we living here? Because it's spiked with hydrogen cyanide.
Classic. I know.
Damn those Russians!
The intriguing thing is that the cloud contains ethyl formate
so that is... It's the chemical compound
that helps give raspberries their taste
and it reportedly smells like rum.
It seems like the centre of our galaxy may taste and smell
like raspberry-flavoured rum.
Oh, my God.
Can I just ask, when you say it reportedly smells like rum... Yeah.
..who reported it?
Well, we know what the chemical is and what the chemical smells like
but nobody's been there. Right.
You could volunteer. "I'm here now."
"What's it smell like? What's it smell like?"
"I mean, it could be blackberries, I think it's raspberries,"
"Doris disagrees."
"Have you had raspberries for breakfast?"
"Oh, I did, actually, I did, now I think of it."
It's like those people who do those wine things, isn't it? It's like...
"I'm getting blackcurrant,"
"I'm getting running naked through heather..."
"Skirting boards, I'm getting skirting boards and linoleum."
"You've fallen over."
"Getting the action of someone stretching a turtle's neck..."
.."slash skipping rope."
Alcohol in the air, 2017 there was a fraternity party, a Tequila Tuesday
at a fraternity house called Sigma Alpha Epsilon
in Bethesda in Maryland.
They drank so much alcohol that the ambient air in the house
failed a breathalyser test.
That is brilliant.
I used to take my kids to this music group,
I said, "Where does it take place?"
They said, "It's in the rugby club in the bar."
I went to the bar which is carpeted,
I don't think any bar should be carpeted.
Now, that ambient air would have failed a breathalyser test.
And all the toddlers were pissed as farts.
They were singing Show Me The Way To Go Home!
Now, from pints to pies.
Here we go.
Right, come on!
There's sixpence for you.
Let's have a song.
How many blackbirds should be baked in a pie?
4 and 20.
They used to heat the crust up just enough so that the birds
wouldn't be roasted. And then open it and they'd fly out.
The trick is to put them in the pie after it's been baked.
That is the answer. Oh!
Otherwise, you just get the birds like...
But these pies did exist. I mean, although they're in a nursery rhyme,
they were known as sur...
Did you enjoy that?
I loved it. Did you want some beer with it or are you all right?
Yeah, I'll have a couple of swigs of beer.
What's the question again?
4 and 20!
That's what it says in the song, Sandi.
Yes, but not baked in the pie - is the mistake.
You're like a toddler at a rugby club.
They were known as surprise pies, and it was a genuine thing.
They used to cook the pastry case and then they would put
live animals in so they could emerge at the table,
and the idea was to startle them, entertain the guests.
Scare the shit out of everybody!
I don't... I'm not buying this.
Because...
You get some pies and then you get the pastry,
you can stick it down, right, you can get them in there.
Then you whack it in the oven.
There's been a lot of testing, obviously,
a lot of birds will die in the testing.
You don't have to stick it down, though.
You got 24 blackbirds kicking around, you're just going to put a
lid on and think you're going to get that from the kitchen to the table?
They wouldn't just put birds in.
So there was a chef called Robert May.
He was born in 1588. And he is...
Oh, Bobby May, Bobby May, yeah, yeah.
..famous for his elaborate centrepieces, and he put them
in together, frogs and birds, and the pie would open
and they would fly and jump out.
It's like the Sharks and the Jets!
It's a nightmare in there! Frogs and flick knives.
So the whole point was the showmanship of it.
How do you get...
There's 24 birds and you're holding them in a pie
and you've got to get a...
You put a load of food down at the bottom of the tray,
they'll all just be eating and...
You've done this before!
..and then when you take the lid off, you go...
The frogs are all in there going, "Cover your legs, cover your legs!"
He was a tremendous showman.
He created a whole pastry stag with a pastry arrow in the side and
it was filled with claret so that it bled when the arrow was removed.
I mean, he was clearly kind of like Mr Theatre.
Out of his mind. Yeah.
But there used to be a thing called bride pie,
so before wedding cake,
that was the traditional thing to serve at English weddings,
and it was just the best food that you had available to you
and the most elaborate recipe.
It's the same guy here, this is Robert May, The Accomplisht Cook.
And, if a woman had a baby, she'd have a groaning pie.
That's what they used to call childbirth.
They used to call it groaning time.
Right, pies away, please.
- Anyone want a pie? - Yes.
Come on, let's give them the pie. Go and give the pies out. Pie, pie!
I thought I'd stopped being a waitress.
They're only a pound, they're only a pound.
Mince pie, have a mince pie.
Anybody want a pint of beer?
Yeah. Go all the way up the back.
Does anyone want the beer?
They haven't given me some.
Plate? Anyone want a plate?
Pig, anyone?
What a moment that was!
I like that you were looking that way, and it went that way.
You didn't get a pie.
You seemed very upset, so I'm giving you some Christmas peanuts.
Thank you.
Once a barmaid, eventually will end up as a barmaid.
Where were you a barmaid? Oh...
Hobbit Town.
The worst pub ever.
The police drank in one corner
and the National Front drank in the other.
Yeah, that's what I mean.
It's funny, isn't it? And then it's horrible.
That's what happened to me at work.
"This is funny, this is like material... Oh, this is horrible."
For about a year, I worked as a journalist,
and we used to drink in a pub that was half journalists
and half crooks.
Not easy to tell the difference, to be honest with you.
And there was a bloke called Charlie, and Charlie was definitely a crook,
and I said, "Oh, Charlie, how are you?"
"Haven't seen you for a couple of weeks."
He said, "No, I've been up the nick."
And I said, "Oh, what was the charge?"
He said, "Murder one." I said...
I said, "All right. Did you do it?"
He said, "No, but I owed them one." Er...
And he said, "While I was waiting for the charges"
"to come through, my arsehole was going like that."
I haven't seen him for ages. I don't know why we didn't stay friends.
I really hope he turns up on the next series of Bake Off.
"I've changed my ways." "I've turned my life around."
"I'm going to make you an entremet." Now...
"As Paul and Prue came over, me arsehole's going like that."
"I thought, these frogs and blackbirds won't stay in this pie."
Every time I feel slightly anxious, I always think of that.
Imagine knowing that there's a man out there and,
every time you feel anxious, you think of his arsehole.
Anyway, moving on now.
The next question is a bit scary.
Sam, what have you got?
♪ The Little Lord Jesus... ♪
What a lovely nativity, everybody!
It's like Aled Jones had turned up.
What's the worst that could happen if people who don't like you
invite you to Christmas dinner?
Death. Yes.
Same with any scenario. What's the worst that could happen? Death.
Yeah. So, throughout history,
people have been invited to their enemy's house for Christmas,
"Let's put our bygones be bygones," but it is actually a trap.
So in 1317, there was a Swedish king called King Birger.
I thought I'd say, for the record,
I had dinner at Sandi's house at Christmas!
My arsehole was going like that!
King Birger, 1317, he invited his two brothers,
Duke Eric and Duke Valdemar, to Christmas,
it was a banquet at Nykoping Castle.
That's a lovely place just south of Stockholm.
And they were going to smooth over a family rift.
They'd led a coup against him, he felt a bit irritated by it.
Anyway, during the night, a team of crossbowmen ambushed the brothers
and locked them in the castle dungeon, where they starved to death.
So that is the worst thing that could happen.
And Christmas 1175, there was a Norman nobleman
called William de Braose
and he invited the Welsh chieftains to Abergavenny Castle in Wales
to celebrate Christmas and make amends.
And when they arrived at the great hall,
the gates were locked and they were all killed.
But nice venue, though. Lovely venue.
Although, apparently, according to William Camden, 16th century writer,
Abergavenny Castle has been "oftner stain'd with the infamy of treachery"
"than any other castle in Wales."
So don't go there for Christmas.
OK, let's try another musical interlude. Sam.
OK, let's try again. We all know the words to this one?
♪ O Christmas tree O Christmas tree...
I only know it in German. In German, how does it go in German?
♪ O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum
♪ Wie treu sind deine Blatter! ♪
That was very good. Danke schon.
Yeah.
Do you know what that means? Wie treu sind deine Blatter?
I thought it was, how lovely are your leaves?
That's how we caught all the German spies in the war.
He'd play the start and they couldn't help themselves.
"O Tannenbaum... OK, it's me. I'm a spy."
So we sing it in English as, "How lovely are your branches."
No, it's the pine needles, isn't it?
How faithful are your leaves, is what it actually is.
That's why I know what leaves is in German.
Why do you know it, then?
Because they taught it to us in German at GCSE.
And then, for French, we had to learn the birthday song. Oh!
♪ Quelle est la date de ton anniversaire?
♪ Janvier, Fevrier, Mars
♪ Janvier, Fevrier, Mars. ♪
I can't go beyond that. I only got a D.
A Tannenbaum is a fir tree, but we now think
that it's a wonderful song about Christmas.
It wasn't at all.
So the evergreen branches, they represent constancy
and faithfulness, because they never change,
and it's a folk song about a faithless maiden
contrasted with a faithful tree.
They didn't teach us that. They just said it was about a tree.
The same tune is used for something else in this country.
Scatman John's Scat Attack.
Could you sing...
It's to do with politics.
The Red Flag.
Well done, it's the socialist anthem The Red Flag. Oh, yes, of course!
That wasn't what I was thinking,
I was thinking the theme tune to Cash In The Attic.
Christmas is the best time to sing we joyous
all together, fa-la-la-la-la-la-la.
Hit it, Sam!
Yes!
It's general ignorance time, gentlemen, please.
OK, remind me. How long have we got?
What is the legal drinking-up time after last orders in England?
So I always think it is - it's around 22 minutes.
22 minutes.
There isn't one, right? There isn't one at all.
There used to be. There used to be a legally set time, so at first it was ten minutes,
then it was 20 minutes, but now it's up to the landlord's discretion.
That is true, I have to say, only in England and Wales.
In Scotland, there's a 15-minute drinking up period
that is still in place.
So theoretically I could go to a pub and I could order ten pints
and if they were fine with that...
But it's their discretion, darling.
So it is their place, they can chuck you out.
Oh, when they start putting the stools on your table... Oh!
Yeah. That's what I used to do!
Blazing lights on and no music, and someone saying, "Get out!"
I used to wipe around their pint as well.
Also spray that stuff, cleaner stuff, right by the pint.
In their eyes...
"Can't you see the time?"
Who thought of 24-hour licences?
Tony Blair.
It was a joke proposed by the Monster Raving Loony Party
as a way to beat binge drinking.
So, to stop binge drinking,
we'll have it that you can drink 24 hours a day,
and it did in fact become law in 2005, and one judge said
that alcohol at this availability was going to breed urban savages.
And, in fact, that didn't happen.
Both alcohol consumption and alcohol-related crime
has fallen since the act.
There's a brewery called Black Iris Brewery,
it's in Nottinghamshire, and in 2017 they tried to organise
a piss-up in their brewery, but they failed to get
the appropriate licence, so...
They held it in a pub down the road instead,
and the event was renamed A Piss-Up Near A Brewery.
Let's take a quick peek at the top of the Christmas tree.
How many wings does an angel have?
♪ Jingle bells. ♪
Depends. That's not really an answer.
That's a "I don't know."
Renaissance angels tend to have two.
I said Renaissance angels.
♪ Ding dong ding. ♪
Uh-huh-huh!
"Well, Sandi, it's like this."
"The angel in my house had four wings." Four.
Well, you could be right,
but it rather depends on the kind of angel.
That's literally what I said!
I literally said it depends on the kind of angel!
There's two kinds of angels in the Bible with wings,
the seraphim and cherubim, so seraphim have six wings
and the cherubim have four.
There is no angel in the Bible that has two wings. Oh.
Oh, sorry, you meant actual angels.
Actual angels. I do apologise. I was talking about representation.
This is the woman happy to talk for hours about the home life
of the hobbit.
That's real, Sandi. It's very different.
It's based on fact.
So the seraphim, that's the highest in the angel hierarchy.
That's the sort of fiery, burning ones.
They're described as, "Above it stood the seraphims."
"Each one had six wings."
"With twain he covered his face and with twain he covered his feet"
"and with twain he did fly."
So he was like, "Woohoo!"
And then also flying. Yeah, yeah.
"I'm shy! I'm a shy angel!"
The cherubim have got four wings as well as...
They also have four faces - man, lion, ox and an eagle.
The bit I am not sure about, so you get Gabriel,
you get Gabriel in Islam as an angel of revelation,
but there is a Hadith that he had 600 wings.
I would have thought that would be tricky to operate.
Mmm.
He had a hang-gliding business.
I was coming back on the train from Scotland the other day and I
went past the Angel of the North.
It is an astonishing thing when you see it. Yeah.
It is one of the most visible pieces of art in the world.
It is seen by one person every second on average. Oh, my God.
And it spins. You can give it a whack and...
It's the largest art statue in the world so that wingspan is 54 metres -
it's longer than a Boeing 747.
And the reason it can withstand a 100mph winds,
it goes as far below the ground as it does at the top. Does it?
Like a tree. Yeah.
So it's sort of dug in.
But it isn't an angel cos it's only got two wings.
Yeah, I need to have a word and say, "You just need another 598."
There was a miniature Angel of the North in 2008.
So the designer, Antony Gormley,
had made some miniatures just to check out how it was going to work.
And that item was the very first item valued at a million pounds
on the Antiques Roadshow.
It had been standing in the offices of Gateshead Council for 13 years.
Imagine being the person queueing behind them
on the Antiques Roadshow
with your little vase. Yeah.
"I've got these eggcups."
"They were in my nan's cupboard." Yeah.
"They smell a bit of my nan, actually."
Right, I'll tell you what I fancy to finish off,
a good old-fashioned game of pool.
What are we going to need to play a good old-fashioned game of pool?
♪ Ding dong. ♪
Yes! Chalk, two cues, table, balls...
Yeah, no.
No cues, no table.
So it's the old-fashioned game of pool.
Do you get a pig and some balls
and then you put a little bit of truffle on the ball,
you get drunk and you see what happens?
I love this idea, but no.
Although you are not far off with the barnyard animals.
So, in the 19th century, a pool room was the place
where you bet on horse-racing, and it came from the word "pool",
so that's the kitty of money that everybody contributed to,
so the winner would take all, and billiard tables were installed
in American pool rooms to keep the punters entertained
between races, and that is where they get the name from.
But the first game was a medieval game,
it was a French game called jeu de la poule, game of the hen.
So players took turns to throw things at a chicken...
..and the first person to hit the chicken won.
So the word "pool" comes from the French word for chicken.
Wow!
So it was the winnings - you'd get the chicken.
Can I ask, when you say throw things at the chicken... Yeah.
..what do you mean by things?
Whatever it was that you wanted to throw to hit the chicken.
An egg. Yeah.
It could be an egg.
An egg would be perfect. So the prize...
"Which came first! Whey!"
The prize is the chicken, so I thought we'd give it a try.
Have we got a chicken? Yeah.
We have our own QI chicken.
Please bring on the chicken.
OK. So you've all got balls to throw at the chicken.
Off you go. Let's go and hit the chicken.
Hit the chicken, hit the chicken!
Shit!
Good shot!
Yes, Noel! Yes!
Noel, you're totally scoring, Noel.
I think Noel's on the most...
Oh, no?
Chicken is down! Chicken is down!
Well done, chicken.
You all right?
He's going to sue, that chicken, cos he fell over the set.
I mean, he should sue and we should back him up. Yeah.
If this is Prue Leith in here, I'm going to shit myself.
Your arse is going like that at the moment.
He's not going to sue us,
he does look exhausted, because he's our chief elf,
James Harkin, so thank you very much for being our chicken.
Right, let's see who has won the prize poulet.
Fourth colly bird, with minus 25...
Oh, no.
..Josh. I knew it.
Third French hen, with minus 14,
it's Alan.
Thank you so much. How did I get minus?
Second turtledove, with minus two, Cariad!
And our partridge in a pear tree, with seven points,
and therefore taking the chicken home...
..is Noel!
Come on. Do you want to sit on my knee, or are you all right?
Yeah. No?
There was a weird lack of trust there, Noel.
I've never fingered a chicken, I'm sure.
Ever!
Let's wind up with a song to celebrate the invention
of the printing press.
Gather round, everybody. Play it, Sam!
♪ Hark! the herald angels sing
♪ Glory to the new-born King
♪ Peace on Earth, and mercy mild
♪ God and sinners reconciled
♪ Joyful, all ye nations, rise
♪ Join the triumph of the skies
♪ With th' angelic host proclaim
♪ Christ is born in Bethlehem
♪ Hark! The herald angels sing
♪ Glory to the new-born King. ♪
Merry Christmas, everybody!