This programme contains some strong language
Hello, and welcome to the QI compilation show -
my quirky patchwork quilt of favourite moments
and deleted bits from the series.
Cue the first clip.
Quorum sensing was very first observed in the 1970s.
There are some bacteria called Vibrio fischeri,
and they live in the bodies of the Hawaiian bobtail squid.
Isn't that beautiful? Wow. Hmm.
So, the squid gives them accommodation
and sugar and amino acid for food
and, in return, the bacteria gives the squid
the most ingenious defence mechanism,
by glowing - all of them, all at once -
and generating bioluminescence.
That seems like a really fair payment. Yeah, yeah.
Like, you get that incredible party trick
just from getting some bact...
like, if I got that every time I'd had thrush, I would...
I am so in love with the idea of getting thrush
and suddenly being bioluminescent. Yeah.
It would definitely be, literally, the silver lining.
Yes.
The two most popular Quality Street chocolates
are the purple ones and the green triangles.
And these should appear, by preference,
11 times in the box.
They actually appear just five to six times. Oh.
And it's the same with Heroes - Wispas, Twirls...
No wonder this country's the way it is.
The most uninspiring country in the world.
"Oh, just the green one, please.
"The green triangle that doesn't really taste of anything."
Do you not have favourites?
I hit the toffee finger, I hit the caramel.
Those ones are delicious. They're the same.
They are not the same. That's racist.
The toffee one's a lot firmer,
the caramel one's nice and soft.
Give that to an old man with dentures,
ask him if they're the same!
I just didn't expect, when I started on this show,
that I would watch James call Bridget a racist.
Absolutely appalling, what you just said about
toffee fingers and caramel cups.
I like that everybody's got a line that they draw somewhere.
I got stuck on a roller-coaster at Alton Towers.
Oh, see, my idea of hell.
Yeah. I got stuck in the Black Hole.
What?!
This is the kind of audience I want for my anecdotes!
What is the Black Hole, darling?
It's a roller-coaster in the dark. No! Nightmare.
If I'd have been there, you would have felt a hell of a lot happier.
JOSH LAUGHS
Lighting it up.
And it's one of those roller-coasters
where you're straddling someone.
Sorry, what? ALAN: Hang on a minute.
So, you get on and you're both in like a cart
and one of you has to sit with your legs out
and then the other kind of sits... Oh, OK.
You were the one with the legs out? I was the one with the legs out.
Were you with a stranger? Yes!
Oh! Why...? Where were your friends?!
Because I was in a three, and those two paired-up.
Aah, OK.
And I wasn't going to, like, miss out on the Black Hole.
And then we just ran out of momentum.
I mean, the cart, not, like, the conversation.
And we were there for about five minutes, just sat there.
At one point, you could hear the other carts coming down.
It was absolutely terrifying. Oh, my God.
And then they got us off in the end and they went,
"You can have free tickets to go again."
We were like, "No!" No! No, no.
Just the guy who had a soaking wet back
from where you pissed yourself.
So a nuclear chain reaction typically takes
50 to 100 shakes.
What?
God! I'm going to get this really wrong.
ALAN: Go on, then. Go on, then. We'll enjoy it.
Here comes some more racism, I imagine.
APPLAUSE
It would be so beautiful, it would be like...
..those...
..fountains in...
What are those fountains called in Las Vegas?
Where they...? AUDIENCE: Bellagio.
Bellagio! My God, I cried when I saw those.
Oh, wow.
Are they the ones where they fire out and land in a hole?
No.
They're my favourite fountains.
Honest to God, it's like being in an old people's home.
"He toured the Middle East, did he?"
"He toured the Middle East." "Right."
"I saw a fountain once." "Did you?!"
OK, so...
So he toured the Middle East? ..he toured the Middle East.
"Tell us about the dark room again." ALAN LAUGHS
Er...
"When are we going on a roller-coaster?"
"You said we was going on a roller-coaster!"
"I never pissed myself."
"I've got thrush."
I love, love, love the music to James Bond.
Let's have a quick listen to the original James Bond theme.
MUSIC: James Bond Theme by Monty Norman
The composer is a man called Monty Norman,
and it actually comes from a song about a man
with an unlucky sneeze,
which he reworked into the James Bond theme.
It was originally called Bad Sign, Good Sign,
and it didn't sound at all like the original song.
Have a listen to this.
MUSIC: Good Sign, Bad Sign by Monty Norman
SITAR PLAYS
Can I have some onion bhajis, please?
# I was born with this unlucky sneeze,
# And what is worse, I came into the world the wrong way round
# Pundits all agree... # OK, stop. Stop, stop, stop, stop.
Oh, this is surely bullshit? No, this is true.
VS Naipaul's novel, A House For Mr Biswas,
is a wonderful novel,
and Mr Biswas has a terrible sneeze and it's unlucky for him.
And Monty Norman wrote a musical version of this,
which was not a huge success.
He was later hired to write the music for the first Bond film,
which was Dr No.
He re-worked the theme tune into the James Bond theme tune.
So we thought we'd do a bit of...
I'm going to call it Quaraoke because it starts with a Q.
We're going to try and see if we can sing
the original James Bond theme tune.
So the words are going to come up on the screen for you.
Let's all get ready.
# I was born with this unlucky sneeze
# And what is worse, I came into the world the wrong way round
# Pundits all agree that I'm the reason why
# My father fell into the village pond
# And drowned. #
I sort of feel like I'd be naturally good in emergencies.
Like, I can't speak Spanish now, but I feel like,
if there was an emergency, I probably could give it a go.
Yeah? What kind of emergency suddenly requires Spanish?
I feel like the Spanish girl, Sandi,
she's come in, she's choking, no-one else in the hospital speaks Spanish.
Right. Something's wrong with her.
She can mime, but we're not getting it. No.
They haven't trained like me in the dramatic art of mime.
ALAN: Of course.
So she'd be like... SHE SPEAKS FAKE SPANISH
"Paella...
"..Amaretto...
"..Madrid...
"..Venezuela..."
And I'm like, "Don't worry"
SHE SPEAKS FAKE SPANISH
"Penicillin?"
"Yeah, Penicillin!"
And then it'll just be like that for...
That poor child is dying and you're the last thing she sees.
Has anyone ever done a poem about jackdaws and back doors?
Cos if they haven't, I'm going to do one before the end of the show.
Yeah, you write one.
It's really bothering me that it sounds so like a back door.
The jackdaw and the back door does sound like some kind of reverse.
They go together. Yes, they do.
Right, you do that, we'll do the next question on our own.
"Jackdaw, back door, lack more, smack whore."
That's where I've got to.
What sort of...? Seashore! Seashore...
Crack whore!
I'm thinking... Crack whore is what I'm thinking, isn't it?
What about be poor?
Be... be poor? No, it's got to be... Yeah? No? Why am I joining in?!
"She sells sea shells down by the crack whore...
"Here comes a jackdaw flying in the back door."
You carry on, darling.
I've never been happier. Dopamine, dopamine.
Hacksaw?
Oh!
Oh, my goodness!
Hang on, I'm looking at Jimmy - tax law!
JIMMY LAUGHS
Right, you've got one egg, one half-cup of buttermilk,
five teaspoons of baking soda, one half-teaspoon of vanilla,
one cup of lemon juice, one cup and a quarter of sugar,
seven-eighths of a cup of all-purpose flour
and eight tablespoons of melted butter.
Prue, what are the instructions, please?
All right. In a small bowl, beat the egg until foamy.
Do you mean, like, the egg's foamy, or until you're foamy?
And now you've got to beat it up.
Until it's foamy. Come on! Foam up, you bastard!
That looks foamy, what do we reckon?
Is that foamy? OK, now...
All right... Put it in a pan and get the beans warmed up.
No, no.
Add the buttermilk and vanilla.
Which one's the buttermilk? That white one.
Is that it? Ooh, it's gloopy!
And blend it well. Yeah. And the vanilla, darling.
Is that the vanilla? Yes. That's vanilla, yeah.
I was hoping that was a shot of Glenfiddich.
Other whiskies are available.
Sandi? Yeah?
Can I lick the bowl, Sandi?
Not at the minute. We've got a bit more work to do. Thank you, Sandi.
Add the baking soda one teaspoon at a time,
sprinkling it and beating until the mixture is smooth
and the consistency of light cream.
Alan, you can do this. Right, and beating.
Sandi, you should keep that other show where it belongs.
Where is your teaspoon? Let me help you.
Oh, thank you.
There we go, sprinkling it in. How much baking soda?
The whole lot? All of it.
Let's get... OK.
That's cheating. Thankfully, there's some skills I had as a young man
that have come in useful.
OK... I worked in a baker's!
Listen. Right, now what?
I used to charge a fiver for this. Now...
You had to have the right money.
Oh, there was a queue round the block, Alan.
Yeah, OK, so done that. Yeah.
Pour the mixture into the beaker.
Oh, a beaker, is it?
Hmm.
OK? Yeah.
Pour that in there.
ALAN SLURPS
"Argh!
"We don't want to go in a beaker!"
"Go in the beaker!
"Go in the beaker!"
"No, we want to be back in our individual bowls!"
OK... Do you ever cook with your children?
Yes, frequently.
They like the process, but they won't eat any of it.
OK, add the lemon juice all at once and blend into the mixture.
Blend? How do you...? Oh, no, I've spilt some in the egg cup!?
Oh!
ALL: Whoa!
APPLAUSE
That worked a treat.
Oh, that was great.
That was fab, wasn't it? That was really good.
It was fab.
It's not real food? No, darling.
This is bullshit!
I mean, Irish people naturally all think they're great singers,
cos of a natural sadness in our necks.
Give me a song. Give me any song that I might know the words to
and I'll show you what I mean. Er, Twinkle, Twinkle.
IN THE STYLE OF IRISH FOLK # Twinkle, twinkle, little star
# How I wonder what you are. #
It just comes out.
Now, for a bit of role-play.
Three of you have got police hats under your desk.
Ade, I want you to play good cop.
Holly, you play bad cop.
Alan, you're going to be normal cop.
ADE: I know, it's good, here we go.
I don't have the voice to play a bad cop.
"Go for it."
I can't.. Like, I just can't swear with this voice.
It's just sort of like, "Give me your fucking secrets!"
It just sounds delightful.
Nish has a secret. Oh.
I want the three of you to find out what it is, please.
You look like a traffic warden.
Right... He looks like someone from the Village People.
I think he's about to go to a hen night and strip.
Right, Nish is in the spotlight. Oh, my God!
He's got a secret. Come on.
This is American immigration all over again.
I know you've got something going on, mate.
Wow! No, leave it, you've gone too far.
Oh, we're a comedian, are we?!
Actually, yes.
Now, you be nice. Be nice.
It's a lovely beard you have there, Nish.
Thanks very much, Ade. I've had it combed.
And I also really love the fact that you've turned your policeman hat
backwards and are wearing it like Samuel L Jackson...
Hey, guys! That's what I'm talking about.
Hashtag time's up!
We can't flirt at work any more!
Wait, hang on, you're supposed to be the bad cop!
All right... Sonny Jim.
Sonny Jim?!
This is just bizarre.
I'm sorry about this, Mr Kumar, she's an absolute nightmare.
It's like being interrogated by Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins.
Just tell us what the secret is and I'll call her off. Yeah.
I haven't got a secret!
I'm an upstanding member of society.
I've not even taken cocaine,
in spite of the size and volume of my nose!
Good cop? Er, tell us your secret.
No, that's not good. Good would be like,
"Listen, sir, I'm terribly sorry to bring you in here.".
Have we switched round? Oh, we're switching round.
"Tell us your secret, you!"
"Sonny Jim!"
Are you going to confess?
I will confess to farting in Sandi's dressing room.
Oh, my God!
"Nish farted in Sandi's..." Are you getting him to sign it?
"You have a right to remain silent but violent!"
I'm really worried, Holly, you're getting into it now.
"Shut your face!"
I had a situation where I was flying back from Portugal
on quite a well-known bargain airline
and then I had to go straight off to do some work.
So I wanted to sleep on the almost three hours of the plane.
On the other side of the aisle seat there was a Portuguese lady
and her two-, three-year-old son, who had an iPad.
And the iPad was on and it was going,
"Ding-ba-bing-bong-di-bong..."
I love that game.
It sounds like he was doing pretty well.
I had a brand-new set of headphones,
but I couldn't converse with this lady
so I went to the crew, who were also Portuguese, at the back, and I went,
"I've got these headphones, there's a situation.
"I really need sleep and I'm very happy for...
"They can keep the headphones, I totally understand.
"I'm a parent myself, keeping kids distracted,
"but, you know, I really need sleep."
He went, "No problem, no problem."
He goes down there and he snatches the iPad off her and goes,
"No! No! No!"
And then he takes the iPad and he bonks her over the head with it.
Oh, my goodness!
Then he turns around to me, he went, "Enjoy your flight."
Oh, no!
Who drank the very first cup of tea? Where do you reckon?
ALAN: Probably in China.
You're absolutely right, it's China.
Well, it's a Chinese legend.
There was Chinese emperor in 2737 BC called Shennong,
and he was sitting under a tree and his servant was boiling some water,
and some leaves, apparently from the tree,
blew into the water and he thought, "I'll have that."
"I'm not re-boiling the kettle now." "No, it's boiled now.
"That took ages to boil that up. Yeah.
"Now the leaf's gone in it!" "And I was watching it."
"Shall I fish it out or leave it? I'll leave it in."
Leave it in. "A bit stronger."
Yeah.
So, actually, if you go right back there,
it is tea first, milk... Milk second.
Milk never.
Tea first... "Milk?!"
"Putting milk in it? It's already got leaves in it!"
So how did they find out that you can have milk in tea?
Was he drinking tea and a cow just went past and, like...
..squirted a bit in?
Is it like that?
Eureka!
It's a milkmaid having a cup of tea.
I love your... You don't want to dip the teat in though, do you?
No. In your kettle.
Ooh, listen to them all.
The empathy with the udder there.
Ooh! Can you imagine your own udders going in?
Oh! I think it's fair to say you probably can't.
Er...
I think honey's nicer than jam.
I do like... Now, at last, the big question!
It's the sort of thing... Is honey nicer than jam?
Or what about marmalade?
No. No, get out.
Oh, God! Marmalade's amazing! Get out of town.
I love marmalade. No. No, waste of time.
Do you like it with the rindy, peely in? No!
Yeah. You like it... No?
AUDIENCE: Yes. Yes!
All right, all right, let's have... Shh!
This is how they're going to decide Brexit.
We'll vote. The point is, if this country means anything,
we're only allowed one spread from here on in.
Yeah. How many people like marmalade?
Let's have a quick vote. How many of you like...?
Loads of people like marmalade. Hang on, hang on.
And, of that group, how many of you like it with the rind in?
Oh, mostly everybody. Any sort, any sort.
And who doesn't like marmalade? AUDIENCE: Yeah!
Yay!
What is wrong with you?!
The people who like... Who don't like marmalade...
People who like marmalade... Don't, you're not involved,
People who don't like marmalade, do you like jam?
Yes.
No, put your hands up, you fools! SANDI LAUGHS
Yeah. The people who like marmalade, put their hands up.
People who like jam, shout.
Because we're sick of your shit!
That's why. Let's see what people who like honey do.
The people...
Who likes honey?
AUDIENCE CHEERS
They do both. They do both!
Because it's in between marmalade and jam, it turns out.
It's where the two sides meet.
It's the Lib Dems of the...
The way different people queue around the world
can lead to problems.
I had a friend of mine, recently, in Manchester,
he went to use a cash machine.
When he got there, there was a man already using the machine.
And, six foot behind the man, there was a woman
sort of waiting her turn.
So, he says, "Are you in the queue for the cash machine?"
And she says, "I'm Nigerian and my religious beliefs are
"because I don't know this man and we're not related
"this is the distance that I feel safe and respectful
"to what I believe in."
Because Steve's a very thoughtful person,
he then stands six foot away from her, you know?
It's like a 12-foot, three-person queue out of nowhere.
Then the man moved and the woman moved to the machine
to do her money business.
Steve then stayed the six foot behind. Yeah, perfectly nice.
He was in sort of a little daydream,
then another man come over and said, "Are you in the queue?"
He went to explain but, not loaded with all the information, said,
"I am, yeah, but I'm standing here because she's Nigerian."
So this is a very sweet story, OK?
This is the story of Romeo. Aw.
A Sehuencas frog.
So he has been living in a tank in Bolivia,
in the Cochabamba Natural History Museum,
and it was thought that Romeo was the last one in his species.
The last one in a species is called an endling.
And, in 2018, his conservationists set up an online dating profile
for him, on Match.com, in an effort to find him a mate.
And here is the video that they made for their search.
Hi, there. I'm Romeo, a Sehuencas water frog from Bolivia.
I'm a pretty simple guy.
I tend to keep to myself and love spending nights at home.
I also love eating.
Then again, who doesn't?
Aw, who could resist, right? Who could resist?
They're good friends to do that.
He didn't want to do it himself. Yeah.
It's embarrassing... It's embarrassing.
They're good mates. Get your friends to do it.
IN A BOLIVIAN ACCENT: "Miguel, could you do a video for me?"
IN A BOLIVIAN ACCENT: "Hey, why not put you catching a worm?"
I... "You come out under the rock. You get a worm."
"I have the tiny arms at the front.
"It is not possible for me to hold the phone...
"..and eat the worm." PHILL CROAKS
"Say what you want me to say."
"Yeah. Write it down on a big piece of paper
"and hold it behind a phone."
The thing is, it worked. Loads of frogs started turning up.
A toad in a frog bra.
"Hello."
They went out on a frog-finding expedition,
they found three males and two females.
And he has now been paired with a female,
who they have obviously named...? Juliet.
Juliet, exactly right.
"Si, because I am called Romeo.
"This photograph was taken of me at my modern jazz dance class."
So, who fancies a Christmas cup-stacking contest?
Oh, yes, please. Yes, please.
OK, so, take out your stack of cups.
Yeah.
And what you need to do is, you need three cups here
and three cups here, and six cups in the middle.
So, it's a proper sport, it's recognised by
the American Amateur Athletics Union Junior Olympics.
So here is what you have to do -
you have to take the stack on the left and make three.
Like this.
Then you have to take the six in the middle
and make them into a stack as well.
Like this.
And then you have to make the stack of three.
So this is the shape that you should end up with.
And, once you've done that, in order to do it as a proper
sport-stacking contest,
you then have to return it to how it was.
But you have to start the same way, er...
..and back, like this, OK? Yeah.
Are we going to have a competition? Oh, my God!
See who can do this fastest. Yeah.
All right? This is so exciting!
So, start on the...
Josh, darling, start on the left.
Yeah, OK. Very good.
A stack of three, a stack of six, a stack of three. OK.
Ready, steady, go!
Three and a six.
SARA: I'm just going to be...
And then take them down again, from the left to the right.
JOHNNY: It won't come out, it won't come out!
Josh!
Damn it! Can we go again? OK.
I think we should challenge you to see if there's somebody
in the audience... Does anybody want to have a go?
Anybody want to have a go?
OK, the guy who's put his hand up. Come and have a go, my darling.
Let's challenge you against Josh.
Right, what's your name?
Lee. Lee? Lee, this is Josh.
I've got bad news for you, Lee,
You're about to get your arse handed to you.
OK.
Both put your hands on the board before you start.
OK, are you ready? Not really.
Go!
Whoa, what's going on? Whoa!
APPLAUSE
You were not quite out the gate there, Josh.
I'm not going to lie to you, I dropped my first cup.
Otherwise, I thought we were pretty well-matched.
Best of three?
OK, put your hands on the mat, so no cheating.
You think that's going to make a difference? I do.
Ready? Go!
Woo!
AUDIENCE CHEERS
Yes!
Well done. Well done.
You should be ashamed, Josh.
I've ruined Christmas.
You should be ashamed of yourself, cheating at Christmas.
Right, boys, hands on the mat, I'm going to give you best of three.
Are you ready? Go!
SARA GASPS
Wow! AUDIENCE CHEERS
Ladies and gentlemen, British Champion Stacker, Lee Norton.
That was fantastic, Lee. Very, very well done.
The chances of being hit by an asteroid
is about one in a billion if you go into an asteroid belt.
That would be really unlucky.
# The chances of anything coming from Mars
# Are a million to one
# They say, "Ooh-ooh, wee-oh, wee-oh. #
What is that song from?
That's from Jeff Wayne's War Of The Worlds.
When I was younger, we only had one tape in the car
for summer holidays, and it was that one tape
and we listened to it for ten years.
That's a really long holiday.
We had the same with Joseph's Technicolour Dreamcoat.
Oh, yeah.
# A flash of light
# My golden coat flew out of sight
TOGETHER: # The colours faded into darkness
# I was left alone Was left alone
# May I return May I return
# To the beginning? Ah-ah
# The light is dimming Ah-ah...
Ha-ha!
Ah, yeah!
# The world and I The world and I
# We are still dreaming AUDIENCE: Ah-ah
SUSAN LAUGHS
# Any dream will do. #
The asteroid belt contains a lot less material
than you might think.
Why is this skirt called...? Go on, shoo!
That really was intolerable. That was terrible.
And you, all of you!
Take us out, please, Mr Davies.
BADGE BEEPS