CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Hello, and welcome to QI, where tonight we are ready to
rejoice at the most wonderful time of the year. Merry Christmas!
And joining me are a wise man - Chris McCausland.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
A shining star - Holly Walsh.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
A venerated virgin - Justin Moorhouse.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
And a bit of an ass - Alan Davies.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
OK.
Of course, their buzzers are all rejoicing. I will conduct you.
So, Chris, if you could start us off, please.
# Hallelujah! #
And Holly?
# Hallelujah! #
And Justin? # Hallelujah! #
Alan? # Hallelujah! #
And because it's Christmas, I gave myself a buzzer.
# Halle
# Lujah! #
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Yeah! I know, right?
Now, I want you to imagine it's Christmas Eve
and you are looking for a very quick present.
What beats four calling birds,
three French hens, two turtle doves
and a partridge in a pear tree?
# Hallelujah! # Yes, Chris?
I'm going to take one for the team and say...
# Five gold rings! #
KLAXON
To be honest, I'd rather that than just have it building up
inside me for the rest of the show. Yes. No.
So I'm going to give you a clue - those were all birds
and we are looking for the next bird on the list.
# Hallelujah! # Six geese a-laying.
Six geese a-laying is absolutely right.
It beats all the birds on our list in one respect, the goose.
Can fly further? It can fly faster.
Actually, to be more specific, it's a spur-winged goose.
There it is, a beautiful thing.
More importantly, what impact has this question had on the world?
Has it brought down more aeroplanes than any other bird?
Wow, that's...horrible.
No, it's not that.
Is it responsible for the shape of wings on planes? Oh.
I don't mean it designs them, but, like...
"The geese are doing the wings.
"They've got lots of good ideas. Listen up - they can fly."
So, the book, Guinness World Records,
which used to be known as the Guinness Book Of Records,
started with an argument about the speed of game birds.
Wait, so now it's called the Book...the Guinness...?
It's now called Guinness World Records,
and it used to be called the Guinness Book of Records.
So, but it's called the Book of the Guinness World Records?
OK. The book is now entitled Guinness World Records,
but doesn't have the word "book" in it.
Guinness Book of Records. Yeah. Guinness Book of Records.
The Book of Guinness Records. Guinness World Records.
This is like STIs, STDs, all over again. Yeah.
Is the book sponsored by Guinness?
So it was originally put forward by the MD of Guinness Brewery.
So it all started in a competition to decide who knew
the fastest game bird, OK?
And they were having a pint of Guinness and they thought...?
No, they were out hunting game birds.
So there's a guy called Sir Hugh Eyre Campbell Beaver,
and he was on a grouse... ALAN LAUGHS I know, it's very pleasing.
This is the story of a man called Beaver. You can't have that many names, that's just greed. Iknow.
People will have called him Hugh Beaver. Hugh Beaver. Sir Beaver.
Huge Beaver, that's what they called him.
Huge Hairy Campbell Beaver.
That's what they call him behind his back.
"Here he comes, Huge Beaver."
The Beaver Book Of Records sounds much better. That is better.
The Book Of Beaver Records. Book Of Beavers. The Guinness Book Of Beavers.
The Book Of Huge Beavers. Yes, World Beaver.
"What's the fastest beaver, Huge?"
Beaver, as I like to call him, was on a grouse shoot in 1954 and he got
into a row with a friend about what was the fastest European game bird.
Very pleasingly, they had this discussion in a place in Ireland
called North Slob.
That's me.
Anyway, so, Beaver, who was the MD of Guinness Breweries, claimed
it was the golden plover, and his friend said it was the grouse.
And so they decided that there was a gap in the market for a book
like this and they commissioned Norris and Ross McWhirter
to write this book. Are they twins? Or do they just dress exactly the same? No, they were twins.
They were on Record Breakers, weren't they? Yes, darling. One of them was. Yes, with Roy Castle.
Yeah. Who do you think won - the one who thought it was the grouse or the one who thought it was the plover?
It turns out it was a goose, so neither of them. Exactly.
The grouse is faster than the plover, but the spur-winged goose is faster than either one of those.
It all depends where the wind's blowing, doesn't it, for a bird? Yeah, I think.
I've seen birds sometimes where they're really not in control
of what they're doing and they're just trying to style it out. Yeah, just...
They take off in a high wind and they're filled with regret and they can't go back to thenest
and they're just trying to style it out, but they're being buffeted around.
And then they come in with feet like that.
If you see a duck landing on a pond in a high wind, that's hilarious.
Yeah. Some birds, little birds, can go at terrific speeds through a bush
and then just come to a standstill on a twig,
defying all the laws of physics. Whereas a duck needs basically
the English Channel just to come to a stop.
So the spur-winged goose is the fastest game bird in the world.
What's the problem with this?
Game birds. Yes. It's not really a game bird.
So it's only found in Sub-Saharan Africa.
It also eats something called blister beetles,
which makes the flesh entirely toxic,
so you'd die if you ate a spur-winged goose, and it's not really a goose.
Other than that, I think it's a perfect world record holder.
Blister beetle. So, the book was first given away as a promotion.
They printed 1,000 copies and they gave it away free with beer,
but it proved to be so popular that they decided to put it on sale
and it became a Christmas best-seller that year and every year since.
And, in fact, Guinness World Records holds the Guinness World Record
for the best-selling copyrighted book of all time.
Sounds a bit convenient, don't you think? Yeah. I know, as they're judging, right?
Of course they'd say that, wouldn't they? Yeah. Yeah.
Let's bring out the Martini Book Of Real Facts.
LAUGHTER
The Cinzano Book Of Lies.
Funny how they just... It was the Guinness Book Of Records
and now it's the Carling Pamphlet Of Stuff.
Guinness World Records has sold over 130 million copies since 1955,
but once you include non-copyrighted books,
estimates are that the Bible has sold over five billion copies.
I mean, you'd think everybody must have one by now.
We've got one in our house.
We've got about 11 in our house. Why?
Cos my mum's a vicar. Oh, that's right, I forgot. Sorry.
Yeah. Yes. It's kind of the textbook. Yeah.
Is she a very forgetful vicar? Does she keep buying them?
"You've already had that one, Mum! You've read it!"
The great thing about the Bible is,
spoiler alert, cos there's no...
It's such a massive twist at the end. Yeah, it is, quite.
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse is... Comes out of nowhere.
Is that what it ends with?
Oh, sorry.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
What I like is that the Guinness World Records 1978 edition is
also listed as the book most stolen from public libraries in Britain.
Other Christmassy records awarded by Guinness World Records include
largest group of carol singers. Was won by a Nigerian choir, there.
Wow. 25,272 singers.
This is a very good one. Fastest time - have a guess at this -
fastest time to eat all the chocolates from an advent calendar
in the correct order?
24 days.
12 seconds.
7. 4.
It's a minute and 27 seconds. What?!
Yeah. What was he doing?! I've done it quicker than that, definitely.
By this guy, Kevin "LA Beast" Strahle.
He also has the record for the most chicken nuggets,
most powdered doughnuts and drinking a litre of maple syrup.
Imagine, like, how many he's got to go through to get to that level.
I know. Yeah. He's probably got to do, like, 200 calendars
and 50 litres of whatever it was, maple syrup, was it? Yeah.
Fastest marathon dressed as a Christmas tree?
3 hours and 43 minutes. Oh, that's good going.
Largest gathering of people dressed as Santa Claus
was broken in Kerala in India in 2014 by 18,112 Santas. Oh, wow.
Look at that! I know. But you're going to love this, OK,
the previous record for the biggest Santa gathering had been
set in Newtown in Wales in 2004.
More than 4,260 Santas went for an annual charity run
but it finished in a mass street brawl...
LAUGHTER
..which involved 30 Santas slugging it out.
So the Elves and I thought, you know, how hard can these records be?
We decided we're going to try and break one.
So, first up, Holly and Chris,
fastest time to put on five Christmas jumpers, OK?
And our judge is the editor-in-chief of Guinness World Records.
Please welcome Craig Glenday.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Craig, what are the rules, darling, that we need to follow?
It is five jumpers you have to put on.
If you have one jumper on now, that doesn't count,
so a T-shirt is fine, topless is fine, but no...
Are we getting them now? Let's do this. I'll do it in this.
Tell me when you're ready, darling. OK.
OK, so the... Wait, wait, wait. Don't touch them yet. You have in front of you... Don't touch them yet.
OK. So they have to be on the floor? Yes.
So, in front of you are five jumpers that are in increasing size.
Don't touch them until I say go.
And make sure it's pulled down below the waist. OK.
I might punch myself out doing this.
Right, but they need to get quicker than 20 seconds.
Is Holly allowed to kneel to start? That's fine. That's fine?
I can't actually see, but as long as you're not touching the jumpers.
ALAN: Holly's doing it kneeling down. Do you want to kneel, Chris?
She's not touching the jumpers. No, I'm all right, thanks.
It brings back bad memories of church. OK.
LAUGHTER
For several reasons.
APPLAUSE
OK. Actually, no, Holly, I do need you to stand.
Holly, get up, you cheat! Over to you, Craig, to get us going.
Three, two, one - go!
ALAN: Go on, Chris! Go on, Chris!
CHEERING, SHOUTS OF ENCOURAGEMENT
Go, go, go, go, go!
KLAXON
Keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going.
You've got one more. You've got to pull them all down below your waist.
There's one more. One more, Chris, you can do this.
The friction's killing me!
CHEERING
One more, Chris, one more!
LAUGHTER
Don't fall for that, don't look for any more. Phew!
How was that, Craig? It was interesting.
I think, Holly, you clocked a time of 31 seconds,
but you didn't seem to be standing.
I'm short. But are you...? Are you standing now, or...? Yes.
Yeah, no, then you were shorter during the attempt,
so I think I might have to disqualify you. Oh!
And, also, where is your waistline?
This is such a personal question to ask on television.
You think it's bad, there's people watching this at home now going,
"That lad sat next to Sandi, he's already wearing 15 jumpers."
LAUGHTER
And Chris? Chris... How did I do, then, Craig?
Well, you did 35 seconds. I was happy that it was a valid attempt.
Yeah. But, yes, the minimum, unfortunately, for this record,
which is based on existing speed jumper-wearing, is 20 seconds. Oh.
So I'm afraid it's not an actual record.
Craig, can I ask a serious question, though?
What is the record for a blind man putting on five jumpers? Ah!
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Of course, right now it's 35 seconds. Hurray!
ALAN: Yay, he's in the book!
Does that mean we can expect to see it in the next edition of the book?
I will need to check that previous applicants weren't already blind...
Ah, yeah, good point. ..and maybe not mentioned it.
If that's the case, then maybe. Just because we can't read it...
LAUGHTER
Chris, Chris, he's saying maybe and shaking his head no. Oh, right.
Just telling you, just telling you now.
Well, well done for trying, that was fantastic.
You can take them off.
This is the least sexy Christmas strip-tease you'll ever see.
No, it's working for me.
It's like a game of Holly pass-the-parcel.
Make sure you stop before...
LAUGHTER
Well done, fantastic.
Well, I'm only sorry I didn't try. It did look like such fun.
What's the most unusual place a reindeer has ever slept?
Is it Nap-land?
LAUGHTER
That's very good, darling.
I'll give you another clue.
The reindeer leaves by air but arrives by tube.
Oh... Oh...
What, like, the underground sort of Tube? Eurotunnel?
Under... Well, we are under the water, certainly.
Reindeer... An underwater reindeer?
No... Yes. An underwater reindeer.
Yes, an underwater reindeer? Yes. Oh!
# Hallelujah. # Yes?
Submarine? Submarine is exactly right, yes.
A reindeer named Pollyanna,
the only reindeer known to have lived on a submarine.
In 1941, the Soviet Navy presented a Royal Navy submarine, HMS Trident,
with a live reindeer as a thank you for fighting the German forces.
There's one thing I know about submarines. Yeah.
It's that they're quite cramped. Yeah.
So... And one thing about reindeers is... Yeah.
..they've got... Yeah. This was the issue.
They'd probably have said, "Look, can we have the money?"
Yeah. Yeah. Just...
No, the captain had said his wife
was having trouble pushing their pram through the snow
and the Russian Admiral said, "You need a reindeer."
To push a pram? To pull the pram.
So the Russian base where it was docked,
the submarine was called Polyarnoe,
so they named the reindeer Pollyanna.
And they brought it aboard through the torpedo tube,
and it spent the next six weeks on the submarine,
and they had meant for her to sleep in the torpedo room
but she turned out to be rather fussy
and she ended up sleeping under the captain's bed.
At first they fed her on a barrel of moss that the Russians had left,
then after that, it ran out
and they just gave her scraps and condensed milk,
and she also ate some navigation charts, and she became enormous.
And in the end, she'd gained too much weight
and had to be lifted out of the main hatch,
rather than the way she came in through the torpedo tube.
They didn't fire her out of the torpedo tube?
That would have been good, wouldn't it? Yeah.
No, so she got sent off to a zoo.
At least there's somewhere for them all to hang their caps, the sailors.
That's a very good point!
Unfortunately, we don't have a picture of her.
We do have a picture of another reindeer.
This reindeer is called Olga. There she is.
She arrived at Scapa Flow in December 1943 aboard the cruiser HMS Kent,
also a gift from a Russian Admiral.
They are very unoriginal in their gift-giving.
I think the Russians were training reindeer... Undercover.
..to be spies. Oh. Yeah.
Either that, or when you fall asleep,
it opens and Russian soldiers... Come out, yeah, yeah!
I can't imagine hooking your baby up to the back of a reindeer. No.
I've been pulled many times on a sleigh by reindeer,
and they're unbelievably gentle and lovely.
Yeah, but not as a small baby.
No, obviously, I was a grown-up and fully
in charge of what was going on. Right.
I thought you were going to say, "fully grown". No, not...
Wow, even you're making those jokes.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
JUSTIN: Yes, you know you're short when a blind man knows...
I might not be able to see anything, but I can judge an angle!
Did you know, darling, that the person who created
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Robert L May,
intended to call him Reginald?
That's the thing. If we didn't know Rudolph... It would be Reginald.
..Reginald would sound right. Rudolph would sound stupid. Yeah.
If it was Adolf, that would be funny.
"He's got a red nose."
"What about his 'tache?" "Shut up!"
"What about his red nose?"
And actually, lots of reindeer do have red noses.
Why do you think that might be?
They're clowns.
Why might a reindeer...? It is a thing.
Why do they have red noses? Rosacea.
What, like...like...?
They just have bad circulation in their face.
No, in fact, they have excellent circulation, it's to do with that.
Is it, like... It's how they lure a mate. ..a sexual thing?
No. Is it like a red light in a red light district? No.
The red nose district. No.
I'm going to stop you all.
So, if they breathed that Arctic air straight in,
they would literally die of cold,
so the noses contain a huge number of blood vessels,
and in some of them, the density of blood vessels is so great,
it actually turns their noses red.
So the cold, dry air enters and it's warmed by these capillaries,
and moistened, also, by a thick layer of mucus.
This is astonishing.
They can breathe in air that is -40 degrees Celsius
and by the time it reaches their lungs,
it is +38 degrees Celsius.
It has gained almost 80 degrees in a single second.
Wow! Isn't that incredible?
That is like entering any grandparent's home!
LAUGHTER
They also cool the air on the way out.
It's cooled by about 20 degrees Celsius before it exits the nose,
and then they recapture all the moisture in this nasal mucus
before the air is exhaled, so what it means is,
if a human being was to stand next to a reindeer
at, say, -30 degrees Celsius,
you would see the human being's breath,
cos you'd see all the bits of moisture,
but you would not see the reindeer's breath at all because
they're so brilliant at absorbing all the moisture back into the body.
So if you ever see them with breath,
it means they're smoking. Yeah.
Or vaping. Or vaping. Vaping. I'm going to go with vaping.
Can I show you something which is extraordinary?
This is then forming what's called a cyclone.
So, when they are threatened, they run in circles
and that makes it really hard for predators
to attack individual animals.
Almost always, they run in an anticlockwise manner,
but isn't that astonishing? There's hundreds.
Hundreds of them, running around...
We're looking at hundreds of reindeer running around in circles.
Like a mosh pit. Yes, exactly like that. Yeah.
I think that's amazing.
So, why do they do that?
Because it makes it really difficult
for a predator to single out an animal.
And another trick they have is that their knees click,
so that they can send each other sound signals, even in a blizzard.
So if you hear your neighbour's knees moving,
suddenly starting to click very quickly,
that might mean there's danger about.
So they send messages through their... Oh, my knees click.
Maybe I'm just sending messages. To reindeer. Yeah. Yeah.
What horrible incident involving Dijon befell
Father Christmas in 1951?
# Hallelujah! #
Did somebody put mustard on their mince pie?
Oh, that would be bad, wouldn't it? I love mustard.
You like mustard? Oh, I eat mouthfuls of it raw. Really? Yeah.
French mustard or English mustard? French. Dijon?
Yes, and wholegrain. I can only eat that stuff,
I can't eat the English stuff that goes up the back of your nose.
Yeah. It burns my eyeballs. Yeah. Not that it matters, but...
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
But I like the stuff with the seeds in it,
but did he fall into a vat of mustard or something? No, it has nothing to do with mustard.
We're talking about the French city of Dijon, it's to do with Christmas, it's the early 1950s.
And the Catholic Church was very cross, they thought that Christmas had become too commercialised
and it should be more about le petit Jesus than presents.
And so... Something happened to Santa?
Yes, something did happen to Santa. In the town? Yes. Did he get hung?
Well, did they ban Santa? Yes. They hung Santa?! They hung Santa.
They hung him?! Yes. Who hung Santa?
OK, the Catholics, that's...
Catholics?! Yes. The Catholics!
At Dijon Cathedral in 1951, on December 23rd,
250 schoolchildren hanged an eight-foot tall Santa effigy...
That's so bleak - the kids turned on Santa! Oh, my God.
It's even worse! So there's a young man, he asked the crowd,
"Does Santa deserve death?"
And the assembled children chanted back, "Yes, yes, yes,"
before setting fire to the effigy and pelting it with orange peel.
Oh, my God. AUDIENCE: Oh!
It was the Church? The Church did it, yes. So the Archbishop of Rennes,
he said it demonstrated that the Church was pushing back against
the paganism which Santa seemed to bring...
How has that worked out for them in Dijon?
Well, the very next day, there was a pro-Santa rally outside
the town hall. Oh, my gosh. "San-ta! San-ta!"
So, Santa has been in trouble all over the world,
he's faced challenges. 1920s in the Soviet Union, Christmas itself was banned for years.
There was a sort of wave of anti-Christmas sentiment
all the way through Soviet Russia.
One school put on a play where fictional characters were expelled
as non-Soviet elements,
Cinderella was tried for betraying the working class, and Father Frost
was accused of spying on people down their chimneys.
And it wasn't until 1937 that Father Frost, or Ded Moroz,
was allowed to return, but he has to wear a blue coat,
so that we don't think he's the Western... Cos he works at Pontins.
It was rather like the Puritans under Oliver Cromwell,
and in parts of the United States, when the Forefathers arrived, they followed Oliver Cromwell's idea
that you didn't have Christmas at all. It was seen as Popish excess.
So carol singing was seen as a political statement.
People used to do secret carol singing. Wow!
In fact, I think 1644,
the Act of Parliament came in, banning Christmas entirely
until the restoration of the monarchy, which was 1660.
So there's a long period of time, nearly two decades,
where we don't have any Christmas at all in this country.
People would get together and do secret carol singing? Yes.
WHISPERING: # Ding dong merrily on high... #
SINGS IN A HIGH NOTE: # La la la! # Ssh.
They loved Silent Night.
In the 1930s, Mexico's Ministry of Education decided that
children shouldn't learn about Santa Claus any more,
but gifts should be given by an old Mesoamerican god,
Quetzalcoatl, who takes the form of a feathered snake.
I mean, all due respect to Mesoamerican culture and everything,
I'm not sure this is the one for the kids, because this guy burnt himself
to death out of shame after getting drunk
and having sex with his sister.
I mean, Christmas, we've all had a drink. I know.
Right, it's time for another socially distanced record attempt,
specially created for us by Guinness World Records,
and we are going to do the most Christmas crackers pulled
by an individual in 30 seconds, OK?
The number to beat is 20. Craig is here to judge again.
Alan and Justin, you're going to be taking this one on.
So there's an important condition, isn't there, Craig, that we have to
be able to hear the bang of each cracker, is that right?
Each cracker has to crack, so we'll count them backstage
to make sure each of the papers has actually exploded. Has actually gone? Yeah. OK,
so you may put your crackers out on your table in front of you.
That's my boy. So, I don't know what your technique is going to be,
are you going to have them standing?
You're losing them all over... Is it one person doing this?
One person pulling the crackers.
Do we have to do one at once? Is that right, Craig?
Yeah, one cracker at a time. One cracker at a time.
Do you have to read all the jokes and put all the hats on?
Oh, wait a minute, because all the gifts might fly out,
I'm just going to put on... You're going to wear goggles. Good idea.
Because, honestly, a pack of playing cards...
LAUGHTER
OK, I've got my safety glasses. Come on, Alan.
Right, hand over to Craig.
OK, so start with your hands behind your back, please. Oh. Oh.
Do you want to change how you've got them, darling?
I'm not going to do 20 in 30 seconds, Sandi.
Yes, you are, I've got every faith in you.
No, I think this is a perfect layout. OK.
Just use both hands.
Have you got everything ready? Yeah, I'm ready. OK.
Can I just say, Sandi... Yes? ..I'm psyched for this. OK, good. Yeah.
LAUGHTER
So, this one, you have to stop when the music does, OK? OK.
Craig? OK. You have 30 seconds
in three, two, one. Go!
One, two, three... Go! Go! Go!
Oh, nice technique!
CHEERING, SHOUTS OF ENCOURAGEMENT
..13, 14, 15...
You've got this!
BUZZER: # Hallelujah! Hallelujah! #
KLAXON Stop!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
I feel... I feel alive!
I feel giddy!
But look at that. The smell of gunpowder! Look at that.
That could have had my eye out, that. Pair of nail clippers.
Environmentally, this is a disaster as well. Yeah.
It smells incredible.
"What did Father Christmas do when he went speed dating?"
He pulled a cracker. "He pulled a cracker!"
"How do you know when Santa's in the room?" Oh, I don't know.
"Because the residents of Dijon have hung and burnt him."
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Right, we'll bring the news to you as soon as we have it
as to whether or not the record has been broken.
But it was looking pretty good, I think.
What happened to the turkey at Charles Dickens' last Christmas?
# Hallelujah. #
If it was his last Christmas... Yes.
..did it kill Charles Dickens?
Oh. No.
Attacked him in the kitchen... Yeah.
..and cooked him on a medium heat for however long,
three hours. No.
He had...
..indigestion. No. It... Salmonella?
It never turned up.
He should have ordered one of them geese. They come really fast.
Yes, much quicker!
So here's what happened.
The turkey was on its way to him and the train carriage which it was in
burnt down somewhere near Reading.
And so the pieces of turkey,
it burnt, but not so much that you couldn't eat it,
and they were sold off, portions of it,
for sixpence a portion to the people of Reading.
I think that's the world's first pop-up.
Yes... Yes, you're quite right.
There's a thing about Dickens, though, he was...
..I mean, obviously, a great writer and everything else we know about,
but it's funny you're talking about turkey,
cos he was an innovative chef, as well. He...
..was one of the first people in this country to use herbs,
and he was very specific about the herbs he used.
Are you serious? Yeah, yeah.
Cos he often... He said that
it was the best of thyme, the worst of thyme.
AUDIENCE GROANS
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Oh, God.
Is this not the point in a Christmas gathering
where somebody goes, "You bastard!"?
Yes! That's very good, darling.
I did not see that coming. That was very good.
The 30 lb turkey was not the biggest Christmas present he ever received.
In 1864, he was given an entire Swiss chalet
as a gift from an actor friend called Charles Fechter.
I bet he guessed... Yeah.
..when he unwrapped it.
Well, it came in 58 separate boxes designed for self-assembly,
and the instructions were in French.
It's like a puzzle, as well, isn't it? Yes. He had no idea.
Eventually he had to hire a stage carpenter to help him build it.
Is that it? Yes.
I put our table together at home,
and, um...it's fine, you know.
It was meant to be a chest of drawers, but...
LAUGHTER
..it does the job.
He used to work in it in the summer,
and the top floor is where he wrote his last works.
But he also lined it with mirrors, because he used to...
He was a tremendous performer and he liked to try out his performances.
The only thing I've ever read of his is Mickey's Christmas Carol.
Yeah.
OK. Um...
LAUGHTER
The Dickensian way to roast a turkey
is to stick it on a train and set the train on fire.
Do you ever get Christmas cards from people
but have no idea who they are? Has that ever happened?
The worst Christmas card I ever got wasn't a Christmas card,
it was a note, came through the post, said,
"We've got some post for you but the person's not paid enough for it."
So I had to go to the post office and pay £1.50 for a Christmas card
from someone who came to my house the next day for Christmas lunch.
Bastards. That's a rotten thing.
Have a look at some Christmas cards that you've got under the desk.
Now, Chris, let me tell you about your card. Shall I open it? Yes.
So one of the Elves spent ages writing it in braille for you.
Oh, my God, there's braille in it. I don't read braille.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Amazingly, I do. You're not helping yourself here, are you?
I mean, if we're honest, it's just dots, isn't it?
LAUGHTER
No, I'm not a very good blind person,
but that's very thoughtful, I mean, God knows what it says.
They did try. No. Well, what does yours say?
Mine says, "Merry Christmas from Phil and Joyce." OK, and you two?
Mine says, "Warmest wishes this festive season, Dr and Mrs Kunz."
Christmas Kunz but once a year. Yeah.
OK. So yours, Chris and Alan, yours say Phil and Joyce,
and yours say Dr and Mrs Kunz. Mrs Kunz.
So this has actually been tried.
There were two sociologists from Brigham Young University
called Phillip Kunz - which is where the name comes from - and Michael Woolcott,
and they sent out 578 Christmas cards to random addresses
in the United States, to see how many people would write back.
It was really impressive.
One person in five sent Christmas greetings in return,
as if they knew who the person was.
And what they discovered was, you got better results
if you sent out a higher status card.
So if you signed it "Dr and Mrs Kunz", you got a 26% return.
"Phil and Joyce", just 15%.
But some people sent back letters that were three or four pages long.
And a few people kept sending cards for 15 years.
This particular study was in 1975. They tried it again in 2015
and only got replies from 2% of recipients, so it has changed.
Anybody else remember another R-based feature of Christmas cards,
which is the round-robin?
Yes. We still get them.
Yeah, we get letters from... Yeah.
It doesn't... I...
I mean, I don't want to put my family down... No, don't.
..but we're scum.
But we don't...
There's none of that, "And Johnny's gone to university, and..."
We're more likely to get, you know,
"Gary's not gone to prison this year, so...
"..that's something, you know?"
Well, my old friend, the writer Simon Hoggart,
who used to present The News Quiz,
he used to collect examples of them. I love this one.
"My ears ringing with praise for Jake from his parent-teacher meeting,
"I got home to find Emily opening a letter
"to say she'd won a place at Oxford."
I mean, you'd want to vomit, wouldn't you?
Now, what was the Immaculate Conception?
# Hallelujah! #
Yes? The Immaculate Conception is when the Virgin Mary... Yes?
..became pregnant with the Holy Spirit. No.
KLAXON
Lots of people think it's to do with the virgin birth.
It has nothing to do with the virgin birth of Jesus.
So, whose birth is it to do with? Is it Mary's birth?
It is to do with Mary's birth. So, Catholics believe that she was conceived and born
without original sin, which, apart from Adam and Eve, would make her unique, I think, in history.
So it doesn't mean she was born by a virgin birth, it means that she could go on to be Christ's mother
because she didn't have any original sin. So, immaculate just means "not stained".
Macula in Latin is for "stain" or "blemish".
So, according to the Church, she never committed a single sin in her entire life.
This is a marvellous painting by Leonardo,
and that's her mother in the background there, St Anne.
But it was officially made part of the Catholic doctrine
by Pope Pius IX in 1854.
At exactly the same time, in fact, the first Vatican Council,
when they made the Pope infallible.
I can't believe he's front cover of Vanity Fair!
I know, that does seem extraordinary, doesn't it?
I like that thing he's doing there
where he's like, it's after Christmas lunch
and he's going, "It was me!" Yes.
LAUGHTER "Sorry, too many sprouts."
In 2006, there was a British insurance firm that had to withdraw
cover from three virgin sisters in Inverness.
They had taken out insurance against getting pregnant in the event
of a second coming of Christ.
If one of them had given birth as a virgin,
they stood to gain £1 million to help with the childcare.
Insurance companies don't pay out with acts of God, though.
Ah, well...
..I know, but the burden of proof that they had been impregnated
by the Holy Ghost was most specifically resting with them
in the policy. They eventually withdrew it
due to what can only be described as adverse headlines.
Although, of course, that got further headlines,
my favourite of which is, "Sisters lose Second Coming cover."
There's a withdrawal joke in there as well, isn't there?
Yeah, there is. Yeah. Yeah.
In 2018, the Church of England commissioned a poll
to find the nation's ideal mother. Anybody?
You?
KLAXON
APPLAUSE
Is it Victoria Beckham?
No, she wasn't on the list.
I can tell you that the Virgin Mary placed eighth.
Willoughby? Princess Diana.
It's an extraordinary list.
Mary Poppins is higher than the Virgin Mary.
Marge Simpson.
Mary Poppins isn't a mother! Yeah, well... She was a nanny.
I know! But I'm just telling you.
The Queen, Michelle Obama, Mother Teresa,
and people who put "my own mother",
but there were four fictitious women on the list of ten,
and Princess Diana came first.
Could have gone for Mother Hubbard.
Yeah, Mother Hubbard would have been good, yeah.
The Immaculate Conception
is actually a bit of an inaccurate misconception.
We have a newsflash, everybody.
I have the results of the Christmas cracker pulling.
Ooh! I'm actually quite excited. OK. I am.
I can tell you that Justin got 30,
with 4 that didn't crack.
Alan got 35,
with 7 that didn't crack,
which makes Alan the new world record holder!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Wow, my kids are going to love this. Am I going to be in the thing?
Darling, it's even better, you're going to get a certificate
as the world record holder. I haven't had a certificate for years and years! I know.
Not since your swimming badge. I have never been as disappointed.
I now know the first line of your obituary, Alan,
that's quite exciting. If the BBC had paid for a better quality
of cracker, you'd have had 42.
Yeah. Anyway, congratulations. I'm... I'm proud to know you.
Now it's time to get onto our tea tray
and slide down the icy slopes of General Ignorance.
Fingers on buzzers, please.
What kind of room was Jesus born in?
# Hallelujah! # Stable.
KLAXON
Just not got "winner" written all over you tonight, have you, Justin?
No. So sorry, darling. No, not a stable. What else? Premier Inn.
KLAXON, LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Ah, they loved it. Holiday Inn. OK, a Travelodge?
KLAXON, LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
So there is no mention in the Bible whatsoever
of Jesus being born in a stable.
And also the idea that there was no room at the inn seems
entirely wrong. So the Greek word,
which traditionally is translated as inn,
is kataluma. It actually means something more like "guest room".
So we know perfectly well the Bible states that Joseph had
relatives in Bethlehem.
The likeliest explanation is that kataluma refers to there being
no space in the guest room at his relatives' house.
And he was born in a manger, we do know that,
so it's a feeding trough - that is mentioned in the Bible -
but that probably just means he was born in the ground floor
living area. You often brought the animals in to keep it nice and warm,
and so on. So the chances are that he was actually just born
in a crowded family house.
If you actually get a genuine inn mentioned in the Bible,
it's a different word, it's "pandocheion", which means place where strangers are welcome.
I really look forward to your Christmas sermon. Yes.
In fact, the only gospels that mention the nativity are Matthew
and Luke, and they have completely different versions. Matthew mentions
the wise men visiting, Luke mentions the shepherds.
John talks about watching The Great Escape at four o'clock. Yeah.
Mark and John, the other gospels, don't mention the nativity at all.
But here is the extraordinary thing about the Bible,
is that women in the Bible speak 1% of the time.
Be amazing, wouldn't it?
LAUGHTER
It's been lovely, being on the show.
LAUGHTER
No, women hardly say a word, including the Virgin Mary,
who must have been rather surprised by the entire thing.
She didn't say anything? She says about 108 words in the entire...
And none of them are, "Really?! What?!"
Now, what word beginning with C describes people who make shoes?
Oh... Oh...
# Hallelujah. #
Absolutely not cobbler.
Correct. Not cobblers.
Cobblers don't make shoes. What do they do?
Fix. They mend them, absolutely right.
A cordwainer. Yes, it is a cordwainer.
You're absolutely right. Wow. Whoa!
APPLAUSE
Well, I'll tell you why I know that,
because my school was sponsored by loads of livery companies. Yes.
And the Cordwainers were one of the livery companies that sponsored them.
They are one of the oldest guilds, since 1131, the Cordwainers.
And they were in Hackney. Oh, that's very impressive, darling.
And would you know why cordwainers? Do you know why that name?
No. No. OK.
They dealt with Cordovan leather,
so it's a specific kind of leather from Spanish goats.
Cobblers were actually prevented by law from making new shoes.
They were allowed to collect old shoes and cut them apart
and use the leather to make cheap second-hand shoes,
but they were not allowed to make new ones.
Why do we say "cobblers" for nonsense,
does anybody know, in rhyming slang?
It's cobbler's awls.
An awl is a tool, it's sort of a pointed tool
that pierces holes in leather. So cobbler's awls...
Balls. Balls.
There you go. Is it? Yeah. Oh. Oh.
So, what's a cobbler, like, a pudding?
Like a peach cobbler?
Why the connection with the two words? Yeah. I'm not sure.
Is it cos it's cobbled together?
It might be related to the word cobeler, which means wooden bowl,
and therefore has an entirely different origin.
Made out of shoe pastry! Yeah!
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
I want you to think back 2,000 years to a group of shepherds,
washing their socks by night under a deep red sky.
What did the sky tell them about the weather forecast?
# Hallelujah. #
Justin?
Red sky at night... Angel Delight.
..shepherd's delight.
Is correct. Oh, it is correct? Yes.
Are you having a little seizure?
Yeah, I thought I was going to get the...
IMITATES KLAXON "You're an idiot!"
In fact, it is a very useful thing.
"Red sky at night, shepherd's delight"
is an entirely useful prognostication.
So you get a red sky at night when dust and small particles
are trapped in the atmosphere by high pressure.
So a red sky at sunset could well mean that high pressure
is moving in from the west, and if that's the case,
the next day is usually going to be dry and very pleasant.
Conversely, if you get a red sky in the morning, that's often
because the high-pressure system has passed on
and the wet and windy low-pressure system is coming behind it.
Red sky in the morning, sailor's warning.
Yeah, all of those... All of those things.
But if you're in Australia,
just a word of caution to our Australian viewers,
the north of Australia is the opposite,
so it has tropical weather patterns.
Also, you've got poisonous spiders. There's that.
LAUGHTER
Red sky at night might just be right.
Who wrote Oliver Twiss and Nickelas Nicklebery?
Oliver Twiss? That's not right. No.
Are these a kind of, what, spoofy Charles Dickens? They are.
# Hallelujah! # Yes, Justin? Is it Dick Charles?
Er... It might as well have been, is the truth of it. Yeah.
He was so popular. This is our second Dickens question
cos he's such a kind of iconic figure at Christmas.
There were loads of knock-off versions of his most famous works.
So there was Barnaby Budge, David Copperful, Martin Guzzlewit,
the Penny Pickwick, and these all sold phenomenally well.
But were they actually the story?
Well, the story was written by a man called Thomas Peckett Prest.
I have to say, Thomas's versions were a little bit sexier.
So Nancy in Oliver Twiss, renamed as Poll Smiggins,
has a... Let's call it a more sexually explicit backstory.
So they're a little bit racier.
But there was no law stopping anybody selling these
kind of knock-offs until the Copyright Act of 1842.
It sounds like the modern-day equivalent would be
if you only watched the porn version of films instead of the originals.
Yes, yeah, exactly, yes. Yes.
Saving Ryan's Privates. There you go. Yeah.
Tale Of Two Titties. Or is it Shaving Ryan's Privates?
Good Will Humping.
Right, time now for our final record attempt -
the fastest time to dress up as Santa Claus. OK?
So you can see I've already got part of it on.
I was going to do this myself, but one of the conditions is that
you have to start out in your underwear.
So I've asked my son, Theo, to do it for me.
He looks so much better in his unmentionables than I do.
Oh, he's not wearing your underwear? No, he's not wearing my underwear.
The time to beat is 30.94 seconds.
I'm going to hand over to Craig for the last time.
Any rules about this, Craig?
It's a Guinness World Records approved Santa outfit.
You know you have to put it all on exactly as it's presented.
And when you're done, hands up and say stop or ho-ho-ho or whatever.
Stop is quicker. Stop is quicker.
You have 30.94 seconds to beat, so I'll give you a three, two, one.
OK. Come on. And then at the end... We'll burn you. Hang you and burn you.
LAUGHTER
Ready?
Can I just ask Alan to give me some radio commentary on this?
Certainly. Certainly. Over to Alan in the commentary box.
He's standing up.
Near some Santa clothes.
Are we ready? Yes. Three, two, one. Go!
HOLLY: Theo, Theo, Theo, Theo, Theo!
CHEERING, SHOUTS OF ENCOURAGEMENT
CHEERING
SHOUTS OF ENCOURAGEMENT
DROWNED OUT BY AUDIENCE
KLAXON, CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
So you had 30.94 to beat.
And you achieved...28...
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Is that it? Has he done it? He's done it.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Are you proud, Sandi? Oh, both my boys, Alan and Theo!
This has been a very important Christmas for me!
You're going to have the smuggest round-robin ever! I know, right?
"I'd only just recovered from Alan's world record..."
This is the point where I traditionally do the scores,
but it's Christmas, so everyone is a winner!
# Halle
# Lujah! #
Right, that's it from Justin, Holly, Chris, Alan and me.
And merry Christmas to you all, you filthy animals. Goodnight.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE