This programme contains some strong language.
Good evening and welcome to the QI souvenir programme.
Tonight, we have a seasonal salad
of S-themed silliness for you to savour.
So sit back and settle down for your first clip.
This, you're going to love.
The Chihuahuan hook-nosed snake farts
defensively when it is threatened.
It's technically called cloacal popping, OK?
So they expel air from their cloaca.
They have one hole for reproduction,
for digestion, so it's all just one hole
at the bottom and it makes an audible noise.
And sometimes they do it so aggressively, this farting,
that it lifts them into the air.
Oh, wow. I've dated people like that, it's awful.
That's a talent, isn't it?
Isn't that a skill, to be able to lift yourself up with your fart?
Is it true that - talking about a snake's genitals -
is it true that a male snake has two penises or penii?
I just thought I'd throw that out. Which would you...?
Which would you prefer? Two heads or two penises? Two penises. OK.
What about you? Two penises.
Is that a thing, or...?
Not next to one another.
I'd have one in the regular place,
and one on one hand - on my left hand.
Instead of a finger. Instead of a finger. I'd always wear a glove.
Yeah.
"Why do you wear a glove?" "Because I've got a cock hand."
I think I'd have four other fingers,
I don't think I'd just have the cock. No, no.
Pull the glove off. Yeah.
You wouldn't want to look weird, would you? No.
Do you think it would always be like that, or
would it sometimes be like that? Sometimes be like that. OK.
Awkward, though, wouldn't it, when you couldn't stop your finger?
Like an umpire.
I'm sorry I brought it up, Sandi.
Whereas a second head, what is the point of that?
Well, you wouldn't be lonely. Oh, yeah. You could chat.
Talk amongst yourself. Yeah.
Would we have different personalities?
Oh, it would be like one Leave, one Remain. Yes.
You'd have an anti-vaxxer on your...
I want to taste your every move.
It's all a hoax.
If you had two penises,
if you did, it would be a pair of hemipenes.
Is there anyone that has more than two?
Phillip Schofield.
So slapstick is often cited as one of the earliest special effects,
and there is an even earlier one,
and I love this - was invented by a playwright called John Dennis.
So 1709, he staged his own play called Appius And Virginia.
It doesn't sound very good. It was a tragedy set in ancient Rome.
Nobody liked it, but what they really liked
was his new thunder machine. It was amazing.
It generated these really realistic sound effects,
for stormy scenes. Anyway,
the play did not do very well, and it closed after a few nights
and was replaced by Macbeth.
And when Dennis, the playwright, turned up to watch the Macbeth
production, he was outraged to hear
his very distinctive sound effect being used.
They had literally stolen his thunder.
That is where we get...
Is that steal my thunder? Oh, there you go. It's great.
And was it...? The thunder, was it because they used
a sheet of metal? They used sheets of metal,
but there was also a thing called a thunder run,
which I wish they still had.
They used to make a pipe set into the wall of some theatres,
so it would start very high up, sort of in the gods,
and it would wrap its way round the building and you dropped
a cannonball into it and it would rumble.
So you could... Almost as if you could hear
the thunder going all the way around the building.
Cool. That is cool, isn't it? Clever.
It would be annoying to start it at the wrong time, wouldn't it?
"Romeo, Romeo, wherefore...
"Oh, dear." "Oh, no."
How could you make yourself understood
in another country without any words at all?
Pointing and shouting in English? Shouting in English very loud.
In 2019 researchers at the University of California
in Berkeley asked 50 people to vocalise certain feelings,
and then they asked more than a thousand people to explain
what it was that they'd heard.
And it gave us a map of 24 distinct human emotions
which can be conveyed without words. So what we're going to do -
each panellist has got a couple of emotions we want you to convey
without words and see if anybody can work out which ones they're doing.
Chris, I believe that you have been told yours in advance.
I have. With no words, then - two emotions.
HE GROWLS
Anger, frustration. Anger.
And the other one.
HE VOCALISES
Oh, the first one was a home defeat for Liverpool, and the second
was a draw.
Obviously, I'm miles off the money with this one, aren't I?
Hmm.
You quite like it.
Yeah. Mild approval.
Is that an emotion? Amusement.
Oh, no, you need to do a little...
HIGH-PITCHED SQUEAK
Have you got a card with yours on? Have you been told what they are?
Are we doing them sequentially or...? I'm going to conflate the two.
I mean, I'd do them both together, if you can.
"Ohh-mm."
Where's Frankie Howard?
Constipated and aroused.
The aroused thing is heading
in the right direction.
Oh, I don't know, it's upsetting when you get eye contact with me.
He was doing desire
and negative surprise.
Right, Jen? You've got two? I'm going to do them separately.
I'm not going to conflate. Because that didn't work, did it?
Right, here we go.
First one.
LOW-PITCHED GROAN
Is Wallace or Gromit an emotion?
Actually, you appear to be swallowing a Brussels sprout.
No, I'll do it again.
LOW-PITCHED GROAN
You've made a terrible mistake.
Close, close! Close.
It's embarrassment.
Yeah. Second one.
Here we go. This one you'll definitely get.
Huh?
Confusion. Yes, confusion is exactly right.
Very well done. Alan?
I've got... OK.
Urrgh!
Urrgh! Uh!
Disgust?
Yes, yes!
I haven't been cast in anything for five years!
This is all you need.
This is the moment I can make a comeback!
This is your moment, Alan.
Right, one more, Alan. OK, here we go.
Ohhh-uuuh.
Ecstasy.
Yes! Oh, my goodness.
Are you guys a couple?
In another life, Jimmy. Definitely.
Would anybody, if you found a snail in your garden, would you throw
it into the neighbour's garden? Yeah, we... Yeah, we had just
so many snails, last summer,
the gardener turned up, and... The gardener?
It's a middle-class story.
"Spent all day chatting to the cook, doing no work."
He said he's never seen snails like it. Anyway, I wish I hadn't brought
him up. He's not even a part of the story.
He is now. Anyway,
I got this organic thing because I felt bad,
but, um...
It said... I put it down and it said the snail...
Don't worry, it's totally fine -
snails eat it and then they just burrow underground.
Right. And die. Well, they didn't mention that,
but I presume that's what happened. Yeah.
Yeah. It's like a vegetarian's way of getting rid of animals.
Yeah. Why didn't you just put, like... I was going to say salt,
but Himalayan pink sea salt?
Yeah. Yes. It's more... I was going to say
normal table salt. But I know you'll go out there and...
With a grinder.
"Josh, don't waste the salt!"
"I have to, darling."
He'd have got the cook to do that.
That's right, yeah.
Brussels sprouts are another Christmas dinner staple,
but is there any way to make them bearable?
Well, my friend's family, they play fart tennis at Christmas.
So you eat as many sprouts as you can
and you have one side of the table against the other side
of the table scoring fart for fart.
But you don't do it with an actual ball, no? It's just... No.
You do it with the fart. So, 15 love!
I like the idea that the fart was so powerful it could propel
the ball across the table. That would be good. Yes.
You have some sprouts. Do we? Yeah.
You have some sprouts in a tin.
Oh, Auntie Sandi! I know.
Oh! Look at that!
So open up your Brussels sprouts, and then you also have a glass
of red wine.
What scientists have discovered is that Brussels sprouts taste
less bitter if you take a sip of red wine between each mouthful.
OK? Have a sip of red wine
and then... Well, I might do one as a tester.
OK, fine, do that. What, to see if it tastes
disgusting and then it's better with the red wine?
OK. Then... Fucking hell!
So the astringency of the red wine - so the rough, dry mouthfeel
that you get when you drink it - it's possible it stops your saliva
being able to pass the bitter taste to your taste buds,
or you just get piddly-pom. Does it work with the red?
The red wine is working. Is it working? Yes.
It'll be 15-love in a minute.
We will win, my friend, we will win. We're going to murder 'em!
Actually, about a third of the world's population speak
a gendered language where inanimate objects are male or female.
I really love that. Do you? Yeah. I think it influences
how people think about the thing they're talking about.
And it makes you think of them as like nice
gentlemen and ladies.
Mrs Teapot. Yes.
Or Mr Coat Stand.
A survey of people that owned...you know one of those robotic vacuum cleaners?
I've got one. Is it a boy or a girl?
He's called Victor. He! Two thirds assigned it a gender
and three quarters call him "he".
Do you think it's the legacy of the Henry?
I think it's because he wanders around aimlessly consuming everything he sets his eyes on.
And he sometimes gets stuck in the corner. So, yeah...
So, just like today, medieval holy sites did a roaring trade
in souvenirs, and people brought back badges as tokens
of the journey and they were often in the likeness of saints.
But, sometimes, they were much, much weirder.
And I have a replica here.
Let me show you this one.
This is a replica of a 14th-century
Dutch vagina shooting an arrow on horseback.
You don't often see them do that. You don't, you don't.
I can also offer you... I have here
a phallus, um...
I... A phallus where the...
I don't know if it's a man or a woman pushing a wheelbarrow
of phalluses. Replicas of the various badges.
What else have I got here? I've got a penis on a boat.
I don't know why. Um...
I know, but... ALAN: We've all met those.
The guy on the phalluses.
Yes. There, the top one - to the left.
Oh, this one here? Yeah, it looks like he's got a penis puppy farm.
ALAN: It looks like he's carrying fireworks.
They could be like little Monopoly, um... Yeah.
Oh, that was a good idea.
"Do you want to be the penis or the vagina?"
Can I...? "You've not been buying fireworks off that bloke
"with a massive cock, again, have you?!"
Was it ever called a vadge badge? A vadge badge? Yeah, I like that.
Yeah. I think this is something that can be monetised.
I think vadge badge is good. Yeah.
Silent Night's music and lyrics was written in 1818 in the town
of Oberndorf, near Salzburg. It was written by two men
called Joseph Mohr and Franz Gruber.
I'm loving your accent. DEEP VOICE: I know, right?
In 1912, it was decided to make a sculpture of them,
but Joseph Mohr, who had written the lyrics, had never, ever wanted
to have a portrait done of himself, so nobody knew what he looked like.
So they dug his skull up.
Ah! I know! He'd been dead 60 years.
They dug his skull up and based it on that.
It looks like Victor Meldrew being bummed by a guitarist.
Dear Lord!
In 1995, the Reichstag building, which is in Berlin, of course,
was wrapped in 100,000 square metres of silver fabric for two weeks
by two artists called Christo Javacheff
and Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon -
a married couple who worked under the name of Christo.
Can I just say, the building was not in use at the time.
A couple of people in there. Yeah.
"Help!" What was the artist's reason?
They described it as autobiographical, apparently.
There is another thing, in terms of the shrink-wrap effect,
which I think is very interesting. Palaeontologists have really
struggled to tell the sex of a dinosaur by its fossils,
because pretty much all the tissue has decayed over the millennia
and so on. When artists specialising in prehistoric animals have drawn
them, they've rather assumed that the skin is tight
on the carcass, OK?
So it gives them this sort of slightly skeletal,
slightly menacing look. If you think about it, there seem to be no fat dinosaurs. Yeah.
And lots of dinosaurs had feathers. Some might have had bulging muscles.
So you get this effect. There's a wonderful book called
All Yesterdays, and it has a look at what we might think modern-day
animals would look like if we only had the skeletons and we did
the sort of shrink-wrap effect. Oh! So have a look at this one.
Would anybody know what that might be? A hippo. It is a hippo, yeah.
Oh, my God. It's fascinating, isn't it?
It's about how we cannot possibly know what things might look like.
Except that does look like a hippo.
In August 2005, the Sun reported that a constellation that looked
like Richard Wilson of One Foot In The Grave could be seen by anyone
with a keen eye. But it was actually publicity for Summer Nights Of Gold
on UKTV Gold.
Bet he couldn't believe it.
I love these ones where they're like the face of Jesus found in,
you know, apple, or something like that, or a KFC bucket.
Do you know I was one of those?
Someone found your face?
No.
Sunday Sport ran a picture
and a full-page story. Picture of you in the Sunday Sport, Sandi?
Well, no. What it was - they claimed to have found my face
on Meghan Markle's knee.
There you are.
I've never been so pleased.
It's like the Turin Shroud all over again. That's amazing!
Who's on her other knee?
I don't know who I'm sharing with.
Alan on the other knee!
There is a human who lives in a sand castle and his name
is Marcio Matolias.
He's also known in Rio de Janeiro as King Marcio.
And he's a sand sculptor.
He makes his money from tourists and also from a used-book shop,
which he runs from a three-square-metre castle
that has been his home for over 20 years.
And it's made of sand? It's made of sand.
That's his, where he lives.
He lives inside that sand castle.
His main problems are the elements.
So his castle can collapse if there's a very heavy storm.
It gets UNBEARABLY hot in the summer.
It's got no toilet. You know, he can't do the...thing.
So he has to go to the fire station if he wants to...
And they're all right with that? Apparently, it costs a dollar
each time he goes! I don't know why.
He's saving a lot on rent, I suppose.
He's lived rent-free for more than 20 years, which is...
Doesn't the sea wash it away?
The trick is to build it above the tide mark.
Right. In a lay-by off the A4.
My favourite childhood memory
was building sand castles with my grandfather -
until my mum took the urn from me. Ho-ho!
Do you know what? I was once the voice of Canesten thrush cream.
Were you?! Yes, they did a radio commercial.
And you were... I was the voice of Cane...
Well, the marketing people had decided that, for the purposes
of this audio-only advert, the Canesten
was going to be a stand-up comedian.
"Have you got an itch? I've got an itch. I went to a bar, I'd got a bit of an itch."
Yeah, it was exactly that. And I thought...
I did a slightly different voice.
"You ever suffer from embarrassing feminine itching?
"I don't know. Do you? Yes."
I thought, well, no-one will ever know, because I've done
a slightly different voice. OK.
Then I got recognised on the Tube by a blind woman.
How can you make your cat smile at you?
Oh, cats! Don't start with cats.
I used to have two, and one would go to the top of the curtains
and the other one would rip the curtains down trying to get it.
That sums them up.
Sums them up!
Jamali, have you got cats or dogs?
I had a dog. Actually, I only had a dog for, like, a week once,
because... It wasn't your dog? Yeah, kind of.
I had this bike
and then a guy said to me, "I want to buy the bike."
He goes, "I'll trade ya." And I go, "What you got?"
And he goes, "I've got nunchuks." So I've got the nunchuks.
And I said, "You've got to chuck in 20 quid." He went, "All right, cool."
So I went home. Mum's like, "Where's your bike?"
I was like, "I've only got nunchuks and 20 quid,"
and she's like, "Well, no, go back and get your bike."
And I went back and I was, "I need my bike back,"
and he goes, "All right, but I'll give you this dog, instead."
I went, "All right."
So I took the dog back and then someone's knocked at my house,
because that guy had stole the dog.
Oh, my word! So I had to then give the dog back.
But I got to keep the nunchuks,
so it was a happy ending.
Do you know what a nunchuk is?
What I do know is that Jamali and I have very different lives.
Chris, have you ever used the system for visually impaired viewers - the audio description?
Yes. They fit in description in the gaps of dialogue,
but they feel the need to fit it in every single gap.
There's just no pausing for breath, because they go, "What can we put in this gap?"
"Let's tell them he's turned around."
"Let's tell them he shut the door."
I heard the door close!
Let me give you my favourite examples from Channel 4's Naked Attraction.
So it's a show - I've never seen it - the lovely Anna Richardson
presents, and gradually she reveals the naked bodies...
They're doing a celebrity version. I could get you on. No, I'm good.
They're not. Shut up!
You seriously believed him! It's only a question of time, though.
I totally believed you! It's only a question of time
we get that phone call. They gradually reveal the naked body
to a studio guest, or chooser, who picks one to take on a date.
Oh, we've seen it, Sandi. I haven't seen it.
So the chooser, in this instance, was Brian. Anna Richardson,
"Can we please see the bottom half of the bodies?"
Audio description -
"Wearing a colourful patterned shirt,
"baby-faced Brian gulps as the outer shells start to rise.
"Fingers pressed to his mouth, Brian scans the line-up of
"well-landscaped lady gardens."
Well, I like that. Makes it sound like they've got tulips growing.
Well, landscaped is lovely.
Wow. You don't want it overgrown. You don't want the council coming
in every two years. You want it properly... Everyone likes a patio.
Prince Albert is the closest we've got to somebody
who couldn't perform without an audience.
Is it like a thing where for royalty you had to prove
that you've consummated the marriage? They watched.
Yeah, it's the weirdest thing. So Henry VI was King of England,
1422 to 1461, and his wife, Margaret of Anjou -
they took more than eight years to produce an heir,
and there were all sorts of rumours that he was impotent,
or that she kept refusing. A lot of sheep going missing.
They've discovered new evidence to suggest that courtiers
had to accompany them to bed to make sure that they did the deed.
The chamberlain of Henry VI used to stay in the room
while they were in bed together. On his phone.
They did finally have a baby - Edward - but it was thought
to either be a bastard or a changeling.
People used to believe it was a fairy or a devil child swapped in.
They were married, actually, for a year before they met.
Did you know that? No!
So the Duke of Suffolk, who was Henry's adviser, went
over to France in 1444 and married Margaret in his place, which used
to be called a proxy wedding.
That's the most Indian shit I've ever heard!
Well, tell me what you think about this, because it wasn't
just weddings that were conducted in absentia.
Mary Tudor, who was the sister of Henry VIII,
her marriage to Louis XII was consummated by proxy.
Do you know about this? Consummated by proxy?!
Yes, consummated by proxy.
So the Duke of Longueville, who was at the time a French hostage
in England, he acted as a stand-in for Louis
for the consummation, right? So there's a whole lot of spectators,
and Mary gets her clothes off and she climbs into bed
and then the Duke takes off his stockings,
doublet and hose from one leg, puts his naked leg in under the
bedclothes and touches her with it.
And everybody applauds, and that counts
as having consummated the marriage.
I don't understand straight people at all.
Let's talk about sex with sloths, first, shall we?
Yes, please. It would be weird if we didn't talk about that.
I'm first in the queue for that one. Ooh!
Isn't he the sweetest...? Is it a she? I don't know.
Yeah, there's a look on that face, isn't there?
I mean... Ready. "Come to bed, no?"
I would... I would not be kicking that out.
No, of whatever tree you were hanging in.
That is definitely a come-hither look, isn't it?
It is, it really is.
So sloth sex begins with the female screaming at the top of her lungs
that she's available. Oh. Wah!
And then... Four years later. Yeah.
Slowly, the man comes... Did you hear that?
Before copulation takes place, he comes slowly towards her.
Then it lasts as little as five seconds, and that includes
the foreplay.
Well, I think she's probably sorted herself out before he gets
there, hasn't she? Do you reckon?
Well... And then... She's... Like, "I've been screaming."
Lovely turn of phrase.
I sorted myself out before you arrived. Yes, you were too slow,
I'm afraid. I had to sort myself out.
Stopped at the pub again? Up to half the females in the area can have
children from a single male, because they just think, "Oh, easier.
"This one's here and I can't wait for another one."
He's on the branch...
"He's just taken too long." ..as they say in sloth world.
Was he on the branch? He was.
I'll be ready in a minute. Just fix me wig. Yeah.
Really reminds me of somebody and I can't put... Ozzy Osbourne.
It looks just like Ozzy Osbourne. It does.
What's the most popular Volkswagen?
Oh. Hmm.
Yes? Polo. Oh, no. Golly, no. No, no.
KLAXON BLARES
It's the Beetle.
KLAXON BLARES
Any more for any more?
Oh. It's a Golf. I would have said...
KLAXON BLARES
Passat.
KLAXON BLARES
Scirocco.
KLAXON BLARES
Kombi bus.
Ooh! Oh! No.
So we are measuring by the number of items sold
rather than by the value,
and VW sells more sausages than cars.
So I have some here.
These are Volkswagen Originalteil -
the original part. They're curry-flavoured sausages.
They were originally produced in VW factories to feed the staff.
They became so popular, they're now sold by them for ten euros a pack,
and they are given as gifts in VW dealerships in 11 countries,
but not in the UK.
When you buy a car, you get given free sausages,
and the VW base in Wolfsburg has got 30 butchers on the payroll
and they produce these. I think it's wonderful.
These are original Volkswagen sausages.
Can I just show you a trick?
So, first of all, I'm going to light my lighter.
Ah! ALAN: Whoa! What happened, because
just the smoke...? The smoke is enough to draw it back down.
ALAN IMITATES EXPLOSION
That's so cool! Oh, that's like a magic trick.
Have a look at the video and it makes it a little bit clearer,
but it is actually as if the flame is passing down through the smoke.
So there it goes out.
Into the flames, smoke.
And look at it travelling. Ah!
That's amazing. Boom.
That is... Wow. Cool, huh? Yeah.
That's a good trick, isn't it? That's a very good trick. I like that.
What shape do bees make honeycombs into?
Hexagon.
KLAXON BLARES
It was previously thought that bees built their honeycombs
out of hexagons, and a lot of people thought, "How have they done that?
"How have they made a perfect hexagon?"
When you say, "Previously thought," what you can do
is actually look at it. There it is. So what they've
actually...
What they've actually done... The famous honeycomb shape.
They create circular-shaped cells using their own bodies as a mould.
Yes. And then, those form a hexagonal shape by themselves
the same way that bubbles sit together in a bubble bath.
Ah. What kind of bees make milk?
That's the important question.
The point is, we thought... Boobies!
Have you been home-educating your kids? How is that going?
This is the tone of voice for home schooling in the Davies household.
Yeah. "Just do it and then bring it to me.
"TRY to do it!
"You haven't tried to do it!
"I can't read that."
So the point is, Alan, that we thought that bees knew
how to make... Never mind "the point is, Alan,"
you know they're hexagons and you've shown some weird bee
not actually in a honeycomb.
"Oh, this is a good picture where it's not a hexagon."
Find a proper one.
Your own time you're wasting.
Sofrito is an Italian mixture of chopped carrots,
onions and celery used as a base for soups, stews and sauces.
But what is suffrajitsu?
Yes?
A ninja suffragette.
Is correct. What?! Is it?!
I think I know something about this. That is hilarious.
So, 18th of November, 1910, it was also known as Black Friday...
Two people got killed? A group of suffragettes were attacked
by police and two women died as a result.
They wanted a way to fight back. And there was a campaigner
and martial arts enthusiast called Edith Garrud,
and she became the official jujitsu instructor
to the Women's Social And Political Union. I love it!
It gets better. It gets better.
They had like a hard core of 30 women who were like the shock troops
of the suffragettes. They were known as the Amazons.
Yeah. And Emmeline Pankhurst would give a speech
and they would get her out or protect her.
There's a great incident where they got her out of a building
in Camden. She was wearing a veil, and the police eventually
managed to wrestle her away and it was a decoy and she was gone.
But these women carried clubs under their dresses.
I mean, they were very, very, very determined.
And there's a marvellous cartoon in Punch magazine of this woman,
Edith, standing in front of a group of terrified policemen entitled
"The suffragette that knew jiu-jitsu".
There is a thing, though, about the soul leaving the body
in Latin America. Has anybody ever heard of susto?
It's Spanish for "fright".
It's a sort of folk illness,
and sufferers believe that their soul leaves the body
while they're still alive. So it's the belief that you've had something
so terrible happen to you that your soul has actually briefly departed
from your body. I've had that
when I've been offered gym membership.
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING