QI (2003–…): Season 11, Episode 14 - Kris Kringle - full transcript
Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello!
Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel.
"Hell is empty, all the devils
are here," to quote Shakespeare.
Welcome to the QI Christmas Show,
otherwise known as
"The Feast of Stephen". Let's
meet our merry players.
Miss Scarlett - Jo Brand!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Colonel Mustard - Phill Jupitus!
Mrs Brown - Brendan O'Carroll!
And the lead piping in the
bathroom - Alan Davies!
And the buzzers are adorable.
Jo goes...
WOMEN SING
"O COME, ALL YE FAITHFUL"
Brendan goes...
MEN SING
"O COME, ALL YE FAITHFUL"
Phill goes...
MEN AND WOMEN SING
"O COME, ALL YE FAITHFUL"
And Alan goes...
MEN AND WOMEN SING
"RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER"
LAUGHTER
Thank you, Alan.
And so, to our first question.
Ooh, you've been given a truly
horrible sweater for Christmas.
Oh, sorry, that's the question.
What's the best way to
get rid of it?
Some comedic unravelling that they
used to always do in films
when I was little, on the telly,
and you never see that any more.
It's always someone getting a thing
and...
STEPHEN MAKES UNRAVELLING NOISE
- That definitely would do it.
- Tom and Jerry. - That would do it.
Any other thoughts?
Well, you can get in touch with
the people at CERN,
- who have been working on the Higgs
boson. - Yeah.
Which I'm fairly sure will lead
to time travel.
And then you can turn them
back into sheep.
- Reversing time is a very good idea,
that would do. - It's complex.
- What would you do? - Just say
"Thank you very much" and burn it.
LAUGHTER
Ever the practical,
positive solution.
I'd do the same, I'd set fire to it,
but I'd make sure my
least favourite relative was trying
it on at the time.
You could give it to charity.
There was a lady who lived
on our road who used to donate three,
four shirts a week to charity, and
then she'd go back and buy them back
for 50p each, because it was cheaper
than leaving them into the cleaner's.
That's brilliant.
Well, the funny thing is,
between you you've oddly
got near the truth of it.
Unravel it whilst
travelling through time?
LAUGHTER
You sort of do the effect
of travelling through time,
if you take a sweater on a journey
back through time,
eventually it becomes a ball of
wool.
Is there a machine that can
take a pullover
and unravel it back
into its constituent woollen parts?
- Or a scarf, for example. - Why would
you make such a thing? - Why indeed!
The only person on the planet
we know who has done it...
Imogen Hedges, ladies and
gentlemen!
APPLAUSE
Lovely to see you. Now, to explain
ourselves, you're a student at...?
Kingston, I just graduated.
And one of your projects was
an un-knitting machine.
- And this is something you built
yourself? - Yeah.
She's fantastic, what a mind.
Most people think,
"I'll try and make something,"
but to unmake something,
to go back in time...
So could you take, say,
Alan's scarf,
and return it to a ball of wool?
- Yep. - Seriously? - Yep. - Oh, charming.
- And once you've un-knitted it,
can you knit it again? - Yeah.
She can do anything!
Can we see your machine?
There it is, and I believe
that's your brother there.
Tristan, give us a wave!
Hello, Tristan.
- And he's going to be operating.
It's pedal-powered? - Yes.
PHILL: Do they not have
electricity in Kingston?
Has the recession bitten that hard?
It's like a wind-up radio,
it's for use around the world.
Can I ask a question?
Has Tristan got a girlfriend?
- He is quite... - He's very cute,
isn't he? - One would, one feels.
LAUGHTER
He's going to pedal fast now,
I tell you that!
ALAN IMITATES TRISTAN
PEDALLING FRANTICALLY
Stop it, stop it, stop it at once!
..across the studio!
Stop it, stop it.
Imogen, thanks very much,
take the scarf away
and we'll be looking in on you.
- Oh, dear. - I just hate it when you
two get all Christmassy like that.
We'll be looking in on her
from time to time.
Now, we're all loyal
servants of Her Majesty here.
What do you think the Queen's going
to give you for Christmas this year?
A message.
She will certainly be giving us
all a message, that's true.
That not a klaxon? I felt certain
that would be a klaxon.
For years it's actually
been a robot.
She only gives things to people when
they're 100. She gives Maundy money.
She gives Maundy money on Maundy
Thursday, well, her staff, which is
obviously extensive, it used to be
they could choose from a catalogue.
Argos?
And with value between £20 and £25,
according to length of service.
That's a very small window!
"26.99?" "Nope."
- IMPERSONATES THE QUEEN: - "Too much."
In 2006, it changed,
they all get the same thing.
These are her butlers and so on,
obviously her family it's different,
but this is if you're her servant.
How many staff?
- I don't have the number, but it's
pretty enormous. - You don't know?!
- I'm sorry, I have failed you,
Brendan, on the first fence. - Sake.
I thought you would know every
light bulb in the place.
- I'll just say a number
and you'll believe me. - Yes.
There are over 4,000 light bulbs
in the palace, I can tell you that.
My God. That's some bill.
Have you not met the Queen yet?
Yes, she nudged me once,
quite hard in the ribs.
It was quite funny.
At her son's wedding,
to Camilla, at Windsor Castle,
and she made this very funny speech,
she stood on the table.
- She got on a table? - Yeah, she stood
on a chair, got on the table...
Then she made a very funny speech
and got down,
and I was chatting to someone
and got this rib,
"Isn't anybody going to give me
cake?"
LAUGHTER
So I said, "Of course, ma'am,
I'll get you some cake."
This must be a dream,
you dreamed all of it!
I know it sounds mad,
but it's absolutely true.
"I'm going outside for a fag!
Come on, Fry."
That was in the days I smoked,
and I'm afraid
I was caught by a photographer
in the buttresses of Windsor.
Buttresses?!
In my big top hat and everything,
smoking a cigarette.
Coming out the top of your hat.
You can take your woolly hats off
now, if you're getting hot.
THEY TALK OVER EACH OTHER
- Shall I pop it under?
- Or you can keep it on.
Let's see how Imogen's getting on,
shall we?
Imogen,
have you started your machine?
There it is, and there's Tristan
pedalling away.
BRENDAN: Yes, indeed!
- LAUGHTER
- He's looking so shy now,
- I feel terrible.
That is absolutely amazing, it is
unravelling before our eyes.
Brilliant.
APPLAUSE
Wow.
I think they would have got
it done ages ago
if Tristan wasn't quite so relaxed.
Whoa-oh-oh - no, no!
Jo Brand...
Oh, the humanity!
You deliberately spilled boiling
water on his trousers
so you can mop them down.
You wicked, wicked woman!
As soon as they go off screen,
Imogen is going to beat him!
Is Tristan wearing corduroys so the
heat generated by the whiff-whiff...
LAUGHTER
..is powering the kettle?
We've embarrassed the brother
and sister team almost to death.
- Sorry, Imogen. - If he gets snagged up
in that
he might get unravelled
himself.
A full human being being unravelled.
- I'm going to build one of those
for next Christmas. - You should!
Thank you very much, Imogen
and Tristan.
Sorry about that,
we'll let you replace it.
Let's go back to Her Maj.
Now the fact is, if you work
for the Queen nowadays you all get
the same present, instead of being
able to choose from the catalogue.
We've done a little montage of them.
Bottle of bubbly, silver plate.
2008 reflected the mood of financial
restraint, which was coasters,
and in 2012, Jubilee year,
a special themed trinket box.
You all get the same thing,
monogrammed...cigar box or
whatever it was.
You can't expect the woman to
go down
the high street shopping,
can you?
No, especially not if she's in one
of her cake frenzies.
"CAKE! Cake! I want cake!"
Have to pull her away from Greggs.
- Oh! - It takes three equerries.
Or are they eclairs,
is that a cake? I dunno!
Aaanyway. Which of these looks
most like Jesus?
- I'd say the toast has to be the best.
- The toast is certainly...
Well, we bow down, yes?
- Any other thoughts?
- They look a bit westernised.
As far as the Bible,
he was a Jew obviously,
and that on the right is what's
known as a forensic reconstruction.
Is there any truth to...
it could be a myth,
but you can tell Jewish people
because their ear lobes are higher
than their nose?
Well, I'm Jewish,
my mother's fully Jewish,
so that makes me fully Jewish.
Is my ear lobe higher than my nose?
It's very hard to tell
with your nose.
Well, as my grandfather used to say,
and he was Jewish...
- YIDDISH ACCENT: - "You know
why we have big noses? Air is free!"
How many specifically are
we looking for?
It's basically images of Jesus,
it's extraordinary difficult
to know, the Bible doesn't furnish
us with any description of him.
We just know he was a Jewish man who
lived at a particular time.
And that's the best that forensic
people can do, given that's
the sort of average...
But one very Christmassy person
we DO know more the features of,
because unlike Jesus
we have the skull - who is that?
- Santa. - St Nicholas.
St Nicholas, and what can you tell
me about the real-life St Nicholas?
- There was about three of them. - Right.
One was Roman, and he used to throw
coins in the windows of poor people.
One was Russian, I think.
And he would collect fire wood
and carve things out of it
and leave them
around the village for children.
And then there's the most famous
one of all, of course,
the Coca-Cola Santa.
Well, the canonical St Nicholas was
actually from Lycia
- L-Y-C-I-A - which is actually
part of Asia Minor, which is now...
- Iran. - No.
- Asia Minor is...Turkey. - Close.
LAUGHTER
That St Nicholas there,
who was the bloke before then?
The bloke before is the facial
reconstruction on the
- basis of the skull. - Right.
He was a bishop, and the story
is that he gave money to
young girls, to daughters of people
of his episcopacy...
Did he work for the BBC?
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
- He paid the parents of the girls in
order to stop them... - I bet he did!
..in order to stop them
becoming prostitutes,
and he is therefore the patron
saint of prostitutes.
Hurrah!
I'm pleased that there's a patron
saint of tarts, I think it's good.
Did he have a hairdresser with OCD
though?
Look at it.
And also quite a thick, broken nose,
which he could have got...
people believe he fought with
a heretic at Lycia.
More likely did it
coming down the chimney though.
- Or being beaten up by the
Emperor Diocletian. - What's his era?
Mid-fourth century, I think, AD.
But when did Santa Claus
become Santa Claus?
Well, the idea that he was the
patron saint of children caught on
and he became the patron saint of
sailors, children and prostitutes.
LAUGHTER
- That's a good group, that's a good
group. - It's a good portfolio.
Sailors and prostitutes is a very
difficult combination!
I just love the idea that he's
the patron saint of prostitutes,
and then a child goes, "I love you,
Santa." "Shut up, baby, I know it!"
"I never, ever kiss..."
He's, he's, he's...
He was, erm, by the Dutch...
LAUGHTER
The Dutch call him "Sinterklaas",
but where does the modern depiction
of Father Christmas with the red
and white and the beard come from?
Ah, this is where I could
get my first screen. Coca-Cola.
- Mmmm, you're not getting a klaxon...
- Ugh.
..because it was certainly
reinforced by Coca-Cola
in the 1930s,
but there are plenty of images from
the 1890s of Father Christmas in
red and white with a white beard.
Santa rewards good little boys
and girls,
but what happens to the bad ones?
There is a culture not far from us
where they really go
a long way towards celebrating this
anti-Father Christmas.
Waterboarded.
"I shall waterboard all
the bad children."
This is surprisingly close to
waterboarding, what they do.
PHILL LAUGHS HYSTERICALLY
- Snowboarding! - Snowboarding would be
OK. - Do they not drown them?
We're talking about Germany.
No, they don't actually drown them!
But their threats are pretty
medieval.
There he is. Does anybody know
the name of this character?
Several names, but...in German he's
mostly known as "Krampus".
I don't know who he is,
but with a tongue like that he's not
the patron saint of prostitutes.
He's also known as "Schmutzli",
and Santa gives good gifts to
children, Krampus punishes naughty
ones, include pulling hair.
- It's not that bad, is it?
- Swatting with chains. - Quite bad.
Pulling hair, swat with chains.
Leading naughty
children off a cliff.
He'd obviously have to be able to
fly to be able to
- get back and do it again. - I think I
went to that school.
LAUGHTER
Putting them in a sack and
taking them to his fiery lair,
which sort of explains why German
children are so well behaved.
- You like fiery lairs?
- That can be fun. Mammy used to say.
- When is this practised?
- Christmas Eve? - No.
- Is it on their birthdays, for extra
irony? - No, it's December the 5th.
The 5th is
when Schmutzli or Krampus...
And there's the kind of figure
he presents,
and they terrify children.
They run down with whips and
threaten children and glare at them.
It is a peculiar way to treat
children at Christmas time,
but I suppose it has produced
a nation of extremely efficient
and obedient citizens who now
rule Europe, so...
LAUGHTER
..maybe we've been missing
something.
Now why is Santa off the Rich List?
LAUGHTER
- Aww. Poor Santa. - Cutbacks? Austerity
drive? - Only works one day a year.
He used to be on the Rich List
until 2006.
Forbes Magazine famously invented
the idea of a Rich List.
MEN SING
"O COME, ALL YE FAITHFUL"
- Yes, young Brendan? - Is it because...
(..he may not be real?)
STEPHEN GASPS
ALARM RINGS
APPLAUSE
Yes!
Thank you! Thank you.
Oh, poor Phill.
LAUGHTER
Phill, that got a klaxon,
so that can't be right.
Don't worry, back you go.
APPLAUSE
Poor little soul.
Forbes Magazine genuinely publishes
a fictional Rich List,
and Santa Claus used to be on it
because they reckon
he must be infinitely rich,
because he is able to distribute
presents every year to
all the children of the world,
they said.
- I don't believe he does. - Richie
Rich. - Scrooge, I guess, on the left.
- Father Christmas himself. - The late
Bernard Manning on the right.
LAUGHTER
Can you name
- I've got the top five -
name any that you
imagine might be on the list?
- Real people or imaginary? - Fictional,
that's the point. - Scrooge McDuck.
No, but his great rival.
If you can remember his name you'll
get lots of points.
- Tony Stark out of - Iron Man. Yes,
is number five, absolutely right!
APPLAUSE
Yes, 9.3 billion, apparently.
Number four's from a black
and white TV show
with a wonderful
old banjo opening theme song.
Oh, the Beverly Hillbillies,
so Jethro Clampett.
Jed Clampett, I'll give you
the points for that.
And they were worth 9.8 billion.
So at number three, Carlisle Cullen
from the Twilight Saga,
is worth 36.3 billion, apparently.
Wow, dude.
But number two is
the enemy of Scrooge McDuck.
BRENDAN MIMICS SCROOGE
Good one. Flintheart Glomgold
is his name.
Flintheart Glomgold?
And number one,
played by Benedict Cumberbatch,
the richest fictional
creature in the world, human or...
They know in the audience.
- AUDIENCE MEMBERS: Smaug!
- Smaug.
Smaug the dragon in The Hobbit,
62 billion worth of gold he
sits upon, until of course - well,
I'm not
going to tell you the ending. Cos I
happen to be in it.
But why's Santa taken off?
Cos surely he must
be really rich to
be able to give everyone a present.
- It's a very simple reason.
- Tax evasion. - Not tax evasion!
The usual answer.
It's because it's a fictional list,
and Santa is real.
ALL: Awww!
So there you go. Good result, Santa.
Let's see how Imogen's going.
Oh, you've spooled it back up,
he's turning slowly...
BRENDAN:
Oh, he's doing two tasks now.
He's growing it back into a ball,
it actually doesn't just unravel it,
it balls it up as well!
"Balls it up." Sorry.
LAUGHTER
Beautifully! Look at how cunning
that little thing is.
- The little shuttley...
- He's called Tristan, Steve.
APPLAUSE
Imogen, what do you call that unit
that winds it up?
Her brother.
- Did you design the way that it moves
like that? - The little tiny thing?
- Yeah. - That's from eBay.
LAUGHTER
I think British industry
in the future has nothing to fear.
We're going to win over the world.
Congratulations, we'll come back
to you when that ball of wool is
complete. That's brilliant.
Now, how can a Christmas tree get
you into trouble?
Grass you up.
- Very good. - Falling needles,
and their disposal.
Drying out and the chances of fire.
Falling over and giving an elderly
relative brain damage.
We're talking about the once-beloved
institution,
the giant, magnificent cultural
gift to the world that is the BBC.
Oh.
And the BBC now, of course,
is so open that you can literally
look up everyone who works for it
and see how much their salary is.
In the old days they all had
a personnel file, and there was
a figure from another institution,
far more sinister even than the BBC.
- Broadmoor. - Not Broadmoor!
MI5 is the right answer,
and if they thought anyone who
worked for the BBC was...
- Gay. Communist. - ..dodgy... - They would
ask them to join immediately!
There would be a symbol put
onto their personnel file which
resembled a Christmas tree.
- Like that. - Oh. Oh, no(!)
The reason people thought it might
be a Christmas tree was...
Do you know what the
German for Christmas tree is?
- "Tannenbaum." - Do you know
the tune of the song?
♪ O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum... ♪
SHE SPEAKS GIBBERISH
Exactly. Which is also the tune to?
♪ Though cowards flinch
and traitors sneer
♪ We'll keep the red flag
flying here. ♪
The Red Flag.
- "Power to the people!" - Can I just
do my version of the Red Flag?
♪ Neil Kinnock's hair is deepest red
♪ Though most of it's
not on his head. ♪
APPLAUSE
It isn't actually the reason that
it's the Tannenbaum, Red Flag.
People thought it looked like a
Christmas tree,
called it the Christmas tree,
but the two arrows actually just
mean "Refer upstairs".
So if anyone was thought to...
For promotion,
you saw their personnel file,
you'd have to go up to
a senior person and say...
- I'm up for promotion. - Anna Ford had
one of those on her, the newsreader.
It was because she'd once
had as a boyfriend a Communist,
which, Jesus, in a free society...
And they allowed her
on the television?
I know. There you go.
The BBC used Christmas trees
to keep lefties off the telly.
The practice stopped in 1985 and,
sure enough, they're everywhere!
Now, historic moment.
BAAS LIKE COLONEL MELCHETT
- What's Baldrick brought for me this
Christmas? - Right, bought for you...
- Melchett? Are we Melching?
- Well, it's for me.
- It's for you.
- And who is that there on the screen?
- Tony Robinson. - Tony Robinson.
And there is a Tony Robinson,
Baldrick, who's about to come on.
But in the First World War,
as you probably know
and we've covered before, there was
a Christmas football truce.
But what happened later, in 1915,
was that, because football had been
banned on Christmas Day, a soldier
smuggled into the trench a football.
It was deflated,
so that no-one would spot it,
and then he blew it up
before the Battle of Loos.
And in the morning,
when the whistle blew
to commence the offensive,
he threw it out of the trench,
shouting,
"Play up, London Irish!", cos he was
from the London Irish regiment,
- which I'm sure you'll be aware of.
- I am. Great regiment.
And they found the football
when they got to the German trench,
they kept it, and it
so happens that a member of that
London Irish happens to be
called Tony Robinson,
is therefore always called
Baldrick by his fellow...and he has
brought that football along today.
APPLAUSE
SPEECH DROWNED OUT BY APPLAUSE
Do your flies up, man.
Oh, Christmas came early
for Stephen!
Darling, take that man's name.
And address.
- This really is, Tony, the football.
- It is, indeed, it's the football.
And where is it kept?
It's kept in the museum,
which is now down in Camberwell,
at the London Irish Rifles.
Is it the London Irish Regiment
or the London Regiment?
We're D Company London Irish Rifles
of the London Regiment.
Right, D Company.
And it's still an active regiment
in the British Army, and we have
some of your fellow soldiers
over here,
if you'd like to stand up.
Here they are.
APPLAUSE
Fabulous to see you guys.
They are all recently back
from Helmand Province in Afghanistan
and they're wearing combat uniform,
but what's most noticeable is the,
how do you say it, caubeen?
Which you must NOT call a beret,
I believe.
And can any of you tell me what is
distinctive about that particular
piece of head joy, I shall call it,
as opposed to other British...?
- Pain in the arse in the cinema.
- Well, yes.
But this is different
from other headwear.
The people behind those lads are,
like, "Oh, now they've stood up.
"It was bad enough
with the funny hat."
PHILL: "Tell 'em. Tell 'em."
"I'm not going to..."
Are they worn on the
opposite side to the others?
It's the only one with
the cap badge on the right.
- This is a very historic year
for Irish soldiers. - Tell me why.
Well, last May, all Irish soldiers
who deserted the Irish...
- Oh, yes, have been...
- I haven't finished! - Sorry!
I'm so sorry, carry on.
All soldiers who deserted the Irish
Army in both the First World War
and Second World War periods
and joined the British Army
to fight for the British Army
were granted a pardon.
- That is extraordinary, isn't it?
- It's too late now, they're dead.
Almost all of them are dead,
but it was true,
that if you were Irish
and anti-Fascist, say,
and you wanted to fight
for the Allies against Germany,
and so joined the British Army,
it was considered by the Irish
Government that you were a traitor.
You got no pension, you couldn't
work for the Government.
- You could barely go home. - Yeah.
There was a great cartoon,
and it was two Irish guys
fighting for the British Army,
in the trenches,
and de Valera was
the President of Ireland at the time,
and the two boys were there, ducking
the bullets, and one said,
"Well, fair play to de Valera,
he kept us out of this."
That's very good.
So thank you very much and please
sit down, members of D Company.
Thank you so much.
- Anyway, Baldrick. - Sir.
I've never seen you looking better.
Yet, you're still an absolute
disaster of a human being.
Thank you so much
for bringing me lunch.
- I'm not very hungry, you can
take it away. - Thank you, sir.
Thank you very much indeed.
Wonderful.
Tony Robinson.
So, yep, that football you've just
seen was kicked right across
No-Man's Land by Rifleman Frank
Edwards and the London Irish
in 1915 and our thanks to
Rifleman Tony "Baldrick" Robinson.
So it's time for a Christmas drink,
I think.
So take a glass, each of you.
There you go.
And all I want to know from you
is which ones you should
use at Christmas.
You've got a drink,
you can pour out your drink.
- HISSING
- Holy moly...
It's not about the capacity,
it's about the shape.
Can I just say, as an ex-nurse, that
looks like someone with cystitis.
Darling, have you got...?
I think whereas I have
had one Berocca too many.
Suspiciously like Irn-Bru, actually,
the colour, isn't it? Maybe...
- Oh, it's like piss. - Oh, right.
The issue is an Oxford psychologist
who assists Heston Blumenthal,
- in fact... - Oh-oh.
..has studied extensively the effect
of one of our sense organs
on food and drink.
It's not the tongue.
What do you think it is?
- It's the feel, the feel. - No,
not the feel. - Eyes. - The eyes.
So much more of our
mental processes...
- We eat 80% with our eyes.
- Exactly, goes with our eyes.
And he has discovered remarkable
things by observing people
who don't know they're
being watched,
is that you drink more quickly
out of a curved glass,
cos you're not aware
of how much there is.
And also you drink more quickly
with loud music playing.
And you drink more quickly
if you're an alcoholic.
- And if you're an alcoholic.
- LAUGHTER
You don't care what shape the glass
is. You drink from the bottle.
I find you drink much more quickly
if you've had three drinks already.
LAUGHTER
But there are also many other
extraordinary things about colour
and sight which influence food
which are quite startling
which this same professor
has discovered,
whose name is Charles Spence.
Erm, the colour of a plate
can affect the taste of food.
So, if you, for example, have a
strawberry mousse served on a
white plate, it tastes more
flavourful and sweeter than the
same thing on a black plate.
Nearly everything does.
A chef prefers to
serve on a white plate
because it hails what
you're going to taste.
It somehow does, exactly.
The restaurants have all
got a bit weird lately.
- I've had fruit served to me
on planks... - Oh, yes. - On slate.
- Slates and planks. - Please,
wash the bird shit off it first.
LAUGHTER
That was the sauce.
LAUGHTER
It was Heston Blumenthal...a little
squeeze of sparrow.
LAUGHTER
Blowtorch...
I always put my mayonnaise
through a pigeon before I...
In the Jamie Oliver ones,
they hang them on the wall
and offer them for sale afterwards.
- The pigeons? - No, the planks.
LAUGHTER
I think that's crap about stuff
tasting worse off black plates.
- It isn't. - I think it's
racist towards plates.
LAUGHTER
Let's have a taste challenge.
We will move on now, but
there are various other things,
for example, it is as you rightly
said cortical real estate
- taken up by visual is much,
much more. - Did I say that?
Well, you didn't say
it quite like that.
LAUGHTER
Wine doesn't taste as nice in a mug.
Wine, no, that's very true
and I think tea doesn't
taste good out of a...
That's cos of the amount
of air you take in.
Yes, that's probably true, isn't it?
- No, it IS true, Stephen. - Yes, no...
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
It's the thinness of the glass.
It's the amount of air
you're taking as you sip.
If you like tea, just
make one cup in a glass
and try the tea out of
the glass. It is divine.
My wife likes a thin mug.
Well, that's your own business
but I'm just saying...
LAUGHTER
LAUGHTER DROWNS OUT SPEECH
Who thought that Fry and Carroll
would be a double act?!
LAUGHTER
That's why when they
taste the wine they go...
HE BREATHES THROUGH HIS TEETH
- Yeah, that's right.
- To maximise the air that gets in.
OPERATIC VOICE SINGS FAINTLY
- Is that your phone? - Yes.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
It's Heston Blumenthal.
LAUGHTER
- Minus how many points, I'm
wondering. - I'm so sorry.
I didn't even know I had it on me.
I'm very sorry.
Anyway, now, let's test your
beer goggles, as it were.
We have a man in the audience
who's going to hold up a picture
and I want you to
tell me who's that of.
- Marilyn Monroe.
- Marilyn Monroe, yeah.
You can see the picture behind
it there, Marilyn Monroe.
Now, it's Sam. Sam, walk towards
us, if you'd be kind enough.
I don't think... I think it's
supposed to look like her but I'm
suspicious.
Albert Einstein.
- Albert Einstein. - Holy crap!
- It is rather extraordinary,
it's both. - They're related. - No.
LAUGHTER
Never in the same room, Brendan.
They would be, would you...
I think Marilyn Monroe did have
quite a bad facial hair problem.
LAUGHTER
From a distance, the image does
look like Marilyn Monroe because
what they do is...it's created
by the MIT, this illusion,
the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, as I'm sure you know.
- Thank you. - They remove
Marilyn's fine-grained features
like wrinkles and little blemishes
and they remove Einstein's
coarser features,
like the shape of his mouth and nose
and then they superimpose the two.
And from a distance we see all
the broader strokes and see her,
Marilyn Monroe, and close up, we see
the fine details of Albert Einstein.
And we've done another version
to show this really does work,
it's not just Marilyn.
Erm, who's that?
- Handsome man...that's Stephen Fry, I
know him well. - That's me, hooray.
And if you come towards us, hello...
It's Alan Davies.
APPLAUSE
How about that?
That's fantastic, an
extraordinary illusion.
- I hope they've done two, so we
can have one each in our bedrooms.
- Yeah, I want one in my house.
What distance do
you want it, though?
I want to be far away from it.
LAUGHTER
Toss you for it, erm...
LAUGHTER
Thank you very much indeed.
APPLAUSE
And thank you, Albert and Marilyn.
So, the take home message tonight
is don't trust your eyes,
even when you're sober.
In fact, you probably shouldn't
really trust anything,
because we've come to that bit
we call general ignorance.
Fingers on buzzers for very quick
ones. What year was Jesus born?
CHOIR SINGS
- Yes, Brendan. - 5 BC. - Oooh,
it's not the right answer.
- Damn close, though.
- Four. - No. - Three. - No...
LAUGHTER
- Two. - No.
- Other direction, eight.
- Six. - Yes. - Ah, come on.
He was born six years before Christ.
- Well done, Jesus. - How crazy is that?
Now, how do we know?
Somebody told us.
LAUGHTER
It's the only authority
we could possibly have.
- There's a book about him, come on.
- It doesn't give the date, though.
Doesn't it?
It's been worked out by the only
man we've ever been able to call,
certainly for over 1,000 years,
I think, Pope Emeritus.
Who's he? Emeritus,
what does Emeritus mean?
- An ex-Pope. - An ex-Pope.
Is there an ex-Pope in the world?
- We've got one now.
- We have, Benedict.
They call him Pope
Emeritus Benedict XVI.
His Holiness wrote a book
with the catchy title
Jesus of Nazareth:
The Infancy Narratives.
And the calculation made by
Dionysius Exiguous, which is
- basically Latin
for Dennis The Small...
- LAUGHTER
This modern dating system is
based...was wrong by several years,
he says, and so he puts
the date at 6 BC,
which you eventually got to, Alan,
in your usual method. What
was the year before 1 AD?
- Yes, Jo. - Nought.
Ohhhh! Dear, oh, dear, oh, dear.
No. Hooray! Yes, well done.
Touch of pride.
APPLAUSE
- 1 BC is the right answer.
- Oh, I was going to say that!
Well... It went from December 31st
1 BC to 1st January 1 AD.
The BC-AD scheme doesn't have a
zero. Anyway, here's an easy one.
Is zero
an odd number or an even number?
It's not a number.
- No, it is a number. - I give up. - No...
LAUGHTER
- So it is one of them.
- Hang on. It's even. - Yes!
- Oh! - Is it?
By the criteria by which you judge
an even number, it is even.
An even number is divisible by two
without leaving a remainder.
Well, nought over two is nought.
There's no remainder.
Or it's a number that ends in 0,
2, 4, 6 or 8.
0 obviously ends in 0 cos it is 0.
Also, it has either side of it -1
and 1, which are both odd numbers.
Our maths elf at QI thinks this is
the easiest question that's
ever been asked on QI.
Yeah, yeah! Take away my glory now.
I got my points.
The easiest question that's ever
been asked.
- But he is a maths elf. - Yeah. The sun
isn't there.
I had that about 40 years ago.
I'm looking at it and it's not
there, but this is easier.
- No, I know maths people are odd.
- I hate this show!
LAUGHTER
I'm so sorry, Phill.
You feel bad - I got it wrong!
STEPHEN LAUGHS
That's true, where does
that put you?
Now, who wants to see
one of my knick-knacks?
- My first knick-knack
is for you to do. - Ohh!
I want you to create some
extraordinary, magical,
Christmassy things using
the power of chemistry alone.
- Chemistry, let's not forget,
means magic. - Ooh! - Ohh!
Al-kimia, the magic.
So, you should have...
- Stephen, are we going to make
a seasonal meth lab? - Maybe.
LAUGHTER
Take out your little chemistry lab.
You have to put on your gloves,
I'm afraid, for health and safety
reasons.
Oooh, the gloves are...
- While you're doing yours...
Yours takes a bit of time.
- What are we doing?
- You pour the contents
of your smaller into the larger.
- A-ha, the usual!
Yeah. What it is, is there's...
- Get it straight,
we're providing a sample. - No!
That should turn brown.
Put the lid on.
Just swirl, gently sort of twist
and swirl.
You need to do that for about two
minutes. Not too violently.
I've done this before.
While you're doing that, I'll just
do my demonstration of dry ice,
which as we know makes a marvellous
reaction with water.
What are the chances of us
being busted by the Feds
while we're doing this?
- I've got this. - Fry's crack
house! - Look at this.
- I've got this. - Ohhh!
Christmas party!
I'll have some of that.
OK, there'll be quite violent
action to this, as I'm sure you've
all seen - dry ice, as they call it,
going into...
I've got here... This
is a sort of bubble.
Like blowing bubbles. What we are
trying to do is make little smoky
bubbles.
That sort of Christmassy effect.
- God, I hope I can get the lid on
in time. - Oh! Wooo-hooo-hoooo!
WHOOPING
Whoa! Hey, yay, whoa!
What are you doing, Fry?!
Get the lid on!
- Go, go! - Get the lid on!
APPLAUSE
Lid is on, lid is on! Lid is on.
It's going everywhere!
Bubbles! Here's my little bubbles.
- Oh, oh! - There's one, look! Big one.
Pop it! Ping!
Whooo! Aw!
- Bubble... Smoky bubble! - Ohhhh!
- Ohhh! - Smoky bubble!
APPLAUSE
There we are.
- I've gone completely reflective.
- Ohh?!
- There you are, look at you,
you've made a bauble. - Look at that!
You've made a bauble, because
your little experiment, invented by
Mr Torrance, is...
One of the things he used was
silver nitrate, the same thing used
in film photography.
- That is silver. - Wow!
That's a beautiful silver bauble
you've made just by mixing
- those two chemicals. - Can I
just say, I've just seen myself.
I didn't realise that I looked like
Last Christmas by
WeightWatchers Wham!
LAUGHTER
- It's hideous. - It is very beautiful,
isn't it? - Gorgeous.
They used to use exactly that
for lining
the inside of thermos flasks.
- You know how they're silvered on the
inside? - It's lovely. - And mirrors.
There it is, you've made your own
little home-made silver ball.
And I've finished my little bubbles.
And there we are.
BRENDAN: Cool, man.
So - there's only one last
thing to check and that...
Has anyone got any worries?
Just one last thing to check,
what happened to Alan's grand scarf?
Imogen. What do you have for us?
There is it! Literally.
APPLAUSE
Thanks very much(!)
Brilliant invention. I hope they
gave you First Class with Honours.
They didn't.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Well!
For the New Year show, I want to see
what the one who got a First made.
- Meanwhile, thank you, Imogen.
- Thank you.
APPLAUSE
The one who got a first
probably made a scarf.
You're absolutely right.
That brings us to the little,
not inconsequential matter
of the Christmas scores.
And they are very interesting.
I'm afraid, in last place,
though it is his first appearance,
unfortunately his phone went off,
which may have cost him some
points...
In last place, with a very credible
-19, it's Brendan O'Carroll!
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
In third, with -9, Jo Brand.
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
Fat WeightWatchers.
In Santa's second place,
with -6, Alan Davies!
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
But our big Father Christmassy
winner, with plus 3,
it's Phill Jupitus.
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
So that's it from Brendan, Phill,
Jo, Alan and me.
Merry Christmas to you all
everywhere. Bye-bye.
Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel.
"Hell is empty, all the devils
are here," to quote Shakespeare.
Welcome to the QI Christmas Show,
otherwise known as
"The Feast of Stephen". Let's
meet our merry players.
Miss Scarlett - Jo Brand!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Colonel Mustard - Phill Jupitus!
Mrs Brown - Brendan O'Carroll!
And the lead piping in the
bathroom - Alan Davies!
And the buzzers are adorable.
Jo goes...
WOMEN SING
"O COME, ALL YE FAITHFUL"
Brendan goes...
MEN SING
"O COME, ALL YE FAITHFUL"
Phill goes...
MEN AND WOMEN SING
"O COME, ALL YE FAITHFUL"
And Alan goes...
MEN AND WOMEN SING
"RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER"
LAUGHTER
Thank you, Alan.
And so, to our first question.
Ooh, you've been given a truly
horrible sweater for Christmas.
Oh, sorry, that's the question.
What's the best way to
get rid of it?
Some comedic unravelling that they
used to always do in films
when I was little, on the telly,
and you never see that any more.
It's always someone getting a thing
and...
STEPHEN MAKES UNRAVELLING NOISE
- That definitely would do it.
- Tom and Jerry. - That would do it.
Any other thoughts?
Well, you can get in touch with
the people at CERN,
- who have been working on the Higgs
boson. - Yeah.
Which I'm fairly sure will lead
to time travel.
And then you can turn them
back into sheep.
- Reversing time is a very good idea,
that would do. - It's complex.
- What would you do? - Just say
"Thank you very much" and burn it.
LAUGHTER
Ever the practical,
positive solution.
I'd do the same, I'd set fire to it,
but I'd make sure my
least favourite relative was trying
it on at the time.
You could give it to charity.
There was a lady who lived
on our road who used to donate three,
four shirts a week to charity, and
then she'd go back and buy them back
for 50p each, because it was cheaper
than leaving them into the cleaner's.
That's brilliant.
Well, the funny thing is,
between you you've oddly
got near the truth of it.
Unravel it whilst
travelling through time?
LAUGHTER
You sort of do the effect
of travelling through time,
if you take a sweater on a journey
back through time,
eventually it becomes a ball of
wool.
Is there a machine that can
take a pullover
and unravel it back
into its constituent woollen parts?
- Or a scarf, for example. - Why would
you make such a thing? - Why indeed!
The only person on the planet
we know who has done it...
Imogen Hedges, ladies and
gentlemen!
APPLAUSE
Lovely to see you. Now, to explain
ourselves, you're a student at...?
Kingston, I just graduated.
And one of your projects was
an un-knitting machine.
- And this is something you built
yourself? - Yeah.
She's fantastic, what a mind.
Most people think,
"I'll try and make something,"
but to unmake something,
to go back in time...
So could you take, say,
Alan's scarf,
and return it to a ball of wool?
- Yep. - Seriously? - Yep. - Oh, charming.
- And once you've un-knitted it,
can you knit it again? - Yeah.
She can do anything!
Can we see your machine?
There it is, and I believe
that's your brother there.
Tristan, give us a wave!
Hello, Tristan.
- And he's going to be operating.
It's pedal-powered? - Yes.
PHILL: Do they not have
electricity in Kingston?
Has the recession bitten that hard?
It's like a wind-up radio,
it's for use around the world.
Can I ask a question?
Has Tristan got a girlfriend?
- He is quite... - He's very cute,
isn't he? - One would, one feels.
LAUGHTER
He's going to pedal fast now,
I tell you that!
ALAN IMITATES TRISTAN
PEDALLING FRANTICALLY
Stop it, stop it, stop it at once!
..across the studio!
Stop it, stop it.
Imogen, thanks very much,
take the scarf away
and we'll be looking in on you.
- Oh, dear. - I just hate it when you
two get all Christmassy like that.
We'll be looking in on her
from time to time.
Now, we're all loyal
servants of Her Majesty here.
What do you think the Queen's going
to give you for Christmas this year?
A message.
She will certainly be giving us
all a message, that's true.
That not a klaxon? I felt certain
that would be a klaxon.
For years it's actually
been a robot.
She only gives things to people when
they're 100. She gives Maundy money.
She gives Maundy money on Maundy
Thursday, well, her staff, which is
obviously extensive, it used to be
they could choose from a catalogue.
Argos?
And with value between £20 and £25,
according to length of service.
That's a very small window!
"26.99?" "Nope."
- IMPERSONATES THE QUEEN: - "Too much."
In 2006, it changed,
they all get the same thing.
These are her butlers and so on,
obviously her family it's different,
but this is if you're her servant.
How many staff?
- I don't have the number, but it's
pretty enormous. - You don't know?!
- I'm sorry, I have failed you,
Brendan, on the first fence. - Sake.
I thought you would know every
light bulb in the place.
- I'll just say a number
and you'll believe me. - Yes.
There are over 4,000 light bulbs
in the palace, I can tell you that.
My God. That's some bill.
Have you not met the Queen yet?
Yes, she nudged me once,
quite hard in the ribs.
It was quite funny.
At her son's wedding,
to Camilla, at Windsor Castle,
and she made this very funny speech,
she stood on the table.
- She got on a table? - Yeah, she stood
on a chair, got on the table...
Then she made a very funny speech
and got down,
and I was chatting to someone
and got this rib,
"Isn't anybody going to give me
cake?"
LAUGHTER
So I said, "Of course, ma'am,
I'll get you some cake."
This must be a dream,
you dreamed all of it!
I know it sounds mad,
but it's absolutely true.
"I'm going outside for a fag!
Come on, Fry."
That was in the days I smoked,
and I'm afraid
I was caught by a photographer
in the buttresses of Windsor.
Buttresses?!
In my big top hat and everything,
smoking a cigarette.
Coming out the top of your hat.
You can take your woolly hats off
now, if you're getting hot.
THEY TALK OVER EACH OTHER
- Shall I pop it under?
- Or you can keep it on.
Let's see how Imogen's getting on,
shall we?
Imogen,
have you started your machine?
There it is, and there's Tristan
pedalling away.
BRENDAN: Yes, indeed!
- LAUGHTER
- He's looking so shy now,
- I feel terrible.
That is absolutely amazing, it is
unravelling before our eyes.
Brilliant.
APPLAUSE
Wow.
I think they would have got
it done ages ago
if Tristan wasn't quite so relaxed.
Whoa-oh-oh - no, no!
Jo Brand...
Oh, the humanity!
You deliberately spilled boiling
water on his trousers
so you can mop them down.
You wicked, wicked woman!
As soon as they go off screen,
Imogen is going to beat him!
Is Tristan wearing corduroys so the
heat generated by the whiff-whiff...
LAUGHTER
..is powering the kettle?
We've embarrassed the brother
and sister team almost to death.
- Sorry, Imogen. - If he gets snagged up
in that
he might get unravelled
himself.
A full human being being unravelled.
- I'm going to build one of those
for next Christmas. - You should!
Thank you very much, Imogen
and Tristan.
Sorry about that,
we'll let you replace it.
Let's go back to Her Maj.
Now the fact is, if you work
for the Queen nowadays you all get
the same present, instead of being
able to choose from the catalogue.
We've done a little montage of them.
Bottle of bubbly, silver plate.
2008 reflected the mood of financial
restraint, which was coasters,
and in 2012, Jubilee year,
a special themed trinket box.
You all get the same thing,
monogrammed...cigar box or
whatever it was.
You can't expect the woman to
go down
the high street shopping,
can you?
No, especially not if she's in one
of her cake frenzies.
"CAKE! Cake! I want cake!"
Have to pull her away from Greggs.
- Oh! - It takes three equerries.
Or are they eclairs,
is that a cake? I dunno!
Aaanyway. Which of these looks
most like Jesus?
- I'd say the toast has to be the best.
- The toast is certainly...
Well, we bow down, yes?
- Any other thoughts?
- They look a bit westernised.
As far as the Bible,
he was a Jew obviously,
and that on the right is what's
known as a forensic reconstruction.
Is there any truth to...
it could be a myth,
but you can tell Jewish people
because their ear lobes are higher
than their nose?
Well, I'm Jewish,
my mother's fully Jewish,
so that makes me fully Jewish.
Is my ear lobe higher than my nose?
It's very hard to tell
with your nose.
Well, as my grandfather used to say,
and he was Jewish...
- YIDDISH ACCENT: - "You know
why we have big noses? Air is free!"
How many specifically are
we looking for?
It's basically images of Jesus,
it's extraordinary difficult
to know, the Bible doesn't furnish
us with any description of him.
We just know he was a Jewish man who
lived at a particular time.
And that's the best that forensic
people can do, given that's
the sort of average...
But one very Christmassy person
we DO know more the features of,
because unlike Jesus
we have the skull - who is that?
- Santa. - St Nicholas.
St Nicholas, and what can you tell
me about the real-life St Nicholas?
- There was about three of them. - Right.
One was Roman, and he used to throw
coins in the windows of poor people.
One was Russian, I think.
And he would collect fire wood
and carve things out of it
and leave them
around the village for children.
And then there's the most famous
one of all, of course,
the Coca-Cola Santa.
Well, the canonical St Nicholas was
actually from Lycia
- L-Y-C-I-A - which is actually
part of Asia Minor, which is now...
- Iran. - No.
- Asia Minor is...Turkey. - Close.
LAUGHTER
That St Nicholas there,
who was the bloke before then?
The bloke before is the facial
reconstruction on the
- basis of the skull. - Right.
He was a bishop, and the story
is that he gave money to
young girls, to daughters of people
of his episcopacy...
Did he work for the BBC?
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
- He paid the parents of the girls in
order to stop them... - I bet he did!
..in order to stop them
becoming prostitutes,
and he is therefore the patron
saint of prostitutes.
Hurrah!
I'm pleased that there's a patron
saint of tarts, I think it's good.
Did he have a hairdresser with OCD
though?
Look at it.
And also quite a thick, broken nose,
which he could have got...
people believe he fought with
a heretic at Lycia.
More likely did it
coming down the chimney though.
- Or being beaten up by the
Emperor Diocletian. - What's his era?
Mid-fourth century, I think, AD.
But when did Santa Claus
become Santa Claus?
Well, the idea that he was the
patron saint of children caught on
and he became the patron saint of
sailors, children and prostitutes.
LAUGHTER
- That's a good group, that's a good
group. - It's a good portfolio.
Sailors and prostitutes is a very
difficult combination!
I just love the idea that he's
the patron saint of prostitutes,
and then a child goes, "I love you,
Santa." "Shut up, baby, I know it!"
"I never, ever kiss..."
He's, he's, he's...
He was, erm, by the Dutch...
LAUGHTER
The Dutch call him "Sinterklaas",
but where does the modern depiction
of Father Christmas with the red
and white and the beard come from?
Ah, this is where I could
get my first screen. Coca-Cola.
- Mmmm, you're not getting a klaxon...
- Ugh.
..because it was certainly
reinforced by Coca-Cola
in the 1930s,
but there are plenty of images from
the 1890s of Father Christmas in
red and white with a white beard.
Santa rewards good little boys
and girls,
but what happens to the bad ones?
There is a culture not far from us
where they really go
a long way towards celebrating this
anti-Father Christmas.
Waterboarded.
"I shall waterboard all
the bad children."
This is surprisingly close to
waterboarding, what they do.
PHILL LAUGHS HYSTERICALLY
- Snowboarding! - Snowboarding would be
OK. - Do they not drown them?
We're talking about Germany.
No, they don't actually drown them!
But their threats are pretty
medieval.
There he is. Does anybody know
the name of this character?
Several names, but...in German he's
mostly known as "Krampus".
I don't know who he is,
but with a tongue like that he's not
the patron saint of prostitutes.
He's also known as "Schmutzli",
and Santa gives good gifts to
children, Krampus punishes naughty
ones, include pulling hair.
- It's not that bad, is it?
- Swatting with chains. - Quite bad.
Pulling hair, swat with chains.
Leading naughty
children off a cliff.
He'd obviously have to be able to
fly to be able to
- get back and do it again. - I think I
went to that school.
LAUGHTER
Putting them in a sack and
taking them to his fiery lair,
which sort of explains why German
children are so well behaved.
- You like fiery lairs?
- That can be fun. Mammy used to say.
- When is this practised?
- Christmas Eve? - No.
- Is it on their birthdays, for extra
irony? - No, it's December the 5th.
The 5th is
when Schmutzli or Krampus...
And there's the kind of figure
he presents,
and they terrify children.
They run down with whips and
threaten children and glare at them.
It is a peculiar way to treat
children at Christmas time,
but I suppose it has produced
a nation of extremely efficient
and obedient citizens who now
rule Europe, so...
LAUGHTER
..maybe we've been missing
something.
Now why is Santa off the Rich List?
LAUGHTER
- Aww. Poor Santa. - Cutbacks? Austerity
drive? - Only works one day a year.
He used to be on the Rich List
until 2006.
Forbes Magazine famously invented
the idea of a Rich List.
MEN SING
"O COME, ALL YE FAITHFUL"
- Yes, young Brendan? - Is it because...
(..he may not be real?)
STEPHEN GASPS
ALARM RINGS
APPLAUSE
Yes!
Thank you! Thank you.
Oh, poor Phill.
LAUGHTER
Phill, that got a klaxon,
so that can't be right.
Don't worry, back you go.
APPLAUSE
Poor little soul.
Forbes Magazine genuinely publishes
a fictional Rich List,
and Santa Claus used to be on it
because they reckon
he must be infinitely rich,
because he is able to distribute
presents every year to
all the children of the world,
they said.
- I don't believe he does. - Richie
Rich. - Scrooge, I guess, on the left.
- Father Christmas himself. - The late
Bernard Manning on the right.
LAUGHTER
Can you name
- I've got the top five -
name any that you
imagine might be on the list?
- Real people or imaginary? - Fictional,
that's the point. - Scrooge McDuck.
No, but his great rival.
If you can remember his name you'll
get lots of points.
- Tony Stark out of - Iron Man. Yes,
is number five, absolutely right!
APPLAUSE
Yes, 9.3 billion, apparently.
Number four's from a black
and white TV show
with a wonderful
old banjo opening theme song.
Oh, the Beverly Hillbillies,
so Jethro Clampett.
Jed Clampett, I'll give you
the points for that.
And they were worth 9.8 billion.
So at number three, Carlisle Cullen
from the Twilight Saga,
is worth 36.3 billion, apparently.
Wow, dude.
But number two is
the enemy of Scrooge McDuck.
BRENDAN MIMICS SCROOGE
Good one. Flintheart Glomgold
is his name.
Flintheart Glomgold?
And number one,
played by Benedict Cumberbatch,
the richest fictional
creature in the world, human or...
They know in the audience.
- AUDIENCE MEMBERS: Smaug!
- Smaug.
Smaug the dragon in The Hobbit,
62 billion worth of gold he
sits upon, until of course - well,
I'm not
going to tell you the ending. Cos I
happen to be in it.
But why's Santa taken off?
Cos surely he must
be really rich to
be able to give everyone a present.
- It's a very simple reason.
- Tax evasion. - Not tax evasion!
The usual answer.
It's because it's a fictional list,
and Santa is real.
ALL: Awww!
So there you go. Good result, Santa.
Let's see how Imogen's going.
Oh, you've spooled it back up,
he's turning slowly...
BRENDAN:
Oh, he's doing two tasks now.
He's growing it back into a ball,
it actually doesn't just unravel it,
it balls it up as well!
"Balls it up." Sorry.
LAUGHTER
Beautifully! Look at how cunning
that little thing is.
- The little shuttley...
- He's called Tristan, Steve.
APPLAUSE
Imogen, what do you call that unit
that winds it up?
Her brother.
- Did you design the way that it moves
like that? - The little tiny thing?
- Yeah. - That's from eBay.
LAUGHTER
I think British industry
in the future has nothing to fear.
We're going to win over the world.
Congratulations, we'll come back
to you when that ball of wool is
complete. That's brilliant.
Now, how can a Christmas tree get
you into trouble?
Grass you up.
- Very good. - Falling needles,
and their disposal.
Drying out and the chances of fire.
Falling over and giving an elderly
relative brain damage.
We're talking about the once-beloved
institution,
the giant, magnificent cultural
gift to the world that is the BBC.
Oh.
And the BBC now, of course,
is so open that you can literally
look up everyone who works for it
and see how much their salary is.
In the old days they all had
a personnel file, and there was
a figure from another institution,
far more sinister even than the BBC.
- Broadmoor. - Not Broadmoor!
MI5 is the right answer,
and if they thought anyone who
worked for the BBC was...
- Gay. Communist. - ..dodgy... - They would
ask them to join immediately!
There would be a symbol put
onto their personnel file which
resembled a Christmas tree.
- Like that. - Oh. Oh, no(!)
The reason people thought it might
be a Christmas tree was...
Do you know what the
German for Christmas tree is?
- "Tannenbaum." - Do you know
the tune of the song?
♪ O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum... ♪
SHE SPEAKS GIBBERISH
Exactly. Which is also the tune to?
♪ Though cowards flinch
and traitors sneer
♪ We'll keep the red flag
flying here. ♪
The Red Flag.
- "Power to the people!" - Can I just
do my version of the Red Flag?
♪ Neil Kinnock's hair is deepest red
♪ Though most of it's
not on his head. ♪
APPLAUSE
It isn't actually the reason that
it's the Tannenbaum, Red Flag.
People thought it looked like a
Christmas tree,
called it the Christmas tree,
but the two arrows actually just
mean "Refer upstairs".
So if anyone was thought to...
For promotion,
you saw their personnel file,
you'd have to go up to
a senior person and say...
- I'm up for promotion. - Anna Ford had
one of those on her, the newsreader.
It was because she'd once
had as a boyfriend a Communist,
which, Jesus, in a free society...
And they allowed her
on the television?
I know. There you go.
The BBC used Christmas trees
to keep lefties off the telly.
The practice stopped in 1985 and,
sure enough, they're everywhere!
Now, historic moment.
BAAS LIKE COLONEL MELCHETT
- What's Baldrick brought for me this
Christmas? - Right, bought for you...
- Melchett? Are we Melching?
- Well, it's for me.
- It's for you.
- And who is that there on the screen?
- Tony Robinson. - Tony Robinson.
And there is a Tony Robinson,
Baldrick, who's about to come on.
But in the First World War,
as you probably know
and we've covered before, there was
a Christmas football truce.
But what happened later, in 1915,
was that, because football had been
banned on Christmas Day, a soldier
smuggled into the trench a football.
It was deflated,
so that no-one would spot it,
and then he blew it up
before the Battle of Loos.
And in the morning,
when the whistle blew
to commence the offensive,
he threw it out of the trench,
shouting,
"Play up, London Irish!", cos he was
from the London Irish regiment,
- which I'm sure you'll be aware of.
- I am. Great regiment.
And they found the football
when they got to the German trench,
they kept it, and it
so happens that a member of that
London Irish happens to be
called Tony Robinson,
is therefore always called
Baldrick by his fellow...and he has
brought that football along today.
APPLAUSE
SPEECH DROWNED OUT BY APPLAUSE
Do your flies up, man.
Oh, Christmas came early
for Stephen!
Darling, take that man's name.
And address.
- This really is, Tony, the football.
- It is, indeed, it's the football.
And where is it kept?
It's kept in the museum,
which is now down in Camberwell,
at the London Irish Rifles.
Is it the London Irish Regiment
or the London Regiment?
We're D Company London Irish Rifles
of the London Regiment.
Right, D Company.
And it's still an active regiment
in the British Army, and we have
some of your fellow soldiers
over here,
if you'd like to stand up.
Here they are.
APPLAUSE
Fabulous to see you guys.
They are all recently back
from Helmand Province in Afghanistan
and they're wearing combat uniform,
but what's most noticeable is the,
how do you say it, caubeen?
Which you must NOT call a beret,
I believe.
And can any of you tell me what is
distinctive about that particular
piece of head joy, I shall call it,
as opposed to other British...?
- Pain in the arse in the cinema.
- Well, yes.
But this is different
from other headwear.
The people behind those lads are,
like, "Oh, now they've stood up.
"It was bad enough
with the funny hat."
PHILL: "Tell 'em. Tell 'em."
"I'm not going to..."
Are they worn on the
opposite side to the others?
It's the only one with
the cap badge on the right.
- This is a very historic year
for Irish soldiers. - Tell me why.
Well, last May, all Irish soldiers
who deserted the Irish...
- Oh, yes, have been...
- I haven't finished! - Sorry!
I'm so sorry, carry on.
All soldiers who deserted the Irish
Army in both the First World War
and Second World War periods
and joined the British Army
to fight for the British Army
were granted a pardon.
- That is extraordinary, isn't it?
- It's too late now, they're dead.
Almost all of them are dead,
but it was true,
that if you were Irish
and anti-Fascist, say,
and you wanted to fight
for the Allies against Germany,
and so joined the British Army,
it was considered by the Irish
Government that you were a traitor.
You got no pension, you couldn't
work for the Government.
- You could barely go home. - Yeah.
There was a great cartoon,
and it was two Irish guys
fighting for the British Army,
in the trenches,
and de Valera was
the President of Ireland at the time,
and the two boys were there, ducking
the bullets, and one said,
"Well, fair play to de Valera,
he kept us out of this."
That's very good.
So thank you very much and please
sit down, members of D Company.
Thank you so much.
- Anyway, Baldrick. - Sir.
I've never seen you looking better.
Yet, you're still an absolute
disaster of a human being.
Thank you so much
for bringing me lunch.
- I'm not very hungry, you can
take it away. - Thank you, sir.
Thank you very much indeed.
Wonderful.
Tony Robinson.
So, yep, that football you've just
seen was kicked right across
No-Man's Land by Rifleman Frank
Edwards and the London Irish
in 1915 and our thanks to
Rifleman Tony "Baldrick" Robinson.
So it's time for a Christmas drink,
I think.
So take a glass, each of you.
There you go.
And all I want to know from you
is which ones you should
use at Christmas.
You've got a drink,
you can pour out your drink.
- HISSING
- Holy moly...
It's not about the capacity,
it's about the shape.
Can I just say, as an ex-nurse, that
looks like someone with cystitis.
Darling, have you got...?
I think whereas I have
had one Berocca too many.
Suspiciously like Irn-Bru, actually,
the colour, isn't it? Maybe...
- Oh, it's like piss. - Oh, right.
The issue is an Oxford psychologist
who assists Heston Blumenthal,
- in fact... - Oh-oh.
..has studied extensively the effect
of one of our sense organs
on food and drink.
It's not the tongue.
What do you think it is?
- It's the feel, the feel. - No,
not the feel. - Eyes. - The eyes.
So much more of our
mental processes...
- We eat 80% with our eyes.
- Exactly, goes with our eyes.
And he has discovered remarkable
things by observing people
who don't know they're
being watched,
is that you drink more quickly
out of a curved glass,
cos you're not aware
of how much there is.
And also you drink more quickly
with loud music playing.
And you drink more quickly
if you're an alcoholic.
- And if you're an alcoholic.
- LAUGHTER
You don't care what shape the glass
is. You drink from the bottle.
I find you drink much more quickly
if you've had three drinks already.
LAUGHTER
But there are also many other
extraordinary things about colour
and sight which influence food
which are quite startling
which this same professor
has discovered,
whose name is Charles Spence.
Erm, the colour of a plate
can affect the taste of food.
So, if you, for example, have a
strawberry mousse served on a
white plate, it tastes more
flavourful and sweeter than the
same thing on a black plate.
Nearly everything does.
A chef prefers to
serve on a white plate
because it hails what
you're going to taste.
It somehow does, exactly.
The restaurants have all
got a bit weird lately.
- I've had fruit served to me
on planks... - Oh, yes. - On slate.
- Slates and planks. - Please,
wash the bird shit off it first.
LAUGHTER
That was the sauce.
LAUGHTER
It was Heston Blumenthal...a little
squeeze of sparrow.
LAUGHTER
Blowtorch...
I always put my mayonnaise
through a pigeon before I...
In the Jamie Oliver ones,
they hang them on the wall
and offer them for sale afterwards.
- The pigeons? - No, the planks.
LAUGHTER
I think that's crap about stuff
tasting worse off black plates.
- It isn't. - I think it's
racist towards plates.
LAUGHTER
Let's have a taste challenge.
We will move on now, but
there are various other things,
for example, it is as you rightly
said cortical real estate
- taken up by visual is much,
much more. - Did I say that?
Well, you didn't say
it quite like that.
LAUGHTER
Wine doesn't taste as nice in a mug.
Wine, no, that's very true
and I think tea doesn't
taste good out of a...
That's cos of the amount
of air you take in.
Yes, that's probably true, isn't it?
- No, it IS true, Stephen. - Yes, no...
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
It's the thinness of the glass.
It's the amount of air
you're taking as you sip.
If you like tea, just
make one cup in a glass
and try the tea out of
the glass. It is divine.
My wife likes a thin mug.
Well, that's your own business
but I'm just saying...
LAUGHTER
LAUGHTER DROWNS OUT SPEECH
Who thought that Fry and Carroll
would be a double act?!
LAUGHTER
That's why when they
taste the wine they go...
HE BREATHES THROUGH HIS TEETH
- Yeah, that's right.
- To maximise the air that gets in.
OPERATIC VOICE SINGS FAINTLY
- Is that your phone? - Yes.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
It's Heston Blumenthal.
LAUGHTER
- Minus how many points, I'm
wondering. - I'm so sorry.
I didn't even know I had it on me.
I'm very sorry.
Anyway, now, let's test your
beer goggles, as it were.
We have a man in the audience
who's going to hold up a picture
and I want you to
tell me who's that of.
- Marilyn Monroe.
- Marilyn Monroe, yeah.
You can see the picture behind
it there, Marilyn Monroe.
Now, it's Sam. Sam, walk towards
us, if you'd be kind enough.
I don't think... I think it's
supposed to look like her but I'm
suspicious.
Albert Einstein.
- Albert Einstein. - Holy crap!
- It is rather extraordinary,
it's both. - They're related. - No.
LAUGHTER
Never in the same room, Brendan.
They would be, would you...
I think Marilyn Monroe did have
quite a bad facial hair problem.
LAUGHTER
From a distance, the image does
look like Marilyn Monroe because
what they do is...it's created
by the MIT, this illusion,
the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, as I'm sure you know.
- Thank you. - They remove
Marilyn's fine-grained features
like wrinkles and little blemishes
and they remove Einstein's
coarser features,
like the shape of his mouth and nose
and then they superimpose the two.
And from a distance we see all
the broader strokes and see her,
Marilyn Monroe, and close up, we see
the fine details of Albert Einstein.
And we've done another version
to show this really does work,
it's not just Marilyn.
Erm, who's that?
- Handsome man...that's Stephen Fry, I
know him well. - That's me, hooray.
And if you come towards us, hello...
It's Alan Davies.
APPLAUSE
How about that?
That's fantastic, an
extraordinary illusion.
- I hope they've done two, so we
can have one each in our bedrooms.
- Yeah, I want one in my house.
What distance do
you want it, though?
I want to be far away from it.
LAUGHTER
Toss you for it, erm...
LAUGHTER
Thank you very much indeed.
APPLAUSE
And thank you, Albert and Marilyn.
So, the take home message tonight
is don't trust your eyes,
even when you're sober.
In fact, you probably shouldn't
really trust anything,
because we've come to that bit
we call general ignorance.
Fingers on buzzers for very quick
ones. What year was Jesus born?
CHOIR SINGS
- Yes, Brendan. - 5 BC. - Oooh,
it's not the right answer.
- Damn close, though.
- Four. - No. - Three. - No...
LAUGHTER
- Two. - No.
- Other direction, eight.
- Six. - Yes. - Ah, come on.
He was born six years before Christ.
- Well done, Jesus. - How crazy is that?
Now, how do we know?
Somebody told us.
LAUGHTER
It's the only authority
we could possibly have.
- There's a book about him, come on.
- It doesn't give the date, though.
Doesn't it?
It's been worked out by the only
man we've ever been able to call,
certainly for over 1,000 years,
I think, Pope Emeritus.
Who's he? Emeritus,
what does Emeritus mean?
- An ex-Pope. - An ex-Pope.
Is there an ex-Pope in the world?
- We've got one now.
- We have, Benedict.
They call him Pope
Emeritus Benedict XVI.
His Holiness wrote a book
with the catchy title
Jesus of Nazareth:
The Infancy Narratives.
And the calculation made by
Dionysius Exiguous, which is
- basically Latin
for Dennis The Small...
- LAUGHTER
This modern dating system is
based...was wrong by several years,
he says, and so he puts
the date at 6 BC,
which you eventually got to, Alan,
in your usual method. What
was the year before 1 AD?
- Yes, Jo. - Nought.
Ohhhh! Dear, oh, dear, oh, dear.
No. Hooray! Yes, well done.
Touch of pride.
APPLAUSE
- 1 BC is the right answer.
- Oh, I was going to say that!
Well... It went from December 31st
1 BC to 1st January 1 AD.
The BC-AD scheme doesn't have a
zero. Anyway, here's an easy one.
Is zero
an odd number or an even number?
It's not a number.
- No, it is a number. - I give up. - No...
LAUGHTER
- So it is one of them.
- Hang on. It's even. - Yes!
- Oh! - Is it?
By the criteria by which you judge
an even number, it is even.
An even number is divisible by two
without leaving a remainder.
Well, nought over two is nought.
There's no remainder.
Or it's a number that ends in 0,
2, 4, 6 or 8.
0 obviously ends in 0 cos it is 0.
Also, it has either side of it -1
and 1, which are both odd numbers.
Our maths elf at QI thinks this is
the easiest question that's
ever been asked on QI.
Yeah, yeah! Take away my glory now.
I got my points.
The easiest question that's ever
been asked.
- But he is a maths elf. - Yeah. The sun
isn't there.
I had that about 40 years ago.
I'm looking at it and it's not
there, but this is easier.
- No, I know maths people are odd.
- I hate this show!
LAUGHTER
I'm so sorry, Phill.
You feel bad - I got it wrong!
STEPHEN LAUGHS
That's true, where does
that put you?
Now, who wants to see
one of my knick-knacks?
- My first knick-knack
is for you to do. - Ohh!
I want you to create some
extraordinary, magical,
Christmassy things using
the power of chemistry alone.
- Chemistry, let's not forget,
means magic. - Ooh! - Ohh!
Al-kimia, the magic.
So, you should have...
- Stephen, are we going to make
a seasonal meth lab? - Maybe.
LAUGHTER
Take out your little chemistry lab.
You have to put on your gloves,
I'm afraid, for health and safety
reasons.
Oooh, the gloves are...
- While you're doing yours...
Yours takes a bit of time.
- What are we doing?
- You pour the contents
of your smaller into the larger.
- A-ha, the usual!
Yeah. What it is, is there's...
- Get it straight,
we're providing a sample. - No!
That should turn brown.
Put the lid on.
Just swirl, gently sort of twist
and swirl.
You need to do that for about two
minutes. Not too violently.
I've done this before.
While you're doing that, I'll just
do my demonstration of dry ice,
which as we know makes a marvellous
reaction with water.
What are the chances of us
being busted by the Feds
while we're doing this?
- I've got this. - Fry's crack
house! - Look at this.
- I've got this. - Ohhh!
Christmas party!
I'll have some of that.
OK, there'll be quite violent
action to this, as I'm sure you've
all seen - dry ice, as they call it,
going into...
I've got here... This
is a sort of bubble.
Like blowing bubbles. What we are
trying to do is make little smoky
bubbles.
That sort of Christmassy effect.
- God, I hope I can get the lid on
in time. - Oh! Wooo-hooo-hoooo!
WHOOPING
Whoa! Hey, yay, whoa!
What are you doing, Fry?!
Get the lid on!
- Go, go! - Get the lid on!
APPLAUSE
Lid is on, lid is on! Lid is on.
It's going everywhere!
Bubbles! Here's my little bubbles.
- Oh, oh! - There's one, look! Big one.
Pop it! Ping!
Whooo! Aw!
- Bubble... Smoky bubble! - Ohhhh!
- Ohhh! - Smoky bubble!
APPLAUSE
There we are.
- I've gone completely reflective.
- Ohh?!
- There you are, look at you,
you've made a bauble. - Look at that!
You've made a bauble, because
your little experiment, invented by
Mr Torrance, is...
One of the things he used was
silver nitrate, the same thing used
in film photography.
- That is silver. - Wow!
That's a beautiful silver bauble
you've made just by mixing
- those two chemicals. - Can I
just say, I've just seen myself.
I didn't realise that I looked like
Last Christmas by
WeightWatchers Wham!
LAUGHTER
- It's hideous. - It is very beautiful,
isn't it? - Gorgeous.
They used to use exactly that
for lining
the inside of thermos flasks.
- You know how they're silvered on the
inside? - It's lovely. - And mirrors.
There it is, you've made your own
little home-made silver ball.
And I've finished my little bubbles.
And there we are.
BRENDAN: Cool, man.
So - there's only one last
thing to check and that...
Has anyone got any worries?
Just one last thing to check,
what happened to Alan's grand scarf?
Imogen. What do you have for us?
There is it! Literally.
APPLAUSE
Thanks very much(!)
Brilliant invention. I hope they
gave you First Class with Honours.
They didn't.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Well!
For the New Year show, I want to see
what the one who got a First made.
- Meanwhile, thank you, Imogen.
- Thank you.
APPLAUSE
The one who got a first
probably made a scarf.
You're absolutely right.
That brings us to the little,
not inconsequential matter
of the Christmas scores.
And they are very interesting.
I'm afraid, in last place,
though it is his first appearance,
unfortunately his phone went off,
which may have cost him some
points...
In last place, with a very credible
-19, it's Brendan O'Carroll!
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
In third, with -9, Jo Brand.
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
Fat WeightWatchers.
In Santa's second place,
with -6, Alan Davies!
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
But our big Father Christmassy
winner, with plus 3,
it's Phill Jupitus.
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
So that's it from Brendan, Phill,
Jo, Alan and me.
Merry Christmas to you all
everywhere. Bye-bye.