QI (2003–…): Season 12, Episode 3 - Literature - full transcript

G-o-o-o-d evening, good evening,
good evening, good evening,

good evening, good evening,
good evening, welcome to QI.

Tonight, we're leaping our way
through language and literature.

Lurking in my labyrinth are
the loquacious Jack Whitehall...

APPLAUSE

..the logomaniac, Lloyd Langford...

APPLAUSE

..the learned
Victoria Coren Mitchell...

APPLAUSE

..and the long-suffering
Alan Davies.

APPLAUSE



So, let's hear your lines.

Jack goes...

DING
"I wandered lonely as a cloud..."

Lloyd goes...

DANG
"That floats on high

"o'er vales and hills..."

Victoria goes...

DONG
"When all at once I saw a crowd..."

And Alan goes...

AIR HORN
"Arsenal, Arsenal!"

Oh, dear.

Let's start with a nice easy one.

In fact, this one is so easy
I'm going to ask the audience.

Have you read 1984?
Hands up if you've read 1984.



Wow, that's pretty good.
How many...?

- KLAXON
- How many...? Yeah.

The fact is,
research on several occasions

show that at least a quarter of the
people who claim

to have read 1984 are lying,

- so I'm afraid we have to take
points away from you. - Really?

Yeah.

Can you put your hand up
if you said you'd read it,

but actually secretly you haven't?

- Oh, come on. - Come on.
- Oh, you look very shifty. - Yes.

The honest man at the back has
earned some more... The audience.

I have to confess here,
I studied English at university,

- I haven't read it.
- I should hope not!

What kind of English degree

would include something
written as late as 1948?

Well, that's true, yes.
We read things written in 1370.

But I kind of felt I didn't need to,
which is an appalling thing to say.

Oh, it's terribly good, Stephen.

Well, I kind of, I know...

Look at all the TV shows
named after it.

Two at least,
Room 101 and Big Brother.

- Oh, that's ruined my line.
- Oh, sorry!

LAUGHTER

I know how it opens.
It opens with the clock striking 13,

I know the character's
called Winston.

It's really good and they made
a film of it with John Hurt.

It's hard to bother, isn't it,
when there's a great film of a book?

- I was the same with
the Muppet Christmas Carol.
- LAUGHTER

- You know, I feel it's been done.
- Quite. Why would you bother?

I know what the turkey does
in the story. Why read it?

That is a masterpiece of a film,
it has to be said.

I lie a lot to impress people,
and I'll be honest now,

I have never read
The Hungry Caterpillar.
LAUGHTER

I get so close to the end
and I get too emotional.

I'm like, "He's going to die,
he's overfed himself,

"I can't, I can't do it." And I stop.

So I just pretend that I've read it.

I don't know what happens.
No, no, he becomes a butterfl...
LAUGHTER

Spoiler! Spoiler!

I'm so sorry, that was wrong of me.

That's like when I knew someone
who gave away the end of Psycho -

- it's nearly as serious as that.
- Oh, my goodness.

- There are some books that you
don't need to bother reading. - Hmm?

Like, it's controversial to say it,

but I don't think Harry Potter
is worth reading.
LAUGHTER

Because it is so expertly
narrated on the audio books.

You're so right.

By none other than Mr Stephen,
but it is! It is. It, I mean...

APPLAUSE

No, but I do, after I listened
to the Harry Potter books,

with you narrating them,

everything in my life is narrated
by Stephen Fry. All my thoughts,

my internal monologue,
is now Stephen Fry's voice.

Even the dirty thoughts
are Stephen's voice. No,

because it makes it acceptable.
I had a sexual thought the other day

and I'll put my hand in the air,

I had a sexual thought about
Camilla Parker Bowles.

It didn't seem weird because Stephen
was saying it to me.

All right.
Let's go back to Orwell.

I'll give you a point
if you know his real name.

- The name he was born under.
- Blair?

Blair is right.
You said it first. Yes?

- I was going to say Eric Arthur
Blair. - Very good. Eric Blair.

And he wrote, I think,
his masterpiece, which

I've certainly read many times,
which is his allegory, his fable.

- Animal Farm. - Animal Farm. And that
was published during the war.

And that was rather difficult.

And do you know the famous
poet-publisher

who turned it down?

- No. - Ah.

- His name is an anagram of
"toilets". - TS Eliot?

TS Eliot is the right answer.

Yes, he turned it down because he
thought it was pro-Trotskian

and anti-Stalin.

And Stalin was our great ally
in the Second World War.

And now, of course,
it's considered a masterpiece.

Well, there we are ...

The second best animal-based
piece of literature.

The first being?

The Hungry Caterpillar.

- What am I thinking of? - I mean ...

Now, I should say that there's a
bonus hidden in tonight's programme,

and that is what we call
the Spend A Penny bonus.

JINGLE

FLUSHING

That's it. There'll be one question,
at least, tonight, whose theme...

LAUGHTER

..whose theme is lavatorial.

And if you think that the answer is
something to do with the lavatory,

then you wave and you
spend your penny.

I'm going to keep mine and use
it in one of those arcades.

That's a very good idea.

Now, here's a lovely list
of Victorian slang.

What do these L words mean?

We've got lally-gagging or
lolly-gagging.

Last shake o' the bag.
Land o'Scots. Land o'cakes.

Lemon Squash Party.

- I know lolly-gagging. - Yeah?

That's when you squeeze too hard
at the bottom of your Calippo.

Oh.

LAUGHTER

Ow. Followed by brain freeze.

But if you do that and you squeeze
too hard,

then it comes right out of the tube,
but you can't deal with it all.

What do you do?
Do you bite it off?

- You lolly-gag.
- LAUGHTER

Kind of a shover.

That's a very odd
thing to see. Do that again.

LAUGHTER

A Leg Maniac is one of those
people whose leg twitches

- when they're sitting in a chair.
- It would be a good name for that.

I used to do that terribly as a
teenager, just endless bouncing.

- I've been doing it all show.
- Have you? - Yeah.

- It's very hard to stop once you
start. - It's so hard

- and now I'm thinking about it. - Oh.

I'm not thinking about it,
Stephen Fry is thinking about it.

But you should roll with it

because Michael Flatley
made a living out of that.

- VICTORIA: - I know one of them.
- Yes, say.

Land o'cakes is Robert Burns,
isn't it?

Yes, you're absolutely right.

- Scotland. - He's talking about
Scotland. - Scotland. Good.

But Land o'Scots you would think
would be Scotland, but it isn't.

It's actually heaven.

Go figure.

- Learning Shover, you might guess.
- Teacher.

Yes. Quite right.
You know a bit about that.

- Yes. Can I have a point?
- Yes, you certainly can.

- Thank you, sir. - Lally-gagging.

It's very hard to guess, actually.

You either know it,
or you don't, really.

It means to flirt, Jack.

Oh, yes, I did a bit of flirting,
didn't I? Last time I was on.

- You did, you lally-gagged.
- But I decided,

cos it was very awkward
when the show went out

and I had a very long conversation
with my father,

and I watched it back...

"Have you got something to
tell me, Jack?"

And, no, I looked very... I looked
back at it and to be honest,

I looked desperate
for your affections.

And so this evening I have decided
to deploy a little bit of carrot

- and a little bit of stick...
- Very good.

..because last time I showed
you too much of my carrot.

LAUGHTER

A very charming carrot it was, too.

- VICTORIA: - Now, here's a problem.
You've just explained

we can wave this little fan
if we think it's lavatorial.

I'm looking at
"last shake of the bag"

and "lemon squash party".

And I'm thinking, I really hope not.

Lemon Squash Party looks
like something

you could put into the
internet and find...

LAUGHTER

- Tennis players. - Yes.

- Is it a political party?
- It's not a political party.

It's part of a movement that was
very popular in the 19th century,

a rather dull movement
to many of us, perhaps.

- It's very straightforward.
- Temperance.

Temperance. It is an all-male party
where only lemon squash was served.

It's that simple.

I mean, we've all had
a lemon squash party.

It's the party that comes
AFTER the after-party.

- You're quite right.
- Last shake o' the bag.

- That's my favourite.
- Is that...?

Is it, like, something
to do with you, like, your...?

LAUGHTER
No...

- Out with it, man. - It's not. Is it,
like, your last child?

Yes. Your youngest child.

- Because it's the last...bag. - The last
shake of the bag. Isn't that great?

I think it's a terrific phrase.

"Meet Benjamin,
he's my last shake of the bag."

Yes, you've had teacher.

Leg Maniac is the only one
we haven't covered

and it's just really an eccentric
dancer, a rather frenzied dancer.

I was right with Flatley, then.

Yes, you were, basically.
They're rather pleasing.

I'm particularly sorry that
last shake o' the bag's

gone out of the language.

Now, without mincing words,
what is this?

"Ah, I have to be, rather
like Ask The Family.

"It's going to come into view.

"Ah. Ah-ha!"

Toilet!
JINGLE

Yes. It couldn't be more
lavatorial, could it?

But... But you have to answer
the question, what is it?

- What do you mean, what is it?
- Without mincing words, what is it?

Oh, it's going to be a trick one,
like, it's a set of weights.

- LAUGHTER
- No.

- It's a toilet. - Oh!
- KLAXON

- A lavatory. - Lavatory.
- KLAXON CONTINUES

- Bog. - Water closet. - We've had
lavatory, toilet, water closet.

Shitter!

Shitter. Water closet, we had.

- Khazi. Water closet.
- We had water closet.

A flush, a wall-mounted flushable...

- Yes, excrement receiver.
- ..device. Yes.

The point is, there is no word
for it that isn't a euphemism

because toilet comes from "toile",
meaning "towel", you know,

- that's where we get our word
"towel". - I always wee in a
towel, so...

- Well, in that case it's realistic.
- Then it is.

A lavatory is from "lavare",
the Latin for "to wash".

So it's a bit like saying
the washroom,

which is a very American
euphemism that we find silly.

A water closet just means a cupboard
with water in it, running water.

Although, to be fair, there are
all sorts of words

for which there's nothing
that isn't a euphemism.

I mean, kitchen. We don't have
a word "cookpot place".

- We're not German! - No, that's right.

I mean, all language is metaphorical
and to some extent hedges around.

- There is just... - Why has that one at
the top been...? The interior is...

Looks like it's been done with
one of Noel Edmonds' shirts.
LAUGHTER

It does, doesn't it? Exactly like.

It's a Crinkly Bottom one,
in every sense.

So, there is no actual word
for the little boys' room

that isn't a you-know-what.

What suggestions do you have for
the last line of this limerick?

There was an old person of Chile,

Whose conduct was painful and silly,

He sat on the stairs,
eating apples and pears...

Firing pips out of his willy.
LAUGHTER

Very good. I don't think
that can be improved upon.

It certainly wasn't improved upon

by the author of that
limerick, who was...?

George Orwell.

- LLOYD: - Eric Blair.

- VICTORIA: - Was it Edward Lear? - Edward
Lear, as Victoria rightly said,

who sort of popularised the form.
But he had one fatal flaw

in his limerick writing,
which was, do you know?

- Was the last line the same as
the first? - The last line was more
or less the same.

Is it - "That boring
old person of Chile"?

Basically it is, yeah,
as you will see, it is

"That imprudent old
person of Chile."

I think you'll all agree that
Alan's version is a lot better.

Yeah, firing pips out of the willy
is a lot funnier than that.

Yes, that's exactly what I mean.
On the other hand, less Victorian.

He was sort of around the latter
half of the 19th century.

- That is an entirely pointless
thing to write down. - It is,

but it popularised the form,
and there are other versions of his.

- They're all... - It's not painful and
silly is it, to be imprudent?

- No. - It's painful and silly to put
the pips in your willy...

- Oh, it certainly is.
- And fire them out.

I think we're all with you, Alan.

But why has he not thought...?
He hasn't thought of a painful,

- silly thing to do...
- He hasn't thought it through.

..related to apples, pears
and being on stairs.

He just says it's imprudent. But
there's nothing in that that's...

There's nothing imprudent
in the previous four lines.

- I mean, the thing is, apples and
pears is rhyming slang for stairs,
isn't it? - Anyway.

- Yeah, he's eating the stairs.
- He's eating the stairs!

LAUGHTER

He's sat on the stairs eating
the apples and pears.

Firing splinters out of his willy.

And also it's "Chil-lay",
which doesn't rhyme with silly.

- Well, unless you say "sil-lay".
- "Sil-lay".

Which is how I pronounce it.

Well, anyway, other versions
you might be able to finish.

There was an old man with a gong
who bumped at it all day long

But they called out, "O Lor'!
You're a horrid old bore!"

Pull up your trousers,
you're doing it wrong.

It sounds like that
new Coldplay song.

Very good.

Which, if you haven't heard it,
sounds like any Coldplay song.

What, so it's going to be,
"You're a horrible old bore.

"You silly old man with a gong."

- Basically, yeah. - This guy's shit.

- He is. You can see his original.
- These are like Lil Wayne lyrics.

So they smashed that
old man with a gong.

- They smashed him with the gong?!
- Yeah. - Why did they do that?!

Because he was a horrid old bore.

- Well, just take the gong away.
There's no need to... - Yeah.

Once you've got the gong from
the old man, the problem's solved.

He's not going to annoy you
with the gong any more.

There's no point to then smash...

To smash him with the gong is a
greater crime than to hit the gong,

regardless of whether he
does it all day long.

Also, move away. Go out of earshot
where you can't hear the gong.

- There's no excuse for assaulting.
- Your outrage is commendable.

Well, let's try another one.

It was a recipe
from Heston Blumen-tool.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Very good.

- I like it.
- Ran off with a man called Raul.

- Cos in Spain, they dig that shit.
- It's true, they do.

Once they've got the soup
up to boiling point,

they poured it over her.

Cos you know how violent they
are in the world of Edward Lear now.

You've got it. So, let's actually
see what the answer was.

The brilliant last line was "That
ingenious Young Lady of Poole."

She's not ingenious. Because adding
oil doesn't make something boil.

I mean, I'm not a chef.

But I think
the application of heat,

really, is what this
Young Lady of Poole needed.

- Do you watch Gogglebox? - Yeah.
- I never miss it.

They were watching Heston
Blumenthal. There's a German guy
who's a regular.

And they said, "Is that a German
name?" And he said, "Yeah."

And they said, "What does it mean?"

- And he said...
STEPHEN: - "Flower valley."
Sorry. Sorry!

LAUGHTER

Anyway, the point is, 'blumen'
is flower, and 'thal' is valley.

But he said, "w-alley." He cannot
say Vs. He can't say his Vs.

And even his own wife
thought he'd said willy.

Then she was saying, "Flower willy!
I thought you said flower
willy!" Really laughing.

And he just wasn't laughing at all.
Not a smile about it.

- "No, I said w-alley."
- My grandfather was like that.

I used to drive along, he used to
go, "Vot a vonderful willage."

Grandad, you can say wonderful
"vonderful" and you can say
"willage..."

You can say "vot", why can't you say
"village?" What's wrong with them?

That was my point!

Whereas,
if I was talking in German to him,

if I were to say,
"WHOA ist der Postamt?" -
where is the Post Office? -

he would say, "Vot is the matter
with you? Vot are you saying 'whoa'?

"It is 'WO ist der Postamt!'"

I said, "Well, don't say
what is the matter with me, then!"

He'd say, "Ah, I'm too old
for this shit."

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

So, there was
a very popular comedian,

who sadly is no longer with us,
who's famous for his collection of

vulgar postcards, McGill postcards,
who also adored the limerick form.

And he annotated his edition
of Edward Lear. Who do you think
I'm thinking of?

Do you know who corrected...?

- Bob Monkhouse? - No, but it is
that generation.

- It is Ronnie ... - Barker.

Yes. So, a copy of Lear's Nonsense
Verses has recently auctioned

that had his annotations in.

And he'd handwritten his own
little opening verse.

There was an old fossil named Lear
Whose verses were boring and drear.

His last lines were worse -
Just the same as the first!

So I've tried to
improve on them here.

Good for him, isn't it?

So, let's get some more
points by saying,

"To forgive Edward Lear
is to know him better."

And what was his first
and greatest achievement?

And it wasn't poetry, despite
The Pobble Who Had No Toes

and The Owl And The Pussycat,
which are wonderful poems.

Was it the jet?

LAUGHTER

It's a nice thought.

He wasn't a poet, primarily,
he was something else.

A cook.

A racing driver.

Astronaut.

Well, you either know or you don't.
He was a painter.

He was particularly,
an orno...onorothol...

- Do you know, funnily enough...
- Birds. Bird paintings.

Yes. Ornithological painter.

I think he got a lot better
as he went from left to right.

LAUGHTER

But it's still the same. Look,
he started with a parrot

- and he's ended with a parrot. - Yes.
- Just paint another bird.

That's what held you back
in the limerick game

and it's holding you back
in the painting game as well.

- Open your eyes! - It is.

- Look at the owl. The owl's just
heard one of the limericks. - Yes.

David Attenborough described him

as the greatest British
ornithological painter there was,

and he was incredibly accurate and
in the time before photography,

- extraordinarily useful.
- Well, I mean, he was quite accurate.

The second parrot is odd.

No, he did comic ones too.

The second from the left, though,

I think he started off doing
a dolphin.

True.

He had a cat called Foss
of whom he was so fond that

when he was forced to move from the
area he lived into another area,

he did something quite remarkable.
Can you imagine what it is?

- Stuffed it. - No. He certainly
wouldn't want to see it dead.

He loved it very much.

He built a house in the second place
that was identical

to the house he'd come from
so the cat would feel at home.

The cat sat on the mat

It was fat,

the cat.

LAUGHTER

There we are.

It's not supposed to be worse,
is it?

I think putting in his bid there
to be the next poet laureate,

Alan Davies. So...

Genuinely, though, it sounds like he
was sort of a lunatic for symmetry.

- Yes. - All he needed was to live
in three slightly different houses

in between the two identical ones...

And he would have an architectural
limerick.

- He would have realised his dream.
- Yeah, it's true.

- LLOYD: - Also, he would have
done that to make him at home.

To make himself at home
rather than the cat?

And he's gone, "I've sort of
done this for the cat,"

but secretly he's thinking,
"Well, I know where toilet is.

- "Same place as the last time."
- It's true. You never know.

What kind of logical
reasoning did Sherlock Holmes use?

L for logic there. Oh.

- Lavatorial? - Hmm.

That's not correct.

LAUGHTER

- Lavatorial reasoning. - Yeah.

So take me through
lavatorial reasoning.

No, you do, cos when you
go to the loo, it unclogs your body

- and your mind. - Oh, I see.
- So like... No, it does.

- Scatological. - Yeah, when I'm at
home, if I'm stressed by something,

like a dishwasher, I can't load
the dishwasher properly

and there's loads of bowls
and I can't get them in,

I'm like, "Jack, take a step back.

"Go and drop the kids off at the
pool and come back to it."

And it works, because it does,
you sit on the loo, you think,

"What's the task going to be
like? How am I going to attack this?

"Let's work out a game plan,
a strategy." You deploy the troops,

come back and I'm slamming those
plates in like Tetris.

And you leave your children alone
at a swimming pool, meanwhile?

That was a horrible metaphor.

APPLAUSE

Oh, I see.

Sorry. I thought you were
a bit young...

You thought I have children?!

I thought you were a bit young
to have children you could just...

- That means... - Why would I take them
to the pool? - That means have a poo.

I didn't know that meant have a poo.
Dropping the kids off at the pool.

I like that, that's
quite a good one.

- Drop the kids off at the pool.
- And the logic is good as well.

- But we have no evidence
that he used that. - Oh, yes.

But we do know, from the books,
the kind of logic he used.

- There are different sorts of logic.
- Well, now,

if you eliminate the impossible,
you're left with the possible.

- Yes, if everything...
- LAUGHTER

- Deduction? - No, not deduction.
- KLAXON

Oh, you idiot! Ah-ha-ha-ha!

Deduction is essentially reasoning
something which is unchallengeable -

it must be true.

You're given a set of premises
and the deduction is true.

So if you say all humans are
mortal... Alan Davies is human -

we can say that -
therefore Alan Davies is mortal.

That's just simply an absolute fact.

- It must be true...
- Oh, that's disappointing.

If those two premises are true, then
the synthesis must be true as well.

- But abductive reasoning would be
saying something like... - Uh-oh.

I saw Alan Davies
in an Arsenal scarf.

He always cries when Arsenal lose.

I saw Alan crying,
therefore Arsenal just lost.

Now that isn't certainly true,

but it's the kind of logic
that Sherlock Holmes used.

Not absolutely certain
and definite to be true,

but he was nearly always right.

He reasoned abductively,

- so that's the sort he used.
- Oh.

There you are.
What's his great phrase?

What's the famous phrase he used?

Burn, ant, burn!
LAUGHTER

- That's fantastic. - You know this was
painted by Edward Lear?

So, anyway, the famous phrase
he is associated with, of course...

"Elementary, my dear Watson."

- He never said it. - Which, as Victoria
rightly says, he doesn't say.

But points if you know where it
first appeared in literature.

It was in 1915
by a truly great writer

who actually knew and played cricket
with Conan-Doyle

and was a huge fan of his,
and in some way,

based his two most famous characters

on the relationship
between Holmes and Watson.

One of them a bit of a blitherer,

- the other one incredibly
intelligent. - Jeeves and Wooster?

- Oh, Wodehouse. - Jeeves and Wooster,
yes. So it was PG Wodehouse.

But it was in fact in another
series of his books,

the Psmith series. There he is.

Called Psmith, Journalist,
in 1915, set in New York.

Doesn't look like a humourist there,
does he?

He was a charming, sweet man,
and just a real pro.

He was a prisoner of war, wasn't he,

so he'd look gloomy some of the
time.

Indeed,
when he was taken to Upper Silesia,

and, as he said,

"If this is Upper Silesia, God knows
what Lower Silesia must look like."

Anyway, he came up with the phrase,
"Elementary, my dear Watson,"

as if it was a, sort of, phrase.

Sherlock Holmes practised
abduction, not deduction.

Now to the universal language
of laughter. Who likes clowns?

No-one.

UKIP supporters.
LAUGHTER

- Weh-hey! - No, cos they are kind of
like clowns, UKIP politicians.

They're kind of fun and comical
and wear silly clothes,

but they're also terrifying.
LAUGHTER

It's that...

- Well... - And they also have
a lot of white faces.

Very good.

Well, the certain answer is...

No, I'm just trying to work out
who likes clowns and thinking,

"Well, it's certainly
not children or adults."

You're right,
so basically other clowns

is probably the only answer
we can come up with.

- Or sort of other people
that work in the circus. - Yes.

They're not going to be
anybody's least favourite thing

- as long as there are clowns
on the bill. - That's true.

And I like the cars that fall apart

and some of the gags they do,
vaguely, but the actual make-up

and the whole...schmear as it were,
is pretty disturbing.

And children, it's been shown,
do not like them.

LAUGHTER

There was a study
in 2008 that showed

that children were more frightened

than in any way
healed, or smoothed, or helped.

But all children are frightened,

so that may mean that clowns don't
know what laughter sounds like.

They just think the screams
of terrified children are laughter.

- "I did really well..."
- Because it's all they've ever heard.

"They screamed wonderfully."

- P Diddy is afraid of clowns. - Is he?

- Yes. - There is a so-called word for
it. Do you know it?

- Coulrophobic. - Yes, you're right.

Though, unfortunately,

and I don't mean this as a personal
slight, it's not in the OED,

and if you look it up in the online
etymology dictionary, it says,

"It looks suspiciously
like the sort of thing that idle,

"pseudo-intellectuals
invent on the internet,

"and which every smarty-pants
takes up thereafter."

I mean, "coulro" is "limb"
from a stilt walker, possibly,

and the Greek for clown is "klooun"
which comes from English,

so, if anything, it should be
kloounaphobia, or just...

No, that's the fear
of Martin Clunes.

Which is an actual real thing.
I'm terrified of him.

Cos those ears... Those flappy ears.
I remember when he was starting out,

I can't remember what we were doing,
we were in the same place.

He picked up a magazine.
He said, "Oh, God. I think there's
an interview with me in this."

The first line of the interview is,
you know, "Six-foot tall,

"with a tweed jacket,
Stephen Fry..."

Or, you know, "Twinkly with a pert
little botty, Jack Whitehall."

LAUGHTER

And the one on Martin Clunes
just started,

"Face like a torn arse..."

LAUGHTER

It was so unfair! He's got this
round, sweet, beautiful face.

And, actually, women fall for him
enormously. Arse! I know!

- I'm trying to visualise a torn arse.
- It's not good.

- I can help with that as well.
- Oh! No, no, no, no.

Since around 2,500 BC, clowns have
been known and written about.

But the first famous one in Britain,
do you know who it might have
been in the 18th century?

17... Born in 1778, really,
the 19th century.

- I know, actually. - Yes, go on.

Joseph Grimaldi.

Grimaldi is the right answer.
Joseph Grimaldi.

It's said that one in eight
Londoners saw him perform.

There's a Grimaldi Park in
Islington, not far from where
what's-his-chops lived.

- Who's that? Eric Blair.
- Oh, yes, Orwell.

There's a famous story of someone
going to see a doctor,

before the days of psychology,

but a doctor who specialised in the
mind, and this person said,

"I'm miserable, every day
is horrible, I don't know

"what to do with myself,
I can't get up in the morning."

And the doctor said, "Well,
I suggest going to see Grimaldi.

"He'll cheer you up."

And the guy said, "I am Grimaldi."

- And he was a very miserable man.
- No wonder he was so depressed.

It would have taken him
about 45 minutes to get his coat on.

That's true.

Also, his wife died in childbirth,
his father was a bit of a loon.

His son drank himself to death.
Lots of misery.

"I am grim all day,"
he said of himself, Grimaldi,

"but I make you laugh at night."
So, good, excellent.

And now, in honour of Victoria,
QI does Only Connect.

- Cue music.
- ONLY CONNECT THEME PLAYS

- The greatest programme on
television, after QI. - Oh, hello.

- Yes, does that ring
any bells with you? - Oh, yeah.

So can you choose, please,
an Egyptian hieroglyph.

Oh, my goodness, I've never had
the chance to do this before.

Obviously, the Eye of Horus.

Eye of Horus it is.

You have to find the connection
between these five things.

- Five? - First...

..John F Kennedy,
Profiles In Courage.

Lots of points of course
if you get it from one. All right.

Anybody else is allowed to buzz,
if they think they know.

And the second one...

Schumann, Theme And Variations
In E Flat.

- Hmm. - Whoa.

LAUGHTER

- Are you patronising Jack?
- You can all piss off!

What's it got to do with
the Eye of Horus?

- No, that's... You choose.
Have you never watched?
- LAUGHTER

- You've never watched Only Connect?
- Not a whole one, no.

Not a whole one?!

All you have to do is find what's
in common, only connect, literally.

I think the F stands
for his middle name.

Yes, that...
How does that connect him?

I'm just taking notes and then I will
abduct once I've got them all.

LAUGHTER

I don't know about Schumann,
but if I was on a team

on Only Connect, I'd ask them, is it
like the second thing they wrote?

- Something like that.
- Oh, that's very good.

Stephen, Stephen in my head,
is Schumann a composer?

- Yes. - Why, thank you.

- Robert Schumann, yes.
- Robert Schumann.

So let's have the third one

because I don't think you're getting
it from two. John Prescott, Prezza.

Goodness me.

Schumann's nickname
is Theme And Variations.

Oh, was that one of
the Sugababes' line-ups?

So I think we'd better have
a look at the fourth one.

Fewer points, but this might help.

Alcoholics Anonymous
and The 12 Steps.

- I so can get this.
- The last one will give it to you.

- So the last one is only
for one point. - OK, hold on now.

The Alcoholics Anonymous... The 12
Steps put together by two people

that only have letters as surnames?

You can see why
I never got to the end of this show.

No, you'll see the
last one and I think...

All right, struggle for the buzzer.

- They all had ghost writers! - Yes!

Yes! Yes! Come on!
APPLAUSE

- Well done. Well done, Jack.
- CHEERING

Yes. Argh!

Oh, my God! Steady.

- Steady. Whoa. - Sorry, sorry.

You've made a happy man
feel very old.

So...

I'm going to have to go for a really
awkward dinner with my dad now.

LAUGHTER
"I watched you on QI..."

Well, you're just too brilliant.

And, of course, we waited
until the most intellectual one,

Katie Price's Crystal
and you got it, Jack, so marvellous.

- It is a great read.
- A point to Jack.

- And your audio book of it was
fantastic. - Well, thank you very much.

- But how does The 12 Steps...?
- "Me and Dane went on holiday..."

How does that have a ghost writer?

That's what's so interesting,
in a way,

is that the Schumann and
the Alcoholics Anonymous
are ghost-written

in very special and different way,

at least according to their authors.

Bill Wilson was
one of the founders of AA.

- And Bob W? - That's right.

But Bill Wilson claimed that he was
spoken to by a spirit, a ghost,

who told him what the 12 steps were.

Oh, well, you could say the same
about all of Yeats' poetry.

Well, indeed, you could.

And Schumann claimed
that the spirits

of Schubert and Mendelssohn
gave him the idea

for his Theme And Variations
In E Flat.

So this piece is actually also
known as the Ghost Variations.

But John Prescott's autobiography
was written by Hunter Davies,

Prezza, who also gave us the Gazza
and Wayne Rooney book.

Katie Price's second novel, Crystal,

out-sold all seven
Booker Prize nominees that year.

She wasn't nominated
for the Booker Prize?

It wasn't actually nominated
itself, though.

- Scandalous! - I know.

She talks through the stories
with her ghost writer,

who then writes them out,

or as one of Price's
managers put it,

"Katie says what she
wants the story to be like,

"and they just put
it into book words."

LAUGHTER
Really?

She's been stuck in
that pose for so long

that a group of spiders
have colonised her head.

That's true. Which else...?

Oh, yes, Ted Sorensen was JFK's
speech writer, who came up

with perhaps his most famous phrase
that he used in his inauguration.

"Ask not what you can
do for your..." No...

"Ask not what your country
can do for you..."

Have a kebab.

"..but what you can do
for your country."

Known as a chiasmus, exactly,
and a fine example of one.

And that was written by Sorensen.

And Ronald Reagan said of
his autobiography,
do you know what he said?

He looked forward to reading it.

Yes. "I hear it's a terrific book.
I look forward to reading it."

Absolutely right. Very good.

- Anyway, that's all from
Only Connect.
- ONLY CONNECT THEME PLAYS

APPLAUSE

Thank you.

Right, now, this here what
you're about to see is the longest

word in literature.
What do you think it means?

Is it the Greek for
"that place in North Wales?"

LAUGHTER

It's the Greek for
"that peculiar feeling

"when you're trapped in a labyrinth
with a man with a bull's head."

That Minotaur-y feeling.

"Minatory" is an English word,
which means threatening,

so it would be rather appropriate.
No, this...
Who's the best-known...

comic Greek playwright?

- Aristophanes. - Aristophanes.

Aristophanes, first in was Alan.
And this is basically lunch.

Lunch in ancient Greek. It actually
means, "a dish of sliced fish,

"shark and remnants of dogfish head,
forming a pungent sharp tasting

"mixture, laserwort,
crab with drizzled honey,

"and thrush and a blackbird on top,
a wood pigeon, a normal pigeon,

"a little baked chicken head,
another pigeon, a hare,

"with boiled down wine,
and crunchy wings for dipping."

I'll just have the soup.

- What, no feta? - No.
And not a bottle of Retsina, either.

Oh, I love feta, me. That's why they
went bankrupt in Greece

because it took them so long to write
out the menus, they did no business.

Talking of lunch, what do we
know about the word lunch,

- a good L word, lunch.
- Now, you see, interestingly...

- Luncheon. - Luncheon, yes, that's
how it started.

As a matter of fact, it isn't.
It was lunch first.

And people extended it to luncheon

because they thought it
sounded smarter.

- Not quite right. - It is! I've made
a whole programme about this.

LAUGHTER

- It derives from an Anglo-Saxon word.
- It does... - From nuncheon.

This is like watching two great
stags, locking heads, together.

But it doesn't. Where do you think
the phrase

"ploughman's lunch" comes from?

From ploughmen having their lunch?

- No, it was invented by the Milk
Marketing Board. - That's true.

Investigating the history of that,
we discovered that it is very

disputed
whether lunch comes from nuncheon.

Well, until about the 18th century,
the word nuncheon was used.

You have a light nuncheon.
And nuncheon has a very clear
derivation.

It comes from "noon", as in mid-day,
and "schench", which means drink.

It was literally a liquid lunch.
Nuncheon.

And it was changed, no-one's quite
sure why it changed to luncheon,

but it did change to luncheon,

and then the luncheon
got dropped to lunch.

30-15, Fry!

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

Well, it's very convincing. I wish
you had been on the programme.

The theory put forward
was that they had been rolled

together in people's minds
and lunch came from somewhere else

and it was made longer to
sound smarter.

So then people thought it was

the same as the word luncheon,
but it's not.

I do not know of people using the
word lunch before the word luncheon.

That's breakfast, isn't it?

LAUGHTER

- Anyway, what we have got here
is a picnic. - Yeah.

- Well, let's move to less disputed
areas. - Or arm wrestle.

LAUGHTER

We'll do a Harry Hill moment.

Well, there you go.

And so to the epilogue
that we call General Ignorance.

Time for fingers on buzzers, please.
What comes before a fall?

AIR HORN
"Arsenal! Arsenal!"

Pride.

- Oh!
- KLAXON

Victoria, did you do a programme
about this?

- Is this going to be something to do
with Greek drama? - No, no, no.

It's the Book of Proverbs in the
King James Bible, and it says,

"Pride goeth before destruction,
an haughty spirit before a fall."

And there you are.

But things that are
misquoted are rather fun.

There's a 2009 survey that
found that the most common misquote

is mispronouncing the phrase
"damp squib" as "damp squid".

Yeah, it was a bit of a damp squid.

What kind of idiot would say that?!

I've definitely said that.
LAUGHTER

It would mean something
completely different because you
want a squid to be damp.

- Yeah, horrible to have a dry squid.
- Damp squid is the best
sort of squid.

- Oh, deep-fried squid is lush,
though, isn't it? - Calamari.

But you can say that as a compliment
then. If you get served that

ridiculous Greek dish and its a tasty
version of it, "What a damp squid!"

Yeah, exactly.

Other things include "On tender
hooks" instead of "tenterhooks".

ALAN GUFFAWS

"Nipping something in the butt",
which is quite different.

A "mute point"
instead of a "moot point".

Well, it's a Catch 24,
isn't it, really?

LAUGHTER

They're called "eggcorns",
as in from a mangling of acorns.

♪ The Simpsons... ♪

APPLAUSE

There's "in lame man's terms"
is used, apparently.

"Cut to the cheese."

- That's good. - It is, isn't it?

"To all intensive purposes."

"The feeble position"
instead of "the foetal position",
which is very odd.

I've definitely had the
feeble position before.

"Soaping wet", which
is a sort of mix

between "sopping wet"
and "soaking wet", I think.

"Soaping wet". I was soaping wet!

- That sounds filthy.
- LAUGHTER

"Giving up the goat."

I think that's a Welsh one, I think.

I'm so glad you put your
hand up to that one,

I wasn't really going to mention it.

"Getting your nipples in a twist."

These are kind of Fools And...

- Or Kath And Kim, they're always
saying things wrong. - Yeah, yeah.

When she's hungry, she goes,
"I'm absolutely ravishing."

"Chickens coming home to roast"
I rather liked.

I hope they pluck
themselves as they come

and just land gently on your plate.

Anyway, there we are.

"The haughty spirit
comes before a fall."

How would you describe
a siren's tail?

It's like a fish, like a mermaid.

- Oh, dear. - Isn't it?

KLAXON
Is no-one else going to play?!

I'm afraid not.

Although, you're right, they were
on the rocks when they sang.

The song was so alluring,
ships were dashed on the rocks.

It's unclear why
they wanted that to happen.

Yeah, I know. They were just
wicked for some reason.

I think they were annoyed
by their lack of nipples.

LAUGHTER

- Yes, that's probably what it was.
- Where are my nipples? I don't know.

I've lost my nipples!

So who managed to survive hearing
the siren's song? Remember?

- Odysseus. - Odysseus,
also known as Ulysses. Yeah.

As in The Odyssey. Yeah.

- To hear the song, what did he do
so he could hear it? - Taped it.

LAUGHTER

- No, he tapped himself. He
had his men... - Downloaded it!

On iTunes, along with
the Harry Potter audio book.

He had his men tape him
to the foremast of his ship.

And he made them
plug their own ears with wax

so they couldn't hear
the siren's song.

Because it's such
an extraordinary draw.

And had himself tied
with his ears open.

And said, "No matter how much
I shout in scream at you

"and you can see my face
saying, 'Let me go...' "

They do that at Simply Red gigs.
Do they?

- All the audience.
- So they couldn't hear it.

So they carried on rowing
and he was dying, because he

so wanted to go where

this incredible sound was
coming from, but he was the only

one who ever heard the siren's song
and survived, supposedly.

A charming story, not very
true, probably, but charming.

Actually, they were half...?

Fish.

No, we said that,
they were half bird.

- Bird? - Yes.
- JACK: Ooh, sexy.

They were half...fish.

- It gives a whole new meaning to
"Are you a leg or a breast man?"
- LAUGHTER

Why do I think
they were half fish, then?

Most people do, that's
why we asked the question.

To trap, you know, the common view
of them because they...

- When did mermaids get muddled
up with sirens? - Interesting point.

I think it's because they were
on the rocks by the coast,

so one assumed that they had
something to do with water,
but they were on land.

And they drew people
into their rocks.

Anyway, what kind of poisoning can
you get from one of these here?

What are these?
There we are, I'll give you two one.

- Lead poisoning. - Oh!

Lead poisoning, you say?
Is he right?

- He said that. Someone said that.
- Are they right?

There's no lead in them.
Lead poisoning.

- Graphite. - Graphite poisoning.

- Well... - A stab wound.

LAUGHTER

We're correcting ourselves
cos all the way back

to the A series, we said,
"There was no chance

"on God's or any other earth,
that we know of

"of getting lead poisoning
from a pencil."

And that is still true today,
but the pencils I've given

you are pre-1970s pencils
and the paint in them contains lead.

- So when I put it in my mouth,
you say... - Yeah.

- You have to clean it.
- I just did it again!

You are an idiot.

LAUGHTER
Yeah.

You have to clean a pencil of all
paint five times a week.

And then eventually,
and it has happened twice,

you would have lead toxicity.

Some people really do...suck the
ends of pencils.

But you would really, really have to
do it for a long, long time.

Lead became illegal
in all household products by 1978.

Anyway, now we've reached the end

and it's time to see the scores.

Well, in first place, with a
resoundingly clear plus nine points,

it's Victoria Coren Mitchell.

APPLAUSE

Yes!

In second place... In second place,

with a very impressive minus two
and a half, it's the audience.

APPLAUSE

In third place, terrific, terrific
debut, minus ten,

- Lloyd Langford! - Thank you.

APPLAUSE

Ah.

He can hold his head up with pride,
minus 16, Jack Whitehall.

APPLAUSE

And limping in the rear, I'm afraid,

it's Alan Davies with minus 39!

APPLAUSE

So, that's all from Victoria,
Jack, Lloyd, Alan and me.

And I leave you with the last
words of French grammarian,

Dominique Bouhours.

"I am about to - or
I am going to - die.

"Either expression is used."
Thank you and good night.