QI (2003–…): Season 19, Episode 10 - Smörgåsbord - full transcript
Sandi Toksvig invites you to enjoy the delectable delights of a QI smörgåsbord along with her guests Jen Brister, Jimmy Carr, Chris McCausland and Alan Davies.
APPLAUSE
Hello and welcome to Ql,
where tonight we'll be
stuffing ourselves
with a smorgasbord of
specialities starting with S.
Salivating at the spread are the
estimable Chris McCausland...
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
...the esteemed Jimmy Carr...
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
...the esoteric Jen Brister...
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
...and especially Alan Davies,
Esquire.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
And their buzzers are a spectacular
selection of symphonies.
Chris goes...
BLUE DANUBE WALTZ
Isn't that lovely?
Oh, way too classy for me. Ah.
Do you know who it is? No!
Strauss. Blue Danube.
Right, who's up next? Jimmy goes...
DRAMATIC ORCHESTRAL MUSIC PLAYS
Beginning with S.
Strings.
LAUGHTER
I mean...Shostakovich. Jen goes...
SEDATE CELLO MUSIC PLAYS
Streisand.
LAUGHTER
Saint—Saens. It's The Swan from
The Carnival Of The Animals.
Ah, so close. Alan goes...
POP MUSIC PLAYS
# S Club... #
Ah, more like it!
# We're gonna show you how
Shake your body from side to side. #
Right, to start with Randy Scandi,
the word smorgasbord is Swedish
for "sandwich table"
so my first question is,
what is the secret of a
superlative sandwich?
BUZZER
Two guys and a girl?
LAUGHTER
I mean, fair. Fair, I think.
Yes. Well, yeah.
OK. Anybody else want a... Chris?
BUZZER
I'll go for anything that just
doesn't have mayonnaise in it,
cos it's... Why?
It's just the devil's spunk, innit?
Oh! Oh!
GROANS AND LAUGHTER
Wow. Hello. It's just used to hold
sandwiches together these days,
like a sandwich glue, isn't it?
And it's just everywhere.
Trying to find one without
it's almost impossible.
Tell me about it - two guys,
one girl threesome, same thing!
LAUGHTER
Jen, what's your favourite sandwich?
Er, two girls, no guy. OK, yeah.
Erm...
JIMMY LAUGHS
It has to be. Something I
often search on the interweb
just to see what's going on.
I think I have an answer to the
perfect sandwich. Go for it.
I think I know genuinely
what this might be. OK.
French toast. I think if you
do a bit of French toast
then anything in that sandwich...
Is going to work for you. Huge.
I'm a big fan of the Monte Cristo.
What is the Monte Cristo?
It's Gruyere cheese,
it's turkey, ham,
French toast, powdered sugar.
It's a delight.
The powdered sugar caught me
by surprise at the end there. Yes,
with the Gruyere cheese!
I mean, is that when you call it
in your house? Eh?
LAUGHTER
A little wrap of powdered
sugar on it.
Well, maybe...
Let's get this party started!
Apparently, the secret of a
great sandwich is to sit on it.
Ohh. Ohh!
So, Paul Hollywood,
who I know a little bit,
his favourite is a bacon butty,
and he told Good Housekeeping that
he sits on it to make them thin.
Is that why it's called a butty?!
...Yeah. Wow.
LAUGHTER
I'm trying to picture
the scene. Yeah.
Is it in a sandwich bag?
Is he nude?
Is there a tea towel between them...
OK. How's he set it up?
Yeah, so there was a woman
called MFK Fisher.
She's widely considered the best
food writer in the 20th century,
and her favourite sandwich
was called the railroad,
so it's a flattened
sourdough baguette
and it's got, I'm afraid,
home—made mayonnaise -
Chris, I can only apologise -
Dijon mustard, and then
ham and Jack cheese, which I
think you'd like very much.
But, anyway, what she used to do,
she used to wrap hers in plastic
and then sit on it... Oh.
...because she said it warmed it up
very slightly as well. Mm.
Doesn't it get sweaty? Well...
What you've just described is a
sweaty ham and cheese sandwich
that's been sat on by a woman. Yeah.
Now I want one.
LAUGHTER
Mm-mm-mm.
That, THAT is a Google search.
So, who invented the sandwich?
Oh, it's the Earl of Sandwich.
Oh, it isn't!
We've said it before, though.
So that's the earl on the right,
the fourth Earl of Sandwich.
He can take credit for fizzy drinks.
It was the fourth Earl of Sandwich
and the first Lord Commissioner
of the Admiralty,
and he backed the English chemist
Joseph Priestley
to invent a system for making
carbonated water for the Navy.
He thought it would cure scurvy.
I mean, it didn't, but Priestley
did invent carbonated water,
for which he first published
his method in 1767. Wow.
Why did they need carbonated water?
Well, you've got to have something
with your Scotch, I think.
It's the way forward. OK. No.
They thought it would cure scurvy.
I went to Japan a couple of years
ago and they had Scotch and soda.
They're so crazy about
Scotch and soda.
They had it on draught at
like minus two degrees.
Is it pre—mixed? Wow.
Yeah. Pre—mixed, on—draught
Scotch and soda.
They make their own Scotch by the
billions of gallons, don't they?
Yeah, they do.
Is it relatively inexpensive?
Well, no.
They make some of the best
Scotches in the world.
Hibiki 30 is one of the greats,
but, yeah, they're very into it,
cos they bought the barrels
from Scotland in the '70s,
when the Scottish business
was on its arse,
so they've got all the good barrels.
But they can legitimately
call it Scotch?
To be honest, they just
call it whisky.
They call it Japanese whisky.
OK, fine, yeah.
Anyway, longest recorded sandwich,
over two—fifths of a mile long.
735 metres.
It was made in Beirut in 2011.
Chicken, lettuce, tomato and
pickles, in case you're wondering,
and they invented a special oven
so that it could cook really slowly.
That feels like a fundraiser.
Yeah, it's a fundraiser.
Apparently, we are eating more
and more sandwiches,
according to the British
Sandwich Association.
SCATTERED LAUGHTER
There's nothing bleaker than
a British sandwich, is there?
Honestly, is it?
You go to any other country.
You go to Denmark and they've got
these beautiful open sandwiches,
you go to America - they have to
put poles in it to keep it together.
A stake through itsheart.
Then you go into, like, a service
station or something in this country
and you're just... It's this bleak
crayfish and rocket kind of...
Ooh! And do you know what
makes me very, very cross?
Right, you see... It's whatever
you're thinking of now.
Just when they put the filling just
in the middle. In the middle!
SIMULTANEOUSLY: And then
there's nothing on the outside!
I don't like a sandwich
when you bite in the front
and all the insides are making
a break for it out the back.
Yeah. I don't like one of those.
You know the secret to avoid that -
you've got to sit on the
sandwich first. Yes.
The British Sandwich Association.
Anybody who's ever hosted a
corporate is going to feel jealous.
They have an annual awards ceremony.
They're called the Sammies. Oh.
The Sammies! Yeah.
In 2020, I can tell you the
New Sandwich Award - Hot Category -
was won by Deli Lites
Irish Stout Pastrami.
Ooh. Just putting that out there.
I do like pastrami.
In Denmark, cos they
love to eat a bit of fat,
there is an open sandwich
called a fed mad med knaphuller
and what it is, it's a piece of
rye bread with animal fat -
beef dripping, basically -
and thick, rough salt,
and the rough salt melts into the
fat and looks like buttonholes,
so it's called a "fat food
with buttonholes." Ooh!
Honestly, it's delicious.
I'm just saying.
Malcolm Gladwell wrote
this brilliant essay
about McDonald's fries... Yes!
..cos the reason McDonald's
was such a huge global hit
wasn't really the burgers,
it was the fries were the best thing
anyone had had in the 1970s.
And, unfortunately, they were ruined
by an American congressman
because he had a heart attack,
and he blamed it on the fries.
He thought because they cook them
in beef tallow they're bad for you.
Oh. So he said, "Cook them in
vegetable fat. Much better for you.”
Turns out he was absolutely wrong,
but his campaign got McDonald's to
change the way they cook their fries
so they're no longer as delicious.
Oh, wow. Why are we not eating?
Let's get some takeout.
What would happen if we ordered
a takeaway and asked them
to deliver it to the set?
Would they? Yes. Shall we see
if they can get it here in time?
What do you fancy? I'd like chips.
I'd like to try a milkshake.
Have you not had a milkshake?
I haven't had a milkshake
since I was about ten.
What's... I should know this
from watching kids TV,
but what's the address for the BBC?
ALAN: W1A 1AA.
For God's sake, make sure
there's no mayonnaise.
Yes, OK, hang on.
We're just putting the order in.
Sidling on to our next snack,
how many sausages does it take
to change the world?
BUZZER PLAYS STRAUSS
Yes, Chris?
Three. That's a good answer.
One to hold the world and
two to turn the ladder.
SCATTERED LAUGHTER
Extra point.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Unless it's a German sausage,
in which case it's one,
because zey are most efficient.
OK! So...
Germany is a good place
to head towards.
Was there a fight over a sausage?
We are talking about the
Reformation,
which changed the face
of Europe forever,
and some of it due to sausages.
In Switzerland, the main debate
about the Reformation
was whether or not you could
eat sausages during Lent.
So, the Catholic Church had
banned sausages in 320
because they said they were
associated with pagan festivals,
and Emperor Leo the Wise,
he banned blood sausages
and ruled that anybody caught
eating or selling them
should be beaten, exiled,
have their property confiscated,
and have all their body hair
shaved off.
Feels like his mind wandered
at the end there. Yeah.
Anyway, 1522, in an act of defiance,
a dozen priests, printers and
tradesmen met in a Zurich workshop
and ate two sausages between them.
And this was radical,
absolutely radical,
and one of the priests, Huldrych
Zwingli, he wrote a sermon
called On Choice And Freedom Of
Foods defending what they'd done,
and said that the New Testament
did not forbid eating sausages
and there was fighting! There was
fighting between his supporters
on this and his opponents, there
were vigilantes trying to find him
to kidnap him and bring him
in front of the bishop,
but it took less than a year
for all of these rules to be
abolished in Zurich
and the Reformation soon spread
to the rest of Switzerland.
Had it not been for this meeting
where they ate two sausages,
that might not have happened.
Wow. Wow. I know!
Why might you associate
botulism with sausages?
Er, because that's
where it all started.
Did it start in a sausage?
Yeah. Botulus is Latin for sausage.
You know, botox? Yeah.
Does that come from botulism?
Yes, darling, it absolutely does.
So there was a doctor called
Justinus Kerner and he is the person
who worked out how these meats
were becoming contaminated.
He did the first
clinical description
of what's called the
botulinum toxin.
He became known as Wurst Kerner,
Sausage Kerner.
So who was the guy in the '70s?
Some guy in LA, presumably, that
came up with injecting in the face?
Because they used to inject it
in the bladder for incontinence
so it probably went,
if you can freeze that... You can
freeze the forehead, as well.
..freeze this, you know?
And what better thing to freeze
when you're an actor
than the part of your body you need
to use the most, your face?
I would look surprised now
if 1 could.
LAUGHTER
Do you know what allantoid means?
I don't know what allantoid means.
I dread to think.
Sausage—shaped. Does it? Yes.
LAUGHTER
Noted.
What about chipolata?
Little sausage.
Well, it's weird, actually.
It means "contains onions”,
so, cipolla - onion.
But they don't have onions.
Hi, is that Deliveroo?
PHONE: Hello. Hello.
Have you got my delivery?
Hello? Hello.
Yeah, hello?
Dude, this is the bit where
you talk. Yeah, hello?
LAUGHTER
OK, he hung up.
Where is he on your little map?
We're still doing the show, yeah?
I'm so happy! Why did it never occur
to me to order food during the show?
LAUGHTER
I'm SO happy.
I can't believe Jimmy brings his
phone with him onto the set.
I mean, I know he's needed it
this time...
Yes, well, you never know, do you?
You've done QI before.
Sometimes I Google stuff.
Yeah.
LAUGHTER
Sometimes I go,
"What does chipolata mean?”
I pretend to be taking a phone call,
sneaky little glance.
But my phone talks, mate -
everyone would know I'm doing it!
"Has Chris got someone
under the desk?"
Right, moving on.
How would you respond if a
South African said, "Buy a donkey"?
I'd just probably buy a donkey.
You know? "Buy a donkey."
"OK. Not a problem."
LAUGHTER
So what you should respond to
"Baie dankie," is "Yu iz welkom,"
because it sounds like "Buy a
donkey," but it's identical to
the Afrikaans phrase which means,
"Thank you very much."
So, phonetically, "Buy a donkey."
Baie dankie. Baie dankie? Yeah.
So there's a number of phrases
that you can say in English,
which have very different meanings
in other countries.
So, Chris, I want you to spell
the word "socks" out loud.
Ess oh see kay ess?
OK, so, "Eso si que es," is Spanish
for "That's really what it is."
Isn't that cool?
That's not even real. Eso si que es.
But it is real? Yeah. Eso si que es.
Eso si que es! We really need to
work on the accent, Jimmy.
It's good, isn't it? Eso si que es.
I'm doing a lot with the hands.
I did not know that! Eso si que es.
I'm going to tell my mum.
Is she Spanish? Yeah,
I've got a Spanish mum!
Fantastic. Eso si que es.
So, Alan, do you want to
read the next one out?
SLOWLY: Yellow blue tibia.
Yeah, yellow—blue—tibia.
Is... Yellow—blue—tibia.
Yes! Ya lyublyu tebya.
Yes, what... Is Russian.
It means yellow—blue tibia.
No, it... It's the leg bone. It's a
funny colour. Yellow—blue tibia.
It's Russian for, "I love you."
Ahh. Aw, ya lyublyu tebya.
Ya lyublyu tebya.
Ya lyublyu... Ya lyublyu tebya.
But you wouldn't forget it.
You'd go, "Oh, yeah, I've got that."
Right, let's try this one, Jen.
Give this one a go.
Johnny Marr! Johnny Marr,
guitarist in The Smiths.
Is this some sort of rhyming slang?
No, it's, "I'm fed up," in French.
What?! J'en ai marre!
♪ en ai marre. Ah, j'en ai marre.
♪ en ai marre, I'm fed up.
Exactly sums up The Smiths,
doesn't it?
It's so perfect, isn't it?
Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now -
Johnny Marr! J'en ai marre!
I quite like this one.
This next one is,
"Cocks taste good."
LAUGHTER
And where's this from? Estonia.
It means 12 months.
Kaksteist kudd!
LAUGHTER
"How long have you been here?"
"Kaksteist kudd!"
"No, really, how long
have you been here?"
Let's do another Spanish one.
Do you speak Spanish, Jen?
I understand it. OK, try this one.
"I meant t'kill ye'?"
It's in Spanish.
Oh, it's also, it's Irish for
attempted murder.
"I meant t'kill ye"!"
“Is there butter?" In Spanish.
Hay mantequilla!
Oh, I meant to kill you.
Hay mantequilla.
OK, yeah, I've got it, yep.
I Can't Believe It Wasn't Murder.
I know, right? I love these.
I think they're really wonderful.
So clever.
In 1967, an American actor
called Luis van Rooten,
he released a book called
Mots D'Heures: Gousses, Rames.
It's a collection of work
that looks like
ancient nonsense poems in French,
but when you read out,
they sound like English
nursery rhymes with a really
strong French accent. OK.
But have a look at this and see
what you can make of it.
Jen, do you want to read that out?
Un petit d'un petit,
S'etonne aux Halles.
Un petit d'un petit,
Ah! Degree te fallent.
OK, so let's have a listen to a
French speaker doing the whole thing
and see if you can guess what
is the English nursery rhyme
that is, in fact, being said here?
Un petit d'un petit,
S'etonne aux Halles.
Un petit d'un petit,
Ah! Degree te fallent
Indolent qui ne sort cesse.
Indolent qui ne se mene.
Qu'importe un petit
Tout Gai de Reguennes.
LAUGHTER
Well, if you didn't know it
till the end, you got it then!
"Together again!"
It is, in fact, Humpty Dumpty
done with nonsense French.
Isn't it wonderful? Yeah.
Here's a few more
linguistic oddities.
If you say, "Yes, we can see,"
that is the word yes in
four different languages.
Yes, oui, ken, si... English,
French, Hebrew and Spanish.
Never said that. No.
No? That's fair.
That's fair, actually.
If you say my name in a Jamaican
accent, it's Jamaica.
Oh, Jimmycarr! Jamaica. But only if
you do a Jamaican accent, weirdly.
Am I right, Jen, that some
Spanish speakers
have trouble pronouncing the S
at the front of English words,
that they will add a vowel sound
at the front, like, "eh—sorry."
JEN LAUGHS
Yes, so when, for example,
my mum says any...
Pretty much any word that
begins with the letter S,
she'll put an E in front of it.
So, eh—sandwich, eh—soup,
my brother's name, eh—Steven.
Seriously? She named
her child something she...
She can't actually say
my brother's name, yeah.
"It's Steven, Mum." "Es Steven."
"It's just Steven." "Esteven?”
"Leave it. Never mind."
But what is interesting,
even though my mum does struggle
with saying Steven,
she can't say it,
in Spanish, sopa, she can say that.
That's soup in Spanish.
Sopa? No problem.
But if she has to say soup,
it's eh—soup.
It's too much.
It's too much for her.
How could you make yourself
understood in another country
without any words at all?
Pointing and shouting in English.
Shouting English very loud.
2019, researchers at the
University of California in Berkeley
asked 50 people to vocalise
certain feelings,
and then they asked more than
1,000 people to explain
what it was that they'd heard,
and it gave us a map of 24
distinct human emotions,
which can be conveyed without words.
So, what we're going to do,
each panellist has got
a couple of emotions we want
you to convey without words
and see if anybody can work out
which ones they're doing.
Chris, I believe that you have
been told yours in advance.
I have, and, luckily enough,
they're the two that I've got,
cos my wife says that I've got,
like, three less emotions
than what Facebook allows me
to react to posts with.
LAUGHTER So...
So luckily they... Do you want
to try yours with no words, then?
Two emotions.
Grr! Anger? Frustration.
Anger, yeah. And the other one?
Mmm!
Hm.
Oh. Well, the first one was
a home defeat for Liverpool,
and the second one was a draw.
LAUGHTER
Obviously, I'm miles off the
money with this one, aren't 1?
Hmm.
You quite like it.
Yeah. Mild approval,
is that an emotion?
Mild amusement. Amusement!
Amusement. Oh, no, you need
to do a little hmm—hm-hm.
Hm-hm-hm.
LAUGHTER
Jimmy, have you got a card with
yours on or been told what they are?
Are we doing them sequentially or...
I'm going to conflate the two.
I mean, I would do them both
together, if you can. Ohhmm!
Ohmm!
LAUGHTER
HE BLOWS RASPBERRY
Mm—brr! Ooh!
Where's Frankie Howard?
It is Frankie Howard!
Constipated and aroused. Yeah.
Constipated while aroused?
The aroused thing is heading
in the right direction.
I don't know, but it's upsetting
when you get eye contact with me!
JIMMY LAUGHS
He was doing desire
and negative surprise.
Negative surprise?! I think it's
like Kenneth Williams, isn't it?
He would, "Ooh, matron! Mmrr."
And there would be a slight...
Right, Jen. You got two?
I'm going to do them separately.
I think I'm not going to conflate.
Cos that didn't work, did it? Yeah!
All right, here we go. First one.
Err—arrgh.
It's Kenneth Williams
again, isn't it?
LAUGHTER
Is "Wallace or Gromit"
an emotion? Honestly...
One of the two, isn't it?
No, I didn't give it my all...
I was... You were distracting me.
By what? By sitting here looking?
Yes. In my peripheral vision.
You were conflating somehow.
You appeared to be swallowing
a Brussels sprout.
No. I'll do it again.
GIGGLING
Rrgh.
Wow. No, wait, that's not it.
Hang on. Last one, last time.
That's somebody covering up a fart.
What my dog does when she
can't get out the back door.
LAUGHTER
Urgh. You've made a
terrible mistake! Urhh.
LAUGHTER
Yeah, close, close.
It's embarrassment. Oh!
Embarrassment. Yeah.
Second one, here we go.
This one you'll definitely get.
Ehh?
What? Confusion. Yes!
APPLAUSE
Confusion is exactly right.
Very well done. Thank you.
Alan?
Mind I've got no... OK. Ah!
LAUGHTER
Ohh!
Ohh. Er...
Urgh, urgh!
Disgust? Yes, yes!
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Yes!
Haven't been cast in anything
for five years!
This is all you need.
This is the audition.
This is the moment
I can make a comeback!
This is your moment, Alan.
Right, one more, Alan.
OK, here we go.
Oh—-ahh-ahh!
Ahh!
Ecstasy. Yes!
Oh, my goodness.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Are you guys a couple? Ahh.
In another life, Jimmy, definitely.
In another life.
Right. Speaking of not speaking,
why do fascists hate subtitles?
Is it something to do with the fact
that the rhythm and the volume
and the tone and the general noise
and the performance of the speech,
and...is more important, really,
than what's actually being said?
Well, I certainly think that is...
It's kind of an emotional journey.
That's not the Downfall thing,
is it? Yeah.
You know, that video of a
famous scene from Downfall.
Yes, in the bunker.
Where he's, sort of, slapping the
table and going, "Nein, nein, nein!”
And then they've done the
subtitles... For everything.
Everything. Yeah.
My favourite one, it's Doncaster
Rovers have lost at home.
So, let's just step it back a bit.
Some countries nearly always
subtitle foreign—language films
and others nearly always dub.
It's partly a cost issue, so it is
actually much more expensive
to dub than it is to do
subtitles, obviously.
But in Europe, Germany, Spain,
France and Italy all decided to dub,
and certainly it would be
better for fascists
cos you can control
what is being said.
You can replace it with
whatever you choose
and say whatever message you like.
It doesn't have to be the same
as in the original language.
But if you listen to any
Spanish show,
particularly when I was growing up,
if I'd go to my grandmother's house,
I think everything was dubbed
by two people.
The female actress
would play her son,
but she'd also play the mother,
but she'd also play the grandmother,
and you'd just see this woman
who was, like...
Absolutely knackered by the
end of the, like, one scene
if there was three female characters
in it cos she'd play all of them.
I think I prefer subtitled TV on the
basis that I don't distract myself.
I could be watching
my favourite show
and I'll look at my phone
halfway through.
I mean, I'm looking at my phone
now and I'm on the show.
Whereas when it's subtitles and
you don't speak the language,
you really have to focus, and
you kind of find TV's actually
very enjoyable when you're passive.
When you're paying attention.
And so I think when I watch
Call My Agent or something,
I just go, "Well, this is terrific.”
I love it cos by the end you think,
"Well, I could run France now.
I've totally got this.
"“I've entirely understood every
word." "How hard could it be?"
Did you watch The Bridge?
Yeah. Yeah.
I had a feeling that I was
missing something... Yeah.
Because there's this Danish—Swedish
thing going on,
I kept feeling that I'm
missing something
in the way they're speaking
to one another
or references they're making
or their attitude to one another.
Absolutely. There are nuances.
Just isn't there.
What's the dynamic between the
Swedes and the Danes?
Who looks down on who?
Oh, it depends.
I mean, I'm Danish, and it
would not be for me to say
that the Swedes are really
very drunk people.
It would not be for me.
LAUGHTER
A nation... A nation of alcoholics.
You wouldn't want to label them.
I wouldn't want to label them
in any way. Nude alcoholics.
Nude alcoholics, I'm afraid.
Been lots of wonderful
subtitling errors.
BBC Breakfast - Cromer, famous
for its crap instead of crab.
BBC Breakfast report from Wimbledon,
"We might be bad at some things in
the UK, but we're good at killing."
Instead of queuing.
LAUGHTER
Coverage of the
Queen Mother's funeral,
"We'll now have a moment's violence
for the Queen Mother."
It's a very good idea.
We'll have a minute's violence.
Chris, have you ever used the system
for visually impaired viewers?
The audio description? Yeah.
So that's, like, our equivalent,
isn't it?
They fit in description in
the gaps of dialogue,
but they feel the need to
fit it in every single gap.
There's just no pausing for breath
because they go,
"What can we put in this gap?"
"Let's tell them he's
turned around!"
"Let's tell them he's shut the
door." I heard the door close!
LAUGHTER
Let me give you my
favourite examples
from Channel 4's Naked Attraction.
So it's a show - I've never seen it.
The lovely Anna Richardson presents,
and gradually she reveals
the naked bodies of...
They're doing a celebrity version.
I could get you on. No, I'm good.
They're not! Shut up!
They totally believed you! It's
only a question of time, though,
isn't it? I totally believedyou!
Wow. No. It's only a question of
time we get that phone call.
They gradually reveal a naked body,
a studio guest, to a chooser
who picks one to take on a date.
Oh, we've seen it, Sandi!
Oh, I haven't seen it.
So, the chooser in this instance
was Brian.
Anna Richardson - "Can we please
see the bottom half of the bodies?"
Audio description - "Wearing
a colourful patterned shirt,
"baby—faced Brian gulps as the
outer shells start to rise.
"Fingers pressed to his mouth,
Brian scans the line—up
"of well-landscaped lady gardens."
LAUGHTER
Well, I like that! Makes them sound
like they've got tulips growing!
I actually think that's... Yeah.
"Well—landscaped” is lovely.
Wow. It's poetic.
You don't want it overgrown.
You don't want the council
coming in every two years.
You want it properly kept.
Everyone likes a patio.
Wow.
We've actually got a subtitle from
Ql. Let's have a quick look.
"I feel like I'm giving out
top tits now."
That's what it says. Oh!
Did you know if you go onto Pornhub,
there is an audio described
section on Pornhub.
Oh, my God. Seriously?
Yeah, yeah, yeah! I checked.
I had a look just to see just out
of curiosity. Just for research!
I understand - for research.
Can't go blinder, mate.
LAUGHTER
When audio description
first came out, this is a...
It was introduced on DVDs and it
was there so you can watch the film
on your own and not miss
anything that's happening.
On DVDs. Fantastic - brilliant idea.
But you had to be able to see the
menus to turn it on, didn't you?
Well, there's a school
for the blind near us,
and they've got braille
underneath the sign,
and I went, "Well, who knows
to press there?" Yeah.
There are places that put braille
on, like, emergency fire exit signs,
which means if the fire alarm goes
off you've got to feel every wall.
LAUGHTER
You're getting warmer!
You're getting warmer!
Anyway, here's the thing
about dubbing.
There's some extraordinary films in
which people have not spoken at all
that you would think had spoken.
Many of the Bond Girls in
the first ten Bond films
weren't voiced by the actresses
who played them.
That's weird. It's not as woke
as you think, James Bond, is it?
No, no, no. I know! That's strange.
How are we going to know what
the woman's point of view is?
Yes! I know.
All of these women were all voiced
by a German voiceover artist
called Nikki van der Zyl.
And in Dr No, she voiced
all of the women's parts,
apart from Miss Moneypenny and
three other very small parts. Wow.
One of my favourite singers is
somebody possibly nobody's ever
heard of.
It is the person who played all
the leads in My Fair Lady,
West Side Story, The King And I,
sang for Deborah Kerr,
sang for Audrey Hepburn.
Marni Nixon is the person
who sang all of those parts.
She used to be known as
the Ghostess with the Mostest.
What's happened about the food?
Oh, yeah, hang on.
It's here somewhere. I think
it's here. It's been delivered.
At Reception they're
stuffing their faces!
Er, here we go!
What's edible, has 25 arms
and weighs 12 tonnes?
BUZZER PLAYS STRAUSS
Oh. Chris!
All 25 members of the Japanese
one—armed sumo team.
LAUGHTER
12 tonnes is a lot.
That's a shedload.
That's a shedload of tonnage.
Right? Yeah, that is...
Not for a sumo team. I don't want
to eat anything that's 12 tonnes.
Well, not a whole one.
No, not at once.
Well, it's a sort of
smorgasbord treat
that you might find in the desert.
You might find in the desert?
What could you find in the desert?
Cactus?
Cactus, yes, exactly right.
You can eat a cactus?
It's the ruby red fruit of
the saguaro cactus.
It ripens once a year,
sort of by late June.
You can eat it raw, you can
make it into jam, wine or syrup,
and it tastes like strawberry.
And this cactus, the saguaro cactus,
is the largest of all cacti.
It grows up to 65 feet tall,
so that's 20 metres. Wow.
Weighs as much as 12 tonnes.
It is reputed to live for 200 years
and can have more than 25 arms.
Wow. The astonishing thing
about this cactus -
60 feet tall, some of them -
the roots are only four to six
inches deep.
Oh, wow. I know!
So how does it fare in high winds?
It spreads out.
They spread out really wide. Oh.
They spread out as wide
as the plant is tall,
so they'll go out 60 feet.
But even the main taproot
is only two foot deep
and they grow incredibly slowly,
so it could be...
If it's ten years old, it's probably
about an inch—and—a—half high.
I mean, they're just really...
Really? Yeah, like myself.
Just taking my time.
LAUGHTER
Anyway, this is the cutest thing.
Saguaro cacti are
home to the elf owl.
Aww, it's little. Look at his little
face! The world's smallest.
He's trapped!
This is the cutest, tiniest...
It's grown around him over 20 years.
It's the size of a sparrow,
and they're so sweet.
They pretend to be dead
when they're handled.
They just go like that...and hope
the predator will relax its grip.
Oh, I've done that. Yeah, yeah.
LAUGHTER
Have you ever seen an owl that's
been shaved from the waist down?
LAUGHTER
What? Yeah, that's how I like 'em!
It's had a... Sorry, a
landscaped lady garden?
Yeah, it's fully patioed.
You would not believe how long
an owl's legs are.
Why would it be shaved?
I think the owl had been injured
and it had needed to have its
bottom half shaved in order to...
That's what they said. But,
honestly, it's the freakiest thing
because when you see an owl you
just think there's little feet there
and then this big, sort of,
feathery thing...
Have they got really long legs?
Their legs are insane!
They've, like, got a head
and then these LEGS.
They're just, like, the most
bizarre... Google it.
Feathers grow back, then?
I never really thought of that.
So if they lose a feather,
a new one will grow?
They will grow back, yeah.
Wow. That's amazing.
Slipping along the sideboard, now,
sofrito is an Italian mixture of
chopped carrots, onions and celery
used as a base for soups,
stews and sauces,
but what is suffrajitsu?
BUZZER PLAYS SAINT—-SAENS
Yes?
A ninja suffragette.
Is correct. What?! Is it?
LAUGHTER
I think I know something about this.
That is hilarious! Wow.
So, 18th of November 1910.
It was also known as Black Friday.
This was when two people got killed,
right? Outside Parliament?
A group of suffragettes
were attacked by police.
Two women died as a result, and
they wanted a way to fight back.
There was a campaigner and martial
arts enthusiast called Edith Garrud,
and she became the
official jujitsu instructor
to the Women's Social
and Political Union.
I love it! It gets better.
It gets better. They had, like,
a hard core of 30 women
who were like the shock troops
of the suffragettes.
They were known as the Amazons.
Yeah, and Emmeline Pankhurst
would give a speech
and they would get her
out or protect her.
There's a great incident where they
got her out of a building in Camden
and she was wearing a veil,
and the police eventually
managed to wrestle her away
and it was a decoy and she
was gone. That's amazing.
But these women carried clubs
under their dresses.
I mean, they were very,
very, very determined.
And there's a marvellous cartoon in
Punch magazine of this woman
Edith standing in front of a group
of terrified policemen entitled
The Suffragette That Knew Jujitsu.
I wanted to show you something,
a show—and-tell I brought in.
Ooh. Are you going
to do some jujitsu?
Well, so the Women's Social
and Political Union
was the one that was much more
vehement in their approach.
You know, they did do fighting
and they did blow up postboxes
and so on. The radical arm. Yeah.
The National Union of
Women's Suffrage Societies,
which was started in 1897,
was actually the largest.
It was the one that was run
by Millicent Fawcett,
and I bought this at auction
not very long ago,
but it's the original sign
from their offices.
Oh, wow. It's very cool, isn't it?
That is so cool! Wow.
I was so thrilled to have it.
Law abiding? They were...
They wanted to say that
they were law—abiding
to distinguish themselves from
the people who did jujitsu.
Cos the others presumably
had some sort of
"We're some rule—breakers in here."
They were a couple of
rule—breakers in there.
The very first jujitsu teacher
of either sex in Europe
was a man called Edward
William Barton—Wright
and he was Edith Garrud's
first teacher.
He had developed his own version
of the art using walking sticks.
He called it Bartitsu.
Bartitsu was used by Conan Doyle,
so Sherlock Holmes uses it against
Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls.
While we're hitting
people with sticks,
do you know what
sluggard wakers are?
Waking people up? Yeah.
Where would you be waking them?
Train. On the train? "Get off!"
"It's your stop, get off!" No.
So, if you fell asleep during mass,
especially in the north of England,
they were employed by churches.
It was usually a woman,
the sluggard walker.
I'd love that job. Yeah.
Just go round and...
She would hit men with a stick,
but if it was a woman... No, no.
...she would tickle them under
the nose with a fox's tail.
In Zen Buddhism there's
something slightly similar.
If you meditate and
you start to drop off,
you could be woken by a thwack from
a stick which is called a keisaku.
I mean, it's just not what you
associate with Zen Buddhism, is it?
No, not really. Yeah.
ALAN IMITATES WHIP
Meditating? Oh, all right.
Suffrajitsu was suffragette jujitsu.
And now to some shrewd shortcuts -
some useful S hacks
we found during the course of
our research this year.
Let's see what you can do
with these.
So I have here one of
those little plastic tables
that you get from a takeaway pizza.
Any thoughts what you
might find useful for it?
They always seem like a little
dollhouse table, don't they?
So what you can do is cut a little
bit of the leg off like that...
You'll have your eye out there.
..and take a mobile phone...
Oh, I see what you've done there.
...and turn it into a stand for a
mobile phone. For a mobile.
Oh, my. You've just saved
POUNDS. I know!
LAUGHTER
I mean, this is... This show's...
If you're watching this it's
paid for itself, hasn't it?
OK, here we go.
This one, I like this one.
What we're going to do
is slice this banana
into three exact pieces
using just your fingers.
So, here's the trick to it.
You put your finger...
No, I don't want to.
..In the top of the banana...
Right. No, I can't do that.
..push it all the way down...
Oh. Oh, I very nearly had it.
..In one piece...
...then you split the other one...
I mean, you're an absolute... Who?
..In two.
Where am I putting my fingers?
Start at the very top, Chris. Here?
Yeah, and press down...
Into the banana's urethra.
This is the, like, the little...
LAUGHTER
Sorry, can I ask, are these stunt
bananas or do all bananas do this?
All bananas will do this.
I've never thought, "This banana,
I need this in threes."
That's cos you've only got
two children. Wow.
I've got three children. Ah, OK.
Right, bananas away.
That's genuinely... I found that
not only useful, fun to do!
OK. I've got one more.
If you are right—handed and
you need to unscrew, OK,
a whole lot of screws, it can
be very tiring because
screwing and unscrewing are done
with different muscles in the hand,
so when you're screwing in it'll go
across the top of your arm, Chris.
You're using those muscles, which
are much stronger. Extenders and...
When your unscrewing, you're using
the underneath of your arm.
That's the pronator teres -
it's quite a small muscle,
so the trick is to unscrew
with your left hand.
You will get tired much less quickly
because you are using the outer
muscles, again, on your left hand...
Shut the front door! ..and therefore
you don't get so tired. Really?
So, go in with the right hand,
out with the left. Exactly, yes.
Or get a little rechargeable
screwdriver.
I've learned a lot. Thank you, Jen.
Anyway, those were a few life hacks.
And so to the seasoning of our show,
the sloppy salmagundi
that is general ignorance.
Fingers on buzzers, please.
What footwear named after
their victorious leader
did the troops wear at Waterloo?
Well, it's Wellington boots,
isn't it?
KLAXON BLARES
Only one person was wearing
Wellington boots. Who was it?
Wellington. It was Wellington.
So, originally they were
commissioned by the Duke
to go with what was then
a new fashion for trousers
rather than breeches,
and he ordered them from
the shoemaker in April 1815
so at the time of the Battle
of Waterloo, June 18th,
he was the only person wearing them.
They're more like a sort of
calf—high leather boot
than anything. And what is the
difference between breeches
and trousers? Breeches'll go to
the top of your boot, wouldn't they?
Yeah, and trousers all the way down,
so this was something you could
put your trousers into. Inside.
I got some new wellingtons
for Christmas. Darling.
You really have not been out,
have you? I really do feel like...
...the fact that I got so much
pleasure from them... Is a worry.
...it said so much about where
I am in my life right now.
LAUGHTER
But I kept talking about them
and putting them on
and looking for muddy bits
of the heath to walk in.
LAUGHTER
We got a dog over lockdown,
as most people did,
and we go to Bushy Park,
and I can't handle it
because it's so uneven that I never
know what the next step is bringing.
And I haven't got wellies as well,
so I'm trying to keep it in me...
Keep me grip on me Adidas.
You can't skimp on wellies.
You've got to go all in.
I had a joke years ago, which was,
"Who picks up guide dog shit?”
Maybe you could shed some light.
You just move your hands around
until it gets warmer, mate.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
JIMMY LAUGHS
Brilliant.
Anyway, the British soldiers
of the day wore hessian boots.
They were tasselled and
decorated and loose—fitting
and worn outside the trousers, so
they did not wear Wellington boots.
And, of course, the Battle of
Waterloo was actually
a victory over the French
for the British, and the...
The Germans were on our side,
weren't they?
It was the Prussians, yeah,
and other allies as well,
and the Prussian Gebhard
Leberecht von Blucher
led an army who all wore
shoes named after him,
so the answer to the question,
"What footwear named after
their victorious leader
"did the troops wear at Waterloo?"
The answer is the Blucher.
It was an ankle boot commissioned
especially by him
for the comfort of the
ordinary Prussian soldier.
But, after the war,
the Wellington boot became a
sort of patriotic symbol of Britain.
I mean, any gentleman worth
his salt would wear them,
and it became so synonymous
with the Duke that by 1830
he was being depicted in cartoons
as a wellington with a head.
CHUCKLING
Wellington's wellingtons were
originally just Wellington's.
How often can you see
Halley's Comet?
BUZZER PLAYS STRAUSS
Yes?
It comes round every 70 years,
doesn't it? Ah.
But can you see it every
time it comes round?
I think I've seen it. Have you?
Yeah, I'm sure I was at school
and Halley's Comet
was a really big thing
and everyone's going, "Don't forget
to look in the sky and see!" 19867
That sounds about right,
cos I would have been...
I wouldn't have been born.
LAUGHTER
For casting purposes...
For casting purposes,
I wouldn't have been alive.
Well, the truth of it, you can
see bits of it twice a year,
so it appeared in the sky,
obviously, 1066 -
you can see it in the
Bayeux Tapestry.
The Chinese have references
to it even earlier.
The main body has arrived on cue
every 75 or 76 years since.
In fact, both 1835 and 1910,
to correspond with the birth
and death of Mark Twain,
which is a sort of curiosity.
It last appeared in 1986.
It's due back in 2061 but you
can see parts of it twice a year
when the debris appears
in meteor showers.
So, the closer the comet
flies to the sun,
the more of its ice and dust
and gas it loses.
It's about one thousandth of
its mass each orbit, right?
So twice a year, the Earth passes
through this sort of...
I don't know what you call it. Smear
of ex—comet? Could you say that?
Yeah. So, when it goes
around the sun,
it constantly loses
bits of itself? Yeah.
And, over time, that becomes
a continuous ring of debris,
but Earth passes through that line,
doesn't it?
That's why you get the
meteor showers and things.
Yes, so in May, you can see
the Eta Aquariid meteor shower
and then October the Orionid
meteor shower. Yeah.
Good knowledge, Chris.
I can feel a point coming your way.
Yeah. Extra point for Chris.
How many tastes are there?
BUZZER PLAYS SHOSTAKOVICH
Jimmy.
Five.
Whoa, knowledge! What knowledge?
I mean, I got it wrong.
Yeah. Oh.
Yeah. That's a...
That's a bad noise.
The klaxon's not a good thing,
darling. Oh!
LAUGHTER
Hey, that confused face is really
coming in handy, isn't it?
Do you want to redo that?
We'll pretend it's just gone off.
Yeah, let's do it again. Say five.
BUZZER PLAYS SHOSTAKOVICH
Yes. Jimmy? Five.
Oh...
LAUGHTER
I'm embarrassed for you.
Until the 20th century,
they thought there were only,
sort of, four basic tastes,
so sweet and sour and bitter
and salty. And then umami.
And then umami, exactly right.
Do you know what it is, umami?
Yeah, the kind of mushroomy...
Yeah, so meaty, savoury.
It's actually the taste of
monosodium glutamate.
Yes, I love a bit of MSG.
Why are people so down on it?
Anyway, in the 1980s,
a Japanese company isolated
a new taste called kokumi,
and we have specific receptors
in our mouths to detect it.
And it's a really odd one because
it doesn't really taste of anything.
The best way to describe it
is...mouthfullness.
It's something that enhances
other flavours... Wow.
...rather than it tastes nice itself.
You can find it in calcium,
you find it in yeast, in milt -
anybody know what milt is?
Sounds like the Higgs boson of
food, doesn't it? Kind of just...
LAUGHTER
It's a milky lilt.
Sort of. It's fish semen.
OK, good. I'm out. Yeah.
CHUCKLING
"Soft roe." You used to
eat it on toast in Britain.
Caviar, sort of... Yeah.
Well, that's more the eggs.
I've misunderstood the difference
between semen and eggs. OK, cool.
How would you get hold of...
I mean, I understand
how you get hold of fish eggs,
but... Start by buying them a drink.
Yeah.
LAUGHTER
Apparently you can have it
fried or pickled in Japan.
Fish semen? Yes.
I mean, how much do
you get from a fish?
I think it depends on the fish
and how excited he is,
what magazines you've got. Oho,
wait till you see Pornhub - hoo!
LAUGHTER
You wouldn't believe it.
Go to the Japanese section -
mind—blowing. Fish porn!
On that note, that brings us
to the unappetising scraps
of the smorga—score—bord.
Squashed right down at the bottom,
tonight's bacon botty
with minus seven is Alan!
Thank you.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Bacon botty!
In third, with minus six,
it's Jimmy!
Happy with that.
Happy with minus six.
In second place, a very creditable
positive five points, Jen!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Oh! Well done.
I don't even know how I got five.
Stop it!
And in first place with
six points, it's Chris!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
LAUGHTER
Ah, yes.
But tonight everyone's a winner
because Jimmy's food
order has just arrived!
LAUGHTER
Where's George with the food?
George, bring us our food.
We have never done this before!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
OK, yeah, lovely.
Well, we'll take the small one.
Is that the fries? A milkshake.
Oh, it's a milkshake. Oh, you
got me a milkshake! Brilliant.
Why did we never do this before?
The fries over there, I think.
Alan was interested in the fries.
You want fries? Thank you so much.
I'll just say my thanks to
Jen, Chris, Jimmy and Alan,
and I leave you with
this sad sign—off
from American novelist
Padgett Powell.
“Life is nothing but a sandwich
between two periods of bed—wetting."
Goodnight.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Hello and welcome to Ql,
where tonight we'll be
stuffing ourselves
with a smorgasbord of
specialities starting with S.
Salivating at the spread are the
estimable Chris McCausland...
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
...the esteemed Jimmy Carr...
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
...the esoteric Jen Brister...
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
...and especially Alan Davies,
Esquire.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
And their buzzers are a spectacular
selection of symphonies.
Chris goes...
BLUE DANUBE WALTZ
Isn't that lovely?
Oh, way too classy for me. Ah.
Do you know who it is? No!
Strauss. Blue Danube.
Right, who's up next? Jimmy goes...
DRAMATIC ORCHESTRAL MUSIC PLAYS
Beginning with S.
Strings.
LAUGHTER
I mean...Shostakovich. Jen goes...
SEDATE CELLO MUSIC PLAYS
Streisand.
LAUGHTER
Saint—Saens. It's The Swan from
The Carnival Of The Animals.
Ah, so close. Alan goes...
POP MUSIC PLAYS
# S Club... #
Ah, more like it!
# We're gonna show you how
Shake your body from side to side. #
Right, to start with Randy Scandi,
the word smorgasbord is Swedish
for "sandwich table"
so my first question is,
what is the secret of a
superlative sandwich?
BUZZER
Two guys and a girl?
LAUGHTER
I mean, fair. Fair, I think.
Yes. Well, yeah.
OK. Anybody else want a... Chris?
BUZZER
I'll go for anything that just
doesn't have mayonnaise in it,
cos it's... Why?
It's just the devil's spunk, innit?
Oh! Oh!
GROANS AND LAUGHTER
Wow. Hello. It's just used to hold
sandwiches together these days,
like a sandwich glue, isn't it?
And it's just everywhere.
Trying to find one without
it's almost impossible.
Tell me about it - two guys,
one girl threesome, same thing!
LAUGHTER
Jen, what's your favourite sandwich?
Er, two girls, no guy. OK, yeah.
Erm...
JIMMY LAUGHS
It has to be. Something I
often search on the interweb
just to see what's going on.
I think I have an answer to the
perfect sandwich. Go for it.
I think I know genuinely
what this might be. OK.
French toast. I think if you
do a bit of French toast
then anything in that sandwich...
Is going to work for you. Huge.
I'm a big fan of the Monte Cristo.
What is the Monte Cristo?
It's Gruyere cheese,
it's turkey, ham,
French toast, powdered sugar.
It's a delight.
The powdered sugar caught me
by surprise at the end there. Yes,
with the Gruyere cheese!
I mean, is that when you call it
in your house? Eh?
LAUGHTER
A little wrap of powdered
sugar on it.
Well, maybe...
Let's get this party started!
Apparently, the secret of a
great sandwich is to sit on it.
Ohh. Ohh!
So, Paul Hollywood,
who I know a little bit,
his favourite is a bacon butty,
and he told Good Housekeeping that
he sits on it to make them thin.
Is that why it's called a butty?!
...Yeah. Wow.
LAUGHTER
I'm trying to picture
the scene. Yeah.
Is it in a sandwich bag?
Is he nude?
Is there a tea towel between them...
OK. How's he set it up?
Yeah, so there was a woman
called MFK Fisher.
She's widely considered the best
food writer in the 20th century,
and her favourite sandwich
was called the railroad,
so it's a flattened
sourdough baguette
and it's got, I'm afraid,
home—made mayonnaise -
Chris, I can only apologise -
Dijon mustard, and then
ham and Jack cheese, which I
think you'd like very much.
But, anyway, what she used to do,
she used to wrap hers in plastic
and then sit on it... Oh.
...because she said it warmed it up
very slightly as well. Mm.
Doesn't it get sweaty? Well...
What you've just described is a
sweaty ham and cheese sandwich
that's been sat on by a woman. Yeah.
Now I want one.
LAUGHTER
Mm-mm-mm.
That, THAT is a Google search.
So, who invented the sandwich?
Oh, it's the Earl of Sandwich.
Oh, it isn't!
We've said it before, though.
So that's the earl on the right,
the fourth Earl of Sandwich.
He can take credit for fizzy drinks.
It was the fourth Earl of Sandwich
and the first Lord Commissioner
of the Admiralty,
and he backed the English chemist
Joseph Priestley
to invent a system for making
carbonated water for the Navy.
He thought it would cure scurvy.
I mean, it didn't, but Priestley
did invent carbonated water,
for which he first published
his method in 1767. Wow.
Why did they need carbonated water?
Well, you've got to have something
with your Scotch, I think.
It's the way forward. OK. No.
They thought it would cure scurvy.
I went to Japan a couple of years
ago and they had Scotch and soda.
They're so crazy about
Scotch and soda.
They had it on draught at
like minus two degrees.
Is it pre—mixed? Wow.
Yeah. Pre—mixed, on—draught
Scotch and soda.
They make their own Scotch by the
billions of gallons, don't they?
Yeah, they do.
Is it relatively inexpensive?
Well, no.
They make some of the best
Scotches in the world.
Hibiki 30 is one of the greats,
but, yeah, they're very into it,
cos they bought the barrels
from Scotland in the '70s,
when the Scottish business
was on its arse,
so they've got all the good barrels.
But they can legitimately
call it Scotch?
To be honest, they just
call it whisky.
They call it Japanese whisky.
OK, fine, yeah.
Anyway, longest recorded sandwich,
over two—fifths of a mile long.
735 metres.
It was made in Beirut in 2011.
Chicken, lettuce, tomato and
pickles, in case you're wondering,
and they invented a special oven
so that it could cook really slowly.
That feels like a fundraiser.
Yeah, it's a fundraiser.
Apparently, we are eating more
and more sandwiches,
according to the British
Sandwich Association.
SCATTERED LAUGHTER
There's nothing bleaker than
a British sandwich, is there?
Honestly, is it?
You go to any other country.
You go to Denmark and they've got
these beautiful open sandwiches,
you go to America - they have to
put poles in it to keep it together.
A stake through itsheart.
Then you go into, like, a service
station or something in this country
and you're just... It's this bleak
crayfish and rocket kind of...
Ooh! And do you know what
makes me very, very cross?
Right, you see... It's whatever
you're thinking of now.
Just when they put the filling just
in the middle. In the middle!
SIMULTANEOUSLY: And then
there's nothing on the outside!
I don't like a sandwich
when you bite in the front
and all the insides are making
a break for it out the back.
Yeah. I don't like one of those.
You know the secret to avoid that -
you've got to sit on the
sandwich first. Yes.
The British Sandwich Association.
Anybody who's ever hosted a
corporate is going to feel jealous.
They have an annual awards ceremony.
They're called the Sammies. Oh.
The Sammies! Yeah.
In 2020, I can tell you the
New Sandwich Award - Hot Category -
was won by Deli Lites
Irish Stout Pastrami.
Ooh. Just putting that out there.
I do like pastrami.
In Denmark, cos they
love to eat a bit of fat,
there is an open sandwich
called a fed mad med knaphuller
and what it is, it's a piece of
rye bread with animal fat -
beef dripping, basically -
and thick, rough salt,
and the rough salt melts into the
fat and looks like buttonholes,
so it's called a "fat food
with buttonholes." Ooh!
Honestly, it's delicious.
I'm just saying.
Malcolm Gladwell wrote
this brilliant essay
about McDonald's fries... Yes!
..cos the reason McDonald's
was such a huge global hit
wasn't really the burgers,
it was the fries were the best thing
anyone had had in the 1970s.
And, unfortunately, they were ruined
by an American congressman
because he had a heart attack,
and he blamed it on the fries.
He thought because they cook them
in beef tallow they're bad for you.
Oh. So he said, "Cook them in
vegetable fat. Much better for you.”
Turns out he was absolutely wrong,
but his campaign got McDonald's to
change the way they cook their fries
so they're no longer as delicious.
Oh, wow. Why are we not eating?
Let's get some takeout.
What would happen if we ordered
a takeaway and asked them
to deliver it to the set?
Would they? Yes. Shall we see
if they can get it here in time?
What do you fancy? I'd like chips.
I'd like to try a milkshake.
Have you not had a milkshake?
I haven't had a milkshake
since I was about ten.
What's... I should know this
from watching kids TV,
but what's the address for the BBC?
ALAN: W1A 1AA.
For God's sake, make sure
there's no mayonnaise.
Yes, OK, hang on.
We're just putting the order in.
Sidling on to our next snack,
how many sausages does it take
to change the world?
BUZZER PLAYS STRAUSS
Yes, Chris?
Three. That's a good answer.
One to hold the world and
two to turn the ladder.
SCATTERED LAUGHTER
Extra point.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Unless it's a German sausage,
in which case it's one,
because zey are most efficient.
OK! So...
Germany is a good place
to head towards.
Was there a fight over a sausage?
We are talking about the
Reformation,
which changed the face
of Europe forever,
and some of it due to sausages.
In Switzerland, the main debate
about the Reformation
was whether or not you could
eat sausages during Lent.
So, the Catholic Church had
banned sausages in 320
because they said they were
associated with pagan festivals,
and Emperor Leo the Wise,
he banned blood sausages
and ruled that anybody caught
eating or selling them
should be beaten, exiled,
have their property confiscated,
and have all their body hair
shaved off.
Feels like his mind wandered
at the end there. Yeah.
Anyway, 1522, in an act of defiance,
a dozen priests, printers and
tradesmen met in a Zurich workshop
and ate two sausages between them.
And this was radical,
absolutely radical,
and one of the priests, Huldrych
Zwingli, he wrote a sermon
called On Choice And Freedom Of
Foods defending what they'd done,
and said that the New Testament
did not forbid eating sausages
and there was fighting! There was
fighting between his supporters
on this and his opponents, there
were vigilantes trying to find him
to kidnap him and bring him
in front of the bishop,
but it took less than a year
for all of these rules to be
abolished in Zurich
and the Reformation soon spread
to the rest of Switzerland.
Had it not been for this meeting
where they ate two sausages,
that might not have happened.
Wow. Wow. I know!
Why might you associate
botulism with sausages?
Er, because that's
where it all started.
Did it start in a sausage?
Yeah. Botulus is Latin for sausage.
You know, botox? Yeah.
Does that come from botulism?
Yes, darling, it absolutely does.
So there was a doctor called
Justinus Kerner and he is the person
who worked out how these meats
were becoming contaminated.
He did the first
clinical description
of what's called the
botulinum toxin.
He became known as Wurst Kerner,
Sausage Kerner.
So who was the guy in the '70s?
Some guy in LA, presumably, that
came up with injecting in the face?
Because they used to inject it
in the bladder for incontinence
so it probably went,
if you can freeze that... You can
freeze the forehead, as well.
..freeze this, you know?
And what better thing to freeze
when you're an actor
than the part of your body you need
to use the most, your face?
I would look surprised now
if 1 could.
LAUGHTER
Do you know what allantoid means?
I don't know what allantoid means.
I dread to think.
Sausage—shaped. Does it? Yes.
LAUGHTER
Noted.
What about chipolata?
Little sausage.
Well, it's weird, actually.
It means "contains onions”,
so, cipolla - onion.
But they don't have onions.
Hi, is that Deliveroo?
PHONE: Hello. Hello.
Have you got my delivery?
Hello? Hello.
Yeah, hello?
Dude, this is the bit where
you talk. Yeah, hello?
LAUGHTER
OK, he hung up.
Where is he on your little map?
We're still doing the show, yeah?
I'm so happy! Why did it never occur
to me to order food during the show?
LAUGHTER
I'm SO happy.
I can't believe Jimmy brings his
phone with him onto the set.
I mean, I know he's needed it
this time...
Yes, well, you never know, do you?
You've done QI before.
Sometimes I Google stuff.
Yeah.
LAUGHTER
Sometimes I go,
"What does chipolata mean?”
I pretend to be taking a phone call,
sneaky little glance.
But my phone talks, mate -
everyone would know I'm doing it!
"Has Chris got someone
under the desk?"
Right, moving on.
How would you respond if a
South African said, "Buy a donkey"?
I'd just probably buy a donkey.
You know? "Buy a donkey."
"OK. Not a problem."
LAUGHTER
So what you should respond to
"Baie dankie," is "Yu iz welkom,"
because it sounds like "Buy a
donkey," but it's identical to
the Afrikaans phrase which means,
"Thank you very much."
So, phonetically, "Buy a donkey."
Baie dankie. Baie dankie? Yeah.
So there's a number of phrases
that you can say in English,
which have very different meanings
in other countries.
So, Chris, I want you to spell
the word "socks" out loud.
Ess oh see kay ess?
OK, so, "Eso si que es," is Spanish
for "That's really what it is."
Isn't that cool?
That's not even real. Eso si que es.
But it is real? Yeah. Eso si que es.
Eso si que es! We really need to
work on the accent, Jimmy.
It's good, isn't it? Eso si que es.
I'm doing a lot with the hands.
I did not know that! Eso si que es.
I'm going to tell my mum.
Is she Spanish? Yeah,
I've got a Spanish mum!
Fantastic. Eso si que es.
So, Alan, do you want to
read the next one out?
SLOWLY: Yellow blue tibia.
Yeah, yellow—blue—tibia.
Is... Yellow—blue—tibia.
Yes! Ya lyublyu tebya.
Yes, what... Is Russian.
It means yellow—blue tibia.
No, it... It's the leg bone. It's a
funny colour. Yellow—blue tibia.
It's Russian for, "I love you."
Ahh. Aw, ya lyublyu tebya.
Ya lyublyu tebya.
Ya lyublyu... Ya lyublyu tebya.
But you wouldn't forget it.
You'd go, "Oh, yeah, I've got that."
Right, let's try this one, Jen.
Give this one a go.
Johnny Marr! Johnny Marr,
guitarist in The Smiths.
Is this some sort of rhyming slang?
No, it's, "I'm fed up," in French.
What?! J'en ai marre!
♪ en ai marre. Ah, j'en ai marre.
♪ en ai marre, I'm fed up.
Exactly sums up The Smiths,
doesn't it?
It's so perfect, isn't it?
Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now -
Johnny Marr! J'en ai marre!
I quite like this one.
This next one is,
"Cocks taste good."
LAUGHTER
And where's this from? Estonia.
It means 12 months.
Kaksteist kudd!
LAUGHTER
"How long have you been here?"
"Kaksteist kudd!"
"No, really, how long
have you been here?"
Let's do another Spanish one.
Do you speak Spanish, Jen?
I understand it. OK, try this one.
"I meant t'kill ye'?"
It's in Spanish.
Oh, it's also, it's Irish for
attempted murder.
"I meant t'kill ye"!"
“Is there butter?" In Spanish.
Hay mantequilla!
Oh, I meant to kill you.
Hay mantequilla.
OK, yeah, I've got it, yep.
I Can't Believe It Wasn't Murder.
I know, right? I love these.
I think they're really wonderful.
So clever.
In 1967, an American actor
called Luis van Rooten,
he released a book called
Mots D'Heures: Gousses, Rames.
It's a collection of work
that looks like
ancient nonsense poems in French,
but when you read out,
they sound like English
nursery rhymes with a really
strong French accent. OK.
But have a look at this and see
what you can make of it.
Jen, do you want to read that out?
Un petit d'un petit,
S'etonne aux Halles.
Un petit d'un petit,
Ah! Degree te fallent.
OK, so let's have a listen to a
French speaker doing the whole thing
and see if you can guess what
is the English nursery rhyme
that is, in fact, being said here?
Un petit d'un petit,
S'etonne aux Halles.
Un petit d'un petit,
Ah! Degree te fallent
Indolent qui ne sort cesse.
Indolent qui ne se mene.
Qu'importe un petit
Tout Gai de Reguennes.
LAUGHTER
Well, if you didn't know it
till the end, you got it then!
"Together again!"
It is, in fact, Humpty Dumpty
done with nonsense French.
Isn't it wonderful? Yeah.
Here's a few more
linguistic oddities.
If you say, "Yes, we can see,"
that is the word yes in
four different languages.
Yes, oui, ken, si... English,
French, Hebrew and Spanish.
Never said that. No.
No? That's fair.
That's fair, actually.
If you say my name in a Jamaican
accent, it's Jamaica.
Oh, Jimmycarr! Jamaica. But only if
you do a Jamaican accent, weirdly.
Am I right, Jen, that some
Spanish speakers
have trouble pronouncing the S
at the front of English words,
that they will add a vowel sound
at the front, like, "eh—sorry."
JEN LAUGHS
Yes, so when, for example,
my mum says any...
Pretty much any word that
begins with the letter S,
she'll put an E in front of it.
So, eh—sandwich, eh—soup,
my brother's name, eh—Steven.
Seriously? She named
her child something she...
She can't actually say
my brother's name, yeah.
"It's Steven, Mum." "Es Steven."
"It's just Steven." "Esteven?”
"Leave it. Never mind."
But what is interesting,
even though my mum does struggle
with saying Steven,
she can't say it,
in Spanish, sopa, she can say that.
That's soup in Spanish.
Sopa? No problem.
But if she has to say soup,
it's eh—soup.
It's too much.
It's too much for her.
How could you make yourself
understood in another country
without any words at all?
Pointing and shouting in English.
Shouting English very loud.
2019, researchers at the
University of California in Berkeley
asked 50 people to vocalise
certain feelings,
and then they asked more than
1,000 people to explain
what it was that they'd heard,
and it gave us a map of 24
distinct human emotions,
which can be conveyed without words.
So, what we're going to do,
each panellist has got
a couple of emotions we want
you to convey without words
and see if anybody can work out
which ones they're doing.
Chris, I believe that you have
been told yours in advance.
I have, and, luckily enough,
they're the two that I've got,
cos my wife says that I've got,
like, three less emotions
than what Facebook allows me
to react to posts with.
LAUGHTER So...
So luckily they... Do you want
to try yours with no words, then?
Two emotions.
Grr! Anger? Frustration.
Anger, yeah. And the other one?
Mmm!
Hm.
Oh. Well, the first one was
a home defeat for Liverpool,
and the second one was a draw.
LAUGHTER
Obviously, I'm miles off the
money with this one, aren't 1?
Hmm.
You quite like it.
Yeah. Mild approval,
is that an emotion?
Mild amusement. Amusement!
Amusement. Oh, no, you need
to do a little hmm—hm-hm.
Hm-hm-hm.
LAUGHTER
Jimmy, have you got a card with
yours on or been told what they are?
Are we doing them sequentially or...
I'm going to conflate the two.
I mean, I would do them both
together, if you can. Ohhmm!
Ohmm!
LAUGHTER
HE BLOWS RASPBERRY
Mm—brr! Ooh!
Where's Frankie Howard?
It is Frankie Howard!
Constipated and aroused. Yeah.
Constipated while aroused?
The aroused thing is heading
in the right direction.
I don't know, but it's upsetting
when you get eye contact with me!
JIMMY LAUGHS
He was doing desire
and negative surprise.
Negative surprise?! I think it's
like Kenneth Williams, isn't it?
He would, "Ooh, matron! Mmrr."
And there would be a slight...
Right, Jen. You got two?
I'm going to do them separately.
I think I'm not going to conflate.
Cos that didn't work, did it? Yeah!
All right, here we go. First one.
Err—arrgh.
It's Kenneth Williams
again, isn't it?
LAUGHTER
Is "Wallace or Gromit"
an emotion? Honestly...
One of the two, isn't it?
No, I didn't give it my all...
I was... You were distracting me.
By what? By sitting here looking?
Yes. In my peripheral vision.
You were conflating somehow.
You appeared to be swallowing
a Brussels sprout.
No. I'll do it again.
GIGGLING
Rrgh.
Wow. No, wait, that's not it.
Hang on. Last one, last time.
That's somebody covering up a fart.
What my dog does when she
can't get out the back door.
LAUGHTER
Urgh. You've made a
terrible mistake! Urhh.
LAUGHTER
Yeah, close, close.
It's embarrassment. Oh!
Embarrassment. Yeah.
Second one, here we go.
This one you'll definitely get.
Ehh?
What? Confusion. Yes!
APPLAUSE
Confusion is exactly right.
Very well done. Thank you.
Alan?
Mind I've got no... OK. Ah!
LAUGHTER
Ohh!
Ohh. Er...
Urgh, urgh!
Disgust? Yes, yes!
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Yes!
Haven't been cast in anything
for five years!
This is all you need.
This is the audition.
This is the moment
I can make a comeback!
This is your moment, Alan.
Right, one more, Alan.
OK, here we go.
Oh—-ahh-ahh!
Ahh!
Ecstasy. Yes!
Oh, my goodness.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Are you guys a couple? Ahh.
In another life, Jimmy, definitely.
In another life.
Right. Speaking of not speaking,
why do fascists hate subtitles?
Is it something to do with the fact
that the rhythm and the volume
and the tone and the general noise
and the performance of the speech,
and...is more important, really,
than what's actually being said?
Well, I certainly think that is...
It's kind of an emotional journey.
That's not the Downfall thing,
is it? Yeah.
You know, that video of a
famous scene from Downfall.
Yes, in the bunker.
Where he's, sort of, slapping the
table and going, "Nein, nein, nein!”
And then they've done the
subtitles... For everything.
Everything. Yeah.
My favourite one, it's Doncaster
Rovers have lost at home.
So, let's just step it back a bit.
Some countries nearly always
subtitle foreign—language films
and others nearly always dub.
It's partly a cost issue, so it is
actually much more expensive
to dub than it is to do
subtitles, obviously.
But in Europe, Germany, Spain,
France and Italy all decided to dub,
and certainly it would be
better for fascists
cos you can control
what is being said.
You can replace it with
whatever you choose
and say whatever message you like.
It doesn't have to be the same
as in the original language.
But if you listen to any
Spanish show,
particularly when I was growing up,
if I'd go to my grandmother's house,
I think everything was dubbed
by two people.
The female actress
would play her son,
but she'd also play the mother,
but she'd also play the grandmother,
and you'd just see this woman
who was, like...
Absolutely knackered by the
end of the, like, one scene
if there was three female characters
in it cos she'd play all of them.
I think I prefer subtitled TV on the
basis that I don't distract myself.
I could be watching
my favourite show
and I'll look at my phone
halfway through.
I mean, I'm looking at my phone
now and I'm on the show.
Whereas when it's subtitles and
you don't speak the language,
you really have to focus, and
you kind of find TV's actually
very enjoyable when you're passive.
When you're paying attention.
And so I think when I watch
Call My Agent or something,
I just go, "Well, this is terrific.”
I love it cos by the end you think,
"Well, I could run France now.
I've totally got this.
"“I've entirely understood every
word." "How hard could it be?"
Did you watch The Bridge?
Yeah. Yeah.
I had a feeling that I was
missing something... Yeah.
Because there's this Danish—Swedish
thing going on,
I kept feeling that I'm
missing something
in the way they're speaking
to one another
or references they're making
or their attitude to one another.
Absolutely. There are nuances.
Just isn't there.
What's the dynamic between the
Swedes and the Danes?
Who looks down on who?
Oh, it depends.
I mean, I'm Danish, and it
would not be for me to say
that the Swedes are really
very drunk people.
It would not be for me.
LAUGHTER
A nation... A nation of alcoholics.
You wouldn't want to label them.
I wouldn't want to label them
in any way. Nude alcoholics.
Nude alcoholics, I'm afraid.
Been lots of wonderful
subtitling errors.
BBC Breakfast - Cromer, famous
for its crap instead of crab.
BBC Breakfast report from Wimbledon,
"We might be bad at some things in
the UK, but we're good at killing."
Instead of queuing.
LAUGHTER
Coverage of the
Queen Mother's funeral,
"We'll now have a moment's violence
for the Queen Mother."
It's a very good idea.
We'll have a minute's violence.
Chris, have you ever used the system
for visually impaired viewers?
The audio description? Yeah.
So that's, like, our equivalent,
isn't it?
They fit in description in
the gaps of dialogue,
but they feel the need to
fit it in every single gap.
There's just no pausing for breath
because they go,
"What can we put in this gap?"
"Let's tell them he's
turned around!"
"Let's tell them he's shut the
door." I heard the door close!
LAUGHTER
Let me give you my
favourite examples
from Channel 4's Naked Attraction.
So it's a show - I've never seen it.
The lovely Anna Richardson presents,
and gradually she reveals
the naked bodies of...
They're doing a celebrity version.
I could get you on. No, I'm good.
They're not! Shut up!
They totally believed you! It's
only a question of time, though,
isn't it? I totally believedyou!
Wow. No. It's only a question of
time we get that phone call.
They gradually reveal a naked body,
a studio guest, to a chooser
who picks one to take on a date.
Oh, we've seen it, Sandi!
Oh, I haven't seen it.
So, the chooser in this instance
was Brian.
Anna Richardson - "Can we please
see the bottom half of the bodies?"
Audio description - "Wearing
a colourful patterned shirt,
"baby—faced Brian gulps as the
outer shells start to rise.
"Fingers pressed to his mouth,
Brian scans the line—up
"of well-landscaped lady gardens."
LAUGHTER
Well, I like that! Makes them sound
like they've got tulips growing!
I actually think that's... Yeah.
"Well—landscaped” is lovely.
Wow. It's poetic.
You don't want it overgrown.
You don't want the council
coming in every two years.
You want it properly kept.
Everyone likes a patio.
Wow.
We've actually got a subtitle from
Ql. Let's have a quick look.
"I feel like I'm giving out
top tits now."
That's what it says. Oh!
Did you know if you go onto Pornhub,
there is an audio described
section on Pornhub.
Oh, my God. Seriously?
Yeah, yeah, yeah! I checked.
I had a look just to see just out
of curiosity. Just for research!
I understand - for research.
Can't go blinder, mate.
LAUGHTER
When audio description
first came out, this is a...
It was introduced on DVDs and it
was there so you can watch the film
on your own and not miss
anything that's happening.
On DVDs. Fantastic - brilliant idea.
But you had to be able to see the
menus to turn it on, didn't you?
Well, there's a school
for the blind near us,
and they've got braille
underneath the sign,
and I went, "Well, who knows
to press there?" Yeah.
There are places that put braille
on, like, emergency fire exit signs,
which means if the fire alarm goes
off you've got to feel every wall.
LAUGHTER
You're getting warmer!
You're getting warmer!
Anyway, here's the thing
about dubbing.
There's some extraordinary films in
which people have not spoken at all
that you would think had spoken.
Many of the Bond Girls in
the first ten Bond films
weren't voiced by the actresses
who played them.
That's weird. It's not as woke
as you think, James Bond, is it?
No, no, no. I know! That's strange.
How are we going to know what
the woman's point of view is?
Yes! I know.
All of these women were all voiced
by a German voiceover artist
called Nikki van der Zyl.
And in Dr No, she voiced
all of the women's parts,
apart from Miss Moneypenny and
three other very small parts. Wow.
One of my favourite singers is
somebody possibly nobody's ever
heard of.
It is the person who played all
the leads in My Fair Lady,
West Side Story, The King And I,
sang for Deborah Kerr,
sang for Audrey Hepburn.
Marni Nixon is the person
who sang all of those parts.
She used to be known as
the Ghostess with the Mostest.
What's happened about the food?
Oh, yeah, hang on.
It's here somewhere. I think
it's here. It's been delivered.
At Reception they're
stuffing their faces!
Er, here we go!
What's edible, has 25 arms
and weighs 12 tonnes?
BUZZER PLAYS STRAUSS
Oh. Chris!
All 25 members of the Japanese
one—armed sumo team.
LAUGHTER
12 tonnes is a lot.
That's a shedload.
That's a shedload of tonnage.
Right? Yeah, that is...
Not for a sumo team. I don't want
to eat anything that's 12 tonnes.
Well, not a whole one.
No, not at once.
Well, it's a sort of
smorgasbord treat
that you might find in the desert.
You might find in the desert?
What could you find in the desert?
Cactus?
Cactus, yes, exactly right.
You can eat a cactus?
It's the ruby red fruit of
the saguaro cactus.
It ripens once a year,
sort of by late June.
You can eat it raw, you can
make it into jam, wine or syrup,
and it tastes like strawberry.
And this cactus, the saguaro cactus,
is the largest of all cacti.
It grows up to 65 feet tall,
so that's 20 metres. Wow.
Weighs as much as 12 tonnes.
It is reputed to live for 200 years
and can have more than 25 arms.
Wow. The astonishing thing
about this cactus -
60 feet tall, some of them -
the roots are only four to six
inches deep.
Oh, wow. I know!
So how does it fare in high winds?
It spreads out.
They spread out really wide. Oh.
They spread out as wide
as the plant is tall,
so they'll go out 60 feet.
But even the main taproot
is only two foot deep
and they grow incredibly slowly,
so it could be...
If it's ten years old, it's probably
about an inch—and—a—half high.
I mean, they're just really...
Really? Yeah, like myself.
Just taking my time.
LAUGHTER
Anyway, this is the cutest thing.
Saguaro cacti are
home to the elf owl.
Aww, it's little. Look at his little
face! The world's smallest.
He's trapped!
This is the cutest, tiniest...
It's grown around him over 20 years.
It's the size of a sparrow,
and they're so sweet.
They pretend to be dead
when they're handled.
They just go like that...and hope
the predator will relax its grip.
Oh, I've done that. Yeah, yeah.
LAUGHTER
Have you ever seen an owl that's
been shaved from the waist down?
LAUGHTER
What? Yeah, that's how I like 'em!
It's had a... Sorry, a
landscaped lady garden?
Yeah, it's fully patioed.
You would not believe how long
an owl's legs are.
Why would it be shaved?
I think the owl had been injured
and it had needed to have its
bottom half shaved in order to...
That's what they said. But,
honestly, it's the freakiest thing
because when you see an owl you
just think there's little feet there
and then this big, sort of,
feathery thing...
Have they got really long legs?
Their legs are insane!
They've, like, got a head
and then these LEGS.
They're just, like, the most
bizarre... Google it.
Feathers grow back, then?
I never really thought of that.
So if they lose a feather,
a new one will grow?
They will grow back, yeah.
Wow. That's amazing.
Slipping along the sideboard, now,
sofrito is an Italian mixture of
chopped carrots, onions and celery
used as a base for soups,
stews and sauces,
but what is suffrajitsu?
BUZZER PLAYS SAINT—-SAENS
Yes?
A ninja suffragette.
Is correct. What?! Is it?
LAUGHTER
I think I know something about this.
That is hilarious! Wow.
So, 18th of November 1910.
It was also known as Black Friday.
This was when two people got killed,
right? Outside Parliament?
A group of suffragettes
were attacked by police.
Two women died as a result, and
they wanted a way to fight back.
There was a campaigner and martial
arts enthusiast called Edith Garrud,
and she became the
official jujitsu instructor
to the Women's Social
and Political Union.
I love it! It gets better.
It gets better. They had, like,
a hard core of 30 women
who were like the shock troops
of the suffragettes.
They were known as the Amazons.
Yeah, and Emmeline Pankhurst
would give a speech
and they would get her
out or protect her.
There's a great incident where they
got her out of a building in Camden
and she was wearing a veil,
and the police eventually
managed to wrestle her away
and it was a decoy and she
was gone. That's amazing.
But these women carried clubs
under their dresses.
I mean, they were very,
very, very determined.
And there's a marvellous cartoon in
Punch magazine of this woman
Edith standing in front of a group
of terrified policemen entitled
The Suffragette That Knew Jujitsu.
I wanted to show you something,
a show—and-tell I brought in.
Ooh. Are you going
to do some jujitsu?
Well, so the Women's Social
and Political Union
was the one that was much more
vehement in their approach.
You know, they did do fighting
and they did blow up postboxes
and so on. The radical arm. Yeah.
The National Union of
Women's Suffrage Societies,
which was started in 1897,
was actually the largest.
It was the one that was run
by Millicent Fawcett,
and I bought this at auction
not very long ago,
but it's the original sign
from their offices.
Oh, wow. It's very cool, isn't it?
That is so cool! Wow.
I was so thrilled to have it.
Law abiding? They were...
They wanted to say that
they were law—abiding
to distinguish themselves from
the people who did jujitsu.
Cos the others presumably
had some sort of
"We're some rule—breakers in here."
They were a couple of
rule—breakers in there.
The very first jujitsu teacher
of either sex in Europe
was a man called Edward
William Barton—Wright
and he was Edith Garrud's
first teacher.
He had developed his own version
of the art using walking sticks.
He called it Bartitsu.
Bartitsu was used by Conan Doyle,
so Sherlock Holmes uses it against
Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls.
While we're hitting
people with sticks,
do you know what
sluggard wakers are?
Waking people up? Yeah.
Where would you be waking them?
Train. On the train? "Get off!"
"It's your stop, get off!" No.
So, if you fell asleep during mass,
especially in the north of England,
they were employed by churches.
It was usually a woman,
the sluggard walker.
I'd love that job. Yeah.
Just go round and...
She would hit men with a stick,
but if it was a woman... No, no.
...she would tickle them under
the nose with a fox's tail.
In Zen Buddhism there's
something slightly similar.
If you meditate and
you start to drop off,
you could be woken by a thwack from
a stick which is called a keisaku.
I mean, it's just not what you
associate with Zen Buddhism, is it?
No, not really. Yeah.
ALAN IMITATES WHIP
Meditating? Oh, all right.
Suffrajitsu was suffragette jujitsu.
And now to some shrewd shortcuts -
some useful S hacks
we found during the course of
our research this year.
Let's see what you can do
with these.
So I have here one of
those little plastic tables
that you get from a takeaway pizza.
Any thoughts what you
might find useful for it?
They always seem like a little
dollhouse table, don't they?
So what you can do is cut a little
bit of the leg off like that...
You'll have your eye out there.
..and take a mobile phone...
Oh, I see what you've done there.
...and turn it into a stand for a
mobile phone. For a mobile.
Oh, my. You've just saved
POUNDS. I know!
LAUGHTER
I mean, this is... This show's...
If you're watching this it's
paid for itself, hasn't it?
OK, here we go.
This one, I like this one.
What we're going to do
is slice this banana
into three exact pieces
using just your fingers.
So, here's the trick to it.
You put your finger...
No, I don't want to.
..In the top of the banana...
Right. No, I can't do that.
..push it all the way down...
Oh. Oh, I very nearly had it.
..In one piece...
...then you split the other one...
I mean, you're an absolute... Who?
..In two.
Where am I putting my fingers?
Start at the very top, Chris. Here?
Yeah, and press down...
Into the banana's urethra.
This is the, like, the little...
LAUGHTER
Sorry, can I ask, are these stunt
bananas or do all bananas do this?
All bananas will do this.
I've never thought, "This banana,
I need this in threes."
That's cos you've only got
two children. Wow.
I've got three children. Ah, OK.
Right, bananas away.
That's genuinely... I found that
not only useful, fun to do!
OK. I've got one more.
If you are right—handed and
you need to unscrew, OK,
a whole lot of screws, it can
be very tiring because
screwing and unscrewing are done
with different muscles in the hand,
so when you're screwing in it'll go
across the top of your arm, Chris.
You're using those muscles, which
are much stronger. Extenders and...
When your unscrewing, you're using
the underneath of your arm.
That's the pronator teres -
it's quite a small muscle,
so the trick is to unscrew
with your left hand.
You will get tired much less quickly
because you are using the outer
muscles, again, on your left hand...
Shut the front door! ..and therefore
you don't get so tired. Really?
So, go in with the right hand,
out with the left. Exactly, yes.
Or get a little rechargeable
screwdriver.
I've learned a lot. Thank you, Jen.
Anyway, those were a few life hacks.
And so to the seasoning of our show,
the sloppy salmagundi
that is general ignorance.
Fingers on buzzers, please.
What footwear named after
their victorious leader
did the troops wear at Waterloo?
Well, it's Wellington boots,
isn't it?
KLAXON BLARES
Only one person was wearing
Wellington boots. Who was it?
Wellington. It was Wellington.
So, originally they were
commissioned by the Duke
to go with what was then
a new fashion for trousers
rather than breeches,
and he ordered them from
the shoemaker in April 1815
so at the time of the Battle
of Waterloo, June 18th,
he was the only person wearing them.
They're more like a sort of
calf—high leather boot
than anything. And what is the
difference between breeches
and trousers? Breeches'll go to
the top of your boot, wouldn't they?
Yeah, and trousers all the way down,
so this was something you could
put your trousers into. Inside.
I got some new wellingtons
for Christmas. Darling.
You really have not been out,
have you? I really do feel like...
...the fact that I got so much
pleasure from them... Is a worry.
...it said so much about where
I am in my life right now.
LAUGHTER
But I kept talking about them
and putting them on
and looking for muddy bits
of the heath to walk in.
LAUGHTER
We got a dog over lockdown,
as most people did,
and we go to Bushy Park,
and I can't handle it
because it's so uneven that I never
know what the next step is bringing.
And I haven't got wellies as well,
so I'm trying to keep it in me...
Keep me grip on me Adidas.
You can't skimp on wellies.
You've got to go all in.
I had a joke years ago, which was,
"Who picks up guide dog shit?”
Maybe you could shed some light.
You just move your hands around
until it gets warmer, mate.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
JIMMY LAUGHS
Brilliant.
Anyway, the British soldiers
of the day wore hessian boots.
They were tasselled and
decorated and loose—fitting
and worn outside the trousers, so
they did not wear Wellington boots.
And, of course, the Battle of
Waterloo was actually
a victory over the French
for the British, and the...
The Germans were on our side,
weren't they?
It was the Prussians, yeah,
and other allies as well,
and the Prussian Gebhard
Leberecht von Blucher
led an army who all wore
shoes named after him,
so the answer to the question,
"What footwear named after
their victorious leader
"did the troops wear at Waterloo?"
The answer is the Blucher.
It was an ankle boot commissioned
especially by him
for the comfort of the
ordinary Prussian soldier.
But, after the war,
the Wellington boot became a
sort of patriotic symbol of Britain.
I mean, any gentleman worth
his salt would wear them,
and it became so synonymous
with the Duke that by 1830
he was being depicted in cartoons
as a wellington with a head.
CHUCKLING
Wellington's wellingtons were
originally just Wellington's.
How often can you see
Halley's Comet?
BUZZER PLAYS STRAUSS
Yes?
It comes round every 70 years,
doesn't it? Ah.
But can you see it every
time it comes round?
I think I've seen it. Have you?
Yeah, I'm sure I was at school
and Halley's Comet
was a really big thing
and everyone's going, "Don't forget
to look in the sky and see!" 19867
That sounds about right,
cos I would have been...
I wouldn't have been born.
LAUGHTER
For casting purposes...
For casting purposes,
I wouldn't have been alive.
Well, the truth of it, you can
see bits of it twice a year,
so it appeared in the sky,
obviously, 1066 -
you can see it in the
Bayeux Tapestry.
The Chinese have references
to it even earlier.
The main body has arrived on cue
every 75 or 76 years since.
In fact, both 1835 and 1910,
to correspond with the birth
and death of Mark Twain,
which is a sort of curiosity.
It last appeared in 1986.
It's due back in 2061 but you
can see parts of it twice a year
when the debris appears
in meteor showers.
So, the closer the comet
flies to the sun,
the more of its ice and dust
and gas it loses.
It's about one thousandth of
its mass each orbit, right?
So twice a year, the Earth passes
through this sort of...
I don't know what you call it. Smear
of ex—comet? Could you say that?
Yeah. So, when it goes
around the sun,
it constantly loses
bits of itself? Yeah.
And, over time, that becomes
a continuous ring of debris,
but Earth passes through that line,
doesn't it?
That's why you get the
meteor showers and things.
Yes, so in May, you can see
the Eta Aquariid meteor shower
and then October the Orionid
meteor shower. Yeah.
Good knowledge, Chris.
I can feel a point coming your way.
Yeah. Extra point for Chris.
How many tastes are there?
BUZZER PLAYS SHOSTAKOVICH
Jimmy.
Five.
Whoa, knowledge! What knowledge?
I mean, I got it wrong.
Yeah. Oh.
Yeah. That's a...
That's a bad noise.
The klaxon's not a good thing,
darling. Oh!
LAUGHTER
Hey, that confused face is really
coming in handy, isn't it?
Do you want to redo that?
We'll pretend it's just gone off.
Yeah, let's do it again. Say five.
BUZZER PLAYS SHOSTAKOVICH
Yes. Jimmy? Five.
Oh...
LAUGHTER
I'm embarrassed for you.
Until the 20th century,
they thought there were only,
sort of, four basic tastes,
so sweet and sour and bitter
and salty. And then umami.
And then umami, exactly right.
Do you know what it is, umami?
Yeah, the kind of mushroomy...
Yeah, so meaty, savoury.
It's actually the taste of
monosodium glutamate.
Yes, I love a bit of MSG.
Why are people so down on it?
Anyway, in the 1980s,
a Japanese company isolated
a new taste called kokumi,
and we have specific receptors
in our mouths to detect it.
And it's a really odd one because
it doesn't really taste of anything.
The best way to describe it
is...mouthfullness.
It's something that enhances
other flavours... Wow.
...rather than it tastes nice itself.
You can find it in calcium,
you find it in yeast, in milt -
anybody know what milt is?
Sounds like the Higgs boson of
food, doesn't it? Kind of just...
LAUGHTER
It's a milky lilt.
Sort of. It's fish semen.
OK, good. I'm out. Yeah.
CHUCKLING
"Soft roe." You used to
eat it on toast in Britain.
Caviar, sort of... Yeah.
Well, that's more the eggs.
I've misunderstood the difference
between semen and eggs. OK, cool.
How would you get hold of...
I mean, I understand
how you get hold of fish eggs,
but... Start by buying them a drink.
Yeah.
LAUGHTER
Apparently you can have it
fried or pickled in Japan.
Fish semen? Yes.
I mean, how much do
you get from a fish?
I think it depends on the fish
and how excited he is,
what magazines you've got. Oho,
wait till you see Pornhub - hoo!
LAUGHTER
You wouldn't believe it.
Go to the Japanese section -
mind—blowing. Fish porn!
On that note, that brings us
to the unappetising scraps
of the smorga—score—bord.
Squashed right down at the bottom,
tonight's bacon botty
with minus seven is Alan!
Thank you.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Bacon botty!
In third, with minus six,
it's Jimmy!
Happy with that.
Happy with minus six.
In second place, a very creditable
positive five points, Jen!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Oh! Well done.
I don't even know how I got five.
Stop it!
And in first place with
six points, it's Chris!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
LAUGHTER
Ah, yes.
But tonight everyone's a winner
because Jimmy's food
order has just arrived!
LAUGHTER
Where's George with the food?
George, bring us our food.
We have never done this before!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
OK, yeah, lovely.
Well, we'll take the small one.
Is that the fries? A milkshake.
Oh, it's a milkshake. Oh, you
got me a milkshake! Brilliant.
Why did we never do this before?
The fries over there, I think.
Alan was interested in the fries.
You want fries? Thank you so much.
I'll just say my thanks to
Jen, Chris, Jimmy and Alan,
and I leave you with
this sad sign—off
from American novelist
Padgett Powell.
“Life is nothing but a sandwich
between two periods of bed—wetting."
Goodnight.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE