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Good evening! Happy Christmas! Joyeux Noel
and welcome to QI.
The turkey is in the oven, this Queen's speech is on YuleTube
and it's time to see what's under the tree.
You'll never guess who, Josh Widdicombe.
A... bit of a know-all, Susan Calman.
- X marks the spot, Matt Lucas. - Hello!
It's me! It's actually me!
And a Christmas cracker, Alan Davies.
Hello.
Right, let's hear their festive buzzers. Josh goes...
♪ Dashing through the snow... ♪
- Susan goes... - ♪ In a one-horse open sleigh... ♪
Matt goes...
♪ O'er the fields we go... ♪
And Alan goes...
"Are we nearly there yet?"
So, God aften, velkomst to QI, or Glaedelig Jul.
Yes indeed, this year, we have gone all Danish.
The panel are dressed as nisse,
which is the traditional Danish Christmas elf, and I have to say,
this is a very Danish thing,
we have a little competition on Christmas Eve...
- Ooh. - ..to see who can find the whole almond.
It's not fun when you actually play it,
but the winner gets a marzipan pig. There we are.
Isn't that fantastic?
Oh, yes, please.
Can I ask, where am I going to have to search for the full almond?
Don't you worry about the almond, but the prize today,
- the marzipan pig, is rather fine. - It is.
So, we shall be doing that and goodness knows what else besides.
Now, a recent survey asked the British public what Christmas
tradition should be preserved. Number three, paper decorations.
Number two, carols, but number one was parlour games.
- Oh, no. - Right? Yes, so, let's try a parlour game to get us started.
One Victorian parlour game was called taboo.
You were asked a question and had to answer without using
a taboo letter of the alphabet.
Our taboo letter tonight is obviously N,
so please answer the following questions
without using the letter N. Matt,
name a tasty yellow fruit grown mostly in the Caribbean
and Central America.
In the Philippines its name has been corrupted to bayabus.
Is it, um, a bu-art-a?
I'm trying to think what's nice and yellow. Crisps.
I'm going for crisps.
- Yes, as a tasty yellow fruit. - Yes. - So, no, the answer is guava...
- Ah. - ..is the answer we were... - Oh, there is an answer?
There is an answer!
I've been playing this game wrong for years.
- It isn't banana at all. The answer is guava... - Guava.
..is the fruit that we were looking for.
In the Philippines, it has been corrupted to bayabus.
- Do you know what the Filipinos call bananas? - No.
- They call them bananas. I could've got you with that one... - Yeah.
- ..had you fallen for it. - So, Sandi, even in counter... - Yes.
- ..in cross-examination... - Yes. - ..the rules of the game still apply.
- No, just the answer, just the answer. - Just the answer.
But a supplementary counts as well, cos you said you could've got...
It will do with you. Here's your question...
Susa Calma.
Susan, what do you call a woman who looked after Victorian children
whose mothers were social equals,
but couldn't be arsed to do the job themselves?
Well, I would call them the help.
Which is nice, but not the correct term.
Well, then I would call them...
You've got such a gaze, Sandi! It's like the eye of Sauron.
Sorry, but Sauron's got an N in it.
Oh, come on!
I would've said the nanny, or a governess...
- Oh... - Yes.
- I was actually cajoled into that. - You were.
So, not nanny, obviously,
because how many Ns have you got there, Susan?
- At least two. - At least two.
Also, not social equal, a nanny.
It's au pair.
- Oh, no... - Au pair.
Oh, Josh! Don't start with your,
"Oh, it was on the tip of my tongue there"!
- It's been around since the 1840s... - Has it?
Well, it literally means social equal, au pair.
- Does it? - Yes.
Have you met our social equal? She's really, really fit.
He's only run off with a social equal.
So, nobody doing very well,
but I'm relying on Josh to get this one right.
- Watch and learn. - OK, here we go...
..what do you call a Roman Catholic religious woman
who has taken simple vows of poverty, chastity and obedience?
Is it the au pair?
No, it's guava.
Oh, it's difficult, isn't it, now? Yeah.
Yeah, not so quick with the answers now, are we?
Tracy?
- Um, oh, go on, then. Nun. - Nun...
- Yeah. - No.
- No. - So, here's the thing, the answer is a sister.
So a nun has taken solemn vows, but a sister has taken simple vows.
It's a technical difference to do with the repudiation of property.
So a nun's SOLEMN vow repudiates property absolutely.
A sister's SIMPLE vow allows her to reserve an interest.
She's hedging her bets, Josh. Hedging her bets, that one.
- Right, Alan. - Yes.
Name any of the digits in the common emergency telephone number.
It's like you can see the brain working.
111. Oh, no, that's got Ns in...
- Oh... - So, what's the difference?
- There's an emergency number which is? - 999. - 999.
They're great guys, they're great guys.
- But the common emergency telephone number is 112. - Is it? - Yes.
So you can use it on a mobile phone, even if it's locked
- or you haven't got a SIM card... - It's got Ns in, 112.
Well, I asked you to name any of the digits in the common emergency...
- Oh, come on! - So you could've said - 2. Oh, my word.
Two.
Well, it's Christmas, so Alan wins that one. There we go.
We can dispense with our nisse hats, I think, for the moment.
We might have some more parlour games a little bit later, you'll be glad to hear.
Meanwhile, who are Spoon Licker, Doorway Sniffer,
Sausage Swiper and Meat Hook?
♪ ..The snow... ♪
- Yes, Josh? - Is that how you refer to us four?
And if so, name names.
Yes!
If you have to describe us, Sandi,
which one of us would be the Sausage Swiper?
♪ We go...
I was being so careful...
Are they reindeer?
No, they're not reindeer, but it is obviously a Christmassy...
- I think I know the answer, kind of. - Yes, go.
I think it's something to do with Iceland and Christmas.
It is something to do with Iceland and Christmas.
Does anybody have any ideas what it might be? Josh, yes?
Is that the food they sell in Iceland at Christmas?
I bet whoever got Doorway Sniffer hasn't gone...
- Ooh. - Yes? - Is it the nativity people?
Yes, those are all the people who turned up to meet Jesus.
- I'm not going to lie to you! - Yes. - When I said it, I thought... I'm right!
And now I've never felt so stupid in all my life.
It is what I call a random Scandinavian fact,
it's a Randy Scandy.
These are four of the Icelandic 13 Santas.
They are called the Yule Lads. There they are, there's a Yule Lad.
And each of them leaves a gift for the children
on successive nights, starting on December the 12th.
And there are some fantastic names, there's also Pot Scraper,
and Bowl Licker, Sheep Cot Clod...
Window Peeper, I worry about...
It's more of a gift for him, really, I think.
Anyway, what's the worst thing about Christmas lights?
- Oh, they get terribly tangled up, don't they? - They do.
The worst thing I've encountered about Christmas lights
is they get in the way of the remote control.
- They do, they do interfere with your Wi-Fi. - Do they? - Yes.
The microwaves which come from your Wi-Fi router are quite weak
and they can get locked by stronger signals, and indeed
the Christmas lights would be a stronger signal.
The man across the road from me changes my channel on my television.
You must ask him not to sit next to you.
No!
He sits across the road and he changes my channel.
Highland games for you.
So, it is the Wi-Fi, but that's not the first thing on the list.
It's environmental cost, is the real thing.
It's Incredible. So the US Energy Department,
they did a study in 2008, and over the whole of the United States
a staggering 6.63 billion kilowatt hours of electricity use,
so that is twice as much electricity as Cambodia uses in a year.
- Just for the Christmas lights. - It's very dark there, though, isn't it?
Cambodia?
Well, it's also more than the annual use in lots of countries,
- Ethiopia, El Salvador, Tanzania... - I don't like, really...
- Don't like what? - They go a bit overboard, don't they?
Oh, when they do the whole house it makes me crazy.
- What I don't mind is a moving reindeer. - Yes.
- I don't mind that. - So you work on that impression all year
- and then you bring it out at Christmas. - What's this? What's this?
Moving reindeer! Every year.
Christmas lights are also responsible for
a great many injuries, so...
- Tripping up, burning... - Oh, my goodness. Yes.
I mean, he's gone the wrong side up a ladder.
He's only got himself to blame. This is nothing to do with the lights.
He's looked at the manual and just got it the wrong way round.
This ladder is shit!
So, lots of people injured putting up Christmas lights.
- The average victim is a 55-year-old man. - Well.
Is he the one that lives across from Susan?
And now for a bit of a Danish Christmas parlour game.
Or rather we're going to turn it into a parlour game.
So, there is a Danish tradition... We celebrate Christmas Eve,
and then we all hold hands and we sing standing around the tree.
So we're going to give this a go,
but we're going to do it in a very QI manner, and in order to help us,
please welcome, from Festival of the Spoken Nerd, Helen and Steve.
OK...
So, the really important thing, Helen,
is that we have to hold hands and sing. OK, are you happy with this?
- All right. - This experiment works best if you hold hands and sing. - OK.
But we're going to start off telling you what we've got.
- Over here I've got an amplifier. - Right.
Going into that is some traditional Danish Christmas music.
- Thank you very much. - Over there, another amplifier, coming out of that is a speaker.
- OK. - And normally you'd use a speaker cable to connect the two.
- I've taken that speaker cable and I've cut it in half. - Half?
- Is that exposed wiring, Helen? - Yeah. But we've made it safe.
- I would say don't try this at home. - OK.
What I need to do is I need to give you that bare wire...
- It really is perfectly OK? All right. - Yes, absolutely fine.
We have measured the current going through this,
it's either so low that our meter can't read it,
or our meter's broken.
So can I get you to hold that bare wire? So you've got bare wires...
I love you, Mum.
- I just need you to touch the bare wires... - It's seriously OK to do this?
- OK. - Absolutely. Just touch them together.
Ah, that's lovely. That's a song we sing when we go round the tree.
Um...
- OK. And if I let go? - Everyone else's whelm is very much under.
Yes, cos so far
all I've done is connect up the speaker wire.
What I can do is, Stephen,
- you could give that to Josh and I will take this round... - OK.
Now, Matt, if you could take out your hand and grasp...
Don't, Josh!
No! OK.
- OK? - No! No, it's fine.
Ah! No, it's fine.
This is where you get to hold hands.
Let's find out if it works. So, if you can link up.
So, Matt, you hold Susan's hand.
My hair's already fallen out, but for you guys, who knows?
It's the spirit of Christmas...
Susan was looking very sceptical.
Have you got any Wham?
Why does it work?
Humans are about 70% water and that means your skin's about 70% water,
but water's not a very good conductor of electricity,
but salty water is, so the sweatier you are...
the better this works.
That was absolutely fantastic.
The Festival of the Spoken Nerd!
Scary, that was actually quite scary.
I'm telling my mum that you made me do that.
Right, what's this Christmassy noise?
♪ We go...
- Matt? - That is after the Christmas meal when you've fallen asleep...
That's Grandpa farting, isn't it? Let's be honest.
Thank you.
- It's a pony. - Yeah, is it a reindeer? - It's a pony or a reindeer.
You think it's a reindeer? It is a creature.
It's the death throes of a turkey.
You are the closest, you are the closest at the moment, it is a bird,
- but it's a bird that might appear... - A robin? - ..in a song? - Partridge.
It is a partridge. It is absolutely, it is the sound...
- So, I... - Rrrr!
- Do you want to hear it one more time? - Yes. - Oh, yes.
- That is the sound of a partridge Farting. - ..taking off.
- Oh, taking off? Oh! - Yeah.
So here is the extraordinary thing, it comes from the Greek word...
That's how they get themselves going.
Go...
So here's the weird thing, Alan, it comes from the Greek, perdesthai,
- which means to break wind. - Shut the front door.
Partridge, the word partridge means to break wind.
And it gets its name from the rapid fluttering noise it makes when it flies away.
Partridge...
Time for another parlour game! Are you there, Moriarty?
This is a British one which I frankly don't understand. OK.
So, you are blindfolded, you hold each others' left hands,
one of you shouts out, "Are you there, Moriarty?"
The other one shouts, "Yes"
And the one who said, "Are you there Moriarty?"
then tries to hit them with the newspaper.
I'll be shouter.
OK. You take turns, you take turns.
Oh, all right, OK.
I mean, obviously I'm going to have to hit the target, but I'm not
sure how comfortable I am hitting a woman on national television.
It's Susan, you'll be all right.
- Right. - Think about the man over the road! - Oh, thanks.
- Left hands held. - Give me your hand. - Left hand. - Left hands held.
- OK. - OK, good.
Are you there, Moriarty?
Yes!
- Do I try again? - You try again, that's it.
Sorry...
- Go on, Susan. - Are you there, Moriarty? - No, I'm not. No.
No, I've left! Ow! Ow!
- Do you know what? - Yes?
I'd love the idea that someone has turned on this for the first time and gone...
"It's really changed without Stephen, hasn't it?"
Uncle Stephen would never have allowed this.
Ow! Ow!
- Ow! Ow! - Fascinating. This is good, this is good.
- I've found her, so I don't need to... - Right, you two, come on, let's have a go.
- Do we stand up? - So... No... - Ow!
I think Alan's won.
So now hold left hands.
I'm not going near him, he's an animal!
- Hold left hands. OK. - Got you.
- So, Josh shouts, "Are you there, Moriarty?" - Are you there, Moriarty?
Ow.
Ow!
- No. Alan... - What? - So, you have to say... - How am I doing?
You missed!
Let me just do it again.
Josh is going to shout, "Are you there, Moriarty?"
Alan's going to shout, "Yes", to indicate his location,
and then he's going to try and escape Josh hitting him.
OK? Right, Josh.
- Er, are you there, Moriarty? - Yes. - Now, try and escape.
- Just one hit! - Ow!
I don't want to... Ow!
Ow!
No!
Josh, you were rubbish at that game. You were rubbish.
I don't want to turn this into a Carry On film,
but mine wasn't as rigid as Alan's.
I'm not sure that was the problem...
I think the, the overall winner of that is Alan.
This is great. Are you all right?
Now, what does a Siberian getaway car look like?
- Some sort of a sled-y thing? - Is it huskies? - It is a sled thing, it's not huskies.
- Reindeer? Cats! - It is reindeer.
- "Cats"! - Apparently, the local indigenous population are very,
very skilled at reindeer driving and reindeer sleighs are faster
over snow than police snowmobiles.
In fact, in 2014, the Moscow Times reported there were plans
afoot for a police reindeer division...
- to tackle this specific... - I bet they look lovely in their wee hats.
- Oh, yes, and blue lights. - Yeah.
Blue lights on the reindeer, that would be very...
Or just the nose, going like that.
I had a chance encounter with a reindeer once.
In the Arctic, and here's the thing that is extraordinary about them,
they've got hairy noses.
- They don't have shiny, moist noses. - Aw!
They've got these really delightful hairy noses.
They're also unique amongst deer in that they are actually
attracted to the smell of human urine.
Er, I guess if you wanted to lure a reindeer to you,
- that would be the way. - Let's do it now! Let's do it now!
Someone pee there and we'll see if one comes.
It's Christmas!
Excellent.
Right, that's the turkey dinner out of the way,
let's fall asleep in the comfy armchair of General Ignorance.
- Josh, last year... - Yes.
- ..you told us all about the hairy hands of Dartmoor. - Yes.
Is that right?
They grab the steering wheel of your car and drive you off the road.
I wonder if you could just remind us which road you said it was.
Er, the B3021?
Yes...
This is, I can promise you,
one of the finest quibbles that QI has ever received.
There is a gentleman called Ian Dunn who has written in to point out that
the hairy hands of Dartmoor actually haunt the B3212 and not the B3021.
You are...
I'm afraid you're having points docked this time.
- What? Posthumously? - Yes. It couldn't be more wrong,
the B3212 runs across Dartmoor between Exeter
and Yeovilton via the hamlet of Postbridge,
- that's where the hairy hands hang out. - Of course, yeah. - The B3021
I'm afraid goes from Old Windsor to Datchet in Berkshire.
Remember that, the next time you make a joke.
Can I just say that he watched me talk about these ghost hands
that appear and drive you off the road and his quibble
- was with the number of the road? - Yes.
You didn't just let Ian down, or the show down,
you've let yourself down, haven't you?
In many ways, I think I've let Jesus down.
Yes, I know.
And his hairy hands!
And now for another of those Christmas traditions that
people want to preserve, cutting decorations out of paper.
So you should have some scissors and some paper.
And here is my question, if I want to make a five-pointed star,
how many straight lines would I need to cut?
I tell you what, these would've been a game-changer
in Are You There, Moriarty? Wouldn't they?
So how many cuts do we think? It's a five-pointed star.
That's two so far, Sandi.
- OK. - I'll do a couple more now. There's another one.
- How are you doing? - Great, Sandi.
Got the solution immediately.
- Here we go, here we go. - Oh, no!
Oh, that's very good.
It looks more like a person, a sort of happy person jumping.
What is that?
- What is that, Josh? - I don't know.
It looks like that London 2012 logo, doesn't it?
So the answer is one.
The Fold And Cut Theorem states
that any shape composed of straight lines
can be made using a single cut,
if you can just figure out which way to fold the paper.
So all you need to do, here they are, is just cut along the red line.
- Just cut along the red line. - I've done it. - So, one cut...
I've done it.
Well that's... What is that?
They've all done it! What's wrong with you all?
- Oh, yeah, no. - We've got the wrong bit! - The wrong bit of paper.
I got the wrong bit as well.
- Who's got it? Who's got the star? - Me. - There we go.
From one single cut you can get a five-point star.
And there is a presumably apocryphal story, Betsy Ross,
the woman who is alleged to have made the very first American flag,
was discussing the design for the flag with George Washington,
and he said, "Could you do a six-pointed star?"
And she said, "A five-point would be easier", and she showed him
by folding a piece of cloth in that manner, and that is why
the modern flag has the five-point star.
There's a problem with this story, if you go to Philadelphia,
you can visit Betsy Ross' house, but it's almost certain that she didn't
live there and probably didn't make the flag, but there we are...
Other than that...
American history in a nutshell.
Susan, I want you to have my star and also be my girlfriend, please.
Susan, be very careful.
He's the man from over the road!
Do you know what?
I always used to get quite lonely at Christmas cos I didn't have
a date and I don't feel lonely this Christmas because I've got you now.
Brilliant. We are boyfriend and girlfriend.
There you go.
That's the most uncertain round of applause.
I didn't want it to come to this, but Alan...
OK, how would you consume the original Humpty Dumpty?
Is it that he wasn't an egg? He was something else?
Is correct. Yes.
It's always been a sort of a nickname,
but it wasn't an egg. In fact, in the early depictions of the rhyme,
he's actually depicted as a child.
There he is, not looking entirely content.
Some people think it might have been a story about Richard III
depicted as humpbacked in Tudor histories, and he was defeated,
and despite all his king's men and horses, at the Battle of Bosworth.
Oh, isn't he gorgeous?
So when did it start becoming about an egg?
Because it's an egg, isn't it?
Well, we now think of it as an egg,
but the earlier citation in the OED is for a drink made with ale,
boiled with brandy...
- Yes, please. - And I have some here.
And I have five glasses.
Oh, yes.
Are you sharing it out or just having a brilliant time?
I am sharing it out.
- So here is the thing as well, the traditional... - Keep pouring!
The traditional food that is eaten at a Danish Christmas
is something called aebleskiver.
They are a little tiny, like a pancake thing,
which you have in jam,
and these have been made for me by a brilliant Danish chef,
Bronte Aurell, from the Scandinavian Kitchen in London,
who's here in the audience. Where are you, Bronte? Give us a wave.
Brilliant.
- Have a glass, there we are. - Then took the jam on your head...
There you go.
- There we go. - Thank you.
- Say it's medicinal. - Oh, God, that's horrific.
So, Humpty Dumpty was originally a mixture...
This is lovely, isn't it?
I never had a happy childhood, I wasn't happy.
- I didn't like you, either! OK...
Let's all just get a taxi...
Humpty Dumpty was originally a drink...
of ale and brandy and you consumed it like this. Cheers to everybody.
- Cheers. - Skol! - Cheers. - Cheers...
OK, so, that brings us to the matter of the festive scores,
and here's what I've decided, it's Christmas, so everybody is a winner.
First equal to everybody,
but the marzipan pig goes to the man of the hour,
Alan Davies.
Go on, eat it, Alan.
OK.
So, it's thanks to Susan, Matt, Josh and Alan.
Now, Christmas is a time of togetherness, so I thought we could
end the show tonight by solving a Christmas equation together, OK?
Are you ready? Here we go. So, Alan, let's have a quick look.
Here is an equation. What would you like to do with that equation?
- I would... Now... - Yes? - I would multiply both sides by R squared...
OK, we're going to multiply both sides by R squared.
There we go. Right, Josh?
- Er, well, LN is obviously the natural log. - Whoo!
Yeah...
- So if we raise both sides to the power of the natural log... - Yeah.
- ..which is, the base is E... - Yeah. - Cancels out, doesn't it?
OK, well, fancy. It does, yes, like that? Is that what do you mean?
- OK, so, very good, Matt.
Well, I am going to propose we multiply both sides by M.
Oh. OK, excellent. Susan?
Well...
- we've all had a lovely time. - Yes.
It's Christmas...
I just love you all.
I think we should go a bit mad and expand the R squared.
Expand the R squared thing and there we are,
you've only had it on cue, Merry Christmas, everybody!