QI 1x12

1. Hello and welcome to the Christmas shopping coke-trip and office lunch edition of QI,

2. which, as tradition dictates, takes place in mid-November.

3. Here's the people who'll be sick on the pavement later - Phill Jupitus,

4. John Sessions, Sean Lock,

5. and Alan Davies.

6. The rules of Christmas are - we'll be disappointed by what we get,

7. there'll be the usual long, rambling argument, one of us will sulk about losing,

8. and it'll all go on too long.

9. You've been given a strange present by a mad aunt. Phill's goes...

10. John's goes...

11. Sean's goes...

12. Alan goes...

13. .. And I go to the lavatory having eaten too many figs.

14. What would you do with a bag of Gripples at Christmas?

15. You'd be the most popular person at an S&M party.

16. Because a Gripple... it grips...

17. The Gripples have arrived!

18. It sounds a bit Northern.

19. It sounds like pork scratchings. Originally you weren't supposed to eat them.

20. You got a bag of them at Christmas and it was like a pig Meccano set.

21. All the pork scratchings together,

22. and you'd have a whole pig. Add water and it starts running about.

23. If I say Gripple,

24. I'd have to put "R" with a circle round it, which would mean what?

25. A circle round your "R"? Oh, dear. Oh, dear.

26. Why?

27. What's a circle with an "R" in it? Registered trademark, dear!

28. Oh... I heard the word before at an Evangelical ventriloquist act -

29. "And Jesus healed the Gripples."

30. It's the only time I've heard it.

31. At Christmas time you'd use it in one of London's main thoroughfares.

32. What happens in London at Christmas? Lights.

33. Lights in Regent's Street use Gripples.

34. Like a bulldog clip. Yes - it's a gripping device. A gripping device?

35. Yes - the longest fence in the world uses Gripples. Does it?

36. An extra two points if you can tell me the longest fence. The great fence of China.

37. To keep people off the Great Wall.

38. Australia! Australia is right, I'll give you two.

39. The great Dingo Fence - 5,000km long.

40. Gripples are small wire clips made in Sheffield,

41. and are used to string up Blackpool Illuminations, suspend Brazilian coffee beans off the ground to dry

42. and to hold together the world's longest fence.

43. Now, at the end of the programme I'll be judging the QI Christmas colouring competition.

44. I want you all to draw a Christmas tree.

45. Now, a puppy is for life, not just for Christmas as we know.

46. Apart from dogs, what was the first domesticated animal

47. that you could have found as a human being nestled around your Christmas fire?

48. Johnny... In the early days of Christmas,

49. turkeys would be brought into the house and gathered around the tree

50. and stroked cos of their lovely soft feathers.

51. Then suddenly they were ripped open and an apple shoved up their arse.

52. It can be fun though.

53. I missed the question cos I was sniffing the pens. Could you repeat it?

54. Yes - which was the second species of animals that humans domesticated?

55. Cat!

56. No. Prove it!

57. You'll have to take my word for it. Hens? Nope. Cows. No...

58. He's on a list again. Gerbils, hamsters, budgies... Sheep!

59. Sheep come in all colours. Less common.

60. Rudolph! Reindeer. Oh, well done

61. Out of the air! When he said "Rudolph" it reminded me...

62. of a red-nosed reindeer.

63. I must be more guarded with my tongue!

64. I was just scared. That's why you shouldn't be a teacher.

65. Right. One question... reindeers were pets?

66. They were domesticated...

67. Did they have a big wheel in the lounge for the reindeer to...?

68. A reindeer flap in the back door.

69. A massive water bottle on the side of the house.

70. Tony Hancock once saw a reindeer head on a wall

71. and says, "He must've been shifting when he hit the other side of that!"

72. I'll give someone two points for another name for reindeer.

73. A snow horse.

74. I call them snow horses all the time. No...

75. A buck. In North America. Moose. No. Elk. No.

76. Caribou! Thank you.

77. Wait! There we are.

78. About 14,000 years ago hunter-gatherers, on what is now the Russian-Mongolian border,

79. lured caribou from their migratory groups...

80. "Pssst! Caribou! Pssst! Caribou!"

81. Ever been to Mongolia? I'm being a caribou now... "Me?"

82. That's how they lured them away.

83. Very nice. Excellent.

84. And they were, to those early tribes, a walking corner shop,

85. offering meat, milk, fur for clothing, friendship...

86. Today there are about three million domesticated reindeer.

87. Most are in Lapland, and the Lapps, who herd them, prefer to call themselves the Saami

88. even though it means "the plebs" in ancient Swedish.

89. Why would a male reindeer fancy Rudolph?

90. The female genital organs will be round and bright red,

91. much like Rudolph's nose.

92. That's why the male's attracted - he thinks it's female genitalia.

93. Ooh... quite an intelligent answer. It's not true but it's good.

94. Why would a male reindeer...

95. Rudolph was a girl.

96. Yes - it's the right answer. Wow!

97. We know this because in representations of Rudolph at Christmas Eve

98. he has antlers, and only female reindeer have antlers at Christmas time.

99. The male reindeer shed their antlers at the beginning of winter.

100. So they must all be female, or possibly eunuchs. Castrated male reindeer keep their antlers.

101. Also you'd see the silhouette of their bollocks as it passed the moon.

102. They really do have great big ball sacks.

103. They're enormous! Yes. They swing about.

104. I've been behind a caribou...

105. ..in the Rocky Mountains. And you noticed its plums? They swing about.

106. Like a bag full of Gripples.

107. The only other ball sack I've seen that was comparable

108. was on a red kangaroo. Really?

109. It was laying in the sun... Are you a SIZEmologist? You brought it up.

110. It was laying in the sun scratching its nads.

111. At Christmas he got an I-Spy Nackers Of The World.

112. Tick the box.

113. "Oh, I've seen the park keepers."

114. "That's quite a rare one."

115. I always misunderstood those Spot The Ball competitions.

116. That's enough reindeer. Why, Alan... Me?in days of yore

117. did the people of rural Yorkshire gather near their beehives late on Christmas Eve?

118. It's probably some kind of money saving...

119. Well done for for alienating the largest county in England. They won't be alienated. They're proud.

120. You've got no common bloody sense, that's why!

121. You're in trouble now. I don't care.

122. I hate those Bernard Ingham types who go on about common sense.

123. It drives me BLEEP nuts!

124. Sorry.

125. I agree. Listen to the Queen's speech.

126. I like that, that's very good, Sean.

127. They gather round in a huddle around the hives

128. and listen to the mmmmmm and go,

129. ".. Two, three... ♪ Kum by ya, my Lord, kum by ya... # "

130. You're just about right. You're having a laugh!

131. Not exactly but just about - they listen for the humming.

132. They believed the bees would start humming to mark Christ's birth at midnight on Christmas Eve.

133. Honey, as you know from Yeats' poems is often associated with semen.

134. I just thought I'd throw that in.

135. Because they take it onto their boats when they're sailing. Yes.

136. Good. Erm...

137. They would have a dale in Yorkshire where the bees would hum

138. and even the bees, according to the Yorkshireman who claimed they hummed at midnight,

139. even after 1752, when the calendar changed and 12 days disappeared,

140. the bees saw the change from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar and still buzzed on Christmas Eve.

141. Your brother's killed your kestrel, go and warm up me bees.

142. The Romans called York "Eboracum" which I thought was a misunderstanding of locals

143. saying, "Eee, where I come..."

144. Anyway, why might you have thought twice about accepting a mince pie

145. if it was made in 1657.

146. Yes, Phill. Cos that's three minutes before tea time and it'd spoil your appetite. Very good.

147. The year of our Lord, 1657.

148. Let's look at the date - 1657 is a year before the death of Cromwell...

149. Very good. Erm... who was a huge hater of poofs.

150. So if you were to put your hand, even it wasn't in a Cecil Beaton kind of way,

151. near a mince pie, it might be enough to indicate you were a lover of the lavender passageway.

152. Yes... Which led to the euphemism "slinging the mince pie up the lavender passageway".

153. "Brandy butter?"

154. Remember Oliver Cromwell was running the country. He banned them.

155. Yes, he did. No mince pies for anyone. No, but for a particular reason. It wasn't sexual. Phill?

156. Cromwell, commonwealth... made his own money and they were big coins,

157. big, big coins, massive.

158. One of them in a pie, oesophagus... Aaaaaargh!

159. Mince pies were served to symbolise something that Cromwell opposed.

160. Catholicism! Five points to that man there.

161. Catholics used them as discreet ways of displaying their membership

162. of the mother of churches. Who's he?

163. He's some species of cardinal, by the look of it.

164. So they're not Siamese twins that have just been separated?

165. What made him do that? That's a blessing. Is it?

166. Waiting for someone to throw the pie.

167. He's at the other end of the lavender passageway.

168. Mince pie, please.

169. They were hated papist symbols. It was derived from the pastry

170. sweetmeats given by the people of Rome to the priests in the Vatican on Christmas Eve.

171. The English versions were often topped with graven images

172. and baked in the shape of a crib and a little pastry baby Jesus.

173. In the mountains of Nuremberg... Germany! Well done

174. Where they have the rally? That's right, sadly discontinued.

175. .. There's a village there whose name means "eavesdropper" in German.

176. What did this village provide for over 100 Christmases?

177. War criminals.

178. Oh, dear.

179. The old tradition of roasting a war criminal.

180. Glass of sherry, cheers.

181. Compliments of the season.

182. I was away all night.

183. Anybody got a...

184. Having a barbie. You're having a Klaus. Yeah, a Klaus.

185. Come round, we got a Klaus on the go.

186. Santa Klaus. So... Um...

187. Instantly one thinks of Wager's last operas, Die Meistersingers.

188. Yes. Would they possibly have provided the world with, um...

189. the leading song meister, the liebermeister in the opera?

190. No, no, no, it wasn't. No, no.

191. You said what everybody else was thinking but in fact...

192. Walnut whips? No. Christmas time for 100 years, this village devoted itself to...

193. Brazil nuts? the manufacture of an object. You can't manufacture Brazil nuts in a German town!

194. Come on! Baubles, tinsel... Baubles is the right answer.

195. The only place that made baubles? Yes.

196. Between 1840 and the end of WWII, a single German village - Lauscha -

197. and lauscher is German for eavesdropper, supplied the globe with them.

198. Local glass makers had the idea that glass balls are cute on a tree.

199. It became the village's principle exports with almost every house converted into a small factory.

200. At its peak, 95% of Christmas tree balls in America came from Lauscha.

201. Do you think Hitler's tree only had one ball hanging on it?

202. They like it. They like it.

203. What Christmas tradition did American insurance companies try to ban in 1908?

204. I was given this thought earlier, I've got this actually.

205. They banned the placing of dimes in Christmas puddings because too many people were choking on them.

206. No. An intelligent answer, oddly nothing to do with Wagner but...

207. It's not right.

208. Did you know, the first ever life insurance policy was taken out in about 1863.

209. A man called, was it Stanley Gibbons? No, he was the stamp guy.

210. He's called Gibbons, he insured his life for £383 for a year.

211. He died four weeks short of the year.

212. His family turned up to claim the first policy and the 16 underwriters all got together

213. and they decided the only way to avoid paying this HUGE sum of money,

214. was to define a year on their own terms.

215. They decided a year was 12 times four weeks,

216. that's a month approximately.

217. So they said by strictly defining a year, he'd lived for the full term.

218. They've changed now, haven't they? Yes.

219. They love to pay out, "To hell with the small print, here's your money."

220. I've an image of a black and white Christmas film, with live candles.

221. Five points, quite right.

222. Chicago Hospital burned down in 1885, the whole hospital, because of a candle on a Christmas tree.

223. Three separate Father Christmases died, this isn't funny...

224. by picking presents up from under the tree and their beards catching fire.

225. Here's a Christmas to remember. You're that kid, Santa bends down, comes up, "Argh!"

226. When Paris was under siege in 1870 from the Prussians, the food ran out.

227. What Christmas dinner was improvised by Voisins, the fashionable Parisian restaurant?

228. Ratatouille.

229. Well, there you are. Oddly enough you're right again.

230. Ratatouille. They raided the zoos and sewers

231. and prepared things like consomme of elephant,

232. braised kangaroo, antelope pate, polecat garnished with rats!

233. In China, during famines they improvise. There's a famous Chinese dish called Three Squeak.

234. They get a pregnant rat, wait for it to have its babies.

235. It's called Three Squeak because it squeaks three times.

236. Once when you pick it up, eek! Once when you dip it in chilli sauce, eek! And once when you bite into it, eek!

237. Three Squeak. Two points for fascinating information.

238. If you time it right, you can do the Birdie Song.

239. Excellent.

240. Can I tell you my joke? Please do.

241. Sir John Gielgud was directing an actor in the West End. The actor was pausing a lot, as young actors do.

242. Gielgud said, "Stop. No, you must never pause. I paused many years ago

243. "and in the silence I heard a voice in the third row go,

244. 'Oooh, hideous beast, you've just come all over my umbrella!'"

245. That's very odd. That's fantastic.

246. Time to bang our heads against the brick wall of understanding in the quick-fire round.

247. Which is the odd one out - Paris, London, Poland or Banana?

248. Phil. Poland and banana because "Down And Out In Poland and Banana" would be a terrible book.

249. Yes? It's got something to do with Help The Aged. They've got branches in Paris, London, Polandbanana...

250. Hitler never invaded or planted a banana.

251. That's true. None of them is the odd one out.

252. Do you know why?

253. What kind of hellish quiz is this?

254. Fair point. "What one's the odd one out? None of them! Hah-hah!"

255. Hah-hah! Is that me? That's you. Oh, bugger you!

256. I don't sound like that. Baa-baa.

257. What else is called Christmas? Islands. Ha!

258. Where the bananas grow. No. Or don't grow. No. Where the Pope grows.

259. They're in the Christmas Islands. There's a place called London, Paris, Poland and Banana.

260. It's the largest atoll in the Pacific and has the fastest growing population in the world, 7.7%.

261. What is the youngest age that a child can have

262. a pint of mulled wine or a double brandy in a restaurant beer garden in the UK.

263. 18. Oh, dear. No, no.

264. 12, if you met them on the internet.

265. Oh, dear, dear.

266. You can't have double brandy in a pub unless you're 18.

267. Five years old. What? Five years old.

268. It's only illegal for children between five and 18 to consume alcoholic drinks in the bar.

269. A place defined by the law as chiefly or exclusively for the sole consumption of alcoholic drinks.

270. Pub restaurants and gardens don't count, provided the child has the drink bought by an adult.

271. How does the child get the round in then? That's the beauty of being a child.

272. That's how the practice died out.

273. Drink, drink, drink, not you... drink, drink, not you either.

274. Where does Santa Claus come from?

275. From Saint Nicholas.

276. Saint Nicholas. Yes what place? The Bohemia, Czechoslovakia. No? Not quite.

277. Any thoughts? Russia. Um... he's an Aborigine. No.

278. Woking? No. Lapland. Bavaria.

279. Oh dear, oh dear.

280. And I saw "North Pole" on there...

281. Turkey. Yes. Bingo.

282. That is the old Saint Nicholas. Ha-apy Christ-mas.

283. Vine leaves! Sinta Klaas, as they call him in the Netherlands.

284. Sinta Klaas Ist Anch Kommt is a little song...

285. I'll give you points if you tell me where precisely our modern view of Father Christmas comes from.

286. Does it derive from the Gemuetlichkeit culture

287. that Prince Albert brought to Britain in the 1840s?

288. Again you're chiming with the thought that fills the room, but no!

289. The Gemuetlichkeit culture is not an issue here.

290. I must take you to the year 1822.

291. When Schubert wrote the unfinished symphony.

292. A poem was written which gave us for the first time ever recorded,

293. the idea of the white beard, red coat, the stockings, the chimney.

294. Americans quote it every Christmas.

295. 'Twas The Night Before Christmas.

296. Clement Clarke Moore was professor of Hebrew. The poem was called A Visit From St Nicholas.

297. Off his face on laudanum. "A big fat man with a beard and red coat...

298. "Ha-ha-ha-ha, this is fantastic!

299. "He's got a sack full of Gripples!

300. "Presents, presents."

301. It's almost goodbye but not before the QI Christmas colouring competition.

302. Gentlemen, can I have your trees?

303. Johnny's is brilliant, that's minimalist. It's a long way away.

304. I'm particularly impressed, I have to say, with Sean.

305. Alan, surprisingly, has fallen into the trap into which we all fall -

306. which is supposing that the branches go down!

307. We'll ask Jamie to come on with a Christmas tree.

308. That's a beauty, isn't it!

309. You'd think he'd find a better one in the middle of winter.

310. The point is the branches go up. Was I holding it like that? Was I holding it like that? No.

311. We have to agree the runaway winner from Johnny Sessions, look at that.

312. It's time for the final scores.

313. I'm afraid in last place, Alan... Hmm? it's Alan, minus six.

314. I'm so sorry.

315. In third place, Phill Jupitus with five.

316. In second place with seven, it's Sean Lock!

317. But four times better than that, our impressive runaway winner with 28 points, John Sessions!

318. I'll leave you with this seasonal inquiry made last Christmas by an elderly American couple

319. in the tourist office at Stratford-upon-Avon.

320. "The map is great but could you show us the quickest route to Shakespeare's manger?"

321. Merry Christmas, everyone.