1. Good evening. Good evening.
Good evening. Good evening.Copy !req
2. Good evening and
God rest ye, merry gentleviewers.Copy !req
3. Tonight's QI is going to the Dickens
with E for Empire.Copy !req
4. In the Old Curiosity Shop, we have
Great Expectations of Jo Brand...Copy !req
5. .. Our Mutual Friend, Sean Lock...Copy !req
6. .. that witty Chuzzle Martin,
Bill Bailey...Copy !req
7. .. and getting his knickers in
one "Oliver" Twist, Alan Davies.Copy !req
8. It's nearly Christmas.
Let's hear some Carols. Bill goes...Copy !req
9. Lovely. Jo goes...Copy !req
10. Sean goes...Copy !req
11. And Alan goes...Copy !req
12. Just not trying, are you?Copy !req
13. So, keep your eyes and ears peeled
for an elephant in the room.Copy !req
14. If you see one, you're looking at
one big Christmas bonus.Copy !req
15. So to our first question. What did
Queen Victoria think of Mr Bean?Copy !req
16. We are not amused.Copy !req
17. Oh!Copy !req
18. Oh! Ho! Straight in!Copy !req
19. Albert would have liked it because
the Germans are mad for Bean. True.Copy !req
20. I was on Lufthansa flight
and everyone was laughing
with headphones.Copy !req
21. They were all watching Bean.
They love it!Copy !req
22. There's a certain efficiency.Copy !req
23. Does something and falls over.
Very amusing.Copy !req
24. "He was walking in a straight line!
He walked into the door!"Copy !req
25. "Zis is what happens
when you break ze rules!"Copy !req
26. "Sometimes I stay up very late!"Copy !req
27. Can I take this off?
Of course you can.Copy !req
28. Is it uncomfortable?
Ah! It's Sean Lock!Copy !req
29. I suspect it's not THAT Mr Bean.
Is there another Mr Bean? John Bean.Copy !req
30. One of three people who tried
to do something to Queen Victoria
in the fourth year of her reign.Copy !req
31. Take her roughly
behind the bike shed?Copy !req
32. No, or indeed invent the bicycle
and then invent the shed.Copy !req
33. Sell her tea towels door-to-door.Copy !req
34. No! Kiss her on the mouth.
Quite the other! Well...Copy !req
35. Is that how you phrase it? "Quite
the other, if you don't mind!"Copy !req
36. You can get anything
if you're the Queen. "You there!
Kiss me on the..."Copy !req
37. These were unfriendly acts.
He didn't turn down her advances
with knockers like these?Copy !req
38. Three times in 1842... Tried to
murder her. ..to assassinate her.Copy !req
39. Mr Bean had a gun and he filled it
with wads of tobacco.Copy !req
40. Which didn't do much harm.
Was he trying to give her cancer?Copy !req
41. I like the idea of Mr Bean trying to
assassinate someone by clumsiness.Copy !req
42. Making a cup of tea and the house
collapses, the palace falls down.Copy !req
43. Everywhere he goes
is a tornado of disaster. Mayhem.Copy !req
44. I went to a remote Australian
sheep station and the bloke went,
"Ever watch Mr Bean?Copy !req
45. "That bloke's a bloody idiot!"Copy !req
46. That's fabulous. "Yeah, he wouldn't
last five minutes in the bush!"Copy !req
47. Well, clearly not.Copy !req
48. They're all rather
these Carry On names. There was one
foiled by a PC Trounce.Copy !req
49. Hence the name. Maybe.
He invented the trounce.Copy !req
50. "I trounce your assassination
attempt with my trouncing stick."Copy !req
51. One assassin, called John Francis,
was described by Prince Albert
as "a thorough scamp".Copy !req
52. A thorough scamp? Someone tried to
assassinate his wife? "You scamp!"Copy !req
53. "Thorough scamp!" Oh, yeah. Tough.Copy !req
54. Seven years was the maximum for
trying to assassinate the Queen.Copy !req
55. The line "we are not amused"
was reported in The Notebooks
Of A Spinster Lady in 1919.Copy !req
56. She had a childish sense of humour
and was amused by lots of things.
Little crowns! She liked them.Copy !req
57. Queen Victoria took a dim view
of John Bean who tried to
assassinate her early in her reign.Copy !req
58. What was Queen Victoria's...
Victoria's secret?Copy !req
59. Victoria's deadly secret?
She was a man.Copy !req
60. No. Did she keep snooker balls
in a sock?Copy !req
61. "What happened to him?"Nothing!"
A wonderful idea.Copy !req
62. Was she just poisonous?
She killed someone? Well...Copy !req
63. Indirectly. There was something
about her that was not infectious...
Was she an alien?Copy !req
64. She was a carrier... Haemophilia?
She was a carrier of haemophilia.Copy !req
65. And so infected every single
royal house in Europe.Copy !req
66. Most have had haemophiliac deaths.
Her own son, Prince Leopold,
died of haemophilia.Copy !req
67. Women can carry it
but can't be haemophiliac,Copy !req
68. except where the mother is a carrier
and the father IS a haemophiliac.Copy !req
69. Usually, it's the men in the family.
Yeah. We like that.Copy !req
70. My favourite illness.
Number one - haemophilia. Oh!Copy !req
71. It's a defective X chromosome,
in fact, that causes it.Copy !req
72. Her daughter
Alice Princess of Saxe-Coburg
had a daughter Alexandra,Copy !req
73. the Tsarina of Russia.Copy !req
74. Many believe it precipitated
the Russian Revolution the fact that
her son Alexei was a haemophiliac.Copy !req
75. That's what got Rasputin involved
in the royal family, which enraged
so many that revolution gathered.Copy !req
76. If she had not been haemophiliac...
WAS he the lover
of the Russian Queen? Oh! Ra, ra!Copy !req
77. Russia's greatest love machine,
I seem to remember.Copy !req
78. That's where I learnt my history.
In many years, when we come to
the letter R, we'll cover Rasputin.Copy !req
79. His death was even more
extraordinary.Copy !req
80. They poisoned him, shot him, drowned
him in the lake and he wouldn't die.Copy !req
81. Still singing that bloody song!Copy !req
82. And then eventually, the red light
in his eye flickered and went out.Copy !req
83. Exactly!Copy !req
84. What's Bill doing?
I can't move my head.Copy !req
85. You got your own private
sideboard show. Very honoured.Copy !req
86. This collar's starting to hurt
my ears. I'll have sore under-ears.Copy !req
87. Your ears are very big. They're
shown off to their full majesty.Copy !req
88. You're going bald.Copy !req
89. Really, children! I was trying
to pay him a compliment.Copy !req
90. "You've got big ears!" You have.
I know I've got big ears!Copy !req
91. You look like a pork butcher
from the 1950s.Copy !req
92. Now, children.
We must be of Christmas spirit.Copy !req
93. She started it. Remember the dateCopy !req
94. One of the theories put forward
is the oddity of the factCopy !req
95. that there had been no haemophilia
in the Hanover family, her family.Copy !req
96. So, either one of her parents
had a one-in-50,000 gene mutation.Copy !req
97. Or she was the illegitimate daughter
of a haemophiliac.Copy !req
98. I'm looking forward
to next week's Heat magazine!Copy !req
99. Oh, yeah! Absolutely!Copy !req
100. They're going to go crazy with
that little titbit, aren't they?Copy !req
101. Queen Victoria was responsible
for all the royal families of Europe
carrying the gene for haemophilia.Copy !req
102. At last, in the E series,
we come to a question that you've
all been waiting for, on erotica!Copy !req
103. What kind of behaviour was forbidden
in the secret museum of pornography?Copy !req
104. Flash photography.
Was it fisting?Copy !req
105. Three innocent little words
that somehow... Your majesty!Copy !req
106. Queen Victoria just said,
"Was it fisting?" The Queen would
like to know was it fisting?Copy !req
107. What I know of myself,
Queen Victoria was well up for it.Copy !req
108. She was! She had 28 children.
She had a lot of children.Copy !req
109. As a young girl, she was full
of fun, loved dancing and music.Copy !req
110. She wrote saucy letters sometimes.
Well, not saucy. She showed
she had a twinkle in her eye.Copy !req
111. Who's Frank Lampard looking at
through that keyhole?Copy !req
112. Is that how you view the Museum
of Pornography? Tiny tiny museum!
Fits into a keyhole.Copy !req
113. As we go through... the keyhole!Copy !req
114. He can't do many, but they're good!Copy !req
115. The Museum of Pornography.
Something's forbidden...
No school trips!Copy !req
116. It was opened in Naples.Copy !req
117. You can't have your packed lunch
near the dildos, kids.Copy !req
118. To do with Catholicism or the Mafia.
Not that.Copy !req
119. What were they discovering
in the early part of
the 19th century? Pompei.Copy !req
120. Almost everything they discovered
about Pompeii was pornographic.Copy !req
121. The first thing was
a statue of Pan shagging a goat
festooned with... Filth!Copy !req
122. .. filthy graffiti. Absolute filth.
"Eric has the biggest knob
in Pompeii."Copy !req
123. Underneath,
"It's not as big as my brother's."Copy !req
124. It was clearly a sexually vibrant
place! It's not as crude in Latin!Copy !req
125. Doesn't make you go, "Oh, grow up!"
Someone's written "wank"!Copy !req
126. "Wankasitum!" Oh!Copy !req
127. So they got all the sexy stuff, and
put it into a Museum of Pornography.Copy !req
128. Look at some of the most lovely
buttocks ever committed to marble.Copy !req
129. The Venus Kallipygos,
the Venus with the beautiful bottom.Copy !req
130. That is a very nice arse.
I'm no expert on the female anatomy.Copy !req
131. She's looking round, "You are gonna
put a load of clothes round there
when you're finished?"Copy !req
132. Has she come out of a toilet
and not noticed her skirt's caught
in her ear?Copy !req
133. According to Dr David Holmes,
a psychology lecturer at Manchester
Metropolitan University,Copy !req
134. there is a formula to describe
the beauty of a bottom.Copy !req
135. S + C x ...Copy !req
136. That mean "nice arse,
shame about your face"?Copy !req
137. Looks as if it could!
S stands for overall shape.Copy !req
138. C is circularity. B is bounciness.Copy !req
139. F is firmness. T is skin texture.
V is the ratio from hip to waist.Copy !req
140. He sounds like a right old perv.
He does a bit.Copy !req
141. "I've been noticing your bottom
and I've done some sums!Copy !req
142. "I'm glad to say..."
You've helped me crack the formula!Copy !req
143. "Mathematically,
it's absolutely perfect."Copy !req
144. That's bottoms for you.
What you weren't allowed to do,
you haven't told me.Copy !req
145. Become aroused. Arousal
was included. Say anything. Laugh.Copy !req
146. If you laughed, you were ejected.Copy !req
147. You were to take a scholarly
appreciation of this as antiquity.Copy !req
148. If you laughed or became aroused...
No laughing!Copy !req
149. And the big stiff
cock is not funny! Not funny!Copy !req
150. You smiling? You're gonna laugh now?
No!Copy !req
151. Anyway...Copy !req
152. It was bricked up in the late 19th
century, the pornography museum.Copy !req
153. It's still there in Naples,
but you have to get a special permit
and can only go in with a guide.Copy !req
154. The secret museum contained all
the smutty stuff from Pompeii that
you weren't allowed to laugh at.Copy !req
155. So, why was it easier
to put your boots on in the dark
between 1600 and 1800?Copy !req
156. People's eyes were better with
the dark, cos there weren't electric
lights. They were like owls!Copy !req
157. We were a lot shorter
with massive eyes!Copy !req
158. It was easier to put your boots on
in 1600 than it was in 1400.Copy !req
159. Why is that? Zips.Copy !req
160. No! Was there a big drop
in boot thieves around 1600?Copy !req
161. They were luminous!
They weren't luminous!Copy !req
162. Were they both the same? Well done,
Jo Brand. That's exactly it.Copy !req
163. No lefts or rights for 200 years. It
didn't matter which you picked up.Copy !req
164. Before that, you had lefts
and rights, and then after that.Copy !req
165. What prompted this sudden...? Heels.Copy !req
166. They couldn't make heeled boots
in a left and right shape.
It was too difficult.Copy !req
167. You could shove on whichever boot
came first and it wouldn't matter.Copy !req
168. Did it extend to the whole...
the whole life, left and right?Copy !req
169. They just abandoned the whole notion
of left and right?Copy !req
170. For 200 years, "Where is it?"
"Up there. I don't know!"Copy !req
171. We have an expert from the
Northampton Museum and Art Gallery.Copy !req
172. Rebecca Shawcross, the shoe heritage
officer, gave us this information.Copy !req
173. An officer of shoe heritage?
Does she get to carry a gun?
I hope so. I would imagine.Copy !req
174. I'm sure she would. Keswick
Pencil Museum. That's pretty good.Copy !req
175. Two Bs and two Hs
and everything in between. Exactly.Copy !req
176. And there's places you can draw.
It's brilliant!Copy !req
177. In Reykjavik,
there's a penis museum. There is.Copy !req
178. I'm not making it up.
Whose penises do they have?
I've not visited it.Copy !req
179. Perhaps a blue whale's penis. Yeah.
It's different species.Copy !req
180. I wonder if Bjork's got anything
to do with it.Copy !req
181. She does the audio commentary.Copy !req
182. "A pee-ooo... Ssh!"Copy !req
183. "Bubbleybubbleybaboo!"
What the hell? See a penis?Copy !req
184. She goes, "Wha wha wha wha!"Copy !req
185. Gift shop would be good.
For 200 years...Copy !req
186. For 200 years only, really,
left boots were exactly the same
as right boots.Copy !req
187. Now, what are these? What are they?
Mm? Oh, these are... Daleks?Copy !req
188. Wait a minute!Copy !req
189. Ah ha ha. You've got the elephant.Copy !req
190. Bloody hell! I said elephant
and didn't wave my elephant!Copy !req
191. As it's Christmas,
we'll be kind to Tiny Tim.Copy !req
192. Is that just after
the elephant was frightened?Copy !req
193. Jumped out of his boots! Why have
they got shoes for an elephant?Copy !req
194. In captivity, especially elephants
that work, can get terrible
abrasions on the soft underpart.Copy !req
195. They have soft areas... I've never
seen an elephant with shoes on.Copy !req
196. Would you like to? I would like to,
if one came in...Copy !req
197. Jo, how can you turn that down?Copy !req
198. Would they be difficult to put on,
would the elephant...?Copy !req
199. They would have been much easier
to put on between 1400 and 1600.Copy !req
200. VG! They were tailor-made.Copy !req
201. Each one was made specifically for
each foot of a particular elephant.Copy !req
202. Joy to the world! Tis the season
to deck the halls with general
ignorance, so fingers on buzzers.Copy !req
203. Why did Victorians put covers
on the legs of pianos?Copy !req
204. They thought they were too rude.Copy !req
205. Almost the words we had in mind.
Exactly.Copy !req
206. In case they warped.Copy !req
207. Kind of that.
To protect them is the answer.Copy !req
208. This idea that they were prudish
about furniture legs is nonsense.Copy !req
209. What's quite interesting is that
Victorians laughed at Americans.
They thought Americans were prudes.Copy !req
210. That they covered piano legs
out of modesty.Copy !req
211. Americans were founded
by the puritans. They changed words
like "titbit" to "tidbit".Copy !req
212. "Bottom" to "fanny",
strangely enough.Copy !req
213. The point is that Victorians
never covered piano legs, but just
to protect them, if they did.Copy !req
214. Why did the Victorians legislate
against male homosexuality
but not against lesbian...? Oh!Copy !req
215. That's, er...
Thank you and we can...Copy !req
216. Moving on. Why...? Oh, dear!
Why didn't they legislate against
lesbianism?Copy !req
217. I, Queen Victoria,
didn't believe that women got up to
such scurrilous activities.Copy !req
218. Hmmmm!Copy !req
219. You're really going right for them,
aren't you? Happy Christmas to me!Copy !req
220. There's no truth in that Queen
Victoria had them cut any reference
to lesbianism as it didn't exist.Copy !req
221. Even if she'd questioned the law,
she would have sparked a revolution.Copy !req
222. She had no power to have
any influence on any legislation.Copy !req
223. Do you know the name of the law?
It was in 1885.Copy !req
224. It was called
the Labouchere Amendment.Copy !req
225. The first case of anyone being
sentenced under it was Oscar Wilde
who got two years' hard labour.Copy !req
226. The judge said, "You have been
the centre of a circle of corruption
of young men...Copy !req
227. "This is the worst case I have ever
tried. It is my duty to sentence you
to two years at hard labour,Copy !req
228. "in my opinion nothing like enough."Copy !req
229. "The worst case I've ever tried."
A week earlier,
he'd tried a case of child murder.Copy !req
230. The attitude they had. Would you say
he was a closet? He may have been!Copy !req
231. Of course, the Wilde case
precipitated an immense change in
British cultural life in may ways.Copy !req
232. Soldiers, like your good self,
walked arm-in-arm in Hyde Park
for 100 years.Copy !req
233. Arm-in-arm or arms linked,
as they do in the Continent still.Copy !req
234. As soon as the Wilde case came up,
men stood never touching each other,
a whole different way of behaving.Copy !req
235. Cos a bloke used to nick my medals!
I used to have hundreds of medals!Copy !req
236. So, it was all... I've got that one.Copy !req
237. That was from a Quality Street tin.
Legislation against lesbianism
seems never to have been considered.Copy !req
238. Victoria would have had no power
to block it, had it been.Copy !req
239. There is that rare thing
we're enjoying, a Christmas show
that hardly mentions Christmas.Copy !req
240. I want to know what Winterval is...Copy !req
241. Political correctness gone mad!Copy !req
242. I don't believe it!
I do not believe it! Jo Brand!Copy !req
243. Is there a special law?Copy !req
244. If you get every one of these
they're completely null and void?Copy !req
245. No, it's this typically
British thing.Copy !req
246. I guarantee, if you're reading
a newspaper today, there will be
some tiresome old fartCopy !req
247. who'll have written,
"For political correctness reasons,
there are no decorations in offices.Copy !req
248. "Calling it Winterval so as
not to offend minority religions."
It's absolute bollocks.Copy !req
249. 90% of all offices are decorated.
There are more parties every year.Copy !req
250. Winterval was simply a commercial
campaign... What was that?Copy !req
251. Something just ran across there
really fast.Copy !req
252. I think it was a velociraptor.Copy !req
253. It was nothing to do with
political correctness.
Birmingham City Council?Copy !req
254. My brother was on the phone going,
"Bloody Birmingham City Council!
Winterval. PC gone mad!" Nonsense!Copy !req
255. It was a campaign
for local businesses.Copy !req
256. It was just a thing.
From November to January...Copy !req
257. You're upset by that. It's running
all the way round the building.Copy !req
258. Then just going across...Copy !req
259. He'll be back in a minute.Copy !req
260. Oh, dear! Let's just wait for him!Copy !req
261. Could be ages.Copy !req
262. I don't want to look at that one
in case I miss it.Copy !req
263. He's not coming!Copy !req
264. What innocent... Went all the way
out on the South Bank...Copy !req
265. There'll be people watching going,
"Christmas isn't
what it used to be."Copy !req
266. Used to have Morecambe and Wise,
Angela Rippon tap dancing.Copy !req
267. Now we're watching a strange animal!Copy !req
268. Ah, it's the little things in life.
It is.Copy !req
269. Despite what you're going to read in
your newspapers from boring old...Copy !req
270. It's your fault
for reading the Daily Mail!Copy !req
271. Contrary to stories carried every
year, Winterval is not a PC attack
on Christmas by Birmingham,Copy !req
272. simply a promotional campaign that
they ran for one year 11 years ago.Copy !req
273. Lastly, not so much a question
as a piece of practical advice.Copy !req
274. What's the best way to stop children
peeking at presents
before Christmas Day?Copy !req
275. Yes, Jo Brand?Copy !req
276. Don't get 'em any!Copy !req
277. You do what I do.Copy !req
278. Buy all your presents on
Christmas Eve from a petrol station.Copy !req
279. You ARE the spirit of Christmas!Copy !req
280. Everyone's face when you open
the barbecue fuel! Lovely.Copy !req
281. Ooh, special! Haribo!Copy !req
282. Lovely. Blind them. Blind them?Copy !req
283. That would certainly...Copy !req
284. A little extreme perhaps.Copy !req
285. Bury them in the garden?
This is a story from last year.Copy !req
286. In Rock Hill, South Carolina,
a mother convinced police
to arrest her 12-year-old son,Copy !req
287. after he unwrapped a present early,
the police came to the house.Copy !req
288. He was arrested. "That's it!
I'm callin' the police!" Exactly!Copy !req
289. Was it a gun he'd unwrapped? We may
understand more about the family.Copy !req
290. It was a 12-year-old.
The mother was 27.Copy !req
291. Which means she must have been 15.
14 in conception.Copy !req
292. It was a Nintendo GameBoy Advance.Copy !req
293. His great-grandmother, only 63,
told him not to open this particular
popular hand-held game console.Copy !req
294. How old was the boy's wife?Copy !req
295. Go and help his wife.
She was in labour!Copy !req
296. "He wanted it. He just took it,"
said the great-grandmother.Copy !req
297. He was released the same day,
but apparently he showed no remorse.Copy !req
298. I'd love to have been round there,
Christmas dinner! What a happy day!Copy !req
299. "You forgot the cranberry.
I'm dialling 911!"Copy !req
300. "You bitch! Why...!" Boom!Copy !req
301. Oh, dear. Well, my goodness.
That seems to be it.Copy !req
302. Speaking of remorse and not showing
it, it's time for the scores,Copy !req
303. which tonight should be
in old money.Copy !req
304. In last place,
it can come as no surprise...Copy !req
305. .. minus 33 farthings. Jo Brand!Copy !req
306. And... in third place
with minus eight pennies, Sean Lock.Copy !req
307. In second place, with eight bob,
Bill Bailey!Copy !req
308. Do my eyes deceive me, ladies and
gentlemen? It can only be Christmas.Copy !req
309. Our winner, with a grand sum
of ten guineas, Alan Davies!Copy !req
310. With a wind of change blowing about
our ears, it's time to pull down the
flag for the last time this series.Copy !req
311. Good night from Mr Bailey, Master
Lock, Miss Brand, my rascal Davies,
my humble and obedient selfCopy !req
312. and from the show
on which the sun never sets.Copy !req
313. A very happy Christmas from me
and good night.Copy !req