QI 6x2

1. Ho, ho, ho! Ho, ho, ho, ho!

2. Ho ho ho ho ho!

3. God rest, ye merry ladies and gentlemen and welcome to QI.

4. Dust off the snow, take off your hats, scarves and trousers

5. as we gather round the flickering flames of fact and fallacy to examine fire and freezing.

6. Helping me to stoke the embers and rummage excitedly in my stockings, we have four festive fellows.

7. It's a baptism of fire for Dom Joly!

8. And crackling and sparkling on all cylinders, Clive Anderson!

9. Come home to a real fire - buy a cottage in Wales in the company of Rob Brydon!

10. And hiding under the bedclothes playing with matches, Alan Davies!

11. Let it snow, let it snow and let us know what you know,

12. but before the party games begin, jingle your bells. Dom goes...

13. Clive goes... ♪ Burn, baby, burn

14. Rob goes... ♪ I am the god of hellfire!

15. There's a fiery theme. And Alan goes...

16. 'Alan, you're a bloody disgrace! You're fired!'

17. You're fired! Oh, no!

18. How disappointing.

19. So...

20. Now...

21. Here's one way to use fire - Indian smoke signals.

22. Can you tell me what they're saying?

23. It's not going to turn out to be a myth and they never used them? No.

24. You might have expected that, but it's quite genuine.

25. It's considered probably the first language of North America.

26. I don't see the subtleties of it from just... a bit of smoke.

27. All you need is a bit of smoke and then not smoke. Do you see?

28. If you left it alone, you'd get a column of smoke. They do puffs,

29. by having animals skins, not blankets - one used to think that -

30. that you take away and they can create immensely complicated... even V shapes,

31. using the blankets.

32. Is this what they do at the Vatican with the Pope?

33. It's similar! It's a more simple language.

34. Very simple. It's white or black, right.

35. They used to add wet straw to make it black.

36. Black is what - for an African Pope?

37. They have to tell the populace assembled in St Peter's Square.

38. Since they've banned smoking, people hang out the window for a fag

39. and it causes lots of problems.

40. Catholic priests hanging out for a fag? It seems so unlikely.

41. If we run the film on, it's two puffs that they give here.

42. That's how-how.

43. And two puffs means... all is well, apparently. Everything's OK.

44. Looks more like a question mark. It does. Do they do grammar or...?

45. They could have got a light aircraft that can write in the sky.

46. Just a simple purchase. Like that?

47. See? They're ahead of you. They got good, didn't they?

48. The one before... Can we go back to it? Yes, we can.

49. You say it means, "All's well."

50. That could so easily be the aftermath of this Indian's home

51. going up in flames.

52. They'd look over the hill and go,

53. "Do you think that's our place?" "No, it says all's well."

54. And just carry on. It is confusing.

55. We did it with signal bonfires across the country. Absolutely!

56. It might be, "Oh! There's an invasion!" or,

57. "The Great Fire of London is happening! Bring water!"

58. If you accidentally set light to your beacon, that's a disaster!

59. Is that before or after email? It's close.

60. Yeah. They were spamming, though. You had endless screeds.

61. "Do you want a bigger cock?"

62. Is that how you get a bigger cock? Slapping it around?

63. With me, it would have the opposite effect.

64. I think you'll find it works for a while.

65. Oh, heavens. Indian smoke signals varied from time to time and place,

66. but one puff generally meant, "Hello!"

67. Now we can take our hats off as I ask another question.

68. We've provided you with a more sophisticated signalling device,

69. and a little booklet about each.

70. Dom, why don't you try flirting with Rob, based on this?

71. Cos what they've got in front of them is...

72. ..a little booklet...

73. They have a little booklet describing the language of fans.

74. What are you saying, Dom?

75. I'll tell you what he's saying.

76. He's saying, "I am having a fit.

77. "The tablets are in my top pocket."

78. No, he's saying... Oh, my God! "I love another." Yes. Oh, my!

79. And he's looking at Alan. Not that chap next to you!

80. It's a very complex thing. Do not betray our secret.

81. I've got one for you. Ready?

82. Slow closing. Oh! "I promise to marry you"!

83. Thank you. Do you know anything about the language of fans?

84. Where it came from? What time?

85. I'm guessing it was from Belgium. Belgium? Yeah. Not far off.

86. I know - it's from Yorkshire!

87. Can you imagine that? "Ee, I'll..."

88. What if you're just a bit hot and you're saying, "Hello! I love you!"?

89. "Do you swallow?"

90. Sorry! What was that? What's got into you?

91. It's Christmas. It's Christmas.

92. I've got... The Christmas spirit is in me. I'm very sorry.

93. Usually you drag it...

94. If it nosedives into the carnal, it'll be my fault tonight.

95. The thing about the language of fans is that fans did come over from China to Europe via Italy,

96. as much did after Marco Polo, but it was a late 19th-century invention.

97. There was a French fan house called Duvelleroy

98. and they produced a little booklet with this language of fans...

99. French fan house? Is that a euphemism?

100. Maison de l'eventail! Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't!

101. It took over from the language of the baguette.

102. Which was rather more basic.

103. So there we are, fans.

104. Obviously every lady had a fan in those days

105. in the 18th and 19th century, but to help the sales of their fans,

106. they invented this language of the fan.

107. What happened to the fireman's pole?

108. He tiled the fireman's bathroom.

109. Very good.

110. Very good. How much time does it save to go down a pole?

111. They've got to drive halfway across town anyway to get there!

112. That's true. Just walk downstairs. Why not have a slide like the park?

113. That would be fun. Or a water slide.

114. A good way of getting young firemen in.

115. Start getting them trained. Probably a Health and Safety thing.

116. Oh, Dom!

117. "Health and Safety gone mad!" The new political correctness gone mad.

118. There were stories in newspapers

119. that essentially make things up to get us angry in the morning.

120. They claimed fireman's poles were

121. being taken out for Health and Safety.

122. It's just nonsense.

123. Most new fire stations are built on one floor,

124. but if they build on two floors, they get their pole.

125. That's the main reason you become a fireman!

126. It's not, "So I might die in a fire!

127. "I want to go down the pole and maybe one night

128. "I'll bring a friend back and show her the pole..."

129. Demand an extra floor!

130. Do you know where the longest pole in Europe is, fireman's pole?

131. And how long is it? 48 feet, I would guess.

132. There's a 40-footer in Birmingham and it's the biggest in Europe.

133. That's the limit, is it? There may be a bigger one in America.

134. It is quite high. You'd really take the skin off your hands.

135. That squeaky noise makes your teeth go on edge.

136. Do they talc up? They should do.

137. Do they teach a technique of coming down? Just hands?

138. I think the thighs have to exert pressure.

139. There's a hell of a lot of firefighters in this station!

140. The driver's going, "I can't go yet. Got to get them all in."

141. Meanwhile, a whole family's burning to death.

142. Well, apparently, they're still pulling on their trousers

143. and running downstairs during that is more dangerous

144. than going down a pole and putting them on.

145. Every second can save a life.

146. Why are they always completely caught out by a fire?

147. "What? Fire?"Oh, my God!

148. "Quick! Quick!" All undressed, lying about.

149. Were the poles always shiny metal, or did early versions splinter?

150. Oh! What a nasty thought!

151. They must have experimented. A flammable pole? Don't be absurd!

152. Stuck with the pole on fire! And no-one to put it out.

153. Insurance companies invented firemen.

154. Absolutely right. I think you should get points for that.

155. The Sun was one of the biggest, now the Royal Sun Alliance.

156. You paid insurance to the company

157. and they would send you a brass plaque for the wall of your house.

158. If there was a fire, lots of different brigades came

159. and they read the plaque.

160. If you hadn't paid, they wouldn't put the fire out,

161. unless you were next to someone else who had.

162. Because the fire could spread to them.

163. That's the worst - your house is on fire and they won't put it out.

164. Imagine. That would make me annoyed.

165. Would they stay to roast marshmallows or drive straight off?

166. Or sort of say...

167. Stand with water pouring out, going, "No, no, no, no."

168. "Since we're here, if you paid for the next time,

169. "we might as well collect now."

170. It's not the fire that kills people. Fire doesn't kill people?

171. It does, Clive. Don't tie me up in legalese.

172. I'm not going to get all heated up, which is what you want to happen.

173. He didn't say fire doesn't kill.

174. He said it's not the fire that kills them. Your Lordship is right.

175. I was just exploring a notion that fire was, in some way, not deadly.

176. It's not the fire that kills the people, it's a by-product of fire.

177. I wonder if any of you know what.

178. Smoke. Is it flame? Is it the slinky?

179. Not the slinky, Stephen. A wild guess!

180. Clive, you were right. Smoke - it's the smoke.

181. What happens is... Smoke doesn't burn you,

182. so I know what you're thinking.

183. What smoke does, and this is where it gets interesting, it chokes you.

184. And if we choke, what can't we do? Breathe. We can't breathe.

185. If we can't breathe, Dom?

186. We die!

187. Yes.

188. There's a thing called a flash point, in which...

189. I don't know where I learnt this. Might have been a film,

190. or from a really terrifying fire safety talk at primary school.

191. The one thing I remember about that is strike a match away from you

192. or the head will come off and set light to you,

193. particularly if you are a granny. Whoa!

194. They told us a story about someone's grandma who burned to death.

195. Because urine is flammable, if it stays on the clothing.

196. This is true!

197. Urine, if it stays on your clothes long enough, it becomes flammable.

198. Grandmothers who aren't well maintained...

199. It's true! Particularly vulnerable to a match.

200. Or an arsonist. That's a measure of how mean people are.

201. They won't even pee on you if you're on fire.

202. That's an Australian phrase.

203. "I wouldn't piss up his arse if his kidneys were on fire!"

204. Thank you for all that information about fire and smoke.

205. What's the worst thing you can do if you're a fire eater?

206. Er, well...

207. There are vegetarian restaurants where you can't get meat.

208. All vegetarian restaurants, I think, qualify.

209. Nothing wrong with that sentence so far! But...

210. There are vegetarian restaurants where you can't get meat!

211. To quote the great John Cleese, "What's your specialist subject?

212. "The bleeding obvious!"

213. OK, you've heard about these vegetarian restaurants...

214. I was making an uncontroversial point

215. that in vegetarian restaurants you can't eat meat

216. because they don't serve it. I believe that's right.

217. So there may be restaurants that don't serve fire,

218. so if you're a fire eater, there's no point going.

219. This is a simple point I was trying to make!

220. "I'll have a nice plate of fire, please." That wouldn't work.

221. At a Christmas event, if a fire eater was thinking,

222. I" haven't shown my family this skill,"

223. and there was a urine-soaked granny

224. who'd been brought out of the home just for a day,

225. that would not be the time to say, "What are you up to now, Bruno?"

226. Oh, well...

227. I don't know if you know much about fire eating.

228. What you see is what they do.

229. It really is as bad as it looks.

230. They mostly have mouths filled with blisters and ulcers.

231. Do you eat the fire? Basically, you shouldn't breathe in.

232. There is a condition, Fire Eater's Lung, which is horrific.

233. Like Farmer's Lung, with no subsidy. Exactly.

234. It's fire spitting, rather than eating.

235. But they ingest the lighter fluid, which is toxic.

236. Wooden false teeth would be a disaster

237. because they would catch fire! That would be awful.

238. Smoke would then... Smoke, yes.

239. It wouldn't be the fire, you see.

240. Perhaps the most important advice to the fire eater is do not inhale.

241. Now it's time to retire from the fire and brave the cold.

242. What are the advantages and disadvantages

243. of a mile-long aircraft carrier made from ice and sawdust?

244. Ah!

245. Radar. I put it to you that, um...

246. Move on, move on.

247. No, you've got a good point there.

248. I was wondering, you see, if they are undetectable by radar.

249. I don't think that's true.

250. This was a genuine plan in Britain by a man named Pyke,

251. after whom the substance is made. "Don't tell him your name, Pike!"

252. This is Pyke with a Y. And the substance is known as pykrete.

253. Stronger than steel. I'm not kidding you.

254. Until the temperature goes up! That's the thing - it doesn't melt.

255. They tested it for a whole summer and it didn't melt.

256. Mountbatten was obsessed by the idea.

257. He took a lump of it to see Churchill, who was in his bath -

258. he often took meetings there -

259. and he threw it into his bath and said, "There, Winston!"

260. And in his hot bath it didn't melt. It stayed frozen.

261. But because it landed on his nuts...

262. .. he said, "I'm not going ahead with that."

263. The idea was to build aircraft carriers with guns on them.

264. It seems absolutely barking, I agree.

265. It was only the Normandy landings that stopped us doing it.

266. That picture looks like the cover of a magazine that says,

267. "If you like ice and you like aircraft carriers,

268. "you'll love Iced Aircraft Carrier Monthly!

269. "It builds up into a wonderful collection!"

270. I do like ice and aircraft carriers and that's not an aircraft carrier.

271. That's a destroyer.

272. Thank you! Very good.

273. Absolutely right. That's no kind of aircraft carrier.

274. And there's no magazine for those people.

275. I tell you, it's not the aircraft carrier that'll kill you,

276. it's the destroyer.

277. The 300-foot wide, 2,000-foot-long mid-Atlantic runways

278. would have had giant refrigerators to keep it cool.

279. Holes in a pykrete ship could be repaired by using sea water,

280. and they could immobilise enemy warships

281. by spraying them with super cold water.

282. Was it the idea of Professor Pat Pending from Wacky Races?

283. Anyway, during World War II, plans really were drawn up

284. for a huge aircraft carrier made from pykrete.

285. Now, as we're in the Christmas spirit, let's have a sing-song.

286. What's everybody's favourite bit in

287. that traditional song The 12 Days of Christmas?

288. Lords leaping. For me it's the gold rings.

289. What?

290. How can that be wrong if you're asking him what his favourite...?

291. He's leading the witness!

292. I asked what his favourite bit was in the traditional English song

293. and it's not traditional.

294. It's a recent addition. A man called Austin wrote that arrangement.

295. We've just blown the BBC's budget!

296. It's like Happy Birthday To You. You have to pay enormous royalties.

297. The lyrics are not in public domain.

298. I was told in school that it was code.

299. It was supposed to be an aide memoire to something,

300. but I don't know what.

301. There are games like, "In my trunk I'm going to pack..."

302. And the first person says, "A pair of swimming trunks,"

303. then someone says, "And a book." A memory thing.

304. There's a version I play called

305. "Christopher Biggins has up his bottom tonight..."

306. You go, "Christopher Biggins has up his bottom tonight..."

307. And you go, "Arnold Schwarzenegger."

308. And the next name has to start with the last letter of Schwarzenegger.

309. Rodney Bewes! Rodney Bewes! Exactly.

310. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rodney Bewes...

311. Steve Davis, the snooker player!

312. Brilliant! And you go on until you can't remember.

313. Simon Schama! And you usually find that Christopher... Anthony Andrews!

314. Christopher is astoundingly accommodating.

315. That's the great thing. It's a fun party game.

316. Is this why he was made King of the Jungle?

317. For this particular skill?

318. The song The 12 Days of Christmas is a traditional non-copyright song,

319. with the exception of "five go-old rings",

320. which was added by Frederic Austin and is owned by Novello & Co.

321. And with that we lash out of the frying pan of knowledge

322. only to descend into the fearsome inferno

323. that we call General Ignorance.

324. What happens when you blow out the candles on your birthday cake?

325. You make a wish. Well, hmm... Ha! Gotcha!

326. You edge a little closer to the grave.

327. Wasn't it Richard Burton who said, "When a baby cries its first cry,

328. "he's crying out knowing..." Shut up!

329. You wouldn't know a good impression if it sat on your face!

330. "The baby when he cries upon birth is crying full of the knowledge..."

331. I can't remember the rest of it!

332. Anyway... yes, obviously, people make wishes and things like that,

333. but why does the flame extinguish?

334. You blow the flame off the wick and it's disconnected.

335. And it goes out. Like an Indian smoke signal.

336. There are three things that keep it alight. Oxygen.

337. Oxygen is one. Heat. Is the other. Wick!

338. And the fuel that it needs to get going.

339. You simply remove it from the heat,

340. but if your wick burned at a very low temperature,

341. no matter how much you blew it out, it wouldn't go out, which explains

342. those silly trick candles.

343. Bellows on a fire are to encourage the flame.

344. Blowing into a fire is lovely. You get it...

345. Ooh, up it comes. What would Richard Burton say?

346. "Look at the fire, growing taller..." Oh, never mind.

347. Are you from Port Talbot?

348. The same town as Richard Burton and Anthony Hopkins.

349. And Michael Sheen.

350. My father grew up in the same street, literally,

351. as Anthony Hopkins.

352. In England, we live in houses.

353. Sorry!

354. Anyway...

355. Fire needs three things to work. Heat, fuel and oxygen.

356. Oh, dear! Has the fire gone out between us, darling? Has it?

357. Oh, no. .. Oh!

358. What a...! What does this mean?

359. It involves Christopher Biggins...

360. Fire needs three things to work - it needs heat, fuel and oxygen.

361. When you blow out a candle, it's a sudden drop in temperature.

362. From heat, back to cold, you know how sometimes

363. it can be too cold to snow?

364. Is that a question? Yeah. It can be too cold to snow.

365. You need some moisture...

366. Ah, thank you. You really hate me, don't you?

367. No, not you. It can't be too cold. That's really horrible of you!

368. You led me into that.

369. He tried to get us first!

370. I've been on this programme a few times

371. and whatever you say at this point, that's going to happen!

372. Normally, you're told to talk on these programmes. On this...

373. You said it, and in my little head, I went,

374. I" wouldn't have thought so, but..."

375. I thought, "Well, I'm going to join in then."

376. Snow has been recorded at minus 41, minus 50.

377. There's only one temperature at which it is too cold to snow,

378. but then... Absolute zero.

379. My favourite temperature is minus 40.

380. Because in centigrade and Fahrenheit, they're the same.

381. What a thrill

382. I want to give a couple of points to Rob

383. because it is less likely to snow when there's less moisture

384. and there's less moisture when it's very cold,

385. but it's not ever too cold to snow.

386. Talk to the face cos the hand ain't listening.

387. Oh, dear. Nowhere on Earth can ever be too cold to snow.

388. It regularly snows at the poles.

389. Now the great moment of truth when our panellists are rewarded

390. for being good, or possibly not,

391. this QI Christmas.

392. And what do we see before us?

393. Santa's favourite little helper this year, on 8 points,

394. is Clive Anderson! Oh!

395. Very nice.

396. Ably helped by you. I think it's a team game.

397. And, in second place, deserving of so much support

398. because he's improving every year, on minus 6, Alan Davies!

399. Thank you!

400. And... third, despite falling into a few honey traps,

401. on minus 8, Rob Brydon!

402. I know, I know.

403. But I'm sorry to say that the cold Brussels sprout, with minus 16,

404. because he's trusting and confiding

405. and a jolly good fellow, Dom on minus 16!

406. So...

407. .. all that remains is for me to thank Clive, Rob, Dom and Alan

408. and relate a Christmas scene in a galaxy far,

409. far away where Darth Vader says to Luke,

410. "I know what you're getting for Christmas. Uuurh!"

411. Or whatever noise he makes!

412. "I know what you're getting for Christmas."You can't know!"

413. "I know!"How can you know?"

414. "I have felt your presents." Goodnight.