- 5 hours ago
QI - Season 23 Episode 9 -
Christmas Special: Winter Wonderland
Christmas Special: Winter Wonderland
Category
š¹
FunTranscript
00:00music
00:03music
00:07music
00:09music
00:15music
00:17music
00:19applause
00:24applause
00:29Good evening merry christmas and welcome to qi where we are walking in a winter wonderland
00:34let's meet our windswept wanderers driving home for christmas it's julian clary
00:43dashing through the snow it's fatter el gory
00:49jingling all the way it's jimmy car
00:52and the reindeer in the headlights it's alan davis
01:04let's hear their wintry buzzers julian goes
01:12fatter goes frosty the snowman i was ready for a bit more i thought that's a bit tight it's christmas
01:20hello yeah jimmy goes let it snow let it snow let it snow and alan goes
01:35right let's start by looking under your desks i have some christmas presents for you all
01:41i've gone with a sort of theme of wellness with these so alan loda why don't we start with you
01:47there we go beads yeah so why might you give beads to somebody
01:57because you don't really like them
02:01because you're obligated because you work with them and you have to think of something because these
02:05were at the back of your drawer so what i can tell you is that all of your gifts are from early christmas
02:10adverts so yours was first advertised in 1728 and it's called an anodyne necklace actually this advert
02:18for it is from 1756 a little tiny bit later on so this is the weirdest thing these necklaces
02:24contained a poisonous plant called henbane it's also known as stinking nightshave
02:29it was meant to help children with teething pain at this time one in three children in england would
02:37not expect to reach their fifth birthday and teething pain was seen as a sort of sign of something much
02:42more serious and possibly something fatal so they claimed that if you wore one of these anodyne
02:46necklaces curative substances would flow from it into the skin up into the mouth and so on you didn't
02:51have to chew on it which was just as well because it is actually a poison but it did seem to work
02:59even though there's no medical reason for it why do you think it might have worked they're quite
03:03expensive there's five shillings for one it's one of those things where you tell people it's going to
03:09be good for you and then it works i think it is partly that julian but also it is the fact that infant
03:13mortality rates were lower amongst rich people and it was only rich people who were able to buy them
03:20we used to give the kids bicky pegs what for the for the teething for the teething and then i don't
03:26know what it was and they're going and it would sort of gradually get smaller and smaller like a dog
03:31biscuit like a good dog biscuit that lasts yeah you know it sounds like you're giving the kids dog
03:37biscuits yeah i know what you're talking about it's like cork in it that's a good idea though have a bottle
03:44of wine and give the children the cork but rich people like augusta princess of wales her daughter
03:50queen caroline of denmark and norway who's the one on the left there in very small quantities
03:55this particular thing henbane that was in it it is a mild sedative if you have more than three
04:01grams it can cause constipation manic episodes hallucinations and possible death is this sort of a
04:06replica or yes darling we also didn't want to kill alan i mean not till the zed series
04:15don't miss that episode we are going to need a big finish so yeah right julian do you want to open
04:22yours darling ah have you pushed the boat out this is from a christmas ad from 1825 oh what is it it's
04:32macassar oil so do you know about macassar oil oh i'm sure you're going to tell me have you heard of
04:39anti-macassars darling anti-macassar yes what does that mean it was a sort of a piece of cloth that
04:45sat on the back of the train i thought it was a band from camden town that's a good name for a band
04:50isn't it it doesn't smell is that because you would have had oily yeah people wouldn't wash their heads
04:55to stop the oil from the back of your head going onto the train seat and it's called an anti-macassar
05:00macassar oil comes originally from the ebony trees in indonesia but this was a much cheaper
05:04blend of vegetable oils palm oils and coconuts so it's the 19th century equivalent of hair gel
05:10pure grease is undoubtedly the best nourisher of the hair yeah it's supposed to be very very
05:15tell my daughter that good luck want to apply some yes go on then open your hand times i've said that
05:26now there you are but you have to follow it by saying here's some oil right go on it's a lovely
05:34colour what is that you've got to run it run your fingers the thing is sandy what will happen if
05:41i do that is yeah we'll stop the show and the makeup department will come on really fucked off
05:46yeah you know those people can you imagine the language back there now they're watching on the
05:55monitor don't you dare put your fingers through that hair don't touch your hair don't touch your hair
06:00oh it's whistly does it smell nice i thought you said it didn't smell well i lied
06:16that's an exchange you've had before
06:22right jimmy come on let's see what you've got five minutes in and you've lubed him up
06:25okay you've not pushed the boat out here this is again this is something from the past 1857
06:34well that's some some pills of some description okay so these are from mr page woodcock of lincoln
06:40so there were two christmas adverts for wind pills to treat indigestion to cure wind or to give you
06:47well so it depended which advert that you had a look at so the very first advert claimed that the
06:52pills would conjure happy festive memories so this is the christmas advert the second was the boxing
06:57day advert which was inspired by christmas carol it said the pills would cure people haunted by the
07:03christmas ghost of indigestion so if you took them on christmas day made you happy if you took them on
07:09boxing day got rid of indigestion those are your basic happy pills that we've given you lovely yeah
07:14yeah should we should we smash them up and do a line i'm very concerned about those two children in
07:21the hot air balloon sent off unaccompanied well not just that not dressed are they the ones with
07:27the wind is that what we think you can still get wind pills they're called windy's yes you can
07:33and i actually promise you that my wife did buy me some for christmas fun which really really amused
07:38the children i said stop listening at the door go to another room did it work i haven't tried them
07:45actually could you i should yeah i really should right fatia come on yes mine's the biggest one uh 1830
07:55is this one this better not be like a gym or some like that yeah oh no no we don't do fitness you're
08:00fine because i'll i'll go mad can you imagine if i should do that should i do a rental service
08:21yeah you can rent me i'll hide in your toilet and then you'll come and i'll go merry christmas
08:26christmas advert for a toilet appeared in several publications in the 1830s there's a man called
08:32robert wiss there it is and he said it was the perfect gift for christmas and new year's it's a
08:38portable self-acting water closet so it's a kind of commode they used to be known as thunder boxes
08:45because alan used to go in there so it looks like a cabinet from the outside and then when you open it
08:50up it's got a commode on the inside a chamber pot that is the worst james bond gadget
08:56what did they do before just had a sort of a bowl under the bed you know a pot but this had a
09:01system with stored water and you could actually flush the waste out of the pot and it went into
09:06a concealed hidden bucket which was then emptied by the staff discreet yes exactly exactly i mean
09:12you say discreet portable so presumably people would see you in the high street with it
09:17what's he doing with that cupboard he seems to be shitting in it
09:20during lockdown because i like to go for a really long walk i bought a portable toilet tent
09:26toilet tent and it was it it was like a big
09:31i did you didn't do that i did it goes completely over you well no what it was was it it was a pop-up
09:37thing there was a flat circle and you just popped it and popped up like the size of a telephone
09:42booth and i thought this was marvelous and then you went in you have to sing when you're in there
09:46in case someone comes along well darling it was great apart from when it blew over outside
09:50outside outside outside the tower of london you come across the tent wandering around
10:00always have a little look inside because it could be sandy toxford technician
10:06okay presents away please what's most dangerous a lion a witch or a wardrobe definitely a witch
10:20would a lion be scared of a witch though you could reason with a lion
10:28so enjoy that that's a show we'd all watch i think
10:33hi welcome to reason with a lion and the witch if she's in a good mood you could get away with it
10:40but if a wardrobe fell on you then you'd be in trouble and that is the correct answer my darling
10:45absolutely right so the wonderful book the lion the witch and the wardrobe by c.s lewis
10:54c.s lewis dedicated to lucy barfield and maude lucy's mother was extremely worried that children
11:00would go looking for narnia and get stuck inside a wardrobe so he had to put some extra lines of text
11:05in and every time you'll notice in the book somebody goes through the wardrobe he says they took care to
11:09leave the door ajar and c.s lewis does say it's a very silly thing to lock oneself in a wardrobe but
11:14apparently we are facing an accident crisis written loses 10 times more working days to
11:19domestic accidents than we do to strikes so driving accidents have significantly decreased in the
11:24past 20 years but pretty much all other accidents have increased falls are by far the biggest culprit
11:32why do you think we might be having more and more falls because there's more stairs oh i like that
11:37we've had a tremendous increase in stairs yes well if i have an accident slightly to be
11:44on the stairs or sometimes i open the fridge door and hit myself on the head
11:51this is going to be the worst ever episode of miss marple
11:53well it's the aging population oh yeah the old people in 2016 so this is according to the national
12:00accident helpline one in 75 people surveyed had been injured while shopping in a sales rush
12:06one in 50 people reported falling out of the loft while retrieving christmas decorations
12:11one in 90 people had suffered burns while roasting chestnuts on an open fire
12:16one in 50 had fallen out of the loft yeah i know it seems an extraordinarily high number yeah
12:22what do you think is the gift in recent years it's caused the most accidents knives
12:29i bought you a very sharp knife sandwich maker yes you could trap your finger in the thing e-scooters
12:36is exactly right i mean 416 people seriously injured in 2023 and 965 slightly injured 338 fires
12:45still a lot more people falling out the loft though isn't it what's the worst or most embarrassing
12:51accident anybody here has ever had oh you're counting soiling yourself i mean we are now
13:01i've got a soiling myself story if you go for it darling well i've told this story before i think
13:07last time i was on this show but it's so long ago darling no it's in colour now anyway
13:12but no beat this i once i once shot myself while meeting the queen
13:29it's a royal variety show yeah and you had to queue up and you know she came and shakes your hand
13:36and i don't know if it was nerves or i'd had a bit of trouble i can't remember but it was only a little pellet
13:46but that's a true story let's hear you're soiling yourself
13:51i can remember doing a little pellet as a child and it came out my trouser leg
14:01is that what happened to you yes it's shot across the stage
14:09in the general direction of claire sweeney
14:11this story's got everything i've got a poo story so i was going to tell a story about shaving
14:20and now you i'm going to go with the poo yeah i want to go the poo shaving that's actually fine can
14:25i just say to me i don't have a poo story this will be the last one oh i cut my um scrotum with
14:31the queen and trying to shave my balls at the same time i was alone sure to do a podcast and there
14:51was a company that's there are lots and lots of podcasts about football nearly all by boys and
14:56mostly listened to by boys anyway they started sending these shaving kits around giving the
15:02shaving kits for shaving your undercarriage with and we were all sort of in 40s and 50s what people
15:09are doing what now anyway i tried it and i cut myself with this right this shouldn't be possible
15:17it's got all this kind of protective thing on it but i got a little bit carried away
15:22and that is the most embarrassing accident and now you've made me say it on the christmas show
15:31i'll tell you where you went wrong you need to stretch the skin that's what it is you just went
15:36like this because you're lazy but you need to stretch the skin trust me i know i'm arab i know about hair
15:43thank you so much for doing mine
15:44i can't believe i'm stopping this fascinating conversation
16:11so yeah i was like seven or something and then we went on a school trip to a farm and i wanted to do
16:17a poo but the teacher goes go on your own to the toilet and i was like no so i just in my pants
16:23and then like i sat in here and had it in my pants all day and all the kids shut up all the kids
16:30i wouldn't mess with them all the kids were like oh there's a we can smell poo and i was like oh yeah i
16:36wonder who it is maybe it's the stinky kid and when i got home my mum put me in the bath and it was
16:40stuck to my skin she had to soak me and then put it off with a butter knife merry christmas everyone
16:47merry christmas one spoke on a coach trip
16:53and the driver was a huge man really really big man
16:57and he pulled over on the hard shoulder and he got out of his cabin he made his way down the aisle we
17:02thought what's going on and he went down the stairs into the loo and eventually he re-emerged
17:09and he said no one can use the toilet it's full
17:20anybody in the audience want to talk about
17:21i've got everybody a bowl of christmas walnuts why is it so hard to find a walnuts anus
17:33are they heterosexual walnuts it depends what kind of walnut we're talking about i'm looking at the
17:39walnut but this is not the kind of walnut is it no you've done this game before haven't you
17:43different kind of walnuts the ones in front of us the walnut bird
17:49the walnut snake
17:51let's go
17:52beetle
17:53walnut fish
17:54walnut whiff
17:55the walnut
18:00it is a creature in the sea and they are called sea walnuts look at this it is so beautiful
18:05i love those see-through ones they're also called warty comb jellies it's not a jellyfish it's a bit like
18:11a jellyfish that's not a jellyfish no yeah i'm not sure who you're talking to
18:16but that my friend is a jellyfish so why isn't it a jellyfish i'm telling you i'm telling you it is
18:21no well the reason that we know it isn't is because it does have an anus so if it was a jellyfish it
18:28wouldn't but what is extraordinary about them is that these are transient anuses what do we think
18:34that means it moves around well it's only there for a very short time they only create one on a
18:41temporary basis when they need to poo so when it needs to go the digestive system fuses with its skin
18:48to form an opening it does a poo and the opening then closes in a matter of minutes and they do this
18:52about once an hour unless they're a very very young one in which case it's about every 10 minutes
18:57so it is a jellyfish most of the time no it isn't you're saying once an hour it isn't a jellyfish
19:04briefly wonder why they do that though what's in it what's in it for them what to do not to have
19:09a permanent arsehole i think it's i think it's that they're not so vulnerable darling i think it's
19:14that it's basically it you know it's an exit for them and an entrance for others well tell me about it
19:19when you think about it though it would be practical if you're on i don't know let's say a
19:28school trip perhaps yeah just create an arsehole and then gone again yeah just to not have one the
19:34whole time because you know accidents happen a long walk to the toilet maybe i'll just shit myself what
19:43jellyfish don't have anuses they expel their waste through the mouth
19:46so it's the difference between the two how do you know it's its mouth what's it saying
19:51i mean i think people have studied this there's a fantastic there's an amazing american zoologist
19:56called libby hyman and it was because she noticed that these particular creatures the sea walnuts
20:00have these transient anuses what she realized that they were not the same as jellyfish i don't even
20:05think that's a real person libby hyman that sounds made up she's from a limerick
20:09if you still intact but you horse ride
20:23okay moving along um why did oliver cromwell ban christmas don't tell anyone right but he was a
20:32muslim
20:43damn you anybody else um oh i thought i was going to think of something
20:52nothing came out imagine you meeting the queen
20:55what's he doing there he feels like he's signaling to someone other than his ear
21:02answer is that he didn't yeah no wow you might want to check again because yeah he did no it's
21:09a christmas myth truth is he actually quite liked a party he enjoyed smoking and drinking scandalously
21:15he allowed dancing at his daughter's wedding so he wasn't anti-party the christmas ban started with the
21:21scottish presbyterians so they had been discouraging christmas celebrations for years since 1583
21:26and the puritans needed the scottish support so it's his party that were trying to keep the scots
21:32calm and it wasn't cromwell himself who thought let's get rid of christmas there are parts of the
21:37country where they didn't pay any attention at all so devon and cornwall for example they just carried
21:41on they probably hadn't heard about it when do you think christmas day became a holiday in scotland
21:46i'll give you 10 points if you're within the right decade 1974. not far 59. you win 58. yes absolutely
21:58so it wasn't a holiday it wasn't a holiday until 1958. yeah
22:08anyway moving on why were christmas day weddings so popular in the past snow is it one of those things
22:16where like if you have your wedding on christmas you can't forget your anniversary
22:23do you forget yours do you forget your anniversary yeah yeah if you get married at christmas it feels
22:29like that or valentine's you go it's also one gift yeah great are you may i ask are you married no no
22:35we're just friends i mean we're getting on great i've been married and divorced twice because i don't
22:44learn the first time yes my husband slipped his finger into my ring about eight years ago now
22:55congratulations but anyway getting back to the question yes why get married on everyone's got the day
23:02off unless it's got it is the correct answer is the correct answer i was about to say that i'm so sorry
23:13that's it well pretend he hasn't said it what were you going to say julian no don't patronize me
23:17it's because they didn't have many days off yeah so christmas day was off what better day exactly
23:29right christmas day and boxing day were the sort of days that very clever boys you then yes you are
23:35yes you are a clever boy so it was a very popular time and in fact churches would give discounted rates
23:40if multiple couples got married at the same time this is a picture at st george church in london in 1920. she's
23:47got stars on her head the third one from the left why has she got two stars oh yeah a trip advisor
23:52their own she's not great
23:59in 1913 the guardian reported the church and stepney had married 25 couples all on the same day
24:05now it's almost time for the bum note that we call general ignorance but this year i have some friends
24:11to help me with the questions please welcome the qi choir under the direction of john riddell take it away
24:17oh
24:22oh
24:24oh
24:30oh
24:34Browning
24:51Hey
24:57What occasion was this tune composed for oh
25:02Yes
25:03Easter
25:06The John Lewis Christmas app it's after Christmas what comes after Christmas twelfth night Boxing Day Easter
25:16New Year
25:19Yes, Alan, it's New Year's exactly right. What do we call this June? Does anyone in the audience know this?
25:25Carol the bells is exactly right, but it was originally a Ukrainian folk song for New Year's Eve
25:32It was called shed rock which means bountiful evening. So the lyrics and nothing to do with bells nothing with Christmas
25:38It's actually about a swallow visiting a home and delivering luck for the New Year
25:42Let's have another tune who sang this song in the 1982 animated film the snowman
25:55We're floating in the moon it's gone
26:01Julian's off who was it Ali Jones
26:08It was actually sung by a choir boy named Peter Ortee there he is. He's now professional
26:13Operatic tenor, but he didn't get any credit in the film because they forgot to put his name on
26:191985 the song was used in an advert for Toys R Us and it had to be
26:22Rerecorded, but him this guy Peter Orte's voice had already broken and so a new version was sung by Alan Jones and that was released
26:28And that became a huge hit and that is why we think Alan Jones sang it in the film, but it isn't actually him
26:35Here's another song that was originally written for New Year, but what is the first line?
26:40What you gonna say? La la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la
26:55Ah
27:01You know
27:03Deck the halls with something and Holly
27:10So I asked for the original lyrics and it's an old Welsh tune called Nosgallen or New Year
27:16The oldest version of the lyrics are translated into English as this
27:19Oh
27:37Soft my fair one's bosom absolute filth
27:42Now it's time to look at our scores, let's see who's top of the mice list and who's on thin
27:50Joy to the world in first place with 16 points. It's Alan
28:06Happy in second place with minus nine. It's Julia
28:13Nobody's perfect in third place with minus 27 fatia
28:19And in last place a lost claws with minus 29 Jimmy
28:27So it's a big thank you to fatia jimmy julian and alan and a very merry christmas from all of us
28:41Let's all go and join the choir and sing off you go people
28:45Oh
28:47Oh
28:49Oh
28:51Oh
28:53Oh
28:55Oh
28:57Oh
28:59Oh
29:01Oh
29:03Oh
29:05Oh
29:07Oh
29:09Oh
29:11Oh
29:13Oh
29:15Oh
29:17Oh
29:19Oh
29:21Oh
29:23Oh
29:25Oh
29:27Oh
29:29Oh
Be the first to comment