- 8 minutes ago
First broadcast 28th October 2005.
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
Bill Bailey
Phill Jupitus
Rory McGrath
Stephen Fry
Alan Davies
Bill Bailey
Phill Jupitus
Rory McGrath
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Well, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, and a very hearty, cordial and warm welcome to QI.
00:08Tonight we're talking cockney rhyming slang, so without further T4, let's have a butchers at our four bulletproofs.
00:15We have Phil Jupitus.
00:19Phil Bailey.
00:23Rory McGrath.
00:26And Alan Davis.
00:32Well, they're all three stops down from Plasto, but never mind, let's Georgie their Orientals.
00:38If you would, please, Bill.
00:39Are you sure?
00:42Do you want to, uh, ursia, ursia andress me, uh, Jensen?
00:49We're not actually going to start with Phil, right?
00:50Would you like me to ursia my dingley?
00:57And Rory goes.
01:02And Bill goes.
01:03Bill Bailey, won't you please, come on home, come home, Bill Bailey.
01:12That's very clever what I've done there.
01:14Has anyone ever pointed that out to you?
01:16No, no one's ever pointed that out before.
01:19I've got the same name as your name.
01:21Yeah.
01:22And, uh, Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim.
01:27Now, tonight, any flamencos you give in Pyong, score Barney, and I'll also give you two sundae.
01:33What a f***.
01:56Sundy joins, points, if at any nickel and dime time.
02:00You, woman.
02:02Woman.
02:02Woman who does, does.
02:04Buzz.
02:05Woman who does.
02:08That's all I can do.
02:09How else are we doing middle class cockney, Ryan?
02:12A woman who does.
02:17A woman who does.
02:19What's to lubricant me.
02:23Lubricant gel, tell.
02:25Lubricant gel.
02:27You can tell me what I'm on about.
02:30It's a whole new genre of argo.
02:33Yeah, a Labrador groomer.
02:35Groomer.
02:37What do you think your pantomimes would translate as?
02:41Pantomime dames names.
02:42Yes.
02:43Phil Jupiter, as he's currently rhyming, sang for, uh, hypochondriac.
02:47Ill.
02:48Jubius.
02:48Ill.
02:49Jubius.
02:49Very good.
02:50That's good.
02:51I like it.
02:52Rory.
02:52Well, there are two official Rory McGraths, apparently.
02:55There's having a laugh, Rory McGrath.
02:57He's having a Rory.
02:59I'll have a Rory.
03:00That's a half.
03:02And Bill.
03:04Uh, well, I imagine, yeah, the only thing I think it might be scaly.
03:07You know, your skin's got a bit Bill Bailey.
03:09Scaly, you know.
03:11You've got a bit, you've got a bit of an arthrash, uh, on your Roberta.
03:15Uh, you know.
03:16It's got a bit of Bill Bailey.
03:18What does Alan Davis give us, I wonder.
03:20Does it really rhyme with anything apart from Mavis?
03:24Unless you know someone called Mavis.
03:27Yeah.
03:27It's Alan Davis.
03:31Mavis is the old word for a thrush.
03:33Yep, it's a thrush.
03:34So you could say, I've caught a bit of Alan.
03:36Yeah, that's true.
03:38It's gone a bit Bill Bailey.
03:42If you went to a restaurant for Sunday lunch, you could ask for several types of Alan Davis gravies, I
03:46suppose.
03:47How many different types of gravies do you know?
03:50Well, it's quite good to go into a sushi bar and say, bring me several types of Japanese wine and
03:55don't get all sake.
03:57But, um, oh my God, well, you know, but what is the point of rhyming slang?
04:03Why did it arise for points?
04:05It wasn't a way of deceiving very thick policemen.
04:08Yeah.
04:09Criminals in pubs sit around and thinking, in case there was a copper or a narc listening, they'd say, we're
04:15planning a, um, a snobbery.
04:19Oh yeah, what am I planning to snob?
04:23We thought a Jodrell.
04:26A Jodrell?
04:27Oh, which Jodrell?
04:28Barclays, Lewisham High School.
04:31Do you know where cockney comes from, by the word cockney?
04:34It means a cock's egg, doesn't it?
04:35It's something you can't trust, i.e. an egg laid by a cock's egg.
04:39A cock-an-eye, in fact, of the eye is the egg bit.
04:41Yes, a cock-an-eye was a cockerel's egg, and obviously that can't exist.
04:44How can you decide if you're a cockney or not?
04:46There's something about...
04:47Well, within the sound of a bow, it's not a true question, no.
04:50Why are we?
04:51Where is the sound of a bow?
04:52It's in, um, the Strand somewhere, isn't it?
04:54Ah, well done, it's not in the area of London called Bow.
04:57Not in Bow, no.
04:57It's St. Mary LeBeau Church, isn't it?
04:59St. Mary LeBeau Church.
05:01Sometimes people use them without knowing, like, if you say to someone, Scarpa.
05:05That's rhyming slang.
05:06Yeah, but is it, Stephen?
05:08There's a lot of us think it actually comes from Escapar, which is the old Spanish meaning to flee and...
05:13To escape.
05:14To escape, yeah.
05:15Or is it Scarpa flow?
05:16Linning Go.
05:17Opinion is, as you rightly say, divided.
05:20Where do you think, um, my old Dutch?
05:22It's actually Duchess of Fife.
05:24Really?
05:25Anchor?
05:26Butter?
05:27Butter.
05:28Butter.
05:28Nutty is a real anchor.
05:29But there's a more modern one, which means you don't believe something.
05:32Anchor spreadable, incredible.
05:34I know.
05:37Degrees, if you do well in a degree, what do you get?
05:39A Jeff Hurst.
05:40A Jeff Hurst.
05:40A Jeff Hurst.
05:41And an upper second or a 2-1 is an Attila.
05:44A Tiller of the Hun, yeah.
05:45A Tiller of the Hun.
05:45And you've got a Desmond.
05:46A Desmond is the famous one for a 2-2.
05:48And I'm afraid I've got a Richard.
05:51A Richard?
05:52A Richard III.
05:53Oh, they call it a Douglas these days in honour of the great and manifestly, marvellously charismatic
05:58and memorable Douglas Hurd.
06:01But one thing Cockleys have a taste for is rock salmon, which is, in fact, dogfish.
06:07But that brings us neatly on.
06:08To pin the taste bud on the catfish.
06:12You each have a catfish, and you each have some little stickers.
06:18What you have to do is find out where they go.
06:20Not just in its mouth, then.
06:21I've hypnotised mine.
06:26And I'll put some on its little things there, look, just in case it might taste at all.
06:32It's just something you'll be getting on with while we get on to the next question.
06:36If you had a catfish, would it come out of the pond and try and get in your bedroom at
06:39night by scratching on the window?
06:43What do you do?
06:43Meow, meow.
06:45Look, this is not a kindergarten.
06:46I'm not going to sit here for an hour while you get on with handicrafts.
06:50And I have to answer factures questions.
06:53But please, can we do plasticine?
06:56No, you can't.
06:57Anyway, now, sticking to our sea theme, how is Cherokee pronounced in the Cherokee language?
07:06Come home, little baby.
07:08Oh, no.
07:11Can I?
07:16Is it a trick question?
07:18And there is no word for Cherokee in the Cherokee language?
07:21I know that the sound, T-S-H, which is the Ch sound phonetically, like, if we were to pronounce
07:28the word much, it would be the same as M-U-T-S-H, much.
07:32Yeah.
07:32A lot of languages can't pronounce it.
07:33The Chinese can't pronounce Ch, so their word for T, which we call Char, from the Chinese, is Tsa.
07:40R's and L's are notoriously interchangeable outside Western Europe.
07:44You're absolutely right.
07:45And K's can be voiced.
07:47So you could say that Cherokee can be known as Tsalagi, if you want a pro-peroxetonic stress.
07:53You might want a pro-peroxetonic stress is Tsa-L-O-G-E.
07:56Yeah.
07:56Or Tsa-L-G-E if you want loxetonic stress.
07:58I don't know which stress you want, ladies and gentlemen.
08:01I'm suffering from pro-peroxetonic stress.
08:03Well, I have to give Rory a lot of points there, because Tsa-L-A-G-E is exactly how
08:08they pronounce Cherokee.
08:09Exactly.
08:10Right.
08:13They cannot, as you say, pronounce Ch or R, so it becomes Tsa-L-A-G-E.
08:19What happened was there was a man who felt very sorry for the Cherokees, because they had given great service
08:24to the American army,
08:25and they couldn't get letters home or send letters home, because they had no alphabet and they had no written
08:29language.
08:30And there were many of them, and they were called Cherokee by the Cree.
08:34It meant people with another language.
08:36Their actual name for themselves was Ani-Uni-Wia, or something similar.
08:39which means the principal people but the man who found the language gave it to them he decided on
08:4685 different leaves he called them which were these letters and within a year most of the entire
08:52nation of the Cherokee were literate and his name was sequoia which means pig's foot maybe because
08:59it was pink maybe because he'd been injured when he was young no one quite knows but giant sequoia
09:04trees as you may well know are the heaviest living things ever to have existed on earth apart from
09:11fair Britain they can weigh more than 6,000 tons and the tallest are as high as a 26-story
09:20building
09:20their bark is up to four foot thick but their seeds are one three thousandth of an ounce each
09:29approximately one billionth of the weight of the tree so the question is how does the US
09:34government look after its sequoia groves lions and tigers are let loose to roam the surrounding
09:42area try and win the hearts and minds of the sequoia tree what's going to happen to the sequoia tree
09:51do people try and steal them I tell you what did happen to them in the 50s and 60s is
09:55they very
09:56nearly died out in in the native California correct they just weren't breeding at all no one could
10:03understand why did they start putting out forest fires yes give the man a big bonus
10:11the United States Forestry Commission started and particularly their fire department started in 1905
10:16thinking they were doing good stopped forest fires so completely and the sequoias need forest fires every
10:22five ten fifteen years at the most in order to breed because they need to clear all the other trees
10:27they
10:27survive them all that clears air and space and light for these tiny tiny little seedlings to bear
10:34this enormous redwood fruit how does that work then because they must grow so they go really fast or do
10:41they grow underground for a bit and then pop up when they're ready they grow really fun they are the
10:45fastest growing trees on earth yes why are we talking now I had a neighbor who really got annoyed with
10:53some
10:53Leylandii that I didn't even plant I mean he went mental over them so if there's a chance I can
10:58stick three or four
10:59sequoia in the back garden knowing you and then as an excuse ten years later set light was garden
11:10that's very good indeed they don't grow as fast as bamboo but bamboo isn't a tree is it it's a
11:17grass
11:17well done you've learned it's an insect you've learned little one oh little little but even
11:24even faster growing is kudzu kudzu we would spell it it's the only plant that's actually measured in miles
11:31per hour and its growth its shoots grow 60 feet in a single season it's a vine it's a part
11:39of
11:39remember the pea family growing in China and Japan so anyway the trees also rely of course on the heat
11:44of the fires to open their tough seed cones that's part of the business exposes the bare soil now coal
11:50as everyone knows he's made from ancient forests have any of you used coal to brush your bexleys
11:59never
12:06yes that was teeth yes I know it's Amsteads usually but Steven Steven oh Steven my love Steven the
12:13toothpaste is so twinkly and sparkling white how can it have coal in it it doesn't it's the brush
12:19what are the bristles made oh yeah well they are something which is a mixture of coal and air and
12:26water oh it's all easy when I've set the siren off are we talking about some complicated hydrocarbon
12:34which is a derivative of a petroleum not petroleum no well it's fossil fuel which is coal as we know
12:43toothbrushes used to be alive millions of years but the point is we're looking for a substance that
12:50man has developed which he uses to nylon is the right answer well done do I get points for saying
12:57it was developed in New York and London at the same time there no you get points taken away from
13:00you
13:00because that's not why oh you did fall into that one Rory thank you for that no it's a myth
13:09it was
13:09originally called no run by its inventor he was called Carruthers DuPont the company for whom he was
13:15developing it was called nylon though they didn't trademark the name you can use the word nylon unlike
13:20another of their famous products one that is used quite often to describe human characteristics
13:29Teflon Teflon is a DuPont invention it's a thought that you could just get a new head for your brush
13:35you could have a handle made for you perhaps perfectly molded for your own grip yeah yeah so you use
13:42ivory or
13:52the beak of an osprey Stephen Fry's all endangered species bathroom
14:01all I use is Sheila cats
14:05no poor Carruthers he gave us neoprene as well he was a Harvard professor at the age of 28
14:11wetsuits wetsuits made a neoprene exactly and he invented that he earned a very young man and then
14:15unfortunately committed suicide by taking saliva when his wife was pregnant he must have been
14:19taking miserable did I say saliva? I think you did
14:27the poor man Carruthers took cyanide and killed himself
14:32obviously that's very funny why did you take Simon? how did he run out of saliva? I don't
14:38where's the bottle of spit I've been saving? oh dear I've made a bit of an arse of myself
14:45well he made me laugh now one thing we can't tell is whether the laughing cavalier ever brushed his
14:51teeth because he's got his mouth firmly shut but he seems pretty pleased about something what's he on?
14:57he's on the wall of the Wallace collection in Manchester Square that is literally true he's
15:03actually on nitrous oxide isn't he which is ah well you're close he's not on nitrous oxide he's
15:08actually on cannabis you're kidding he spent eight hours doing that is his massage yeah
15:17I've been literally true he is on cannabis how are you saying that actually is he sitting on
15:24something that's made of hemp like a cushion that painting is painted on hemp on canvas
15:28and the word canvas comes from the Greek cannabis but in fact the word hemp also derives from the
15:35Greek word cannabis it seems like an odd journey but the old Swedish is kind up from cannabis and
15:41became hemp but of course the cannabinoids or whatever the active constituent that makes one
15:46apparently very merry and then for some reason want to eat a lot of lion bars is actually very very
15:54little of it in that modern canvas in case you are tempted to go and roll it it's very overpriced
15:59is a overpriced and is made out of cotton or linen so we'll not give you any kind of high
16:05now returning to our matters of special interest cockneys what was the capital of England in the
16:11year 1381
16:16it's going to be winchester or chelms chelmsford which oh brilliant it is indeed chelmsford very good for
16:22knowing that was only capital for five days did you know that but then rory apart from being a
16:27very knowledgeable young man well two out of three you also author of a series called chelmsford one
16:35you know you should know about chelmsford during the time you're writing about colchester was the
16:39capital of england yes it was it's called um camilla dunham and what was chelmsford called by
16:44kaiser magnus kaiser magnus bouvet in france was also called that but it's the only town chelmsford in
16:51england to be named after julius caesar do you know what charles dickens call it he said it was the
16:55dullest and most stupid spot on the face of the earth why was it capital of england richard the
17:02second wasn't he the peasants revolt richard the peasants revolt was going on and he moved away from
17:07london because what thailand all his horrible people are coming he defeated the peasants revolt a bit of
17:11ricky anything else interesting about chelmsford first ever factory making what in the world radios radios
17:18well done five five five five five yes marcoli set up shop in chelmsford uh chelmsford has the
17:25largest burns unit in europe oddly enough the mp for chelmsford west is called simon burns though
17:32because he got a douglas at university he is known as third degree burns it is now time fortunately for
17:44general ignorance so it's fingers on buzzers ladies and gentlemen now what happened to
17:48barbara streisand's moustache
17:55yentl did she play the young boy in yentl did she have oh yeah that's what it's in a display
18:00case in
18:01planet hollywood it is if i were to tell you that she ate it and then pooed it out i
18:09want to see that
18:10video yeah but i want to tell you that carol vorderman also at her moustache and excreted it
18:18what's why i happen to know that alan davis did the same thing and i did it and you did
18:24it and
18:24everyone in the audience didn't everyone at home in homeland look look oh yeah you've already
18:31eaten it you've already eaten your moustache and pooed it out i've grown another one i've grown another one
18:36yeah you didn't pooed it out yes no when you're a baby in the womb you have a full tash
18:41when you're a baby
18:42in the womb groucho mark you grow and a cigar hair starts on the upper lip yeah and then the
18:47eyebrows and
18:48then it covers the whole body and it's called lanugo as in as in woolly and then during the last
18:56weeks of
18:57pregnancy the baby sheds all its little wool and eats it it does honestly hair and the hair along with
19:04mucus and bile and bits of intestine and cells shed from the skin what can i have the recipe again
19:10steve
19:11form an aniotic fluid and cells form little baby's first stool we uh yes we laminated it
19:22in the baby book yes baby's first little turd why barbara streisand then well well why not she's a
19:30person it just seemed she's a person barbara streisand etta moustache and pooed it seemed amusing to me
19:37now from one shocking image to another why shouldn't i strip alan naked and cover him with gold paint
19:47you win your oscar properly like everyone else
19:56in the film she died from it she died from it in the film so it would kill you
20:04because the small of her back needed to be left exposed so she could breathe through it or something
20:09do you remember exactly that's right and it's a complete load of old toss everything that happens
20:13in james from ian fleming yeah he doesn't make things up the skin does not breathe you get very
20:19very hot if i sprayed you then couldn't sweat any other ian fleming um peculiar opinions you can't kill
20:25someone with a flying bowler hat yes there are extraordinary ones he says at one point he says
20:32homosexuals can't whistle well why what could he have to back he was also a tiger tanaka in in you
20:41only live twice tells him when they go to see sumo wrestling he says well mr bond at the age
20:46of 14
20:47junior sumos are taught that by assiduously massaging the appropriate organs they can cause their testicles
20:52to re-enter the body via the inguinal canal from which they originally descended and it's just nonsense
20:58i mean it's fun for the sumos to get it a go though isn't it yeah he wins by pushing
21:05back in
21:09what's that i think it's from what you would love and there's a scene where they they go out to
21:12this
21:12the gypsy encampment and the two girls have been fighting over the same man and he says to bond
21:17yes they will settle it the gypsy way which is just a lot of it's just a car park a
21:25normal fight but
21:26near caravans yes at one point he stops and sells something a little bit of headache yeah
21:36fingers on buzzers oh no how many senses do you have jim jim jim jim jim jim jim jim jim
21:45sense of buzzer coming five or two two seven eight nine four three two one ten eleven nine anything
21:56between nine and twenty one i'll give you please oh just think about what one means by aristotle said
22:01five tasting smelling touching right so what about balance what about hunger what about thirst why aren't
22:06there senses feedback from your relationship with the world pressure disappointment there are lots of
22:12there are other ones feeling heat where do you feel heat you don't you don't touch heat
22:17so there is thermo ception nociception which is pain equilibrio ception so why do they teach me that there
22:26are fire well it was aristotle who said it he said there were four elements but you know earth air
22:33fire
22:33and water but we don't believe that now but you i do go along with that
22:39and there's also a proprioception which is if you close your eyes and move your hand about you know
22:44where it is what about the sixth sense that's right yeah it's an old phrase because in those days they
22:49only thought of five cents so what it'd be it should be the 20 seconds then
22:56how are you doing that i don't know it's like some strange power where is my heart i don't know
23:03i do this but he fell asleep drunk you know sometimes you fall asleep and your arm does
23:07something a bit like that and he fell asleep like that and he woke up and he went oh like
23:11that and
23:12his arm dropped down he broke his nose
23:19there's this man who mowed his lawn with one of those you know things that whiz round and and
23:25and he was in open-toned sandals and uh he cut his toe off but the thing is it flew
23:30up and took his eye out
23:33and why is it so funny i mean a toe being cut off it's kind of oh it's quite funny
23:41but it's uh but the fact
23:42that the toe is coming out there how did the uh lawnmower go don't ask
23:51now lastly who's the oldest man in the bible
23:54jim jimmy jimmy jimmy jimmy jim jim cherry noah no not noah he was quite old
24:04methuselah
24:05i fell into the bear pet how was noah noah was 950. older than adam then he was older than
24:16adam oh yes
24:17adam was 930 years old how old was methuselah methuselah was 969 years
24:24well that just sucks why do we go he's old well because enoch
24:29is still alive enoch never died enoch was 365 when it quite specifically says in the bible
24:36that the lord took him god decided that he would not give him death because he was a good man
24:42even
24:42saint paul wrote about he said bring him to me
24:49you were on who wants to be a millionaire oh yeah very good phone of friends
24:52wouldn't it
24:52oh wouldn't it
24:54wouldn't it be great if you phoned up hang on i'll see if he's in
24:59do you know he's not your friend
25:04well no that seems to be the case french philosopher descartes believed that all humans could live as long as
25:09the patriarchs as those old figures from the bible are known and he believed he was right on the brink
25:15of
25:15inventing a way that would make us live for at least a thousand years when he died aged 54.
25:22so there you are that would make enoch 5387 years
25:28old finally to the pin the taste bud on the catfish competition would you like to show your work please
25:35wouldn't it be lovely if you're eating something and you taste it right the way along your lovely body then
25:39you have a lateral line which catfish do have
25:43and a kind of scattergun oh you missed one ah the end of the dorsal finner yeah
25:51fish alan's craft work has really come on this term
25:56i have to say the closest is probably rory because the fact is there is no part of a catfish
26:02which
26:02is not covered in thousands of taste buds he is basically a swimming tongue and that is rather
26:08close hold yours up that is rather close i have to say that is clearly how close that is
26:16which brings us to the pancake of the bobbies um and uh which is bobby moore's
26:24yes pancake pancake toss the matter of this course
26:30i don't think i never really cut it as a cockney would i let's have a look at the british
26:35home
26:36stores
26:38in first place with three points bill bailey
26:44in second place with minus one warren mcgrath
26:49in third place with minus 12 12 jubilee
26:54but our runaway not winner this week gannon davis with minus 19
27:08so it's heidi high and baked potato from qi
27:13my tom hanks go to phil rory bill and
27:17aaron i leave you with this castle and fort on the origins of london slang in the early years of
27:25the 20th century children's construction sets like meccano were sold in two kinds labeled box standard
27:32and box deluxe and that also they say and persuade me is where we get the two phrases bog standard
27:39and
27:40dog's bollocks
27:44language is a strange thing but she's my mistress good night
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