Jingle Bells QI XL

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho ho-ho-ho,

ho-ho-ho,

and welcome to QI for the J series Christmas Special,

which is, of course, called Jingle Bells.

And just look at my lovely, shiny baubles -

the sparkling Danny Baker...

Thank you, good evening.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

..the twinkling Sarah Millican...

Yay!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

..the glittering Phill Jupitus...

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

..and...

GLASS BREAKS

..oh, dear, he's fallen off the tree - Alan Davies.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

So, jingle your bells, please. Sarah goes...

TINKLE

Danny goes...

SLEIGH BELLS

Lovely. Phill goes...

CHURCH BELLS

Wow. And Alan goes...

'The bells, the bells!'

LAUGHTER

Very good. So now, first question.

It's a musical question. Where did Beethoven put his Jingling Johnny?

-TINKLE

-Yes, Sarah?

Mrs Beethoven.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

Somebody had to say it.

Yeah, well...

-Jingling Johnny?

-Yes. What do you think?

I can't imagine a Jingling Johnny, and it's something

that the good folk at Durex have obviously missed out on.

A seasonal range, that actually... You know, with a bell in the um...

LAUGHTER

-With holly round it.

-Yeah. Be nice.

I'll take that copy of Fifty Shades Of Grey away from you.

We've started our family Christmas show just as I hoped we would(!)

-Exactly.

-Yes, merry Christmas...

-His Jingling Johnny, what might it be?

-..Tiny Tim.

A triangle?

-Well, you're in the right area.

-Ah.

It's an instrument.

Other composers, Haydn's 100th Symphony uses a Jingling Johnny.

Berlioz was extremely fond of them, as was John Philip Sousa.

-And I even have one.

-Is it a cow bell?

It's rather more complex than that. It's this...

-Wow!

-That is a Jingling Johnny. It's a large...

BELLS JINGLE

That would make your eyes water, wouldn't it?

You were supposed to not bring any props from the Hobbit back.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

Seriously, seriously - I can see you...

You could go to Stonehenge next summer solstice

and you could own the joint with that!

Um, it was used as a marching... "Ch-ching-ch-ching."

You up-and-down it, with a march, up and down.

That's it, yes.

The army that used these began with J

and has a connection with Vienna, the Siege of Vienna,

-if that means anything historically to you.

-As opposed to...

# The feeling has gone, only you and I, this means nothing to me... #

Not... Yeah.

# Oh, Vienna... #

Usually...

It's not Ultravox, it's earlier than that, Vienna...

Very good popular culture remembered.

It's good that I should know that, I don't know how I knew that, either.

Between Vienna and the East,

the whole of that part of Eastern Europe was owned by an empire.

-Ottoman Empire?

-Ottoman Empire.

Their elite corps was called Janissaries.

And the Janissaries used these as they marched.

And Beethoven used it in one of his most famous compositions,

his Ninth Symphony, the Choral Symphony, he uses a Jingling Johnny.

And Hector Berlioz, one of the great French composers, claimed that

"The shaking of its sonorous locks added brilliancy to marching music."

Ah, I believe that it was later taken up, wasn't it, by...

On the X-Factor, it's how they...?

# Buddy you're a boy, make a big noise... #

Take it away, it's compulsive.

I think I'd better take it away from you.

-It's the Casio of its day.

-It is. There are other...

Casio?!

There are other instruments of this nature.

Buskers make their own versions.

There's a thing called the lagerphone,

it's an Australian version where the ringing noise is made by,

can you guess?

-Lager cans.

-Oh, yeah, bottle tops.

Yeah, crowns, the crowns of bottle tops, yeah, exactly.

There are other names for it in other languages, obviously.

The Dutch have the Kuttepiel and the Monkey Stick.

And, in Newfoundland,

they actually have something called the Ugly Stick, oddly enough.

The bumbass and the bladder fiddle,

which are versions that have a string attached that you pluck.

If you'd like me just to show you the majesty of Baker.

Name a '70s single that harnessed one of those instruments?

Er, Terry Dactyl And The Dinosaurs, Seaside Shuffle.

-Ladies and gentlemen, Danny Baker.

-Wow!

APPLAUSE

It's like being in the room with Max Planck and Einstein

while they're talking physics.

Which instrument was it?

It was, they used the zob stick, which was what they called it,

which was the bottle toppy... # Da-da-da... #

Yes, they did. Terry Dactyl And The Dinosaurs.

You guys, you guys! But anyway, that was the Jingling Johnny.

So, moving on.

-How long does the Minute Waltz last?

-Ah!

-You see, this show has been on for ten years now.

-It's a double bluff.

Yeah, it's one of them, isn't it?

-60 seconds.

-No!

KLAXON BLARES

-It's a shame.

-It is a shame.

It ought to be one which is a double bluff, shouldn't it?

Is it going to be 61 seconds?

Yeah, like a baker's dozen, will it be like that, like 70 seconds?

-No, it isn't that.

-Just a little bit more?

-KLAXON BLARES

-Oh!

-I didn't say that!

-It's Christmas!

It's Christmas, Mr Scrooge.

-Be of good cheer.

-I'm sorry, Sarah Cratchit, you must stay on.

-No, the fact is...

-An hour.

-A fortnight!

-A fortnight! I like the idea of a fortnight.

-Ages.

-No, it's almost my fault, except it isn't -

it's universally accepted that it is called the Minute Waltz, but...

-It's actually the Mi-nute Waltz.

-Yes!

Oh! The points are back!

It was originally called, by... Who wrote it, by the way?

Phill, who wrote that?

-Who wrote that?

-Oh, no, no.

Would you like to hear a piece of it? It might give you a hint.

MUSIC: "The Minute Waltz"

Chopin.

Very good! It's Chopin.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

It's Frederic Chopin.

Everyone calls it the Minute Waltz,

but it was actually called the Mi-nute Waltz. The Tiny Waltz.

Because it was originally called the Little Dog Waltz.

It was inspired by watching a little dog watching its own tail.

And he wrote the piece.

And you CAN play in 60 seconds.

If you do so, it's almost inaudible.

It would be an act of great virtuosity.

Liberace cut out what he called "the boring bits"

and played it in 37 seconds.

But, generally speaking,

it takes quite a lot longer than a minute to play.

But there is a Guinness record for the fastest pianist -

the greatest number of notes played in a minute.

PHILL: 700.

-700?

-Yeah.

-700 in a minute? Bloody hell.

Yeah, that would be... He'd be a good Morse coder, wouldn't he?

-He's got ten fingers!

-No, no, with one finger.

-Oh.

-Oh.

-Oh!

-This is playing with one finger.

Nine.

It's 498.

-Really?!

-498 notes in one minute. With one finger on one note.

His name was Balazs Havasi, he was Hungarian.

Imagine if he'd had the other nine fingers - what he could have done!

I bet Mrs Havasi was delighted!

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Ahh!

God bless us, everyone!

Chopin, as it happened, was one of those people...

It's common amongst sportsmen, I believe, boxing managers

and rowing coaches always recommend that before the day

of an important race or fight, you do not release your precious fluid.

-Yes.

-If you're male. And Chopin believed that.

He thought ejaculation weakened the creative impulse.

He died of TB, he died consumption,

and in his last days, he coughed blood onto the piano keys,

which is one of the great romantic images.

He was Polish, of course, but spent most of his time in Paris.

With his lover, whose name was...?

Dave.

-George.

-George, sorry. I get them mixed up.

-But she was a woman.

-She was a woman.

George Sand, the great French writer.

They had this turbulent and extraordinary affair.

And he died very young, with blood on the piano. Truly sad.

Oscar Wilde said, "After playing Chopin, I feel as if

"I have been weeping over sins that I have never committed."

Which is rather beautiful.

But he is many people's favourite composer

because he is so utterly, achingly romantic.

Who sang the first advertising jingle,

as it's Jingle Bells day today?

-Wasn't it...the, no?

-Not Marconi himself, surely?

Marconi. "Hey, radio is the way forward."

"Hey, hey, pop-that-hasn't-been-invented-yet pickers,

"this is Marconi."

I was at a party at the BBC and I sat next to Marconi's widow.

I have touched the wife of the man who invented radio.

That does seem weird, doesn't it, that she was still alive?

-Where did you touch her?

-Did she mind? Yeah.

She had been a young girl and he was quite an old man

when they married, but nonetheless, it's weird to think that

I could have met the inventor of radio's wife anywhere.

But the first jingle wasn't on the radio.

Oh, music hall?

Well, no. The first people ever to sing jingles would have been,

as it were, you and me.

They were written in newspapers and on pieces of paper with products.

There would be the music written out with the words,

so that you would sing it to yourself.

So you bought a packet of cigarettes and it went,

# I'm smoking cigarettes, I'm a man... # Whatever.

Because this was 20 years before they invented radio,

you know, we're talking about the 1870s and '80s.

Of course, a lot of people had little pianos

in their front parlours,

and they would get round and sing the, you know,

the Wrigley's song, or whatever it was.

And so the first people ever to sing jingles would have been

the members of the public themselves.

Have you heard the Von Moltke?

There's a wax cylinder of Von Moltke, the German general,

and it's the only recorded voice of someone born in the 18th century.

He was born in 1798. You can hear his voice.

That is extraordinary, isn't it?

I remember, I had the good fortune to meet Alistair Cook,

the great broadcaster. He said, "Shake my hand,"

he said, "You're shaking the hand of someone who shook the hand of

"Bertrand Russell, the philosopher." And I said, "Wow, that's amazing.

He said, "Oh, no, no, that's not too strange."

He said, "What's strange is that Bertrand Russell's aunt

"danced with Napoleon."

So I shook the hand of someone who shook the hand of someone

whose aunt danced with Napoleon.

Wow!

-It is pretty amazing, isn't it?

-That is something, yeah.

Let's go round the table. This hand shook the hand of John Lennon.

-Oh, wow.

-That's good.

And to him, yeah.

Wow, there we are, we're passing it on.

Yeah, Louie Spence, I've shook his hand.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Oh! Fantastic.

Go on...

-OK.

-Go on, then.

-River Phoenix.

-River Phoenix.

-Ooh.

-Oh, good.

-Here we go.

Er...

-Jennifer Lopez.

-Wow, that's a goodie.

-And if you were coming across here?

-Here we go.

-Oh, OK.

-Alan Davies.

Whoa! You've gone and trumped us all, haven't you?

My aunt and uncle are very close to Jesus.

Yes.

So back right off, all of you.

-Oh, there you go. But do you...

-Especially today.

Jesus is still alive, so that doesn't really count.

Of course. He's behind you.

Whoa!

And in front.

And, and it's his birthday!

ALL: Hey!

ALAN MIMICS KLAXON

But radio...

radio jingles, on the other hand,

appeared in the 1920s, as a way, oddly,

to get round NBC's rule that you couldn't advertise directly,

but what you could do is sing songs which had the sponsor's name in.

And the show could even be named after the sponsor,

so like...

This is Rudy Vallee, a famous performer in his day,

he had an NBC show called Fleischmann's Yeast Hour.

LAUGHTER

Thankfully, that was followed by Perkins' Yoghurt Half-Hour.

And it was the Sunshine Vitamin Yeast jingle was,

they consider, probably one of the very first jingles.

Do you use jingles on your show?

I use vintage ones, the Ovaltinies one, cheers everybody up.

-Ovaltine is a great famous one.

-And ones from the early '60s, you know?

"Sorry, mate, you're too late, the best peas went to Farrows,"

-which, again, is a beautiful bit of copyright.

-Oh, yes.

Hang on a minute, this is one... # Boom-boom-boom-boom. #

-Esso Blue.

-There we go.

-Yeah, I know.

It's mad, the things that stay in your head.

Ho-ho-ho...

ALL: # Green Giant. #

Free advertising on the BBC. Ah, there we go.

We're just going to be thigh-deep in paraffin and corn, me and Alan.

They're going to send you all kinds of free ones.

So now, what is that one for that malt whisky

that I was just trying to remember? No, but anyway...

Arguably, the first jinglist was actually a heretic called Arius.

He didn't believe in the Trinity.

This may not seem very relevant to us, but in this period, around 324,

they had the Council of Nicaea and his doctrine was formally condemned

but his way of spreading what he believed

to be the truth about Christ was in little songs.

One was...

"If you want the Logos Doctrine..."

Logos being "the word".

"I can serve hot and hot

"God begat Him

"And before he was begotten

"He was not."

In other words, Christ didn't exist until his Father gave birth to him,

which runs counter to Catholic dogma.

And so he apparently died -

the evidence is the picture in the background -

-of a rectal prolapse.

-Oh, yes!

-Supposedly...

GROANS

Looks like somebody mooning him in the picture.

Oh, oh!

-Oh!

-"Yeah, that'll teach you to be heretical!"

"Yes, don't mess with me, or your bum will fall out.

"Hi, God here. Heard that jingle the other day.

"Not so snappy now, is it?

"Now you're there with your intestines coiled around your ankles,

-"you feel a bit of a dick.

-All right.

The first jingles were actually written down

so you had to sing the jingle to yourself.

But what was Jingle Bells written to celebrate?

-The end of a war?

-No, it wasn't that.

-End of a famine.

-No.

The beginning of a famine.

LAUGHTER

The arrival of the first member of the Ku Klux Klan in Iceland.

-It does look a bit like that, doesn't it?

-Christmas.

-No, not Christmas.

-KLAXON BLARES

-One of these days, there'll be a double bluff.

-There will be.

We do have double bluffs concealed within.

It was written by a man whose nephew

went on to become the richest man in America.

-Rockefeller.

-Er, no, J Pierpont Morgan, the great banker.

But his uncle lived in Massachusetts

and, in 1857, he wrote a song.

And it was to celebrate a winter festival that takes place in America,

-not Christmas.

-Thanksgiving?

Thanksgiving, exactly.

And he wrote the song and its real name was not Jingle Bells, but...?

-Turkey Legs?

-Jingle Balls?

-No.

It's a line from the song.

Jungle Bells?

It's a line FROM THE SONG.

Jingle All The Way?

One-Horse Open Sleigh is the name of the song.

It's called One-Horse Open Sleigh and he played it...

-HE MUMBLES JINGLE BELLS

-# One-horse open sleigh... #

Yes, that's the one. That's right.

ALAN CONTINUES MUMBLING

Your mother will be coming to visit tomorrow!

LAUGHTER

I'm going to sit you in front...

# Jingle bells, jingle bells

# Batman smells... #

Oh, that's the one.

Anyway, people loved the tune and it became a big Christmas hit.

-Can I ask a question about the picture?

-Yes.

Is the horse bleeding from the eyes?

-It does look a bit like it.

-It does. It doesn't look well.

It's a rather freely-painted mane, isn't it?

But there's a happy, frisky dog and it's a Christmassy scene.

But while we're on something to do with songs,

what do you think was the first song ever played in space?

Oh, Silent Night?

It wasn't Silent Night.

These are the two astronauts who played it.

Their names are Walter, or Wally, Schirra Jr

and Thomas P Stafford and they were part of the project

before the Apollo project, which was called the Gemini Project.

And they were on Gemini 6.

And this is quite a wicked thing for them to do,

given that they were under military orders, working for NASA.

They smuggled aboard two musical instruments.

Which is quite a lot, cos that's payload, you know -

the amount of fuel that they use is calculated virtually to the ounce.

Were they two tubas?

No!

That would've been really impressive!

A euphonium!

It was a church organ and a gamelan.

ALAN IMITATES A TUBA

They were at least small enough to smuggle in. But what happened was...

-SPANISH ACCENT:

-The castanets!

Their re-entry was on the 16th of December.

As they were working out their angle of re-entry,

they sent this message to Houston.

They said, "Houston, we have an object.

"Looks like a satellite going from North to South,

"probably in polar orbit.

"Looks like he might be going to re-enter soon. You might just...

"Let me pick up that thing.

"I see a command module and eight smaller modules in front.

"The pilot of the command module is wearing a red suit."

And then they got out what they'd smuggled,

which was a harmonica and sleigh bells and played Jingle Bells.

But just for a second, Houston were going, "Oh, my God!"

So he is real, then?

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Well, I've heard that...

Talking about NASA and practical jokes, but that craft that

we sent out into the universe with the big steel...

Oh, the Voyager.

The Voyager with the big circular explanations of all life.

Yes, with the disc.

It's got Chuck Berry on it and all kinds of things.

And a fella said,

"We also put on, to broadcast out, the Shave And A Haircut."

Literally a sound that goes...

HE TAPS OUT SHAVE AND A HAIRCUT

And they figure that any intelligent life couldn't leave it there

and one day they're going to get back...

-KNOCKS TWICE

-..and go, "Yes!"

So there we are.

Now, can you explain the Jesus Christ Dinosaur Hypothesis?

Why might you call anything a Jesus-something?

Amongst the properties of Jesus, if you...

-A walk on water.

-Walking on water, that's the one.

That's the one. Now, there's a particular kind of dinosaur,

a sort of intermediate dinosaur between birds and dinosaurs,

150 million years ago, which, in dinosaur terms

is quite recent, it was not long before they were all wiped out.

There is a picture.

Oh, isn't it beautiful? like all the dinosaurs.

They're pretty amazing.

Do you know what that one was called?

Dave.

One day the answer might be Dave,

one day the answer might be blue whale, it's going to be...

What I'm looking forward to is

when we have a blue whale called Dave and you DON'T get it.

LAUGHTER

They're called Archaeopteryx.

And all the fossils for Archaeopteryx, oddly enough,

are found in a place where there was a sea,

but there was absolutely no evidence of any trees,

therefore, it seemed very odd as to how they would fly.

And there is a suggestion that what they did was they ran on water,

rather in the way that swans, when they're about to take off...

Let's have a look at a swan about to take off,

you'll get the idea of what I mean.

They sort of, like that. It's a beautiful sight.

They can really run along the water.

PHILL MAKES ENGINE NOISE

They think that's what the Archaeopteryx might have done.

And there are other animals today, still exist,

that are called the Jesus-something, because they run on water.

-Can you think of any examples?

-Well, there's a lizard.

There's a Jesus lizard, you might want to see a

Jesus lizard having a bit of a go.

The Jesus cow.

LAUGHTER

I would pay big money to see a Jesus cow.

So would I. I'd get one of my own.

How that works is they blow up their own udders really big.

Oh, like Space Hoppers!

There's something very Glen Larson about that, isn't there?

But the Jesus lizard can get up to about 20 metres, which is not bad.

Obviously when they stop, they sink, I mean,

so it's all about the fact that they are literally walking

or indeed in their case, running, on water.

They strike the water and they slap it and they go through.

-What else runs on water?

-In Jamaica there's one,

that would have been written about by James Bond.

Bob Marley used to run on water.

This one would have been...

"Rita, me going for a run 'pon de lake.

"Hold me chalice while I run on de water."

"No woman no drown."

I'm full of cultural references at the moment.

This particular one would have been written about by James Bond.

Where did Ian Fleming get the name James Bond?

-From note paper.

-No. He had a book.

He lived in Jamaica and he had a selection of books on Jamaica.

And there was a book called The Birds of Jamaica,

by a man called James Bond.

-Oh.

-And that's where he got the name for his hero.

And so this man, James Bond, would certainly have

written about the Jacana, which is a Jesus bird, also called

the Jesus bird, for its apparent ability to walk on water.

He gets all the credit, and why not for James Bond?

But let's never forget he also wrote Chitty Bang Bang, Ian Fleming wrote Chitty Bang Bang.

Yes, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

And a character in that was called Caractacus Potts,

I didn't understand that joke for years.

-Potts, isn't that wonderful?

-What's the joke?

LAUGHTER

He was a crack-pot, he was an inventor.

-Crack-pot.

-Oh, a crack-pot!

-Yeah. I know.

-Ah.

Are you a Chitty Chitty Bang Bang fan?

I haven't watched it since I was a child,

-cos I think that's when you're supposed to watch it.

-Supposed to.

Do you know, that's girls, you see, little girls grow up to be women

and little boys grow up to be big little boys.

-We've got too much stuff to do.

-We still watch children's films.

-Do you have children, though?

-No.

Ah, well, yes, when you do then remember...

-No, no, no, no.

-You plan not to?

No. There's no "when", Stephen.

-There's no...?

-No.

You're not going to adopt a little...shiny little baby?

A shiny one?

LAUGHTER

Are they varnished? Can I varnish one?

I don't know. They might be more attractive if they're shiny.

It's not my field, I don't...

And then Stephen revealed his plans for a child-buffing workshop.

LAUGHTER

Where craftsmen will get toddlers to a high sheen.

"More, more lacquer, little boy?"

PHILL IMITATES MACHINE NOISE

"Baaa. You're the shiniest one.

"We shall put you in the Harrods window."

Oh, stop it!

"I'm still alive in here, I'm still alive in here."

-"Why, I can see..."

-"Help me!"

"I can see my face in your face. It's..."

MACHINE NOISE

You might have changed my mind, I thought they were very matt,

I had no idea.

Nice shiny little baby, I think they're lovely.

Although, slightly put off by the idea of the child-buffing...

LAUGHTER

Thank you for that, so much.

Let me take you back now to your childhood and innocence.

-You remember all those white Christmases?

-No.

-No?

-Oh, OK. I remember one.

-Yeah.

-1971.

1970. The January was '71.

-There you go.

-Christmas itself was 1970.

Had you said "yes" I would buzz you,

cos you don't remember any, cos you're from the Southeast.

You might remember a few more, cos South Shields has had more.

-We've actually tried to work out...

-Have you? Good.

..how many white Christmases you've had.

We think you might have had them

-when you were one, three, four, five, six and nine.

-Wow.

-Which is actually quite a lot.

-That is quite a lot.

Because in the whole of the 20th Century, if you lived in London

and the Southeast, there were only four white Christmases.

-Ha-ha!

-I know!

It is extraordinary.

And they were in 1927, 1938, 1970 and 1981.

As we know, in the 21st century, we've had a few.

But what's important about this is that in the early part of

the 19th century, around about 1812 to 1820, there were eight in a row.

Oh.

Now, why was that important to our culture?

Is that when the song was written?

No. A certain child was born in 1812. We will...

Jesus.

LAUGHTER

Mormon!

You really do need a little bit of a religious education.

This was an author, a writer whose created idea...

-Charles Dickens.

-Oh, OK, Dickens, yeah.

Charles Dickens. For the first eight years of his life,

it always snowed on Christmas Day.

And so whenever he mentions Christmas, not just

in A Christmas Carol, but in several other novels, it's always snowing,

and this helped the myth in British culture of a snowy Christmas.

He also lived at a time known as the Little Ice Age, you know this,

-I'm sure you've seen paintings of fairs on the River Thames.

-Yeah.

There were times when the River Thames froze so solidly they

would have fairs, not just fairs, they'd have bonfires on the ice.

Those crazy Cockneys.

Yes. But that they could guarantee...

-"Light a fire up!"

-Yeah.

-"It's freezing!"

"Let's light a fire on the river on the ice.

"What could possibly go wrong?"

The odd thing is...

"It's cold on the ice, innit?" "Yes!"

"Let's light a fire and drill 'oles!"

But the odd thing is, nothing did go wrong,

because it was so thick, the ice.

The last frost fair, as they were called, was in 1813/14,

-on the frozen River Thames.

-Wow.

But anyway, this century we've had more white Christmases,

as we know, but only four in the entire 20th Century,

-and only two in our lifetimes.

-Yeah.

-More in Scotland.

I'm really being very metro-centric here and I apologise for that.

But that's just the fact of the matter.

So describe a typical snowflake.

Six-sided.

No, it is an odd misconception that people have

that snowflakes have two properties -

one is that they're hexagonal, six-sided.

-They're cold. They're made of snow.

-That is true.

-They're white.

-I'm talking about the common fallacies.

-Oh.

Right, the fallacies are...

Well, I'm trying to describe a typical snowflake, Stephen.

Yeah. Oh, bless.

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to slap you down.

Oh, I feel like a puppy's run into a mirror.

LAUGHTER

I'm sorry. Er...

Um... Another misconception about them is not just they're six-sided

but that they're always...?

-..falling from the sky.

-No.

-Those are all accurate.

-Symmetrical?

-Symmetrical.

And they are not, exactly. Yes, they're neither...

They can be like this, they can be needle-shaped,

they can be those, with little square ends on the end.

But the fact is, it's just photographers have found

that people are incredibly drawn to beautiful, hexagonal ones.

And they're the ones that a schoolchild learns about

and they are mistakenly told that that's what all snowflakes are like.

So, there we are. You can, however, make artificial snowflakes.

I'm now going to bamboozle and astound you

with my tray of delights.

Here we are. It's an ordinary tray. I've got here water...

-and I have...

-Cocaine?

..Peruvian cocaine. No, stop it.

LAUGHTER

It's just a dry powder called sodium polyacrylate

and it is found in what you might call an ordinary...

-Custard.

-What you might call an ordinary household object.

I'm holding up here, for the first time in my life, a nappy.

And, if I rip this open, under the cotton wool,

if I just sort of give it a little bit of a rub here,

you might just see in my hand there is some of this...

Can you see it there? Yeah, some of this powder.

This powder is so extraordinary - it can take on water,

200 to 300 times its mass,

and absorb it, which is why these work so well.

And to prove it, here's all of this water being poured into here.

And you'll see...

it actually takes the whole lot in like that, all of this...

here...

is dry.

It's dry and it's cold.

And that is completely dry.

Now, this is incredibly useful.

We have a leading company in Britain that does something better than

anyone else in the film business and that is they make, guess what?

-Fake snow.

-Artificial snow.

And the company's name is, not surprisingly, Snow Business.

And they make... 40, 50, 60 types of different snow, this company makes.

And one of them uses this same chemical effect.

It is rather remarkable. This is completely dry.

-That's in nappies?

-And that's in nappies.

That's what absorbs the amount of...

You see nappies all over beaches and in the ocean,

I'm surprised you can't walk to France by now!

Babies would be like the Incredible Hulk

and just bursting out of their clothes, wouldn't they?

I agree. It sort of puffs it up a bit, but it stays dry.

-Did you like your little chemistry lesson?

-Loved it!

Hooray! Thank you very much.

APPLAUSE

Well... So, anyway,

what's the best thing to do with your old Christmas tree?

TINKLE

-Yes?

-I just...

I put mine back in the spare room.

I do, and I just, it's still fully decorated.

-I just unplug it.

-Oh, so you have an artificial one?

-Of course.

-Oh, I see.

-I just unplug it and then put it all in,

so in my spare room it's always Christmas.

AUDIENCE: Aww...

Well, imagine if it was a real tree, rather than an artificial one.

Sell it to Africans?

Cos according to Bob Geldof, they don't know when it's Christmas.

And you...

LAUGHTER

So, oh, here's a tree, when you've finished with it.

But when you've finished with it, it's too late.

-It won't be Christmas.

-No, they don't know, do they?

They do know when it's January.

But do they know it's Christmas time at all? No.

You're compounding the felony. Well, it's rather pleasing.

It's actually possibly the best thing you could think of doing.

Give it to a zoo. There are animals that would love it.

-In Germany, they do this regularly.

-Aww...

-Yeah. Elephants, elephants love it.

-Isn't that lovely, look?

-I know.

An elephant can have five Christmas trees for lunch.

Five Christmas trees!

And giraffes, rhinos, at Dresden Zoo, camel, deer,

sheep also enjoy it.

So before London Zoo writes me a letter saying,

"What the hell have you done, Stephen?

"The entire Regents Park is covered,"

ring up the zoo first and ask if they'd like your Christmas tree.

But as long as it isn't too covered in hideous bits of silver tinsel,

and you've got rid of all the nastiness.

How much cuter that elephant would look

if it had a little bit of tinsel on it.

Well, it might look cuter,

but I don't think it's nutritively valuable for it.

No. You know what tinsel is?

Mirrors for snakes.

-Aah.

-Aah. I like that, that's rather sweet.

That's adorable.

And would you think that your artificial tree

is more environmentally friendly

or is a real tree more environmentally friendly?

I would think artificial,

but you're probably going to tell me I'm wrong.

No, it has been a moot point, but it is generally now agreed that,

in fact, it is better to buy a real tree for the environment.

They can be mulched

and, if they have their roots, they can be replanted.

There is evidence of some chemicals being emitted by plastic ones.

Also, conifers have fungi on their roots

that support the soil ecosystem and, while they're growing,

they support birdlife and also improve the soil,

so, in the end, you're better off buying a real one.

But if I had a real one, I'd still leave it decorated in my spare room.

Fair enough!

I can't bear people who do that on Boxing Day.

Sometimes you go out Boxing Day or the day after

and there's trees outside people's houses, that's not the spirit.

-6th of January.

-There you go.

-Yes, Twelfth Night.

-Is it? Is it?

-Yes.

Because that's a perennial argument. It's the 6th, is it?

-Yes. Twelfth Night.

-Oh, OK.

-Yes.

Because we do it on the 5th and that's why I've had no luck.

-Well, no, ah.

-Ah.

-Ah.

Well, is it midnight on the 5th or is it...? Oh, hell!

That's what this programme's here for, things like this.

Now you've got me worried.

Oh, the chatrooms will be ablaze now.

LAUGHTER

-It's the 5th.

-Right.

-If you include Christmas Night, that's one.

Oh, hell. Oh, God.

26th, 27th, 28th, 29th, 30, 31, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

-Bang, thank you. There you go.

-That's the 7th night, then.

-What I've done there is...

-He's gone round once.

..I've gone round once.

Take that away, I'll take that away.

Get your socks off, get your socks off,

it's the only way he'll believe you.

I think the jury's still out.

Anyway, we're going to have a quick-fire round now

and it's about Jesus, because it isn't just about eggnog and tinsel.

So, fingers on buzzers. What did Jesus' mum call him?

-TINKLE

-Yes?

-Shiny?

-Shiny. She might have called him shiny.

'The bells, the bells!'

Joe Junior.

Closer, basically, yes. There is a name that he had.

"Yay-zus." The name that we have called Jesus,

that's a Greek version of a Hebrew name which is also

used as a name given to people in Britain.

Dave.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

I'll tell you what I will do...

Welcome back.

I'll tell you what, I'll give you points if you can tell me

why there are so many begats - "So-and-so begat, so-and-so begat" -

until they come to Joseph in the opening Gospels.

Who were they trying to prove that Christ was descended from?

Oh, Abraham.

-Dave!

-Dave.

-Yes, David.

-David, David.

-That was the answer that would have been Dave.

And I said Abraham, what a idiot!

He's given it to me on a plate. He had a plate.

I gave it to you on a plate.

Yes, he was descended from Dave, but his real name was Yeshua,

which is in fact?

-Joshua.

-He was Joshua. His name was Yeshua.

His mother would have called him Yeshua or Joshua.

So that's one. OK, very good.

Where is the world's tallest statue of Jesus?

Oh...

Now. Ah, now. Is it the statue or is it on top of something?

The statue height or how high?

-The actual, simply, tallest statue of Jesus.

-I'm going to guess

Rio de Janeiro.

Oh, dear, no, sadly it isn't Rio.

We all know that one, Cristo Redentor, the famous one there.

It's a tall one, it's a tall one.

It is, gosh it's tall. Don't get me wrong.

But...

'The bells, the bells!'

-America.

-No. There is an even taller one in Bolivia,

but that's not the tallest either.

The actual tallest one is in Poland.

Oh.

Would you believe? In Swiebodzin, I'm sure I've pronounced that wrong.

There it is.

It's 33 metres tall, one metre for each year of Christ's life,

plus a three-metre crown.

If the crown wasn't on that, the one in Bolivia would be the tallest.

So, now, how many people did Jesus feed at the feeding of the 5,000?

TINKLE

Yes, go on?

4,998 because there was a couple who were bit suspicious.

-They don't like fish.

-Yeah, exactly.

-A couple of vegans.

"Oh, no, it gives me the creeps, all scaly, oh, no, no.

"Can I just have toast? All right, nothing for me, then."

I will quote you Matthew, 14.21, "The number of those who ate was

"5,000 men, besides women and children."

-Oh.

-Oh.

-So there were a lot more than 5,000.

-Why don't we count?

It's the Bible.

Women get stoned just for looking at people in an odd way.

Very different times. Different times.

I'm afraid it's not fair or right or just and I agree with you,

-it's horrible.

-Stupid thing!

APPLAUSE

I'm with you.

It was known as The Miracle Of The Five Loaves And Two Fishes.

However, how many were there at the feeding of the 4,000?

Oh...

4,000 men! Huh!

Well, oddly enough, this is a separate one, a separate feeding.

Because you've got the 5,000 in Matthew and the 4,000.

This one he fed 4,000 men plus the women and children, again,

and that's called The Miracle Of The Seven Loaves And Fishes.

-I've never heard of that, so it was two.

-Yeah.

So he was a caterer?

Yes. Basically.

How many disciples did Jesus have?

Oh, here we go.

-Christmas, be nice.

-Yeah.

-12.

-12.

KLAXON BLARES

No, no, again we look to the Gospel of Luke here.

He had 72. He had, basically, he had a posse.

He had an entourage.

Was it 12 men, the rest were women, so that's why they don't count?

No, no.

"After this the Lord appointed 72," he's got the 12, but

"he appointed 72 others and sent them

"two-by-two ahead of him to every town and place

"where he was about to go."

The 12 most famous of his disciples are, of course, the Apostles.

OK, now, it's time to pull our Christmas crackers.

We have decided, you know, the jokes are always terrible, aren't they?

So we wondered, is it because we tell them the wrong way round?

And what you should have is the punch line from the joke,

not the joke. We want you to work out the joke from the punch line.

There's no toy!

You had a toy, but you've dropped it.

It was a paperclip.

-Oh, look, look, I can do an impression. Hang on.

-Oh, go on, then.

I've got to do an impression.

Look, I'm in Poland.

Hey, hey!

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Very good.

Wait.

All right, have you found your jokes? Danny?

Mine just says, "That's not funny."

I don't know if it's a note from the producers of the show, but...

That's harsh, isn't it?

You have to work out what the joke is.

A limerick?

When the government ran out of money

And things look real bleak and not sunny

We all had a bash,

Using these jokes as cash

But Germans said, "Ein, that's not funny!"

-Hey!

-Yes!

Aye-aye.

-That's a quick...

-Aye-aye. Thank you.

Thank you.

I have to say, it's a lot better than the real joke,

which is, "How many feminists does it take to change a light bulb?"

-"That's not funny."

-That's not funny.

-Do you know the one,

-how many Freudians it takes to change a light bulb?

-No, go on.

"It takes one to screw in the light bulb and the other to hold the cock.

"Father, ladder!"

LAUGHTER

There you go.

That's brilliant.

Anyway, so, Phill, what's your punch line?

My punch line is, "Subordinate Clauses."

Wow. What can the joke be?

And the joke is,

"What is a sadomasochistic Santa Claus's favourite thing?"

Oh, well, that's not bad.

The real answer is, "What do you call Santa's little helpers?"

"Subordinate Clauses."

EVERYONE GROANS

STEPHEN GROANS

OK, Sarah, your turn, what's your punch line?

-My punch line is, "The trifle tower."

-Ha, ha.

You might be able to guess this particular joke, what's the joke?

That's the only reason I went to bloody Paris.

That would, that would do it.

"What's tall and wobbly and is in Paris?" Is, you know, the trifle...

-Me, when I went to Paris.

-Oh, no!

I'm not that tall, actually.

Alan, we haven't had yours, have we?

Well, mine says that, "Eat, drink and be Mary."

"Eat, drink and be Mary." What do you think the joke is?

"What did Jesus' mum do on Christmas Day, or something?"

No, it's, "What does a transvestite do on Christmas Day?"

-"Eat, drink and be Mary."

-"Eat, drink and be Mary."

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

-It's a little bit racy for a cracker.

-It is racy.

OK, here's a punch line -

"She issues a royal pardon."

-Oh.

-Oh, "What does the Queen do when she farts?"

Yes...

it is "burps", but I'll accept "farts".

Here's one - "24 days."

Is that, "How many days worth of chocolate do you eat

"when you first buy your advent calendar?"

-It's very close!

-Is it?

It's, "What did the man who stole an advent calendar get?"

-Ah!

-"24 days."

-Oh, OK.

-Ah, yes.

Um...

That's good!

Come on!

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

The thing is, I can't actually get these off.

I can see, I can see everything.

Good.

We've got one more punch line.

"It's very good cold on Boxing Day, too."

-Turkey.

-No.

"Remember a puppy isn't just for Christmas..."

-Ah.

-Aah.

-AUDIENCE GROANS

-Oh, that's a bit sick, isn't it?

-Oh, that's awful.

What's wrong with you?!

Imagine Delia cooking puppies for Christmas.

"Well, we've got something different this year."

Anyway, our sleighs have finally hit the buffers

and it remains only for me to try and pick a winner from the wreckage.

And it's quite remarkable.

The clear winner, with four points, Danny Christmas Baker.

Hooray, ho-ho-ho-ho-ho. Ho-ho-ho-ho.

God love us, one and all! Love us one and all. Hooray!

And Sarah, Sarah, whom Jesus didn't feed, did fantastically well

and is in second place with minus six.

Yay!

And Bob Cratchit writing away at the ledger, shivering,

with little coal and feeling that it isn't very Christmassy at all,

on minus 32, Phill Jupitus.

But with a staggering minus 38,

it's Dave-Dave-Dave-Dave Davies.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And it's snowing! Hurrah!

So, that's all from Sarah, Danny, Phill, Alan and me.

And a very, very happy

and a quite, Quite Interesting Christmas to you all.

Good night.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd