Kitchen Sink QI XL

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Goo-oo-od evening, good evening, good evening, good evening,

good evening, good evening, and welcome to QI,

where tonight we're looking at everything in the kitchen

but the sink.

Joining me at the breakfast bar, cooking with gas, Jason Manford.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Sharp as a knife, Victoria Wood.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Pointless as a spoon, Richard Osman.

Hiya.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And I got this fork off Alan Davies.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Let's hear your pingers. Jason goes...

BEEP-BEEP-BEEP

And Victoria goes...

TICK-TICK-TICK DING!

Richard goes...

DRING!

And Alan goes...

EXPLOSION AND ALARM

We're having a kitchen supper tonight.

Which of the following do you fancy?

Take me through these... lovely dishes.

They're all real.

Is the buttocktongue Marks & Spencer's buttocktongue?

It's YOUR buttocktongue.

-Oh, right.

-Yes, exactly. Work on tongue.

Well, I'll have to be careful when I say that...

if you just take the last three letters off "tongue", you get?

Oh, so like, like a biltong?

Biltong is right.

It's a hindquarters tongue, which sounds weird, but that's what it is.

-Biltong, have you ever had biltong?

-No, I'm a vegetarian.

-Ah.

Meet Alan.

He's a vegetarian, too.

-Hold on, is biltong not vegetarian?

-No!

It's usually sold as ostrich biltong or dik-dik biltong

or some other animal, but they found in 2013, a very recent study,

that two-thirds was incorrectly labelled.

So horse biltong turned out to be biltong, can you believe?

Disgusting! A revolting idea!

I think, if you're eating that,

I don't think you have to worry about what animal it's come from.

So what is it? The bottom?

It's dried... Well, it's the dried hindquarters.

It's called "tongue", I think, because it's the shape of a tongue

in the way that it's dried, rather than it comes from a tongue.

"Biltong" - buttock.

So, does it have the actual...?

The hindquarters, which are buttocks on an animal.

But does it have the arsehole in it?

-Not the...

-LAUGHTER

-I think not.

-That's in hot dogs, I think.

-Has it got a tube?

-Yeah, that's in...

-They save that for hot dogs and pork pies.

-Yeah.

So you can have beef, horse, impala,

wildebeest, eland, giraffe and kangaroo biltong.

Apparently. Very nice.

So, that's a good one. You've started.

-Any other thoughts?

-Kleftiko, that's...

That's on a menu in a Greek restaurant, isn't it?

Yes, kleftiko, exactly, does exist.

And it was originally called "kleptiko",

which might give you a hint.

Klept.

-Kleptomaniac?

-It's all stolen.

-Kleptomania, kleptos is a thief.

And it was anti-Ottoman empire bandits who lived in the hills,

and they made up this dish,

so it was named after them, it's a thieves' dish.

It's quite elaborate for a bandit person to be doing.

They were... You should see their souffles. They were extraordinary.

Actually, souffles brings us on to nun's farts.

Well, it's... When you pop one...

Why specifically a nun's, though? I mean...

Cos nun's farts smell like souffle. Keep up!

He's just given you that,

-when he gives you one, for goodness' sake, grab it.

-Yes, take notice.

A lot of French dishes have - or, indeed, European dishes -

have their... Pumpernickel is a devil's fart, "pumpen", pump, fart,

"nickel", Old Nick. And that's a bread, so they have rude names.

And there's a... Isn't there a cheese which is, er,

angel's tits or something like that?

-You can tell which ones are farting from their pained expressions.

-Yeah.

That's like the cast of Dad's Army on a...

-fancy-dress party.

-I think out of them all there, I'd go, I'd say...

-Which one?

-She's definitely... She's definitely farted,

and the rest don't know yet.

Look at the smile.

Look at the smile on her face.

That's a massive board and they all just put their faces through.

-Like on a pier.

-Yeah.

Nun's farts are little balls of pastry deep-fried, and they puff up.

They're also called whore's farts or Spanish farts,

in French, "pets-de-nonne".

"Pets" is "fart" in French.

These days, they've disappointingly been renamed as nun's puffs.

Or possibly poofs, I don't know how you would say it, it's hard to tell.

-Bishops, often, they're called that.

-Bishops, yes, exactly.

Well, pocket soup. How could you put soup in your pocket?

-It's crazy, right?

-It is! It's insane. There must be a way.

-Yeah.

This actually is soup that has been...

-Solidified?

-Yes. Reduced.

-ALAN:

-Reduced.

-Into a sort of... Basically an early version of a stock cube.

-Oh, right.

And then you reconstituted them by adding boiling water,

as you do with your classic stock cube.

-Why would you put it in your pocket?

-To travel to work.

Keep your hands free.

But you know when you leave, like, a fiver in your pocket

when you put it in the wash - that would be awful

if you left some pocket soup in your jeans.

Oh!

-Can you imagine?

-The whole wash would come back

as consomme of something.

Most unfortunate.

Treacle. Treacle. The anti-venereal treacle?

Wouldn't want to lick it off.

You're right.

It sold much better than pro-venereal treacle, didn't it?

-That didn't...

-Yes!

-That didn't sell.

-It really didn't.

-Yeah, they really...

-The two great treacles.

-Yeah.

The word treacle has had an interesting history.

It now means, of course...

Yeah, it used to mean any sort of medicine, didn't it?

Or any sort of...

Even without a computer in front of you, you're good.

That is very... Or have you got one hidden under there?

No, I'm very impressed, you're absolutely right.

A treacle was generally any kind of specific

-against diseases and things.

-Or a term of endearment, weirdly.

"Treacle," yes, in EastEnders and that sort of thing, isn't it?

-"All right, Treacle?"

-"All right, anti-venereal treacle?"

That's what they call some of those characters.

-Auntie Venereal Treacle.

-Yes.

"It's your Auntie Venereal, Treacle."

"You come in for your tea, Chlamydia."

Where was it...? There was...

-In America, Verruca's quite a popular name.

-Really?!

People copy it from...

BOTH: ..Charlie And The Chocolate Factory.

They don't know... They don't call verrucas "verrucas" in America.

-So they don't know it's actually...?

-They don't know it's an awful thing.

-Verruca Salt.

-Yeah.

-Brilliant. I'm so pleased.

-So if they don't call chlamydia "chlamydia"...

-Yes...

..all you need to do is put it in a popular children's book as a name.

-Brilliant.

-Before you know it...

It would be one of the most popular names.

-..Barack Obama will have a daughter called Chlamydia.

-Called Chlamydia!

Chlamydia Obama.

Which brings us to Dog and Maggot.

-Does it?

-Well, it doesn't necessarily.

It sounds like rhyming slang for...

-someone of my persuasion.

-Taggart.

Oh...

-I was going to go with the ITV show Taggart.

-Oh, right.

"There's been a murder, Dog and Maggot."

-A Scotsman in the mist. See what I did there?

-Yeah.

If I was to say "hard tack" to you, does that mean anything?

Ship's biscuits?

Very good. Ship's biscuits were known as hard tack.

And there's a famous scene in the Battleship Potemkin,

do you remember? If you've ever seen it.

-No, I'm a vegetarian.

-The great Eisenstein movie...

LAUGHTER

That's going to be an answer to a lot of questions, isn't it?

"No, I'm a vegetarian."

The Potemkin was a ship in which there was a mutiny,

and there's a scene of them cracking open a ship's biscuit

-and the maggots... It's really horrible.

-Eurgh.

And this is a British biscuit

called "Dog" because it was the consistency of a dog biscuit

and "Maggot" cos it had maggots in it, but it was...

In the First World War, it was part of the rations.

God. I think I'd rather eat the cutlery.

-I think you're right.

-If that choice came up.

"I'll just have a chew on this knife, don't worry about it."

You know what I think I'd like with a fork?

Rather than having all the prongs in a line,

why can't they be in a kind of a square shape,

so you've got a kind of...

-Do you know, hold that thought.

-That's a good idea.

-Because we might be coming on to that later in the exam.

-Really?

-Wow.

-Yes.

It might come up.

"Sir said it wouldn't come up this term, but it might have come up."

-I'll revise that.

-Yeah. OK.

So that's your Dog and Maggot.

We're left with Kunga cake.

-Sounds African.

-Very unlikely...

-It IS African, but you are very unlikely to get this.

-Is it a cake?

-Well...

-Is it going to be dung?

-It's not dung, no.

-It sounded like dung.

-It's animals, but tiny, weeny animals.

Termites.

-Even smaller, actually.

-Ants.

-Midges.

-Oh, midges?

-Midges.

They come out from the river in their mating swarms

in such numbers that they gather them and press them into a cake.

-How do they gather them?

-Well, I guess they...

Sort of with a net or something like that.

Good. It's about time they got their just desserts, those little sods.

They're always talking, these days,

about using all kinds of insect and things

for the future of the human race, for protein, insects...

-No?

-No.

-Do you remember, I had an ant on this show once?

I do remember you having an ant.

I got a bit of its sort of carapace and...

-HE CHOKES

-It was just...

For the whole show, I had it caught in the back of my throat.

-It was disgusting.

-I was like that with Dec.

LAUGHTER

Naughty. That's very naughty indeed.

Anyway, there you are. Here's some unusual cutlery.

I'd like you to tell me what kind of thing you could eat with them.

You've all got some,

but I'll start off with the one that you mentioned there.

-You said with tines, that were...

-You just invented that, a minute ago.

There you are. Isn't it incredible?

-You mentioned something like it.

-That's weird.

Isn't it? It's usage is very, very specific.

You don't actually handle it yourself,

cos you're so high-born that somebody else feeds you using that.

With what on it, though?

-Some sort of fruit?

-No.

Is it a testicle?

It might include a testicle.

-Ooh.

-Is it a scrotum?

It might include a scrotum.

What else really includes a testicle, Stephen?

The whole schmear.

A-A whole mammal.

Yes, a whole mammal. Let's just imagine I'm talking to one.

-Oh, God.

-A comedian?

No, a cannibal. That's the point - a human being.

-Oh, human.

-Oh...

Yours is a reproduction, sold as a souvenir item on the island of?

-Or islands of?

-Wight.

Man.

LAUGHTER

More accurate if you'd said the Isle of Man, I would have thought.

-Oh, yeah.

-Think of the... A cannibal island,

-it was part of the British Empire.

-Oh, Guernsey.

-Fiji.

-Fiji.

-Fiji.

-Oh, I might have known.

Yeah, you might have done. Fiji is the answer.

These are Fijian human forks.

-Two cannibals are eating someone...

-Yes?

..and one says, "You start at the toes, I'll start at the head."

He says, "All right."

Halfway through he says, "You all right?"

He says, "Yeah, I'm having a ball." He says, "You're going too fast!"

-There you go.

-Excellent work.

-There you go.

-Excellent work.

-A cannibal joke for you.

All right, Alan, can you look

-and see what other items of cutlery you might have?

-I've got this one.

That, you might recognise.

Once again, it's clearly for testicles.

If you did eat meat, it's quite common. Reasonably common.

-No.

-For fish?

-Anyone know?

It looks like it's for force-feeding a suffragette.

The foreskin of a suffragette?

No! For FORCE-FEEDING!

LAUGHTER

I'm so sorry!

I'm so sorry! For force-feeding Emily Davison, as it were.

That's what Batman used to say,

"Within a foreskin of a suffragette!"

"Foreskin of a suffragette, Batman!"

Or for clenching a nose.

I'm sure the audience knows. Who'd like to shout out?

AUDIENCE: Snails!

-They all know that's for l'escargot, it is for snails.

-Oh, is it?

You clench the shell

and then you use a little winkling fork to get the flesh out.

So there you are. And what have you got, Victoria?

-I've got that.

-Now that is interesting. You've also got a bowl.

I'm sure there's, like, one of those in my mum's drawer, one of them.

-I've seen that. That's the only one I've seen.

-Your mum's drawers!

-On my mum's drawers!

-Is it a buffet spoon?

-Does it rest on a...?

It rests on the side of the bowl. The most useful thing...

-Brilliant.

-Oh, that's clever.

Usually, things for this substance are wooden

with a sort of dome on the end and grooves around them.

-Honey?

-Honey.

But this is even better for honey

cos you pour the honey into the bowl,

keeping it on top of that other bowl

and where do you put the spoon without stickiness?

-Yeah.

-You just simply put it back on.

I think other people have got more cutlery than me.

-This, which is a strange...

-Very hard. If you guess that...

-A spoon with holes in it.

-I'll give you 100 points

if you guess what that is specifically for.

Oh, it's for Coco Pops so you get the milk at the bottom...

-that's turned chocolaty.

-It would work as that.

-It would.

It's actually very specifically for terrapins and turtles.

I don't usually eat them.

-You're a vegetarian. I know.

-Exactly.

-Oh, I see.

-The flesh is delicious, apparently.

-Oh, OK.

-The giant turtle, famously...

-Aren't they protected, Stephen?

You're not supposed to be chomping away on them.

Oh, gosh, no, absolutely not. No, the Ridleys and...

-Well, why are you saying we should kill them and eat them?

-No!

Why are you giving me cutlery to damage terrapins?

-You said that.

-We used to.

-Weird thing to say on television,

-that we should eat turtles.

-I take it back.

-We shouldn't be killing them.

-But they're delicious.

There is a special piece of cutlery for them.

-And apparently they're delicious.

-We have some cutlery for them,

-and they're delicious.

-Just in case.

And, Jason, what have you got?

Ahem...

Ooh. Now this is interesting.

Don't look at your reflection in it, that'll only upset you.

I was seeing if that's what was unusual.

-No.

-Oh, my God, it's Tom Selleck.

That's weird, isn't it? Of all the people.

Have a grip and a twist.

-OK. Oh!

-Ah.

It turns. It turns like that.

-Yeah.

-Is it supposed to...?

-All the way.

Oh, all the way, OK.

Oh, and then it just becomes, like...

-It's broken.

-It's...

-It's a breakable spoon!

-Brilliant.

No, but look in the spoon end. The ladle end.

-It's hollow.

-Yeah. Oh, inside there.

So you could fill it with something.

-A message.

-Hot water?

-Hot water.

Oh, I was going to say turtle blood.

-Oh, I see.

-You fill it with hot water and it's a gravy spoon

that keeps the gravy nice and warm to stop the fat congealing.

-Oh, I like that.

-Richard?

-Great idea.

Are we going to have anything that you can eat testicles with?

-They may be coming up.

-Eat them with that.

-Here we go, here we go.

-Yes, now what's that?

-Are they holes, in the end?

-Ah!

-Yeah, it's got all perforations.

-You see, you've learnt from your thing.

-Yes.

There are perforations in the ladle itself

and the spoon part itself, the bowl. What about the other end?

-It's got a little hole in it.

-Ah. So what could you do?

-Well...

-You could hang it...

-I'm going to insert it into the...

-Cheese.

-..backside of a turtle.

Just there. Literally just there.

And then, I think, you tell me if I'm wrong,

you squeeze, is that right?

You squeeze down on the shell.

And out it comes, and then you've essentially got yourself a smoothie

which comes out of the end.

Is it a turtle-blood smoothie maker?

It's so close.

If I said the word "mate" to you, would that mean anything?

Have you ever travelled to an area where you drink mate tea?

-Audience?

-AUDIENCE MEMBER: Argentina.

-Argentina and Peru, and various other places.

-Of course.

-It's called mate.

-There we go. We've got that sorted.

So, basically, it does a marvellous job.

It stirs the leaves

and allows you to drink the tea all in one without needing a strainer.

Oh, it's a straw.

-It's a straw, you suck it up.

-Ah, that's so good.

It's an Argentinian mate spoon.

Now, what attachment would you expect to find

on a Swiss student knife?

-A Pot Noodle opener?

-That's very good.

How many attachments you think...? How many...?

-12.

-12.

-40?

-One.

-Oh!

You win. It's two. Very good.

It only two, just two blades on a student knife. There is one.

I suppose he doesn't need a corkscrew, does he?

He doesn't really need a corkscrew, no. No.

If it was a British child, yes.

And he'd need a little special shot glass for a Jagerbomb.

The whole works, basically, for your average British child.

Except QI viewers.

Pocket knives were originally imported from Germany in the 1890s

but then a Swiss gentleman called Karl Elsener

won the contract to make them locally.

And every member of the Swiss Army had to get one

and considering that was all men - were members of the Swiss Army -

that was a very valuable contract indeed, as you can imagine.

Did people actually get killed by them?

Or were they just for cutting ropes and wood?

I think they were just for general use.

I don't think they were for hand-to-hand combat.

Yeah, you wouldn't want that.

"Just wait there a sec, got to get the right one!

"Argh! Corkscrew! For God's sake! Wait there!"

It wasn't red, the original.

As you can see, it was black with a wooden handle.

The screwdriver was so that soldiers could actually dismantle their guns.

That's what that was for.

Then there was the schoolboy knife and the farmer's knife.

But his big break came in 1897 with the officer's knife.

And that's really where we begin to go into Swiss Army territory.

Now you're talking.

Now, you can see - there's your classic formation.

They make up to 65 million a year.

It's huge. You see some shops which just have a window

full of nothing else, don't you?

Including a big one that's slowly...

I've got one of those. I bought one.

I bought one from a shop that was going out of business,

one of those that just opens and closes. It's really good fun.

Just plug it in. I can sit and watch it for hours.

Have you not got a television?

Yes, but I'm always on it!

APPLAUSE

I don't have that channel.

Ah! Um...

-"And now...QI."

-Argh!

Um, you...

LAUGHTER

So much better, believe me.

Did you know that they produce a Swiss Army fragrance?

-Oh.

-Do they?

You'll love the deception.

"The Classic is a fresh, aromatic fragrance for men

"that stands for refinement and vision.

"It has notes of yuzu, geranium and lavender.

"It radiates..." You could be talking about me here.

"It radiates a disarming masculinity."

But you'll be pleased to know, Victoria,

there is one for the ladies.

It's for "straightforward, uncomplicated women

"who enjoy asserting their femininity

-"alongside their athleticism."

-That is me. That's me.

-Exactly! Absolutely.

-Do we know what notes that's got?

Yes, I can tell you the notes.

-Paraguay tea, cedar and hay.

-Oh, all my favourites.

-Hay?!

-That's what it is.

-Why are you putting hay in it?

-Is hay common in...? Is it common?

-Yeah.

-Yes?

Hay, grass, manure, compost - love it all.

Oh, dear. But, as always,

the best in multi-bladed knives comes from Norfolk.

-The best in everything comes from Norfolk.

-The Norfolk Army Knife?

The Norfolk Knife, not the Norfolk Army Knife.

-They've got their own army?

-The Iceni Knife.

No, there is a Norfolk Knife,

which I think will take your breath away

for its beauty and uncomplicated design.

That's good to solve most of your problems,

including the problem of having fingers will be solved.

-That's amazing.

-It's preposterous, isn't it? But it is...

That's the Norfolk Knife. Well, there you are.

So I hope I'm radiating disarming masculinity

as we move on to the next question.

What's the quickest way to cool down my kitchen?

I'm going to... Just because I'd love to get a klaxon sound,

-is it opening the fridge?

-Ah!

-KLAXON

-That would make it hotter.

-Somehow that makes it hotter, doesn't it?

-Turning on the oven.

-Turning on the oven would not cool...

-Turning on the top of the stove. Put the gas on.

-Right.

Because the coolest place in front of a fire is right in front.

Oh, I see what you mean, but that would still warm up the room.

-Yeah, all right, it's just a thought.

-No, don't...

Don't be cross, it's good you didn't say turn on the fan,

-which would have got you a klaxon.

-I wasn't going to say that!

-Exactly.

Can I just say turn on the fan?

-Oh, you've gone klaxon-mad!

-KLAXON

-It is...

-Why...? So why would opening the fridge...?

It's the second law of thermodynamics.

The energy you need to create the coolness creates work.

And energy and work are basically congruent, in physics, to heat.

And so the back of a fridge...

But what if the motor of my fridge is outside my...

-I'm thinking exactly that.

-Ah, if that were the case, yes.

-Cos you haven't been to my kitchen.

-No!

-I said MY kitchen, though, that was in the question.

-I'm so sorry.

We had it covered.

In the case of an air-conditioner, of course,

the back is always outside.

So a fan that is just cooling the air...?

Yeah, the motor of the fan warms the room.

And what's up with them windows? Do they not open?

Well, that would be a good answer. Exactly.

What about opening the windows?!

-Yes, that's fine, you might get a point for that.

-Yes!

-Why's it so hot in your kitchen?

-I know.

What have you been doing?

Cooking.

What protected species have you been slaughtering in your kitchen?

Boiling terrapins by the dozen.

"Open a window, Stephen!"

"No, I like it hot and sweaty!"

Scraping the froth off.

Oh, don't!

"Where's my mate spoon?"

Now, John Gori. John Gori of Florida

was one of the pioneers of refrigeration

and he believed that heat was one of the things that made you ill.

And so he would lower huge bags of ice over patients,

and the cold air would fall on their faces

and he thought that would help them.

Then he went so far as to invent a refrigeration machine

and this outraged the huge industry

that towed and transported real ice from Canada and other places

into New York and so on,

and they had a successful campaign,

saying that artificial ice didn't work, it wasn't proper ice

and it would never work properly. And he died in poverty.

In the supermarket, there's a bag of...

-You know you can buy bags of ice?

-Yes.

-There's one I saw called "Extra-slow-melting ice".

-What?!

-I know!

-Has it got salt in it or something?

What can they possibly...?

And then, in the thing, it just says, "Ingredients - water."

-That is dodgy.

-That's dodgy.

-There's clearly someone there...

-It also has a Best Before on it, legally.

-Yeah!

-I love that.

It's fantastic, isn't it?

So if you leave the fridge door open,

the room will actually get warmer.

Which breed of dog makes the best kebab?

You need one with an opposable digit to make any kind of sandwich.

Hey, very good!

What about a sheep dog?

-KLAXON

-Whoa.

I was going to say sausage dog, so I'm glad I went for that.

KLAXON

APPLAUSE

Oh, dear, oh, dear.

Yeah, what about a kebab dog?

There isn't such a dog, fortunately.

There's a shop near me, there's a takeaway near me called Kebabish.

And I like it, cos it sort of sounds like the guy who owns it,

even he doesn't know what's in the meat.

"What is it?"

"I don't know, it's just kebabish, it's just like a kebab."

Funny you should say that,

because doner kebabs have come under scrutiny lately.

The average doner has 1,000 calories,

-half a woman's recommended daily allowance.

-Wow.

Even a woman called Donna.

Even a woman called Donna, in fact.

The worst have almost 2,000 calories.

An average has 98% of the recommended daily allowance of salt,

and 148% of the recommended daily allowance of saturated fat.

I know reading those out is supposed to put us off,

but I could kill for one now.

It did sound... All the stuff about saturated fat sounded delicious.

-Oh, yes.

-It did, didn't it?

-That just sounds like a bargain,

if you're getting 98% of your salt,

means you don't have to get it anywhere else, do you?

APPLAUSE

It's called a doner kebab... I mean, because it's Turkish for a spit,

generally, a going-round thing, a rotisserie.

Cos the standard kebab is, like, on a skewer, isn't it?

-A shish.

-A shish.

And I never knew you could pull them off the skewer before you ate them,

when I was a boy, I was going to go like that,

and then I'd go, "Argh..."

And then I saw someone just pulling them all off. Exactly!

Ow!

-That's how the Queen eats them.

-Yeah, I'm sure she does.

So, do you have dogs?

No, I don't like things that don't talk.

You don't like things that...? I love that rule.

I don't like things that don't make jokes.

That's a really good rule.

It excludes some men, obviously.

Yeah, I was going to say, some men as well.

Because we are literally speaking about a breed of dog

that has since gone out of existence.

It's no longer bred and it's become extinct as a breed.

But it used... But it used to talk?

No, no, sorry. We're conflating, unfortunately, here.

It was a spit dog, a turnspit dog.

It was actually bred...

-Spit the Dog.

-There is one.

-Oh, Spit the Dog!

-It's a really cute...

-Bob Carolgees...

It's a cute breed, look at it. Isn't it cute?

-It's not cute, it's weird.

-No, it's not, it's horrible.

-It's like a Star Wars dog.

-Oh, I think it looks lovely.

It's... This is a stuffed one in Abergavenny Museum, I ought to say.

-The taxidermist has bollocksed that right up.

-Well...

-The head's wrong.

-It's stuffed with feta and vine leaves.

Their job was to walk round,

keeping the roast meat on a spit evenly cooked.

They were actually bred for that job.

They were inside a wheel and they turned the wheel.

Like a hamster in a Ferris wheel.

And it worked beautifully well.

And on their day off, they would get taken to church

and used as foot warmers.

That was the life of...

It sounds like they went into extinction through choice.

-"I've had enough of this. Come on, lads."

-Yes.

And Queen Victoria kept retired ones as pets.

She actually liked them rather a lot.

-It's a nice thought, isn't it?

-It looks sad.

-Yeah.

-Well, yeah.

-Probably cos it's dead.

-It is dead.

-Because the box is too small.

-Yes!

There were, in 1765, estimated to be 3,000 turnspit dogs in Bath alone.

Not everyone liked them.

William Cotesworth of Gateshead

wrote that he had got rid of his turnspit,

"To keep the dog from the fire, the wheel out of the way

"and the dog prevented from shitting upon everything it could."

That's the problem, you don't want poo.

That's Northerners for you, though.

-Who wants to bath alone, anyway?

-Yeah, nobody wants to do that.

-"Who wants to bath alone?"

-Yeah.

-Oh, what a lovely saying.

-I don't.

When did you last bath alone?

-I don't bath.

-Ah.

Please tell me you shower.

-I shower.

-Good.

-If you insist!

I can tell you!

I know you do -

you smell of disarming masculinity and hay.

Well, that's your answer.

Turnspit dogs. They got hot during the working week

and on Sunday were used as foot warmers.

Now, when Koreans went into space, what did they take to chow down on?

-You've got a bowl, Victoria...

-I've got a bowl?

..and you can eat some.

-Phwoar, blimey!

-It is quite a strong smell.

-Oh, you really can.

-It really is.

-They took that into space?

-Yeah.

-Was that to get rid of it?

It is a bit smelly, it's actually delicious.

-Let's hope there's pudding.

-Korean astronaut food?

Well, they developed a special breed of it for astronauts.

I think it's got cabbage in it.

It has, it's mostly cabbage.

It's almost like a kind of sauerkraut.

Sorry, I dropped my chopsticks.

You can't drop anything in space.

You merely release.

The point about this food is it is generally reckoned

that this food is more celebrated and loved by the Koreans

than any food in any other culture is loved by any other culture.

It is absolutely their identity.

They've not... They've not had a pie in the North.

No, well, believe me, they talk about this food

far more even than Northerners talk about pies.

In Wigan, you know, on the back of bakers' vans,

they've got a sign that says, "No pies are left in this van overnight."

APPLAUSE

It's true, that.

That's how important they are.

That is very good.

But if you can name this food, I'd be very impressed,

because it really is the essence of Korea.

They really are obsessed with it.

-Have you ever heard of it?

-No.

-It begins with K, which is a help.

-AUDIENCE: Kimchi.

Kimchi is the right answer, from the audience. K-I-M-C-H-I.

-Well, it's bloody lovely.

-It is really good, isn't it?

-It's pretty healthy.

-Have you got any more?

-Do you want my one?

It's mostly cabbage...

-I tell you what, I'm going to Korea on holiday.

-Yeah!

It is genuinely delicious, isn't it?

-It's quite piquant, it's quite hot, it's got a bit of chilli.

-Yeah.

It's mostly radish and cabbage, and it's very, very simple.

But there are lots of different...

-I can feel myself becoming more obedient.

-Yeah.

APPLAUSE

Finally! At last.

-Do you know what, though?

-Tell me.

-You know when you want a second one...

-Yeah.

-You don't, really.

-It's just too much. Yeah.

They eat two million tonnes of this a year.

-Each?!

-In South Korea on its own.

I think that would be... Even that is too much.

Some make their own and bury it in a sealed jar over winter.

Others have special kimchi refrigerators.

-When you open the door of them, they heat the room up.

-Whooo!

-It is quite hot.

-It's quite hot, it's quite hot.

-Yeah.

It's really HO-O-OT!

In 2010, they had a...

-IN KOREAN ACCENT:

-"You like kimchi, ha-ha-ha!

"You western fool! Afterburn!"

No racial stereotyping here, then.

Just cheap laughs, cheap laughs, Stephen.

That is just... That's razy lacism, and you know it.

Um, in 2010, they had a cabbage crop failure

-and the price rose by 400%.

-Shut up! Oh!

And they spent millions on the South Korean astronaut,

who went up into space.

And...so she could have a kimchi

that was bacterially more sound

and would survive in space better,

because it was absolutely crucial to her wellbeing as a Korean.

And indeed, Chung Il-kwon, when he was President,

during the Vietnam war, said to President Johnson,

who asked, when he was away, "What do you miss in Korea?"

He said, to be honest he missed kimchi more than he missed his wife.

Is Kimchi the name of his mistress?

Possibly.

Anyway, for Koreans,

kimchi is literally out of this world.

How could you get money out of the king of Scotland?

That's a wonderful photograph, isn't it?

Obviously, he's not the king of Scotland.

This was a very early king of Scotland, nearly 1,000 years ago.

-There he is. He was King David I.

-Oh, Dave, yeah, yeah.

-Old Dave.

-Of course, yeah, you can see with the beard now, yeah.

-Wee Davie.

-Cos he didn't always have the beard, did he?

-And then he grew it for Movember.

-When he was a baby...

He was a tiny, tiny King, smaller than a thistle.

He was very, very small.

"Can we have some money, King David?"

-SMALL VOICE:

-"No, you can't have any money!"

He would reward people, give them a tax rebate

if they had good...?

-Shortbread.

-Scones.

-Scones, shortbread...?

-Deep-fried Mars bars.

-Table manners?

-Say it again.

-Table manners?

-Is the right answer.

-Hey!

He would reward people for their table manners.

-STEPHEN LAUGHS

-Immediately took your elbows of!

-Whoa!

-Never know.

-Fantastic.

Plus five points for good table manners.

The 12th-century King David I of Scotland, yes.

According to William of Malmesbury,

he gave tax rebates for good table manners.

Talking of table manners and royalty,

which member of the Royal family

would you least expect to have had terrible table manners?

-Queen Victoria.

-Queen Victoria, yeah. And she was, er...

-Jesus!

-Was she still of a generation

who thought that blowing off at the end of a meal was a compliment?

No! I don't think...

I've been using that one for years, you know.

"It's a COMPLIMENT to the chef!"

-I think you are confusing it with burping.

-Oh, God, sorry!

All this time...

It's never a compliment to blow off at the table,

-where there's food.

-Unless you're a nun.

Yeah, unless you're a nun.

# What are we going to do about Maria? #

Pfffrrrrt!

It does look like rather a joyless table, doesn't it?

Which one of those is Queen Victoria?

-VICTORIA:

-And which one of those is Edward VIII?

That one like Winston Churchill in drag.

-I think Edward

-VII

-is on the right.

-No, one of the boys would be Edward

-VIII.

Oh! I see what you mean. It would be. His son, David. It would be.

-The second one.

-Which one is Colin Firth?

That would be the youngest one on the left, I think.

That's Colin F-F-F-F-F-Firth.

Um... And in the middle is Queen Victoria.

-Why is she so, you know...?

-Joyless?

-Yeah.

She was not amused, if you remember, since her husband died.

I know, but you'd have thought,

-once she's at the table with her family, she'd bloody smile!

-No.

The paparazzi are so annoying when you're having your breakfast.

They're like that.

She was a large woman.

-She was only 4'11" high.

-Kylie Minogue.

-Kylie Minogue.

-Is she stood up there?

-No.

-VICTORIA:

-She was about 12 stone, wasn't she?

But she weighed 12 stone. It's exactly what she wait.

She had a 50-inch waist.

Well, her bloomers were 50 inches.

As collected by Norman St John-Stevas, the MP.

-I didn't know that.

-Yes, he did.

He collected Victoria's underwear.

Literally. Not VictoriAN but VictoriA'S

And he started the lingerie shop, Victoria's Secret, didn't he?

-Very good!

-That's what he sells.

I've never been in, but I presume that's what they sell.

Presumably it is.

The fact is, because she was Queen, she got served first at dinner

and she would start eating.

And she would get through a 14-course dinner in half an hour.

-Wow.

-And once she had finished,

-everyone else had their food taken away.

-Brilliant.

So, they'd go, "Ah."

And she would just gobble away at incredible speed.

Lord Hartington, who was one of her courtiers,

was heard to shout at a footman, "BRING THAT BACK!"

He was so angry at the fact that...

By the time you'd just got your soup spoon in,

she was going, "Well, that was very lovely."

And her doctors became concerned at her obesity

and they recommended Benger's Food, which was one of these supplements.

This was a thick, milky gruel, often given to invalids and the elderly,

so she agreed and she took it on top of her normal diet.

Were they worried she wasn't going to fit on the coins?

That's a brilliant idea!

Just get a little bit of the middle of her, a big breast.

-The coins got bigger and bigger and bigger.

-Huge coins.

"A whole penny?"

Fwa-chang!

The lavatory doors were vast to spend a penny.

Oh, lordy.

Now, here's the skull of King Richard III,

but what can you tell me about his table manners,

just by looking at it?

Well, he was very good at eating Toblerone.

Anything else you can tell?

What's unusual about his teeth compared to ours?

-Space for a straw, that would be...

-Space for a straw, yes!

Notice your teeth, the top row and the bottom row.

Close your mouth, naturally.

-Yeah.

-Your top row...

Overbite.

We've all got an overbite.

Cruelly called by Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally,

"Dancing - white man's overbite."

But the actual overbite,

literally like that, is a recent thing in human beings.

And it comes after forks, because we cut up our food.

And in the days when we wrenched our food,

the incisors would get smoothed down more,

and the teeth would fit exactly.

And it shows that Richard III didn't use a fork for cutting his food,

which we know,

cos forks were not used for transferring food to your mouth.

Right up to Tudor times, you would use...?

-Your hands.

-Your hands.

So if we brought up children without knives and forks,

-they wouldn't develop an overbite?

-No.

-You know what?

I'm going to try. I'll come back in 21 years' time.

-Call me a liar.

-We'll see.

-It's true.

-With a really resentful-looking boy.

-I've got twins, so - one, I'm going to give a fork.

-Brilliant!

-Brilliant!

-And one... I'll have the perfect experiment.

-It is superb. Unethical, but perfect.

-Yeah.

And you can sort of show this by the difference in civilisations

who've developed overbites.

And 1,000 years ago, you can see where Chinese aristocratic skulls

have an overbite, but peasants don't.

And it's when they started to use chopsticks

and chop up their food, and then it spread throughout the population.

So it really does... It sounds weird,

but this overbite we have is an acquired characteristic

because of our chopping-up of food.

You can just tell by looking at skulls.

Just go through any graveyard, dig people up,

-and you'll see I'm right, Jason.

-"Stephen Fry told me to do it."

-Yes, absolutely!

-While I'm chewing on a turtle.

-"Really bad influence."

-Yeah.

So, anyway,

name the traditional ingredients of kedgeree.

Well, now, there's some of them on the screen.

Rice. Say rice.

Say eggs.

-I think Victoria wanted to answer this one.

-Yes.

Um...haddock.

-Oh, dear! Oh, dear!

-KLAXON

You wanted that, didn't you?

Er, what about egg? Rice?

Yes, egg. Well, rice... It means "a mix-up".

And fish is a very recent thing

to be an absolute essential of kedgeree.

In fact, the Hobson-Jobson Dictionary Of Anglo-Indian Words,

which is one of the great books of its time, says,

"In England, we find the word is often applied

"to a mess of re-cooked fish served for breakfast,

"but this is inaccurate.

"Fish is frequently eaten WITH kedgeree but is no part of it."

So it's...

It now tends to be flaked haddock and a bit of cream and curry powder

and rice and boiled egg

and is absolutely delicious.

But I'll give you 100 points

if you can name two traditional Italian breads.

Oh, so tempting!

Well, now...ciabatta.

-KLAXON

-Oh!

-Er...

-We're already there.

Ciabatta was invented in 1982, can you believe? It's that recent.

-No, shut up.

-Yeah, it was an Italian baker

who was worried about the threat of French baguettes,

and it's the Italian for...? You can redeem yourself if you know.

Baguette.

That would be too easy, no. It's not really the shape of it.

-Handbag?

-Well, that's closer, it's...

-Slipper.

-Yes!

Brilliant, it was a slipper, yes.

It was... He was Arnaldo Cavallari, was his name,

and it was a specific invention, he called it "Ciabatta Polesano",

Polesine is a part of Northern Italy.

So it really is very recent.

Some people claim that it was around since the '40s,

but there doesn't seem to be any proof of this,

the name doesn't appear before 1982.

Now, what can you see coming out of your kettle as it boils?

-VICTORIA:

-Vapour.

-Is the right answer.

-Hooray!

Not steam.

-I wasn't going to say steam.

-No, as if you would(!)

-Because steam is...?

-The stuff that comes out of the kettle.

Oh! Steam is invisible.

-It does come out of the kettle...

-Oh, really?

..but sometimes you see a gap, you know?

-you get the little gap and then you see the vapour.

-Oh, yeah.

And the gap is steam, it's an invisible gas.

And as soon as it cools, even slightly,

it turns to water vapour, and that's the bit you see.

We call it steam, but it isn't.

Steam is actually invisible.

Isn't that interesting?

-Very interesting.

-Thank you. So it's "VI".

I tell my children not to eat their food

till the steam's gone.

Now what am I going to say?

But I mean, yeah, in ordinary everyday speech, things steam,

and "steamy" are... You know, manure steams and...

Oh, I tell them not to eat manure as well.

Not till the steam's gone off it.

I'm glad to hear it.

-Did you know that in 1784 there was a Kettle War?

-Wow.

Between...?

Oh, it was between Morphy and Richards, wasn't it?

And in the end...

-In the end, they joined together and...

-It was all fine.

It was between the Dutch and the Austrians.

One shot took place on the Austrian flagship -

a bullet was fired by the Dutch and hit a kettle

and ricocheted off and the Austrians immediately surrendered.

So it was known as the Kettle War. There you are.

Well, we have to end now with a Knick Knack,

which I sometimes end with.

This is...

Ooh, this is exciting. This is a remarkable substance.

It's called polyethylene oxide, and it's very gloopy,

and also it reacts rather excitedly under ultraviolet light.

And, Alan and Victoria, you've got ultraviolet torches

and you can point them at it.

I think we might have some ultraviolet light in the studio.

-Shall I point them now, sir?

-Yes, please do.

Ooh, look. See?

-Wow!

-Ooh!

Now, what I'm going to try and do,

I'm going to stand up to do this,

it's a very remarkable effect.

The effect is, when you pour it,

if I get it at the right angle,

it pulls itself out of the flask and into here.

It flows uphill and out and down again. All right.

There we go. Oh, it's pulling itself up, it's pulling itself up...

You see what I mean? It's pulling itself up from the bottom.

If you look at the top one, it's actually flowing uphill there.

And then it thins out into a little trail of snot.

I'll try that again, so we'll just get a few takes.

That's like when...

It's like when you have a wee after a Berocca, isn't it, that?

It is!

That's exactly what it's like.

Oh, goodness.

So disgusting. Polyethylene oxide. I don't know what else...

What's it used for?

It's a very good masturbatory lubricant.

-Particularly in the dark.

-Yeah.

APPLAUSE

All right, we'll try again.

It's a little bit awkward getting two friends

-to hold the torch, though.

-Isn't it?

Yeah. There we go, that's pulling itself up there nicely.

Excellent, there we go. Phew!

Thank you.

And thank you...

Thank you, my special ultraviolet helpers.

Well, on that exciting note,

let's go to the scores.

Oh, my actual goodness.

It's really remarkable.

I'm afraid, possibly because he was booby-trapped into it,

in last place, with -38 is Jason Manford.

How'd that happen?

APPLAUSE

In a highly creditable third place,

with -17, is Richard Osman.

-Oh, thank you.

-APPLAUSE

Which is very impressive.

And in second place with -7 is Victoria Wood.

APPLAUSE

But, scraping into a lead by one point, on -6, is Alan Davies!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Well. Put that away.

I got points for eating that food.

And with thanks to Victoria, Richard, Jason and Alan,

it's good night!

APPLAUSE

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd