Literature QI XL

G-o-o-o-d evening, good evening, good evening, good evening,

good evening, good evening, good evening, welcome to QI.

Tonight, we're leaping our way through language and literature.

Lurking in my labyrinth are the loquacious Jack Whitehall...

APPLAUSE

..the logomaniac, Lloyd Langford...

APPLAUSE

..the learned Victoria Coren Mitchell...

APPLAUSE

..and the long-suffering Alan Davies.

APPLAUSE

So, let's hear your lines.

Jack goes...

DING "I wandered lonely as a cloud..."

Lloyd goes...

DANG "That floats on high

"o'er vales and hills..."

Victoria goes...

DONG "When all at once I saw a crowd..."

And Alan goes...

AIR HORN "Arsenal, Arsenal!"

Oh, dear.

Let's start with a nice easy one.

In fact, this one is so easy I'm going to ask the audience.

Have you read 1984? Hands up if you've read 1984.

Wow, that's pretty good. How many...?

-KLAXON

-How many...? Yeah.

The fact is, research on several occasions

show that at least a quarter of the people who claim

to have read 1984 are lying,

-so I'm afraid we have to take points away from you.

-Really?

Yeah.

Can you put your hand up if you said you'd read it,

but actually secretly you haven't?

-Oh, come on.

-Come on.

-Oh, you look very shifty.

-Yes.

The honest man at the back has earned some more... The audience.

I have to confess here, I studied English at university,

-I haven't read it.

-I should hope not!

What kind of English degree

would include something written as late as 1948?

Well, that's true, yes. We read things written in 1370.

But I kind of felt I didn't need to, which is an appalling thing to say.

Oh, it's terribly good, Stephen.

Well, I kind of, I know...

Look at all the TV shows named after it.

Two at least, Room 101 and Big Brother.

-Oh, that's ruined my line.

-Oh, sorry!

LAUGHTER

I know how it opens. It opens with the clock striking 13,

I know the character's called Winston.

It's really good and they made a film of it with John Hurt.

It's hard to bother, isn't it, when there's a great film of a book?

-I was the same with the Muppet Christmas Carol.

-LAUGHTER

-You know, I feel it's been done.

-Quite. Why would you bother?

I know what the turkey does in the story. Why read it?

That is a masterpiece of a film, it has to be said.

I lie a lot to impress people, and I'll be honest now,

I have never read The Hungry Caterpillar. LAUGHTER

I get so close to the end and I get too emotional.

I'm like, "He's going to die, he's overfed himself,

"I can't, I can't do it." And I stop.

So I just pretend that I've read it.

-I don't know what happens.

-No, no, he becomes a butterfl...

-LAUGHTER

Spoiler! Spoiler!

I'm so sorry, that was wrong of me.

That's like when I knew someone who gave away the end of Psycho -

-it's nearly as serious as that.

-Oh, my goodness.

-There are some books that you don't need to bother reading.

-Hmm?

Like, it's controversial to say it,

but I don't think Harry Potter is worth reading. LAUGHTER

Because it is so expertly narrated on the audio books.

You're so right.

By none other than Mr Stephen, but it is! It is. It, I mean...

APPLAUSE

No, but I do, after I listened to the Harry Potter books,

with you narrating them,

everything in my life is narrated by Stephen Fry. All my thoughts,

my internal monologue, is now Stephen Fry's voice.

Even the dirty thoughts are Stephen's voice. No,

because it makes it acceptable. I had a sexual thought the other day

and I'll put my hand in the air,

I had a sexual thought about Camilla Parker Bowles.

It didn't seem weird because Stephen was saying it to me.

Now, I should say that there's a bonus hidden in tonight's programme,

and that is what we call the Spend A Penny bonus.

JINGLE

FLUSHING

That's it. There'll be one question, at least, tonight, whose theme...

LAUGHTER

..whose theme is lavatorial.

And if you think that the answer is something to do with the lavatory,

then you wave and you spend your penny.

I'm going to keep mine and use it in one of those arcades.

That's a very good idea.

Now, here's a lovely list of Victorian slang.

What do these L words mean?

We've got lally-gagging or lolly-gagging.

Last shake o' the bag. Land o'Scots. Land o'cakes.

Lemon Squash Party.

-I know lolly-gagging.

-Yeah?

That's when you squeeze too hard at the bottom of your Calippo.

Oh.

LAUGHTER

Ow. Followed by brain freeze.

But if you do that and you squeeze too hard,

then it comes right out of the tube, but you can't deal with it all.

What do you do? Do you bite it off?

-You lolly-gag.

-LAUGHTER

Kind of a shover.

That's a very odd thing to see. Do that again.

LAUGHTER

A Leg Maniac is one of those people whose leg twitches

-when they're sitting in a chair.

-It would be a good name for that.

I used to do that terribly as a teenager, just endless bouncing.

-I've been doing it all show.

-Have you?

-Yeah.

-It's very hard to stop once you start.

-It's so hard

-and now I'm thinking about it.

-Oh.

I'm not thinking about it, Stephen Fry is thinking about it.

But you should roll with it

because Michael Flatley made a living out of that.

-VICTORIA:

-I know one of them.

-Yes, say.

Land o'cakes is Robert Burns, isn't it?

Yes, you're absolutely right.

-Scotland.

-He's talking about Scotland.

-Scotland. Good.

But Land o'Scots you would think would be Scotland, but it isn't.

It's actually heaven.

Go figure.

-Learning Shover, you might guess.

-Teacher.

Yes. Quite right. You know a bit about that.

-Yes. Can I have a point?

-Yes, you certainly can.

-Thank you, sir.

-Lally-gagging.

It's very hard to guess, actually.

You either know it, or you don't, really.

It means to flirt, Jack.

Oh, yes, I did a bit of flirting, didn't I? Last time I was on.

-You did, you lally-gagged.

-But I decided,

cos it was very awkward when the show went out

and I had a very long conversation with my father,

and I watched it back...

"Have you got something to tell me, Jack?"

And, no, I looked very... I looked back at it and to be honest,

I looked desperate for your affections.

And so this evening I have decided to deploy a little bit of carrot

-and a little bit of stick...

-Very good.

..because last time I showed you too much of my carrot.

LAUGHTER

A very charming carrot it was, too.

-VICTORIA:

-Now, here's a problem. You've just explained

we can wave this little fan if we think it's lavatorial.

I'm looking at "last shake of the bag"

and "lemon squash party".

And I'm thinking, I really hope not.

Lemon Squash Party looks like something

you could put into the internet and find...

LAUGHTER

-Tennis players.

-Yes.

-Is it a political party?

-It's not a political party.

It's part of a movement that was very popular in the 19th century,

a rather dull movement to many of us, perhaps.

-It's very straightforward.

-Temperance.

Temperance. It is an all-male party where only lemon squash was served.

It's that simple.

I mean, we've all had a lemon squash party.

It's the party that comes AFTER the after-party.

-You're quite right.

-Last shake o' the bag.

-That's my favourite.

-Is that...?

Is it, like, something to do with you, like, your...?

LAUGHTER No...

-Out with it, man.

-It's not. Is it, like, your last child?

Yes. Your youngest child.

-Because it's the last...bag.

-The last shake of the bag. Isn't that great?

I think it's a terrific phrase.

"Meet Benjamin, he's my last shake of the bag."

Yes, you've had teacher.

Leg Maniac is the only one we haven't covered

and it's just really an eccentric dancer, a rather frenzied dancer.

I was right with Flatley, then.

Yes, you were, basically. They're rather pleasing.

I'm particularly sorry that last shake o' the bag's

gone out of the language.

Now, without mincing words, what is this?

"Ah, I have to be, rather like Ask The Family.

"It's going to come into view.

"Ah. Ah-ha!"

-Toilet!

-JINGLE

Yes. It couldn't be more lavatorial, could it?

But... But you have to answer the question, what is it?

-What do you mean, what is it?

-Without mincing words, what is it?

Oh, it's going to be a trick one, like, it's a set of weights.

-LAUGHTER

-No.

-It's a toilet.

-Oh!

-KLAXON

-A lavatory.

-Lavatory.

-KLAXON CONTINUES

-Bog.

-Water closet.

-We've had lavatory, toilet, water closet.

Shitter!

Shitter. Water closet, we had.

-Khazi.

-Water closet.

-We had water closet.

A flush, a wall-mounted flushable...

-Yes, excrement receiver.

-..device. Yes.

The point is, there is no word for it that isn't a euphemism

because toilet comes from "toile", meaning "towel", you know,

-that's where we get our word "towel".

-I always wee in a towel, so...

-Well, in that case it's realistic.

-Then it is.

A lavatory is from "lavare", the Latin for "to wash".

So it's a bit like saying the washroom,

which is a very American euphemism that we find silly.

A water closet just means a cupboard with water in it, running water.

Although, to be fair, there are all sorts of words

for which there's nothing that isn't a euphemism.

I mean, kitchen. We don't have a word "cookpot place".

-We're not German!

-No, that's right.

I mean, all language is metaphorical and to some extent hedges around.

-There is just...

-Why has that one at the top been...? The interior is...

Looks like it's been done with one of Noel Edmonds' shirts. LAUGHTER

It does, doesn't it? Exactly like.

It's a Crinkly Bottom one, in every sense.

So, there is no actual word for the little boys' room

that isn't a you-know-what.

What suggestions do you have for the last line of this limerick?

There was an old person of Chile,

Whose conduct was painful and silly,

He sat on the stairs, eating apples and pears...

-Firing pips out of his willy.

-LAUGHTER

Very good. I don't think that can be improved upon.

It certainly wasn't improved upon

by the author of that limerick, who was...?

George Orwell.

-LLOYD:

-Eric Blair.

-VICTORIA:

-Was it Edward Lear?

-Edward Lear, as Victoria rightly said,

who sort of popularised the form. But he had one fatal flaw

in his limerick writing, which was, do you know?

-Was the last line the same as the first?

-The last line was more or less the same.

Is it - "That boring old person of Chile"?

Basically it is, yeah, as you will see, it is

"That imprudent old person of Chile."

I think you'll all agree that Alan's version is a lot better.

Yeah, firing pips out of the willy is a lot funnier than that.

Yes, that's exactly what I mean. On the other hand, less Victorian.

He was sort of around the latter half of the 19th century.

-That is an entirely pointless thing to write down.

-It is,

but it popularised the form, and there are other versions of his.

-They're all...

-It's not painful and silly is it, to be imprudent?

-No.

-It's painful and silly to put the pips in your willy...

-Oh, it certainly is.

-And fire them out.

I think we're all with you, Alan.

But why has he not thought...? He hasn't thought of a painful,

-silly thing to do...

-He hasn't thought it through.

..related to apples, pears and being on stairs.

He just says it's imprudent. But there's nothing in that that's...

There's nothing imprudent in the previous four lines.

-I mean, the thing is, apples and pears is rhyming slang for stairs, isn't it?

-Anyway.

-Yeah, he's eating the stairs.

-He's eating the stairs!

LAUGHTER

He's sat on the stairs eating the apples and pears.

Firing splinters out of his willy.

And also it's "Chil-lay", which doesn't rhyme with silly.

-Well, unless you say "sil-lay".

-"Sil-lay".

Which is how I pronounce it.

Well, anyway, other versions you might be able to finish.

There was an old man with a gong who bumped at it all day long

But they called out, "O Lor'! You're a horrid old bore!"

Pull up your trousers, you're doing it wrong.

It sounds like that new Coldplay song.

Very good.

Which, if you haven't heard it, sounds like any Coldplay song.

What, so it's going to be, "You're a horrible old bore.

"You silly old man with a gong."

-Basically, yeah.

-This guy's shit.

-He is. You can see his original.

-These are like Lil Wayne lyrics.

So they smashed that old man with a gong.

-They smashed him with the gong?!

-Yeah.

-Why did they do that?!

Because he was a horrid old bore.

-Well, just take the gong away. There's no need to...

-Yeah.

Once you've got the gong from the old man, the problem's solved.

He's not going to annoy you with the gong any more.

There's no point to then smash...

To smash him with the gong is a greater crime than to hit the gong,

regardless of whether he does it all day long.

Also, move away. Go out of earshot where you can't hear the gong.

-There's no excuse for assaulting.

-Your outrage is commendable.

Let's get some more points by saying,

"To forgive Edward Lear is to know him better."

And what was his first and greatest achievement?

And it wasn't poetry, despite The Pobble Who Had No Toes

and The Owl And The Pussycat, which are wonderful poems.

Was it the jet?

LAUGHTER

It's a nice thought.

He wasn't a poet, primarily, he was something else.

A cook.

A racing driver.

Astronaut.

Well, you either know or you don't. He was a painter.

He was particularly, an orno...onorothol...

-Do you know, funnily enough...

-Birds. Bird paintings.

Yes. Ornithological painter.

I think he got a lot better as he went from left to right.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

But it's still the same. Look, he started with a parrot

-and he's ended with a parrot.

-Yes.

-Just paint another bird.

That's what held you back in the limerick game

and it's holding you back in the painting game as well.

-Open your eyes!

-It is.

-Look at the owl. The owl's just heard one of the limericks.

-Yes.

David Attenborough described him

as the greatest British ornithological painter there was,

and he was incredibly accurate and in the time before photography,

-extraordinarily useful.

-Well, I mean, he was quite accurate.

The second parrot is odd.

-No, he did comic ones too.

-The second from the left, though,

I think he started off doing a dolphin.

True.

He had a cat called Foss of whom he was so fond that

when he was forced to move from the area he lived into another area,

he did something quite remarkable. Can you imagine what it is?

-Stuffed it.

-No. He certainly wouldn't want to see it dead.

He loved it very much.

He built a house in the second place that was identical

to the house he'd come from so the cat would feel at home.

The cat sat on the mat It was fat...

the cat.

LAUGHTER

There we are.

It's not supposed to be worse, is it?

I think putting in his bid there to be the next poet laureate,

Alan Davies. So...

Genuinely, though, it sounds like he was sort of a lunatic for symmetry.

-Yes.

-All he needed was to live in three slightly different houses

in between the two identical ones...

And he would have an architectural limerick.

-He would have realised his dream.

-Yeah, it's true.

-LLOYD:

-Also, he would have done that to make him at home.

To make himself at home rather than the cat?

And he's gone, "I've sort of done this for the cat,"

but secretly he's thinking, "Well, I know where toilet is.

-"Same place as the last time."

-It's true. You never know.

What kind of logical reasoning did Sherlock Holmes use?

L for logic there. Oh.

-Lavatorial?

-Hmm.

That's not correct.

LAUGHTER

-Lavatorial reasoning.

-Yeah.

So take me through lavatorial reasoning.

No, you do, cos when you go to the loo, it unclogs your body

-and your mind.

-Oh, I see.

-So like... No, it does.

-Scatological.

-Yeah, when I'm at home, if I'm stressed by something,

like a dishwasher, I can't load the dishwasher properly

and there's loads of bowls and I can't get them in,

I'm like, "Jack, take a step back.

"Go and drop the kids off at the pool and come back to it."

And it works, because it does, you sit on the loo, you think,

"What's the task going to be like? How am I going to attack this?

"Let's work out a game plan, a strategy." You deploy the troops,

come back and I'm slamming those plates in like Tetris.

And you leave your children alone at a swimming pool, meanwhile?

That was a horrible metaphor.

APPLAUSE

Oh, I see!

Sorry. I thought you were a bit young...

You thought I have children?!

I thought you were a bit young to have children you could just...

-That means...

-Why would I take them to the pool?

-That means have a poo.

I didn't know that meant have a poo. Dropping the kids off at the pool.

I like that, that's quite a good one.

-Drop the kids off at the pool.

-And the logic is good as well.

-But we have no evidence that he used that.

-Oh, yes.

But we do know, from the books, the kind of logic he used.

-There are different sorts of logic.

-Well, now,

if you eliminate the impossible, you're left with the possible.

-Yes, if everything...

-LAUGHTER

-Deduction?

-No, not deduction.

-KLAXON

Oh, you idiot! Ah-ha-ha-ha!

Deduction is essentially reasoning something which is unchallengeable -

it must be true.

You're given a set of premises and the deduction is true.

So if you say all humans are mortal... Alan Davies is human -

we can say that - therefore Alan Davies is mortal.

That's just simply an absolute fact.

-It must be true...

-Oh, that's disappointing.

If those two premises are true, then the synthesis must be true as well.

-But abductive reasoning would be saying something like...

-Uh-oh.

I saw Alan Davies in an Arsenal scarf.

He always cries when Arsenal lose.

I saw Alan crying, therefore Arsenal just lost.

Now that isn't certainly true,

but it's the kind of logic that Sherlock Holmes used.

Not absolutely certain and definite to be true,

but he was nearly always right.

He reasoned abductively,

-so that's the sort he used.

-Oh.

There you are. What's his great phrase?

What's the famous phrase he used?

-Burn, ant, burn!

-LAUGHTER

-That's fantastic.

-You know this was painted by Edward Lear?

And you recognise the great Sherlock in the middle, I'm sure.

-Basil Rathbone.

-Basil Rathbone, yes.

-Basil!

So, anyway, the famous phrase he is associated with, of course...

"Elementary, my dear Watson."

-He never said it.

-Which, as Victoria rightly says, he doesn't say.

But points if you know where it first appeared in literature.

It was in 1915, by a truly great writer

who actually based his two most famous characters

on the relationship between Holmes and Watson.

One of them a bit of a blitherer,

-the other one incredibly intelligent.

-Jeeves and Wooster?

-Oh, Wodehouse.

-Jeeves and Wooster, yes. So it was PG Wodehouse.

But it was in fact in another series of his books,

the Psmith series. There he is.

Called Psmith, Journalist, in 1915, set in New York.

So, Sherlock Holmes practised abduction, not deduction.

Now to the universal language of laughter. Who likes clowns?

No-one.

UKIP supporters. LAUGHTER

-Weh-hey!

-No, cos they are kind of like clowns, UKIP politicians.

They're kind of fun and comical and wear silly clothes,

but they're also terrifying. LAUGHTER

It's that...

-Well...

-And they also have a lot of white faces.

Very good.

Well, the certain answer is...

No, I'm just trying to work out who likes clowns and thinking,

"Well, it's certainly not children or adults."

You're right, so basically other clowns

is probably the only answer we can come up with.

-Or sort of other people that work in the circus.

-Yes.

They're not going to be anybody's least favourite thing

-as long as there are clowns on the bill.

-That's true.

And I like the cars that fall apart

and some of the gags they do, vaguely, but the actual make-up

and the whole...schmear as it were, is pretty disturbing.

And children, it's been shown, do not like them.

LAUGHTER

There was a study in 2008 that showed

that children were more frightened

than in any way healed, or smoothed, or helped.

But all children are frightened,

so that may mean that clowns don't know what laughter sounds like.

They just think the screams of terrified children are laughter.

-"I did really well..."

-Because it's all they've ever heard.

"They screamed wonderfully."

-P Diddy is afraid of clowns.

-Is he?

-Yes.

-There is a so-called word for it. Do you know it?

-Coulrophobic.

-Yes, you're right.

Though, unfortunately,

and I don't mean this as a personal slight, it's not in the OED,

and if you look it up in the online etymology dictionary, it says,

"It looks suspiciously like the sort of thing that idle,

"pseudo-intellectuals invent on the internet,

"and which every smarty-pants takes up thereafter."

I mean, "coulro" is "limb" from a stilt walker, possibly,

and the Greek for clown is "klooun" which comes from English,

so, if anything, it should be kloounaphobia, or just...

No, that's the fear of Martin Clunes.

Which is an actual real thing. I'm terrified of him.

Cos those ears... Those flappy ears. I remember when he was starting out,

I can't remember what we were doing, we were in the same place.

He picked up a magazine. He said, "Oh, God. I think there's an interview with me in this."

The first line of the interview is, you know, "Six-foot tall,

"with a tweed jacket, Stephen Fry..."

Or, you know, "Twinkly with a pert little botty, Jack Whitehall."

LAUGHTER

And the one on Martin Clunes just started,

"Face like a torn arse..."

LAUGHTER

It was so unfair! He's got this round, sweet, beautiful face.

And, actually, women fall for him enormously. Arse! I know!

-I'm trying to visualise a torn arse.

-It's not good.

-I can help with that as well.

-Oh! No, no, no, no.

Since around 2,500 BC, clowns have been known and written about.

But the first famous one in Britain, do you know who it might have been in the 18th century?

17... Born in 1778, really, the 19th century.

-I know, actually.

-Yes, go on.

Joseph Grimaldi.

Grimaldi is the right answer. Joseph Grimaldi.

APPLAUSE

It's said that one in eight Londoners saw him perform.

There's a Grimaldi Park in Islington, not far from where what's-his-chops lived.

-Who's that? Eric Blair.

-Oh, yes, Orwell.

There's a famous story of someone going to see a doctor,

before the days of psychology,

but a doctor who specialised in the mind, and this person said,

"I'm miserable, every day is horrible, I don't know

"what to do with myself, I can't get up in the morning."

And the doctor said, "Well, I suggest going to see Grimaldi.

"He'll cheer you up."

And the guy said, "I am Grimaldi."

-And he was a very miserable man.

-No wonder he was so depressed.

It would have taken him about 45 minutes to get his coat on.

That's true.

Also, his wife died in childbirth, his father was a bit of a loon.

His son drank himself to death. Lots of misery.

"I am grim all day," he said of himself, Grimaldi,

"but I make you laugh at night." So, good, excellent.

And now, in honour of Victoria, QI does Only Connect.

-Cue music.

-ONLY CONNECT THEME PLAYS

-The greatest programme on television, after QI.

-Oh, hello.

-Yes, does that ring any bells with you?

-Oh, yeah.

So can you choose, please, an Egyptian hieroglyph.

Oh, my goodness, I've never had the chance to do this before.

Obviously, the Eye of Horus.

Eye of Horus it is.

You have to find the connection between these five things.

-Five?

-First...

..John F Kennedy, Profiles In Courage.

Lots of points of course if you get it from one. All right.

Anybody else is allowed to buzz, if they think they know.

And the second one...

Schumann, Theme And Variations In E Flat.

-Hmm.

-Whoa.

LAUGHTER

-Are you patronising Jack?

-You can all piss off!

What's it got to do with the Eye of Horus?

-No, that's... You choose. Have you never watched?

-LAUGHTER

-You've never watched Only Connect?

-Not a whole one, no.

Not a whole one?!

All you have to do is find what's in common, only connect, literally.

I think the F stands for his middle name.

Yes, that... How does that connect him?

I'm just taking notes and then I will abduct once I've got them all.

LAUGHTER

I don't know about Schumann, but if I was on a team

on Only Connect, I'd ask them, is it like the second thing they wrote?

-Something like that.

-Oh, that's very good.

Stephen, Stephen in my head, is Schumann a composer?

-Yes.

-Why, thank you.

-Robert Schumann, yes.

-Robert Schumann.

So let's have the third one

because I don't think you're getting it from two. John Prescott, Prezza.

Goodness me.

Schumann's nickname is Theme And Variations.

Oh, was that one of the Sugababes' line-ups?

So I think we'd better have a look at the fourth one.

Fewer points, but this might help.

Alcoholics Anonymous and The 12 Steps.

-I so can get this.

-The last one will give it to you.

-So the last one is only for one point.

-OK, hold on now.

The Alcoholics Anonymous... The 12 Steps put together by two people

that only have letters as surnames?

You can see why I never got to the end of this show.

No, you'll see the last one and I think...

All right, struggle for the buzzer.

-They all had ghost writers!

-Yes!

Yes! Yes! Come on! APPLAUSE

-Well done. Well done, Jack.

-CHEERING

Yes. Argh!

Oh, my God! Steady.

-Steady. Whoa.

-Sorry, sorry.

You've made a happy man feel very old.

So...

I'm going to have to go for a really awkward dinner with my dad now.

LAUGHTER "I watched you on QI..."

Well, you're just too brilliant.

And, of course, we waited until the most intellectual one,

Katie Price's Crystal and you got it, Jack, so marvellous.

-It is a great read.

-A point to Jack.

-And your audio book of it was fantastic.

-Well, thank you very much.

-But how does The 12 Steps...?

-"Me and Dane went on holiday..."

How does that have a ghost writer?

That's what's so interesting, in a way,

is that the Schumann and the Alcoholics Anonymous are ghost-written

in very special and different way,

at least according to their authors.

Bill Wilson was one of the founders of AA.

-And Bob W?

-That's right.

But Bill Wilson claimed that he was spoken to by a spirit, a ghost,

who told him what the 12 steps were.

Oh, well, you could say the same about all of Yeats' poetry.

Well, indeed, you could.

And Schumann claimed that the spirits

of Schubert and Mendelssohn gave him the idea

for his Theme And Variations In E Flat.

So this piece is actually also known as the Ghost Variations.

But John Prescott's autobiography was written by Hunter Davies,

Prezza, who also gave us the Gazza and Wayne Rooney book.

Katie Price's second novel, Crystal,

out-sold all seven Booker Prize nominees that year.

She wasn't nominated for the Booker Prize?

It wasn't actually nominated itself, though.

-Scandalous!

-I know.

She talks through the stories with her ghost writer,

who then writes them out,

or as one of Price's managers put it,

"Katie says what she wants the story to be like,

"and they just put it into book words."

LAUGHTER Really?

She's been stuck in that pose for so long

that a group of spiders have colonised her head.

That's true. Which else...?

Oh, yes, Ted Sorensen was JFK's speech writer, who came up

with perhaps his most famous phrase that he used in his inauguration.

"Ask not what you can do for your..." No...

"Ask not what your country can do for you..."

Have a kebab.

"..but what you can do for your country."

Known as a chiasmus, exactly, and a fine example of one.

And that was written by Sorensen.

And Ronald Reagan said of his autobiography, do you know what he said?

He looked forward to reading it.

Yes. "I hear it's a terrific book. I look forward to reading it."

Absolutely right. Very good.

-Anyway, that's all from Only Connect.

-ONLY CONNECT THEME PLAYS

APPLAUSE

Thank you.

Right, now, this here what you're about to see

is the longest word in literature. What do you think it means?

Is it the Greek for "that place in North Wales?"

LAUGHTER

It's the Greek for "that peculiar feeling

"when you're trapped in a labyrinth with a man with a bull's head."

That Minotaur-y feeling.

"Minatory" is an English word, which means threatening,

so it would be rather appropriate. No, this... Who's the best-known...

comic Greek playwright?

-Aristophanes.

-Aristophanes.

Aristophanes, first in was Alan. And this is basically lunch.

Lunch in ancient Greek. It actually means, "a dish of sliced fish,

"shark and remnants of dogfish head, forming a pungent sharp tasting

"mixture, laserwort, crab with drizzled honey,

"and thrush and a blackbird on top, a wood pigeon, a normal pigeon,

"a little baked chicken head, another pigeon, a hare,

"with boiled down wine, and crunchy wings for dipping."

I'll just have the soup.

-What, no feta?

-No. And not a bottle of Retsina, either.

-Oh, I love feta, me.

-That's why they went bankrupt in Greece

because it took them so long to write out the menus,

they did no business.

Talking of lunch, what do we know about the word "lunch",

-a good L word, lunch.

-Now, you see, interestingly...

-Luncheon.

-Luncheon, yes, that's how it started.

As a matter of fact, it isn't. It was lunch first.

And people extended it to luncheon

because they thought it sounded smarter.

-Not quite right.

-It is! I've made a whole programme about this.

LAUGHTER

-It derives from an Anglo-Saxon word.

-It does...

-From nuncheon.

This is like watching two great stags, locking heads, together.

But it doesn't. Where do you think the phrase

"ploughman's lunch" comes from?

From ploughmen having their lunch?

-No, it was invented by the Milk Marketing Board.

-That's true.

Investigating the history of that, we discovered that

it is very disputed whether lunch comes from nuncheon.

Well, until about the 18th century, the word nuncheon was used.

You have a light nuncheon. And nuncheon has a very clear derivation.

It comes from "noon", as in mid-day, and "schench", which means drink.

It was literally a liquid lunch. Nuncheon.

And it was changed, no-one's quite sure why it changed to luncheon,

but it did change to luncheon,

and then the luncheon got dropped to lunch.

30-15, Fry!

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

Well, it's very convincing. I wish you had been on the programme.

The theory put forward was that they had been rolled

together in people's minds and lunch came from somewhere else

and it was made longer to sound smarter.

So then people thought it was

the same as the word luncheon, but it's not.

I do not know of people using the word lunch before the word luncheon.

That's breakfast, isn't it?

LAUGHTER

-Anyway, what we have got here is a picnic.

-Yeah.

-Well, let's move to less disputed areas.

-Or arm wrestle.

LAUGHTER

We'll do a Harry Hill moment.

Well, there you go.

And so to the epilogue that we call General Ignorance.

Time for fingers on buzzers, please. What comes before a fall?

AIR HORN "Arsenal! Arsenal!"

Pride.

-Oh!

-KLAXON

Victoria, did you do a programme about this?

-Is this going to be something to do with Greek drama?

-No, no, no.

It's the Book of Proverbs in the King James Bible, and it says,

"Pride goeth before destruction, an haughty spirit before a fall."

And there you are.

But things that are misquoted are rather fun.

There's a 2009 survey that found that the most common misquote

is mispronouncing the phrase "damp squib" as "damp squid".

Yeah, it was a bit of a damp squid.

What kind of idiot would say that?!

I've definitely said that. LAUGHTER

It would mean something completely different because you want a squid to be damp.

-Yeah, horrible to have a dry squid.

-Damp squid is the best sort of squid.

-Oh, deep-fried squid is lush, though, isn't it?

-Calamari.

But you can say that as a compliment then. If you get served that

ridiculous Greek dish and it's a tasty version of it,

"What a damp squid!"

Yeah, exactly.

Other things include "On tender hooks" instead of "tenterhooks".

ALAN GUFFAWS

"Nipping something in the butt", which is quite different.

A "mute point" instead of a "moot point".

Well, it's a Catch 24, isn't it, really?

LAUGHTER

They're called "eggcorns", as in from a mangling of acorns.

# The Simpsons... #

APPLAUSE

There's "in lame man's terms" is used, apparently.

"Cut to the cheese."

-That's good.

-It is, isn't it?

"To all intensive purposes."

"The feeble position" instead of "the foetal position", which is very odd.

I've definitely had the feeble position before.

"Soaping wet", which is a sort of mix

between "sopping wet" and "soaking wet", I think.

"Soaping wet". I was soaping wet!

-That sounds filthy.

-LAUGHTER

"Giving up the goat."

I think that's a Welsh one, I think.

I'm so glad you put your hand up to that one,

I wasn't really going to mention it.

"Getting your nipples in a twist."

These are kind of Fools And...

-Or Kath And Kim, they're always saying things wrong.

-Yeah, yeah.

When she's hungry, she goes, "I'm absolutely ravishing."

"Chickens coming home to roast" I rather liked.

I hope they pluck themselves as they come

and just land gently on your plate.

Anyway, there we are.

"The haughty spirit comes before a fall."

How would you describe a siren's tail?

It's like a fish, like a mermaid.

-Oh, dear.

-Isn't it?

-KLAXON

-Is no-one else going to play?!

I'm afraid not.

Although, you're right, they were on the rocks when they sang.

The song was so alluring, ships were dashed on the rocks.

It's unclear why they wanted that to happen.

Yeah, I know. They were just wicked for some reason.

I think they were annoyed by their lack of nipples.

LAUGHTER

-Yes, that's probably what it was.

-Where are my nipples? I don't know.

I've lost my nipples!

So who managed to survive hearing the siren's song? Remember?

-Odysseus.

-Odysseus, also known as Ulysses. Yeah.

As in The Odyssey. Yeah.

-To hear the song, what did he do so he could hear it?

-Taped it.

LAUGHTER

-No, he tapped himself. He had his men...

-Downloaded it!

On iTunes, along with the Harry Potter audio book.

He had his men tape him to the foremast of his ship.

And he made them plug their own ears with wax

so they couldn't hear the siren's song.

Because it's such an extraordinary draw.

And had himself tied with his ears open.

And said, "No matter how much I shout and scream at you

"and you can see my face saying, 'Let me go...' "

-They do that at Simply Red gigs.

-Do they?

-All the audience.

-So they couldn't hear it.

So they carried on rowing and he was dying,

because he so wanted to go where

this incredible sound was coming from, but he was the only

one who ever heard the siren's song and survived, supposedly.

A charming story, not very true, probably, but charming.

Actually, they were half...?

Fish.

No, we said that, they were half bird.

-Bird?

-Yes.

-JACK: Ooh, sexy.

They were half...fish.

-It gives a whole new meaning to "Are you a leg or a breast man?"

-LAUGHTER

Why do I think they were half fish, then?

Most people do, that's why we asked the question.

To trap, you know, the common view of them because they...

-When did mermaids get muddled up with sirens?

-Interesting point.

I think it's because they were on the rocks by the coast,

so one assumed that they had something to do with water, but they were on land.

And they drew people into their rocks.

Anyway, now we've reached the end

and it's time to see the scores.

Well, in first place, with a resoundingly clear plus nine points,

it's Victoria Coren Mitchell.

APPLAUSE

Yes!

In second place... In second place,

with a very impressive minus two and a half, it's the audience.

APPLAUSE

In third place, terrific, terrific debut, minus ten,

-Lloyd Langford!

-Thank you.

APPLAUSE

Ah.

He can hold his head up with pride, minus 16, Jack Whitehall.

APPLAUSE

And limping in the rear, I'm afraid,

it's Alan Davies with minus 39!

APPLAUSE

So, that's all from Victoria, Jack, Lloyd, Alan and me.

And I leave you with the last words of French grammarian,

Dominique Bouhours.

"I am about to - or I am going to - die.

"Either expression is used." Thank you and goodnight.