O Christmas QI XL

APPLAUSE

Hello!

And welcome, welcome to QI,

where the weather outside is frightful,

but the fire is so delightful.

I am of course your angelic host,

and gathered around my blazing saddles this Christmas night,

we have a sprig of Holly Walsh...

..Jason three wise Manford...

..Romesh the red-nosed Ranganathan...

..and yonder peasant, who is he?

Alan Davies.

Holly goes...

-CHOIR:

-# O little town of Bethlehem... #

Aww, that's nice. Jason goes...

-CHOIR:

-# O come all ye faithful... #

It's the O series, do you see? "O."

Romesh goes...

-CHOIR:

-# O Christmas tree O Christmas tree... #

LAUGHTER

Some people are never happy. And Alan goes...

# Grandma got run over by a reindeer... #

Right, let's get off and running.

Where do the Christmas celebrations always end up in a fist fight?

My house.

KLAXON BLARES

Is it a fighting household, darling?

Erm... It's the only day of the year

where you can start drinking at breakfast, isn't it?

-Like...

-Unless you're from Denmark, in which case, hey, whenever.

Any other time of the year there's an intervention,

-but Christmas Day you're like, "Ah, come on!"

-Yeah.

"Let's have a bit of Bailey's on your cornflakes."

See, it's funny, cos the Danes don't really have a tradition

of that kind of fighting at Christmas.

What we do is, we do silent resentment.

-Oh, that's good.

-It's much more Nordic.

My brother and I are both married to white women,

and at Christmas my mum will invite us all round,

and then she'll do two dinners, like a roast and a curry.

And then it just looks like

we're encouraging racial segregation at Christmas.

Well, I'm going to find out if that's true,

cos your mum's here in the audience. Shanthi.

Hello, welcome to the show.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Is there fighting at the holiday season? Is there fighting?

-Er...they do. They do fight.

-Yeah.

They do fight, yeah, both of them.

Well, my mum... It's lovely to have you here, Mum.

Thank you. Thank you.

..but she has encouraged my brother and I

to both have very low self-esteem.

LAUGHTER

That's contributed to it.

Well, there is a place in the world where people fight on Christmas Day,

and they do it on purpose, in Peru.

A town called Santo Tomas - it's high up in the Peruvian Andes,

12,000 feet above sea level -

and they have a tradition which is called Takanakuy,

and it happens on the 25th of December every year.

People dress up in costumes, and then they have fist fights,

and they take place between every kind of participant,

between the young and the old, men and women, rich, poor, sober...

-Wow.

-..quite a lot of drunk people.

And the idea is they're settling all their differences

that have occurred during the course of the year.

And it can be anything - it can be a property dispute,

it could be a spilled beer, it could be a stolen partner,

or sheep or...whatever.

There's a cultural sort of outreach thing in Crawley

where we sort of celebrate that, as well - it's called Wetherspoons.

LAUGHTER

But is it legally binding?

-Yes, it is legally binding.

-Right.

Whoever wins, whatever the dispute was,

that's it, they have to settle it.

So they do this on Christmas Day, but...

..what do they do on Boxing Day, eh?

APPLAUSE

I got there!

It's good to have an element of panto in the show, which I like.

It's behind you! Your career.

But the reason why we have family fights at Christmas,

it's what known as hypercopresence.

The idea is that we are forced to spend long periods of time

with people that we don't want to, and it's what Sigmund Freud called

"the narcissism of small differences."

We just have our own family Christmas now,

with just me and Katie and the three kids, and that is brilliant.

I thought my children, when they grew up, would go away,

and what they've done is gone away and brought back other people

I don't know. LAUGHTER

When I took my husband home for our first Christmas together,

I got so self-conscious about all the things

-that my family do at Christmas.

-What do you do that's odd?

Well, we have a set of bells that we all... We sit round,

we each have a different...

Anybody?

LAUGHTER

-OK, we've got a set of bells.

-Yeah.

-There's eight bells.

-Eight bells.

-How many of you?

-Full octave.

-There's only four in my family.

-Oh, two bells each.

-Yeah.

-That's lucky.

-But now my husband's joined, it's...

-Oh, no!

-Yeah.

-He's spoilt it.

-No, that's good, that's another person.

-Oh, it's good.

-ROMESH:

-"But that's another person" -

I'm glad you recognise him as such, Holly, that's lovely.

-HOLLY:

-And in about 1987, my mum wrote out loads of Christmas songs

on sort of boards with all the bell numbers...

-Right.

-..and we just do that for about two or three days.

LAUGHTER

-ROMESH:

-We have a similar thing where Mum and Dad's friends

would come over, Sri Lankan friends, and they would get drunk,

then they would turn over bins and stuff like that,

and then start banging on them,

and singing, like, old traditional Sri Lankan songs.

Is that true, Shanthi, is that true?

Yes, it's very true. It's very true.

We're checking everything you say, Romesh.

-ALAN:

-Confirmation, please!

You'll have the gig from hell -

"Can we have confirmation that he's telling the truth?"

I've got this horrible judgmental Wikipedia sitting over here.

-Checking on your gags.

-Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, "That's true, Sandi, don't worry,

"you can carry on with the anecdote, off you go."

Someone from Holly's family going,

"That's a load of shit about the bells!

"There are 16 bells, you lying cow!"

So, like, they would get buckets and turn them over,

and then just, like, my dad would just be...

DRUMS ON DESK AND HUMS TUNE

Like that, for, like, hours.

-And then once...

-Do you two live anywhere near each other?

All links up, a little tour, coffee and cream, on the road.

But then, one Christmas we did that, and then the next morning,

we took the blanket off the budgie cage, and they were dead.

Wait a minute, had you beaten the birds to death?

No, they just didn't like Sri Lankan music.

I think your mum thinks that's not true.

"We never had a budgie!"

Just really racist budgies, you know?

I get a bit tired of the turkey thing because

I haven't had any turkey since about 1985

and every year it would come round like it was a massive shock.

And I'd have to justify why I didn't want to have the turkey

and there would be a space on my plate where....

-Why don't you?

-He's a vegetarian.

-I don't eat meat.

I'm like, "Free the birds, free the birds!"

Where are all the birds?

There's 11 million turkeys get eaten every year at Christmas.

And you never see any of them! Where are the turkeys?

You've never seen one out, have you, ever?

Wouldn't it be great if they all lived on roundabouts

-and you can see them all through the year?

-You should be able to see them!

March down to Asda - here they come, here they come, the birds!

-Come on, here they come!

-Cheerio, cheerio, cheerio!

And then they're just getting their heads and going...

Here's yours! Here's yours! Here's yours!

At that noise, his whole family would make that into a musical item!

Now...

..which of these items belong on a very traditional Christmas tree?

So you have a tree, and you have some items.

So we're going to decorate our trees now.

-Does anybody know where do we get the Christmas tree from?

-Germany?

Germany, indeed, evolved from the Paradeisbaum.

Paradise tree, so it's part of a medieval morality play

which was based on Adam and Eve, and it was staged on Christmas Eve.

It's supposedly the name day of Adam and Eve in the Christian calendar.

So, let's start with apples and snakes. Would you put these...?

LAUGHTER

Would you put these on your tree, apples and snakes?

We're doing traditional and non-traditional things.

-Er...possibly the apple?

-Well, if it was...

-Yes?

-If it was Adam and Eve's birthday...

-Yes?

-Then, yeah.

Absolutely right,

so these are the traditional things that go on the tree.

The snake?

What about the baubles?

-No.

-Can't be.

-Why not?

Because it's too... There's no way you'd let us get away with that.

-No.

-Yeah, absolutely right - they're fake apples.

-Fake apples!

-So they represent... Yeah, they represent the apples.

Yeah, I remember the last time I tucked into one of these bad boys.

Delicious, the old silver glitter.

They are actually German as well, they originated in

18th-century Germany, there's a glass-blowing town called

Lauscha, which is where the glass eye was invented.

And they were spotted by FW Woolworth

and imported to the USA and so they come to us from Germany

but via the USA.

Let's do... Which? Which on the tree?

LAUGHTER

The angel or the Union Flag?

Which one are we going to go for?

-I'm going to go with the Union Flag, I think.

-Yeah.

-ROMESH:

-I much prefer the Union Flag.

-Yeah.

So that is...

LAUGHTER

You're absolutely right - that is the traditional thing.

So, 18th-century Christmas, British Empire,

it is the only proper thing to top the tree.

-I've always felt odd about that moment of...

-Putting the angel on.

You know, when you've got the angel,

and you're like putting the tree up its arse, like, something feels...

But do you know why we don't have the flag,

-we have the angel instead now?

-No.

So, the angel represents Gabriel in the nativity story,

but it's a 19th-century invention made popular by Victoria and Albert,

who should have had the Union Flag on the tree, but they were German.

-So they had the angel instead.

-Oh.

OK, so lights or candles on the tree? Which is traditional?

-Oh, it's got to be candles.

-It is candles, absolutely.

The legend is that Martin Luther

was inspired to put candles on the tree -

so we're talking 1536 - after he saw thousands of stars

glinting through the branches of the trees in the forest.

But to be fair, electronic lights weren't an option then.

LAUGHTER

No, that's...

Well, you do get candles even earlier than that -

you do get candles about the 1440s.

There was an amazing group called the Brotherhood of the Blackheads.

Who doesn't want to join? Brotherhood of the Blackheads.

-That's my entire teenage years summed up at once.

-Yeah.

They were unmarried merchants in Estonia, and they put up

one of the first Christmas trees that had candles on it.

Let's do paper, flowers, wafers and tinsel. Which ones are traditional?

Oh, and how about some chocolate?

-Which of those are we going to go for?

-Chocolate on the tree?

-On the tree, traditional?

-Chocolate.

..is the one that is in fact not traditional at all.

Of course.

The others...

Good day to you.

-So the wafer?

-All I can hear is Romesh's mum

laughing in the speaker behind me.

Mum, Alan wants you to shut up.

LAUGHTER

-YOU shut up!

-Yes, Shanthi, yes!

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

Guys, guys, it's Christmas, OK. All right? Just...

Romesh, go and give your mother a nice chocolate and be nice.

-Be nice.

-Sorry.

LAUGHTER

Shanthi, what do you think about the beard?

The beard looks good, doesn't it?

He looks like his dad, actually.

LAUGHTER I think it looks very nice.

He didn't have a beard like this, did he?

-He did. He did.

-Oh, right.

-I hated it.

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

Flowers on the tree and tinsel? Come on...

Traditional or non-traditional?

Flowers, I guess.

There aren't flowers at Christmas time, so, no.

No traditional base of them, in fact. So, from the time that we

first had Christmas trees, in fact. So we're looking

at the 15th century - at the beginning of Christmas trees

and what did they decorate them with? They decorated them with

-paper flowers, so roses cut out of paper, wafers...

-They put...

-..a sausage on there.

-Is that a sausage?

-No, that's a pine cone.

-That is not a sausage.

That is Santa coming through the tree!

LAUGHTER

Doing my best...

It's got out of control, this.

Going in a very good area!

Has anybody ever had Christmas in the United States? Christmas

-in America?

-Yes.

They often have something strange on the tree,

which we don't have, do you know what it is?

-A gun? Traditional.

-What Americans have on the tree

that we don't have is a pickle on the tree.

-And this is a very strange thing.

-A pickle, like a gherkin?

A gherkin. And we're not quite sure the origin of it.

But it is possibly... The tradition comes from this terrible place

called Camp Sumter. It was a notorious Confederate prisoner of war place.

Union soldiers held there - of the 45,000 who were held there,

13,000 died. And there was a Bavarian-born gentleman...

This is a picture to illustrate this.

..called Private John C Lower and he was captured and taken

to the prison camp and he was so hungry that he asked

the guard for something to eat and he was given a pickle.

And he credited it with saving his life and when he returned to

his family, he began a tradition... AUDIENCE MEMBER LAUGHS

You're doing your own jokes now!

That is a pickle!

You can see why families fight at Christmas.

-Is that a pickled gherkin?

-Yeah.

Are they that big?

-In America, they can be enormous.

-That's a pickled cucumber.

The provenance of the picture of the gherkin,

I'm not entirely clear of...

Maybe we should check with my mum.

What do you think that is? A gherkin or a cucumber?

-A gherkin, I think.

-Thank you, Shanthi.

In America, everything is big, isn't it?

You just heard Sandi say that!

-She's on my side.

-Oh, yes.

-Absolutely.

Trees away, please.

THUD

LAUGHTER

Now, which king appeared on the first British Christmas stamp?

Er...George V.

KLAXON BLARES

-Wenceslas.

-Yes.

-Yeah!

-Yes!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

You're absolutely right.

So, 1963, the then Postmaster General was Tony Benn,

and he launched a competition

in conjunction with Blue Peter and the Post Office

to design Britain's very first Christmas stamp,

and six-year-old Tasveer Shemza - that's her there on the right -

she won with a Good King Wenceslas design, and James Berry,

next to her, he got a 1/6d stamp, but here is her stamp.

So he was the only king on the stamp,

because of course the monarch is Queen Elizabeth II.

And Tasveer is in the audience...

-Shut the front door!

-There she is, all grown-up.

-Ah!

Congratulations!

APPLAUSE

Tasveer, did you...

That's the longest round of applause we've ever had for anything.

They LOVE your stamp!

Tasveer, was the picture based on anybody?

Well, it was indeed, yes. It's not King Wenceslas...

-Right.

-..as people say - it was actually a picture of my dad.

Oh, a picture of your dad!

And we've got... There he is.

I think you did very well with that.

Sorry, if your dad is wearing that hat,

I think he's a bit above his station.

What I love about this is the stamp was issued in 1966,

so in fact Daleks, which were introduced in 1963,

are an older Christmas tradition than Christmas stamps

here in the UK.

Do you know who that is in the picture?

Is it one of the Doctors, William Hartnell?

It was William Hartnell, the very first Doctor Who.

-Was the first Doctor Who really old, then?

-Yes.

He was THAT old, in fact.

It was something about wisdom and gravitas with the role.

Yeah. Well, I mean, with your new white beard, you could be up for it.

-ROMESH:

-Yeah.

-Yeah. HOLLY:

-I think now that beards are so...

I don't think the beard cancels out the skin.

-I think you'd be a really good Doctor Who.

-Do you think so?

-Yeah.

-JASON:

-And your mum could be like Doctor Who's sidekick.

-Oh!

Oh, my God!

The first Doctor to top himself.

I started laughing, like your mum, my own laugh is now...

-Do you fancy it, Alan? Playing Doctor Who?

-No.

-Why not?

-Because it takes a year of your life.

-Yeah.

And everyone around you is painted blue and they all...

But...the truth is, Sandi - if they asked me I'd probably do it.

LAUGHTER

He was talking and... "Oh, my God, I might be talking

"myself out of this!"

Some producer going, "Well, he's out."

They do some audiotape stories of Doctor Who

and I was in one - I played the villain.

I was a lesbian who ate the world!

Was it that one of your character traits was that

you are a lesbian? Was that one of the storylines?

No, the whole storyline was about the fact

-that I was a predatory lesbian.

-Right...

And I had to study for ages to...

LAUGHTER

I'd happily do it as a trans...

We get it, you want the job, all right!

"I'll play a Jamaican, whatever they need..."

Which is best for Christmas cards - first class or second class?

-Makes no odds.

-It doesn't really make a difference.

I don't think we have a second-class stamp any more, do we?

-Yeah, yeah, no, you do.

-Oh, how posh are you?!

LAUGHTER

-ROMESH:

-Things are going all right for Jason Manford, aren't they?!

What is a second-class stamp for? Cos the letters must arrive

at the same time. Does the postman go, "Nah, well, I'll leave them

"till tomorrow"? He's going that way.

So, the Post Office guarantees with first-class delivery

that 93% of it will be delivered within one working day.

-Oh, I see.

-93, not 100%?

-No.

93% guaranteed, but at Christmas, that is formally suspended,

and they only manage 50% next-day delivery,

so frankly, you might as well...

So how can they live with themselves and sell some people...?

If you were to go in and say, "Can I have a first-class stamp,"

-they should say, "No."

-Don't bother.

"We don't sell them, because that's morally wrong."

I had a girlfriend once, who thought that if you put more stamps on,

it would get there quicker.

Five first-class stamps on a letter.

Actually, Sandi, my mum can step in here,

-because she works for Royal Mail, don't you, Mum?

-Yes, I do.

-And there are second-class stamps, are there not?

-Yes, there are.

Yeah, there's second-class stamps.

What have you got to say about this 50% success-rate scandal?

-My lips are sealed!

-No, speak up, you're here!

Now answer the question!

-You said it on the way here.

-What?

You said you thought Royal Mail was crap,

-and you wished you didn't have to work there.

-I never said that!

I never said that.

LAUGHTER

Anyway, please can you thank Tasveer Shemza?

APPLAUSE

Now, it's time to wrap our presents in the great QI wrapping race.

OK, so under your respective desks,

you're going to find paper and scissors and tape,

and I would like you to beautifully wrap the things you've got.

So, Romesh, you need to wrap the game that we've got there for you,

and if you could find the best way of...

LAUGHTER

Wrap that for me.

And, Alan, if you could wrap yours, there we are, that's lovely.

And what have you guys got to wrap up?

Lovely. So, what do we reckon? Best way to wrap these things up?

Are you going to say, "Ready, steady, go"?

Ready, steady, go. Whoever does it best...

Wow! Jason, that's... Yeah.

-Looks good.

-I think I've finished, Sandi.

OK, let me see, let me see.

Alan is the winner, I think, got there first.

APPLAUSE

OK.

So, awkward items, what you need is a life-hack, OK,

to wrap something awkward.

So I've got here a small American football

and a single piece of paper, and what you actually do,

and you could have done it with any of your items,

is you take your paper, and you fold it like this,

and then put some tape down the middle like this.

and then you need to fold the piece of paper like this...

and fold it in...

..and then put some Sellotape on that, like this...

This is like Blue Peter, isn't it?

It's a really brilliant way to wrap an awkward thing.

It is basically a bag with a gusset

that you can make out of a single piece of paper,

and you make it like that, and you stick your awkward thing inside,

-and you have a very neatly wrapped gift.

-Oh, my God!

APPLAUSE

So the other way to do it is - if you've got a very small present...

..and you haven't got any money, you can take a packet of crisps,

eat the crisps, turn it inside out and then the packet

makes a very lovely silver parcel to wrap something small,

-so there are some simple...

-Doesn't it smell of cheese and onion?

-It stinks!

-"I love these diamond earrings that smell of pickled onion."

Wrap your presents in crisp packets?

Right, let's put the presents away, please.

Describe the most miserable Christmas dinner of all time.

-Well, it's got to be sprout-based.

-Do you not like sprouts?

Little pockets of evil, aren't they? Just...

Honestly, it's a fart in your mouth.

Exactly, I agree.

-That's a great game.

-Yeah.

-Have you not done that?

-Have I not done that?

-Christmas Day?

-No, I haven't.

-There's one for you.

Mum...?

When you say love them, how do you cook them?

How do you cook them? I'm interested.

This is the most intimidating cookery show.

How do you cook 'em?! Answer!

-I boil them for a bit.

-Boil them for a bit.

And then you have them with chestnuts.

Now, here we go, you see, this is what everybody does...

They go, "I like sprouts, cos what you do,

"you put them with a bit of bacon..." You're like,

"No, no, bacon's nice, innit?" That's what you've done there.

"I'll put them with some chocolate." No, chocolate's nice.

By themselves...they are little devil's haemorrhoids

and they should be...

-..yanked off the planet.

-The only way to do them that's nice,

is to cut them in half and then drizzle them with olive oil

and put them in a roasting tray and stick them in the oven

for 40 minutes and they're actually not too bad.

No, no, you steam them a bit and then you get

-them in a very hot pan with curry powder.

-Right.

This has officially become the most middle class...

There's nothing middle class about curry powder.

Is there, Romesh?

Right, the most miserable Christmas dinner of all time...

-Was there a war declared?

-It's 1912, so just before the war.

Christmas Day, 1912...?

-We're a long, long way away...?

-In space?

-As far away as you can...

-It's a bit early!

-Space?!

"How did we get here?

"The Wright brothers haven't taken off yet."

-Is it at the South Pole?

-Yes.

-Shackleton...?

-Yes.

Antarctic explorer Frank Hurley, so that's him

on the left there with Shackleton. He was Shackleton's photographer

in the Great Imperial Trans-Antarctic expedition...

Who took that picture, then?

Er...

APPLAUSE

So there's Shackleton and Hurley. But in fact, Hurley

-had been on a previous expedition.

-Got you, right.

The Australasian Antarctic expedition

and it was Christmas Day and they were on their way

back from the South Pole and they thought they'd make a festive Christmas pudding.

Now, obviously, where could you get anything...that you wanted?

-Exactly.

-So they grated three biscuits with a saw,

they mixed in sugar, snow and seven raisins

and added meths for flavour.

And boiled it all up in his old sock on their Primus stove!

And to accompany this feast, they made a drink called

Tanglefoot - by boiling five raisins in meths

and then drinking the meths. So, ethanol is the thing that

alcohol is made of, and meths has things added to ethanol

so that it's poisonous, so that you don't drink it.

But my favourite is the hors d'oeuvre -

the hors d'oeuvre was Angels On Gliders -

it consisted of a raisin on top of a chocolate bar previously fried.

What if you didn't like raisins?

Probably not the expedition for you.

You go, "Listen, I don't mind drinking this poison,

"but I cannot stand raisins."

I wonder if they talked about whose sock would be the nicest

-to cook it in.

-I think it's going to be the chef's choice,

-is it not?

-See, I'd still rather have that than sprouts.

I even get annoyed when parsnips pretend to be 'tatoes.

-Oh, that is annoying.

-You know when you're like,

"Oh, I'll have a bit of potato. It's a parsnip,

"you lying get!"

They cut them up so they look like chips

and they all think it's hilarious, "Look, the kids think they're chips,

"look, look...

"Ha-ha-ha!"

Right, because it's Christmas, we're going to play a quick game.

The envelopes have got your name on them.

Oh, here we go. Ooh!

Inside the envelope you'll find a two-syllable word.

Here's what you have to do - you have to act out the first syllable,

then the second, then the whole thing,

and only then can we guess what the word is.

OK? Right, Alan, off you go.

LAUGHTER

-OK. I'm not allowed to speak, am I?

-No.

-No, OK.

So this is the first syllable.

OK.

-Right, that's the first syllable.

-OK, yeah.

-Second syllable.

Very good. And now the whole thing.

Bagpipe.

Yes. Very, very good, well done.

-Romesh?

-I don't think I can do mine.

-Why?

I just can't.

Yes, you can.

-OK.

-Yes, and your mum believes in you, she just said yes behind me.

-SHANTHI:

-Yeah, try. Try.

-Yes, see, "Try," says your mum.

-Yeah, why don't you try?

-"Oh, well, if you believe in me, Mum!"

Doesn't change the word, love, all right? It's still impossible.

OK.

-So, first syllable.

-Yeah.

-Oh good, yeah, good.

-Yeah.

-OK.

-That's that bit.

-Yeah. Second syllable?

No idea what that was.

-Shark.

-OK, the whole thing?

-HOLLY:

-Pie shark?

-A pie shark?

-A pie shark?

Is it a pie shark?

It is, I can't believe you got it, it IS a pie shark!

What is the first bit, so...

-First thing?

-I thought it was going to be difficult,

but she's absolutely nailed that. Astonishing!

You're the only other person I know that's heard of pie shark,

it's amazing!

You were right, Mum - I CAN do it!

APPLAUSE

Show everybody the card.

-It's a muff!

-Muffin!

-Muffin.

-Muffin.

-Have a go.

-Me?

-Yeah.

Right. Erm...

-Bum.

-Don't guess yet!

-ROMESH:

-There's only three rules in this game, Holly!

-And then the whole thing.

-OK, and the whole thing. Er...

OK. Anybody?

Pie shark?

LAUGHTER

-Bum hands.

-Bum ring?

-What's that?

-What did you say?

I said bum ring.

Bum...ring?

-Bum ring, really, on QI?!

-How did we get to bum ring?

It's a bum ring, cos he went like that, he went like that...

But what was the thing when he was walking around?

It's the sort of thing that a bum ring would do.

What he did there, I thought, "He looks like such a bum ring."

What does it say on your card?

-Bumbling.

-Bumbling.

-Oh, bumbling!

-Bum-bling.

-Bling!

-Bling!

Right, Holly.

-Hang on a minute, why is your clue in your sock?

-Oh, the foot's out.

-OK, first one.

-Foot!

Don't guess yet!

Yeah, second one.

Oh, God.

This is very awkward.

Is it football?

It WAS football - very well done.

That is how they used to play charades.

It came from France, actually, the game,

but it was codified by the brothers Mayhew, Henry and Horace,

and they decided those were the rules.

Look at that - isn't that wonderful?

"Deeds not words," also, weirdly, the slogan of

the Suffragettes, I don't know why it was also the slogan for charades!

But I think the jokes were supposed to be out of muff-fin -

that was the idea, so breast-plate, or cock-ade,

or any of those things was meant to be hilarious.

But there were lots of wonderful parlour games. Since that went

so well, who's for a game of hot cockles?

Absolutely.

It was a big Georgian favourite - have you ever heard of it?

-No.

-Hot cockles? The player puts their head

in another person's lap but here's the fun bit, OK?

One by one, everybody else comes up behind and kicks them in the arse.

The object of the game - you have to guess who's kicking.

-Have you got any other ones?

-Yes, I have.

-I'm not sure about that one.

-Bullet pudding.

This was very, very popular in Regency times.

You took a large amount of flour and you piled it

on a plate and then you balanced a bullet on the top

and then players used to take a knife and take it in turns

to remove some of the flour and the person who made the

bullet topple into the pile of flour, had to retrieve it

using only their teeth.

-We used to do that with 1p's.

-In a pile of flour?

-Yeah.

-Aww!

-On Christmas, when the bells would run out.

On day five of Christmas, we'd do that, it's really fun.

But at the end, you have to try and get the penny out with

your face and then you look like Romesh.

In a good way, Romesh.

My beard, yeah.

Snapdragon, another game

that was incredibly popular from the 16th to the 19th century.

You put brandy in a wide, shallow bowl and then raisins - again,

and then the whole thing is set alight

and the aim of the game is to pluck the raisins

out of the burning brandy!

With the hilarious risk of...being burnt!

Merry Christmas!

That's like Jackass 200 years ago!

Now we invite QI's Lord of Misrule to the fireside

for the round we call General Ignorance.

Fingers on buzzers, please.

What Christmas tradition is the first downward step

for fallen women and inmates of prisons and lunatic asylums?

-Crackers?

-Crackers?

-Pudding?

-It's Christmas carols.

-Carols.

-Oh.

-Because Christmas carols were originally sung in the pub

at summertime. So, in the 1870s, carol singing was frowned upon,

it was carried out by, well, the rough working classes,

if I'm honest with you.

They were often drunk and it was a disgraceful excuse

for young men and women to spend time together.

I've got this marvellous letter in the Derby Mercury, 1872,

wondered, "How many poor fallen women and inmates of prisons

"and lunatic asylums could date their first downward step to

"an evening's carol singing?"

So why would you sing Christmas songs in the summer?

-They were just popular songs.

-You were pissed.

LAUGHTER

And it's one of the reasons why they've survived so long

because they were just very jolly, cheery tunes.

There weren't many other songs about, were there?

-They hadn't had The Beatles.

-Yeah.

That's a fair point, actually.

Carols were traditionally summer songs sung down the pub.

What did robins originally represent on Christmas cards?

Evil?

Can you imagine anything less evil?

-Was it something to do with being stabbed, or blood?

-What?!

-You know...

-I love how your mind works, but it puzzles me.

-The red breast.

-Yes. So, Christmas, traditional stabbing time.

-OK, anybody in the audience know? AUDIENCE MEMBER:

-The postman.

Postmen. KLAXON BLARES

Oh, it looks so easy, doesn't it?

LAUGHTER

The fact is, robins have been associated with Christmas

-long before Victorian...

-Long before Jesus.

LAUGHTER

Long before Victorian postmen and their red outfits.

So the idea that robins on cards originally represented the postman,

as, I have to say, stated in a previous QI,

is wrong, and so thank goodness I am here to clear up this terrible mess.

-Thank God you're here.

-I know.

There's a traditional Christmas song called The Robin's Appeal,

so pictures of robins on cards appear to have been there

to represent robins.

What I find incredible about this is that he's a traditional postman

but he's holding a smartphone.

-And a man bag.

-And a hipster beard.

-Yeah.

Possibly it's to do with poverty in the 19th century -

it was common to refer to destitute children as poor robins.

And lots of churches would put on robins' dinners on Christmas Day for local poor children.

But it's changed over the years, so in the 1860s,

they had robins on Christmas cards,

and they were depicted as being comic,

then in the 1870s, they get rather sentimental.

1880s, it's... I don't know what happened - they just show them dead.

I don't know what's...

-There's a stabbing.

-There must have been a terrible epidemic.

-ROMESH:

-Look at... I mean, it says, "May yours be a joyful Christmas."

He's got it wrong at the printer - it's meant to be portrait.

LAUGHTER

Despite what we said on an earlier season of QI,

robins on Christmas cards probably represent not postmen, but poor children...or robins.

And finally, what should I do if I spill red wine on the tablecloth?

So, gentlemen, I'm going to give you a tablecloth,

and you've got some wine between you.

Wine, yes. Wine, lovely wine.

All right, there we go.

If you think any of it's going on the tablecloth,

you are sadly mistaken.

A merry, merry, merry Christmas to you all.

I've had drinks with you before, and I suspect I am not mistaken.

-OK, so...

-Pouring the red on?

-Do a bit of red on.

-Little bit of red on there.

-OK. Now, what would you do about that?

I've gone, "Ooh, my tablecloth!"

Oh! Get some white wine, get some white wine!

KLAXON BLARES

-Can we try it at least?

-You can give it a go, yeah.

I mean, it's a bit unfair to give us white wine

-and then have a go at us for mentioning it, but...

-OK, have a go.

-So...

-It's gone, it's gone!

So, it will dilute the stain, but it contains complex sugars.

It's perfectly possible that the white wine will discolour the cloth.

So, you two, you've got a bit of carpet that you've spilled yours on.

-OK.

-I have seen that work, though.

-Spill a bit of red.

-Shall I spill it?

-Yeah, go on.

It's liberty hall. There we go.

-Oh, God!

-Red on the carpet... Wow, you just went crazy!

You assumed that you were doing just the one experiment, did you, Holly?

And you were going to get it right first time out of the gate?

-Right, Jason, what are you going to do?

-I've got all sorts here.

-OK.

-I think there's some... Is that soda water?

Er...yes, that's...

-Water, maybe a bit of salt.

-Yes? OK, you were doing...

KLAXON BLARES

-But not salt?

-Not salt.

Salt will absorb the wine initially, but it's also a fixative,

so unless you manage to get all the salt out,

it is possible that what you're actually doing

is making the stain permanent.

Well, this is... This is doing a good job.

-So, the tip is, blot it...

-I can't open the vinegar.

So, again, the vinegar, frankly no better than water,

and extremely expensive.

-What's this, then?

-No better than water!

It's also acidic, so it's going to possibly discolour the cloth.

It's going through the desk! It's going through the desk!

Argh, it's like Alien!

-So the tip is...

-Get Ripley!

The tip is to... Oh, no.

LAUGHTER

Well, that's put that fire out.

-That didn't work, Sandi.

-That didn't work, no.

What you need to do is blot it with kitchen paper.

I was going to take this notebook home.

Well, that's sorted that out, that's...

Don't spill your wine, that's the moral of the story.

That's the trick.

But actually, the answer is, you blot it with kitchen paper,

and all you need is tap water, not sparkling water.

-Why not sparkling water?

-Cos it's fizzy?

Cos it's really expensive!

Oh, it's stupidly expensive.

It's really stupidly expensive.

What have you done? You've made a mess.

-We haven't done nothing.

-Underneath. Let me see.

How do you get, erm...

wine off expensive electrical equipment?

LAUGHTER

Well, I have to say, Sandi, that's bollocks,

cos that hasn't worked, either.

-One year...

-Yes.

-..when I was a student, we had paper decorations.

And then we had brandy on the cake and the paper caught fire

and then it went...

HE BLOWS

Across the whole room and then flaming decorations started...

And then someone threw brandy on it to put it out

and it went...whoom!

And then suddenly we realised this was an actual fire.

And my mate got up and put Burning Down The House by Talking Heads on.

-Shanthi, what would you do, darling?

-Washing-up liquid.

-Washing-up liquid?

-Oh, controversial!

OK.

-Yeah, but it's not...

-Any particular brand?

-But not wasting white wine, am I right?

-No. No, I won't.

We just move furniture...

-Sod it, let's move the couch.

-Put a rug on it.

"Why's the telly behind the sofa?"

"Don't worry about it."

-I'll tell you what we did one year, actually...

-Yeah?

..is spilt a bit of red wine, then took one of the dead budgies,

made it look like a murder scene.

The bird died because somebody fell on the cage, I remember.

Did somebody fall on the cage?

Yeah, they were drunk, isn't it?

That's why it died.

It's not me!

-JASON:

-Can I just say, the bird didn't die, the bird was murdered.

Yeah.

I've also got dead budgies in my life.

We had two blue budgies, one called Manchester

and one called City.

When I was a kid. And what happened was...

The door was open and it had gone for it, flown out

and it broke its leg.

ALL GASP

So we managed to... My dad, with two little matchsticks, managed

to make a little splint and put it back in its cage, honestly...

Back in its cage!

This is such rubbish, man!

-Made a little splint?!

-A little splint for its leg, right,

and then put it back in its cage but obviously it couldn't stand

on its perch anymore, so we had to just leave it on the

-bottom of the cage...

-In agony.

It was sort of fine, it had stopped whistling, you know, but...

Did it have crutches as well?

No, no, don't be ridiculous!

LAUGHTER

One afternoon, my mum came in from work

and it had toppled into its water bowl and drowned.

ALL GROAN

Just a little splint sticking up out of the bowl.

And a very merry Christmas to you all.

Yes, the only thing worse than spilling red wine

is wasting good white wine trying to clean it up.

And with that, we come to the end of the show,

so let's have a look at the scores.

Oh, my goodness, it's a Christmas miracle -

everybody came first equal!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Thanks to Holly, Jason, Romesh and Alan.

But before we go, I've got one last Christmas present.

I absolutely love Christmas singing,

so I wonder if there is anyone in the audience

who's a member of a choir?

-What?!

-Wow!

OK. Put your hands up,

how many of you know We Wish You A Merry Christmas?

OK. So here is my gift to you - the QI audience choir,

conducted by Neville Creed.

# We wish you a merry Christmas We wish you a merry Christmas

# We wish you a merry Christmas And a happy New Year

# Good tidings we bring To you and your kin

# We wish you a merry Christmas And a happy New Year

# Now bring us some figgy pudding Now bring us some figgy pudding

# Now bring us some figgy pudding And bring some out here

# Good tidings we bring To you and your kin

# We wish you a merry Christmas And a happy New Year

# We all like figgy pudding We all like figgy pudding

# We all like figgy pudding So bring some out here

# Good tidings we bring To you and your kin

# We wish you a merry Christmas And a happy New Year

# And we won't go until we've had some

# We won't go until we've had some

# We won't go until we've had some So bring some out here

# Good tidings we bring To you and your kin

# We wish you a merry Christmas And a happy New Year

# A happy new year

# We wish you a merry Christmas And a happy New Year. #

APPLAUSE

ALL: Merry Christmas!