Holidays QI

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Oh! Hi-de-hi-de-hi-de- hi-de-hi-de-hi-de-hi-de-hi,

and welcome to QI. We're off on our H for holidays this evening,

leaving behind Hertford, Hereford and Hampshire

in favour of Hong Kong, Honduras and Hawaii.

Hitching a ride along the way are the globetrotting Rich Hall!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

The jet-setting Rob Brydon.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

The wanderlusty Bill Bailey!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And the itchy-footed Alan Davies.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Now, before we set off, let's hear a bit of world music. Rich goes...

BANJOS PLAY

Lovely. Rob goes...

HARP PLAYS

Ah, I suppose it's a Welsh harp, probably.

Bill goes...

MORRIS DANCE MUSIC

LAUGHTER

Aw, and Alan goes...

TIN WHISTLE JIG

LAUGHTER

Ah, tremendous.

Right, now, settle down.

The holidays are over and it's time to hand in our homework.

I've been rather fed up with basically having to say things

that are quite interesting to you and I thought it was time

-that you said things to me that are quite interesting.

-Right.

I want you to interest me. I have sent you all off on your holidays,

as you will remember, not at the expense of the BBC,

at my own personal expense I have sent you.

So there's a special prize of a half day holiday if you can report

on the most interesting thing in the country that I've sent you to visit.

Rob, you should start. Where did I send you, where did you go?

-You sent me to Hungary.

-Hungary.

Because it had to begin with an H.

Had to begin with an H, that was the fiendish plan.

Very fiendishly clever. And I went to Hungary, Stephen.

-Were they wearing trousers as tight as that?

-They...

-LAUGHTER

-I was, interestingly enough.

-You did?

-Good.

-I wore trousers very much like that,

with the long sock, of course.

-Ooh!

-LAUGHTER

-I went...

-We know about your long socks, woah!

-Don't we just.

-I went to Hungary and I'll tell you what I brought back for you.

-Yes.

-Curious. Interesting. What am I showing you?

-No gloves?

-No gloves. Jazz hands?

-I know, you're a really bad glove puppet.

LAUGHTER

Glove puppeteer who really has lost the plot.

-Yeah. Naked glove puppetry.

-No, no. Very clean hands.

-Oh, clean hands and Hungary?

-Yes.

Have they jumped up in the corruption tables? Is that a euphemistic thing?

-No, it's very literal. Very literal.

-Ooh!

-They don't wipe their bums?

-Oh!

-Then they wouldn't be clean.

-I don't think there's a need for that, Alan.

Obsessively washing... OCD.

I do think there's a need to wipe your bottom. What I was saying

is I don't think there's a need for you to say "wiping bottoms".

No, clean pair of hands. Think, if you will, of medicine for a moment.

Where might I be going with this? Medicine?

-The operation is very helpful.

-Surgeons.

The importance of surgeons having clean hands...

-Scrubbing up, they call it.

-Thank you, Stephen.

-Scrubbing up, as Stephen says, yes. That's it, opening doors and taps.

-Doing the taps like that.

Before you know it you've got a Eurovision act, haven't you?

-Especially if you've got these on!

-For a long time they didn't realise,

doctors and surgeons didn't realise that it was actually very important

to wash your hands before you operate,

cos they weren't aware of the transference of germs.

It was Ignaz Semmelweis, the Hungarian.

He came up with this theory,

because he was at the Vienna Infirmary, you see...

-I've never sounded this knowledgeable on this show.

-It's very impressive!

-He started this whole idea of the important of cleanliness and hygiene.

-You're absolutely right.

There is a museum in Budapest, to which I have been,

called the Semmelweis Museum, which is where he lived.

He died in poverty and insanity, in fact. I think he died in an insane asylum.

-No-one recognised the absolute truth of what he said.

-So excessively clean hands actually drive you mad.

Well, no, what drives you mad is telling you truth and having nobody believe you.

Doctors couldn't face the fact that he was basically saying that

the thousands and thousands of deaths that took place in hospitals

were probably the fault of doctors.

-It implied they were a little unclean.

-Yes, exactly.

What else has Hungary given us?

-Goulash.

-Goulash. What does goulash mean, do you know?

Goulash means stew of some kind.

-LAUGHTER

-In Hungarian it actually means...

HARP PLAYS

It actually means cowboy.

-I learned this...

-Cowboy?

-Cowboy.

-Cowboy, you're right.

-Ride 'em, Goulash.

It's quite seductive when you press that harp button,

-it's like we're going back in time.

-Yes!

Well, tell us, Rob.

HARP PLAYS Tell us, tell us...

LAUGHTER

-It's 1974 and Goulash means cowboy.

-You're quite right.

-Rubik's Cube, of course, also comes from...

-Yes!

Erno Rubik was a Hungarian. What do they drink in Hungary?

-They drink...

-Bull's blood.

Bull's blood, you're right, and bull's blood was responsible

for one invention which was not credited.

They very word tells you who we think invented it. Pasteurisation.

It was not Louis Pasteur who first thought of that,

it was an Hungarian, but he wrote a paper on it that was in Hungarian

and nobody else in the world read it.

Because it's a very, you know, almost a unique language.

The other thing that Hungary is famous for is Laszlo Biro.

-The ball point pen.

-He actually, he also invented the automatic gearbox.

Yes, he sold it to the Ford Motor Company, didn't he?

-That's right. Biro.

-There's a lot more to Hungary than meets the eye,

so why not visit when you get the chance.

Hungary, there's so much going on.

-My grandfather was born in Hungary.

-Really?

He used to say a Hungarian is the only man who can follow you

into a revolving door and come out first.

Isn't there something about the language that is uniquely odd?

Well, it's unlike almost all European languages.

But it's related to a language that's miles away?

-Finnish. Finnish and Estonian.

-Suomi?

Suomi, yes, the Finnish language.

I thought you said, "You owe me."

You owe me that, yeah!

When you say Finnish, do you mean the people or the dishwasher tablets?

-That's got a language all its own, hasn't it?

-It is, you're so right.

-I prefer the liquid.

-Powerball. You get all the Powerballs out...

-Yeah.

You can sell them to teenagers at a disco for ten quid.

APPLAUSE

-Powerball.

-Wow!

They don't get high but their insides are fantastically clean.

Yes, absolutely!

-Wow.

-Yeah, when they go to the toilets they clean them.

LAUGHTER

Well done, Rob. That's excellent, I'm going to give you a lot of points for that!

APPLAUSE

Yup, Rob went to Hungary where they invented washing your hands,

pasteurisation, the Rubik's Cube, which you mentioned, and, arguably,

the word hello, did you know that?

-Because of the telephone.

-Yes.

-Edison's...

-One of his assistants.

-Went "hallom".

-Hallom.

-Hallom. Hallom.

Hallom. Means "I can hear you", in I hear you.

-I'm not so sure, I think that sounds a bit fanciful to me.

-Yes.

-Not what it means, but the fact it then bastardised...

-Caused us to use the word hello on the phone.

-I'm not buying that.

-OK.

-Which is why I didn't bring it up.

Yeah, fair enough.

-I used to collect stamps for about six months when I was 11.

-Mm.

-And you could send off for packets of stamps.

-Yes, I remember that.

About 40p, or something. You would get lots and lots of...

Triangular ones and strange shapes.

-I called Magyar stamps but apparently they're...

-"Modjur".

Those ones. You'd always get loads of those.

They must have printed a lot of stamps,

or no-one was sending any letters there, or...

I collected stamps for a very brief period, like you,

I was in my early teens, and I gave it up. I thought to myself,

"Philately will get me nowhere."

AUDIENCE GROAN

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Rob, press this!

Go back in time!

HARP PLAYS

I collected stamps for a period when I was an early teenager. I loved it.

Yes, good, isn't it?

APPLAUSE

Phew!

Well done, well done.

Good news.

Hungary, great success, lots of points. Bill, where did I send you?

Well, I went to the Kingdom of Bhutan.

Which is in the Himalayas.

It's actually the only country in the world which is a carbon sink.

Which means that it actually absorbs more CO2 than it actually gives out.

-So the greenest country on Earth?

-It's the greenest country on Earth.

It's written into the constitution

that the forest area of Bhutan shall never dip below 60%.

-Wow.

-And the cows are not allowed to fart.

-No.

LAUGHTER It's a Buddhist country,

and the national sports are archery and darts.

But not darts as we know it. Jocky Wilson style, many lagers

and shouting.

They're huge, they're quite big darts. Quite lethal.

That's the archery. That's the big dart he's chucking.

-It's obviously miles away. It's not like the oche.

-Yes.

Or he's rubbish at it.

Yes... It's not a target, it's actually a hunting skill.

He's trying to bring down a seagull there.

A beautiful, green country. And its main export is hydroelectric power.

So it's even exporting renewable energy.

So it's a wonderful paradise.

The general state of Bhutan is measured not in money,

but in happiness.

-Oh!

-It's sort of their equivalent of currency.

It's gorgeous.

Well, I have to say, Bill, that is fantastic.

It makes me want to go there, I've never been. Thank you!

Bill Bailey and Bhutan.

APPLAUSE

Yeah.

-Yes?

-Can I take this off? I'm getting a rash.

-OK.

-Thank you. I'm allergic to souvenirs.

Anyway, Bill Bailey was in Bhutan

where they have the world's only carbon sink.

Dance is the national sport and they pursue Gross National Happiness

-by painting huge phalluses on them.

-I have been to Hawaii.

-Hey!

-Yeah.

-What can you tell us... Aloha!

OK, I'll tell you many interesting things about Hawaii.

It was discovered by Captain Cook after he discovered Sydney Harbour.

And then moved to New Zealand, met very friendly people

and he got to Hawaii and they ate him.

It's true, isn't it?

Yeah, very happy...

..cannibals.

-I have here an outrigger canoe.

-Oh, yeah. I've been on one of those.

This part keeps it afloat, the outrigger part.

You tear through the waves, when you come back you ride the waves.

-Basically, it's surfing.

-Yeah.

This wood is called wiliwili.

-Excuse me?

-Which means...wili twice.

Because Hawaiians like to repeat stuff a lot.

-Yes!

-They only have 12 letters, so...

I know a word beginning with W they repeat that is one we use a lot

-on the internet.

-Wikipedia.

-Wikipedia. Wiki is...

Wikiwiki means quick quick. There's also a word...

-If you can't think of a word in Hawaii just say "Da kine".

-Right.

That means any word you can't think of.

It's a fantastic way of communicating.

-The majority of land is owned by the Doyle pineapple company.

-Dole.

-Dole.

-Yeah, Dole.

I thought they'd sold out, cos I was there a year and a half ago,

and they'd closed down some of the pineapple plantations.

-They bought it back.

-Oh, have they?

-Just after you left.

-And the highest mountain on the planet is in Hawaii.

-Yes!

Why do we say it's higher than Everest?

Because the island of Maui is actually...

The mountain itself is called Mauna Loa. And from the...

-If you count from the base...

-It is the highest mountain in the world.

Excellent. Surfing, what can you tell us about surfing?

Surfing was invented by the Polynesians.

I've never surfed... You may be surprised to know.

-I've seen some surfing moves.

-You've crowd surfed!

-At Blackadder recordings.

-Oh, yes, naturally.

There was a mosh pit there.

It's really, really hard. I surfed when I was younger.

It's very hard to get out behind the waves, so that you catch 'em.

It's very tiring. I took some lessons in Bondi in Australia,

the getting up is very hard.

You know, that chap seems to have got the hang of it.

Then when the moment comes, you've got to hop up in a fluid motion.

-I go surfing in Devon.

-Do you?

-It's great.

-Oh, right.

-In the winter, it's hardcore, surfing.

You have to wear a wetsuit, hood, gloves,

-you know, the whole bit.

-Overcoat.

Sometimes. Sometimes you're in up to your waist.

So how good are you? Could you do something like that?

Oh, yeah.

Seriously, though, can you do it?

I've got up on the board.

That's more than most of us can do.

It's very hard to get up on the board.

I stood on the board and I was so excited about it,

I immediately fell off.

I went, "Look..." Oh.

Have you done it, Alan?

I've been on those boogie board things,

-where you go on your tummy.

-Nah...

It's good fun.

In Australia, I couldn't, like Rich was saying,

I couldn't get past the waves.

We did a bit of splashing and got a bit tired.

They get a guy on a jet ski to tow you out. That's the way to do it.

Well, wonderful. Thank you, Rich Hall, with your gems on Hawaii.

APPLAUSE

Now, unfortunately, Alan didn't get a holiday this year

because, well, he was in detention,

-but well done, everybody else.

-APPLAUSE

Let's get hydrographical.

How would you like to spend two weeks lying on a pile

of parrotfish droppings,

covered in phenylbenzimidazole sulfonic acid?

-Does that sound like a good...

-Is that sun cream?

Oh, very good. Excellent.

APPLAUSE

So that may not be such a bad thing after all.

-That's lying on a beach covered in sun cream.

-Yes.

Parrotfish droppings is a special kind of beach,

-the kind we most like.

-White sand?

Soft, white, coral island sand is parrotfish droppings.

It's called a parrotfish because it has a beak like a parrot's

and it scrapes away and eats at coral.

And it excretes this white sand.

And each fish will excrete over a ton of it in a year.

-Good work.

-And lots of them.

That builds up as the white soft sand that is the particularly prized sand

of such a beautiful island as that, for example.

Each fish excretes a ton of...

What?!

-A little parrotfish like that?

-Yeah.

Every single day, it's eating it, a ton a year.

I suppose, if you're constantly processing.

How much does your average man excrete in a year?

I don't know why I'm looking at you. Why would you know?

I'm afraid I don't.

Your classical education has failed you again.

Stephen'd knock that up in an afternoon.

The average man will excrete the Isle of Sheppey.

By lunchtime.

And the sun cream?

What's the maximum sun protection factor, the SPF...?

-50, isn't it?

-50, yes. What does it mean when it's SPF 50?

You can stay 50 times as long in the sun as you would do

if, say, for example,

the sun was so hot, you were going to burn in one minute,

-if you put that on, you can stay 50 minutes.

-That's right.

Or if you put it on in England, you can stay for a lifetime.

Well, well done. There we were, somehow, talking about sand,

and coral, and how lovely it all was.

Sand of coral beaches is made from the excrement of parrotfish.

Now what was the largest steam engine of all time used for?

I know that one.

BUZZER

The SS Great Britain.

No. Again places beginning with H.

-Oh... A HUGE boat.

-Holland.

-Holland.

I said Holland before! LAUGHTER

-Will it be reclaiming land?

-Yeah, you're absolutely right.

-Tugging the sea back.

-Exactly.

Reclaiming land. The Polder Land they call it

-in Holland. Some might say that the Haarlemmermeer...

-Yeah.

..is the largest man-made structure, if you can call it man-made, on earth.

It's obviously nature, but... Schiphol Airport is on reclaimed land.

First to go when the old Polar Cap melts.

-Blub, blub...

-I'm afraid it will have a...

-Yeah.

It's a constant battle against nature.

Schiphol. Crazy place.

Yeah, I went through Schiphol Airport and I had a guitar with me

and the bloke said, "What is in the case please?"

I went, "Here we go. Anything to do with drugs."

I opened up and I went, "It's a guitar. It's a guitar."

They're so cool. The guy's there, I went, "It's a guitar".

He went, "That's no guitar, that's a Gibson 71 with a flying pickup!"

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

-Oh that's funny.

-So I went, "You guys, you guys are cool, yeah?"

"Hey let's jam a little bit."

"No, I've got to go. You're weird!"

LAUGHTER

-"Get off!"

-Charming English friendliness!

"Hey, we have an amplifier system in the Customs Office. Come on, guys!"

The Dutch indeed reclaimed a lot of their land because it's low lying, it's the Low Countries.

They're called that not by accident.

One of the flattest places in the world, Holland. Very, very flat.

Yes.

All of which aimless rambling brings us to the tourist trap of general ignorance.

So fingers on buzzers if you please.

Which country contains the most of the River Nile?

BUZZER

-Egypt.

-Oh!

-HOOTER AND BELL

-Anybody else?

-Is it Uganda?

Not... It is... The Nile does go through Uganda, but that's not the most of it.

-Most of the River Nile is in...

-Chad.

-No.

-Belgium.

LAUGHTER

-You're groping.

-Buying time, I'm buying time. Romania.

-Djibouti.

-Sudan is the right answer.

If you look at a map you will see it is massively the most.

It is the largest country in Africa.

Look how much of the Nile goes through Sudan.

It nearly decides to come back again.

It does. It goes up and then back down again all the way through to Uganda.

So why...? Does Egypt have the sponsorship deal?

Like when Pepsi sponsor The Rolling Stones. Is there some kind of...?

It's the fertility from the delta down through there.

-Is a lot of Sudan desert?

-Yeah.

-Pretty much I fear.

-OK.

But it's huge. It is the biggest country in Africa, Sudan, in fact.

-But the bottom is called...?

-Lake Victoria.

-Victoria, yes.

And where is the source of the Nile?

-It's not the um...

-It's Rwanda, in fact, though it was thought to be

where it ends in Uganda -

the green one there. Jinja, the north of Lake Victoria.

-The source of The Nile is Rwanda.

-It's now determined to be Rwanda.

A bit controversial because it goes into the Lake and out the other side.

But apparently that's what riverologists, as it were, now claim.

So we're currently now,

not giving too much away, in a studio in London.

Where is the nearest piece of American soil to us here?

Grosvenor Square?

-No!

-HOOTER AND BELL

A pity, but the fact is that most people wrongly think...

You're right that the American Embassy is in Grosvenor Square - at the moment.

They're about to move it. But an embassy is not considered the sovereign soil of the nation

whose embassy it is. It belongs to Britain, the soil there. It's not American soil. This is a myth,

this idea that the moment you step foot you're on American soil.

They wanted to buy the lease. Who owns Grosvenor Square?

The Duke Of Westminster I expect.

The Grosvenor family, yeah, the Duke Of Westminster.

They asked for the freehold, and do you know what he said?

He said, "Yes, if you give my family back the State Of Virginia which you confiscated from us...

LAUGHTER

-So...

-Yeah!

-..they decided not to.

-Um...

-Good work, the Duke Of Westminster. I like him already.

-Very funny.

But there IS American soil in Britain. The nearest to us is in Surrey.

It's a tiny area. It's a memorial,

a place in Surry famous for an extraordinary British event in 1215.

-Do you know what that is?

-The signing of the Magna Carta.

BILL BAILEY: I know where it is. BUZZER

-Runnymede.

-Runnymede.

-Runnymede?

-Yes.

-But what is the memorial in Runnymede?

-There's a JFK memorial.

-It's the memorial to John F Kennedy.

-I've been there. I've been there.

-Yeah!

And it's deliberately this sort of isometric, or whatever the word is, asymmetric steps,

higgledy-piggledy, to suggest a journey of pilgrimage towards him

and it is officially American soil. Anyway, what might

land on your head if you live under a flight path?

I know what you get if you sit under a cow.

LAUGHTER

-Right.

-A pat on the head!

-Heyyy!

Very nice.

Urine, frozen urine.

-Frozen urine.

-HOOTER AND BELL

Nay! No! That won't happen.

They do not jettison their pooh or their pee.

-Is this the blue ice?

-I think that's loo water that's frozen.

But it just doesn't happen. It's completely sealed in.

-Is it pollution?

-You might get ordinary ice from the wings because...

-Wings, yeah.

-From the engines and the wings, but you will not get pooh or pee water,

-but some trains still however do, just when you flush...

-Do they?

-..it goes onto the track.

-Is that why they say don't do it

while waiting in the station?

I thought that was because they might be changing the barrel.

Like in a pub with beer? Goodness me! What a thought.

Taking a barrel out at Crewe.

So aeroplanes don't dump their waste while in flight.

If some ice falls off a plane it probably came from the wings.

Which country has the lowest age of consent in Europe?

Kazakhstan.

In Europe. In Europe.

BUZZER

-Holland.

-No. Not Holland.

-Is it a H?

-No, it's not.

Well there's... The person who runs it is a double H.

-Oh, er, Holiness?

-Yes!

-His Holiness?

-Yes.

-The Vatican.

-The Vatican City

has the lowest age of consent. Age of 12 is the age of consent in the Vatican City.

-Gasp!

-Yes, quite!

-12?

-It's for peculiar reasons.

-It's because...

-I think we know what the reasons are, Stephen.

LAUGHTER

It's to do with the Lateran Treaty in which the Vatican City became a sort of sovereign state.

So they elected to choose the laws of Italy from 1924

and it so happened that then Italy

changed its consent from 12 to 16

and the Vatican didn't and they've never bothered to change it since.

It also has the highest crime rate.

Yeah. By a long way as I... What would you say its population is?

Five.

LAUGHTER

-Five... I'd say 800.

-500 is the answer.

-Yes.

-500, but there are 600 offences per year.

-What sort of offences?

-Well.

-Family. A really bad family.

They've got tyres out in the front drive.

If you knock on the door they knock you out.

Proportionately, per capita, it has the highest rate in the world.

-A lot of 11 year-olds getting married.

-That's what it is exactly.

But it has the most helipads and TV stations per capita in the world as well.

-It's a strange place.

-Nuts.

-Yeah.

The Vatican City has the lowest age of consent and the highest crime

rate anywhere in Europe.

But alas our holiday romance is nearly over. Let's see who's scored.

Uh. Ah! We have a clear winner.

A clear winner with plus seven it's Rob Brydon!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

APPLAUSE DROWNS SPEECH

And...only 12 points behind on minus five, Rich Hall.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

In third place on minus 22, Bill Bailey.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And with minus 28 is Alan Davies.

APPLAUSE DROWNS SPEECH

So all that's left for me to do is to thank Rich, Rob,

Bill and of course Alan, and I leave you with this.

The extremely fragile jazz singer Billie Holiday said,

"Mom and Pop were just a couple of kids when they got married.

"He was 18, she was 16, and I was three."

Goodnight.

APPLAUSE

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd