This programme contains some strong language.
APPLAUSE
CHEERING AND WHISTLING
Good evening. Merry Christmas and welcome to QI,
where we are walking in a winter wonderland.
Let's meet our windswept wanderers.
Driving home for Christmas, it's Julian Clary.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Dashing through the snow, it's Fatiha El-Ghorri.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Jingling all the way, it's Jimmy Carr.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Jingling!
And the reindeer in the headlights, it's Alan Davies.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Let's hear their wintry buzzers.
Julian goes...
# Snow is falling
# All around me... #
Fatiha goes...
# Frosty the snowman... #
I was ready for a bit more, I thought.
That's a bit tight. It's Christmas. Hello?
Yeah.
Jimmy goes...
# Let it snow, let it snow Let it snow. #
And Alan goes...
# Why does it always rain on me? #
Right. Let's start by looking under your desks.
I have some Christmas presents for you all.
Uh, Sandi? Yes. What?
Each year... Yeah? ..you give us presents.
I do, yeah. And this year, I have a present for you.
Oh, OK.
Applause, please.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
This is from all of us. OK.
And who...who wrapped it?
Don't worry about the wrapping.
The wrapping is fine. Right.
Why am I likely to be delighted by this gift
exactly the way it's been presented?
That looks like a child has wrapped it.
And so it may be from...
LAUGHTER
..from the heart.
Yeah. I never want to get a present
where I have to get an implement to open it.
Yeah, if you've got to get scissors out.
If you've got to get a penknife or something to get into it,
I don't like that.
This is better.
You could actually probably blow on it and it would open.
I think you're probably right.
So there was an American writer called Drucella Lowrie,
and she wrote a book called The Art Of Wrapping Gifts, right?
And she said that a sloppily wrapped package indicates poor taste
and indifference or lack of skill.
But there was a study done in 2019, at the University of Nevada,
and they found the opposite.
People actually react rather better to a poorly wrapped present
because they have a much lower expectation of what's inside.
LAUGHTER
I don't like getting gifts. Do you not? Why? No,
because people then expect gratitude and I rarely feel any.
Keep your gift.
Do you prefer to give or receive? Give.
Can we just clip that and put it on TikTok?
I'm going to see what it is, and...
Did you choose it yourself?
Yeah. OK. Jimmy helped.
SHE GASPS Oh, look!
It's a waffle iron.
That's so lovely. There you go.
I love that. Thank you.
APPLAUSE
That's...
So this effect of responding better to poorly wrapped presents,
it's true if you get it from a stranger,
or if you get it from a close friend, right?
Where we don't like a poorly wrapped present
is when it's from an acquaintance.
Oh. I'm trying to shake off acquaintances.
You're either in or you're out.
Yeah, exactly. Isn't that right, Julian?
It is.
That's the spirit.
I think that'll run all evening, don't you?
Well, I'm sure there's an ointment for it.
But if it's an acquaintance,
apparently people prefer it to be neatly wrapped,
because then they feel that person has taken some time about it.
When they say to you in the store, "Would you like that wrapped?"
should you say yes or no?
I sometimes think that really shows that you don't give a toss.
Yeah, if you get somebody else to do it. It really does.
If you just get them to do a... HE WHOOSHES
..with the scissors and a ribbon.
If someone gives you a poorly wrapped present... Yeah.
..then that means you can give them a poorly wrapped present,
so I don't mind. Yeah.
Or you can just wrap it up the same again and give it back.
Or sometimes what I do is throw it in the bin
and then they come and visit me,
and then I go, can you put this in the bin, please?
And then they see their present. Then they know it's shit.
Oh. LAUGHTER
My mother once gave me the ugliest kitchen clock I've ever seen
in my whole life.
Anyway, Terry Wogan, in those days, doing the Wogan show,
and he asked for ugly things you'd received
that they could sell off for Children In Need as a joke, right?
So I sent this clock in.
One evening, my mother's there, she says, "Let's watch the Wogan show."
And then the thing comes on and I can see the clock in front of him,
and I pretended I was having a seizure.
Anyway, I did receive an absolutely fantastic gift,
which I want to show you.
So I just want to handle this very, very carefully.
I'm just going to bring... These gloves are...
Are you going to give me an enema?
So, look at this marvellous box that we've got here.
And when I open it up inside,
this is a saint's relic.
OK? This is St Wulfstan.
You'll like this - patron saint of vegetarians and peasants.
It looks like a chicken bone. It does. OK.
It is a chicken bone from one of the researchers' lunches today.
It is.
What I was trying to prove is what they call the reliquary effect.
So if you show a random bone
and you put it in a marvellous reliquary case,
people will think it is much more valuable than it is,
if it's just a chicken bone, which is in fact what it was.
That's a bit like, you know, when I wear make-up?
Yeah.
Well, there was a time when perfectly ordinary brown paper was used.
I'm going to put my relic away.
Brown paper was used a lot in shops to wrap presents.
1910s, paper commonly used in American grocery stores,
and then newspapers started to write editorials against the practice.
So why might that be? 1910s.
Where are we heading for 1910?
The war?
World War I. You need paper. It's essential for war.
And it was becoming increasingly expensive.
And I think they thought if you could reduce demand by trying
to get people to stop having their things wrapped...
Nevertheless, in this country,
each year we use 227,000 miles of wrapping paper, which is...
AUDIENCE MURMURS Oh, good little murmur there.
It's enough wrapping paper to go around the earth nine times.
The amount of card used in Christmas cards every year
could stretch between London and Lapland over a hundred times.
I mean, it's a lot of paper that we... Yeah.
And most of it can't be recycled. No.
I don't know, with the Christmas card thing,
I don't know what the etiquette is meant to be.
I'm the same with birthday cards.
How long are you meant to keep it?
Are you meant to read it and pop it straight in the bin or...?
I like the ones where people have done the photo themselves.
And I love a round robin.
Oh, a round robin!
"We were very pleased that the footings
"for the conservatory have gone in."
Wow!
Just tells you that they've buried a relative.
"We've got a new patio."
Now, my uncle is a proper tight prick, yeah?
I swear down, one day on my birthday,
I got a card and I'd opened it
and he Tippexed out "Happy Christmas"
and put "Happy Birthday".
And there was a robin on the front.
I was like, "We're Muslim, for God's sake!
"What are you doing?!"
I quite like that.
I like to go and buy, like, a happy retirement card for a sixth birthday.
My gran would do that.
She would get a card and tear it in half and give you the picture bit,
and just written on the back,
and claimed that it was because during the war
you had to be frugal. Right.
I said, "It's 1976, Gran."
But why can't you recycle most Christmas cards?
Tinsel?
Yeah, it's all the glitter and all the extra bits and pieces.
There's metallic materials, shiny laminates,
and that kind of thing, so...
Do you know? There's a trend happening at the minute, yeah...
Probably not.
What women are doing, and girls,
are, like, spraying themselves with glitter. Yeah?
And then if your man's cheating, you'll find glitter on him.
And then, you know, it's not you, and you know he's cheating,
and then you bust his arse up. Wow.
So, you're spraying yourself in glitter,
and then if he's cheating, you'll know.
What? Because... She'll know.
The other woman will know.
Oh!
JULIAN: Does it not cause chafing?
I don't think that's the main worry, Julian.
Right, that's Christmas wrapping all tied up with a bow.
But I do have presents for all of you as well.
If you would look underneath your desks, please.
I've gone with a sort of theme of wellness with these.
So, Alan, why don't we start with you?
It's easy to undo, you see?
I know, yeah. Easy to undo.
Nice bit of ribbon.
LAUGHTER
Beads. Yeah,
so why might you give beads to somebody?
Cos... LAUGHTER
..cos you don't really like them.
Because you're obligated.
Cos you work with them and you have to think of something.
Cos these were at the back of your drawer!
So what I can tell you is that all of your gifts
are from early Christmas adverts.
So yours was first advertised in 1728,
and it's called an anodyne necklace.
Actually, this advert for it is from 1756,
a little tiny bit later on.
So, this is the weirdest thing -
these necklaces contained a poisonous plant called henbane,
which was also known as stinking nightshade.
LAUGHTER
It was meant to help children with teething pain.
At this time, one in three children
in England would not expect to reach their fifth birthday,
and teething pain was seen as a sort of sign of something
much more serious and possibly something fatal.
So they claimed that if you wore one of these anodyne necklaces,
curative substances would flow from it into the skin,
up into the mouth and so on.
You didn't have to chew on it,
which was just as well,
because it is actually a poison.
But it did seem to work
even though there's no medical reason for it.
Why do you think it might have worked?
They were quite expensive. There's five shillings for one.
It's one of those things where you tell people it's going
to be good for you, and then it works.
I think it is partly that, Julian,
but also it is the fact that infant mortality rates
were lower amongst rich people,
and it was only rich people who were able to buy them. Oh...
We used to give the kids Bickiepegs.
What, for their teething?
For their teething.
And then I don't know what it was.
And they're going, "Om-nom-nom-nom..."
And it would sort of gradually get smaller and smaller,
like a dog biscuit,
like a good dog biscuit that lasts, you know? Yeah.
Sounds like you're giving the kids dog biscuits. Yeah.
I know what you're talking about. It's like cork, innit?
That's a good idea, though.
Have a bottle of wine and give the children the cork.
But rich people like Augusta, Princess of Wales,
her daughter, Queen Caroline of Denmark and Norway,
who's the one on the left there...
In very small quantities,
this particular thing, henbane, that was in it,
it is a mild sedative.
If you have more than three grams,
it can cause constipation,
manic episodes, hallucinations, and possible death.
Is this a replica or...?
Yes, darling. We also didn't want to kill Alan.
I mean, today. Not till the Z series.
Don't miss that episode.
We are going to need a big finish, so...
Right, Julian, do you want to open yours, darling?
Ah. Have you pushed the boat out?
This is from a Christmas ad from 1825.
Oh! What is it?
It's Macassar oil.
So, do you know about Macassar oil?
Oh, I'm sure you're going to tell me.
LAUGHTER
Have you heard of antimacassars, darling?
Antimacassar, yes. What does that mean?
It was a sort of a piece of cloth that sat on the back of the train.
Oh, I thought it was a band from Camden Town.
It is quite a good name for a band, isn't it?
It doesn't smell.
Is that because you would have had oily...
People wouldn't wash their hair?
It's to stop the oil from the back of your head
going onto the train seat,
and it's called an antimacassar.
Macassar oil comes originally from the ebony trees in Indonesia,
but this was a much cheaper blend of vegetable oils,
palm oils and coconut.
It's the 19th-century equivalent of hair gel.
"Pure grease is undoubtedly the best nourisher of the hair."
Yeah, it's supposed to be very, very good...
I'll tell my daughter that.
Good luck.
Do you want to apply some? Yes. Go on, then.
Open your hand.
Times I've said that!
ALAN HOOTS Now, there you are.
But you have to follow it by saying, "Here's some oil."
Right, go on, then. It's a lovely colour.
What is the...?
Honestly! You've got to run your fingers through it.
You have to do... The thing is, Sandi,
what will happen if I do that is,
we'll stop the show,
and the make-up department will come on,
really fucked off.
LAUGHTER
You know those people.
Can you imagine the language back there now?
They're watching on the monitor.
"Don't you dare put your fingers through that hair."
"Don't touch your hair. Don't touch your hair."
LAUGHTER
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Quite like it.
Oh, it is whiffy. Does it smell nice?
I thought you said it didn't smell.
Well, I lied.
That's an exchange you've had before.
Right, Jimmy, come on, let's see.
We're five minutes in and you've lubed him up.
OK, you've not pushed the boat out here. This looks tiny.
So again, this is something from the past.
1857. Well, that's some pills of some description.
OK, so these are from Mr Page Woodcock of Lincoln.
So there were two Christmas adverts for wind pills to treat indigestion.
To cure wind, or to give you more?
Well, so it depended on which advert that you had a look at.
So the very first advert claimed that the pills would conjure
"happy festive memories".
So, this is the Christmas advert.
The second was the Boxing Day advert,
which was inspired by A Christmas Carol,
and it said the pills would cure people haunted by
the Christmas ghost of indigestion.
So, if you took them on Christmas Day, made you happy,
if you took them on Boxing Day, got rid of indigestion.
Those are your basic happy pills that we've given you.
Lovely. Yeah.
Should we...smash them up and do a line?
I'm very concerned about those two children
in the hot air balloons,
sent off unaccompanied.
Well, not just that, not dressed.
Are they the ones with the wind?
Is that what we're thinking?
You can still get wind pills.
They're called Wind-eze. Yes, you can, actually.
And I actually promise you that my wife did buy me some for Christmas,
which really, really amused the children.
I said, "Stop listening at the door. Go to another room."
Did it work? I haven't tried them, actually.
Could you? I should, yeah.
I really should. Right, Fatiha, come on.
Yes.
Mine's the biggest one here.
1830s, this one.
This better not be like a gym or some shit like that, yeah?
Oh, no. No, we don't do fitness.
You're fine.
Cos I'll go mad up in here.
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
Merry Christmas!
Can you imagine if...?
I should do that. Should I do a rental service?
Yeah. You can rent me, I'll hide in your toilet,
and then you'll come, and I'll go, "Merry Christmas!"
Christmas advert for a toilet appeared
in several publications in the 1830s.
Was a man called Robert Wiss.
There it is.
And he said it was the perfect gift for Christmas and New Year's.
It's a portable, self-acting water closet.
So it's a kind of commode.
They used to be known as thunderboxes.
Because Alan used to go in there. Ah, well!
So it looks like a cabinet from the outside,
and then when you open it up,
it's got a commode on the inside, a chamber pot.
That is the worst James Bond gadget ever.
What did they do before?
Just had a sort of a bowl under the bed, you know, a pot.
But this had a cistern with stored water,
and you could actually flush the waste out of the pot,
and it went into a concealed hidden bucket,
which was then emptied by the staff.
Discreet. Yes, exactly, exactly.
I mean, you say discreet, portable.
So presumably people would see you in the high street with it.
"What's he doing with that cupboard?"
"He seems to be shitting in it."
During lockdown, because I like to go for a really long walk,
I bought a portable toilet tent and it was...
It was like a big...
ALAN WHEEZES
I did. You didn't do that!
I did. A portable toilet tent? Just completely over you?
Well, no, what it was, it was a pop-up thing.
There was a flat circle, and you just popped it,
and popped up like the size of a telephone booth,
and I thought this was marvellous.
And then you went in...
You have to sing when you're in there in case someone comes along.
Well, darling, it was great,
apart from when it blew over outside...
LAUGHTER
..outside the Tower of London.
LAUGHTER
You come across a tent, wandering around,
always have a little look inside,
because it could be Sandi Toksvig taking a shit.
OK, presents away, please.
What's most dangerous, a lion, a witch or a wardrobe?
Definitely a witch.
KLAXON
It is.
Would a lion be scared of a witch, though?
You could reason with a lion.
LAUGHTER
I would so enjoy that.
That's a show we'd all watch, I think.
"Hi, and welcome to Reason With A Lion."
And the witch, if she's in a good mood,
you could get away with it,
but if a wardrobe fell on you,
then you'd be in trouble.
And that is the correct answer, my darling.
Absolutely right, yes.
So, the wonderful book, The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe by...
CS Lewis.
CS Lewis, dedicated to Lucy Barfield.
And Maud, Lucy's mother, was extremely worried
that children would go looking for Narnia
and get stuck inside a wardrobe,
so he had to put some extra lines of text in.
And every time, you'll notice, in the book,
somebody goes through the wardrobe, he says,
"They took care to leave the door ajar."
CS Lewis does say it's a very silly thing to lock oneself in a wardrobe.
But apparently we are facing an accident crisis.
Britain loses ten times more working days
to domestic accidents than we do to strikes.
So, driving accidents have significantly decreased
in the past 20 years.
But pretty much all other accidents have increased.
Falls are by far the biggest culprit.
Why do you think we might be having more and more falls?
Cos there's more stairs?
Oh, I like that.
We've had a tremendous increase in stairs, yes.
Well, if I have an accident, it's likely to be on the stairs.
Or sometimes I open the fridge door and hit myself on the head.
This is going to be the worst ever episode of Miss Marple.
Well...
It's the ageing population. Oh, it's the old people.
There's that terrible fact about if you break a hip, as well.
You're better off having stage four cancer than a broken hip.
In terms of... Really? Why?
It's in Peter Attia's book on longevity.
If you break a hip, it's very, very bad news.
Why are you reading books on longevity, darling?
I've had a lot of work done.
My face is like Trigger's broom.
Very little of the original's still there.
In 2016 - so, this is according to the National Accident Helpline -
1 in 75 people surveyed had been injured
while shopping in a sales rush.
1 in 50 people reported falling out of the loft
while retrieving Christmas decorations.
1 in 90 people had suffered burns
while roasting chestnuts on an open fire.
1 in 50 had fallen out of the loft?
Yeah, I know. It seems an extraordinarily high number.
Yeah. What do you think is the gift
in recent years that's caused the most accidents?
Knives.
"I bought you a very sharp knife." "Ah!"
Sandwich maker?
Yes, you could trap your finger in the thing.
FATIHA: E-scooters.
Is exactly right, darling.
E-scooter. My nephew's nearly died.
He cut his the back of his ankle, and he cut an artery.
And then, yeah, he nearly died.
Foolish boy!
I mean, 416 people seriously injured in 2023
and 965 slightly injured.
338 fires.
Still a lot more people falling out of the loft, though, isn't there?
What's the worst or most embarrassing accident anybody here has ever had?
Are we counting soiling yourself?
I mean, we are now.
I've got a soiling myself story if you'd like to...
Go for it, darling.
Well, I've told this story before.
I think last time I was on this show, but...
It's so long ago, darling. No. It's in colour now.
Anyway...
But no.
Beat this. I once...
I once shat myself while meeting the Queen.
AUDIENCE GASPS
SHOCKED LAUGHTER
It was a Royal Variety show. Yeah.
And you had to queue up and, you know, she came
and shakes your hand.
And I don't know if it was nerves or I'd had a bit of trouble,
I can't remember.
But it was only a little pellet.
But that's a true story.
Let's hear your soiling yourself...
I can remember doing a little pellet as a child,
and it came out my trouser leg.
Is that what happened to you? Yes.
It shot across the stage...
..in the general direction of Claire Sweeney.
LAUGHTER
JIMMY: This story's got everything.
FATIHA: I've got a poo story.
I was going to tell a story about shaving,
and now you... Are you going to go with the poo?
Yeah, I want to go with the poo. Shaving's too long.
Can I just say to everybody, I don't have a poo story?
This will be the last one.
Oh, I cut my, uh...
..scrotum with a...
Was this at the Royal Variety Performance?
Shaking hands with the Queen
and trying to shave my balls at the same time.
You know how that goes!
I was alone. Sure. It was to do a podcast,
and there was a company, they have lots and lots of podcasts
about football, nearly all by boys and mostly listened to by boys.
Anyway, they started sending these shaving kits around,
giving the shaving kits for shaving your undercarriage with.
And we were all sort of 40s and 50s,
and thought, "What? People are doing what now?"
Anyway, I tried it,
and I cut myself on the scr...
I thought, "This shouldn't be possible."
It's got all this kind of protective thing on it,
but I've got a little bit carried away,
and that's the most embarrassing accident,
and now you've made me say it on the Christmas show.
I'll tell you where you went wrong. You need to stretch the skin.
That's what it is.
You just went like this cos you're lazy.
But you need to stretch the skin.
Trust me, I know. I'm Arab, I know about hair.
Thank you so much for doing mine.
There's not enough room in that bathroom to get that smooth.
You'd need two people, like if you were folding a sheet.
Two people pulling it out
and one other person with a lawnmower!
I can't believe I'm stopping this fascinating conversation
to hear yours about poo. So, yeah,
I was like seven or something,
and then we went on a school trip to a farm,
and I wanted to do a poo,
but the teacher goes, "Go on your own to the toilet."
And I was like, "No,"
so I just shit in my pants.
And then, like, I sat in it,
and I had it in my pants all day,
and all the kids...
Shut up! All the kids...
I wouldn't mess with her.
All the kids were like, "Oh, there's a...
"We can smell poo."
And I was like, "Oh, yeah, I wonder who it is.
"Maybe it's the stinky kid."
And when I got home, my mum put me in the bath,
and it was stuck to my skin.
She had to soak me and then pull it off with a butter knife.
AUDIENCE GROANS Merry Christmas, everyone.
Merry Christmas. Once went on a coach trip,
quite a long coach... Oh, please don't.
And the driver was a huge man.
Really, really big man.
And he pulled over on the hard shoulder,
and he got out of his cab and he made his way down the aisle.
We thought, "What's going on?"
And he went down the stairs into the loo.
And eventually he re-emerged and he said,
"No-one can use the toilet. It's full."
Anybody in the audience want to talk about...?
Now, I've got everybody a bowl of Christmas walnuts.
Can anybody open...?
You know there's that thing where you crush two in your hand and you...
CRUNCHING Oh, I've just done it.
Oh, I don't know my own strength! CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
That's very exciting!
There is a sort of scrotum look of it, isn't there?
It really is. OK. It really is.
HE SIGHS CONTENTEDLY
Yeah, I know the trick.
So what you do is you put one there,
and then you put the other one next to it,
and then you just go...
..like that and then it opens.
Has it happened? Yeah, it will, just...
What do you mean, "It will"? So it hasn't?
Stop flirting with me. OK.
I can't believe I've got to sit next to the stinky kid.
APPLAUSE
The stinky kid, it's a bit like the patsy.
If you don't know who the stinky kid is, it's you.
So... I've done it, by the way. Look. Congratulations.
Yeah, it's a mess, but I've done it.
Now, why is it so hard to find a walnut's anus?
What have I just eaten?
JULIAN: Are they heterosexual? Walnuts?
It depends what kind of walnut we're talking about.
I'm looking at the walnut.
But this is not the kind of walnut, is it?
No, you've done this game before, haven't you?
LAUGHTER
Different kind of walnuts to the ones in front of us...
The walnut bird.
Walnut snake?
No, let's go... Walnut beetle.
Walnut fish.
Walnut whip. The walnut...
It is a creature in the sea,
and they are called sea walnuts.
Look at this. It is so beautiful. Oh, I love those see-through ones.
They're also called warty comb jellies.
It's not a jellyfish.
It's a bit like a jellyfish.
That's not a jellyfish?
No. Yeah, I'm not sure who you're talking to or getting facts from,
but that, my friend, is a jellyfish.
So why isn't it a jellyfish?
I'm telling you it's not. I'm telling you it is. No, well,
the reason that we know it isn't is because it does have an anus.
So if it was a jellyfish, it wouldn't.
But what is extraordinary about them is that these are transient anuses.
What do we think that means?
It moves around.
Well, it's only there for a very short time.
They only create one on a temporary basis when they need to poo.
So when it needs to go,
the digestive system fuses with its skin to form an opening,
it does a poo,
and the opening then closes in a matter of minutes.
And they do this about once an hour,
unless they're a very, very young one,
in which case it's about every ten minutes.
So it is a jellyfish most of the time.
No, it isn't...
You're saying, once an hour it isn't a jellyfish, briefly.
Wonder why they do that, though.
What's in it for them?
What, to do it? Not to have a permanent arsehole.
I think it's that they're not so vulnerable, darling.
I think it's that. It's basically, you know,
it's an exit for them and an entrance for others.
Oh, tell me about it.
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
When you think about it, though, it would be practical if you're on,
I don't know, let's say a school trip, perhaps.
Yeah.
Just create an arsehole, and then gone again.
Just to not have one the whole time,
because, you know, accidents happen.
Quite a long walk to the toilet, maybe I'll just shit myself.
What?
Jellyfish don't have anuses.
They expel their waste through the mouth.
So it's the difference between the two.
How do you know it's its mouth? What's it saying?
I mean, I think people have studied this.
There's a fantastic...
There's an amazing American zoologist called Libbie Hyman.
And it was because she noticed that these particular creatures,
the sea walnuts, have these transient anuses,
that she realised that they were not the same as jellyfish.
I don't even think that's a real person - Libbie Hyman?
Libbie Hyman.
Sounds made up. She's from a limerick.
"Oh, I've got a Libbie Hyman."
"Have you?"
"Still intact? But you horse ride."
LAUGHTER
Now this picture is a wassail box.
It's a traditional Christmas item.
You would have to pay to look inside.
What will you give me to look inside?
A penny.
A penny. I like the idea of a penny. Like penny for the Guy?
A penny would be fine.
There was a Christmas tradition called wassail...
Where? Where? Where?
Yes, oh, Yorkshire. It was very common to have in Yorkshire.
Sounds quite Newcastle, doesn't it? "Wassail box."
Well, it's actually a Scandinavian thing.
Oh. So you would offer some money,
and then they would show what's inside.
What do you think is in the box that they're going to...?
Is it a music box?
No, it... Let's have a look on the picture.
This was the Christmas tradition that...
June Whitfield.
In the kids' version,
two tiny dolls representing the Virgin Mary and the baby Jesus.
And that's not the real Virgin Mary and baby Jesus?
Yes, this is the real Virgin...
Smaller than you'd think.
Do you think people were smaller?
Because my children are really getting really big.
My daughter's taller than nearly all of us.
So, if you really went backwards through time,
with people getting a little bit smaller,
a little bit smaller,
that probably is how big the Virgin Mary was.
LAUGHTER
Can I ask...? You can.
Were you going to ask why Alan doesn't sit in this chair?
No, I was going to say, he's hot today, innit?
This tradition, we don't know how old it is,
maybe 18th or 19th century, but it has carried on.
Except, in America, I don't think they've really got the hang of it,
because sometimes when people do it, they open the box,
and inside is Ken and Barbie.
The one in the middle there is from the distant past
when people were small.
I'd say you're from the 1400s.
This is adults wassailing.
You'd go door to door and you would sing,
and you would offer alcoholic drinks from a wassail bowl -
that's what she's holding there - in return for gifts.
She's saying, "We are Bananarama."
I don't think I'd like some random man knocking on the door
asking for money to look in a box.
No.
"Would you like to look in my box."
OK, moving along.
Um, why did Oliver Cromwell ban Christmas?
Don't tell anyone, right,
but he was a Muslim.
KLAXON
APPLAUSE
Damn you!
Anybody else?
JULIAN: Um...
Oh, I thought I was going to think of something.
LAUGHTER
Nothing came out.
Imagine you're meeting the Queen.
What's he doing there?
It feels like he's signalling to someone, holding his ear.
The answer is that he didn't ban Christmas.
Well, you might want to check again, because, yeah, he did.
No, it's a Christmas myth.
Truth is, he actually quite liked a party.
He enjoyed smoking and drinking.
Scandalously, he allowed dancing at his daughter's wedding,
so he wasn't anti-party.
The Christmas ban started with the Scottish Presbyterians.
So they had been discouraging Christmas celebrations for years,
since 1583, and the Puritans needed the Scottish support.
So it's his party that were trying to keep the Scots calm.
And it wasn't Cromwell himself who thought,
"Let's get rid of Christmas."
There are parts of the country where they didn't pay any attention at all.
So Devon and Cornwall, for example, they just carried on.
They probably hadn't heard about it.
When do you think Christmas Day became a holiday in Scotland?
I'll give you ten points if you're within the right decade.
1974. Not far.
'64. '59.
You win. '58. Yes, absolutely.
So, it wasn't a holiday...
It wasn't a holiday until 1958. ..in Scotland until 1958? Yeah.
HE CHUCKLES MOCKINGLY
Anyway, moving on.
Why were Christmas Day weddings so popular in the past?
BUZZER: # Snow... #
Is it one of those things where, like,
if you have your wedding on Christmas,
you can't forget your anniversary?
Do you forget yours? Do you forget your anniversary?
Yeah. Yeah.
If you get married at Christmas, it feels like...
That or Valentine's, you go, it's also one gift.
Yeah. Great. May I ask, are you married?
No, no, we're just friends.
I mean, we get along great. Yeah.
No, I've been married and divorced twice,
cos I don't learn the first time.
Third time lucky, is that what we're saying?
No. I'm sick of these people.
I was not either of her husbands.
Be amazing if I turned out to be both.
I married her twice. I'm a master of disguise.
I'm Moroccan, and we have a saying.
We say, if it rains on your wedding day,
then it means it's going to turn out bad.
That's why it rained on both my weddings.
In Morocco? Yeah. Yeah, that's...
Not famous for its rain, is it? No.
Julian, are you married, darling? Yes.
My husband slipped his finger into my ring...
LAUGHTER
..about eight years ago now.
Congratulations.
But anyway, getting back to the question... Yes.
Why get married on Christmas Day? Everyone's got the day off.
Unless they're Scottish.
It's the correct answer. I was about to say that.
I'm so sorry. Sorry, Julian!
Press your buzzer and say it. They'll edit it in.
That's it. We'll pretend he hasn't said it.
What were you going to say, Julian?
No, don't patronise me.
LAUGHTER
It's because they didn't have many days off.
Christmas Day was off. What better day?
Exactly right.
Christmas Day and Boxing Day were the sort of days...
Very clever boy, Julian.
Yes, you are!
Yes, you are a clever boy!
So it was a very popular time.
In fact, churches would give discounted rates
if multiple couples got married at the same time.
This is a picture at St George Church in London in 1920.
She's got stars on her head.
The third one from the left, why has she got two stars?
Oh, yeah. Do you think they made their own? Her TripAdvisor.
TripAdvisor thinks she's not great.
LAUGHTER
In 1913, the Guardian reported a church in Stepney
had married 25 couples all on the same day. Mm.
Now, it's almost time for the bum note that we call General Ignorance.
But this year, I have some friends to help me with the questions.
Please welcome the QI choir, under the direction of John Riddell.
Take it away.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
THEY SING: Carol Of The Bells
Hey! CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
I don't want to be...
What occasion was this tune composed for?
BUZZER: # Snow is... #
Ooh. Yes, Julian.
Easter.
Is it the John Lewis Christmas ad?
Home Alone when the thieves breaking in.
Well, that is true.
It is in Home Alone... Yes!
..but that's not what it was composed for.
It's after Christmas. What comes after Christmas?
Twelfth Night, Boxing Day, Easter...
Summer holidays! Mother's Day.
New Year.
Yes!
Yes, Alan, it's New Year's, is exactly right.
What do we call this tune?
Does anyone in the audience know this?
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Carol Of The Bells!
Carol Of The Bells is exactly right.
But it was originally a Ukrainian folk song for New Year's Eve.
It was called Shchedryk,
which means bountiful evening.
So, the lyrics are nothing to do with bells,
nothing to do with Christmas.
It's actually about a swallow visiting a home
and delivering luck for the new year.
The very first modern arrangement was 1919.
A Ukrainian composer called Mykola Leontovych
and then a Ukrainian-American called Peter Wilhousky,
he rearranged it and added the English lyrics
and renamed it Carol Of The Bells in 1922.
But it has always been associated with Christmas ever since.
Let's have another tune.
Who sang this song in the 1982 animated film The Snowman?
# We're walking in the air
# We're floating in the moonlit sky... #
BUZZER: # Snow is... #
Julian's off! Who was it? Aled Jones.
No...
KLAXON
It was written by Howard Blake specifically for the film,
but it was actually sung by a choir boy named Peter Auty.
There he is. He's now a professional operatic tenor,
but he didn't get any credit in the film
because they forgot to put his name on.
1985, the song was used in an advert
for Toys 'R' Us, and it had to be re-recorded.
This guy, Peter Auty's voice had already broken
and so a new version was sung by Aled Jones,
and that was released and that became a huge hit.
And that is why we think Aled Jones sang it in the film,
but it isn't actually him.
Here's another song that was originally written for New Year.
But what is the first line?
THEY SING: Deck The Halls
BUZZER: # Snow... #
What are you going to say?
La, la-la, la, la, la, la, la...
..la-la-la-la-la, la-la, la, la.
KLAXON
Do you know, Fatiha?
Is it deck the halls with something and holly?
Deck the halls with... No. Oh.
With boughs of holly.
I didn't say boughs so I don't know why you buzzed me.
JULIAN: Well, I don't know. Is it, " 'Tis the season to be jolly"?
I think it's Ant and Dec with Phil and Holly.
LAUGHTER
So I asked for the original lyrics,
and it's an old Welsh tune called Nos Galan, or New Year.
The oldest version of the lyrics are translated into English as this.
# Oh, how soft my fair one's bosom
# Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la, la-la
# Oh, how sweet the grove in blossom
# Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la, la-la
# Oh, how blessed are the blisses
# Fa-la-la, la-la-la, la, la, la
# Words of love and mutual kisses
# La-la-la-la-la, la-la, la-la. #
Oh, I like that!
APPLAUSE
"Oh, how soft, my fair one's bosom."
Absolute filth.
LAUGHTER
Finally, have a listen to this.
MUSIC: Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairy
Now, who wrote it,
and what instrument is performing the lead melody?
Is it The Nutcracker?
It is The Nutcracker. You're absolutely right.
Tchaikovsky?
Tchaikovsky is very good.
And the oboe? It's not an oboe. Harpsichord?
We're nearer with the harpsichord.
FATIHA: Triangle.
LAUGHTER, KLAXON
It's the Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairy
in Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker.
It's played on a celesta.
There it is - a celesta.
If you lift that up, you can take a shit in it.
APPLAUSE
If you lift it up, Sandi Toksvig's...
"I'm busy!"
A celesta. Comes from the French word for heavenly.
So it looks like a piano, but when you press the keys,
hammers hit metal plates with wooden resonators underneath.
That gives it a sort of soft, almost like a triangle sound.
It was invented in 1886 by a Parisian organ maker,
Charles Victor Mustel, and his son Auguste,
and Tchaikovsky ordered one immediately.
Does anybody know what a sugar plum is?
It's the Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairy.
Isn't it a thing that hangs off a tree, Christmas tree,
that you can eat? Yes, it's exactly right.
It's a kind of sweet. It's what's called a comfit.
It's a seed, a nut, or a berry, which has got layers of hard sugar on it.
And I will give ten points to anybody who can tell me
where we saw sugar plums at the beginning of the show.
Oh, now they were mentioned on one of the adverts that came up earlier.
You're exactly right.
It was for your anodyne necklace.
There, look. "Sugar plumbs, for worms."
You get ten points. Very, very, very well done.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
At the top of the advert, it says, "Sugar plumbs, for worms,"
and it was thought to be a cure for intestinal worms.
It was widely believed they might kill the tooth worms, as well,
that caused toothache.
So, well spotted, darling.
Yeah, I read it all.
No, I love that you've actually remembered something. Um...
Now it's time to look at our scores.
Let's see who's top of the nice list and who's on thin ice.
Pretty sure I nailed this. LAUGHTER
Joy to the world - in first place, with 16 points,
it's Alan.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Don't worry, ski happy - in second place, with minus nine,
it's Julian.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
SNOWbody's perfect - in third place, with -27,
Fatiha!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
And in last place, a lost CLAUS, with -29,
Jimmy!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
So it's a big thank you to Fatiha, Jimmy, Julian and Alan,
and a very merry Christmas from all of us.
Let's all go and join the choir and sing.
Off you go, people.
# Oh, how soft my fair one's bosom
# Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la, la-la
# Oh, how sweet the grove in blossom
# Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la, la-la
# Oh, how blessed are the blisses
# Fa-la-la, la-la-la, la, la, la
# Words of love and mutual kisses
# Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la, la-la. #
Merry Christmas, everybody!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE