Original subtitles

*Q I* Season 20 Episode 07 IMDB

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

Episode Title: "Toys Tinsel and Turkeys" Aired on: December 19, 2022.

Welcome to QI. And Merry Christmas!

And tonight, we've got toys, tinsel and turkeys tucked under the tree

for our QI Christmas Special, and we're celebrating the presence

of our lovely, a shiny new Aisling Bea!

CHEERING

You really shouldn't have - an antique Gyles Brandreth.

CHEERING

Just what I've always wanted - a delicious Chris McCausland.

CHEERING

And - oh, how original - another Alan Davies.

CHEERING AND WHISTLING

Right. Let's hear your glad tidings. Aisling goes...

CHORISTER: ♪ Silent night... ♪

Gyles goes...

♪ Away in a manger... ♪

Chris goes...

♪ Once in Royal David's city... ♪

Alan goes...

ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS: ♪ Frosty the snowman

♪ Was a jolly happy soul

♪ With a corncob pipe and a button nose

♪ And two eyes made out of coal. ♪

OK. Christmas, you've all got a present from me

under your desks. Ooh! Oh, nice.

Open them up. Have a look, see what you got.

A present from me.

Chris, do you know what that is? Um, give me a minute.

LAUGHTER

Don't go with what you first think, Chris. Please, God.

I think you could see how I was holding that, couldn't you?

It's a toy turkey. OK... Just what you always wanted.

Oh, it's a cooked turkey. Yeah. It's a dead turkey.

OK. Enjoy. Never would have got that.

I'd have been here till Easter.

Gyles?

This appears to be a teddy bear after the thermonuclear war. Nice.

It's had a skin complaint. Yeah.

And what have you got, darling?

Oh, well, I think it's either an inappropriate nipple tassel

or hopefully a spinning top. Yes, it is a spinning top.

I shouldn't have said the first part.

I think it would be terribly disappointing

to get ONE tassel for your nipples. I know.

Aisling can only spin... STICK CLATTERS

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

How have you broken it so soon?!

I don't know. I don't know how I managed that.

OK. So you have been given a twig.

And here's the thing. According to experts, it's the best toy there is.

Oh! The US National Toy Hall of Fame,

it has all the greats. It's got Play-Doh, Lego, Etch A Sketch,

and so on. They inducted a stick into their collection in 2008

because it's one of the kids' favourite things to play with.

They've got cardboard boxes in there, they've got sand.

And apparently, sticks are not only the oldest toys in the world,

they're probably the best.

Children find sticks an endless source of fun.

Well, it's true. My kids love sticks.

It's good, isn't it? Our porch is full of sticks.

Now, do you all like your Christmas presents to be a surprise?

Yes. OK. Why?

Because I don't really WANT anything.

And at least it's something.

That's the most depressing...

Anybody else? Something good! Yeah.

I want it to be a surprise if I know what it is and I like it.

If I don't know what it is,

then I definitely don't want it to be a surprise.

So you haven't really understood the definition of "surprise".

I'm with Aisling, though.

I kind of think that, like, surprises is like phoning a takeaway

and just going, "Send me something."

You're never going to be happy with what turns up are you?

I don't know, though! I like to go to a restaurant and say,

"Can you just feed me?" Because I can't be bothered to read the menu.

I think that's a really fun thing.

I mean, I've had a lot of... Had a lot of beans on toast!

Gyles, so you like surprises? I'm not very good at surprises.

Some years ago, I went to spend Christmas with a sheikh,

and I have to say, I did like the white Rolls-Royce

that was waiting when I got off the aeroplane and he said,

"I've got something for you as a Christmas present."

I thought maybe it'd be the white Rolls-Royce.

It wasn't. It was a little parcel smaller than this.

And he said, "Your wife will love these".

I thought, "Oh, pearls, diamonds!" No.

I got into the white Rolls-Royce and opened the present,

and inside the parcel

was a book of Sheikh Yamani's love poetry,

translated into very poor English...

LAUGHTER

..by the head of his army.

That's why you want, a military man doing love poetry!

There's quite a lot of research into gift giving.

The single biggest message is that people don't want surprises. Yeah.

Lots of studies say the most successful gifts are the ones

where you give the recipient exactly what they asked for.

But there are lots of things that they've discovered.

Only the gift giver cares about the monetary value

of the present. Ah! The person who receives it doesn't.

And another mistake we all make is to focus on the moment of receiving.

We think that's going to be the most exciting thing,

but actually it's on the long-term pleasure that you get from a gift.

And another common error is obsessing over uniqueness.

Giving something that's just right for them alone.

I have seven grandchildren.

The problem is now solved - sticks for each one of them! Yes!

Eventually, they may grow into boomerangs.

In fact, I'll tell them they ARE boomerangs

and they'll learn about failure early on.

Right. Let's pop our presents away.

There we go. Marvellous! Right.

If you were one of the three wise men

and let's just say, rather embarrassingly,

Waitrose had run out of myrrh...

Ohh! I know. Nightmare.

..what would you give the little baby Jesus instead?

A stern talking-to, I think. A stern talking-to?

You'd go, "Just keep your head down. You know, keep a low profile.

"Don't be starting any movements.

"If you find out you can do magic later in life,

"keep it to yourself.

"You go to a party and they've only got water, let them drink that.

"Don't be doing no sermons on no mounts!"

AISLING: What is myrrh, actually? It's a resin.

It's a resin from a small, thorny tree

and it becomes a sort of waxy gum.

So what are the three presents that wise men supposedly bring?

Gold. Frankincense. Gold - my personal fave. Yeah.

And myrrh. And they're all symbolic presents.

So gold represents the symbol of kingship on Earth.

Frankincense is an incense, a symbol of deity.

And myrrh was actually for embalming.

It was a symbol of death.

Now, what you could give from a supermarket of your choice

is chervil. So chervil is French parsley.

You find it in bearnaise sauce, things like that.

And it's very similar to smell and so on, to myrrh.

But it's the complete opposite symbolically because, actually,

it means "leaves of joy" and it represents new life.

God, do you think he wasn't a wise man?

He was actually quite a stupid man, and he brought him the wrong gift.

"Ah, wooja-wooja-wooja-wooja!"

"What have you bought?" "Embalming fluid!"

"What am I like?"

"Only been born!" "Embalming fluid!"

A truly wise person... Yes. ..would take Calpol.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Do you know...

Probably!

..when you have got frankincense,

what is the vessel in which you put the frankincense

when you're doing that with it? What is that called? I DON'T know that.

What is it called? A thurible. Oh, that's very good.

And the person who does that is called a thurifer.

And the little boy who walks along...

AISLING: Or a girl, thank you very much -

one of the old altar girls here, thank you very much.

Always working in a male-dominated environment,

even since young age. Altar girl.

LAUGHTER

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Yeah. Sorry. The thurible...?

The thurible...

That's it. Oh, fine. Sorry! OK!

That's it. The thurible is the instrument.

The person is the thurifer. Yes.

I've just never known you be so concise, so I enjoyed it.

But the thing of myrrh being a symbol of death is ancient.

It's a pagan thing long before Christianity.

So there is a marvellous thing in the British Museum

called the Franks Casket. That's it there.

And it has two stories on it.

It has a sort of pagan story, which is the one on the left.

And then the one of the right is the three wise men.

And if you look at the last wise men in the panel...

He's got a duck! He's a duck!

ALAN QUACKS

It's a tale of two halves.

You guys with the great facts. And us going, "Look, it's a duck!"

He's the one bringing myrrh

and he's the one with a Viking symbol of death over him.

Have they ever had names? AISLING: They did have names, yeah.

Caspar. Caspar. That's the interesting one,

because he becomes the ghost, you see, in later years.

He's the one who brings the myrrh. That's what I thought. Good.

Any bonuses available yet?

Er, well, I shall give you two.

Thank you. That's OK. It's my pleasure.

Well, the interesting thing about myrrh,

and you're going to appreciate this, Aisling,

so myrrh does have significant

painkilling and anti-inflammatory properties.

It can be used as a natural toothpaste.

It can be used as a gargle.

And some women swear it's a tremendous treatment for thrush.

Oh, thank you, Sandi, for publicly, on television,

saying I might like this fact.

Note to self - do not have what you think is a private chat

with Sandi before coming on television...

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

I heard that so is sitting on a frozen turkey!

But I quite like the idea of somebody saying to Gaspar,

"Have you brought that as embalming fluid?"

And he goes, "No, I just thought he might get thrush sometimes."

Perhaps, I don't know,

you want to go even bigger than thrush treatment

with your Christmas presents.

Syphilis? What do you...?

What do you think was the biggest Christmas present ever?

♪ Once in... ♪

Are you OK? Well, no...

I was thinking, "I know the answer to this,"

but I'm not risking it. You are.

I'm just going to go for something big that was a gift,

like the Statue of Liberty or something.

I love that. That would be tremendous huge gift.

The fact about the Statue of Liberty is nobody wanted it.

Ohh! Literally, they couldn't give it away when they first...

Could now, because of Freecycle. Yeah.

It was meant to be a gift from the people of France

to the United States, but nobody wanted to pay

for the transport of it across to the United States.

So the biggest Christmas present possibly of all time,

25th of December 1868.

President of the United States at the time?

I will give 20 points if anybody knows who it is.

Lincoln. Just... So, you're close.

It's the successor to Lincoln.

President Andrew Johnson, 17th President of the United States.

He was one of the worst presidents of all time,

but he issued a general pardon to every single person

who had fought in the Confederacy. So that's the South,

in the American Civil War. After Lincoln?

So this is the man who took over.

So what happened was Lincoln was shot, if you remember,

at the theatre. And... Haven't seen the film yet. Oh, sorry. Spoiler.

LAUGHTER

Apologies, Chris. Spoiler alert.

And Andrew Johnson was his Vice President

and he was supposed to be assassinated that night, as well.

But his assassin got drunk instead. So he went on to become...

That's how it works. This might interest you. Yes?

As you know, Lincoln was assassinated by an actor...

Yes. ..called John Wilkes Booth, famous for playing Romeo.

He had a brother called Edwin Booth, famous for playing Hamlet.

Yes. A few years later...

Are you going to tell us you went on holiday with Lincoln?

Gave you a book of poetry?

Are you serious? Were they both actors?

They were both actors.

Edwin Booth was a famous actor who played Hamlet.

And a few years later, Edwin Booth is on tour,

leaving the railway station and the train is moving out of the station,

and somebody on the edge of the platforms falls onto the line.

And Edwin Booth leans forward and rescues this man,

picks him up and saves his life.

And it turns out that the man whose life...

Edwin Booth, the brother of the man who assassinated Lincoln,

the life he has saved is the life

of Robert Lincoln, the only son of Abraham Lincoln.

AISLING: No! I love those stories.

That's such a good moment. Isn't that amazing?

I love that. It's great.

He must have been like, "You'll thank me now,

"but once you find out who I am...

"..you're going to be a little angry."

Anyway, it was very controversial that he did this.

He pardoned every single person who had been in the Confederacy.

Up until then, you had to apply for an individual pardon

and they had granted 13,500 individual pardons.

And partly, they decided to do this blanket thing

because it was taking such a huge amount of time.

Other large scale presents, I love these.

So the legendary TV producer, Aaron Spelling -

Charlie's Angels, Dynasty, and all those things -

he once got a truckload of snow shipped to his garden overnight

so that his children could wake up to a white Christmas in Los Angeles.

Ohh!

I mean, you can have too much money, right? It IS possible.

Christmas 2012, Angelina Jolie,

she had previously described her then-husband, Brad Pitt,

as impossible to shop for.

She bought him a $1.6 million waterfall.

I mean, to be fair, it was a joint Christmas and birthday present,

but still... LAUGHTER

Still.

My favourite of all, Harper Lee, author of...

ALL: To Kill A Mockingbird.

..in 1956, she was working as a BOAC ticket agent,

so that's... That man's stealing her necklace.

That's her receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom

in 2007. Harper Lee was working as a ticket agent.

She wanted to be a writer, and two of her friends,

Michael and Joy Brown, gave her a year's salary

so she could take a year off. ALL: Aww.

And that is when she wrote To Kill A Mockingbird.

Isn't that wonderful? I have a To Kill A Mockingbird confession.

Oh? I did it for GCSE English Lit. Right.

And at the time, because my eyesight was poor at the time,

but I could still see stuff, I was allowed to use a laptop

and I never read the book and I had it on the computer.

And when the question in the exam said,

"What was the mood in the room when Boo R...?"

I just searched for Boo Radley...

..and read the bit where he appears for the first time

and then just wrote that down.

And I still only got a B!

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Have you read it since? No, I saw the film.

OK. Fair enough.

When you see the film of something or when you read an audio book,

do you count that as reading?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Let's take a vote. Who counts listening to an audiobook

as reading. Put your hands up if you think it's reading?

And put your hands up if you think it's not?

AISLING: Oh, snobby...

Oh!

Do I get to find out?

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Arguably the biggest Christmas present ever

was when President Andrew Johnson pardoned the South.

Now, what is the name of the toy bear depicted in the books

Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner?

♪ Once in... ♪ Yes, Chris?

Winnie-the-Shit.

Winnie-the-Shit and The House On Shit Corner.

But they toned it down for the kiddies. OK.

Wait, now. We're actually asking about THAT bear?

The name of the toy bear that is depicted in the books.

It's in the title. It's Winnie-the-Pooh.

He's a Pooh. Oh!

KLAXON

There you are.

I was drawing you in the wrong direction.

The word "depicted"... Yes, thank you. ..is the one that... Yes.

Yeah. Interesting. Why is that the one?

Because the character depicted there is drawn by EH Shepard,

whereas the stories were written by AA Milne.

So, AA Milne created the character,

but the depiction is the bear belonging to the artist

Ernest Shepard, and his bear, I think, was called Growler.

It was indeed called Growler.

APPLAUSE

What you've got behind you, Chris, is a picture of a growler.

LAUGHTER

So AA Milne's son, Christopher Robin, did have a bear,

but he was called Edward Bear. He renamed it for the stories

Winnie-the-Pooh after a very famous bear in London Zoo

who was called Winnie, short for Winnipeg.

It was a Canadian black bear. It's quite a nice story, actually.

So there was a guy called Harry Colebourn.

He's pictured on the left in military uniform,

and he was on his way to Europe to fight in the First World War

when he came across a hunter who had killed a mother bear

and had the cub, and he bought the cub for $20, and I don't know how,

but managed to bring it on the boat across the seas

and had it for a long time with him while he served here in the UK,

and eventually gave it... Probably dressed it. Yeah.

And it was a very...

LAUGHTER

ALAN GROWLS

"Just stay still and pretend you're my coat."

"Quite furry, your child."

"How dare you!"

It was one of the great exhibitions at the London Zoo

and Christopher Robin loved it.

When you say Christopher Robin loved it, you mean he was a real person?

He was a real person. He was a real person.

He was the son of AA Milne, the author.

Chris, this will excite you. OK, I'm ready to be excited. Go.

Because later, when we say goodnight, we'll shake hands.

And when you're shaking my hand, you'll be shaking the hand

that shook the hand that held the paw of Winnie-the-Pooh.

That's a tenuous connection there.

We've all got different nicknames for it.

So you're going to... Chris is going to shake the hand...

Many years ago, I became a friend of Christopher Robin Milne,

born in 1920. I knew him when he was in his 60s.

He was a book-seller, a delightful person.

He'd had a troubled childhood

because he didn't like being the boy in the stories.

In fact, accused his father of building his reputation

by standing on a small boy's shoulders.

But I was a friend of his. So later, when we shake hands,

you will be shaking the hand that shook the hand

that held the paw of Winnie-the-Pooh.

Oh, I think that's lovely! I love that.

Now, this leads me on to your connection to teddy bears,

because you have a teddy bear museum, is that right?

I do. My wife and I founded a teddy bear museum many years ago.

And our bears, we now have more than 1,000 of them.

Oh, look! And they live in this rather beautiful house

called Newby Hall. Fozzie and...

..is it Pudsey the bear?

Yes, there's Pudsey Bear there. Paddington. Paddington.

That's the original Paddington that appeared on television

in the 1970s when Michael Hordern did the voice.

And that is the original Fozzie Bear. I love...

Oh, my God! ..Fozzie Bear.

AS FOZZIE: "Arghhhh!"

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

AISLING: Oh, my gosh.

That Fozzie Bear was given to me personally by Jim Henson,

the creator of The Muppets. Oh, my God!

And as a Christmas treat for all of you, I have been to Newby Hall

and I have brought the bear down

to introduce the original Fozzie Bear to all of you.

That is so exciting. Oh, look! And he's here.

Gyles! There he is. Look, here he is.

He's genuinely one of the reasons I got into stand-up.

He's my comedy hero as, like, the best stand-up I know. Oh, wow.

Essentially how it works is... Oh!

..you put your hand right up at the inside, you see,

and you are underneath it like this. Yeah.

So, Frank Oz, who did the voice, would be down here operating it

from down here. That's how it works.

I visited the set for The Muppets in LA

and all of the professional puppeteers are like bin men

in that they all have one really solid good arm

and one slightly weaker one that they have hanging here.

And I went into Miss Piggy's dressing room

and all of her stuff is genuine Chanel.

I got punched by Miss Piggy once. What?!

Celebrity dust-up story! I was interviewing The Muppets.

They'd just released Treasure Island, the movie,

and Frank Oz was there.

Anyway, Miss Piggy found out I was Danish,

and she didn't like what we did to bacon, so...

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Frank Oz, I'm afraid, does not like me

because he can't believe that Jim Henson would've given me

the original. Oh, OK. And he wants it back in America.

Yeah. Does he?

Anyway, the original Winnie-the-Pooh belonging to Christopher Robin

is now in New York, because his American agent

gave the bear to the New York Public Library.

So, if you want to see the original Winnie-the-Pooh,

you have to go to the New York Public Library.

So, the most famous British bear is in New York

and the most famous American bear is here in the UK.

So would you swap? I am ready...

I am ready to broker an exchange. OK.

Do you know what, Gyles? This is a strong link of you negotiating

on behalf of Britain with America. I think it is.

I think it's a movie eventually, don't you?

Do you know what happened to the bear called Growler,

the one that was depicted in the stories? No.

Tell me what happened to Growler. He eaten by the neighbour's dog.

Right...

Can you tell us about some of the other bears

that we've got in front of us? I will just tell you quickly

about some of these other bears that come from the collection.

So, down there, we have Nookie Bear.

Oh. Oh! You remember Nookie?

Yeah. He was a ventriloquist. He was.

Who was the guy that controlled...? Roger De Courcey.

OK, I remember that. Next to him is Barbara Cartland's bear.

She was a prolific novelist,

the step grandmother of Princess Diana.

And she told me that this bear, which she left me in her will,

was a prince.

He thinks he's an Indian prince, the prince of love.

Next to him is Paddington Bear.

The original Paddington Bear from the 1970s television series.

On the end is Super Ted, and the last one belongs to Dame Judi Dench.

It was her childhood bear. That's a bit magical, isn't it?

Yes, that's the bear that Judi Dench,

when she was a little girl in the 1930s, used to go to bed with. Oh!

Thank you to Gyles for all that! Wonderful. Wow!

APPLAUSE

I love that! For me, the take home message on this topic

is that Christopher Robin's Pooh bears very little resemblance

to EH Shepard's Growler. Now...

..which part would a turkey take in a Nativity play?

Well, it wouldn't be Mary.

In fact, you're exactly opposite, Chris, of the truth,

cos the part that the turkey would be best suited for

is the Virgin Mary,

because female turkeys do not need a male in order to reproduce.

Oooh! What?! Like a worm?! They are capable of parthenogenesis -

so literally "virgin creation" in Greek.

So it's a form of... You mean turkeys don't have to have dads?

They don't have to. I mean, in general, they do,

but they are capable of asexual reproduction.

Does it happen a lot or is it just sort of an anomaly?

Up to half of unfertilised turkey eggs will develop into live embryos.

Now, the vast majority don't survive long enough to carry on,

and certainly hardly any of them then have offspring of their own.

But weirdly, or at least it seemed weird to me,

in turkeys the resulting offspring are all male.

So, is that is that the opposite to like...? Cos in humans,

I thought we all started female and half of us became male.

It is true that we all start female and then half make a mistake

and take a wrong turn.

LAUGHTER, CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

There's no mammal capable of parthenogenesis, but there are...

AISLING: Are birds mammals?

A mammal has to have mammary glands, Aisling.

It has to have mammary glands. Well, a turkey's got big old breasts.

That's why we eat them every Christmas.

I wouldn't be able to wish it on this one. No.

80 kinds of fish and reptiles and amphibians

and so on are capable of parthenogenesis.

Do you know how the world has changed, Sandi?

What is that, my darling? I'm realising now

I was 16 before I heard the word "breast" spoken at home.

Really? My parents would always refer to it as the "white meat".

And when I was 16, we had Christmas dinner with some other people,

and the word "breast" was used,

and everybody had a pink face for the rest of the meal. Really?!

Well, now that you're talking of pink faces, can you tell me,

my darling, how you might know if a male turkey

is interested in you?

ALAN: He'll slip you a note.

Oh, is it something to do with the gobbling and the...

AISLING IMITATES GOBBLING TURKEY

..the throat and the... No, it's the very thing you just said

about going... The red, the red bit.

They blush when they see an attractive female.

So the skin on the head and neck can change colour from pale pink,

or sometimes it's blue grey, to bright red or bright white

or bright blue, but a really bright colour.

If I was God and I'd made that turkey, I'd be like,

"Oh, that's one that I'll come back to later."

That looks unfinished. It's not attractive, is it?

Yeah. That's turn it in at the end of term because you're tired.

OK, here is a top trick.

Take a look at this.

What we are looking at is, Chris, is a spinning top that appears

to be levitating. OK. It must be the air underneath it.

Well, tell me how it works. How do you think it works? OK, good.

I'm glad you asked me, Sandi. Yep.

Um, I'd say it's the same basic principle

that an aeroplane works off,

where if you spin it round and round enough...

LAUGHTER

..it levitates. GYLES: Like a hovercraft.

Yes. Yes, exactly. Finally, someone's hearing what I'm...

I'm hearing what you're saying.

You said aeroplane, you meant hovercraft.

So you're saying air blowing?

Air blowing in a rapid movement

of an engine-like rotator cuff at speed.

No, it is a spin stabilised permanent magnet levitating top.

So you remember at school, you might have a magnet.

So, you've got the positive side and you've got the negative side.

And in order for two magnets to be attracted to each other,

you need to have the positive and the negative like that, right?

So, if you put the positives and the positives together,

they are repelled from each other.

And you would think perhaps that the one on the top

could just float there.

But actually, if I let it go... CHRIS: Fly off.

..it immediately wants to turn over.

So, in the 1970s, there was an American inventor called

Roy Harrigan, and he found a way around this and turned the magnet

like we can see in the video there into a spinning top.

Now, there's some really complicated physics here,

but it is because of something called torque,

which is a twisting force. Torque?

Torque, yeah. Never mind if you don't understand the physics.

Have a look at what it can do, which is amazing.

So there is a spinning top for each of you under the table.

We've attached a piece of string.

If you hold it just by the piece of string,

your top will simply dangle upside down.

It won't go anywhere, OK?

Now, look what happens when we apply force.

The spinning force to it, OK?

This is torque.

It's going to act against gravity.

Whoa! And then...

And then, Chris, you lift it up by the string?

This is where I lose some teeth. Yeah.

I'm going to go for it. Go for it. Go for it.

OK, ready? Go on, Chris.

CHEERING

SANDI LAUGHS

Have you been injured in an accident in the workplace

by a spinning top?

That's enough, enough, enough. Oh!

It's like an airplane, exactly how I said.

So what happens is the torque, OK, the spinning force,

can do some truly strange things.

Now, Aisling, I wonder if you can to help us with this demonstration.

Yes. OK, so there is a chair just over here.

It's a spinning chair. We're going to ask you to sit in it.

OK. You all right there? Yes, right into the tree.

Might wish you'd worn trousers. Anyway... Ooh, yes!

LAUGHTER

What I'd like you to do is to hold the wheel between both hands,

like this. This feels like a rude trick. First, spin it.

OK. Just spin the wheel as fast as you can.

It feels like a cheap lottery. That's it. Keep going.

Fast as you can. Who's going to win? OK.

Now, hold it with both hands. Bloody hell. Yeah.

Turn it to the right. Turn it.

Oh, my God. OK.

Literally nothing's happening. Er...

Now turn it the other way.

See if it'll turn.

Literally nothing's happening. Um...

I'm guessing I'm getting the same out of this as everyone else. Yes.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

OK.

Go on!

The truth is, it doesn't work at all,

we just were taking the piss out of Aisling. Are you serious?!

Is that the truth?

Is that the actual truth?! No.

Here's a VT of how it should've been done. Let's have a look.

Let me just move this... So there's a very serious man.

Now watch what happens. He's spinning...

Oh, my God. He turns the wheel, he spins in one direction

and then he turns the wheel the other way and it will turn you.

To be fair, he looks like he's just been doing this trick

for all of his life. That's all he does, yeah.

I've worked hard on my personality!

Yeah. I mean, in fairness, you did go into this

thinking that's how aeroplanes worked, so... Yeah.

I'm gonna fly!

Basically, if you spin the wheel in one direction,

then the chair will compensate

by applying an equal force in the other direction

and turn you around - unless it's Aisling.

But very well tried, Aisling Bea!

GYLES: Sandi, can I put these away? Because it's...

What is that, darling? Your magnets?

Yes, because they're playing merry hell with my pacemaker. Oh!

There's such a lot I'm having to deal with. Aisling!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Right. We have got a present for you. In 2021, the Magic Circle

elected as its president somebody who was the youngest person ever

and the first woman ever to hold that post.

She's here tonight. Lovely people, Megan Swann!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

When did you start conjuring, Megan?

I started at the age of five with a children's magic set,

and I've loved it ever since.

How fantastic. Now, women were not allowed

to join the Magic Circle for a very long time, were they?

No, they only joined in 1991, so fairly recent.

Is it because they used to think they were witches, was that it?

They were like, "They're too naturally good at magic."

Some people still accuse us of that.

Now, you're particularly interested

in using magic to make some statement

about environmental issues, aren't you? Yes.

I love magic and I really care about the environment.

So it makes sense to combine the two

to tell people what we should be doing to help. OK. Off you go.

So, I brought with me this die,

and I thought I'd show you something magical with it.

When I was younger, no matter what toy or gift I was given,

I was usually more interested in the box that it came in.

And of course, most people would keep the toy inside the box.

But I keep the box inside the toy.

It's the best way to keep it safe.

This does, however, mean that the toy that I have

is actually bigger than the box that it comes with.

Now, packaging usually ends up as waste, and in the UK we throw away

5.9 million tonnes of packaging every year.

Wow. And every piece we throw away adds to the problem.

And just like our issue with waste, whilst I've been talking,

this box has been growing so much that the toy it came from

now fits inside the box. What?! Oooh!

APPLAUSE

But waste doesn't need to be such a big issue

if we can all just remember those three simple rules -

and to always reduce, re-use and recycle.

No, but how...?! Ooh! APPLAUSE

Thank you so much. Round of applause for the magical Megan!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Brilliant.

You know, Sandi, I am a bit of a environmental magician myself.

Are you? Inspired by Megan, can I show you my little trick?

Yes, please. I've become a vegetarian, but I used to like pork,

and I've found a way of turning a banana into a pig.

OK. AISLING LAUGHS

Here's the banana, and I'm taking this little kitchen knife,

and with just three little strokes, I'm going to turn

this banana into a pig.

There you have your pig.

Oh, my God! I see it! Oink, oink, oink!

Looks like a pig, Chris. Yeah. Yeah.

If you can imagine a banana turned into a pig, then that's exactly...

LAUGHTER

OK.

Thanks for that. Um, now... That's all right.

Let's do a question on transgressive toys, shall we?

What's the most inappropriate Christmas present you can think of?

A bomb. Oh.

Well, actually, you're not far off, because every generation

there have been gifts that the next generation thought

was inappropriate. I am old enough... You must...

Do you remember sets of smokers' paraphernalia made out of chocolate?

I loved it. Cigars... Yeah. ..pipes you could eat.

A liquorice pipe, I had.

I believe it was that pipe that made me a lesbian.

And cigarettes? Cigarettes that were very sweet.

White sugar, as it were, with little red tips.

And you could... Oh, I loved those.

Then there were kits for collecting butterflies.

You've got killing jars. You put some poison in the jar

and you'd put the butterfly in it to preserve it.

The most astonishing one -

there was a board game released in 1982

called A War In The Falklands Board Game.

Oh, my God.

But on the bomb thing, Alan,

1950 - Atomic Energy Lab included four samples of uranium ore,

and you were invited to hide a radioactive sample in your bedroom

and challenge others in a game of hide and seek

using a Geiger counter.

Oh, my God!

Mm-hm. Wow. Yeah.

And here's me still doing sex toys in Secret Santa.

But apparently they said, playing with this kit,

you got no more radiation than a nice day out in the sun,

so it was absolutely fine. Wow.

What's the worst present anybody ever got as a child?

As an adult, about 15 years ago, I got an electric tin opener,

and I was excited until I realised that all the tins

had them ring pulls on.

And so to use it, I had to open everything upside down.

I remember as a child, I was not interested in dolls at all,

and I got given something called Girl's World,

and it was a head of a doll,

and you pressed a button and her hair grew

or you could put make-up on her.

And I doused it lighter fluid and set fire to it in the garden.

Obviously, the whole gendered nature of toys was like a big kind of...

You've got to buy them toys that are unisex and all that kind of stuff.

So I bought my daughter some cars, and straight away she made

the mummy car, daddy car and baby car and she fed them

and put them to bed.

Well, in the 1920s, there were dolls for grown-ups

and it caused an absolute moral panic.

Oh, you can still get those, Sandi.

APPLAUSE

Have you ever been round to Alan's house for a dinner party?

Like, "The rest of your guests are a little quiet, Alan."

I always provide a foot pump.

That's my Tinder profile.

These were known as boudoir dolls, and they were dolls for adult women.

They were often dressed as flappers. They wore make-up, they smoked.

I think they're rather marvellous. Yeah. But they were dressed in

immodest fashions, and they were a huge fad amongst women

in both Europe and America. Particularly popular in France.

They were known as Les Poupees de Paris,

and Anatole France said women were "forgetting their duty"

because they were so distracted by playing with these dolls.

So there's a very popular doll currently on sale

which pees colourful glitter and poops surprise charms,

and you collect the charms and make a bracelet.

Oh! CHRIS LAUGHS

I'm just saying... A poo bracelet?

Yeah. I'm just saying it's available. Yeah.

Now, time to rummage in the QI toy box

and see what we can come up with in the way of General Ignorance.

Why did Pinocchio's nose start growing?

The whole audience goes, "Oh, it's trick."

Yeah.

Um... He lied.

Oh, there you go.

KLAXON

So do you know who wrote Pinocchio? Yes. An Italian. Yes. 1938.

Niccolo somebody or other. Carlo Collodi.

Carlo Collodi! Carlo Collodi. 1881.

Oh. So, a little bit...

I would've believed you, though. You've got a good rap in facts.

Yeah.

CHRIS: I think he just says things with confidence, thinking,

"No-one will pull me up on this."

Pinocchio's nose grows twice in the original.

So, initially when Geppetto the carver first carves him,

and again when he's hungry, but never when he lies.

It was so popular, the story, that Collodi then extended the story

and he incorporated the nose growing as a punishment for lying.

But even then he only does it twice,

and Pinocchio lies way more than that.

Does Jiminy Cricket appear in the stories?

Well, in the real story, darling,

Pinocchio gets annoyed with Jiminy Cricket for being too pious

and kills him with a hammer. What?! No!

Can you imagine?

"Let your conscience be your guide now, bitch!" Yeah.

There's some really horrible stuff in the original story.

There's a snake jumps out at Pinocchio

and he finds his reaction so funny

that he bursts an artery laughing and dies.

At one point, Pinocchio's hanged from a tree

by a fox and a cat who leave him to suffocate. Oh, my God.

I have to say, in the Disney version, the Pleasure Island in it

was originally called "Boobyland".

CHRIS: That would be "White Meat Land".

Anyway, they renamed it just before the release of the film.

Titworld.

According to Time magazine, Bambi is one of the all-time top 25

in what genre of movie?

Deer films.

Are there 25 deer films? There's The Deer Hunter.

Yeah.

There's Deer, Oh, Deer. Yeah.

Deer Me, Vicar.

Deer Mother. Oh, Deer, He's Fallen Down Again.

These were all from the '40s.

Snuff movies, because there's death.

You are closer than deer movies. What other genres...?

Movies where the main character loses its mother.

That's every Disney film ever, though, isn't it?

It's horror. Horror!

Yes. The 1942 film, based loosely on the book of Bambi,

listed by Time as one of the all-time top 25 horror movies

alongside Psycho and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

It is very distressing. It's terribly horrific.

I mean, I can't even watch Thumper falling over on the ice, but...

..spoiler alert, both Bambi and his mother are shot by hunters -

the mother fatally - and the forest burns down. It's horrific.

Imagine if they'd have taken them out with a chainsaw, though.

Yeah. Or in the shower. Ee! Ee! Ee!

Right. Name a bird that you can see at the South Pole.

Well, I'm going to say penguin.

KLAXON

No, Alan, no.

Well, you'd be wrong.

Too cold at the South Pole for them? They have to stay by the coast

and catch fish. Mm. So, you don't really get them much closer

than 700 miles away from the Pole.

They spend up to 75% of their lives in water.

The most southerly bird in the world is the south polar skuas,

and they've been seen at the geographic South Pole.

Not a nice bird, actually. Very aggressive.

It steals the food of other birds. Well, you'd need to be to survive.

Well, eats the chicks of other birds. Not nice, is it?

So, hand on, if it steals the food of other birds and eats the chicks

of other birds, then there must be other birds.

APPLAUSE

Er, no, fair.

AS COLUMBO: "Just one thing before I go."

Birds of the same species, perhaps. Yeah.

Do you know that there's actually a makeshift golf club

13 degrees above the Pole?

It's run by the New Zealand Antarctic Programme.

And they have this rule.

If a skua steals your ball, which they often do,

you get a one-shot penalty. But if you hit a bird by mistake,

you're rewarded with a birdie.

ALL: Aw! SANDI: I know!

Right, I've toyed with you long enough. It's time for the scores.

Toy-ling in fourth place with -19,

it's Alan!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Toy-ing and froy-ing in third with -8,

it's Chris!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Never toy-ring. Do you see what I'm doing? Oh!

See what I'm doing there?

With -7, it's Aisling!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

I did try.

And all hoity-toy-ty, it's this week's winner with -2,

it's Gyles!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Right. That's it for this edition of QI.

Thanks to Chris, Gyles, Aisling and Alan.

And we leave you with this thought from David Letterman.

You know you've had too much to eat for Christmas dinner

when you slump down onto a beanbag

and realise there is no bean bag.

Thank you for letting us toy with your affections tonight.

From all of us at QI, Merry Christmas and goodnight.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE