"APPLAUSE" "Gu-u-u-u...ten Abend!" "guten Abend and willkommen to QI. and joining me on the panel we have the Germanic Rob Brydon." "APPLAUSE AND CHEERING" "Joined by the Teutonic Sean Lock." "APPLAUSE AND CHEERING" "The Wagnerian Jo Brand." "APPLAUSE AND CHEERING" "And the Gerry-built Alan Davies." "APPLAUSE AND CHEERING" "the panel have the very latest in precision-engineered buzzers." "Rob goes..." "THE GERMAN NATIONAL ANTHEM PLAYS" "Sean goes..." "OOMPAH BAND MUSIC" "Jo goes..." "MUSIC: "The Ride of the Valkyries" by Wagner" "And Alan goes..." "SONG: # Don't let's be beastly to the Germans... # on any mention of the war." "Don't mention the war." "You have been war-ned." "let's define our terms." "and we sometimes borrow them from Germany." "the word schadenfreude." "A whole sentence?" "If you can manage!" "that statue's all covered in schadenfreude." "It's a sentence but..." "It must have been a cold night." "Look at the size of my schadenfreude." "Any other thoughts?" "Familiar with the phrase?" "MUSIC: "The Ride of the Valkyries" by Wagner" "Whoah!" "Ooh!" "Yes." "I enjoyed the schadenfreude I experienced when my husband was killed by a local gangster." "Is the correct use of the word schadenfreude." "APPLAUSE" "Correct but deeply in need of therapy." "Yes." "So schadenfreude means..." "Pleasure in the misfortune of others." "and there is no English phrase for it so we had to borrow it from the Germans." "Does the word gemuetlichkeit mean anything to you?" "How dare you!" "That sounds kind of Jewish." "I don't know what he's talking about." "Why should it be?" "How ironic that it's actually German." "it's not ironic because Yiddish is German that Jews use." "Yes." "I knew that." "Is gesundheit Yiddish?" "Gesundheit is German." "It just means literally "soundness" or "health"." "Yes." "But gemuetlichkeit mean anything to you?" "No idea." "it sort of signifies pleasant feeling." "Swingers' party?" "gemuetlich people are also good community people." "They're very kind to their neighbours." "Is it the German brand name for Rohypnol?" "You are such cynics!" "It was considered so important for things like Austrian holidays." "There was a reasonably famous case in the early '70s of a man who sued a travel company because there was no gemuetlichkeit on his holiday and he won." "He won for lack of gemuetlichkeit." "warm feeling." "It was called Jarvis versus Swan Tours Limited in 1973." "apparently." "zugzwang mean anything to you?" "It's used in chess." "stalemate?" "it's slightly like stalemate." "It isn't though." "It's for one player where his disadvantage is that he has to move." "it's your move." "you can now move." "and that's called being in zugzwang." "I'll try one more." "I've heard of that." "There's sort of something in the air that everyone feels and it leads to similar ideas happening." "Spirit of the age." "Spirit of the age." "exactly." "you did pretty well on your German." "Turns out that German words are not in the zeitgeist." "It seems not." "It seems that they aren't." "They're not in your..." "See what I did there?" "Did a German word joke." "I didn't even know I had one." "German words are not in your weltanschauung." "Indeed." "Yes." "we use a loan word when we're overwhelmed with that weltschmerz and angst because we don't have one of our own." "One of the many ways that our German friends have contributed to the gestalt of the English language." "How upset are the Germans about the 1966 World Cup?" "I would say." "BUZZER Ooh!" "You see." "a proud nation like the Germans." "how upset ARE they?" "They barely remember it." "If you asked average German who won the World Cup in 1966... they're pretending." "No." "Because the fact is... they don't." "They care about their scores against Holland." "That's their big thing." "they just... '66?" "did you?" "Well done." International..." "For us it was like everything." "really care about." "the Dutch have never provided a great deal of opposition to them." "in that sense." "spin the windmills..." "BUZZER I haven't mentioned it yet!" "I didn't say it!" "Come on!" "APPLAUSE" "I was talking about... er... in 1762 where they just walked into Holland." "I'll mention the war..." "You have to!" "which would be with us." "Why?" "That they are in denial." "but it's up to them to decide." "they're wrong. ..to care about whether they beat us or not." "they bloody well should!" "Yes!" "they just don't care that much." "like the sun-lounge hogging with the towel." "Yes." "Is that something you've actually experienced?" "Yes." "There's some pictures." "These are some of Alan's holiday photos that he's brought with him. and he confirms that we think it but Germans are blissfully unaware of their reputation in this case." "is the right description of it." "Halifax travel insurance... and take all the beds around the pool." "It turns out Halifax Travel Insurance in 2009 confirmed with a study that Germans are the most likely to reserve sun loungers with towels." "And which nation do you think is the second most likely to?" "The Dutch?" "The British." "The British!" "LAUGHTER" "God!" Exactly!" "While the French and Italians and Portuguese are having breakfast and not really caring." "that's true." "Enjoying the lovely food and the weather." "APPLAUSE" "That is highly true." "Highly true." "I had a run-in with some Germans on holiday once." "because I like Germans on the whole. fat English... which made them laugh even more." "And then the next morning I had to walk past them on my way round because obviously they'd sat down in all the nice chairs. went through it." "no!" "Jo!" "LAUGHTER" "And they pointed and laughed." "They had sabotaged it." "It's like they left the one chair." "perforated it in some way." "Ja." "Ze English fat... that's very good." "is they're efficient and they think that of themselves as well. but what do they think of us?" "What are the six major thoughts that Germans have about the British?" "That we're probably a bit smelly?" "Beery?" "they would say." "Untidy?" "Scruffy?" "They think of us as untidy." "certainly." "ROB:" "Yes." "apparently. that we're rather reserved and we can't cook." "they've visited." "I fear." "they've certainly read our newspapers." "we may think of the Germans but they're more interested in caning the Dutch." "But why did the Germans confiscate the Dutchmen's trousers?" "What?" "The Dutch?" "Is there some special Dutch trouser?" "Am I missing some Dutch trouser thing?" "When was the World Cup held in Germany?" "'74 and 2006. and they had a lion's tail." "lion pants." "There they are." "don't they?" "They do." "It's the same colour." "they're orange." "House of Nassau." "But these were confiscated en masse to such an extent that all the Dutch fans against the Cote d'Ivoire - the Ivory Coast - so they had to watch in their underpants." "Why?" "that's my question." "Why?" "Alan?" "They could be used as a catapult." "it's not going to be a very good match." "We want shots of loads of people in their pants during the game." "But they manufactured..." "Did they have some kind of logo on them?" "it's because of the sponsorship." "that the official FIFA beer was not Bavaria and therefore it wasn't allowed." "I'm afraid." "At Wimbledon it's happened." "Some woman had her yoghurt taken away from her because it wasn't the official yoghurt of Wimbledon!" "That's outrageous!" "Just horrible." "Pathetic." "It's Britishly pathetic." "And it's outrageous as well." "I'll take your yoghurt... that scam was a complete waste of trousers." "It was a waste of trousers." ""We've got a brilliant idea." "Oh... exactly. on their foreheads and then they'd have had to laser them before they go into the game." "I think they'll..." "Bzzt." "Bzzt." "And these people with just burnt foreheads watching the game." "That would have been good." "I'd have liked that." "You know when Premiership footballers get booked if they take their shirts off when they score a goal." "isn't it?" "you see the sponsor on the shirt." "That's why FIFA made it a bookable offence to take off your shirt when you've scored a goal." "right." "you know." "we've paid hundreds of millions to sponsor Man United and Ronaldo takes his shirt off"." "All you're seeing is some nipples." "Yes." "So what does lederhosen mean?" "absolutely." "It's one of those rather typical things where the upper classes decided to ape the peasantry in the 18th century and had these incredibly expensive wedding and country feasts you know Marie Antoinette with her silver milk churns pretending to be a milkmaid. that's something that I've turned to recently." "I now favour the longer sock." "Do you?" "Could you take me through your reasoning?" "I'll show you." "The gentleman's sock." "The half-hose." "It's called the half-hose." "you're going to think this sock is going to stop a lot sooner than it does." "watch this." "Look at that." "my goodness me!" "surely?" "my word!" "Surely!" "He's wearing tights." "Ah!" "APPLAUSE" "Alan and Sean." "I urge you to give it a go." "Because it gives you a feeling of security." "LAUGHTER" "They do make you look like a knobhead." "LAUGHTER" "Sorry." "Rob..." "One of the problems men have..." "They do." "Stephen... don't we?" "can I just say. you imply that you agree with what Jo has said." "how difficult it would ever be" "I won't go there." "That we allow women to be rude to us and that's fine if they want to." "yes." "too." "put it that way." ""I'm going to get a pair of those"." "why don't we let the audience decide?" "LAUGHTER" "All those who think Rob is really onto something "Long sock!" "AUDIENCE:" "LONG SOCK!" "it's not good!" "It's not good." "I fear without having to ask..." "OK." "CHEERING AND APPLAUSE" "There's a class of ethnic immigrant now long-established in America known as Pennsylvania Dutch." "Where do you think they originally came from?" "Germany." "the Rhineland and Switzerland." "I double bluffed you." "very good." "But why would they be called Dutch?" "Because the Americans couldn't be bothered?" "because they rightly recognised the word Dutch and Deutsch are the same word." "Deutsch is Dutch. invaded..." "You mentioned the war." "The war." You did!" "LAUGHTER my lord!" "APPLAUSE bit of a knobhead." "LAUGHTER" "What would you use this for?" "I have a picture of them here." "To frighten the children." "just move it very slowly across the room." "in the WC." "Air freshener?" "it's to encourage them..." "Anything to do with the seat?" "It is to do with the seat." "Dive off it into the toilet?" "no." "Is it so they don't have to touch the seat? this..." "I have one here." "this is your toilet speaking." "Wouldn't you rather like to sit down?" "then you may leave now." "do they?" "No wonder they're wearing that lederhosen and slapping themselves all the time." "The point is in Germany they think it's somehow unhygienic because of splashing and things." "so that's how it's attached. for others to hear." "So the men sit and have a pee." "That's the idea." "Splashing is a problem." "and they all using the lower loo." "It is like the Center Parcs log flume in there." "LAUGHTER" "I tell you." "Is that why you've got the long socks?" "Yes." "APPLAUSE" "I was the same as you." "I thought they were ridiculous." "Then I put them on and I'm loving it." "though?" "Sean?" "No." "then come back to me." "I'm just going to wonder what's going to happen to you this is incredible!" "this is amazing!" "LAUGHTER" "I have been skydiving." "Have you tried jelly?" "That's nice." "LAUGHTER my God!" "this is incredible!" "you know?" "Rob." "LAUGHTER" "I'm just... that stands for StehPinkler Unter Kontrolle." "which is to sit urinating. one of the things that annoys me more than anything else is when I..." "Is when I put my trousers on and sometimes it captures the long sock and takes it down to the ankle." "No!" "LAUGHTER just to have a nice feeling of control of the sock reaching the knee." "Rob." "you wear long socks and jumbo cords?" "LAUGHTER if" I'm wearing." "Sometimes I'll wear jumbo cord. because I don't like wearing them..." "I don't need my glasses." "and the pants act like a little hammock for the glasses." "LAUGHTER and then I might be sat there for some time because so I might sit there for ten or 15 minutes." "no!" "my glasses!" "And I've rammed my glasses deep into my under regions." "Woah." "I think." "LAUGHTER" "I hope no one else... quite." "the Spuk is a hi-tech weapon in the German battle against men weeing on the floor." "What do naked German students do for a living?" "LAUGHTER if that means anything to you?" "You can hire a naked person..." "Not just for life modelling are anything like that?" "for doing housework." "Germans like to have naked students doing their hoovering and their housework." "How bizarre!" "Germans sort of... very good!" "Frei Korpus Kultur?" "Frei Korpus Kultur?" "free body culture." "How do you know about FKK?" "it's famous." "wasn't it?" "There were a lot of nudists." "Until Hitler." "I was just interested." "loathed nudism and spoke out against it and said the police must be trained to stop anybody going naked. hordes of naked German hikers are crossing the border and going hiking." "they all find it disgusting. too." "can you?" "aren't you?" "it's not designed." "it does." "it just expands to somewhere where the summers are better." "LAUGHTER" "No! I'd just get a little bit of tissue paper and stick it... no!" "See how long before someone mentioned it." "You're playing volleyball...!" "Who wants to come for a smoothie?" "Come on!" "I'm buying!" "you've got..." "What?" "!" "Nacktputzservice is the popular German practice of hiring students to clean your house in the nude." "It's all in the finest tradition of the home of modern nudism." "What's the most repeated TV show of all time?" "Top Gear." "isn't it?" "It is." "There's not a time of day when it is not possible to watch Top Gear." "it is on con..." "And it's always a different one." "Ah." "But this one is one programme." "one show that..." "One show that's the most repeated show." "two British comedians... or something like that?" "I think you know what I'm referring to here." "or Lady Somebody?" "It's a British comic being a waiter to a posh..." "It's called Dinner For One..." "That's right. and has been since 1972." "and I know who's in it as well." "Yes?" "Freddie Frinton. and he pours drinks for them and get drunk himself." "here you are." "but it was... every single year?" "It's become a cult." "It's unavoidable in Germany." "They've parties for it." "It's just a tradition." "It was a sketch done in 1920. and all round the other places like that." "A German TV presenter saw it in 1963 and thought it was amusing" "Come and do it on German television." "they showed it." "They've showed it ever since." "It's became so popular." "they laugh as much ironically at it as we would if we saw it." "It's just one of those things that happens to have become an extraordinary tradition." "and all round." "Is there any dialogue at all?" "Miss Sophie?" "James. you know?" "I'm quite glad we have got The Great Escape over here." "That's our tradition." "I agree." "It's pretty extreme." "It's almost impossible to avoid Dinner For One with Freddy Frinton." "What did Uncle Wiggly Wings ever do for Germany?" "Uncle Wiggly Wings?" "He was someone who helped children. down on children." "Abandoned orphans calling a helicopter to "Please airlift me out of here"?" "stick with the word airlift." "What does airlift in Germany bring to mind?" "Berlin." "The Berlin airlift." "The war?" "it doesn't!" "It's not the war!" "it's during the Cold War..." "The Cold War you can mention." "When they blockaded West Berlin. in 1948." "Berlin was completely cut off from the rest of the world." "the American and British and so on." "There was an American pilot who had two sticks of gum." "I'll come back tomorrow and I'll give you more candy." "he wiggled his wings over them and dropped some chocolate." "He'd do this each day." "More and more children came." "It became a huge propaganda coup for over a year." "It was called Operation Little Vittles." "Children in America provided their own candy." "the candy corporations caught on." "Huge tonnage of sweets." "It sounds lovely." "But you imagine a Terry's Chocolate Orange..." "LAUGHTER" "..heading down at you at great speed?" "See what that boy's holding up there?" "The little hanky-style parachutes." "That's no match for the Terry's Chocolate Orange." "The chocolate orange could have landed like the bouncing bomb... did in the war." "now!" "that would be a good thing." "it would go bump..." "Ah!" "wouldn't it?" "It would just open up nicely." "it'd be gorgeous." "000 tons of supplies were dropped." "Not in the one go?" "No..." "Because that would have just buried them." "Over a year." "That's the airlift itself." "American pilot Gail Halvorsen used handkerchief parachutes to drop sweets to the children in Berlin." "He was known as Uncle Wiggly Wings." "What's bound to happen eventually when you get into an argument on the internet? Why am I wasting my life?" "Yes." "There's plenty of people I could have an argument with outside." "an internet message board." "and how worked up they'll get about it. for the last ngh." "Why don't you ngh ngh ngh ngh ngh?" "Sounds like they've got a problem with their keyboard." "LAUGHTER" "There's a thing called Godwin's rule." "Do you know this?" "It's called Godwin's rule of Nazi analogies. the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." "It actually happened. or "That argument..." See what I mean? and that the person who uses that pathetic analogy is deemed to have lost the argument." "Imagine if you're having an internet discussion about the founding of the Nazi party?" "that obviously would be an exception." "it's over." "I'm just trying to get a nice discussion going." "I think that would be allowed." "And who's this Godwin? very apt and intelligent observation." "you might as well end it." "It's nearly always inappropriate." "therefore it's bad." "therefore it's good." "was massively opposed to fox-hunting." "so he banned it." "it must be right..." but that's just a mad argument." "look at his socks!" "Hey!" "Whoa!" "APPLAUSE" "I've lost the argument." "he's brought in Hitler." "Hitler's socks are bad." "I've come off the worst out of this." "it's called." "Are you saying he looks like a knob-head?" "are you? are you?" "You've been hours getting dressed." "Let's just go out." "great socks." "fine socks. the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." "How would you use a monopoly set to escape from a prison?" "I could see how you might use a Buckaroo." "LAUGHTER" "Just fly over the fence." "You'd probably just keep ending up on barbed-wire." "Try it with the bucket." "like in Shawshank?" "Clutty Hutton. with these pretend charities." "So you get a get out of jail free card?" "LAUGHTER" "That's a very good idea." "It was." "Hidden IN the Monopoly board were incredibly useful things. and a little ship." "There would be real money interspersed with the Monopoly money." "There would be maps on silk." "it's too bulky and rustly." "you get an enormous amount of detail on tiny... putting a compass in a military tunic button." "The Germans got wise to this." "They'd unscrew the buttons and they'd see it." "they in fact tightened the button. which was very good." "They were well-disguised." "he's unscrewing it." "he's actually tightening it." "you can't get the top off." "Sir?" "Perkins!" "that's for sure." "a button." "LAUGHTER" "I'd have made them all wear duffle coats." "I'd have started shipping out giant Jengas." "Would you?" "Then you just build them up." "You know the Jengas you get in pub gardens?" "just hop over the fence." "Brilliant." "If only you'd been in charge then." "but with actual ladders." "LAUGHTER" "And real snakes!" "Yeah." "Scare the Germans." "Scare the Germans." "British snakes who didn't like the look of the German soldiers" ""Sss!" "but really big ones" "Gerry!" "Boom!" "Boom!" "What if they were to send the prisoners of war a very long socks are big files to file down the bars." "gave the outline it was like a tailor's template to make a greatcoat with." "to make them different colours." "they peeled aside to have money in them." "Some really clever stuff." "I can't believe the Germans gave them their post after a while." "they had to hide the fact that they got all that." "Monopoly boards were amongst the ordinary items which were sent to help escaping prisoners." "But now it's time to navigate our way through the hostile territory of General Von Ignorance." "if you please." "Who wrote Brideshead Revisited?" "It was Evelyn Waugh." "LAUGHTER" "Evelyn Waugh wrote Brideshead." "Of course he did." "I was checking whether or not you'd remembered not to mention wars." "is it." "It's Evelyn Woff." "what breed of dog is this in fact?" "A German shepherd." "Is the right answer." "You avoided saying Alsatian." "They used to be called Alsatians until..." "They became German Shepherds. this whole business of not liking anything with the word German in it." "Is that why it was stopped?" "Really?" "It was that reason." "Anything with the name German in it was taboo for a long time." "They were called Alsatian wolfhounds." "And then the wolfhound was dropped and they were called Alsatians." "We used to have one." "Did you?" "Nice?" "Friendly?" "it was lovely." "But it did kill next door's dog." "Ah!" "Whoops!" "Oops!" "he's never done that before." "over all that?" "Yeah." "didn't you?" "and..." "Happy days." "The term Alsatian was coined in 1918." "But the Schaeferhund officially reverted to being a German shepherd in 1977." "A trip to the Munich Oktoberfest might be nice." "When would be the best time to go?" "September." "Yes." "depending on the way the months are." "You'd definitely leak if you drank all of that beer." "You certainly would." "It is possibly the world's largest regular festival or fair." "Over six million people cram into it." "actually." "I spent one night there." "it was idiotic." "long tents full of pissed up Australians." "Who I love!" "in France. in the middle of the town square they put temporary bars up." "And then Scotland played Norway and the Scots arrived." "And they drank more beer in the weekend than they normally drink in Bordeaux in a year." "Every single one of these bars served only lager." "There were no food stalls at all and no toilets." "Oh!" "It was unbelievable." "But it was one of the best nights of my life." "Alan!" "Alan..." "Alan..." "Partridge!" "Partridge!" "Aha!" "Aha!" "Aha!" "It was very funny." "600 litres of beer." "isn't it?" "Most of the Oktoberfest takes place in September." "It knocks into a cocked hat the idea that Germans don't know have had a good time." "a musical question." "What's wrong with this?" "# Cream-coloured ponies and crisp apple strudels" "# Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles. # schnitzel with noodles." "Schnitzel is almost never served with noodles." "simply because of the song." "let's be honest." "then." "Yes." "You've ruined the film for a lot of people." "I hope not." "I mustn't tell my kids that." "please don't." "It's a wonderful song." "Who wrote the lyrics?" "It was Rodgers and..." "Hammerstein?" "yes." "How does the film end?" "There it is." "They sing Farewell." "They get over the border into..." "Where did they get to?" "Supposedly into Switzerland." "quite near Hitler's private house." "Hitler's sitting down to have supper and this family singing about goat herds arrives." "there's Bavaria. towards the Italian border." "That's the way they did it." "The Italian border was conveniently open." "They very luckily got there the day before the Italian border was closed." "It was very fortunate. for one of the great masterpieces of modern "culture"." "what happens in Germany at 11:11 on 11th of November every year?" "IN GERMAN ACCENT:" "Everything carries on as normal." "LAUGHTER there is something special happens." "The 11th of September?" "11th of November." "11:11 on the 11th of the 11th." "ha." "We won." "though?" "Which war?" "the Armistice of the First World War." "perhaps not surprisingly." "oddly enough." "right through to Ash Wednesday." "It's huge. then it reaches fever pitch at the time of Mardi Gras." "what does carnival mean?" "The word carnival?" "Eating Valerie." "Carne is meat." "as in valediction." "to remove meat from your diet." "Carnival season in Germany officially begins at 11:11 on the 11th day of the 11th month every year." "the game is over." "All that remains is for the scores to be meted out." "our fluent German speaker." "ein ausgezeichnet minus sechs..." "Jo Brand!" "CHEERING" "Rob Brydon." "CHEERING that good or bad?" "I don't know." "Minus seven." "Minus seven." "Alan Davies!" "Thank you." "CHEERING" "Minus 36?" "Gott in Himmel..." "LAUGHTER" "MIMICS MACHINE GUN" "Sean Lock." "Thank you." "CHEERING" "that is minus 76." "Possibly a record." "Alan und mir. who was..." "How shall I put it?" "A confirmed bachelor." "And also a conscientious objector and a pacifist." "And he appeared before the conscientious objection board and they were obviously going to quiz him on whether or not he truly was or just a coward trying to get out of serving." "are you married?" "do you have a sister?" "I do have a sister." "suppose a German soldier came and tried to rape her." "What would you do?" "I would endeavour to place myself between them." Good night." "LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE" "Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd" "E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk"