QI | Twelve Frenchmen And Twelve Mosquitos 

Spike Milligan went to a reunion dinner for soldiers in north Africa. He was chatting to a German, and they worked out they must have been opposite one another at el alamain. When he got home, he found the German had written "Dear Spike, sorry I missed you, 1942" on his menu.

Alan's mimes are priceless.

Twelve Frenchmen are sitting outside a cafe in Paris. A mosquito lands on each of them. All twelve mosquitoes die of alcohol poisoning.

“Tried making a Heinkel, sir!” 😂😂😂

an analysis about twenty years ago calculated the mosquito was the most efficient bomber in the war, in terms of destruction per dollar. iirc it was worth about five times any of the better known large bombers. apparently the germans were inordinately envious of this plane that could be "built in a piano factory", as they reputedly put it

An interesting side note about Operation Jericho is that nobody knows who actually ordered the raid on Amiens prison. There are no known official documents with instructions ordering the raid, nor any postwar memoirs that owned up to ordering it.

Dara playing the harp with his lad again.

The Amiens raid is one of the most amazing raids of WW2 fantastic flying by the crews involved in 'the wooden wonders'. Well worth looking up the story

The twelve Frenchmen: 'Appy Sleepy Aragorn Furieux Quechose Começa Boeuf Zut Allors Finetre Boulangeraie Le Table Jambon Fromage

Dara! An Irishman speaking English with a French accent! Brilliant!

It’s like the tunnel run in the Death Star, innit?

You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!

The french resistance were being systematically tortured. The raid was a desperate attempt at crushing the risk for the discovery of extremely sensitive plans for D-day. The raid was to cause confusion and any deaths were treated as "safe" collateral damage. A bonus release of any of the inmates was secondary.

Arguably the best plane of the war.

Hearing about Phil Jupitus' chubby 6 year old fingers covered in swastikas always makes me chuckle, the way he mimes looking up at his teacher with his arms ajar pretending to have grimy or adhesive-bound hands has just tickled me for years now. I come back quite often some times, I must say x) What a silly but completely believable premise. I just can't leave it alone when it gets in my head, I have been in the same position but it was with Soviet stars so it was more of a "What's going on there?" It is just such a funny juxtaposition, the innocence of a model aircraft being built by 6 year old Phil Jupitus, and the third reich. Lol. I hurt my ribs if I think about it too long.

Sure would be nice to have captions these. Please? I love these so much but I’m hard of hearing.

A set-up for Dara and he missed it! He's a bright bloke. I'm stunned...

With hindsight it's of course very sad about the raid resulting in so many casualties, but imagine the confusion it would have caused on the day. Misdirection has been a key part of warfare since ancient times. Nobody knew what was going on; there'd have been urgent radio messages flashing all over the place, presumably trying to decide if the attack was a tactical diversion designed to keep the German forces occupied while something else was happening elsewhere. It's precisely the kind of thing that the expression 'the fog of war' describes. Real life's not a film; John bloody Wayne doesn't save the day; bad things happen to good people, and good things happen to bad. And war, like mosquitoes, sucks.

Alan ‘I have a lisp and it’s never mentioned’ Davies

I thought maybe the title referred to a first draft of the musical "Seven brides for seven brothers."

there was an Englishman, travelling around Europe by train, who felt rather tired, so he went to the night car on the train he was on, and it seemed there were a dozen men from France, all sharing the car. knowing that the other cars were full, he decided that he could make do in that one. about half way through the night, a high pitched buzzing can be heard, and the men all agree that it's coming from a mosquito, so they try and locate it so they can sleep in peace. about 5 minutes of searching, the Englishman notices the mosquito on one of the Frenchmen's cheek, so he lines up his hand, and smacks the mosquito. the Frenchman understands, and they all go to bed, but 10 minutes later, another buzzing is heard, so they repeat the search. again, the mosquito lands on a Frenchman's cheek, and again, the Englishman smacks him. over the course of the night, this repeats itself another 10 times, each time with a different Frenchman, and each time it's the Englishman who swats them. when the train arrives at the destination the next morning, the Englishman says to himself "I wonder where I can buy more mosquitoes"

Chubby 6 year old fingers? Imagine him trying to make one now haha.

And that's why you don't share personal information on QI :D

How did pilots know who shot them down anyway? And vice versa

"...and they think you're in the BNP." BURN.

Alan demonstrated controlling an alied parachute. The German parachutes suspended from a strap between the sholders, giving the rider no control and landing on his face. This their kit was landed kilometres off, allowing them to be shot. Such crap parachutes they made one landing, in Crete, and got slaughtered.

Don't normally comment on these clips (they are so good!) But I don't like the comments made by Alan and Phil (not that they'll give a toss but there it is...)

I thought it was the joke that ends "Mosquitoes stop sucking when you slap them"

Wait, they're different things?!

What a surprise. Alan Davies miming his ‘jokes’.

The French government has issued new requirements for rifles for their infantry. Among the requirements are that the weapon must weigh less than 3 pounds (1.4 kilos). The reason for this is so that the French soldiers don't get tired when holding the rifles over their heads while surrendering.

I went and looked up World Mosquito Day. Turns out they're not made of wood - I've been trolled.

12 escaped..276 men died..this is "a success" ???

As Ricky Gervais says "Anything can be funny, it's all in the context" This I'm finding it hard to laugh. The stereotypes of RAF pilots has been about for decades. Unfortunately so has our, to our utter shame, understanding of what these boys with an average age of just 22 went through. I challenge you walk through the Reichwald Forest War Cemetery or the Berlin 1939-45 War Cemetery and play this clip. You'd be standing amoung over 3,000 graves of which 80% are aircrew. Each one left a letter to their parents, kept in their locker to be sent home if they didn't return. The priced paid by these boys was their lives. Those that did survive, like my gt uncle who flew the Mossie and Bostons with 107 Sqn, were never the same again. He drank too much and couldn't settle to anything. The next time you're tempted to laugh at lazy RAF stereotypes , think of the parents or wife recieving their loved ones letter a few days after the telegram informing their son/husband is missing from air operations last night. Thanks

Completely unrelated, but I’m not a fan of Natalie Portman, and she keeps popping up with her online class ad before every QI video.

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