spiralofhope

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4701426/

This is Stephen speaking on stage and then reading from his book, and not (really) a standup routine.

I like him, and this was enjoyable but not recommended unless a person already knows a bit of him. He is very personable and accessible to me.

• Filmed at the Royal Festival Hall.

• More Fool Me (memoir) is Fry's autobiography.

• Perth, Australia

  • Vinyl banquette is an upholstered bench.

• Austria

  • This bit makes no sense and I don't understand how it's funny.

• German language

  • not Jägermeister

• Canada

  • Glenn Gould
  • Gould hated journalists, and once interviewed himself.
• Germany

• The Netherlands

  • Dutch language
  • Drug policy of the Netherlands
  • Prostitution in the Netherlands

• New Zealand

  • The Hobbit (film series)
  • iPad
  • 4K resolution
  • High frame rate
  • It is untrue that there was no display. There was a really cool one created which broke the signal up and processed each one with its own computer and re-mixed them. I saw a video on this, but don't recall the details though. It was, at that time, unreleased, but a big name for a big movie could have been able to borrow it and help with real-world-application testing.

• Russia

  • Politics of Russia (Semi-presidential system)
  • Vladimir Putin
  • Dobby the house elf (from Harry Potter)

• Sweden

  • Swedish language which he mis-names as Svensk, but is Svenska.

• United Kingdom

  • Snooker
  • Steve James (snooker player)

• Thailand (formerly Syam)

  • Scotland
  • Northern Ireland
  • Wales (North Wales, South Wales)

• Estonia, Latvia

  • "pulling out"
• Whitehall
• Patronymics
• History of chess, Wheat and chessboard problem
• Persia (Iran)
• Farsi (Persian language)
• Shah
• Human evolution, Anatomically modern human
• Ice age
• Gray wolf, Dog
• DNA
• Downton Abbey

• Television

  • Television antenna
• The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde
• He speaks of a library-van thing, but I didn't find info with a quick glance.
• Homosexuality
• Judaism

• Upper class

But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see." from the song "Working Class Hero -- John Lennon, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band

• Albert Einstein called "Option paralysis" (see Overchoice)

• Romania

  • Flag of Romania
  • Bribery, Bucharest, New York City
• Cocaine

• Alcoholic beverage (Ethanol)

  • Prohibition (Prohibition in the United States via the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution)
• The War on Drugs

• The Daily Mail

Book reading

• Gossip
• Charles, Prince of Wales
• Monarchy of the United Kingdom
• Homeopathy is Bollocks
• Rowan Atkinson
• Penn Jillette
• Norfolk
• Hollandaise sauce for Eggs Benedict
• Hugh Laurie

• "QI elf"

  • 'The QI Elves' is Stephen's nickname for the people who research, write and produce QI (Quite Interesting) in all its guises - television, radio, books, games, apps and internet thingies. Catch them on @qikipedia.
• Battenberg cake, taking the piss
• A six bedroom place. Seriously?
• Dundee cake
• EastEnders
• Spitting Image
• Clive James?
• Leonard Rottiger? sitcoms
• Jon Canter
• Penn & Teller
• Tower of London
• "... babbling like a gibbon on speed" (Amphetamine)
• Martin Gilliot?
• .. a bunch of stuff I didn't understand.
• Escaped the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi's several times, but was always re-captures.
• He was sent to Colditz Castle .. something about "the eaton of prison camps"
• Insomnia
• Hugo Vickers's biography of the queen is called Elizabeth, The Queen Mother (2005)
• The Castle of Mey, in Caithness
• Port wine
• Angel investor
• Gull's eggs and Asparagus
• Louisa Hamilton, Duchess of Abercorn

• dowager? Duchess of Abercorn

  • I don't know, maybe she's in Category:British_duchesses_by_marriage.
• .. some show whose name I couldn't hear.

• Gin and Dubonnet

  • Queen Elizabeth II likes two-parts Dubonnet and one-part gin with two cubes of ice and a lemon slice before lunch every day.

• Remote control

More

• Richard Ellmann

  • Ellmann's Biography of Oscar Wilde (1987)

(It's the final paragraph)

We inherit his struggle to achieve supreme fictions in art, to associate art with social change, to bring together individual and social impulse, to save what is eccentric and singular from being sanitised and standardised, to replace a morality of severity by one of sympathy. He belongs more to our world than to Victoria's. Now, beyond the reach of scandal, his best writings validated by time, he comes before us still, a towering figure, laughing and weeping, with parables and paradoxes, so generous, so amusing, and so right.

• Karl Marx with his big bushy beard.
• A Led Zeppelin album cover.
• Che Guevara
• Jimi Hendrix
• Vladimir Lenin John Lennon
• Rock music

• Bob Dylan

Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for? -- Robert Browning