Who got married in the emperor's new clothes? Ooh that is a fabulous wedding.
The emperor
I want it to be that.
He doesn't do very much in the story does he? Just parades around.
He's a bit of an idiot isn't he?
I think that's the point of the story.
What I like about the story is that two swindlers come and this idea that there were swindlers who'd go from town to town swindling people and that sort of died out really.
Social media has killed the swindling industry
Have you never had emails?
There was a period of time when people got married naked in New England. So 1700s why might they do that?
Is it to do with witches? To prove they were women?
It's not to do with witches or to prove they were women.
Do you know there's still a thing with Popes. Where they have to carry the chair
over the cardinals to check because they had a female pope which is obviously a disaster so they
carry over the top so they can check out his junk. Sadly it's a myth.
You know what this is my issue with QI yeah. You say it's a myth but I've heard it in a pub.
I'm pretty sure that's the case so.
The bridegroom and the bride are both naked? No, just the bride.
Is it something to do with the Bible?
It isn't to do with the Bible, it's to do with debt. They were known as smock marriages, sometimes just in
their underwear and if the bride clearly has no assets if she's got nothing then the groom is not
liable for her debts or more importantly if she's a widow for her husband's debts. They didn't have to be
visible, they just had to be naked. So there's a wonderful wedding that's talked about in February
1789 a man called Major Moses Joy and he married a widow called Hannah Ward and she was starkers
inside a closet and basically she reached her arm out through a hole in the door to clasp his hand
and then they got married and then he'd left some clothes very nicely for her in the cupboard and
then she came out uh fully dressed.
That's a bit like you know if a tree falls in a forest
if you're naked and nobody can see nobody can see it doesn't really count
You don't need to be naked do you ?
I'm sure lady gaga would argue she was wearing a wardrobe.
Just a hell of a dress.
Does her head stick out the top of the wardrobe?
It was just her arm out that was it it. Might not have been her arm in fact.
It could have been anyone's arm.
Was yours a nightmare Jo, your wedding?
Yeah.
I couldn't fit in the wardrobe I had to go in the marquee instead.
No it was it was lovely.
It's stressful though isn't it? I was having a look at the planning nightmare that is a wedding. If you have 17 guests and two tables of ten that
has one hundred and thirty one thousand seven hundred and two possible seating arrangements
A wedding with a hundred guests and ten tables has 65 trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion
trillion trillion possibilities as to where you want to seat people.
Well I had a very little wedding so I said to all my friends like don't tell anyone or talk about
it and one of my friends stayed at a local hotel and called a cab to pick her up to take her to
our wedding and she got in the cab and he went where where do you want to go and she went "I'm not telling you."
That's fabulous. They have a great tradition in Sweden here's a randy scandi fact. If the
bride leaves the reception to go to the bathroom then all the women in the room kiss the groom,
and if the groom leaves all the men may kiss the bride.
And that is how chlamydia started.
It's a fine name for a child.
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