‘Doctor Who’ thing of the day: Bill Bailey’s ode to the wonderfulness of the Doctor

Hilarious. It’s in French (which is part of the joke; Bailey is British) but you’ll still understand almost every single word of it even if you don’t know more of the language than oui and non:


You may remember Bailey as the book-reading desk sergeant in Hot Fuzz and as Bilbo in Spaced, and if you haven’t seen his sitcom Black Books, check it out: you are in for a treat.

(Thanks to reader Isobel for the link. If you stumble across a cool Doctor Who thing, feel free to email me with a link.)

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leontineg
Wed, Aug 04, 2010 8:19pm

“Exterminez vous!”

French Daleks: Surprisingly polite.

bronxbee
Wed, Aug 04, 2010 8:40pm

not polite, just formal.

MC
MC
Wed, Aug 04, 2010 10:00pm

Ah, the Belgian Jazz version of Who… classic Bailey.

MaryAnn
MaryAnn
Wed, Aug 04, 2010 10:17pm

not polite, just formal.

Exactly. It would unspeakably rude for a Dalek to use the familiar “tu” without an invitation from the exterminee to do so.

PJK
PJK
Thu, Aug 05, 2010 2:09am

Dagnabbit,

I was thinking about sending you this link as well, but I thought I had already seen it before on the website.

At least I can direct your attention to the Orchestral version!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6avUO9dy94

Dr Who starts at about 5:30 (sorry can’t figure out how to link to that point directly)

Ide Cyan
Ide Cyan
Thu, Aug 05, 2010 4:04am

The imperative doesn’t require a subject pronoun; the form of the verb indicates the number and the person of the subject already. When a pronoun follows the verb it’s usually as a direct/indirect object, not a subject, so “exterminez vous” would translate as “exterminate yourselves”. (If it had been addressed to “tu”, it would be written “extermine” without the Z.) If you want to say “exterminate them”, it ought to be “exterminez-les”. But “exterminate” translates as “exterminez”/”exterminer” quite well without pronouns.

Orodemniades
Thu, Aug 05, 2010 9:03am

Je t’aime, Bill Bailey.

Isobel
Isobel
Thu, Aug 05, 2010 11:58am

I do love Bill Bailey – he’s also brilliant when he’s on QI (Stephen Fry combined with Bill Bailey combined with Alan Davies – I laugh until I have stomach ache!).

For anyone familiar with the BBC news intro music, Bill Bailey also did a very funny techno rave style (I don’t know the proper names for all the different types of house music – sorry!) reworking of that. I’ll see if I can’t track it down on YouTube when I get home (they won’t let us on YouTube at work – we get a high bandwith non-work naughty naughty warning. Irritatingly, it’s started blocking The Onion now too, due to ‘profanity’. Frakking thing – speaking of which and completely on a tangent (too much coffee, methinks) – why why why are they making us wait until January for the second half of Caprica season one?).

Sok
Sok
Thu, Aug 05, 2010 1:07pm

This will keep me smiling all day.

Orodemniades
Thu, Aug 05, 2010 1:18pm

@Isobel: Here’s the whole skit from Part Troll Live:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEPcUWk8xEo

Orodemniades
Thu, Aug 05, 2010 1:29pm

And here are the European Ambulances from Bewildebeast (fan video, I recommend listening to it w/out watching first):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAct2fi59MI

Hee!

Can’t believe I missed him when I was in Aberdeen.

nerdycellist
Thu, Aug 05, 2010 1:46pm

A friend and I saw him a couple of years ago in LA. I swear we were the only people laughing half the time. Sometimes I was laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe though so maybe we compensated for the rest of the audience. If this were a just world, he and Eddie Izzard would play alternate weekends on TV.

Isobel
Isobel
Thu, Aug 05, 2010 5:13pm

@ Orodemniades – thanks for that, makes me laugh every time!

leontineg
Fri, Aug 06, 2010 8:32am

@ Ide Cyan – Maybe they’re saying “Exterminate yourself” in the same sort of way that one might say “F*** Youself”? Only more formal, of course! ;)