List of QI episodes (C series)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article or section needs sources or references that appear in reliable, third-party publications. Primary sources and sources affiliated with the subject of the article are generally not sufficient for a Wikipedia article. Please include more appropriate citations from reliable sources, or discuss the issue on the talk page. This article has been tagged since December 2007.

This is a list of episodes of QI, the BBC comedy panel game television show hosted by Stephen Fry.

The first series started on 11 September 2003. Although not mentioned at the time, all of the questions (with the exception of the final "general ignorance" round) were on subjects beginning with "a" (such as "arthropods", "Alans" and "astronomy"). The following four series continued the theme: the second series' subjects all began with "b", and so on.

The dates in the lists are those of the BBC Two broadcasts. The episodes were also broadcast on BBC Four, generally a week earlier (as soon as one episode finished on BBC Two, the next was shown on BBC Four). Aside from Alan Davies and not adding clip shows, there are six guests that have appeared in ten or more episodes (out of 61), they are Jo Brand (18), Rich Hall (16), Phill Jupitus (16), Bill Bailey (15), Sean Lock (14) and Clive Anderson (10). Excluding the Pilot there have been a total of 51 different guest panellists in the four series to date. The fifth series began to air on BBC Two on 21 September 2007.

Disclaimer: Some facts stated during the series have since been found to be incorrect, in some cases due to a mistake and others by becoming outdated. Where possible these entries have been highlighted.

Contents 1 C Series (2005) 1.1 Episode 1 1.2 Episode 2 1.3 Episode 3 "Common Knowledge" 1.4 Episode 4 1.5 Episode 5 1.6 Episode 6 "Cockney Rhyming Slang" 1.7 Episode 7 1.8 Episode 8 "China" 1.9 Episode 9 1.10 Episode 10 1.11 Episode 11 "Clowns" 1.12 Episode 12 2 External links

[edit] C Series (2005)

[edit] Episode 1

Broadcast dates

• 30 September 2005 (BBC Two)

Panellists

• Alan Davies (-25 points)
• Bill Bailey (-5 points) 7th appearance
• Rob Brydon (-16 points) 2nd appearance
• Rich Hall (Winner with 8 points) 10th appearance

Buzzers

• Bill - A bus's bell
• Rob - Men singing "Bread of Heaven"
• Rich - A dog howling ("How is that a bus?" - "It's a dog being hit by a bus")
• Alan - Children singing "The Wheels on the Bus"

Topics

• The 2002 Ordnance Survey map of Great Britain, the most detailed map of its kind, sells on CD-ROM for £30,000 for every town, or £4,990,000 for the whole country.

Tangent: Amongst the famous actors from Port Talbot are Rob, Richard Burton, Anthony Hopkins and Michael Sheen.

Tangent: The etymology of the word map, from the word mapa, the Latin for napkin.

• The connection between a Carlisle Surprise, A Reverse Canterbury Pleasure & A Sheep Tied To A Lamppost in Cardiff is that they're all types of "changes" in church bell ringing. In Campanology, there are 720 different possible "changes" in the traditional British line-up of six church bells. The origin of the word "Campanology" comes from the Latin for a part of the countryside called Campana. If there were 12 bells in the peal, there would be 479,001,600 different permutations, which would take 38 years to do. The Chinese invented the bell in 1200 BC.

Tangent: Stephen thought that he and his brother invented the word "fuck", so they were surprised when their mother said it to them. Rich first said "fuck" to his father, after his father peeped round his door and said "Shut the door, dad, I'm trying to fuck in here!"

Tangent: John Bunyan denounced bellringing along with dancing, playing tip-cat, and reading the history of Sir Bevis of Southampton.

• The Isle of Wight was the last place in Britain to convert to Christianity in 686 AD, almost a century after the rest of the country. It was subjugated by Cædwalla (leader of the West Saxons), who killed most of the Pagan population to Christianise it. Alan got a point for knowing about The Needles. The North American gray squirrel has not made its way to the Isle of Wight. The Isle of Wight was the last place to be invaded by a foreign power, when it was invaded by the French. (100 point question asked to Alan. Bill answered it correctly.)
• Custard can support a person walking on top of it because it is a non-Newtonian fluid, as demonstrated on Sky One's Brainiac. The heavier the weight you put on it, the harder it becomes.
• Name the teams at the Colosseum in Ancient Rome. - There is no evidence that any Christians were thrown to the lions in a colosseum. Among punishments given to Christians were being forced by Nero to make torches on the Appian Way. (Forfeit: Lions v Christians)

Tangent: In the film Gladiator, the Roman Emperor played by Joaquin Phoenix was called Commodus.

Tangent: Alan's confusion over Emperor's names and champagne names.

• In the Middle Ages, most people thought the world was spherical, although Christopher Columbus believed the world to be pear shaped. Terry Jones blames Washington Irving for making this "lie" about it. He says "The Greeks knew it was round, Chaucer knew it was round, Roger Bacon wrote about the curvature of the Earth in the 13th century." If the Earth wasn't round, planes couldn't fly properly. Since the 4th century BC, no-one believed that the world was flat. (Forfeit: Flat)

Tangent: Stephen's inability to answer Alan if all the stars were round.

Tangent: Rich's attempts to make Stephen bluff the "QI Audience" into believing anything said by him.

General Ignorance

• A Taffy Pull is an American form of toffee. It's different from English toffee because it's chewy and soft all the way through, because it's aerated. Salt water taffy isn't actually made from salt water. The story goes that during the 19th century, there was a flood in Atlantic City (Fry refers to Atlanta but he is mistaken, probably because Atlanta is inland.) and the stock of taffy was flooded, so a friend told the owner to sell it as "salt water taffy". Some people believe the story, others don't. (Forfeit: Welsh Chat-Up Line)
• There were seven sheep on Noah's Ark, because there were seven of every type of clean animal onboard the Ark, with two of each unclean animal like pigs. It's of course a slight irony that no animals are allowed on ships nowadays anyway. (Forfeit: Two)
• The archbishop murdered by Henry II was called Thomas Becket, with the "A" being a mistake, as described by historian John Strype in the "Memoirs of Thomas Cranmer". (Forfeit: Thomas À Becket)

[edit] Episode 2

Broadcast dates

• 7 October 2005 (BBC Two)

Panellists

• Alan Davies (-4 points)
• Andy Hamilton (Winner with 5 points) 1st appearance
• Doon Mackichan (-2 points) 1st appearance
• Arthur Smith (-6 points) 2nd appearance

Theme

• Opera - a 50 point bonus was offered to any contestant who could break a wine glass using only the power of their voice. It is almost impossible to achieve.

Buzzers

• Doon - A woman singing falsetto
• Arthur - An opera singer
• Andy - A man singing in a deep voice
• Alan - A long howl by a dog

Topics

• Doon swam the Channel in 1998; Captain Webb was the first man to do so in 1875, he was smothered in goose-fat in order to insulate himself.

Tangent: Captain Webb died in 1883 attempting to swim across the river at the foot of the Niagara Falls.

• Cummingtonite is a mineral discovered at Cummington, Massachusetts. Other comedy compounds include Penguinone, Arsole and Moronic acid.
• Deep-fried Mars Bars do exist and are not an urban myth. The deep-fried pork sausage kebab, found in Glasgow, contains 1000 calories and 46g of fat.

Tangent: Fry's various anecdotes on the Scottish accent.

• Ordeal by bean is an (outlawed) Nigerian tribal custom whereby accused individuals are forced to eat a lethal strain of bean. (Forfeit: Mr Bean)

Tangent: 95% of baked beans are eaten in Britain.

• A hairdresser called Big Beard Wang regularly shaved his pussy, because his pussy was Chairman Mao. (Mao in Chinese meaning cat)
• According to one survey, the age people would most like to be is 17. From a man's point of view, a woman's perfect age is said to be half his own plus seven.

General Ignorance

• How big is a platypus? - Alan used his hands to measure the size of a duck-billed platypus, which brought up the forfeit "About This Big" on the screen. A platypus, technically speaking, is a genus of beetle, not to be confused with a duck-billed platypus. The latter has no nipples, but instead sweats milk. (Forfeit: About This Big)

Tangent: The echidna is the only other mammal, apart from the platypus that lays eggs.

• A dialogue does not have any limits to how many people can take part. Two people have to take part in a duologue. (Forfeit: Two)
• The Queen's handbag contains some money, a comb, a handkerchief, a small gold compact and some lipstick.

Tangent: Just before Stephen Fry read out the points, the contestants attempted to break their glasses. Alan Davies appeared to succeed, but Doon Mackichan revealed that he had cheated. Stephen then revealed that Alan was trying to break sugar glass, and smashed one over his head. Arthur Smith threw his into the 'QI' logo in the centre of the studio. It was fortunate he did, as his was real glass. (Doon threatened to sue).

[edit] Episode 3 "Common Knowledge"

Broadcast dates

• 14 October 2005 (BBC Two)

Panellists

• Alan Davies (-9 points)
• Jimmy Carr (-12 points) 3rd appearance
• Sean Lock (0 points) 6th appearance
• Rory McGrath (Winner with 88 points) 1st appearance

Buzzers

• Sean - A builder's drilling machine
• Jimmy - A fire alarm
• Rory - A police car's siren
• Alan - Noise and the speaker from the House of Commons shouting "Order! Order!"

Topics

• The commonest bird in the world is the domesticated chicken.

Tangent: According to the Kinsey report, 1 out of 6 men in Iowa has had sex with a chicken.

• John Napier, inventor of the decimal point and logarithms, kept a black cockerel which he used as a ploy to catch a thieving servant. He would hide the cockerel in a darkened room and ask all his servants to stroke it, but they didn't know he covered the cockerel in soot, so the innocent ones would stroke it and have dirty fingers, but the guilty one would pretend to stroke it and have clean hands. Napier supposedly invented the machine gun.

Tangent: The Piccadill ruff.

• A chevin, or chavender, is a type of carp. (Forfeit: A Chav Called Kevin, A Chav In EastEnders)
• Fry stated that marsupials are not mammals, however this is incorrect.
• The fingerprints of a koala are indistinguishable from those of a human.
• 'Dermatoglyphics' and 'uncopyrightable' are the longest words in English language with no repetition of a letter.

Tangent: The Finnish word saippuakuppinippukauppias is the longest palindrome in the world.

• The commonest metal in the human body is calcium, mainly because the bones are calcium phosphate crystals. ("Genius" award - 100 points). (Forfeit: Iron, Mercury).

Tangent: Rory's knowledge of all the atomic numbers.

• The "first" Prime Minister was Henry Campbell-Bannerman; prior to this the official title was First Lord of the Treasury. He became Prime Minister in 1905, 5 days after becoming First Lord of the Treasury. Prime Ministers nowadays become both Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury. Campbell-Bannerman's last words were "This is not the end of me". Walpole never referred to his position as "Prime Minister". (Forfeit: Walpole, Pitt the Elder)

General Ignorance

• Another name for the common cormorant is the seacrow. (Forfeit: Shag)

Tangent: Rory and Stephen discuss Latin bird names.

• The Queen's corgis are of the Pembroke variety, not the Cardigan.
• Tweed used to be fixed with stale urine.
• Mr Chicken lived in 10 Downing Street, he was actually the last private resident. (Forfeit: Kentucky)

Tangent: The door at 10 Downing Street is the only door that can only be opened from the inside.

[edit] Episode 4

Broadcast dates

• 21 October 2005 (BBC Two)

Panellists

• Alan Davies (-52 points)
• Alexander Armstrong (Winner with 93 points) 1st and only appearance
• Jeremy Clarkson (0 points) 2nd appearance
• John Sessions (-10 points) 5th appearance

Buzzers

• Jeremy - A firework
• Alexander - A hippo groaning
• John - A humorous jingle based around the word "fruity"
• Alan - A cuckoo clock (and a gun shooting the cuckoo)

Tasks

• The panelists were asked to keep their own scores. An extra 100 points would be awarded for any contestant who recorded their score absolutely accurately. Alexander Armstrong was the only person who accurately recorded his score (-7) and therefore received 100 points bringing his score up to 93.

Jeremy thought his score was -29, John thought his score was 7 and Alan thought his score was -85½.

Topics

• The 'winner' of the marathon at the 1904 Olympics in St. Louis, Missouri, Frederick Lorz, went most of the way by car. Fourth place was awarded to a Cuban postman named Felix Carbajal, despite falling ill to apples he ate from an orchard en route. Len Tau, one of the first black African competitors in the Olympic Games, finished 9th despite being chased a mile or so off course by a large dog.

Tangent: George Eyser won six gymnastic medals at the 1904 games despite his left leg being made of wood.

Tangent: Cricket at the 1900 Summer Olympics: Britain beat France in the 1900 Olympic Games in cricket, although the French team was actually made of British Embassy officials.

• Many riders competing in the 1904 Tour de France were disqualified because of receiving illegal tows from motor vehicles during night races. Maurice Garin was disqualified for taking a train through part of the route.
• Challenger, Tornado, Typhoon, Mustang, Laser, Marauder, Hurricane, Starquest, Apache, Buccaneer, Jetstream, Superstorm and Cobra are all makes of caravan. (Forfeit: Tanks, Fighters, Helicopters).
• Patriot, Gladiator, Dagger, Javelin, Merlin, Archer, Arrow, White King and Excalibur are all variants of parsnip. Boris Pasternak's surname means parsnip in Russian. Jeremy grows his own parsnips in a field near where he lives. (Forfeit: Missiles).
• The first creature to be sent into space was a fruit fly. (Forfeit: Monkey, Dog)

Tangent: 65% of diseases found in humans are paralleled in the fruit fly.

• The fruit fly has the largest sperm of any organism, with an uncoiled size of around 20 times its own length (5.8cm).

Tangent: The sperm is the smallest cell in the human body, and the ovum is the largest.

• Tonya Harding's attempt to eliminate the competition of Nancy Kerrigan at figure skating, and Douglas "Wrong Way" Corrigan's transcontinental flights.

General Ignorance

• Since Germany was only reunified in 1990, the Second World War only officially ended that year. (Forfeit: 1945)
• Swiss inventions include velcro, milk chocolate, cellophane, rayon and the Swiss army knife. (Forfeit: Cuckoo Clock)

Tangent: The Swiss have the highest motorcycle and gun ownerships in the world. Jeremy was once pulled over in Switzerland, because of his car exhaust, but the policeman took no notice of his gun on the passenger chair.

• 1792 - the year the guillotine was first used, the birth of the inventor of the computer and the death of the inventor of the sandwich and Cambridge University introduced the concept of examinations judged on a written rather than oral basis.

Tangent: The guillotine was last used in 1977, when a one-legged French criminal was executed, Alan tried to gain extra points by claiming it was last used in 1960 in Vietnam, before Stephen corrected Alan.

Tangent: Only 3 people attended Charles Babbage's funeral.

[edit] Episode 5

Broadcast dates

• 28 October 2005 (BBC Two)

Panellists

• Alan Davies (-18 points)
• Jo Brand (-28 points) 9th appearance
• Rich Hall (3 points) 11th appearance
• Sean Lock (Winner with 12 points) 7th appearance

Buzzers

• Sean - A deep inhale through a stuffy nose
• Rich - A hacking cough
• Jo - A sneeze
• Alan - A camel groaning

Topics

• Women have been shown to be able to "smell fear". Animals can smell the fear of each other but not of another species.

Tangent: Female mosquitoes bite you and suck your blood, but not the males.

• "Cats Eyes" Cunningham shot down the very first plane by night in 1940 because he had airborne radar. Alan initially mistook Cunningham for the inventor of the cat's eyes, Percy Shaw. (Forfeit: Carrots)

Tangent: The tiny carrot museum in Berlotte, Belgium. [1]

Tangent: Why children aged around 2 go off vegetables.

• Marco Polo first heard the curious sounds that were created in the desert by sand dunes, which he claimed were the spirits of the desert. There are more molecules in a glass of water than there are grains of sand in the entire world.

Tangent: The Gobi toad lives in the desert and waits every 7 years for rainfall and then they mate and go back into the desert.

• Pliny the Elder and others believed that a giraffe was the result of a cross between a camel and a leopard. This creature was originally called a "camelopard".
• Since 1982, a centenarian in the UK receives a 'telemessage' from the Queen, but only on application from the Anniversaries' Secretary at Buckingham Palace.

Tangent: Stephen gave Prince Charles for his wedding present coffee made from Cambodian weasel vomit.

• There is no word for a Roman who was in charge of 100 men. Strictly speaking, centurions were in charge of 83 men, although it was normally between 60 and 80. (Forfeit: Centurion)
• It is suggested that Nero played the bagpipes while Rome burned down. It was impossible for him to have played the violin as it didn't exist until the 14th century. He blamed the Christians for the Great Fire of Rome. (Forfeit: Fiddled While Rome Burned)
• Elephants used to be caught by Ethiopian elephant catchers who would capture one, disable it and use it as a breeding animal. Methods used to frighten elephants included setting fire to oil-covered pigs and setting them at the elephants.
• No animals are mentioned that have short memories. (Forfeit: Goldfish)

General Ignorance

• A Myoclonic jerk is a sensation of falling during the prestages of sleep used in early stages of evolution to prevent gravity from removing the creature from trees.
• The largest lake entirely within Canada is the Great Bear Lake. None of the Great Lakes are entirely in Canada, so none of them count. The deepest lake in Canada is Lake Manitou, which has an island inside it, and in that island there is a lake in it. That makes it the largest lake that's in an island that's in a lake in the world. (Forfeit: Who Cares?)
• Botts' dots is the name for "cat's eyes" in California. They were created by Dr. Elbert Botts. Unlike Percy Shaw, he received no money because he was working for the California Department of Transportation at the time.

[edit] Episode 6 "Cockney Rhyming Slang"

Broadcast dates

• 4 November 2005 (BBC Two)

Panellists

• Alan Davies (-19 points)
• Bill Bailey (Winner with 3 points) 8th appearance
• Phill Jupitus (-12 points) 4th appearance
• Rory McGrath (-1 point) 2nd appearance

Theme

• Cockney rhyming slang

Buzzers

• Phill - An excerpt from "Henry the Eighth I Am"
• Rory - An excerpt from "Knees Up Mother Brown"
• Bill - An excerpt from Patsy Cline's "Won't You Come Home Bill Bailey"
• Alan - Dick van Dyke singing "Chim Chim Cher-ee" from Mary Poppins

Tasks

Pin The Tastebud On The Catfish: Each of the panellists was given a catfish and told to put stickers on where they thought the catfish's taste buds were. The answer is that a catfish has thousands of taste buds all over its body.

Topics

• Criminals originally used cockney rhyming slang to obfuscate what they were planning when they thought they could be heard.
• "Cockney" means "cock's egg".
• In the Cherokee language, the word for Cherokee is "ah-ni-yv-wi-ya".
• Giant Sequoias have bark 4 foot thick and need forest fires to clear the ground for them to breed.

Tangent: Kudzu is the only plant measured in mph in its growth.

• Everyone uses coal, when they clean their teeth, because it is present in the nylon bristles of the toothbrush, rather than the toothpaste. (Forfeit: No)
• Nylon was originally called "No Run". The name was given by its inventor, Wallace Carothers of the DuPont company. (Forfeit: New York & London)
• The Laughing Cavalier was painted on cannabis (or more precisely, hemp) and the word "canvas" originates from the Greek word "cannabis".
• Chelmsford:
  • Was the capital of England for 5 days in 1381.
  • Is the only English town named after Julius Caesar.
  • Called "the dullest and most stupid spot on the face of the earth" by Charles Dickens.
  • Also had the first Marconi factory that made radios.
  • Has the largest burns unit in Europe.

Tangent: The Member of Parliament for Chelmsford West is called Simon Burns, but since he got a third at university, his nickname is "Third-Degree Burns".

General Ignorance

• Babies in the womb are covered in hair (lanugo) – it then sheds this hair, eats it, and then excretes it as meconium.
• If Stephen was to paint Alan's body in gold, as per the James Bond film Goldfinger, he'd get very hot and couldn't sweat. (Forfeit: He'd Die)

Tangent: Ian Fleming also claimed in the James Bond novels that homosexuals couldn't whistle, and in You Only Live Twice, Tiger Tanaka says that 14 year-old Japanese sumo wrestlers were massaging the appropriate organs, the testicles would re-enter the body by the inguinal canal that they originally descended from.

• Humans have between 9 & 21 senses. (Forfeit: Five)
• The oldest man in the Bible is Enoch, as "the Lord took him" and he is therefore not dead. (Forfeit: Methuselah)

[edit] Episode 7

Broadcast dates

• 11 November 2005 (BBC Two)

Panellists

• Alan Davies (-18 points)
• Jeremy Clarkson (Winner with 5 points) 3rd appearance
• Rich Hall (2 points) 12th appearance
• Sean Lock (3 points) 8th appearance

Theme

Dogs (buzzers)

• Judge the Constellation Challenge: Join stars on a piece of paper to form a constellation. Actual constellations were: Taurus, Aries, Sagittarius and Cancer.

Topics

• It would take around an hour to drive to Outer space, as it is 62 miles above the Earth's atmosphere.
• The smallest recorded dog in the world was a Yorkshire Terrier that was 2.5 inches high and 3¾ inches long and weighed 4 ounces.
• Chihuahua Cheese is a popular roasting (Asadero) cheese from the Chihuahua State in Mexico.
• Flint is made of quartz from sponges.
• The only survivor of the Crimean War is a naval tortoise called Timothy the Tortoise. It died in 2004 and was the ship's mascot of the naval ship HMS Queen during the first bombardment of Sebastopol.

General Ignorance

• A luffa comes from the ground, because it's a plant that you can grow. (Forfeit: The Sea)
• The Ford Model T was available in grey, red or Brewster green. In Manchester, you could only get them in blue. They were only available in black after 1913. (Forfeit: Black, Any Color So Long As It's Black)

Tangent: Henry Ford was an Anti-Semite and a supporter of the Nazis.

• S.O.B. is an air travel term meaning Souls on Board.

Tangent: Jeremy's experience of eating whale with a seal flipper with some grated puffin as a starter. He claimed it was 'exactly' like licking a hot Turkish urinal.

• The Gatso Camera was invented by Maurice Gatsonides to monitor the speed of a car so he could find a way to make a car go faster around corners. (Forfeit: To Raise Money For The Government)
• Samuel Pepys buried a piece of Parmesan cheese in his garden during the Great Fire of London. (Forfeit: Diary)

[edit] Episode 8 "China"

Broadcast dates

• 18 November 2005 (BBC Two)

Panellists

• Alan Davies (-40 points)
• Bill Bailey (-8 points) 9th appearance
• Phill Jupitus (-9 points) 5th appearance
• David Mitchell (Winner with 0 points) 1st appearance

Theme

• Chinese

Topics

• The panellists' names in Chinese and their meanings
  • Alan - Lazy great slave child/2 dozen blue combs
  • Stephen - stiff fragrant husband come/private suite bend over pipe
  • Bill - Shabby plum shellfish texture/low hedge sad hedge
  • Phill - vulgar dwarf skin couch/bend over hedge master ruffian foetus
  • David - Slack slave rotten dynasty/fry borrows narrow spoon
• There are no inventions from Corby that begin with the letter "C". The famed "Corby" trouser press was invented by a man called John Corby. Corby is also the largest town in Europe without a railway station. (Forfeit: Trouser Press)
• There is a crater on Mars named after Corby, in honour of a world-record attempt of consuming the most bowls of porridge that happened while the astronauts on Apollo 11 were heading to the Moon. The information was relayed to them from Houston.
• All craters on Mars have to be named after towns with a population of less than 100,000, such as Cádiz, Cairns, Canberra, Charleston & Crewe.

Non sequitur: Stephen presents Alan with an Alan Potato Head.

• Some houses in China are built from stones out of the Great Wall of China. There is only 20% of the Great Wall of China left. (Forfeit: Bamboo)
• Thomas Crapper was the inventor of the ballcock. The flush toilet was in fact invented in China. (Forfeit: The Flush Toilet)

Tangent: Nominative determinism.

• The Chinese invented the toilet, toilet paper, chess, acupuncture, fireworks, abacus, decimal system, drilling for oil, fishing reel, flamethrower, helicopter, horse collar, iron plough, lacquer, mechanical clock, hot air balloon, negative numbers, parachute, printmaking, leaf maps, rudder, seismograph, stirrup, suspension bridge, umbrella, water bomb and whisky. Non-Chinese inventions include the Rickshaw, Chop suey and the fortune cookie, which were all invented in the United States.

Tangent: MSG and umami.

• The Dalmatian that discovered China was called Marco Polo. His translated name is actually "Mark Chicken".
• The Croatians invented the invention that no businessman should be without, the tie. (Forfeit: Corby Trouser Press)
• Coffee tights are tights that are made with caffeine made into them.

General Ignorance

• A picture is shown of The Angel of Christian Charity (Forfeit: Eros), a memorial to Lord Shaftesbury, and the first statue in the world to be made of aluminium.

Tangent: The urban legend that the hooves of mounted statuary indicate the circumstances of the subject's death.

• The origin of the name "America" comes from the Welshman Richard Amerike. The reason it doesn't seem plausible that Amerigo Vespucci is that it if people had places named after them, it would be their surname, rather than their forename that was used. For example, Magellan Straits (Ferdinand Magellan) and Tasmania. (Abel Tasman) (Forfeit: Amerigo Vespucci)
• The first President of America was Peyton Randolph, the first President of the Continental Congress. The second was John Hancock, whose name became an American term for a signature. Washington was the first president of the independent United States. (Forfeit: George Washington)

[edit] Episode 9

Broadcast dates

• 25 November 2005 (BBC Two)
• 9 March 2006 (BBC Four)

Panellists

• Alan Davies (15 points)
• Helen Atkinson-Wood (Winner with 200 points) 1st and only appearance
• Bill Bailey (-20 points) 10th appearance
• Andy Hamilton (22 points) 2nd appearance

Theme

• Animals/Zoo
• Difficult question bonus - one question is deemed "so impossible" that a correct answer would be rewarded with 200 points.
• Spot the Cuttlefish - concealed somewhere in the show there would be a cuttlefish or part of a cuttlefish.

Buzzers

• Bill - A donkey
• Andy - A gorilla
• Helen - A chicken
• Alan - A mosquito

Topics

• Out of the 4 animal buzzers, the chicken has the most chromosomes at 78. (or as they're counted in pairs, 39 pairs) (Forfeit: Gorilla)

Tangent: The number of chromosomes to each animal as no relation to their genetic make-up or the C-value paradox of each animal.

Tangent: The Adder's tongue fern has the most number of chromosomes at 1,320.

• Pygmy chimpanzees, or bonobos are highly sexed apes and if a pair of them see any mysterious objects, like a box, they have recreational sex.

Tangent: Male bonobos practice penis fencing while hanging upside-down from the branches of trees.

• Swimming through treacle is similar to swimming in water, because even though it's hard to use your arms, the legs are pushing on a harder surface, so you get a big spring from it, so the speed is virtually the same.
• The material used in schools to write on blackboards is gypsum. (Forfeit: Chalk)
• C₆H₁₂O₆(S) + 6O₂(g) -> 6CO₂(g) + 6H₂O(g), described as an "explosion in a custard factory"; is the oxidisation of glucose. (This question was worth 200 points and was answered correctly by Helen.)
• The French word for custard is "Crème Anglaise".
• As well as being able to sing, the New Guinea Singing Dog (a type of canine), can climb up trees.
• Octopuses pretend to be coconuts. (Forfeit: Cuttlefish)

Tangent: The plural of octopus is octopuses or octopoida, but not octopi. An octopus the size of a volleyball can fit into a soft drink can.

• Marie Curie who discovered radium together with her husband Pierre, was the first winner of two Nobel Prizes. One for Physics and one for Chemistry.

Tangent: Marie Curie and her daughter Irène Joliot-Curie (the second woman to win a Nobel Prize) died of leukaemia, while her husband Pierre died after being hit by a runaway horse.

This is also where part of the cuttlefish was hidden: Marie Curie's photo appeared on the screens in sepia tone, which was originally created using a pigment coming from cuttlefish. The Italian word for cuttlefish is sepia. However, this was not spotted by the panellists.

General Ignorance

• The inventor of the pie chart was Florence Nightingale.

Cuttlefish prize - Alan shouts out "cuttlefish" when the picture of Florence Nightingale appears in sepia tone.

• Most tigers in the world are in private hands in the United States. (Forfeit: Asia, Zoos)
• Silly, Billy, Chilly, Pussy, Pissy, Corny, Punchy, Misery, Messy and Prat are all places in France. (Forfeit: The Ten Dwarves, made by an audience member who lost 45 points according to Stephen, although unlike in future episodes, this wasn't mentioned at the end of the show.)

Tangent: Bill recalls making a trip to a French town called "Bitche".

[edit] Episode 10

Broadcast dates

• 2 December 2005 (BBC Two)

Panellists

• Alan Davies (-84 points)
• Clive Anderson (-28 points) 5th appearance
• John Sessions (-16 points) 6th appearance
• Mark Steel (Winner with 2 points) 2nd appearance

Theme

• Secret Agents buzzers

Buzzers

• John - Theme from the James Bond films
• Clive - Theme from Mission: Impossible
• Mark - Theme from Hawaii Five-O
• Alan - Theme from Z-Cars

Topics

• The first head of the SIS (formerly the SSB) was Sir Mansfield Cumming, referred to as "C". He had only one leg, because he lost his other one in a car accident in France and used a penknife to cut it off.

Tangent: Lord Nelson had his arm amputated by a saw, an incredibly painful operation as there was no anaesthetic; though legend holds that he claimed the worst part was the saw being cold, so surgeons have pre-warmed surgical saws for their patients' comfort ever since.

Tangent: The South Africa national cricket team once picked a one-legged Norwegian for their team during Apartheid, rather than pick an able-bodied native black person.

• Cleve Crudgington invented the champagne cork opener. (The original question was what did Crudgington do with corks? - to which a forfeit was prepared for Alan of "Rams them up his arse", that he only just avoided more out of luck than judgement).

Tangent: Krug means beermug.

• Condensation nuclei makes champagne bubbly. (Forfeit: Carbon Dioxide)

Luvie Alarm: Stephen starts telling a story about his Champagne allergy at a party given by the Duke and Duchess of Westminster but is embarrassed into giving up.

• Torpenhow Hill is twice as interesting as Mount Fuji, because the word "Torpenhow Hill" means "Hill Hill Hill Hill", but Fuji only means "Hill Hill" - They're examples of tautological place names.

Tangent: Boutros Boutros-Ghali means "Peter Peter-Expensive".

• A list of Scottish inventions and discoveries include rubber tyres, adhesive stamps, Australian national anthem, Bank of England, bicycle pedals, breach-loading rifle, Bovril, cell nucleus, chloroform, cloud chamber, cornflour, cure for malaria, decimal point, Encyclopædia Britannica, fountain pens, fingerprinting, hypnosis, Hypodermic syringes, insulin, kaleidoscope, lawnmower, lime cordial, logarithms, lorries, marmalade, matches, motor insurance, paraffin, piano pedals, postmarks, radar, reflecting telescope, savings banks, screw propeller, speedometer, steam hammer, raincoats, tarmac, teleprinters, tubular steel, typhoid vaccines, ultrasound, United States Navy, UST, vacuum flasks, wave powered electricity generation and wire rope. Others that aren't Scottish include kilts, which are Irish and Danish, Hogmanay, which is French and whisky is Italian and Chinese. (Forfeit: Television, Haggis)

Tangent: Alexander Graham Bell (who as we found in Series "A", Episode 11, didn't invent the telephone) helped invent a hydrofoil that travelled at 70mph in 1919 and a metal detector that tried to find the bullet lodged into President Garfield, but it was confused by his bed springs, so he died.

• The origin of the word cat is catulus. The Romans called dogs "catulus".
• In the English language, there are 33 Vowel sounds.

General Ignorance

• The longest animal in the world is the Bootlace worm. (Forfeit: Blue Whale, Giant Squid, Lion's Mane Jellyfish)

Tangent: Charles Darwin collected all the worms from his garden and placed them on his snooker table and then got his son to blow a bassoon at them, to get to know them more as he didn't know too much about them.

Tangent: The bootlace worm is the simplest organism to have a separate mouth and anus.

• Examples of berries are the banana, tomato, orange, lemon, grapefruit, watermelon, kiwifruit, cucumber, grape, passion fruit, papaya and pomegranate. The only berry fruits that end in "berry" are the gooseberry and the blueberry. (Forfeit: Blackberry, Strawberry, Raspberry)
• The second actor to portray James Bond was Bob Holness. (Forfeit: Sean Connery, David Niven)
• According to Buddha, "a person should wander lonely as a rhinoceros". (Forfeit: Cloud)

Tangent: John's brother was nearly killed after being chased by a crocodile in a circus in Londonderry.

[edit] Episode 11 "Clowns"

Broadcast dates

• 9 December 2005 (BBC Two)

Panellists

• Alan Davies (-26 points)
• Clive Anderson (Winner with 0 points) 6th appearance
• Jo Brand (-23 points) 10th appearance
• Phill Jupitus (-23 points) 6th appearance

Theme

• Party/circus
• One answer involved squirrels – if a panellist identified it correctly they would receive 50 points, with 10 points taken away for a miscall

Each of the panellists also have a swazzle for amusement purposes.

Topics

• You have to swallow 2 swazzles to become a professor of Punch and Judy.
• The difference between phobias & fears are that phobia are irrational and fears are rational. (Squirrel Forfeit - Alan)

Tangent: Coulrophobia is the fear of clowns and the fear of squirrels is sciurophobia.

• Does anyone have a cuckoo in their pants? - Yes, the Greek for cuckoo is coccyx. (Forfeit: No)

Tangent: The Road Runner is a cuckoo.

• Most animals wear Greek frocks, because the Greek for frock is chitin, which is a polymer, that covers all animals, plants and fungi. (Forfeit: Demis Roussos) (Squirrel Forfeit - Jo)
• The Greek army wear kilts, that have 400 pleats in them, because there was 400 years of Turkish subjugation.
• The Coconut crab can't swim or float in water, they can be the size of a small dog, can shin up trees, have claws that can open tin cans and can carry a load that is greater than the luggage allowance on an international flight.

Tangent: Coconut milk is the mushed-up flesh found in the coconut.

• A Cheeselog is another name for a woodlouse. (Squirrel Forfeit - Clive)

Tangent: Clive is the President of the Woodland Trust.

• The Emperor Charlemagne had a party trick using a tablecloth made of asbestos, in which he threw it onto a fire. Asbestos means "inextinguishable". The town where the most asbestos is mined is called Asbestos.

General Ignorance

• No-one goes gathering nuts in May, because hawthorn blooms. (Squirrel Forfeit - Alan, Clive & Phill)
• A custard pile is another name for a cock. Cockfighting was Britain's national sport for nearly 2,000 years. Every village in Britain would have a cockpit. The word "cockpit" is derived from the word "cock". (Squirrel Forfeit - Phill)
• Aeschylus was killed by a falling tortoise that was dropped by an eagle. (Squirrel Forfeit - Phill)

Tangent: Croesus.

• Robin Hood's tights were the colour Lincoln Graine, a shade of scarlet. In the original "A Gest of Robyn Hode", their clothes were mentioned very frequently.
• In the version made by Charles Perrault, Cinderella's slippers were made of squirrel fur; this is itself disputed. (None of the panellists guessed at squirrel fur.)

Tangent: In the Chinese version, the slippers are made out of gold, in Germany, they are made of silk and gold and in the Scottish version, they are made of rushes.

Tangent: Perrault added the Fairy Godmother, the Ugly Sisters and the mice.

[edit] Episode 12

Broadcast dates

• 16 December 2005 (BBC Two)

Panellists

• Alan Davies (-47 points)
• Bill Bailey (Winner with 3 points) 11th appearance
• Phill Jupitus (-18 points) 7th appearance
• Dara Ó Briain (-8 points) 2nd appearance

Theme

• One fact would be incorrect – the "doubt card" can be shown by any player when they think they have spotted it.

Topics

• The greatest raid made by the Allies' Mosquitoes, was when they sent 12 aircraft to rescue 12 members of the French Resistance in the attack on Amiens Prison.
• The crew of the RMS Titanic had their wages stopped as soon as the ship started sinking. (Forfeit: They Drowned)

Tangent: The Duff-Gordons allegedly bribed the crew members of a lifeboat to survive.

• The difference between an Able Seaman and an Ordinary Seaman is that the able seaman has to have a log known as a "certificate of continuous discharge".
• Pistachios and walnuts could destroy the hull of a ship, because they are Spontaneously combustible.
• Peanuts, almonds, pistachios, Brazil nuts, cashews, coconuts, horse-chestnuts, pine nuts and beetle nuts are not nuts, most of them are seeds.

Tangent: Why pistachio ice cream is green and vanilla milkshake is white.

Tangent: Coconuts kill 10 times more people than sharks do every year.

• Examples of true nuts are walnuts, butternuts, hickory, pecan, wingnuts, chestnut, beech, oak, stone oak, tanoak, hazelnuts, filbert and hornbeam.
• Rolls-Royce test their aircraft engines for the effects of bird strike with chickens fired from a cannon.
• The inventor of the theory of relativity was Galileo and it was known as the Galilean invariance. (Forfeit: Einstein)
• Three-quarters of the people accused of witchcraft in England were acquitted. (Forfeit: They Were Burned)

General Ignorance

• Pine is a technical example of a softwood. (Forfeit: Balsa Wood)
• If you cut an earthworm in two, it becomes two halves of a dead worm. (Forfeit: You Get Two Worms)

Tangent: There is a type of flatworm called a planaria, which was discovered by a man called T. H. Morgan. 1/279 of it could regenerate into a full planaria.

• Instead of using a Space Pen, astronauts could have used a regular pen in zero gravity. (Forfeit: A Pencil)

Doubt Card (Bollocks Answer): Neil Armstrong and the Mr Gorski story – told as a fact but then shown to be the fictional answer. Alan correctly used his doubt card for this.

• The triple point of water is actually 0.01°C, a correction from a previous episode as pointed out by viewers. Apparently those viewers forgot to explain that "centigrade" had been thrown out back in 1948 (six years before the triple point was fixed at 0.01°C) along with "centesimal" in favour of the third name in use then, "degrees Celsius". (Forfeit: 0°C)

[edit] External links

• British Comedy Guide - Series C

v • d • e QI List of episodes · A series · B series · C series · D series · E series · F series People Stephen Fry · Alan Davies · John Lloyd · John Mitchinson · Justin Pollard · Ian Lorimer Spinoffs The Museum of Curiosity · QI News Related projects The Book of General Ignorance · The Book of Animal Ignorance · Quite Interesting Limited