List of QI episodes (E series)

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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.

Contents

[edit] E Series (2007)

One recurring theme in this series is the "Elephant in the Room" card. In each episode, one (or more) of the answers involves elephants. Whoever plays their card at the correct time will score 10 bonus points.

This series has been notable in its repeated use of regular guests such as Jimmy Carr and Dara Ó Briain. Only two guests, Johnny Vegas and Charlie Higson, have not appeared in the programme before. Also, recurring panellist John Sessions does not appear at all in this series, and nor do other semi-regulars such as Andy Hamilton, Arthur Smith and Mark Steel.

[edit] Episode 1 "Engineering"

Broadcast Date
Recording Date
  • As this episode is the first of series E to be aired in the autumn, it is QI's 50th episode.
Panellists
Theme
  • Stephen used a toy train to send a sweet to the panellist who gave a correct answer.
Topics
  • Britain's railways were built by the navvies. They had to be trained for a year, fed on a diet of beer and meat and could out-perform any other manual labourer.
Tangent: Railways had to be flat. Bill tells a story about a Russian Tsar who drew a straight line with a ruler, demanding a straight railway, but his fingers were over the edge of the ruler. As a result, the line had two large curves. This story is attributed as the reason for kinks in the Trans-Siberian Railway and Moscow-Saint Petersburg Railway. For which he gets a sweet.
Tangent: The London and Birmingham Railway took the same amount of work to build as one and a half Great Pyramids. Rob's discussion on what would be half of a pyramid gets him a sweet.
  • The word "Navvy" is a short of "Navigational engineer". Alan answers this correctly and thus gets a sweet.
  • American trains were so light that when they went off the rails, the passengers simply lifted them back onto the rails themselves.
Tangent: While building the Central Pacific Railroad in the the western United States, the line was laid as fast as a man could walk.
Tangent: One travel book once advised women railway passengers to stick pins in their mouths, to stop men from kissing them when they went in tunnels.
General Ignorance
Tangent: One member of the audience shouted "France".
Vodcast/Quickie
Presenter: Bill Bailey
Tangent: The London Eye and Alan's experience on a ride in a fairground that went quicker because people knew he was on television.
Tangent: Jimmy talks about the Darwin Awards.
Tangent: Vaseline rots latex.

[edit] Episode 2 "Electricity"

Broadcast Dates
Recording Date
Panellists
  • This is the first instance of a complete panel appearing twice. Brand, Hall and Lock all appeared together in episode 5 of series C.
Topics
Tangent: Men are 6 times more likely than women to be struck by lightning.
Tangent: Wires in bras superheat from lightning strikes.
Tangent: Lightning strikes the Earth 17 million times a day.
  • 3-6 people in the UK are killed by lightning every year, in America, the figure is 400.
Tangent: A park ranger called Roy Sullivan was struck by lightning 7 times in his life, although he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Tangent: The electric eels are not actually eels, but actually a knifefish.
Tangent: There are 69 species of electric fish. The underwater missile was named after the torpedo fish, the largest electric fish.
Tangent: Elephant evolution without tusks.
General Ignorance
  • The difference between a ship and a boat in Naval terms is that all ships float on the surface of the water, while all boats are submarines. (Forfeit: Ships Are Bigger)
Tangent: Jumphaus in German is a brothel, a mobile phone is known as a Handy.
Tangent: Cows burp methane, not fart it.
Tangent: Soldier termites act as suicide bombers, releasing a sticky secretion by rupturing a gland near the skin in their neck producing a tar baby effect in defense against ants. Known as autothysis.
  • Thousands of Americans ring 9-1-1 on Christmas Day, because it is the only number that they can ring with their new mobile phone before it is activated, if they received one as a present. (Forfeit: They've Eaten Too Much)
  • A Russian family would never call their son "Power Station" or "Industrialisation" because they are girls' names. (In Russian, they are "Электростанция" and "Индустриализация" respectively.) Boys' names include "Combine harvester" and "23rd February".
Vodcast/Quickie
Presenter: Stephen Fry
  • If you were to give 200 monks an electric shock, they would all get the shock at the same time. It was proven to work when they all swore at the same time.
Tangent: Alan touched the end of a plug that had been snapped off an appliance while still plugged in and he fell over.

[edit] Episode 3 "Eating"

Broadcast Dates
Recording Date
Panellists
Buzzers
Topics
Tangent: Rhubarb leafs are poisonous. Rhubarb acts as a mild laxative. During the First Opium War, Lin Zexu threatened Queen Victoria that China would refuse to send rhubarb, claiming they would kill everyone by mass constipation.
Tangent: If you eat a rabbit affected with Myxomatosis, it would have no effect on you. Louis XVIII claimed that he could tell from which part of France a rabbit came from by smelling rabbit stew. Theoretically, two rabbits could produce 33 million offspring in 3 years, but 90% of baby rabbits are killed by predators. Whilst rabbits were introduced to Britain by Normans in the 12th century, they did not become wild until the 19th century.
  • Elephant in the Room (or as it is put for the "Eating" episode "Elephant on the Menu"): Mongongo nuts are found in elephant droppings.
General Ignorance
Tangent: Snails are hermaphrodite and have a love dart, which may harm the partner when mating, but also increases the chance of pregnancy.
Tangent: One of the two men who discovered that stomach ulcers were caused by this bacterium, Barry Marshall, drank some of the bacteria to prove that it was the cause, and as a result won the Nobel Prize.
Vodcast/Quickie
Presenter: Stephen Fry (imitating Johnny Vegas)
Tangent: A Vietnamese coffee made by taking the excerement of monkeys who eat green coffee, and grinding the beans found within.
Tangent: The philtrum.
Tangent: Stephen's trip with Peter Cook up the River Nile and Cook finding an article about Elizabeth Taylor.

[edit] Episode 4 "Exploration"

Broadcast Dates
Recording Date
Panellists
Theme
  • The panelists are dressed in jungle exploration gear.
Buzzers
Topics
Tangent: Most of the Native Americans learnt their English from Squanto, a Native who travelled across the Atlantic Ocean 6 times. He was kidnapped to England, then brought back to America, he was kidnapped again and sold to slavery in Spain, before escaping to Cuper's Cove, Newfoundland, but he found it took too long to walk back, so he took a boat back to Ireland before returning to New England.
Tangent: The other famous Native, Samoset learnt his English from fishermen.
Tangent: The Paris sewers are cleaned by a massive ball, which is pushed by a jet of water.
General Ignorance
  • The first words spoken on the surface of the Moon were "Contact light", spoken by Buzz Aldrin.
Tangent: Aldrin's sister gave him the nickname "Buzz". His mother's maiden name is "Moon".
Tangent: Axl Rose's original name was Bill Bailey. The last person to be hanged in the United States was also called Bill Bailey.
Tangent: The only animal that can moonwalk is the manakin bird, which can also sing using its wings.
Tangent: The mountain is named after George Everest, the Surveyor General of India at the time. He actually pronounced his name "EVE-rest" (IPA: [ˈivrɪst]).
Vodcast/Quickie
Presenter: Stephen Fry, through a thicket of jungle plants.
Tangent: Stephen and the panel mess up the "Elephant in the Room" bonus.
Tangent: Las Vegas sells more adult nappies than baby nappies, because gamblers do not want stop gambling. A casino in Melbourne had to change the carpet after a week because people urinated on the floor rather than stop gambling.

[edit] Episode 5 "Europe"

Broadcast Dates
Recording Date
Panellists
Theme
  • Each panellist had a flag, representing a different European country. Alan had Wales (due to his surname), David had England, Dara had the Republic of Ireland and Phill had Lithuania (his paternal grandparents derive from there). However, Alan and David swapped theirs, because Alan has no connections with Wales and David's mother does not like calling herself English. Stephen also had several European flags around him, as well as the flag of the European Union.
  • During this recording Alan Davies filmed part of the show on his mobile phone. Those videos have been placed on YouTube and can be viewed here and here.
Topics
Tangent: Belgium is named after the Belgae tribe, most of which originated from Winchester.
Tangent: Suite No. 212 in Claridge's was turned into an enclave of Yugoslavia so that Crown Prince Alexander could be born on Yugoslav soil.
Tangent: The Dutch swapped New York City for the Spice Islands with the English. Edward VII drank mercury to cure his constipation.
  • "Call My Euro Bluff" - each panellist reads a EU regulation, and the other panellists try to guess if it is true or a "Bløff".
  • No-one actually knows where the Manneken Pis originates from. One theory is that a boy urinated on some explosives when Brussels was under siege and saved the city. Another was that it was Duke Godfrey who was hiding in a tree during a battle and urinated on the enemy. It has been up since 1388, and has been stolen seven times.
Tangent: The first person who stole it in 1817 was sentenced to 20 years hard labour, when it was stolen in 1978, the person was let off with a warning.
General Ignorance
Tangent: One-eighth of the people who attempt to climb Mount Everest die.
Tangent: In 1997, a Land Rover Defender climbed up Mount Elbrus.
  • The first words of the National Anthem of Germany are, "Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit für das Deutsche Vaterland!" meaning, "Unity and justice and freedom, for the German fatherland!" (Forfeit: Deutschland Über Alles)
  • Elephant in the Room: The thing under the panels nose's and sounds like a bell (the sound of a bell being a "dung") is elephant dung. Their notepads are made out of it.
Vodcast/Quickie
Presenter: Stephen Fry.
Tangent: Hans-Adam II, Prince of Liechtenstein wanted more power, and said that if he was not given it, he would sell Liechtenstein to Bill Gates. He got more power, but he later claimed he was only joking.
Tangent: Fry rants about his dislike of Microsoft Windows.

[edit] Episode 6 "Everything, Etc."

Broadcast Dates
Recording Date
Panellists
Buzzers
Topics
Tangent: "Suicide Tuesday" is the "downer" you get after taking ecstasy over a weekend.
  • The Blue Peacock project, dubbed the "chicken-powered nuclear bomb", was a British proposal, put forward in the 1950s, to hide several small nuclear mines in Germany in case of invasion by the Soviet Union. It was proposed the body heat given off by live chickens kept with the bombs would be sufficient to keep all the relevant components operating during extreme cold weather conditions.
Tangent: Vic Reeves and Jeremy Clarkson both own chickens.
Tangent: Jeremy's idea of looking for foxes involving Russian night-vision goggles and a bottle of Merlot.
  • Fainting goats help protect flocks of sheep by allowing the rest of the flock to escape from predators like wolves, whilst it is eaten. Older goats faint against walls to prevent themselves from being eaten.
  • The jumping French lumberjacks of Maine have a rare disorder called "Jumping Frenchmen of Maine", which lead to investigations into what became known as Tourette's syndrome. Symptoms of the disorder include obeying any order given to you suddenly and the need to repeat foreign phrases constantly.
Tangent: In Oregon, people prefer to call lumberjacks as treefellers.
Tangent: Clarkson's syndrome involves leaking capillaries.

The 50/50 left the 2 answers in italics. It was invented by the American army during World War I to test recruits wanting to join up.

Tangent: Men are better than women at multiple choice exams.
General Ignorance
Tangent: No edible oysters produce pearls.
Tangent: The largest pearl was found in a giant clam.
Vodcast/Quickie
Presenter: Stephen Fry and every panellist on the show that night.
Tangent: Jeremy's fox hunting/Russian night vision goggle story: He accidentally claims that some foxes ate his children's guinea pigs.
Tangent: Fry talks about a documentary about a place similar to Ibiza, where there was a club where the floor was slightly dome-shaped. The ceiling had a shower system in it so that fluids on the floor could easily be moved into the gutters on the side of the floor into drains on the side. Jeremy then claims that officially, the British were the fifth worst tourists in the world, according to a survey of 15,000 hoteliers. The worst were the French. 75% of French tourists holiday in France. The best tourists were the Americans.
Tangent: The Himalayas will cause the extermination of Greece. Jeremy attacks Greece because was he was once put in a Greek prison, but he escaped.

[edit] Episode 7 "Espionage"

Broadcast Dates
Recording Date
Panellists
Buzzers
Theme
Topics
Tangent: The lie detector was invented by William Moulton Marston, creator of Wonder Woman.
Tangent: Müller is one of the few senior Nazis never to have been captured, and was last seen hiding in the Führerbunker. He escaped and was never seen again.
Tangent: As a joke, Arthur Conan Doyle once sent five letters to five friends that read, "We are discovered, flee immediately," to see what they would do. One of them disappeared and Conan Doyle never saw him again.
Tangent: Houdini could pick up pins with his eyelashes.
Tangent: Many paintings by Marcel Duchamp were discovered to contain semen, because he mixed semen with his paint.
Tangent: A bank robber from Pittsburgh in 1995 was caught by the police because he thought that by putting lemon juice on his face, he would be invisible.
  • Toilet paper helped win the Cold War because the Russians did not have much of it. So the Russians instead used secret documents, and spies stole the documents from bins, as part of Operation Tamarisk. The spies complained that they had to dig through all sorts of unpleasant items such as amputated limbs. However, this resulted in their spy masters asking them to steal the limbs to see what kind of shrapnel the Russians used. Operation Tamarisk was supposedly very successful, and without it, there might still be a communist Russia.
  • You could use Gummy bears to rob a bank by melting them down, making a fake finger and leaving a false fingerprint.
Tangent: There is an enzyme in pineapples called bromelain that can destroy fingerprints. It was used as a plot line in an episode of Hawaii Five-O. This enzyme could also be used to get rid of mouth ulcers.
  • The best thing to do in a falling lift is to cushion yourself by lying on top of a fat person, however it is very unlikely that a lift would fall as all of the wires are capable of holding the lift, and they have emergency brakes. (Forfeit: Jump)
Tangent: In the Empire State Building, a lift did have all its wires cut when a B-25 bomber collided with the building in 1945 and the propellers cut the wires. However, the brakes worked and the passengers in the lift were saved.
General Ignorance
Tangent: On 21 November 1981, 104 tornadoes hit the UK during the day.
Tangent: Tornado Alley.
Vodcast/Quickie
Presenter: Stephen Fry and every panellist on the show that night.
Tangent: Adolf Hitler was put on a vegetarian diet, because of his flatulence, but he was not a vegetarian.
Tangent: The Nazis were against fox hunting because it was cruel and immoral.

[edit] Episode 8 "Eyes & Ears"

Broadcast date
Recording date
Panellists
Topics
Tangent: If you put earwax on top of a pint of beer or stout, the head would disappear because of the oil in the earwax. If you squirt washing-up liquid in a pond where water boatmen are standing, they will sink.
  • Q-Tips or cotton swabs were invented by Leo Gerstenzang, when he saw his wife using cotton wool on the end of toothpicks to clean out their baby's ears. He called them "Baby Gays". Unilever produce 22.5 billion cotton buds a year.
  • You can tell your child is yours by the earlobes. Like eye colour, hanging or attached earlobes are inherited from your parents. Hanging earlobes dominate attached ones.
  • The best way to date a cod is to kill it, examine the earbones, and you can tell their age to a day.
Tangent: Alexandre Dumas once claimed that you could walk from France to America on cod.
  • Elephant in the Room: Elephants have the biggest ears of any animal in the world. They do not however improve their hearing, and are mainly used for cooling purposes. They are also used for aggressive displays.
  • A bit of rough music would stop you from beating your wife. It was a punishment used in the English countryside where the villagers made noise using metal objects in the middle of the night, that would drive the criminal out.
Tangent: The question "Have you stopped beating your wife?" always leads to an answer that condemns you.
  • Nothing happens when an earwig gets into your ear. (Forfeit: It Bores Into Your Brain)
General Ignorance
  • It is hard for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle simply because it is too big. Jesus was being literal when he said it and it was a common phrase at the time. Similar phrases appear in the Torah and the Qur'an. Rich people tried to create "get-out" clauses when they read this, so they came up with the idea it was a gate into Jerusalem, and that it was a mistranslation of the Greek for "rope". (Forfeit: It Was A Gateway In Jerusalem)
Tangent: At the coronation of George IV, all the diamonds in the Crown Jewels were hired because they were so expensive at the time.
Tangent: If you cut the whiskers of a cat, it can get its head stuck in a milk bottle.
  • A Four-eyed fish has two eyes. They are divided into two, so they are looking upwards all the time. (Forfeit: One)
  • Statistically, you are very unlikely to die in a plane crash. The main problem in crashes is that under pressure, people try to open their seat belts like those in a car.
Tangent: There is an urban legend about the brace position, which says it is used so that if you die, they can identify you by your dental records.
Tangent: The parrot famously said, "Pieces of eight", because the Spanish dollar was split into eight pieces. Two bits equalled a quarter of a American dollar, and "two bits" is still a nickname for a quarter.
Tangent: Alan mentions he likes After Eights in the hope that someone will send him some. In a similar incident before, he once said on TV that he liked Quorn, and received a box of it.
Tangent: Robert Newton, the first actor to play Long John Silver in a sound version of Treasure Island invented the stereotypical pirate voice. He is considered a "Patron saint" of International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Tony Hancock first became well-known as a Robert Newton impersonator.
Vodcast/Quickie
Presenter: The Audience.
Tangent: Susie Dent and the possibility that she is a centaur.
Tangent: David having his ears syringed and how he heard "too much" after it.
Tangent: Biodegradable cricket boxes.
Tangent: The Solar Eclipse in 1999 in Cornwall and Alan watched it in Oxford on Sky News and their presenters had nothing prepared for it.

[edit] Episode 9 "Entertainment" (Children in Need Special)

Broadcast Date
Recording Date
Panellists
Theme
  • The show initially began with Pudsey Bear, the Children in Need mascot, in the place of Alan Davies, but then Pudsey used his "Elephant in the Room" card to pick out Alan from the audience, who was wearing an elephant head costume. Everyone's elephant card was a picture of Elmer the Patchwork Elephant, rather than the usual grey elephant.
Topics
Tangent: Jo tells a story about a friend who let off an embarrassing fart.
Tangent: Other famous flatulists include Mr. Methane and Le Pétomane. Le Pétomane earned 20,000 francs a week and was the biggest star of his day. He could smoke and breathe through his bottom.
Tangent: Turold and Taillefer are jesters depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry. Taillefer juggled with his sword, and when an Englishman came down, Taillefer cut off his head. In one scene in the tapestry, it says, "William comforted his troops" and shows him sticking a spear up a soldier's backside. However, "comforted" then meant "encourage".
Tangent: Eric "the Eel" Moussambani is another amateur Olympic athlete, famous for being a novice swimmer from Equatorial Guinea in the 2000 Summer Olympics.
  • Elephant in the Room (or as it is put for the "Entertainment" episode "Heffalump in the Room"): A picture of a ballet and some ballet music called the Circus Polka is played and the panellists have to guess what is wrong. The answer is that none of the ballet dancers were elephants. It was written for elephants, and performed at Madison Square Garden in New York City. However, it was unsuccessful.
Tangent: Jeremy and Stephen talk about the hardships ballet dancers have to suffer, including damage to the body and they are not told what part they will play until the night of the performance.
  • Questions on E-commerce. The panel is presented with an embarrassing domain name of a website, and have to guess what they provide.
    • Jo - www.whorepresents.com - Who represents: Finding agents who represent famous people.
    • Bill - www.expertsexchange.com - Experts exchange: A website where experts exchange information.
    • Jeremy - www.therapistfinder.com - Therapist finder: A site where you can find therapists.
    • Alan - www.penisland.net - Pen island: A shop selling pens.
Tangent: Other embarrassing domain names such as www.speedofart.com (The Speed Of Art) and www.powergenitalia.com (Powergen Italia).
General Ignorance
  • If you shaved a lion and a tiger until they had no fur left, you could tell them apart because tigers also have stripes on their skin.
Tangent: Bill once went to a Brazilian zoo, where he was told by a handler to "always approach a jaguar from the front", but, as he prepared to do so, the handler quickly corrected himself: he had meant "never", not "always".
Tangent: Jeremy once bought his dad some ghost koi for his pond, but they disappeared in the pond and killed all the other fish in the pond.
Vodcast/Quickie
Presenter: Pudsey Bear holding up a signboard reading "Hello & welcome to the QI vodcast".
Tangent: Liam Neeson and his supposedly large penis.

[edit] Episode 10 "England"

Broadcast Date
Recording Date
Panellists
Buzzers
Themes

Stephen and the panel have miniature flags of England in front of them, although Alan swaps his English flag for the Welsh flag.

Topics
  • The correct response to the question "How do you do?" is to say "How do you do?" back or a small bow. It is considered impolite to answer the question. (Forfeit: I'm Fine, Thank You)
  • The only lake in the Lake District is Bassenthwaite Lake. All the others are waters, meres or tarns. (Forfeit: Windermere, Coniston)
  • The first King of both England and Scotland was Athelstan in the year 937. (Forfeit: James I)
  • The first recorded use of the V sign was in 1901 and no-one knows exactly where it comes from. Some suspect it to be something to do with having sex with someone else's wife. The myth about English archers showing the enemy they could fire their arrows was invented in the 1970s. The introduction to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is the same as the letter "V" in Morse code (Dot, dot, dot, dash). (Forfeit: Archers)
  • "Abumgang" means "Thank you" in the language of the Eton tribe of Cameroon. Other words used by them include "Mrmrminger" which is a beautiful woman. Other tribes in Cameroon include the Bum, Bang, Banana, Mang, Fang, Tang, Wong, Wang, War and the Pongo.
  • Elephant in the Room: Jumbo was a very large elephant who was born in Sudan, which was captured and taken to Cairo, Paris and London where he became very popular. In 1882, P. T. Barnum bought him for $10,000 under great protest from the English. Some even proposed they kill Jumbo and Barnum to keep the elephant English. In 3 days, Barnum made $30,000 from Jumbo, and $1.5 million in 3 years. Jumbo was killed in a train crash. His skull was broken in over 100 places. Jumbo was stuffed and used as a mascot for Tufts University until he was destroyed in a fire. His name is the origin of the epithet "Jumbo".
  • Apart from the Bible, the most successful book in England in the 16th century was a book about behaviour for children by Desiderius Erasmus. It includes the advice that you should not be afraid of vomiting, you should not offer your handkerchief to anyone unless it has been freshly washed nor look into it after you have blown your nose, and should not move back and forth on your chair, as this gives the impression of breaking wind.
Tangent: During a school exam, Sean tilted over to his side to break wind, and one of his teachers thought he was cheating by looking at someone else's exam paper.
  • The best place to find people called "Nutter" in England is Blackburn. "Pigg's" are in Newcastle upon Tyne. "Daft's" are in Nottingham. "Smellie's" are in Glasgow. "Bottom's" are in Huddersfield. "Willy's" are in Taunton. The surnames that dropped in use in recent years include "Handcock", "Glasscock", "Higginbottom", "Shufflebottom" and "Winterbottom".
Tangent: One of Alan's classmates in school was called "Jimmy Glasscock," and evidently, one could always see him coming.
General Ignorance
Tangent: The most common cause of death for swans is electrocution.
'England' was still an all-embracing word. It mean indiscriminately England and Wales; Great Britain; the United Kingdom; and even the British Empire. (A.J.P. Taylor, Volume XV: English History, 1914-1945, page v)
Since then there has been a trend in history to restrict the use of the term "England" to the state that existed pre 1707 and to the geographic area it covered and people it contained in the period thereafter. The different authors interpreted "English History" differently, with Taylor opting to write the history of the English people, including the people of Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Empire and Commonwealth where they shared a history with England, but ignoring them where they did not. Other authors opted to treat non-English matters within their remit. (Forfeits: England, France)
Vodcast/Quickie
Presenter: Stephen Fry
Tangent: Bill Hicks said that today, Christians would probably go around wearing little electric chairs around their necks, because that would be how they would kill him today.
Tangent: Fry wants to tell a story about Kenneth More, but it is too rude to be broadcast. He was introduced to Noël Coward, who asked him, "Do you take it up the arse?" More said "No, actually I don't", and Coward responded by saying, "Oh very well, we needn't quarrel about it."

[edit] Episode 11 "Endings"

Broadcast Date
Recording Date
Panellists
Topics
Tangent: The "S" in Ulysses S. Grant does not stand for anything.
Tangent: Alan once took his two cats to the vet by car. Both escaped from their baskets in transit, one urinated on the back shelf of the car, and the other sat on the dashboard and meowed angrily at him.
Tangent: Stephen complains that he keeps getting static electric shocks.
General Ignorance
Vodcast/Quickie
Presenter: Stephen Fry
Tangent: During location scouting for a cowboy film, where a man was to stand on top of a ridge, a ridge was found with a tree on it, so the tree was cut down and when they returned they were asked if the ridge they found was at "One Tree Hill".

[edit] Episode 12 "Empire" (Christmas Special)

Broadcast Date
Recording Date
Panellists
  • This is the second instance of a complete panel appearing twice. Bailey, Brand and Lock all appeared together in episode 1 of series B.
Buzzers
Theme
Topics
  • Queen Victoria probably thought very unfavourably of Mr. Bean, because he tried to assassinate her. John Bean was one of several people to attempt to kill her. He tried to shoot her, but he filled his gun with wads of tobacco. (Forfeit: She Was Not Amused)
Tangent: Mr. Bean is very popular in Germany. Alan commented that he was once on a Lufthansa plane to Germany, and the German passengers were all watching Mr Bean. Bill mentions a man in Australia who said that Mr Bean would not survive five minutes in "The bush".
Tangent: One of the assassination attempts on Queen Victoria was foiled by a "PC Trounce". Another attempt was made by a John Francis, who Prince Albert described as "a thorough scamp". If you were convicted of attempting to assassinate the Queen, the maximum penalty was 7 years.
Tangent: The line "We are not amused" was reported in The Notebooks of a Spinster Lady, but she had a childish sense of humour.
  • Victoria's secret was that she suffered from haemophilia, as did most of the royal families in Europe, because of her. Prince Leopold, one of her sons, died of haemophilia. Another of Victoria's daughters, Princess Alice, married into the Russian royal family, had a daughter, Princess Alexandra, whose son was also a haemophiliac. It is possible that this helped start the Russian Revolution because, as a result of Alexandra seeking treatment for her son, Rasputin became involved with the Royal Family. Some believe that the chances of Victoria inheriting haemophilia from her parents are so remote, that she might have been illegitimate.
Tangent: Rasputin was poisoned, shot and drowned when they tried to assassinate him but he just would not die.
Tangent: There is a formula for calculating the beauty of the bottom.
  • It was easier to put your boots on in the dark between 1600-1800, because there were no left or right boots. All boots were designed to fit either foot, because it was too difficult to make left and right heeled-boots at the time.
Tangent: There is a penis museum in Reykjavík.
  • Elephant in the Room: The panel have to identify a picture of four boots, that were worn by an elephant. They are worn by elephants in captivity to protect their feet.
General Ignorance
  • Victorians put covers on the legs of pianos to stop them from being damaged. Although most of the time, they did not bother. The English Victorians thought the Americans were more prudish. (Forfeit: They Thought They Were Rude)
  • The Victorians legislated against male homosexuality and not female because it seems never to have been considered. It had nothing to do with Queen Victoria, because she had almost no power. The law that banned homosexuality was the Labouchere Amendment, in 1885, and Oscar Wilde was one of the first people to break it. The judge sentenced him to two years hard labour, but said that he wished he could punish him even more, saying it was, "The worst case I have ever tried." A week earlier, the same judge tried a case of child murder. (Forfeit: Because Queen Victoria Didn't Believe It Existed)
  • Winterval was created as a promotional campaign for local business by Birmingham City Council. There is an urban myth that it is about Winterval being created to prevent other cultures being offended. (Forfeit: Political Correctness Gone Mad)
  • The best way to stop your children looking at their presents before Christmas Day is to have them arrested. There was a case in Rock Hill, South Carolina in 2006, where a mother got the police to arrest her own son for looking at one of his presents, a Game Boy Advance, early. The son was 12, and the mother was 27. His great-grandmother was 63. The boy was released the same day, but the police claimed he showed no remorse.
Vodcast/Quickie
Presenter: Stephen, the panel, and the entire QI production team, in the style of a pantomime with the audience shouting back.
Tangent: Sean and Bill talking argue taking off their hats and their hair loss.
Tangent: Lebanon's attempt to increase tourism. One of the problems was that the 2007 Lebanon conflict happened around the time programme was recorded in June, so they had to pretend it was December as that was when the show was broadcast.

[edit] Episode 13 "Elephants"

Broadcast Date
Theme
  • A clip show using unbroadcast material from Series E.
  • The beginning and ending of the show has Stephen playing Father Christmas and Alan sitting on his lap (shrunk down in size).
Topics
Tangent: Alan's step-grandfather worked at Stratford fruit and veg market. He used to do very long shifts and would therefore sleep with his bananas after a long shift, because it was warm. He was stopped by the unions.
  • Espionage: The biggest banknote ever produced by the Bank of England is worth £100,000,000, known as the "Titan". There are 40 Titans. There are £1,000,000 notes, known as the "Giant", of which there are 4,000.
  • Engineering: In order to use an ejector seat in a helicopter, you have to fire the rotors away. Such helicopters that use this system include the Black Shark. 7,000 airmen's lives have been saved by using ejector seats.
  • Eating: The world's most expensive meat is produced by using stem cells known as myoblasts. Such cells can multiply so many times, they could produce enough meat to feed the world. However, one kilogram currently costs $10,000. Winston Churchill in 1932 predicted that in 50 years time, people would just manufacture the parts of meat they would want, rather than kill a whole animal, so in fact he was right. (Forfeit: Japanese Beef)
  • England: There is a counting system called Yan Tan Tethera that was used to count sheep. The number for 15 was "Bumfit".
Entertainment Tangent: Alan and Bill Bailey once did a play at the Edinburgh Festival, where they shared the stage with some Korean ballerinas. The floor was designed to be sprung, so the ballerinas could do their jumps. However, this meant that in their play, almost everything jumped around.
Tangent: Stephen went to see Peter Brook in The Tempest at the Royal Shakespeare Company. As a joke, Brook was naked under his coat. When some actors behind him made a human pyramid, he turned around and opened his coat. The woman on the top of the pyramid then urinated in laughter, and the urine dripped all the way down the pyramid and ran off the stage.
Eyes and Ears Tangent: Talking about "Wheelie trainers". Stephen then talks about toys he had as a child, including a space hopper.
Exploration Tangent: Bill talks about his timid guinea pig.
Everything Etc. Tangent: Polar bears are not attracted to the colour black because they are colour blind. Jeremy Clarkson then talks about his hatred for polar bears. Alan successfully remembers how to escape a polar bear from Series A - step back slowly, offering clothes.
Empire Tangent: Stephen attempts to impersonate David Frost, Loyd Grossman and Brian Blessed. This leads to a discussion about Grossman's Massachusetts accent and his sexuality, leading Jo to suggest he could be married to Brian Sewell, and then Jo Brand goes into an anecdote about Brian Blessed's attempt to climb Mount Everest. At one point, they had to camp on a washing line on the edge of a glacier. If they needed to go to the toilet they had to do it over the edge and the wind would carry it off. One of the party did so, and in a few minutes it was realised the wind had blown the faeces back into the hood of the man's coat.
Tangent: Stephen has trouble with his diction on the introduction to the latter fact, causing him to repeat it several times; the panel rib and mock him on this mercilessly, even breaking into song.
Vodcast/Quickie
Presenter: A shrunken Alan Davies. There is no new material; all clips are taken from the episode.

[edit] External links

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