QI (C series)
| QI Series C |
The front cover of the QI series C DVD, featuring Stephen Fry (left) and Alan Davies (right). |
| Country of origin |
United Kingdom |
| No. of episodes |
12 |
| Broadcast |
| Original channel |
BBC |
| Original run |
30 September 2005 – 9 December 2005 |
| Home video release |
| DVD release date |
1 September 2008 |
| Series chronology |
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|
This is a list of episodes of QI, the BBC comedy panel game television show hosted by Stephen Fry.
C Series (2005)
As with the previous two series, the episode titles below have been applied retrospectively. Series C saw the first appearances of Andy Hamilton, Doon Mackichan and David Mitchell, as well as the only appearances to date of Alexander Armstrong, Helen Atkinson-Wood and Rory McGrath.
Another notable first was the idea of the studio audience picking up or losing points for one of their number shouting out an answer. On this occasion - episode 9 - the audience received a forfeit. In later series though, the audience would be credited as the winners of some episodes. Rather ironically, series C is also the only series to date not to feature a Christmas-themed special.
Episode 1 "Campanology"
- Broadcast dates
- 30 September 2005 (BBC Two)
- Panellists
- Buzzers
- 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.
- Tangent: Rich claims with £5,000,000, he'd like a map with a picture of him looking at the map.
- 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. (Forfeit: Lions v Christians) 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.
- 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.
- 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 social event where taffy is made as a form of social interaction (forfeit: Welsh chat-up line). Taffy is 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.
- There were seven (forfeit: two) 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.
- The archbishop murdered by Henry II was called Thomas Becket, with the "à" being a mistake, as described by historian John Strype in the "Memoirs of Thomas Cranmer". (Forfeit: Thomas à Becket)
Episode 2 "Cummingtonite"
- Broadcast dates
- Panellists
- Buzzers
- Doon — A woman singing coloratura
- Arthur — An opera singer (extract from 'Una furtiva lagrima' from Donizetti's 'L'elisir d'amore')
- Andy — A man singing in a deep voice
- Alan — A long howl by a dog
- 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.
- Topics
- Tangent: Captain Webb died in 1883 attempting to swim across the river at the foot of the Niagara Falls.
- 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.
- 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 own 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 jokingly).
Episode 3 "Common Knowledge"
- Broadcast dates
- 14 October 2005 (BBC Two)
- Panellists
- Buzzers
- 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.
- Tangent: The Finnish word saippuakuppinippukauppias is the longest palindrome in the world.
- Tangent: Rory's knowledge of all the atomic numbers.
- The "first" Prime Minister was Henry Campbell-Bannerman (forfeits: Walpole, Pitt the Elder); 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".
- General Ignorance
- Tangent: Rory and Stephen discuss Latin bird names; while Sean humorously pretends to be dragged under his desk, claiming there is a portal to the underworld there.
- Tangent: The door at 10 Downing Street is the only door that can only be opened from the inside.
Episode 4 "Cheating"
- Broadcast dates
- 21 October 2005 (BBC Two)
- Panellists
- Buzzers
- Jeremy — A firework
- Alexander — A hippopotamus groaning
- John — A humorous jingle based around the word "Fruity" (the same as Alan's in series B, episode 2)
- Alan — A cuckoo (followed by a gun shooting the cuckoo)
- Tasks
- The panellists 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
- 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 (forfeits: tanks, fighters, helicopters).
- Patriot, Gladiator, Dagger, Javelin, Merlin, Archer, Arrow, White King and Excalibur are all variants of parsnip (forfeit: missiles). Boris Pasternak's surname means parsnip in Russian. Jeremy grows his own parsnips in a field near where he lives.
- The first creature to be sent into space was a fruit fly (forfeits: 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 (5.8 cm).
- Tangent: The sperm is the smallest cell in the human body, and the ovum is the largest.
- General Ignorance
- 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 seat.
- 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.
Episode 5 "Cat's Eyes"
- Broadcast dates
- 28 October 2005 (BBC Two)
- Panellists
- Buzzers
- Sean — A deep inhale through a stuffy nose
- Rich — A hacking cough
- Jo — A sneeze
- Alan — A camel groaning
- Topics
- Tangent: Female mosquitoes bite you and suck your blood, but not the males.
- Tangent: The tiny carrot museum in Berlotte, Belgium. [1]
- Tangent: Why children aged around 2 go off vegetables.
- 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.
- 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 (forfeit: centurion). Strictly speaking, centurions were in charge of 83 men, although it was normally between 60 and 80.
- It is suggested that Nero played the kithara while Rome burned down (forfeit: fiddled while Rome burned). 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.
- 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. 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.
Episode 6 "Cockneys"
- Broadcast dates
- 4 November 2005 (BBC Two)
- Panellists
- Theme
- Buzzers
- 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
- Tangent: Kudzu is the only plant measured in mph in its growth.
- 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
- Tangent: Ian Fleming also claimed in the James Bond novels that homosexuals couldn't whistle and, when Stephen tried to he duly failed, 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.
Episode 7 "Constellations"
- Broadcast dates
- 11 November 2005 (BBC Two)
- Panellists
- Buzzers
- Sean, Jeremy & Rich — Big dogs barking/howling fiercely
- Alan — A small dog yapping
- Task
- Judge the Constellation Challenge: Join stars on a piece of paper to form a constellation. Rich drew "George Foreman delivering a powerful right-handed shot to the head of a parakeet", Sean drew a train, Jeremy drew the head of an old woman, Alan drew a smiley face. Actual constellations were: Taurus, Aries, Sagittarius and Cancer respectively.
- Topics
- It would take around an hour to drive to Outer space, as it is 62 miles (100 km) above the Earth's atmosphere.
- Tangent: Jeremy devises an idea to build a ladder to outer space, which then turns into an idea for a space lift.
- Tangent: Things people have done when asking for directions.
- Tangent: The panel is shown a drawing of all the atmosphere and all the water on Earth squashed into ball, to illustrate how thin the atmosphere is.
- Tangent: Sean scolds Stephen for mistakenly calling Chihuahua a province rather than a state.
- Flint is made of quartz from sponges.
- The only survivor of the Crimean War is a naval tortoise called Timothy the Tortoise. It was born fourteen years before the war started in 1853 and died in 2004 and was the ship's mascot of the naval ship HMS Queen during the first bombardment of Sebastopol. The reason why it was the only survivor of the Crimean War was that the war between the United Kingdom and Russia only officially ended in 1966. This was because Berwick-upon-Tweed was officially rendered part of the British Empire, but not part of England or Scotland. Berwick-upon-Tweed was formally announced to be at war with the Russian Empire in 1853, but not included in the peace delcaration in 1856, meaning that it was still at war until 1966. Since everyone who had "fought" in the war had died by 1966 except for the tortoise, it is recognised as the only survivor of the Crimean War.
- General Ignorance
- A luffa comes from the ground (forfeit: the sea), because it's a plant that you can grow.
- Tangent: Sean tells of how his sister gave her a Grow Your Own Luffa Kit as a Christmas present, which he names the "worst Christmas present ever".
- Tangent: The panel discuss the use of luffas, which varies from Alan suggesting that they could be used to hit your twin on the head, and Sean saying that they could be used for discreet sexual entertainment in the bathroom.
- The Ford Model T was available in grey, red or Brewster green (forfeits: black, any colour so long as it's black). In Manchester, you could only get them in blue. They were only available in black after 1913. There is no evidence that Henry Ford said that you could get them in any colour so long as it's black.
- Tangent: Henry Ford was an Anti-Semite and a supporter of the Nazis. Hitler only read two books when he was in prison, and one was Henry Ford. Stephen said that "there is nothing nice whatsoever to say about Henry Ford."
- Tangent: Jeremy describes driving a Ford Model T as "the hardest thing in the world."
- 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.
- Tangent: Alan talks about the time when he was taught how to cook a galah.
- Tangent: Alan asks "if you could glue one person's mouth up, who would it be? Rich says he'd do it to a ventriloquist.
Episode 8 "Corby"
- Broadcast dates
- 18 November 2005 (BBC Two)
- Panellists
- Buzzers
- Topics
- The panellists' names translated phonetically in Chinese:
- 'Al-an Day-vees' — Lazy great slave child/2 dozen blue combs
- 'Stee-fen Fry' — stiff fragrant husband come/private suite bend over pipe
- 'Bil-lee Bay-lee' — Shabby plum shellfish texture/low hedge sad hedge
- 'Fil-lee Joo-pee-tus' — vulgar dwarf skin couch/bend over hedge master ruffian foetus
- 'Day-veed Me-chell' — Slack slave rotten dynasty/fry borrows narrow spoon
- There are no inventions from Corby that begin with the letter "C" (forfeit: Corby trouser press). 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. (Note, this was true at the time of broadcast, but a station has since opened on 23 February 2009.)
- Tangent: Corby's high Scottish population and the size of its Rangers Supporters' Club.
- Non sequitur: Stephen presents Alan with an Alan Potato Head.
- 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.
- General Ignorance
- A picture is shown of a statue of Anteros, a memorial to Lord Shaftesbury located in Picadilly Circus, and the first statue in the world to be made of aluminium. Although the misconception that the statue depicts Eros is identified as such, the show did perpetuate another fallacy by claiming it as the Angel of Christian Charity. (Forfeit: Eros)
- Tangent: The urban legend that the hooves of mounted statuary indicate the circumstances of the subject's death.
Episode 9 "Creatures"
- Broadcast dates
- 25 November 2005 (BBC Two)
- Panellists
- Buzzers
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.)
- Tangent: Sir Alfred Bird was the inventor of custard and made an eggless custard powder because his wife was allergic to eggs. He also invented baking powder in order to keep soldiers in bread.
- Tangent: The panel listen to a recording of the singing dog singing, which Andy says is like Gracie Fields falling off a cliff.
- Tangent: The plural of octopus is octopodes or octopuses, 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. She discovered radium, which had luminous properties making it extremely popular. It was used in toothpaste, watches, hair tonic, sweets, condoms and many other things. As a result, many people ended up dying from bone degeneration and general ill-health. The Radium Dial Company was a huge scandal in the 20th century.
- 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
- Cuttlefish prize — Alan shouts out "cuttlefish" when the picture of Florence Nightingale appears in sepia tone.
- Note: This 'fact' was later stated on the DVD release as false. The Scottish engineer William Playfair, first used the pie chart about 20 years before Florence Nightingale's birth. There is a dispute if Nightingale used the pie chart without the knowledge that it was used before.
- Most tigers in the world are in private hands in the United States. (Forfeits: 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".
Episode 10 "Cleve Crudgington"
- Broadcast dates
- 2 December 2005 (BBC Two)
- Panellists
- Buzzers
- Theme
- 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 African 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.
- Luvvie 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.
- Note: Torpenhow is pronounced /ˈtɔrpənhaʊ/.
- 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, breech-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. (Forfeits: Television, Haggis)
- Tangent: Alexander Graham Bell (as stated in Series "A", Episode 11, didn't invent the telephone) helped invent a hydrofoil that travelled at 70 mph (110 km/h) 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. The language with the most vowel sounds is Vietnamese with 55, the language with the least is a Caucasian Russian language, with only one.
- General Ignorance
- 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. (Forfeits: Blackberry, Strawberry, Raspberry)
- The second actor to portray James Bond was Bob Holness. (Forfeits: Sean Connery, David Niven). The first was Barry Nelson, who played a secret agent called Jimmy Bond in a production of Casino Royale in an episode of Climax!
- 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.
Episode 11 "Carnival"
- Broadcast dates
- 9 December 2005 (BBC Two)
- Panellists
- Buzzers
- Theme
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
Episode 12 "Combustion"
- Broadcast dates
- 16 December 2005 (BBC Two)
- Panellists
- Buzzers
- Theme
- One fact would be incorrect – the "doubt card" can be shown by any player when they think they have spotted it.
- Topics
- Tangent: The Duff-Gordons allegedly bribed the crew members of a lifeboat to survive.
- 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. This includes Stephen describing the book, The Da Vinci Code as "loose stoolwater" and "arse-gravy of the worst kind". (Forfeit: They Were Burned)
- Tangent: Peter Cushing lived in Whitstable when Alan did and a local band, the Jellybotties[1] wrote a song about it.
- Tangent: Stephen's phone call to Christopher Lee and his meeting with Vincent Price on the set of Witchfinder General.
- General Ignorance
- Tangent: Stephen shows where moths bit through the crotch area in his trousers. Balsa is mothproof, unike Stephen's trousers. Bill suggests Stephen had a lightbulb in his underpants.
- 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.
- 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 "Celsius" 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)
References
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