Quite Interesting Limited

Quite Interesting Limited
Type Private company limited by shares
Industry Research
Founded Oxford, United Kingdom, 1999
Founder(s) John Lloyd
Headquarters 2nd Floor Lynton House, 7-12 Tavistock Square, London, WC1H 9BQ.
Area served Europe, United States
Key people John Lloyd, John Mitchinson
Products DVDs, books
Owner(s) John Lloyd
Website QI.com

Quite Interesting Limited is a British research company, most notable for providing the research for the television panel game QI (itself an abbreviation of Quite Interesting), as well as other QI related programmes and products. The company founder and chairman is John Lloyd, the creator and producer of QI, and host of the radio panel game The Museum of Curiosity, which also uses Quite Interesting Limited for its research. John Mitchinson is the company's director and also works as head of research for QI.[1]

Contents

About

Lloyd founded Quite Interesting Limited in 1999.[2] It is claimed that the idea of founding the company came on Christmas Eve 1993. According to his profile on QI.com, "he came to the sudden and alarming realisation that he didn't really know anything. Changing gear again, he started reading books for the first time since he was 17. To his horror, he discovered that he hadn't been paying attention and, with painful slowness, unearthed the closely guarded secret that the universe is astoundingly quite interesting."[1]

The philosophy of the company is that it claims that there are four primal drives: food, sex, shelter and curiosity. Out of these, curiosity is supposedly the most important because, "unlike the other three drives, it is what makes us uniquely human."[3] The company claims that, "Whatever is interesting we are interested in. Whatever is not interesting, we are even more interested in. Everything is interesting if looked at in the right way."[3]

Those who carry out research are known as the "QI Elves". Notable elves include Justin Pollard and Vitali Vitaliev. They are also responsible for helping to write the questions used on QI. People wishing to become elves are recommended to start by commenting on the forums of the QI website.[1]

Products

DVDs

Name Region 2 release
QI: A Quite Interesting Game 2004-11-04
QI: The Complete First Series 2006-11-06
QI Presents: Strictly Come Duncing 2007-11-26
QI: The B Series 2008-03-17
QI: The C Series 2008-09-01

Books

Name Released ISBN
The Book of General Ignorance 2006-10-05 ISBN 0571233686
The Book of Animal Ignorance 2007-10-04 ISBN 0571233708
The QI Annual 2008 2007-11-01 ISBN 0571237797

References

  1. ^ a b c "The People Behind QI". QI.com. http://www.qi.com/about/people.php. Retrieved 2008-03-21. 
  2. ^ Carter, Meg (2007-11-26). "My Life in Media: John Lloyd". The Independent. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/my-life-in-media-john-lloyd-760471.html. Retrieved 2008-03-21. 
  3. ^ a b "The QI Philosophy". QI.com. http://www.qi.com/about/philosophy.php. Retrieved 2008-03-21.