QI (D series)

QI Series D
Country of origin	United Kingdom
No. of episodes	13
Broadcast
Original channel	BBC
Original run	29 September 2006 – 15 December 2006

The fourth series of QI, the BBC comedy panel game television show hosted by Stephen Fry, started on 29 September 2006. As each series of QI is based around a letter of the alphabet, all questions in the series had themes beginning with the letter "d".

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).

D Series (2006)

Series D was the first to have a specific theme and official title attached to it from the start. The majority of episodes also contained at least one QI debutant. Ronni Ancona, Julian Clary, Vic Reeves and Liza Tarbuck made their first appearances while Rory Bremner, Graeme Garden, Jessica Hynes, Roger McGough, Neil Mullarkey, Andy Parsons, Jonathan Ross and Johnny Vaughan all made what have so far been their only appearances to date.

This series contained a few other notable firsts. One was the first victory of an episode by "the audience", while another was the first recording (broadcast episode 10) where Alan Davies was not present. This was also the first season longer than the original regular length of 12 episodes.

Episode 1 "Danger"

Broadcast dates

• 29 September 2006 (BBC Two)

Panellists

• Alan Davies (-19 points)
• Jo Brand (winner with 7 points) 11th appearance
• Jimmy Carr (0 points) 4th appearance
• Sean Lock (4 points) 9th appearance

Topics

• Odds of very unusual accidents:
  • 1 in 48 million — Being burned alive whilst you sleep.
  • 1 in 30 million — Being murdered.
  • 1 in 120 million — Choking to death.
  • 1 in 20 billion — Death by tea cosy.
  • 1 in 257,000 — Dying today.
• According to the United Nations, you are three times as likely to die at work than you are at war.
• Lumberjacks have the most dangerous jobs in America.
• The most dangerous job in the world is said to be an Alaskan crab fisherman.
• The most dangerous military stratagem was organised by King Goujian of Yue in 496 BC. Convicted criminals were in the front line of his army and were forced to cut off their own heads.
• The most dangerous sport in the world is flying kites in Pakistan (the most dangerous country in the world) during Basant. You have to sever kite strings filled with glass and metal shards. It can only be played for 15 days of the year.
• The most dangerous manager was Harry Colcord, manager of tightrope walker Charles Blondin.
• The first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel was Annie Edson Taylor.
• The most dangerous sporting activity for women is cheerleading.
• Bungee jumping is a British invention.

General Ignorance

• Poor air quality (forfeit: sitting down for too long) causes deep vein thrombosis on aeroplanes.
• You should get 4–7 hours of sleep every night.
• Seismologists use the Moment magnitude scale (MMS) (Forfeit: the Richter scale) to measure the size of earthquakes.
• The most dangerous earthquake in America since European settlement was in either New Madrid, Missouri (1811–1812) or Prince William Sound, Alaska (1964). (Forfeit: San Francisco 1906)

Episode 2 "Discoveries"

Broadcast dates

• 29 September 2006 (BBC Four)
• 6 October 2006 (BBC Two)

Panellists

• Alan Davies (0 points)
• Clive Anderson (-7 points) 7th appearance
• Vic Reeves (winner with 16 points) 1st appearance
• Arthur Smith (-23 points) 3rd appearance

Theme

• Each contestant has an unusual patent that has been registered at the United States Patent and Trademark Office and they had to work out what it was.
  • Alan: Santa Claus Detector.
  • Clive: Brassiere Having Integrated Inflatable Bladders For The Holding Of Comestible Liquids
  • Arthur: Three-Tiered Comb-Over To Conceal Partial Baldness
  • Vic: Fresh-Air Breathing Device & Method (Toilet Snorkel)

Topics

• It rains the most on Saturdays, because of industrial activities over the week cause a seven-day dust cycle.
• The link between gelignite (invented by Alfred Nobel), saccharin, and the rings of Uranus is that they were all serendipitous discoveries. Caffeine, Silly Putty, Viagra, the Post-it note, penicillin, and the Americas were also serendipitous discoveries.
• Charles Darwin suffered from Chagas disease (forfeit: I did). Millions of South Americans also suffer from it. It was discovered by Carlos Chagas and is the only disease entirely described by one single researcher.
• Darwin couldn't describe brown owls because he thought they were indescribable as a food. He was seen as a poor student who couldn't spell. He was a member of the Gourmet Club of Cambridge and ate animals such as the Brown Owl. (Forfeit: Girl Guides)
• William Dampier was the first Englishman to set foot in Australia and invented the "wind over current" map. His A New Voyage Around the World was carried around by sailors for 100 years. He influenced the books Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver's Travels. He also introduced the words serrated, nor'wester, sea-breezes, caress, rambling, sea-lion, kumquat and excursion into the English language.
• Jules Leotard's clothing invention, which he called the "maillot", was renamed after him when he died. He also invented the Flying Trapeze.
• Kangaroos do not pass wind, possibly because of various forms of bacteria in their stomach.

General Ignorance

• Queen Victoria wore a bustle that played the music of God Save the Queen (forfeit: "We are not amused") to mask the sound of her flatulence.
• The "twit twoo" is created by two Brown owls (forfeit: (one) brown owl), the female goes "twit" and the male "twoo".
• Fernville Lord Digby was the name of the most famous Dulux dog.

Episode 3 "Dogs"

Broadcast dates

• 6 October 2006 (BBC Four)
• 13 October 2006 (BBC Two)

Panellists

• Alan Davies (-36 points)
• Jeremy Clarkson (-13 points) 4th appearance
• Neil Mullarkey (winner with -5 points) 1st and only appearance
• Liza Tarbuck (-8 points) 1st appearance

Topics

• Dogs are much more varied than cats, and more varied than any other species.
• When mating, dogs start in the Doggy position, then they turn so their backsides face each other, with the penis locked inside the vagina. The panel tried to demonstrate their answers using toy dogs. Alan was given a Scottie in tartan and a large Old English Sheepdog.
• The most interesting thing dogs can smell is cancer (forfeits: bottoms, bollocks).
• Dogs from Liverpool and Scotland have different accents.
• The only kind of dog that lays eggs is a dogfish.
• The German for "Sausage dog" is "Dackel" (forfeit: dachshund).
• Fisher comes before German Bight (forfeit: German Bark) in the Shipping Forecast.
• Puffin Island and Bird Island in the Seychelles are islands named after birds. (Forfeit: Canary Islands, named after dogs, the birds being named after the islands.)
• On the island of La Gomera, people communicate by whistling in Spanish known as Silbo Gomero language.
• There is a martial art called Dog Kung Fu, mainly practised by women, and invented by a Chinese nun. It is so called because you fight on all-fours.
• The Hurricane (forfeit: Spitfire) won the Battle of Britain.
• Dogfights first started in World War I, but when they first fought, they had no guns, so they threw bricks at each other.

General Ignorance

• Gorillas sleep in nests. They make a new nest every day, even if there is nothing wrong with it. The scientific name for Gorilla is Gorilla gorilla. This is known as a tautonym. The same is true of Bison and Iguana.
• The scientific name for a rat is Rattus rattus.
• The scientific name for a Golden Oriole is Oriolus oriolus.
• The scientific name for a Whooper Swan is Cygnus cygnus.
• The scientific name for a Manx Shearwater (forfeit: puffin) is Puffinus puffinus. The puffin's scientific name is Fratercula arctica.

Episode 4 "Dictionaries"

Broadcast dates

• 13 October 2006 (BBC Four)
• 20 October 2006 (BBC Two)

Panellists

• Alan Davies (-7 points)
• Ronni Ancona (winner with 13 points) 1st appearance
• Rory Bremner (-7 points) 1st and only appearance
• Phill Jupitus (-7 points) 8th appearance

Topics

• Dictionary writers like to start at the letter "M" (forfeit: A).
• A 3 volume book about Didcot contains The Long Years of Obscurity as its first volume.
• The Bubi people of Bioko, Equatorial Guinea cannot talk in the dark, as their language is mostly gesture. They cannot see what they are saying.
• Prince Charles owns Dartmoor Prison, because he is the occupier of the Duchy of Cornwall.
• When knighting someone, the Queen says nothing (forfeit: Arise, Sir Alan).
• A raindrop is spherical (forfeit: pear-shaped).
• The world's biggest drip is a stalactite in the Gruta Rei do Mato, Brazil.
• The world's biggest crashing bore is a tidal bore in China on the Qiantang River.
• The biggest thing in the Solar System that can float in water, with the exception of the Sun is Saturn.

General Ignorance

• There are less than a three-quarters of plants than we first thought.
• There were several different countries fighting in the Battle of Culloden. There were more Scots fighting against Bonnie Prince Charlie than were fighting for him.
• Dolphins do not drink.

Episode 5 "Death" (Halloween Special)

Broadcast dates

• 20 October 2006 (BBC Four)
• 27 October 2006 (BBC Two)

Panellists

• Alan Davies (-15 points)
• Clive Anderson (-24 points) 8th appearance
• Sean Lock (-8 points) 10th appearance
• Andy Parsons (technical winner with 0 points) 1st and only appearance
• The audience (winner with 2 points) first victory

(Despite the audience being announced as the winner, Alan Davies was announced as having come third, suggesting that the audience's victory was in fact unofficial. In this case, Parsons was the winner and thus the fourth debuting contest in succession to win.)

Theme

• The chairman and all the panellists are dressed in black.
• There is a coffin in the centre of the set, replacing the "i" inside the "Qi" magnifying glass.
• The forfeits on the wallscreens are coloured green as opposed to the normal white.

Topics

• The bubonic plague was caused by marmots.
• British doctors treat depression more than any other illness - 3.1 million people every year. (Forfeits: Cancer, Flu)
• The saddest song ever is "Gloomy Sunday" sung by Billie Holiday, also known as the "Hungarian Suicide Song". The song was originally written by Rezső Seress, who broke up with his girlfriend. After the song became popular, they got together briefly but then she committed suicide by poisoning herself and left only a two-word suicide note that said simply "Gloomy Sunday".
• Killer Mushroom Roulette: The panel have to pick out which of four types of mushroom is safe to eat, out of the Death Cap, Peppery Milk Cap, the Destroying angel and the Trumpet Of Death. The Trumpet Of Death is safe. Out of the 3,500 mushrooms in Britain, 100 are poisonous, only 15 are fatal, and the last death-by-mushroom is too long ago to care. (Update: While correct at the time of broadcast, a recent death-by-mushroom in Britain occurred in 2008. A woman in her 20s died on the Isle of Wight after eating Death Cap mushrooms.)
• The Nazis used Trumpets of Jericho. They were the Junkers Ju 87, otherwise known as the Stukas. According to archaeologists, Jericho had no city walls. (Forfeit: Destroying City Walls)
• Extremophiles are the only things that live in the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea is the lowest place on Earth. People can't turn around in the Dead Sea if they are the wrong way round and could drown.
• Lemmings do not commit suicide by jumping off cliffs. The myth was first noted in a children's encyclopedia in 1908. (Forfeit: Myth Invented by Disney)

General Ignorance

• There is no curse of Tutankhamun. (Forfeit: Death To All Who Enter Here)
• Only five people died in the Great Fire of London. The then-Lord Mayor of London, Thomas Bloodworth went back to bed on the first night of the fire, because he claimed "a woman might piss it out".
• Ring a Ring O'Roses dates to 1881 in North America. (Forfeit: The Plague)
• Edward de Bono (who invented lateral thinking) suggested using Marmite to solve the Middle-East conflict, as it boosts zinc levels.

Episode 6 "Drinks"

Broadcast dates

• 27 October 2006 (BBC Four)
• 3 November 2006 (BBC Two)

Panellists

• Alan Davies (winner with 10 points) 2nd win
• Jimmy Carr (2 points) 5th appearance
• Phill Jupitus (-15 points) 9th appearance
• John Sessions (-3 points) 7th appearance

Theme

• The show is based around an old-time Pub theme, with various of the questions and decorations referencing classic British pub culture, games, etc.
• There is a drinks rack behind Stephen Fry, including a keg of Watney's Red Barrel, and a Dartboard taking up the centre of the main background.
• Every panellist has a drink — Alan Davies has a martini, the other three have pints of lager.

Topics

• A House sparrow knocked over 23,000 dominoes in Holland. After they tried to capture the sparrow, a man shot it and was fined €200. The sparrow was stuffed and shown at a display during 2006. (See Domino Day 2005 sparrow.)
• You are not allowed to drink whilst playing darts. It was caused by a sketch from Not the Nine O'Clock News which featured darts players drinking heavily as opposed to actually playing darts, and it ruined the view of the game, so drinking was banned. You are also not allowed to wear a hat, unless you are a Sikh.
• The connection between Oscar Wilde, Ernest Hemingway, Picasso, Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Degas, Manet, Strindberg, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine and Kylie Minogue is Absinthe. All except Minogue were known absintheurs, whilst Minogue played the Green Fairy in the 2001 film Moulin Rouge!
• The Great Binge (1870–1914) is a period in history given by social historians, due to Absinthe in Europe and other dangerous drugs such as heroin being commercially available. Heroin is a brand name.
• The Vomit Comet is used to train astronauts.
• The Great Stink occurred in 1858 when Parliament was trying to be held, but the smell of faeces was so bad they had to stop. (Forfeit: He Who Smelt It, Dealt It)
• Burnley miners' club drinks more Bénédictine than any other single outlet in the world.
• DORA banned invisible ink and binoculars. It also brought in the Licensing laws and British Summer Time.

General Ignorance

• A vomitorium is a passage situated below or behind a tier of seats in an amphitheatre, through which the crowds could "spew out" at the end of a show.
• The single largest man-made structure on the planet is the Fresh Kills Landfill in Staten Island. (Forfeit: The Great Wall of China)
• You should not drink seawater if you are dehydrated. (Forfeit: Alcohol)
• Alcohol does not kill brain cells.

Episode 7 "Differences"

Broadcast dates

• 3 November 2006 (BBC Four)
• 10 November 2006 (BBC Two)

Panellists

• Alan Davies (-144 points)
• Jo Brand (-16 points) 12th appearance
• Julian Clary (-8 points) 1st appearance
• Dara Ó Briain (winner with 3 points) 3rd appearance

Topics

• The main difference between men and women is the chromosomes. Women have two X chromosomes, but men have one X and one Y chromosome.
• Alcohol has a greater effect on men. In the long run, women are more likely to have alcohol-related brain and liver damage. (Forfeit: Women)
• Women get colder quicker, in order to keep the vital organs warm.
• The guests have to correctly identify a picture of a Yupik. (Forfeit: Inuit)
• You cannot describe the difference between left and right.
• Deaf people applaud by waving their hands in the air. There is a misconception that they clap louder or harder.
• The similarity between herring and teenage boys is that they both communicate by farting.
• The only difference between brown eggs and white eggs is the colour.
• You would use cogs or Meccano to make a difference engine. It was only completed in 1991 and worked perfectly. Charles Babbage (who invented the machine) deliberately put some mistakes in the plan, so if anyone stole it, it wouldn't work.
• The difference between ping pong and table tennis is that "ping pong" is a brand name.

General Ignorance

• Eskimos have 32 words for demonstrative pronouns. (Forfeits: Ice, Snow)
• The Moon smells of gunpowder. (Forfeit: Cheese)
• Twelve people have walked on the Moon.
• Gandhi's first name was Mohandas Karamchand. (Forfeit: Randy)

Note: Alan Davies answered "Randy", and as a result was docked 150 points. The final scores were then revealed almost immediately afterwards, and Alan was on -144 points, a record lowest score in the show's history. Without the 150 point penalty from the earlier question, Alan would have won with 6 points.

Episode 8 "Descendants" (Children in Need Special)

Broadcast dates

• 10 November 2006 (BBC Four)
• 17 November 2006/18 November 2006 (BBC Two)

Panellists

• Alan Davies (-29,000,000 points)
• Rich Hall (2,000,000 points) 13th appearance
• Phill Jupitus (1,000,000 points) 10th appearance
• Jonathan Ross (winner with 3,000,000 points) 1st and only appearance

(All scores in this game were multiplied by 1,000,000 as a generosity gesture from Stephen Fry, on account of it being for Children In Need. Therefore, the actual scores were -29, 2, 1 and 3.)

Theme

• The show initially began with Pudsey Bear, the Children in Need mascot, in the place of Alan Davies, but Pudsey was replaced after all the panellists had demonstrated their buzzers.

• Each panellist has a Pudsey bear in front of them, however Rich Hall's Pudsey does not have one eye covered. This is because Rich Hall, being American and not aware of Pudsey's trademark, removed the eyepatch and bound his Pudsey's hands behind its back using the eyepatch before the recording of the episode began.

Topics

• Babies don't have kneecaps, because they're made of cartilage. Babies also have 94 more bones than adults, mainly because most of the bones in the major areas, such as the skull, haven't fused yet.
• The area of the body that has the most bones is the foot, with 52 bones.
• The paradoxical frog grunts like a pig and has offspring three times its own size.
• The person who invented Barbie could have been US President, is a trained scientist and has larger breasts than you might imagine. Her maiden name is "Roberts" (the inventor was called Barbara Millicent Roberts), has over a billion pairs of shoes and is only 11 inches tall. (Forfeit: Margaret Thatcher)
• A Spider-Man comic was the inspiration for electronic tagging.
• Wonder Woman was the inspiration for the lie detector.
• A radio episode of Superman in which he fights the Ku Klux Klan caused the KKK recruitment rate to fall to zero within a few weeks of it being aired.
• Roald Dahl helped to invent the Wade-Dahl-Till valve.
• The Oompa-Loompas were originally black but were changed in the movie so as not to relate to black slave workers (Forfeit: Orange)
• An episode of Clangers called "Chicken" featured a scene when the voice actor says (through a swanee whistle) "Oh sod it, the bloody thing's stuck again".
• Bill and Ben speak "Oddle Poddle". (Forfeit: Flobbadob — that means flowerpot in "Oddle Poddle")

General Ignorance

• The most listened tune in the world is the Gran Vals (Nokia tune) by the Spanish composer Francisco Tárrega. (Forfeit: Crazy Frog)
• Ferns are poisonous, carcinogenic, the second oldest plant after moss and pollinate by flinging their seeds.
• Terry Wogan is descended from the Welsh. (Forfeit: Ireland)
• 0% of money donated to Children in Need goes towards administration costs.

Episode 9 "Doves"

Broadcast dates

• 17 November 2006 (BBC Four)
• 24 November 2006 (BBC Two)

Panellists

• Alan Davies (winner with 54 points) 3rd win
• Andy Hamilton (-8 points) 3rd appearance
• David Mitchell (-9 points) 2nd appearance
• John Sessions (-4 points) 8th appearance

Topics

• The pigeon is the bravest species of animal, having won more Dickin medals than any other. The medal was organised by Maria Dickin in 1943 to honour animals in war. Out of the 60 occasions, it has been awarded to a pigeon 32 times.
• A kamikaze pigeon unit was set up to use pigeons in missiles. The pigeon was trained to peck at a ship. In the missile, if the ship was slightly to one side, the pigeon would peck on a glass target and it would relay a signal moving the missile and it would continuously peck as the ship got bigger and bigger. Every time it pecked correctly, the pigeon would be showered with grain. It wasn't used in combat. See Project Pigeon.
• The most influential piece of modern art (according to the Turner Prize committee) was Marcel Duchamp's Fountain.
• The dik-dik is able to hide, unlike the dodo, which is probably one of the reasons why the dodo is now extinct.
• According to Moby-Dick, a sperm whale's penis can be turned into an apron.
• Swift Nick Nevison robbed some people in Kent, then rode from Kent to York in 15 hours. He managed to evade the law by playing in a bowls match against the Lord Mayor of York, and bet him in the match, to used the mayor as his alibi. (Forfeit: Dick Turpin)

General Ignorance

• The crime Burke and Hare were convicted of was murder. (Forfeit: Body-snatching)
• An underground fluffer cleans hair off the tracks in the London Underground.
• E pluribus unum is the motto of Sport Lisboa e Benfica.
• E pluribus unum was originally used in a recipe for salad dressing.

This was a bonus question for 50 points was supposed to subsequently asked, only for Fry to accidentally provide the answer before asking the question. Alan Davies then answered the question regardless, and earned the 50 point bonus. As it turned out, he would still have won without the bonus had nobody else answered the question correctly. In Fry's words: 'That was supposed to be the answer to the bonus question and I fucked it up completely!'

Episode 10 "Divination"

Alan Davies was absent for the recording of this episode, as it clashed with his favourite football team, Arsenal, playing in that year's UEFA Champions League Final - the biggest game in their history. Close-up shots of him in his chair at the start were taken during the recording of episode 8 (to match with Phill Jupitus being seated on his right). The customary opening long shot of the whole panel was accomplished with a lookalike taking his seat.

The final edit then showed him dematerialising after pressing his buzzer, which supposedly teleported him to the football match (accompanied by the TARDIS sound). His other brief contributions - which earned him forfeits, ensuring that he still lost - were also pre-recorded and played in the studio as a voiceover.

Broadcast dates

• 24 November 2006 (BBC Four)
• 1 December 2006 (BBC Two)

Recording date

• 17 May 2006

Panellists

• Alan Davies (-70 points)
• Graeme Garden (winner with 7 points) 1st and only appearance
• Phill Jupitus (6 points) 11th appearance
• Johnny Vaughan (-19 points) 1st and only appearance

Theme

• Each of the panellists were told to predict their scores using a form of divination.
  • Johnny - Coscinomancy - Using a sieve
  • Graeme - Tyromancy - Using cheese, or in this case — Mini Babybels
  • Phill - Tasseomancy - Using tea
  • Alan - Pygomancy - Using a plastic pair of buttocks
• Whoever managed to accurately predict their own score at the end would be rewarded with 666 bonus points. No-one managed to do so accurately with their own scores, but Vaughan correctly guessed Garden's score. The 666 points were not given because it had to be their own score they predicted.

Topics

• Fry interprets the panel members' dreams, and comes to the conclusion they are all gay.
• Clever Hans the horse was able to count and work out square roots and could read someone's body language.
• If you see a dead donkey, you should jump over it three times for good luck.
• A demonym is your people name.
• The Chinese language for "American" is "Lovely country person" in English. The Englishman is called a "Hero country person" and a Frenchman is a "Law country person".
• Robert Johnson and his death at the crossroads, by having strychnine poisoning in his whisky.
• Deeper Blue (the first computer to beat a chess grandmaster) is now working for United Airlines as a reservations clerk.

General Ignorance

• The Number of the Beast is 616. (Forfeit: 666)
• Thomas Midgeley, inventor of leaded petrol and CFCs has done more damage to the environment than any other person in history. (Forfeits: George Bush, Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Zedong, Margaret Beckett)
• European witchcraft is known for causing harm to people by sticking pins into dolls known as poppets. (Forfeit: Voodoo)
• A desire line is a name given by planners to paths made by people who wander. People who wander without really thinking are called Meanderthals.

Episode 11 "Denial & Deprivation"

Broadcast dates

• 1 December 2006 (BBC Four)
• 8 December 2006 (BBC Two)

Panellists

• Alan Davies (-39 points - this gave him a grand total beyond -1000 for the series)
• Roger McGough (joint winner with 1 point) 1st and only appearance
• Vic Reeves (joint winner with 1 point) 2nd appearance
• Mark Steel (-6 points) 3rd appearance

Theme

• The show was deprived of the normal set. Instead, Alan Davies and Mark Steel were sitting at school desks, Roger McGough and Vic Reeves had side tables and glasses of whisky and Stephen Fry sat at an auctioneer's stand with a gavel. The director of photography was "fired" so there was a lack of light. Some of the studio was lit by candles. The audience was forced to watch in the street (although only for a humorous pre-filmed segment). The buzzers were hand-cranked.
• The team were each given a tray, containing dental floss, chilli powder, a potato and a green pen. The panellists had to find out how each item had been used in a prison escape.
  • Green pen - Steven Russell dyed his shirt green, the same colour shirts as those of the prison doctors, and walked out of the prison.
  • Dental floss - Vincenzo Curcio used floss to file down the bars.
  • Chilli powder — Five prisoners from Pakistan threw spice powder into the eyes of a warden and ran out of the prison.
  • Potato - John Dillinger stole a raw potato, carved it into the shape of a gun, painted it black with boot polish and held up a warden with it.

Topics

• According to Anna Freud, when children play with their food, they are really playing with their excrement.
• William Banting and the invention of diets. In 1864, he wrote a booklet called "Letter on Corpulence Addressed to the Public", which gave word to the term "to bant", which is dieting.
• Hoover the talking seal is a seal discovered in Maine in 1971, who was found to have a Bostonian accent. He died in 1985 and appeared on ABC's Good Morning America and had his own obituary in the Boston Globe (This information inspired an impromptu poem from Roger McGough).
• The Bastille held only seven prisoners. Four of them were forgers and two lunatics (one of whom thought he was Julius Caesar).
• The Kray twins were imprisoned in the Tower of London due to desertion from National Service.

General Ignorance

• The four main religions of India are Hinduism (805 million of them), Islam (134 million of them), Christianity (23 million of them) and Sikhism (19 million of them). (Forfeit: Buddhism)
• No-one milks a yak, because yaks are the male of the species. (Forfeit: Milkman)
• Crabs have 10 legs. (Forfeit: 8)
• George Washington did not cut down cherry trees. It was a myth invented by Parson Weems. Washington's father said "My son, your truth means more to me than 1,000 trees bathed in silver, with apples of gold."
• The panel have to correctly identify a picture of the Yeomen of the Guard. (Forfeit: Beefeaters)

Episode 12 "Domesticity"

Broadcast dates

• 8 December 2006 (BBC Four)
• 15 December 2006 (BBC Two)

Panellists

• Alan Davies (-64 points)
• Jo Brand (-18 points) 13th appearance
• Jessica Hynes - at the time still going under her maiden name of Stevenson (winner with -3 points) 1st and only appearance
• Phill Jupitus (-4 points) 12th appearance (5th appearance of the series)

Topics

• Dry cleaning involves solvents such as perc, so it is not really dry at all.
• Ray Davis (not the Ray Davies from "The Kinks") used 100,000 gallons of dry- cleaning fluid in 1964, while researching in neutrinos. After finishing his work, the leftover fluid remained in house in Lead, South Dakota, because it is a hazardous waste.
• The first vacuum cleaner was horse drawn, because people couldn't buy a vacuum cleaner, because it was intended as a service.
• "The first practical dishwasher was invented to wash dishes more..." "safely". The inventor of this dishwasher was called Josephine Cochrane. She invented the idea, because her porcelain kept being chipped by her servants and herself. It cost US$250 to make, which was a lot in the 1880s, but it could clean and dry 200 dishes in 2 minutes and it won 1st prize at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. (Forfeits: Quickly, Cleanly)
• The second greatest cause of death for women up to the year 1800 was cooking, largely because their dresses would catch fire. Childbirth was the greatest cause. (Forfeit: Domestic Violence)
• To create the impression that the house has been cleaned when you have not, spray furniture polish behind the radiator.
• Silk and spaghetti can both stick to brick walls.
• Rhubarb and brown sauce can be used to clean copper and silver.
• Using your own saliva is the cheapest way of removing blood stains from your clothes.
• The bottom door hinge is placed higher because of the effect of foreshortening.

General Ignorance

• Pea soup and baked bean juice are drinks made from beans. (Forfeit: Coffee)
• "Have you ever slid down a banister?" - No, because people slide down the balustrade. (Forfeit: Yes)
• William Wordsworth could not smell. He suffered from Anosmia. (Forfeit: Daffodils) (This question was worth 200 points to everyone, but instead Alan said the forfeit answer, daffodils)

Episode 13 "December" (Christmas Special)

Broadcast dates

• 15 December 2006 (BBC Four)
• 22 and 27 December 2006 (BBC Two)

Panellists

• Alan Davies (-53 points)
• Jo Brand (-17 points) 14th appearance
• Rich Hall (-9 points) 14th appearance
• Dara Ó Briain (winner with 2 points) 4th appearance

Theme

• All the questions in General Ignorance are themed on saints.

Topics

• Christmas is celebrated on 25 December because it is the birthday of the Roman god Mithras, who bears similarities with Jesus Christ. (Forfeit: Jesus's Birthday — His birthday is unknown, but Islam claims it was during the Summer and Jehovah's Witnesses claims the date is 1 October)
• The Queen, after Christmas lunch, watches herself giving the Royal Christmas Message on television. (Forfeit: Goes For A Walk)
• Photocopiers suffer the most at office Christmas parties, due to people photocopying their buttocks and inserting things into the machine.
• Champagne was invented by the English in the Champagne region of France. There was a 19th-century myth that Dom Pérignon accidentally made the champagne fizzy and said, "Come quickly, I am drinking the stars!", which is false. In the 16th century, the British took the flat wine from the region and added sugar and molasses to make it fizzy. (Forfeit: The French)
• In Catalonia, there is a figure in the Nativity scene called a Caganer, which squats and defecates, normally in the corner. People who have been the Caganer include George W. Bush and David Beckham. They have a Christmas log, which translated means "Shit log". There is also a popular phrase, which translated means, "Eat well, shit hard!".
• Turkeys in Norfolk were given little leather boots for Christmas, when they were driven from Norfolk to London, and later to the New World.

General Ignorance

• Saints from Ireland include Saint Conleth, Saint Brigid of Kildare and Saint Kevin of Glendalough (Forfeit: St Patrick)
• The pointing fingers on The Creation of Adam were painted by an unknown Papal restorer, after the original fingers fell off. (Forfeit: Michelangelo)
• A man called Father Christmas died in Dedham, Essex on 30 May 1564. Christmas is a popular surname in Essex. The first recorded person with the surname "Christmas" was a "Roger Christmas", in the year 1200. 1,000 people in the UK phone book have the surname "Christmas", mainly in Essex, Surrey, Cambridgeshire, London & Sussex. (Forfeit: He's Not Dead)

Notes

• Wolf, Ian: QI: Series D, published on the British Comedy Guide. Retrieved 2009-02-25.

References

QI Episodes by series A B C D E F G H I J K L People Stephen Fry Alan Davies John Lloyd John Mitchinson Piers Fletcher Justin Pollard Ian Lorimer Dan Schreiber Vitali Vitaliev Adam Jacot de Boinod Regular guests Ronni Ancona Clive Anderson Bill Bailey Danny Baker Jo Brand Rob Brydon Jimmy Carr Jeremy Clarkson Jack Dee Rich Hall Andy Hamilton Phill Jupitus Sean Lock Jason Manford David Mitchell Ross Noble Dara Ó Briain Sue Perkins John Sessions Sandi Toksvig Johnny Vegas Books The Book of General Ignorance The Book of Animal Ignorance Advanced Banter The QI Book of the Dead The Second Book of General Ignorance 1,227 QI Facts to Blow Your Socks Off International versions QI (Dutch version) Intresseklubben (Swedish version) QI (Czech version) Related projects The Museum of Curiosity No Such Thing As A Fish QI News Quite Interesting Limited Unbound