QI (F series)

QI Series F
No. of episodes	12
Release
Original network	BBC
Original release	14 November 2008 – 20/21 March 2009
Season chronology

This is a list of episodes of QI, the BBC comedy panel game television programme hosted by Stephen Fry. Series F was the first series to broadcast originally on BBC One, starting on 9 January 2009, with the exception of two episodes: one made for Children in Need, which was broadcast on BBC Two on 14 November 2008, and a Christmas special, transmitted on 22 December 2008 on BBC One.

The rest of the series began on 9 January 2009 on BBC One, with an extended version of the show (known as QI XL) shown on BBC Two the following day.

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 One 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 seven guests that have appeared in ten or more episodes (out of 61), they are: Jo Brand (21), Rich Hall (17), Phill Jupitus (17), Bill Bailey (15), Sean Lock (16), Jimmy Carr (11) and Clive Anderson (11). Excluding the Pilot there have been a total of 51 different guest panellists in the five series to date.

F Series (2008)

The sixth (or "F" series) of QI began recording on 5 May 2008. This series has again featured 12 recordings. It's unknown yet if there is to be an extra episode of outtakes, as there was at the end of the "E" series, but it will be announced soon. Whereas the previous series had only two new guests, this series has new guests in most of the episodes. Also, as with Series D, frequent panellist Bill Bailey does not appear at all (probably due to his Tinselworm tour schedule, although he has since stated that he will not be doing any panel shows anymore), and nor do other semi-regulars like Jeremy Clarkson, Vic Reeves, Mark Steel and Arthur Smith. However, some (Ronni Ancona, Andy Hamilton and John Sessions) have returned from earlier series.

The main bonus of the series, following on from the "E" Series' "Elephant in the Room" bonus is the "Fanfare", where if any of the panellists said something particularly interesting a fanfare would sound. However, this has yet to appear in any of the episodes so far.

The Children in Need special was the last edition of QI to be originally transmitted on BBC Two. All the others were shown on BBC One, starting with the Christmas special on 22 December 2008, and the series starting on 9 January 2009, with extended versions (called 'QI XL') on BBC Two the following day. This is the first series of QI not to be produced by John Lloyd. It was instead produced by Piers Fletcher.

Episode 1 "Families" (Children in Need special)

Broadcast Date

• 14 November 2008

Recording Date

• 5 June 2008

Panellists

• Alan Davies (-6 points)
• Ronni Ancona (Winner with 5 points) 2nd appearance
• David Mitchell (3 points) 5th appearance
• Sir Terry Wogan (-9 points) 1st and only appearance

Buzzers

• Ronni - "Sisters" from White Christmas
• David - "Daddy Cool" by Boney M.
• Terry - "Grandad" by Clive Dunn
• Alan - "My Old Man's a Dustman" by Lonnie Donegan

Theme

• The show initially began with Pudsey Bear, the Children in Need mascot, in the place of Terry Wogan, but Pudsey was ousted from his chair after the introductions were given.

Topics

• The panellists are asked to tell some old wives' tales. Terry's grandmother used to say that "Love flies out the window when poverty walks in the door", and "It doesn't matter whether you rich or whether you are poor, as long as you have money". Other ones incuded "cheese gives you bad dreams", "a crow follows a busy squirrel" and "eating your crusts puts hairs on your chest". The most common ones seem to be bout either catching a cold or going blind.
• The Foundling Hospital which cared for children, founded by Thomas Coram, got much of its money from composer George Frideric Handel and artist William Hogarth. The hospital was so successful that the only way you could get your child in was by a lottery. In 1756, the government arranged it, so that all children were allowed in. Most of the human race lived with unspeakable suffering, especially for suffering.

Tangent: In the 18th century, 75% of all children died before they were five years old. 90% of all children born in workhouses died before they were five years old.

Tangent: Terry claims that while the last Children in Need raised around £35 million, in order to make a real difference, the charity appeal would need to raise £150 million.

• Mothers who have had children who are more likely to bite the heads off Jelly Babies. 3 million Jelly Babies are eaten every week. The powdery substance on the Jelly Babies is starch, used to get the jelly out of the mould.

Tangent: According to Terry, Ann Widdecombe once said, "Hungry? I'd eat a baby's arse through a wickerwork chair".

• Contrary to popular belief, a mother does not create a bond with her newborn baby by keeping in close proximity to the infant after birth. In the days immediately following birth, an infant is unable to distinguish the cries of its mother from the cries of a rhesus monkey. Once the infant is a few weeks old, it develops the ability to recognize the smell of its mother, allowing mother-child bonding to begin.

Tangent: The panellists discuss the ageing process, as it pertains to toilet training and incontinence.

Tangent: It's believed that 90% of attention you receive in your lifetime, is received under the age of 3.

• Stephen ask the panellists to work out what he's describing. His description is "sustain, ululation, sustain at a higher frequency, ululation and sustain at the starting frequency." It's the call of Tarzan, which is an aural palindrome. It was created by the MGM sound effects team using Johnny Weissmuller's real voice. The line, "Me Tarzan, you Jane", never appears in any of the Tarzan films. Other famous lines that never happened include "Play it again, Sam" and "You dirty rat!"
• In the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest in Brighton, the Portuguese revolution, also known as the Carnation Revolution, was signalled to start when the Portugese entry, "E Depois do Adeus (After the Goodbye)" by Paulo de Carvalho, was played. Their band had carnations in the barrels of their guns, to denote the Carnation Revolution. The song itself only scored three points and the entry was second last overall. The winning song was Waterloo by ABBA. The political party, Estado Novo had been running Portugal for many years under their leader, Salazar, who declared three days of national mourning when Adolf Hitler died. He suffered a stroke in 1968, a new Prime Minister, Marcelo Caetano, was made to replace him, but Salazar did not know anything about it and was tricked into thinking he was still ruling the country, when he went to the grave. Terry keeps arguing that the song was actually entered in the 1975 contest.

Tangent: You do not have to have lived in a country in order to represent it in the Eurovision Song Contest. It is a contest for songwriters of particular nationalities rather than the singers themselves. The most famous example being the Canadian Celine Dion, who represented Switzerland. Johnny Logan, the Australian, won twice for Ireland. His father, Patrick O'Hagan, was an Irish tenor. English is the most successful language in the Eurovision Song Contest, with 20½ winners, if you include bi-lingual songs.

Tangent: The French criticised their own song in this year's contest, Divine, by Sébastien Tellier, because it was sung in English, mentioning that it has turned from Lingua franca to Anglophone, which leads to Ronni suggesting that an "English tax" should be made for foreigners wanting to sing English.

General Ignorance

• The family in The Swiss Family Robinson, by Johann David Wyss, have no surname. The title comes from the fact that it is a Swiss family who were having a Robinson Crusoe experience. The original translation by William Godwin depicted the title as "The Family Robinson Crusoe". A third of all film and television adaptations based on the book give the family surname as "Robinson". (Forfeit: Robinson)
• A boomerang that won't come back is a "Kylie". Boomerangs that come back and do not come back are both used by Aborigines in order to trap birds, but they are not used to kill the birds. Instead they drive them towards nets. (Forfeit: A Stick)
• As discussed in Series A, the word "Kangaroo" comes from the Guugu Yimithirr language. English explorers then used the word to people who spoke other languages who did not know what they were talking about. The myth was brought up again deliberately to catch Terry out, which it did. (Forfeit: Aborigine For "I Don't Know".)
• Bertrand Russell proved that 1 + 1 = 2. Russell wrote about this in his bookPrincipia Mathematica after set theory gave rise to several paradoxes, causing fears that nothing could be proved and that some of the great questions could never be answered. He is said to have had very bad breath and to have been bad at mental arithmetic.

Other

In discussing old wives tales, David Mitchell is censored while saying "wanking" and then "wankers", which is not normally done on post-watershed broadcasts in Britain. One possible reason could be in the context of airing the episode as part of a broadcasting event traditionally aimed at a family audience, even though QI itself was broadcast in the usual time slot. (The sound effect used to cover up the words is not the usual bleep but a quacking sound, indicating that it may be removed from repeat screenings and the DVD release). Interestingly, later in the episode, he plainly uses the word "shit" without censorship.

Episode 2 "Fire & Freezing" (Christmas special)

Broadcast Date

• 22 December 2008

Recording Date

• 29 May 2008

Panellists

• Alan Davies (-6 points)
• Clive Anderson (Winner with 8 points) 11th appearance
• Rob Brydon (-8 points) 4th appearance
• Dom Joly (-16 points) 1st and only appearance

Buzzers

• Dom - "The Christmas Song" (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire).
• Clive - "Light My Fire" by The Doors.
• Rob - "Fire" by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown.
• Alan - Being fired in the manner of The Apprentice.

Theme

• The panel are all dressed in winter clothing such as scarves and woolly hats.

Topics

• In Native American smoke signals, one puff usually meant "Hello" and two puffs usually meant "All's well". However, the meaning of signals did differ from place to place.

Tangent: Wet straw is used to make the smoke black in the Vatican whenever a new Pope has not been elected.

Tangent: For centuries in Britain, the signals used in case of invasion were flaming beacons.

• Communicating with paper fans came about in the 19th century in France. A booklet was made of signals that users could make to each other - this was probably designed to increase fan sales. To swing the fan around means, "I love another", and closing the fan slowly means, "I promise to marry you". Fans were invented in China, and were brought into Europe via Italy by Marco Polo.
• Nothing has happened to the fireman's pole. There are many stories printed in the newspapers about poles being removed for health and safety reasons, but it is completely wrong. The main reason why there are fewer poles nowadays is because most modern fire stations are built with just one floor, so no pole is needed. The longest fireman's pole in Europe is in Birmingham, measuring 40 feet long. (Forfeit: Health and Safety Gone Mad)

Tangent: The fire brigade was invented by insurance companies. When you took out the insurance, you got a metal plaque which you put in the wall of your house saying which company was protecting your house. If your house did catch fire, fire brigades would come from all the insurance companies, but they'd turn around and go back if you didn't have a plaque from their company. If you had no plaque, then your fire would not be put out, that is unless your next-door neighbour had a plaque, in which case your fire was put out to prevent their property catching fire too.

Tangent: Rob explains, in a very long-winded and deliberately patronising way, that smoke tends to kill people before the fire does, This is because smoke makes it harder to breathe.

Tangent: When striking a match, always strike it away from you, otherwise the flash point will come towards you and might cause you to catch fire. Alan was once told about an old woman who died when striking a match towards her. Dom says that one contributing factor to the death may have been urine, because a property of dried urine is that it is flammable.

Tangent: A popular expression in Australia is, "I wouldn't piss up his arse if his kidneys were on fire."

• The worst thing you can do if you are a fire eater is to inhale, as this causes 'Fire eaters lung'. Fire-eating is as bad as it looks and it causes terrible damage to the mouth. It is more akin to fire spitting than eating because the mouth is filled with lighter fluid (which is toxic) and then spat into the fire.
• During the Second World War, there was a plan to make an aircraft carrier from substance made from ice and sawdust called "Pykrete". Pykrete is stronger than steel and does not melt. Lord Mountbatten convinced Winston Churchill to make a pykrete aircraft carrier after he threw some in Churchill's bath and showed him that it did not melt in his hot bath water. The proposed ship would have had guns on it that would fire super-cooled water to immobilise the enemy, and could be repaired using seawater. However, the ship was never made because of the Normandy Landings.

Tangent: Dom correctly points out that the ship in the picture shown to accompany the question is not an aircraft carrier, but a destroyer.

• The original Twelve Days of Christmas, does not contain the famous theme "Five Gooold Rings". A man called Frederic Austin changed the way people sang the line "Five gold rings" to the version we know now, and this version of the line is still copyrighted today, so whenever it is played you owe Novello & Co money. (Forfeit: Five Goooold Rings)

Tangent: Stephen talks about games such as, "In my trunk" in which one person says "In my trunk I have..." followed by an item. The next person then has to say the same line and then add another item. Each person in turn then has to memorise the list, in order, before adding another item. The game finishes when someone cannot remember the whole list. Stephen's favourite version is called "Christopher Biggins has got up his bottom tonight", in which one person says that line before adding a celebrity's name (Stephen contributes the suggestion Arnold Schwarzenegger) and then the next person repeats it, before adding another whose first name begins with the last letter of the previous surname. On his own, Alan adds the names Rodney Bewes, Steve Davis and Simon Schama.

General Ignorance

• When you blow out a candle, there is a drop in temperature that causes the fire to go out. Fire needs three things to work: oxygen, heat and fuel. Trick candles use a wick that is made out of a material which burns at a low temperature, this is the reason they are hard to blow out.

Tangent: Rob comes from Port Talbot in Wales, the same town as Richard Burton, Anthony Hopkins and Michael Sheen. Rob's father and Anthony Hopkins grew up in the same street. Stephen says that English people grew up in houses.

• Yes or no: "You know how sometimes it can be too cold to snow?" The answer is no. While it is true that you need some moisture in the air to snow and that there is less moisture when it is very cold, snow has been recorded at -41° and -50° Celsius. The only temperature where it is too cold to snow is absolute zero, where nothing happens at all. (Forfeit: Yes)

Tangent: -40° Celsius and -40° Fahrenheit are the same. This is the point where the two scales meet.

Episode 3 "Flotsam & Jetsam"

Broadcast Date

• 9 January 2009

Recording Date

• 12 June 2008

Panellists

• Alan Davies (-19 points)
• Rob Brydon (-8 points) 5th appearance
• Andy Hamilton (-15 points) 4th appearance
• Charlie Higson (Winner with 8 points) 2nd appearance

Buzzers

• Charlie: Theme from Blue Peter.
• Andy: Theme from Captain Pugwash.
• Rob: I Do Like To be Beside the Seaside.
• Alan: Little Jim in The Goon Show saying "He's fallen in the wa-ater!"

Topics

• Each of the team is given a nautical flag.
  • Charlie: R for Romeo - "The way is off my ship."
  • Andy: Z for Zulu - "I require a tug."
  • Rob: J for Juliet - "I am on fire" or "I am leaking".
  • Alan: D for Delta - "Keep clear of me; I am maneuvering with difficulty."
  • Stephen: U for Uniform - "You are running into danger."

Other flags include O for Oscar, which means man overboard, N for November, which means no and F for Foxtrot which means "I am disabled; communicate with me."

Tangent: When Andy was on The News Quiz, with a person who did sign language, the person referred to Bill Clinton by undoing his zip.

Tangent: Stephen was in America, where he claimed they use a crooked index finger to represent the letter R, so 2 R's one with each hand and created as if drawing pistols from imaginary holsters represented Ronald Reagan. Rob said girls often signed a single letter R to him too.

• There are 4 classes of maritime wreckage according to the act created in 1995. The difference between Flotsam and jetsam is that flotsam is wreckage from a shipwreck and jetsam is purposely jettisoned thrown off a boat. Lagan is cargo at the bottom of the sea often marked by a buoy that can be retrieved later, but derelict can't be retrieved.
• According to his autobiography, "Boy Wonder: My Life In Tights", Burt Ward (who played Robin in the Batman TV series) claimed he had sex with his fan girls which he called "the Ultimate Autograph, signed with Bat-Sperm". It was also claimed in the book that Batman watched. Stephen mistakes this and at first believes he actually signed autographs in his own sperm.

Tangent: Rob claims that it's not unusual in the world of showbiz to watch your contemporaries and co-stars having sex. Charlie tries to claim that it happened all the time on Dad's Army.

• The world's biggest flasher in terms of an animal is the 7 foot Dana Octopus Squid, found in the North Pacific Ocean, which flashes light all over its body. The biggest natural flasher is found in the mouth of the Catatumbo River in Venezuela. For 10 hours a night, up to 280 times an hour for 180 days of the year, a lightning storm is seen, which is also the biggest contributor of ozone in the world.
• The Borgia pope, Pope Alexander VI had naked prostitutes groveling on the floor for chestnuts during the Feast of the Chestnuts. Another pope in trouble was Pope Formosus, who was succeeded by Pope Stephen VI had his body dug up and put on trial with people moving his arms around during the proceedings, while Stephen yelled at the corpse. Even a ventriloquist was used to make him speak to deny his charges. He then had his 3 fingers that he used for papal blessings cut off from his skeleton and was to be reburied in a common grave. But after Stephen was deposed, imprisoned and strangled, his successor Pope John IX rescued Formosus' body from the common grave and reburied it in a papal grave again.

General Ignorance

• It's officially unknown who invented rugby, but a memorial states that "with a fine disregard to the rules of the game, he first picked up the ball and ran." as if everyone was playing football, but it wasn't co-defined until after rugby was invented. William Webb Ellis died three years after the story was first told. In the original football rules, you were also allowed to catch the ball. (Forfeit: William Webb Ellis)
• James Bond's job was an intelligence officer, because in the British Secret Service, an agent was an informant to other intelligence officers and aren't officially staff. (Forfeit: Secret Agent)

Tangent: When Sean Connery applied for the part of James Bond in the films, Ian Fleming and the producers said that he "walked like a panther".

Tangent: The difference between a walk and a gait is that a gait is an instantly recognisable walk, which could even be someone standing still. This leads to a discussion of Liam Gallagher and Mick Jagger's gaits and Jagger and Ian McShane being "arse-less".

• A description of the maximum number of folds a sheet of paper can sustain is given by the following (mathematics of paper folding). The formula was discovered by a girl called Britney Gallivan who, demonstrating its application, folded a sheet of long toilet roll 12 times. (Forfeit: 7, 8)

$W=\pi t2^{(3/2)\left(n-1\right)}.$

$L={\frac {\pi t}{6}}\left(2^{n}+4\right)\left(2^{n}-1\right).$

"W" is width, "L" is length and "t" is thickness of paper.

• Since 1997, if the Union Flag is seen flying at Buckingham Palace, it means that the Queen isn't home. The Royal Standard is flown when the Queen is home. It came about after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. Since there was no flag to fly at half-mast and it was seen as against all protocol to fly the Royal Standard at half-mast, no flag was flying. After the controversy that this caused, it was decided that if someone of national significance has died the Union Flag can be placed at half-mast instead. (Forfeit: The Queen Is At Home)

Tangent: Andy believes that in the film, The Queen (which documents the infamous week after Diana's death from the POV of the royals), it was unrealistic that the Queen would shoo rather than shoot a stag. One detail of the film that Stephen found odd was the Duke of Edinburgh's pet name for her; 'Cabbage'. Alan suggests it's because she smells like cabbage.

Tangent: When David Walliams met the Queen with his mother after he swam the English Channel, the Duke of Edinburgh asked his mother if there were any more nutters in the family.

QI XL Extras

• Semaphore is using the maritime flags in terms of signals. The most famous one was used by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament for their peace symbol.

Tangent: The most famous flag signal was used in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, when Lord Nelson asked for the signal "Nelson confides that every man should do his duty", (confides meant "has faith in" in those days) but "Nelson" and "confides" weren't flags, but "England" and "expects" were flags, so it became "England expects that every man should do his duty".

• The organisation most responsible for burning the American flag is the Boy Scouts of America, because if any of their flags get dirty, the best way of disposing it with dignity is to burn it.

Tangent: Andy went to a Scout Jamboree in Sweden, where they camped next to the American Scouts, who every morning raised their flag in a ceremony, which to the British was annoying, so they stole the flag and hid it in the woods, which made the Americans even threaten to leave the Jamboree.

Tangent: Officially the Union Jack is only called the "Union Jack" if it's flying from a boat. Otherwise, it's called the Union Flag. The only U.S. state with a Union Jack in its flag is Hawaii. Correction: According to a parliamentary statement, the Union Jack can be used as the correct name for the Union Flag anywhere, not just at sea.

Tangent: If you find any shipwrecked piece of wreckage, you are fined £2,500 and you have to pay twice the value of it to the owner of the ship as well as having salvage rights to own the wreckage.

Tangent: When Alan was filming Jonathan Creek at an estate full of pheasants, they fed the pheasants from their truck and one morning the best boy ran over six of them, but because someone else picked them up, they could keep them.

Tangent: In Australia, dead kangaroos are often found at the side of the road because they try and drink water gathered on the side of the roads, so they come to drink it. Rob hoped that no-one knew the answer, but was annoyed that Alan knew it, because he saw it happen.

Tangent: Lightning goes up and down, which sometimes explains why dead groups of tourists are seen in photographs as the lightning is about to discharge.

• The Northern Lights have been recorded as far south as Rome in the 1850s, mainly because of the radiation that come from the solar winds. The Southern Lights are known as the "Aurora Australis".

Tangent: Alan was in Edmonton, Canada when he saw a thunderstorm with some people and was told by them when to come in from the torrential downpours that would occur.

Tangent: Alan was in Ayers Rock when he was caught up in a storm in a helicopter and Rob was caught up in a light aircraft in Sydney, while on a picnic and couldn't land in a storm, so had to land somewhere else and get a bus back to Sydney, where he only 45 minutes late for a Rod Stewart concert.

• The East German Secret Police (or the Stasi) wanted to keep tabs on all its dissidents by keeping a database on all of them by keeping their smells collected by yellow rags under their arms and groins, as well as from a chair that they sat on. The day the Berlin Wall came down, the Stasi headquarters were broken in and all the rags were taken, which then became underwear for the smell collection. But in 2007, the unified German police started doing it again with new suspects.

General Ignorance

• Bedfordshire is like Uzbekistan and Liechtenstein, because they are all doubly landlocked (the only obvious difference being that Bedfordshire is a county, while the other two are countries). That means you need to go through another landlocked county/country before getting to one with a coastline. Non-metropolitan Northamptonshire would also be doubly landlocked if it didn't have a 19 yard border with Lincolnshire. Nebraska and Kansas are examples of doubly landlocked states. The West Midlands is also doubly landlocked. This leads into an argument created by Stephen, that the West Midlands is not a true county because it is not what he considers a true shire.

Episode 4 "Fight or Flight"

Broadcast Date

• 16 January 2009

Recording Date

• 19 May 2008

Panellists

• Alan Davies (-11 points)
• Pam Ayres (Winner with 8 points, but her score was not revealed - see "Other") 1st and only appearance
• Sean Lock (-12 points) 14th appearance
• Johnny Vegas (1 point) 2nd appearance

Theme

• As part of the "Fight or Flight" theme, some of the panellists wore flying clothing. The buzzers were operated by joysticks.

Topics

• Most footage of skydiving seems to show that the parachute lifts the parachutist upward when deployed. This is an optical illusion caused by the cameraman filming the parachutist falling faster, so his subject appears to be going up relative to him.

Tangent: The world record for the highest skydive is 32,000m. (roughly 18 miles) He achieved a speed of 614 miles per hour.

• During World War II, Flight Lieutenant Maurice "Shorty" Longbottom's Spitfire was painted pink during photo-reconnaissance missions so it would not be spotted on cloudy days, as it would stick out if it was any other colour.

Tangent: Pam was a WAAF in Singapore and Germany during the 1960s where she worked in the drawing department because she liked drawing. However, the drawing department involved working with mathematics and maps which she was not good at. She learned during her time as a WAFF that when calculating the scale on aerial photographs, it is useful if there is a cricket pitch on it, as the standard length of the pitch is equal to 22 yards. You need to know the focal length of the camera in order to perform the calculation.

• Flying fish in French is "exocet", the name of a missile used against British Armed Forces in the Falklands War. Flying fish glide, not fly, and can only stay above water for thirty seconds. If their pectoral fins move slightly, it means that they are flying, but they seem to be fixed. It is coveted by the Tao people of Orchid Island, an island off Taiwan, where it is their staple diet.

Tangent: Johnny tried to prove that Pam was thinking that she saw a duck flying, instead of a flying fish, but her sister breeds ducks, so she knew the difference.

• The opposite of the flying fish is a swimming bird, which in other words, is the penguin. To a scientist, swimming and flying are the same, because it uses the same muscles and principles, with the only difference being that one is in water and the other is in the air.
• Women are the best fly fishers as women hold the British records for the largest fish caught. There is a myth that was generated by a man in a fishing magazine that female pubic hair will attract fish because they give off pheromones, but humans don't give off any pheromones at all. The reason that the myth has become so widespread is that if a man had held the record, no-one would care as much.
• A bear would always win a fight against a lion as the lion's skull is very thin and although it is very muscular, has very little strength, so before the lion could attack the bear's neck, the bear would crush the skull first. This was proven by a man who brought a lion and a bear to California during the Gold Rush as a means of entertaining the prospectors and miners. They had bears fighting against various other animals such as bulls, for example, but because the bear always won, they shipped in an African lion, but the bear still won. (Forfeit: Lions)

Tangent: Pam claims her father was boxer who took a horseshoe everywhere with him as he was superstitious, so he put it in his glove during fights.

• It is easier to kill people wearing boxing gloves, than it is without. Bare-knuckled boxers will break their fists if they hit their opponent's jaw, so they aim for the chest and torso. Wearing gloves means that if you hit your opponent in the face you will not be harmed. Only two people have ever been recorded as died from bare-knuckle boxing related injuries. In the United States, four people every year die of gloved boxing injuries.

Tangent: Alan Minter once famously said, "Sure, there have been injuries and deaths in boxing, but none of them serious."

• Vikings, including Flóki Vilgerðarson, used ravens to find nearby land while at sea. If there was land nearby, it would fly straight toward it. If there was no land to be seen, it would land back on the boat, but because they can't land on water. The bird had to be non-migratory and couldn't land on the water. The raven was also the first bird to be used by Noah, before the dove. Vilgerðarson, who is also known as "Raven Flóki", because by using this method, he discovered Iceland.
• Rockets accelerate best horizontally, as their weight is not over the thruster, so they generate lift. (Forfeit: Downwards)

Tangent: Sean remembers that during protests at RAF Greenham Common, some radical feminists claimed the missiles were deliberately shaped like penises as a symbol of typical male aggression. He then points out that that shape is the most aerodynamic, and that they wouldn't travel very far if they were shaped like vaginas

General Ignorance

• All British armed forces refer to the sides of their planes as "port" and "starboard" except for the Royal Navy and the Fleet Air Arm, who call the sides of their BAE Sea Harriers left and right. This is because they have to call the sides of their aircraft carriers "port" and "starboard" so they know which way to take off. (Forfeit: The Navy)
• The panel are shown a photo of a Coldstream Guardsman and are asked what he is wearing on top of his head - the answer to which is a bearskin. They are the longer helmets covered in black fur, which are made out of real bearskin. Attempts have been made to make them out of other materials such as nylon and acrylics, but they end up bedraggled in the wet or hairs stand up on end due to static electricity. Busbies are worn by the Hussars and the Royal Horse Artillery. (Forfeit: Busby)

Tangent: You can tell which member of the Guards a soldier is in by the spacing of the buttons. Evenly spaced buttons mean that they are in the Grenadier Guards. When the buttons are in pairs, they are in the Coldstream Guards. Threes represent the Scots Guards, fours the Irish Guards and fives the Welsh Guards. Pam's father was in the Grenadier Guards.

Tangent: When Winston Churchill was Prime Minister in the 1950s, he was told about a scandal about a backbench MP who was caught in St. James's Park having sex with a Guardsman. Churchill asked if it was cold the previous night. The man giving him the news told him it was one of the coldest February nights in 30 years, to which Churchill said, "Makes you proud to be British."

QI XL Extras

Tangent: Examples of other fights that could have taken place, such as Muhammad Ali against Bruce Lee, which Ali would always win, because his punches are much faster than Lee's kicks, mainly because the kicks are speeded up in his films. Also, Ali has a superior height and weight advantage. Ali was 6' 3" and 236lbs, whereas Lee was 5' 7" and 135lbs. Punches also come in flurries, whereas you only do one kick at a time.

Tangent: The 2 boxers in the boxing glove question are James J. Jeffries and Jack Johnson. Jeffries retired, so Johnson, known as "The Galveston Giant", became the first black heavyweight champion of the world, which wasn't liked much during the racist times, so Jack London, the author of White Fang, coined the phrase "Great White Hope" for Jeffries, who came out of retirement to fight Johnson, hoping to "prove that a white man will always be better than a black man", but he was soundly beaten by Johnson. That match took place on July 4, 1910. Johnson later opened a nightclub in Harlem.

Tangent: A film was made about him, and in it, he married a white woman, but he went to another U.S. state, where a black person wasn't allowed to be with a white person.

• The panellists are shown a clip of a shadow of a bird with a short head and a long tail going one way and then the clip is wound back to make it look like a bird with a long neck and a short tail is seen and are asked which would scare a duckling more. The interesting thing is that ducklings can recognise fear of shapes as soon as they're born. The first bird would frighten it, because it would look like a hawk, but the second one looks like a goose and as they don't attack, it would experience no fear from it.

Tangent: Pam's brother-in-law has a gander which has a nasty disposition, in which he has to approach it with a dustbin lid to protect himself.

Tangent: A hawk would probably beat a goose in a fight, but geese can frighten nearly everything away. Alan once saw a swan chase a goose in Clissold Park and frighten many of the visitors away.

• In 1871, during the siege of Paris, the same siege mentioned in the Series "A" Christmas special, where the zoo was raided so that the Parisians could eat the animals on display there, including the elephants, Castor and Pollux. The menu included plum pudding with the marrow of a horse, dog flanks and rats, 5 dozen French hot air balloons were sent out of the city, with mail and microfilms to French-controlled central bases outside France, who would send microfilm-ringed pigeons back and over 1 million communications were made.

Tangent: Johnny's flying helmet makes Stephen think that he looks like the pigeon in Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines, although Stephen mistook it for Wacky Races. Also, Stephen interprets (with dubious seriousness) a flying dream of Johnny's to mean that he is gay.

Tangent: Alan reveals the time he bought a massive rocket for Bonfire Night, which because he stuffed the rocket in the earth, it only got 10 feet in the air before exploding.

Tangent: Alan reveals the time when a nest of ducklings were on his roof and they jumped off the side, but because they are so light, they just floated down onto the ground.

General Ignorance

• Knights in armour during the Middle Ages mounted their horses in the normal way. They never used winches, mainly because the armour only weighed 55lbs, compared to today's armour which can weigh around 150lbs. Even the breathing apparatus worn by firemen weighs more and they climb up ladders and other obstacles. The idea of a winch being used was invented by Mark Twain in the 19th century and is seen in Laurence Olivier's film, Henry V, despite his historical adviser telling him it was completely untrue. (Forfeit: Winch)

Other

Pam's score was not read out on the show. However, according to comments made by the show's producer Piers "Flash" Fletcher on QI's web forum, she scored 8 points.

Episode 5 "France"

Broadcast Date

• 23 January 2009

Recording Date

• 13 May 2008

Panellists

• Alan Davies (-39 points)
• Jo Brand 19th appearance (5 points)
• Hugh Dennis 1st and only appearance (Winner with 15 points)
• Phill Jupitus 17th appearance (-2 points)

Buzzers

• Phill - "La Marseillaise"
• Hugh - "Boum!"
• Jo - "Non, je ne regrette rien"
• Alan - "Je t'aime... moi non plus"

Theme

• As part of the "France" theme, every panellist wore a beret and a garland of onions around their necks. A re-arrangement of the theme tune featured an accordion. The top of the set is lit in the colours of the tricolour.

Topics

Tangent: Alan loses five points at the start for saying "mon tête" when taking about removing his onions from around his neck. Heads are feminine in French, so it should be "ma tête". In French, the word "vagina" is masculine.

It ought to be noted that shortly before deducting points from Alan for saying "mon tête", Stephen said "champignons musicales", which is incorrect due to "champignons" (mushrooms) being masculine (the correct masculine plural or "musical" is "musicaux").

• Stephen begins by awarding bonus points to anyone who can answer him in French. Hugh responds by saying "Oui" and Jo by saying "Non".
• Alan fails to answer the following question correctly: "Donne-moi un mot, s'il vous plait, un mot pour un mammifère marin qui ne peut avaler aucun plus grand qu'un pamplemousse?" The question translates as, "Name a marine animal that couldn't swallow anything bigger than a grapefruit?" The answer is the Blue Whale.
• The panel are shown a picture of some Frenchmen on stilts in the middle of a swamp and are asked what they are doing. They are looking for sheep - the people in the picture are shepherds and stand on stilts to see further on ground that is not solid. The picture was taken in Les Landes, found in the area of Gascony, south of Bordeaux. This was used right up to the 20th century. Today, the people of Les Landes dance on their stilts.

Tangent: One French shepherd walked all the way to Paris on his stilts and the climbed the Eiffel Tower on them, and then walked to Moscow on them in 58 days, which is 1,830 miles away.

• Right up to the 19th century, people in the French countryside hibernated. It wasn't a complete hibernation, as their temperature didn't drop like many other animals that do hibernate.

Tangent: Jo asked a man in the Aran Islands, near Galway, what he did during the winter. He said, "Fishing and f***ing".

• In 1880, 80% of French people could not read, write or speak French. Most of the population spoke regional languages such as Occitan, Breton, Franco-Provençal, Basque, or the West Flemish dialect of Dutch. There were at least 50 dialects and 100 sub-dialects.

Tangent: Hugh jokes that the difference between the French kiss and a Belgian kiss is that the Belgian kiss has more phlegm.

• Because the French language has only a quarter of the words that English does, French people often use English words but often mistranslate them. For example "un people" means "celebrity", "un brushing" means "blow-dry", "un relooking" means "makeover" and "vaseliner" means "to flatter" (derived from the phrase "to butter someone up"). The Académie française does not include English words in French dictionaries.

Tangent: A picture used to accompany the question above is of a stereotypical Englishman and a Frenchman. However, Phill claims that the Frenchman looks more like Arthur Daley. The Frenchman looks like he has dropped his cigarette, but Stephen claims it might have been blanked out because of anti-smoking laws. Jo says the only advert she would do would be for cigarettes, with the slogan, "They're bloody lovely, and you might not get cancer."

• Paris syndrome (first described with a picture of Paris Hilton (whom Stephen didn't recognise)) is a form of culture shock suffered by people from Japan. Japanese tourists are taught that France is one of the most cultured places in the world. The problem is that most things the French do are things the Japanese find very hard. The Japanese also walk everywhere, suffer from jetlag, and everything in the French language sounds offensive to them. On average, 12 people per year are expensively repatriated to Japan. The Japanese Embassy in Paris has a 24-hour helpline for people who are so traumatised by the horrible experience of visiting Paris.

Tangent: Hugh claims that in the French medical system, the first thing doctors give you, no matter what you suffer from, is a suppository.

• You would want a Frenchman to be on your side in a fight because the French are one of the best countries in Europe when it comes to fighting wars, despite their "Cheese-eating surrender monkeys" stereotype (a phrase popularised by The Simpsons after being used by Groundskeeper Willie). According to historian Niall Ferguson, out of the 125 major European wars fought since 1495, France has taken part in 50, which is more than Austria (47) or England (43). Out of 168 battles fought since 387 BC, France has won 109, lost 49 and drawn 10.

Tangent: The aggressive Frenchman in the photograph accompanying the question is the wrestler André the Giant, who also starred in the film The Princess Bride.

Tangent: With his glasses and beret, Phill claims that Stephen looks like Benny Hill.

Tangent: Someone once put a program on Google so what when you typed "French military victories" the search engine came back with the response, "Did you mean 'French military defeats'?".

General Ignorance

• The Romans liked to wear sandals. Although they wore togas, they hated wearing because they were large and difficult to put on. Augustus passed a law ordering people to wear togas in the Roman Forum. There were several kinds of toga: the toga pulla was a dark toga, the toga picta was patterned and the toga candida was white. "Candida" is where we get the word "Candidate" from, because they were worn by Romans running in an election. (Forfeit: Togas)

Tangent: Alan once hosted a toga party, where the guests wore sheets instead of proper togas. Alan's friend Danny wore a pink sheet with the words "Pontin's Holidays" embroidered on it.

• Racing cyclists shave their legs is because it is easier to clean wounds, sticking plasters stick better and come off less painfully, calves are massaged better and for personal aesthetic purposes. Swimmers travel 2% faster when they have shaved. Cyclists know it gives them no advantage, thanks to their teams of experts. In 2003, Austrian cyclist René Haselbacher tore his shorts and it was revealed he shaved all over, except for his facial hair. (Forfeit: Aerodynamics)

Tangent: Hugh once took part in a stage of the Tour de France. Out of 8,000 people, 4,000 finished the course. Hugh started in 2,400th place and finished in 3,400th place. It took him eleven hours to complete the stage and nine hours to catch up with a man with one leg.

• Most Spaniards do not lisp when they speak. Some people in remote regions of the country such as Castile do lisp, but it is actually a feature of pronunciation and is considered bumpkinish by other Spaniards to speak with a lisp. It is no different to the way that Northern English people speak differently from Southern English people. (Forfeit: To Avoid Embarrassing The King)

Tangent: When "The Terminator" was translated into German, Arnold Schwarzenegger asked if he could dub himself as it was his native language. He was not allowed because it was argued that as he was Austrian, he sounded like a farmer.

• The man who won the Battle of Hastings was called by people at the time as Guillaume le Batard - William the Bastard. The name "William" did not exist at the time so the French mostly called him Guillaume and the English probably referred to him as "The Bastard" - it was not rude to do so. When the Bayeux Tapestry was made, the name "William" was beginning to develop and it was written as "Wilgelm". All Saxon names disappeared about 50 years after the Norman Conquest. One in every seven men in England was called "William" within 50 years of the invasion. (Forfeit: William The Conqueror)

QI XL Extras

Tangent: Alan starts a debate about whether the panellists are accurately representing the French with their outfits. He "claims" that he's wearing ladies knickers, which makes it more accurate. Phill claims they look more like the cast in the film, "The Wild Geese".

• The Arc de Triomphe in the Place de l'Étoile at the end of the Champs-Élysées in Paris, was originally going to be an elephant-shaped monument dedicated to the achievement of Louis XV, described as the "Grand Kiosk to the Glory of the King". It was going to include air conditioning, furniture that would fold into the walls, a spiral staircase and a drainage system built into the trunk that would double as a fountain. Balls and banquets could be held inside it. There is an elephant-shaped building in Bangkok called the Elephant Building. The Arc de Triomphe was built by Napoleon to commemorate the Battle of Austerlitz. In 1919, a pilot called Charles Godefroy flew his biplane through the arch to commemorate all the airmen who died in World War I and of course, Adolf Hitler marched there when the Nazis occupied France. Correction: The largest triumphal arch in the world is not the Arc de Triomphe, but the Arch of Triumph in Pyongyang, North Korea.

Tangent: As soon as the picture of the elephant appeared on the screen, Alan pulled out his "Elephant in the Room" card from the previous series, much to Stephen's great surprise. Even though the bonus had expired, Stephen still decided to give Alan 10 points for displaying the card.

• The Impressionists were described as "a bunch of lunatics and a woman". The woman was Berthe Morisot. Nowadays, they are described as the most luscious paintings anywhere, but at the time that the impressionist movement was founded, nearly everyone thought their paintings were horrific, unfinished, non-sensical, drivel, artless and valueless and the word "impressionist" was used as an insult by a critic. The main reason why the impressionist movement started was because of Japan. Many of the Japanese artefacts came into Europe after Japan re-opened its borders in the 1850s and many British and Parisians were obsessed with it and with the wrapping paper they came in. Vincent van Gogh had a massive collection of Japanese prints.

Tangent: During Stephen's talk, Alan tries to unfold his beret over his head and then expand it, making it look like he's wearing a mitre of a minister of the Greek Orthodox Church.

Tangent: After he finished his A-Levels at 18, Hugh and some his friends went to Paris for a week and visited the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume and saw some paintings of cathedrals by Manet and then thought to himself, "What a tosser I am being!"

Tangent: Alan tells a story about his art teacher, Mr. Bradshaw, who on his first double art lesson was given "The Observer Book of Artists" to read for the 80 minute lesson, which was boring him, so they were asked to do a postage stamp sized painting of something they'd like to paint and Alan did a steam engine with a black line around it, but Mr. Bradshaw said there wouldn't be a black line around it, so he erased it, then Alan went to a gallery where a certain person's paintings all had black lines around them. Phill said they were from the artist, "Bradshaw".

Tangent: Phill and Hugh mock William Hogarth for only being famous for his roundabout on the A4.

Tangent: One of Stephen's friends was at a dinner party with Anthony Burgess and said "What do you think of Jean Genet?" and he replied "Masturbator and excremental narcissist."

• The thing that comes from Paris, has short legs, a big head, wears a permanent grin and refuses to act its age is the axolotl. Originally, it comes from Mexico, these types of salamander, didn't like to metamorph to a salamander, but if you inject it with some iodine, it will become a salamander. They are popular pets, mainly in Japan, since they can also heal without scarring and if you cut off its arm, it can grow it back, so they are theoretically made of stem cells, like Claire Bennet in Heroes, which help show scientists a lot about how stem cells work. There are 2 Mexican lakes where the axolotls are found. One has dried up and the other is a series of canals underneath Mexico City. They were a group of 6 found by a French scientist in the 19th century and almost all of them are descended from those six. The axolotl's gills are external and look like dreadlocks on their heads. (Forfeit: Nicolas Sarkozy)

Tangent: The panellists were offered 50 points if they knew who used to drive André the Giant to school. The answer was Samuel Beckett, who to Phill's surprise, also featured in Wisden as a cricketer and is the only Nobel Prize winner who has ever gone in the book. André also had a growth problem which couldn't be stopped, so he kept on growing and even had 13-inch wrists.

General Ignorance

Tangent: During the stage of the Tour de France that Hugh did, the leader of the race, Alexander Vinokourov was kicked out of the race that night for blood doping.

Episode 6 "Fakes & Frauds"

Broadcast Date

• 30 January 2009

Recording Date

• 12 May 2008

Panellists

• Alan Davies (-21 points)
• Marcus Brigstocke (-26 points) 1st and only appearance
• Jimmy Carr (-18 points) 10th appearance
• Sean Lock (Winner with -16 points) 15th appearance

Theme

• As part of the theme, each of the panellists began the show by holding up a mask (of one of the other three) over their face.

Topics

• The panel are asked to identify what is making their buzzer noises.

Jimmy's camera-like sound is the Australian Superb Lyrebird, an animal which can mimic almost any noise. (Forfeit: Camera)

Marcus's car alarm-like sound is also a superb lyrebird. (Forfeit: Car Alarm)

Sean's chainsaw-like sound is yet again a superb lyrebird.

Alan's telephone-like sound really is a telephone. (Forfeit: Lyrebird)

• The unusual thing about the pig-faced lady was that it was actually a drunken shaved bear in a dress. Pig-faced ladies were used in freak shows in the 19th century.

Tangent: Water softens your facial hair better than shaving foam.

Tangent: There is a story of a bearded lady who wanted to marry a contortionist, but the contortionist did not want to do so. He could not face living with a bearded lady, but at the same time if she shaved they would lose their main source of income. The problem was solved when the woman shaved off her beard and got lots of tattoos, becoming the first tattooed lady.

Tangent: Samuel Gumpertz was the most famous freak show owner on Coney Island. His freaks included Ursa the Bear Girl, Bonita the Irish Fat Midget, Lionel the Dog-Faced Boy and Schrief Afendl the Human Salamander. According to legend, salamanders can survive a fire.

• Count Victor Lustig planned to sell Guy de Maupassant's favourite restaurant to two scrap metal merchants. de Maupassant's favourite restaurant was the one in the Eiffel Tower, because it was the only one in Paris were you could not see the Eiffel Tower, a building which he and many other people at the time hated. Lustig was a con artist who pretended to be the an official of the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphy, who was in charge of selling the Tower, which was planned as a temporary structure. The scrap metal merchants then bribed Lustig, who ran off with the money.

Tangent: Arthur Ferguson, a Scottish actor was a similar con man. He tricked an American tourist into buying Nelson's Column, along with the lions for £6,000. He then also pretended to sell the Eiffel Tower for scrap to an American. He then traveled to the United States where he "sold" the White House to an American. He eventually got rumbled when he tried to sell the Statue of Liberty to an Australian.

Tangent: In 2008, unemployed bankrupt lorry driver Tony Lee conned businessmen Terry Collins and Marcel Boekhoorn out of £1,000,000 into thinking they were buying the Ritz Hotel.

• The panel are asked to carry out some detective work. Some buxom women are leaving the telephone exchange with large suitcases and are jangling. They asked whether the jangling is coming from either the telephone exchange, the suitcases or their bosoms. The answer is the bosoms, where the women had hidden money they had stolen from the exchange. In Miami in 1950, the women in charge of collecting the money from the exchange discovered that as long as they had not put the money in the counting machines that were inside the suitcases, they could steal the money and the telephone company would have no idea how much money was taken. Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of loose change was stolen by these women. When they were caught, one newspaper ran with the headline: "JUSTICE AS ELASTIC AS THE ITEMS IN WHICH THEY CARRIED THEIR LOOT, SNAPPED BACK TODAY ON MEMBERS OF MIAMI'S BRASSIER BRIGADE".

Tangent: The panel comment on how today's tabloid newspapers would cover the story, with Alan commenting about the kind of coverage it would get on Page Three. One of his favourite such reports concerned a Page Three girl who was happy that Saddam Hussein had been captured. Sean does a graphic mime of the girl liking her breasts, to which Stephen claims he can do the same. When Sean asks if he can stick a pencil under his bosom, Stephen claims that he can fit Colin Montgomerie under them.

• There is no trick to sword swallowing. The most common medical complaint from sword swallowers is sore throats. According to the Society of Sword Swallowers, a professional sword swallower must swallow a sword that is no longer tham 61cm, but no shorter than 40 cm, otherwise it's not recognised. The only real trick is being able to control your gag reflex. Sword swallowing has been practiced for over 4,000 years.

Tangent: Sean claims that he gags when he puts his contact lenses on. He also jokingly claims that if you pull the tail of a Pekingese dog, its eyes pop out.

General Ignorance

• New London Bridge is in Arizona because it was brought by Robert P. McCulloch as a tourist attraction for his new settlement at Lake Havasu. It is the third biggest tourist attraction in America. Old London Bridge had been crossing the River Thames for 600 years by the time McCulloch brought New London Bridge. Because there were so many buildings and shops on Old London Bridge, it was quicker to cross the river by ferry than crossing the bridge. (Forfeit: He Thought He Was Buying Tower Bridge)
• If you went to the shops to buy butter but could not find any, you cannot buy margarine to replace it, because it is not sold in Britain. The UK Spreads Association, formerly the Margarine and Spreads Association claim that there is currently no margarine on sale in Britain. Margarine is white in colour and is between 80-90% fat. In the United States, dairy lobbies tried to prevent margarine going on sale. In some states like New Hampshire where the lobby was very powerful, they insisted that margarine should be coloured red to stop people from buying it. (Forfeit: Margarine)
• There are 613 commandments in the Bible. In the list of what is commonly referred to as the Ten Commandments, there are in fact 14 different commandments mentioned in Exodus and Deuteronomy. But, if you were to include all of the other commandments listed in the Bible, there would be 613. Less well known commandments include: "You shall not suffer a witch to live", "You shall never vex a stranger" and "Whosoever lies with a beast shall be surely put to death". The main reason why it's believed that there are 10 is because that some of the commandments are divided. (Forfeit: 10, 9, 8)

Tangent: Stephen tells a story about an angel who goes to deliver the Ten Commandments to people on Earth. The French do not want them because they forbid adultery, the Germans do not want them because they forbid murder and the Italians do not want them because they forbid stealing. When the angel goes to the Jews, they ask how much the commandments are. When the angel says they are free, the Jews say, "We'll take ten".

Tangent: Sean argues that the commandment "Thou shall not kill" should be the most important.

• When a person flips a coin, there is a 51% chance it will land on the side that was facing upwards at the start. This is because coins obey the laws of mechanics and its flight is determined by their initial conditions. (Forfeit: 50/50)

Tangent: The claims that if you did the coin toss 100 times, it wouldn't end up 51/49. Stephen then claims that tossing it 100 times wouldn't be sufficient enough for a proper test.

Tangent: Sean's problem that it's just as likely that 1 to 6 would come out in the National Lottery, as well as any other 6 numbers, which he claims could happen because "it's a lottery".

QI XL Extras

Tangent: Parrots, Myna birds, and drongos are other examples of talking birds. Drongos can mimic the calls of other birds, and also knows which call to mimic when it is with another bird. The reason why the word "Drongo" is an insult in Australia comes from a 1920s racehorse which lost almost every race it entered. Sean complains that race horses are never given proper first names. However, there are in fact racehorses called Brigadier Gerard and Simon.

Tangent: The most number of words spoken by a single bird is 1,728, by a budgerigar called Puck in 1995.

Tangent: Alan tells a joke about a race horse. A white horse goes into a bar and the landlord says that he has a a drink named after him. The horse says, "What, Eric?"

• Mice would be interested in buying snake oil, because it contains Omega-3, which helps them to navigate around mazes quicker and develop their muscles. The reason why "snake oil" has its current meaning is because of merchants claiming that traditional Chinese snake oil, made from Chinese water snakes and used by Chinese immigants to the United States, was of poor quality and that they had better snake oil.

Tangent: It is said that one of the most famous faces of the 18th century was Lydia Pinkham, whose face was printed on the bottles of her "Vegetable Compound" tonic. As it was alcoholic, it became popular in the US during prohibition. Pinkham inspired the song "Lily the Pink" by The Scaffold.

• The scandal of "Mrs. Pankhurst" and the rhubarb jam resulted in a jam factory being established. Raspberry jam was popular in between the 19th and early 20th centuries, but as it was expensive fake jams were made. Rhubarb was the best, but sometimes cheaper versions made from sweetened turnips. Fake wooden pips were made in order to make the jam look more realistic. The trade was so successful, that making the pips were a profitable trade. However, mainly female sweatshop labour was used to make the pips. Sylvia Pankhurst, a social reformer and leader of the suffragette movement, was so shocked by the treatment of women in factories that she set up her own factory making real jam during World War I. She was erroneously named "Mrs." Pankhurst in this episode.

Tangent: In America, "Jam" is refered to as "Jelly". Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are popular in the USA.

Tangent: When monkeys were used in adverts such as the PG Tips adverts, peanut butter was put onto the roofs of the monkeys' mouths for the voice actors. Jimmy claims that this is how they make "Hollyoaks".

• If the King of Syracuse calls you in the bathtub and claims that he has problems with his tiara, the thing to shout is "Eureka!" This was shouted by Archimedes when he discovered that you can tell the density of an object by putting it in water and seeing how much water flows out of bath. A tainted tiara is less dense than one made solely of gold, so Archimedes could see that the tiara had been tainted with.
• Stephen uses a series of statements to describe one of the members of the panel. However, he instead uses Barnum statements (or personal validation fallacy) to describe everyone. Barnum statements are general statements used by psychics and mediums. They include "rainbow statements", "vanishing negative" and the "escape hatch". They are also known as Forer questions, named after psychologist Bertram R. Forer, who died in 2000, who gave his students a questionnaire of such questions. All the responses were the same.
• The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary was a mythical half-sheep half-plant creature created in the 16th century to describe how cotton spread.

Tangent: Tartary is a region in the Far East near Mongolia, inhabited by the Tatars. Marcus jokes that he thinks that a "Tartary" is another name for a brothel.

Episode 7 "Fingers & Fumbs"

Broadcast Date

• 6 February 2009

Recording Date

• 5 May 2008

Panellists

• Alan Davies (-42 points)
• Jo Brand (-26 points) 20th appearance
• Phill Jupitus (Winner with -24 points) 18th appearance
• Dara Ó Briain (-28 points) 7th appearance

Buzzers

• Phill - "Twenty Tiny Fingers" by Alma Cogan
• Dara - "Dem Bones"
• Jo - "Shaddap You Face" by Joe Dolce Music Group
• Alan - "This Little Piggy"

Theme

• Anyone who said the word "fuck" on the show would forfeit 10 points, but they could win half of them back if they beat Stephen on a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. However, if they lost to Stephen, they would be forfeited another 10 points. Incidentally, this was taken out of the show at the time of its broadcast, but shown in the XL version. Stephen never won a single game.

Topics

• Fargling is the American version of Rock, Paper, Scissors. According to the New Scientist, the best opening move in Rock, Paper, Scissors is scissors, because many believe that rock is a good opener, so they pick paper. Jo suggests you should play with a Saudi shoplifter as they will always pick rock. Phill then suggests not playing with Abu Hamza, as he will always do "question mark", because of his hook.
• The panellists are asked to put their pencils in their mouths. Phill and Dara are asked to put them between their teeth and Jo and Alan are asked to put them between their lips. They are then asked if "Quack" or "Moo" is funnier. The answer is "quack", this is because when you say a word with a letter "k" in it, it forces you to smile. According to psychologists, this is due to facial feedback.
• A duck's quack can echo. This was proven by a man at Salford University, who put a duck in a reverberation chamber. (Forfeit: It Doesn't Echo)
• The ideal way to kiss a Frenchman depends on which area of France you are in. If you are in the central or southern France, it is 2 kisses and in the north, it is 4 kisses. In Belgium and Holland, it's 3 kisses. It's 5 kisses, if you are kissing the person in Corsica, which leads to Stephen telling the joke, "Can you tell me what person kisses 5 times?", the answer being "Course, I can (Corsican)". In America, it's strictly 1 cheek, because they're baffled by the Europeans doing any more than one. In Spain, you have to the kiss the person on the right cheek first.

Tangent: According to Alan, the best way to kiss a person in the United Kingdom if you're unsure about how many times to do it, is to kiss them while cupping their genitals, because they won't mind.

Tangent: In 1819, a German travel guide to London says that the kiss of friendship between men is strictly avoided in Britain as inclining towards the sin regarded in England as more abominable than any other.

• The Thorny Devil, an antipodean lizard, which can walk on alternating feet can take in water from any part of their body from their feet if they stand in a puddle. The water doesn't just absorb through the skin, it goes through grooves and capillaries, so they drink water from anywhere.

Tangent: Jo coughs while drinking some water, which leads her to ask if there is a facility for men to "wet themselves" when they cough. Phill and Stephen then point out that it's more likely that they do a little poo if it happens. You are less likely to wear paler clothing as you get older.

Tangent: Alan points out that you are more likely to wet yourself if you dream about going to the toilet, which then leads to him admitting to wetting the bed after having a dream about him being on a boat with Elvis Presley. Stephen then reveals that Elvis wore nappies in his final days.

• You can tell if people are criminals by looking at them. It's achieved by using physiognomy, which was dictated by Aristotle. There is also the famous phrenology head of Lorenzo Niles Fowler, which points out emotional and cognitive parts of the head.
• Each of the panellists are then given their phrenological descriptions:
  • Alan - Curly hair signifies someone who is "dull of apprehension", soon angry and given to lying and mischief. The distance between the eyebrows signifies hard-hearted, envious, close and cunning, addicted to cruelty more than love.
  • Dara - He who has a large full forehead and a little round with all, destitute of hair, or at least that has little on it is bold, malicious, high-spirited, full of choler, apt to transgress beyond bounds, yet of good wit and apprehensive.
  • Phill - He whose hair grows thick on his temples and his brow is by nature, simple, vain, luxurious, lustful, credulous, clownish in his speech and conversation, double chin shows appeaseable disposition, a great supplanter and secret in all your actions.
  • Jo - One whose hair is of reddish complexion is for the most part proud, deceitful, detracting, venerous and full of envy.

Tangent: In Melbourne Gaol, there are casts of Ned Kelly and all the other murderers in the building.

Tangent: In Macbeth, King Duncan famously said, "There's no art to find the mind's construction in the face."

• The Thatcher effect is an idea of face perception. It involves duplicating a picture of Margaret Thatcher and putting them both upside down. One of the pictures is unaltered, but the other has had the eyes and the mouth inverted, so when it returns to normal, it makes the face look deranged. This is an example of how when we see faces the right way up, we know where the derangements are, but when its upside down, it's harder to recognise. This was conceived by Peter Thompson at the University of York. Dara points out that the only real time when this information could be used is if you're in the middle of doing a soixante-neuf.

Tangent: Jo claims that as soon as Thatcher became "Lady Thatcher", it sounded like a device for removing pubic hair.

Tangent: The Thatcher effect is also demonstrated with a duplicated picture of Alan, one of which is normal and one of which has inverted eyes and mouth, likewise.

Tangent: To test their facial recognition skills, the panellists are then shown pictures of Mars, a piece of toast and a picture of a sonogram. Inside them there are pictures of the Madonna, Marlene Dietrich and Jesus.

General Ignorance

• You can tell the size of a person's hands by looking at a person's feet, because they are inproportionate in terms of size. Shoe sizes in Britain are measure in barleycorns, which is equal to a ⅛ of an inch. It's believed that many people working in shoe shops are not aware of this fact. (Forfeit: The Size Of His Shoes, The Size Of His Penis)

Tangent: Dara complains about not being able to get size 13 shoes anywhere.

• There are no muscles in your fingers, only tendons. The nearest muscles are found in the hand and the forearm. A way to find this out is to make a spider-shape with your hand, retracting your middle finger. You should be able to wiggle all the fingers, except the ring finger, because it shares a tendon with the middle finger. Correction: It can be argued that there are thousands of tiny muscles in the fingers, which are used to cause you hairs stand up on end or make your blood vessels contract. (Forfeit: 1)
• It's easier to frown than smile, because it takes 12 muscles to smile and only 11 to frown.

Tangent: Alan tries to do a smiling-frown face. Phill exclaims that he resembles his altered 'Thatcher effect' picture. Alan retorts that he is currently using 23 muscles and then sticks up his middle finger at Phill, pointing out he was still using 23.

Tangent: Alan complains about people who say "Cheer up!" to him when he's pensive.

QI XL Extras

Phill's "F*#@" Forfeit: By saying the F word, Phill and Stephen played Rock, Paper, Scissors, in which they both picked scissors, so it was a draw.

Tangent: In India and Indonesia, they use animals to play Rock, Paper, Scissors. The animals are ant, human and elephant. Elephant beats human, human beats ant and ant beats elephant, because like mice, elephants would be afraid of ants because of their small size.

Dara's "F*#@" Forfeit: By saying the F word, Dara and Stephen played Rock, Paper, Scissors, in which they both picked scissors, so again, it was a draw.

• From the size of their fingers, you can tell if a footballer is able to predict infertility, autism, dyslexia, migraine, stammering, immune dysfunction, myocardial infarction, breast cancer, perceived dominance of masculinity, but not attractiveness, psychopathic tendencies and football ability. This is due to a 2D:4D finger ratio, discovered by John T. Manning of the University of Liverpool, who spent 35 years of his life determining how testosterone and estrogen effect the size of the fingers.

Tangent: Alan wonders if the reason why there is so much estrogen in the water supply and thinks it's because men are becoming more impotent and are turning gay. This leads to Stephen questioning why he has such big "man bosoms". Alan then states that so many women are on the Pill, that they urinate estrogen into the water.

Tangent: Jo claims that in Rigby and Peller, there is a woman with an Austrian accent, who can tell the size of your bosoms just by looking at them. She then asked Jo to take her top off and said, "Not as bad as I first imagined!"

Tangent: Dara reveals (thanks to his wife being a urologist) that there is a part of the urethra that curves down before it goes back, so you normally go back into the toilet at night after "doing your business", so that you can shake the remnants that have been expelled from the bladder, but caught in the "U-shape".

Phill's "F*#@" Forfeit: By saying the F word, Phill and Stephen played Rock, Paper, Scissors for the second time, in which as before, they both picked scissors, so again, it was a draw.

Tangent: Stephen refers to York as "the largest plastic-bottom lake in Europe", because one of his friends, who went to the University of York, kept on mentioning to his friends that York is "the largest plastic-bottom lake in Europe", despite the fact that it's such an uninteresting fact.

Phill's "F*#@" Forfeit: By saying the F word, Phill and Stephen played Rock, Paper, Scissors for the third time. After Alan suggested that one of them played rock, Stephen chose paper and Phill picked scissors, so Phill won.

• The Mona Lisa's eyebrows were worn off due to many restorations. When it was painted in the early 16th century, Leonardo da Vinci painted a full set of eyebrows and eyelashes and were described by the art critic Giorgio Vasari as being very fine and even raved about them. They're currently only visible by x-ray. Marcel Duchamp famously painted a moustache and beard on the painting, which gave it the nickname "L.H.O.O.Q.", which means "She's got a hot arse" in French. (Forfeit: They Were Shaved Off On Her Hen Night)

Tangent: 90% of all the people who go to the Louvre in Paris go straight to the Mona Lisa, spend less than 3 minutes there and then leave the building.

Tangent: The University of Amsterdam used emotion recognition software to analyse the smile, which deduced that she was 83% happy, 9% disgusted, 6% fearful and 2% angry. She was less than 1% neutral and less than 0.25% surprised.

• King David, which Michelangelo's David is based on, used 200 foreskins as a dowry to marry the daughter of King Saul. Saul, who was jealous of David, asked for a bride price to marry his daughter Michal, so he wanted a dowry of 100 foreskins from the Philistines, hoping that David would die in battle. He actually got 200 foreskins. Stephen joked that a rabbi once made a wallet out of foreskins, which if you stroked it, became a briefcase. (Forfeit: He Made A Catapult Out Of Them)

General Ignorance

• The world's largest organ is The Great Stalacpipe Organ, found in Luray Caverns, Virginia. It is a cave renovated by Leland W. Sprinkle. The stalactites are tuned and emit a big sound when struck with a hammer. (Forfeit: A Blue Whale)

Tangent: Phill argues that the organ, isn't strictly speaking an organ, because it's method of playing makes it more like a xylophone, but Stephen points out that it can't strictly be a xylophone, because "xylos" is the Greek for wood.

Dara's "F*#@" Forfeit: By saying the F word, Dara and Stephen played Rock, Paper, Scissors for the second time. Stephen chose scissors and Dara picked rock, so Dara won.

Alan's "F*#@" Forfeit: By saying the F word, Alan and Stephen played Rock, Paper, Scissors. Stephen chose scissors and Alan picked rock, so Alan won.

Episode 8 "Fashion"

Broadcast Date

• 13 February 2009

Recording Date

• 4 June 2008

Panellists

• Alan Davies (-35 points)
• Clive Anderson (-5 points) 12th appearance
• Rich Hall (Winner with 4 points) 17th appearance
• Reginald D. Hunter (-6 points) 1st and only appearance

Buzzers

• Clive - "Always True To You (In My Fashion)" from Kiss Me, Kate
• Rich - "Dedicated Follower of Fashion" by The Kinks
• Reginald - "I'm Too Sexy" by Right Said Fred
• Alan - "My Old Man's A Dustman" by Lonnie Donegan

Theme

• The panellists are challenged to create a catchphrase using 19th century catchphrases or catchphrases that they know of.
  • Alan - "Has your mother sold her mangle?"
  • Clive - "Who are you?"
  • Rich - "You're dumber than a bag of wet mice!"
  • Reginald - "Do what you do best."
  • Stephen - "I can come in any trousers I like!"

Topics

• The most disastrous haircut ever was the haircut taken by the 13th century king, Louis VII of France. His queen was Eleanor of Aquitaine. He was very religious and was heavily involved with the monks, who forced to cut his hair off. So, Eleanor of Aquitaine divorced him, with the haircut being mentioned in the divorce proceedings amongst other things. Eleanor then left for England, along with all her kingdoms and her wealth, she married Henry II and started The Hundred Years' War, so essentially the haircut begun the Hundred Years' War. Correction: As Henry II, Louis VII and Eleanor died 100 before the Hundred Year's War began, it is not a direct cause for the war.

Tangent: Rich talks inaccurately about the origins of the Phillips Head Screw.

Tangent: Louis VII was told that to cure his illness, he needed to have sex, but because he was so abstinate, he hadn't had any. So, he asked for the queen, but she was to far away, so he had to have sex with someone in the castle or he would die. So, rather than live as an adulterer, he decided he would die "chaste".

Tangent: The Simpsons refer to the Hundred Years' War as "Operation Speedy Resolution".

• The Duke of Wellington was thrown out of a club for wearing trousers. He was a member of Almack's, a society club that you could only join if you got given a voucher, but as part of the etiquette, you had to wear breeches, but he wore trousers, so he was thrown out. (Forfeit: Wellington Boots)
• During World War II, a wartime shortage of trousers was coped with by banning turn-ups. Tailors were even told that they would go to prison if they intentionally sold long trousers, from which turn-ups could be made. Boys under 12 had to wear shorts. Women couldn't wear stockings, so they drew seams on the backs of their legs, by first staining their legs with gravy browning to make them look tanned. They would then draw a line on the seam, to make it look like nylon.
• The Gömböc is the first manmade mono-monostatic object. That means it can self-right from whatever position it's in. It was invented by Péter Várkonyi and Gábor Domokos. Domokos was in the studio audience and explained that he got the idea from the Weeble and that if any of the edges were 1/100th of a millimetre out, it couldn't self-right itself. The idea of the mono-monostatic shape was first found in the shell of turtles. Other Hungarian inventions include the Rubik's Cube and the ballpoint pen, made by László Bíró.

Tangent: Rich and Alan try to help Gábor make some money out of the Gömböc, by turning them into salt and pepper shakers and pitching the idea on Dragons' Den.

• The first fossil discovered was of a megalosaurus, discovered by Robert Plot. The bone was originally believed to be either a thighbone of a Roman elephant or a race of giant humans. The shape of the fossil was looked like a pair of testicles, so it was dubbed "Scrotum humanum".

Tangent: If life began on January 1st and where we are now is the end of the year, the dinosaurs would start at December 5th and became extinct on December 24th. Humans would appear at a few minutes before midnight on December 31st.

Tangent: "Saurus" was Ancient Greek slang for penis, because saurus means lizard and that was how they described their penis. Thesaurus, which isn't Greek means "treasure house". Hence, Stephen likes to refer to his bottom as his "treasure house".

General Ignorance

• The only word that rhymes with month is Granth or the Guru Granth Sahib, which is the holy text used in Sikhism.
• The city with the most Michelin Stars is Tokyo. It has 150 stars, which is 2 more than London and Paris put together and 3 times more than New York. (Forfeit: Paris, New York, London)

Tangent: Reginald makes a claim that the Michelin star answer couldn't be London, because the United Kingdom makes Marmite, which he claims tastes like a naked man with hairy legs in your kitchen. Stephen points out that the argument comes from someone whose country makes spray-on cheese. Reginald also claims that putting Marmite on any food f**ks it up.

• A nicotine stain is colourless, odourless, invisible and untracable. It's named after Jean Nicot, who was France's version of Walter Raleigh. There was an Irish "Cigarette Devil", which Stephen and Alan remember from school called Nic O'Tine. (Forfeit: Yellow, Brown)
• The only dictator who definitely only had one ball was Chairman Mao. It's referred to as monorchism. The word "orchid" derives from the Greek for testicle. In the memoirs of his doctor, he was infertile, had venerial disease in the 1950s and contracted herpes in the 1960s. He never brushed his teeth, and he rinsed them with tea, meaning his teeth turned green. He also slept on a wooden bed and used a bedpan. There is no justification that Adolf Hitler had only one testicle. (Forfeit: Pol Pot, Stalin)

QI XL Extras

Tangent: When Norwich City got promoted to the Premier League and the matches got sold out for every game, the loyal fans sang out "Where woz you when we woz crap?" Alan remembers going to Norwich and the fans did a song about sheep-shagging, which was returned by the Norwich fans with a 9-verse song. Stephen went to a match at Brighton & Hove Albion, where the Brighton fans sang "You're better than us! We're crap, crap, crap!"

• The worst faux pas in the world was in the Guinness Book of Records for "Worst Engagement Faux Pas". It was done by James Gordon Bennett, Jr., who created the expression, Gordon Bennett! and whose father, James Gordon Bennett, Sr., owned a lot of newspapers. He was engaged to a young New York socialite and got drunk and went to his fiancee's house, where there was a party full of stiff New York socialites and he urinated in the fireplace, thinking it was a toilet and walked out again, causing a giant scandal. The engagement was called off and the brother of his fiancee challenged him to a duel. He then spent most of the rest of his life in Europe.

Tangent: Bennett once tipped a railway porter £341,000, because he hated having huge amounts of cash on him as it was uncomfortable.

Tangent: Gerald Ratner famously said: "We also do cut-glass sherry decanters complete with six glasses on a silver-plated tray that your butler can serve you drinks on, all for £4.95. People say, "How can you sell this for such a low price?" I say, because it's total crap." That speech wiped £500million of his shares. He then claimed that his earrings were "cheaper than an M&S prawn sandwich but probably wouldn't last as long."

• A cauliflower, a rhinoceros and a pigeon's wing are all types of wig. Wigs were popularised by Louis XIII of France, who became bald in the early part of his life, so he wore a wig and imitated him, making it one of the biggest fashions in the French Revolution. In the 18th century, people spent more on wigs than they did for the rest of their clothing put together.

Tangent: Wigs are being put out of service in British courts, except in criminal courts, where they're still allowed. They also have to wear 2 pairs of tights because Queen Victoria was offended by seeing the hairs stick out.

Tangent: The reason why the robes worn by the barristers are black, because Queen Anne died as they were about to change the colour, so the court went into mourning and they never got round to changing it.

Tangent: Reginald tells about a story he was told about a British guy wearing corduroy and was being told about it, since he was American and so many others then tried to explain to him what it was and a girl even brought down a corduroy jacket to show him what it is. He says he went along with it because he likes "the warm look on white people's faces when they feel like they're teaching you something". Corduroy was restricted to royalty, when it was first used. It's derived from the French "corde du roi", meaning "cord of the king".

• An example of a living fossil is the Lomatia tasmanica, or the "King's Holly", which is 43,600 years old. A genetically identical fossil that is near it is a Pleistocene, which is millions of years old. Because of this, it's possible that they hold the secret to "eternal life", since they have survived for a long time. The term "living fossil" was what Charles Darwin used to describe the duck-billed platypus and is also used to describe crocodiles and coelacanths. It means that they aren't identical to their fossil predecessors. An example of one that is identical to its predecessor

Tangent: Ginkgo biloba is another living fossil, which is used by herbalists as a memory enhancer.

• Mars has no canals. The reason why many people think there are Martian canals is because an astronomer called Giovanni Schiaparelli claimed to have seen a lot of long straight lines on Mars, which he named "canali" and named them after rivers on Earth. Then, Percival Lowell, who had an observatory named after him, as well as the "planet" Pluto, drew maps of the planet based by looking at his telescope, but they actually came from his head. It's a condition known as Lowell's syndrome, in which blood vessels and the nodes where they meet seem to become straight lines.

General Ignorance

• The macaroni, as mentioned in the song, Yankee Doodle, was another name for a dandy. The song was written by a British person, who claimed that the Yanks were dumb and showed that if you take someone that is supposed to be an insult, you throw it back in the opressor's face.

Episode 9 "The Future"

Broadcast Date

• 20 February 2009

Recording Date

• 6 May 2008

Panellists

• Alan Davies (-60 points)
• Rob Brydon (-31 points) 6th appearance
• Sean Lock (7 points) 16th appearance
• Ben Miller (Winner with 14 points) 1st and only appearance

Buzzers

• Sean - Theme from The Twilight Zone
• Rob - Theme from Star Trek
• Ben - Theme from Doctor Who
• Alan - "Let's Face the Music and Dance" by Fred Astaire with noises including things being smashed and a cat shrieking included.

Theme

• All panellists wore a silver sash. The set was decorated with rockets and the gap around the "i" in the QI magnifying glass was covered with flashing lights.

Topics

• Technically, you are always doing something, because there is no such thing as nothing. Ben then explains that physics teaches us that is no such as nothing, because elementary particles are created and annihilated in the vacuum of space. Scientists are currently looking to find the Higgs boson in the Higgs field, using the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland. Interestingly, even if you don't believe in the Higgs field, gravity operates in a vacuum. (Forfeit: Nothing)

Tangent: There are 4 known forces. They are gravity, electromagnetism, the nuclear strong force, which holds nuclei together and the nuclear weak force, which causesradioactivity. They are all of a similar strength, except gravity, which is incredibly weak, as demonstrated by a pin being held onto a fridge magnet by the electromagnetism deflecting the force of gravity. Ben tries to explain a reasoning before he is interrupted by Sean.

Tangent: There is a theory that all matter has its corresponding antimatter, which leads to Stephen believing that Rob and Ben could be living proof of the theory.

• According to the laws of physics, nothing forbids time travel, but there is a thing called the grandfather paradox, which states that if you killed your grandfather, it could never happen because you could not have existed in the first place. There is also a belief that time travel could be initiated by the Large Hadron Collider, because like telephones, you need a time machine at both ends, otherwise it wouldn't work.

Tangent: Sean argues that physics can't be explained to ordinary people unless a machine could prove it like Michael Faraday with electricity.

• Questions about people who tried to predict the future, but were "hopelessly wrong":
  • In 1955, Variety predicted that rock and roll would be "gone before June". (Forfeit: May)
  • In 1977, Ken Olsen, chairman of the Digital Equipment Corporation said "there is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home".
  • In 1955, Alex Lewitt incorrectly predicted that a nuclear powered vacuum cleaner would be "a reality within 10 years". Alan then talks about original vacuum cleaners being dragged by horses, which Stephen saw on a show called "QI". (to be exact the Domesticity episode). Correction: As around 19% of Britain's power comes from nuclear power stations, it can be argued that the country's vacuum cleaners are in a way nuclear powered.

Tangent: A discussion about why kids always talk about having "hoverboots".

• Saint Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan was caught reading with his lips closed by Saint Augustine of Hippo, therefore being the first recorded person to be able to do that. Augustine wrote in his confessions that "when Ambrose read, his eyes scanned the page and his heart sought out the meaning, while his voice was silent and his tongue was still."

Tangent: Rob claims that because of his "limited talents", he would be a revelation in those times, just by reading silently, but Stephen points out that the text would be in Latin, but suggests he could do his impression of Ronnie Corbett instead.

• Britain has technically been invaded by robots. In the 1940s, during World War II, the Nazi machines, the Doodlebug and the V-2 were officially described as "robots", rather than machines and the British Authorities were terrified of discussing it in public, hence there was no mention in the newspapers of a bomb Alan mentioned on Chingford Plain. The word "robot" is a Slavic word that meant a "slave worker" and was devised by Karel Čapek, who wrote the 1920 play, R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots).

Tangent: Rob argues that the call centres are invading the country right now and Ben adds that cameras are also invading the country as well. This leads to Rob and Ben admitting to liking each other, which in turn leads to QI's first gay kiss.

• The language of the future is expected to be Panglish, otherwise known as Pan English. 80% of people who speak English don't speak it as their first language. A popular language based on this currently is Singlish, a mixture of English, Chinese and Malay, the Singaporean equivalent of Franglais. In Singlish, "Layleo" means "radio", "Lolex" means "Rolex" and "Orleng tzu" means "orange juice". It just shows that the English language has evolved from when the Anglo-Saxons invaded the country.

Tangent: Esperanto, a constructed language has only 900 words, no irregular verbs and takes a year less to learn fluently than any other language. "Saluton" means "hello", "Ĉu vi parolas Esperanton?" means "Do you speak Esperanto?" and "mia kusenveturilo estas plena de angiloj" means "my hovercraft is full of eels" (a reference to an episode of Monty Python).

General Ignorance

• The distance of the horizon is worked out by using the formula (with d being distance in miles and h being height in feet):

$d={\sqrt {1.5h}}$ This normally means, when standing at sea level, the horizon is roughly 3 miles away from you.

• The type of weather that kills more people than any other is fog, due mainly to road traffic accidents. The difference between fog and mist is that fog is denser. Fog is visibility of less than 1 kilometre, whereas mist is between 1 and 2 km. Smog is the urban phenomenon of smoke, fog and sulphur dioxide mixing together. The last bad smog in 1952 killed 12,000 people during a 4 day spell. This caused the Clean Air Act to be introduced, hence London rarely has any fog nowadays. (Forfeit: Wind, Snow, Hail)

Tangent: In Hawaii, instead of fog and smog, they have vog, which is volcanic fog.

QI XL Extras

• According to the Guinness Book of Records, the first time capsule was created in the basement of Phoebe Hearst Memorial Hall and is known as the Crypt of Civilization. It's due to be opened in the year 8113, because human history is said to have begun in the year 4241 BC, in the sense that the first Egyptian calendar existed and so they buried it at the midpoint of time in 1940, so when it was opened it would show things gathered in the mid-point of history. Inside it there is a Bible, a Qur'an, the Iliad. There is a also a windmill for electrical machines, etc. There are over 10,000 time capsules around the world, but most of them have been lost. Even the International Time Capsule Society have urged people to contact them, if they're burying a time capsule, so they can be registered. There are also time capsules in space, the most famous being Voyager 1, which contained the binary information on a record. Carl Sagan famously said when told that some music from Bach was to be put on the record said that it "just be showing off".

Tangent: A discussion about stripping old wallpaper and finding things put on by previous owners of houses. It was also common for a barrel of beer to be buried under the cement in house that had stoops or stairs.

Tangent: According to the equivalence principle, there have to aliens, which leads to an argument between Rob, Ben & Stephen, where Stephen proves that because humans exist, there has to be alien life. Stephen also tells everyone watching who believes in astrology to stop watching the show NOW!

Tangent: Ben talks about the Fermi paradox, by Enrico Fermi, which describes the whereabouts of all alien life. Stephen Hawking quoted Fermi and pointed out that nothing in physics prevents time travel might not strictly speaking be true, because there are certain physical laws that are non-reversable such as the second law of thermodynamics. Ben tries to explain by saying that if you had a picture of a glass and a picture of a broken glass, you could never put the picture of the broken glass ahead of the picture of the normal glass, leading to a discussion about warped space and wormholes.

Tangent: Ben discusses Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, and gives the example that if you were to travel in a spaceship near to the the speed of light, it could take only one minute for you, while on Earth, four years could pass.

Tangent: Ben explains to Sean the inner workings of a telephone.

• A building called the Corn Market in Windsor, built by Sir Christopher Wren, who originally took over from a man called Fitz, had 4 pillars in it, because bureaucrats refused to have them removed, saying that they had to be there. So, Wren deliberately put a gap inbetween the roof and the pillar as proof that weren't needed, but today tiles are forced into the gaps. (Forfeit: To Hold The Roof Up, To Stop The Roof From Falling)

Note: The alarm didn't actually sound off for "To Stop The Roof From Falling", but it's clearly visible on screen.

Tangent: When he was in Singapore in 1988, Alan was asked by a local, "You Lick Astrey?", which Stephen thought he said "Lick arse, please", which was actually someone asking him if he was Rick Astley.

Tangent: Rob claims the most mysterious language in the world is Welsh, where mini golf is known as "golf mini".

Tangent: There is also the invented Klingon language, devised by Marc Okrand. Amongst the words translated into Klingon are "transporter ioniser unit" and the "bridge" of a ship, but not for a bridge over water. There are also words for "Hamlet" and "To be, or not to be", as proved by The Klingon Hamlet.

General Ignorance

• Between 2000 and 2005, 0% of Guyana's rainforest was cut down, because every tree pulled down is immediately replaced with a new one. It's also the only South American country with a cricket team, mainly because they speak English. Correction: The South American country Suriname also plays cricket, after it was introduced to them by the Indians.
• The Forth Railway Bridge will have its paintwork completed in 2012, thanks to a new mixture of paint and epoxy resin, which will last for between 25 and 40 years. (Forfeit: Never)

Episode 10 "Flora & Fauna"

Broadcast Date

• 27 February 2009

Recording Date

• 20 May 2008

Panellists

• Alan Davies (-18 points)
• Jo Brand (-27 points) 21st appearance
• Jimmy Carr (Technical winner with -1 point) 11th appearance
• John Sergeant (-4 points) 1st and only appearance
• The Audience (Winners with 10 points)

Theme

• The set is decorated with grass, flowers and two garden gnomes.

Buzzers

• John - Lion noise
• Jimmy - Wolf noise
• Jo - Elephant noise
• Alan - Cat and dog fighting each other noise

Topics

• Stephen is wearing a camellia in his buttonhole. The camellia is made famous in the novel, La Dame aux camélias by Alexandre Dumas, fils, the bastard son of Alexandre Dumas, père, the author of The Three Musketeers. In the book, the heroine, Marguerite Gautier, wore a white camellia for 25 days of the month and a red one for 5 days of the month. When she wore the red one, she was proclaiming that she was "not available". The book caused a hugh uproar in 19th century France and made the camellia an overnight garden sensation. The novel later became a play that starred Sarah Bernhardt for 1,000 showings. In 1854, Verdi saw the play and turned it into the opera, La traviata, which is about a famous courtesan who is in love. The original version was about 7 men who couldn't afford her price, so they clubbed together and bought a chest of drawers, which had 7 draws, so they could each keep their clothes in. It was later turned into the film, Camille. The audience were awarded 10 points for knowing the "La traviata" part.
• Flea circuses do exist and are not a myth. They were mainly poular during the 1920s and 1930s, dying out in the 1960s. The fleas were tortured and were placed on the ringmaster's arm, because they fed on his blood. Jimmy claimed it was like Britain's Got Talent. Among the acts were the fleas being glued to musical instruments, with the floor being heated, so it seemed like they were playing them. Michael Bentine did a mechanical version, which was what Jimmy thought it was originally.

Tangent: Alan reveals the time when he had some fleas in his house. He claims that Rentokil quoted him £600, but a mate did it for £40. The biggest destroyer of fleas is vacuum cleaners, not exterminators.

Tangent: Stephen brings up the notion that Jo and John might be related.

• The only fish that lives in a tree is the killifish, found in the mangrove swamps of Florida and Belize. When the swamps shrink, they go up the grooves in the tree and live there. It's also the only vertebrate that is hermaphrodite and can self-fertilise, but not quite in the asexual reproduction way. There are 1,270 species of killifish.
• Flamingos stand on one leg, so they can go to sleep. Whichever leg is raised, that half of the flamingo goes to sleep in a taupid state, which lowers the blood flow and couldn't sustain itself while asleep. When they've had enough sleep, they swap the legs over.
• As mentioned in the "B" series, the reason that flamingos are pink is because they eat blue-green algae, which is full of keratinoids. In zoos they give the flamingos supplements to make them pink. They can drink boiling water, because they live near to geysers, which leads Alan to claim that they're the only living thing that can eat a McDonald's apple pie. (Forfeit: Because They Eat Prawns)
• The panellists hear a noise made by Natterjack Toads. When the toads get sexually excited, they leap on anything if it's male or female, but if it's a male, the toad that it's leapt on will make a noise, meaning that it wants the toad to get off. 20 tonnes of toad lose their lives in road accidents each year. They are being limited by the construction of toad tunnels. The reason why so many are killed is because their mating ponds are at the other side of the road and since they have travelled there many times before, they just follow the same route.

Tangent: There is no definitive difference between a frog and a toad, but toads live drier lives and have drier skin.

Tangent: Alan's Alsatian once found a frog in her water bowl and informed her sleepy master, by removing his bed sheet.

Tangent: In 2005, exploding toads caused havoc in the mating season in Hamburg. They expanded to 3 times their normal size, because they were being attacked by crows. In one move, crows would pull out the toad's liver through the chest using their beak, which would in turn cause the toad to puff themselves up to intimidate them and their intestine would go through the hole and increase to a high pressure, giving them a fatal hernia.

• Between 1930 and 1960, female African clawed frogs were used as pregnancy tests by injection urine from a woman via a hypodermic needle and if they ovulated within 8 to 12 hours, they were pregnant. Until the 1950s, it was the only pregnancy test available. The National Health Service kept some of these frogs, but some managed to escape, but they have a disease called Chytridiomycosis, which is threatening ⅛ of all amphibians around the world.
• A ferret builds an airliner by going through small gaps in Boeing aeroplanes to help fit wires. It was used up until the 1960s. They were also used at the wedding of Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales, at the Millennium Party in the Park. They're the third most popular pet in United States after cats and dogs. Like puppies, they welcome you home after you've been at work. (Forfeit: Weasily)

Tangent: It's unclear if there was ever a Yorkshire sport where ferrets were put up people's trousers, known as ferret legging, but it has since been created. They are also used in pet therapy, because they are proven to be friendly animals. Interacting with them reduces stress hormone and they help the elderly, depressed and children recovering from severe illnesses.

General Ignorance

• The fastest thing in the natural world is the White Mulberry. It pushes out its pollen at half the speed of sound (Mach 0.5). In biology, nothing is faster. Ties are made out of the silk that comes from the White Mulberry, thanks to the silkworms that live on its leaves in China, where they're grown. (Forfeit: Blue Whale, Cheetah)
• A slug with a shell on its back is called a slug, or to be official, a Urocyclidae. Snails that have shells on their back are snails. The trail of slime that slugs leave behind gets eaten up and is used as an act of foreplay. There are 37,000 species of gastropod, which is the largest after insects. (Forfeit: A Snail)

Tangent: When Alan was a student, some snails left a massive slime trail in their kitchen, yet he did nothing about it.

• A mushroom is neither a plant or an animal, but it's more closely related to an animal. (Forfeit: Plant, Animal)

QI XL Extras

Tangent: The back legs of a flea are so powerful, that if a human had legs as powerful, they'd be able to jump the Eiffel Tower, because they're 80 times more powerful. Fleas also have 2 penises, or to be official, one penis with a helping aid, like a Swiss Army knife, or a rabbit sex toy. Medieval representations of Satan depict him with 2 penises.

• You could do anything to a naïve rhinoceros, because it refers to the zoological term of naïveity, which refers to animals that have been moved to an ecosphere that it has not been prepared for. The example being that a new species arrives on an island and causes havoc, like a dodo or any animal that goes to Bermuda, because it doesn't experience fear, as it uses it up energy, and if you lived in an environment where everyone was friendly, you'd gradually lose your sense of fear. So, when birds came to Bermuda, they'd think that everyone was friendly, so humans could just pick them and put them into a cooking pot.

Tangent: Alan tells the story of a boy at his school who caught frogs and skinned them before letting them go. You also had to leave a bit around their eyes, so they can see.

Tangent: It is belived that it had rained toads and Jo claimed that it rained fish in Knighton, Wales, because a collection of fish was picked up by a mini-tornado from the river and it rained on the town.

Tangent: Stephen tells a joke about a librarian, a hen and an frog, which leads to Alan and Jimmy telling library-related jokes. Then Stephen retells the reason why people think all frogs go "ribbit", which is because that the only frog that goes "ribbit", the Pacific Tree Frog, which lives in Hollywood, which has been used on films to denote the sound of frogs all around the world.

• A fairy ring is a ring of mushrooms. They grow round trees and when they retreat, they leave a ring of discoloured grass. They are claimed to be magic, because if a young lady goes into a fairy ring on a May Day morning and washes her face with the dew of the grass, she will turn into a hag. They're also claimed to create time vortexes, but they aren't created by dancing fairies.
• The pygmy hog-sucking louse, which lives off the Pygmy Hog is being threatened, because the Pygmy Hog is dying out and since there are only 150 of them left, there will be fewer lice left, as they need the hog so that they can live off them. It's the only species of louse that is critically endangered.

Tangent: Body lice, which only live in clothing, are only 70,000 years old, which means that humans first wore clothing 70,000 years ago. Human fleas are also dying out because of vacuum cleaners, like the other fleas mentioned earlier.

Tangent: Jimmy's claim that people only save the animals that are cute, small and fluffy, as demonstrated by the Giant Panda, being the symbol of the World Wildlife Fund.

General Ignorance

Tangent: Alan and Jimmy mock Stephen's odd sound that comes out when he finishes a question.

• Peacocks impress their partners by their personality. It was discovered by Japanese scientists at the University of Tokyo. The study took 7 years and studying 258 matings. It involved looking at the tail quality by length of tail and photographing the male during the tail ritual and counting its eyespots. They then saw if the peahen chose the male with the best quality tails.
• Captain Cook ate an albatross after he shot it. The botanist Joseph Banks, after who Botany Bay is named, described in his diary that "everybody commended them (the albatross steaks) and everyone ate heartily of them, though there was fresh pork on the table." The idea that it was bad luck to eat an albatross seems to have come after this incident involving Captain Cook, probably coming from the poem, "The Ancient Mariner", by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Tangent: Albatrosses are normally trapped in fishing nets and young albatrosses stay in the air for 10 years without landing. The reason why they stay for that long is because after that time, they have to mate and need to land, so they can lay their eggs. They dive for fish from the sea, but they don't land. They can also glide for 6 days.

Episode 11 "Film"

Broadcast Date

• 6 March 2009

Recording Date

• 11 June 2008

Panellists

• Alan Davies (Winner with 4 points!) 7th win
• David Mitchell (-15 points) 6th appearance
• John Sessions (1 point) 9th appearance
• Emma Thompson (-10 points) 1st and only appearance

Theme

• The set is decorated with two large Oscar type statuettes (with shields instead of swords) two very large BAFTA type face masks, metal railings and a red carpet.

Buzzers

• David - Showbiz fanfare; the Pearl and Dean theme tune
• Emma - Theme from Indiana Jones
• John - "There's No Business Like Show Business" from Annie Get Your Gun
• Alan - "That's All Folks!"

Topics

• The panellists are shown a picture of a painting by Man Ray, called "Violin d'Ingres, meant as a sort of pun in the name of Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, who was a talented painter and violinist. It's an example of "Ingres' Violin", which is someone doing something they're not famous as well as someone who does do it well, so in Ingres' case, he was a good violinist as well as a great painter.
• The Oscar statue was created by Cedric Gibbons. In 1928, he was asked to design the statue for the new Academy Awards and he won 11 of them as art director, as well as being nominated for 36 in total. Walt Disney won the most with 26. Stephen then reveals that he made one at the factory in Chicago. They're made of britannium and you have to buff it out, then they're dipped in nickel, then in gold.

Tangent: Emma is pictured with her Oscar that she won for best screenplay for Sense and Sensibility. She also won an Oscar for Howards End, as well as being nominated for The Remains of the Day, In the Name of the Father and as best actress for Sense and Sensibility. The best actor when Emma won best actress was Al Pacino. Stephen and Emma then tell the story of how Stephen could have won Emma's best screenplay Oscar, because Stephen fixed her computer with the screenplay on it.

Tangent: When Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs won an Oscar, they made an alteration by giving Walt Disney one big statuette and 7 smaller ones.

• The panellists are asked to listen to some sound effects. The first one is some wet hands being squidged together to create the sound of a lamb being born. It's an example of foley. Other examples heard are a knife sliding along a scaffolding pole, then chopping a cauliflower, then being dropped into a bucket, representing a guillotine. Then there is the noise of 2 halves of a coconut shell being clapped together to mimic the sound of a horse. Cellophane being crushed represents fire. Then, a piece of paper being removed from its envelope was the sound used by Star Wars for the noise made by the sliding doors. The sounds were created by QI's own sounds guru, Lizzie Calfe, who used to do the sounds for The Archers.
• An English accent would probably help you get the role of a villain in a Hollywood movie. This leads to a discussion about Alan Rickman, who mixed English and German for his role in Die Hard. He also played the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.
  • Villains played by English actors in Hollywood films include Peter Cushing playing Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, Steven Berkoff played villains in Beverley Hills Cop and Rambo: First Blood Part II, Christopher Lee played Saruman in The Lord of the Rings and Count Dooku in Star Wars.

Tangent: The Canadian actor Christopher Plummer worked with one of Stephen's friends in a film who met him at an airport and was told not to mention The Sound of Music and about half an hour later, he was playing Edelweiss on the piano. David also points out that the Captain in the film was a naval captain, who moves to a country with no coastline.

• The Ancient Greeks never covered up the "naughty bits" on their statues. They were chipped off by people in the 16th century, mainly started by the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation. There is even a room in the Vatican which contains some chipped off "naughty bits". It was people like Calvin and Savonarola, who hated all things pure.
• The panellists are shown a 1903 film about cheese mites, which caused an outrage to the cheese producers in the world, but it boosted the sales of cheap microscopes, as people became fascinated with what was inside their food.

Tangent: Emma's father, Eric Thompson narrated a film about the small things that live in things such as hair and mattresses.

Tangent: The discussion about the advert that claims that there is more bacteria on chopping boards than toilet seats.

• Michelangelo didn't lie down to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, unlike when Charlton Heston portrayed him in the film, The Agony and the Ecstasy. He stood on top of the scaffolding, cricking his neck, as dictated by Giorgio Vasari in his biography.

Tangent: At least 4 professors claim that the pink shape behind God is the transfer section of the sagittal area of the brain. It's believed that Michelangelo saw an illegal dissection of the brain and tried to put it in the painting, because one of God's greatest achievements was the brain. A museum in Oregon is dedicated to replications of the brain made of fabrics.

General Ignorance

• A hedgehog doesn't die if its fleas are removed. It could die if you cover it in anti-flea powder, but they like their fleas. You shouldn't give a hedgehog bread or milk, because they get diarrhoea and dry out. On David Mitchell's BBC Radio 4 show, "The Unbelievable Truth", they revealed the opposite to what Stephen just said. (Forfeit: It Dies)
• William Shakespeare mentions cricket 3 times during the 1550s, although it's the insect cricket, rather than the sport, although it did exist. This fact was also dispelled on David's show, "The Unbelievable Truth". (Forfeit: Never)
• Head lice don't mind what type of hair they're on as long as there is an adequate blood supply. Originally, it was thought that lice fed on dirty hair, before it was changed to clean. Nits are the egg-cases of the louse, which take weeks to get rid of them. (Forfeit: Clean)
• A flu jab works by giving you an inactive virus that helps the antibodies beat off flu. People think it actually gives you flu, so that the flu spreading around doesn't go into you. (Forfeit: By Giving You 'Flu)

QI XL Extras

• The panellists are told to listen to the sound of a scream, which is the Wilhelm scream, which has been used in 140 films, including every Indiana Jones movie, every Star Wars movie, Madagascar, Planet of the Apes, two of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy, Toy Story, Reservoir Dogs, Batman Returns and Poltergeist. Ben Burtt heard the scream in many films and has used it as many times as possible in the films he works on. On YouTube, there is a video of 23 films with the scream in it, but they weren't allowed to show it, because of royalty reasons. The man doing the scream is called Sheb Wooley, who started on the note of C, before descending 4 semitones to G sharp. He used it on the film, Distant Drums in 1951.

Tangent: The most ubiquitous line of film dialogue in a survey of 150 films between 1938 and 1974 was "Let's get outta here!" It was used once in 84% of Hollywood films and more than once in 17%. The panellists then share the worst clichés in films, such as "Why are you telling me this?", "Don't you die on me!", "I've got a bad feeling about this!", "Is that an order, sir?", "Showtime!" and "I'm getting too old for this shit!"

Tangent: The 2 most famous Robin Hood adaptations seem to be the Errol Flynn version and the Kevin Costner version, yet Errol Flynn seems to maintain his American accent in the film.

Tangent: John reveals that Alan Rickman hates playing villains and prefers to play good guys, such as his role in Sense and Sensibility. A kid at a party asked him why he always played villains, to which he replied, "I don't play villains, I play very interesting people".

Tangent: John also mentions that the Sound of Music might have suited the aspirations of Adolf Hitler. Stephen then mentions the time that he made a film with Julie Andrews during the 1999 solar eclipse in Cornwall. They watched the eclipse at the Isle of Man, where they were filming and half the population watched Julie Andrews, rather than the eclipse. Alan then tells how Sky News reported the eclipse by saying that "our old friend, the Moon was getting in the way".

• Englishmen whose surname begins with a double-"f" at the front is probably accidental, because in the 18th century, the way a capital "f" was handwritten, meant it looked like it began with a double-"f", or as Stephen puts it, "you're either Welsh or semi-literate thickos".
• The panellists listen to a piece of music from Florence Foster Jenkins, who rented out Carnegie Hall for recitals, because she was so rich and could have sold out 10 times over. Cole Porter became so enamorred of her, that he wrote a song for her. She even said "Some say I couldn't sing, but no-one can say that I didn't sing". She was left a lot of money when her father died and sang at Carnegie Hall at the age of 76, which sold out weeks in advance and 2,000 people were turned away at the door. Tickets cost $20, which is $400 in today's money. She made her own costumes and changed them regularly, so she asked the audience not to go away while she changed.

Tangent: Emma tells about how she made sure Stephen never left the house when she changed her clothes, by making him scream when she appeared naked at the top of the stairs.

Tangent: Emma tells the story of John Ruskin marrying Effie Gray. On the wedding night, Ruskin didn't realise that naked women had pubic hair, so they had no sexual intercourse for 7 years, which Stephen then reveals is not true.

Tangent: The panellists discuss the Brazilian (or as Stephen calls it, a "Peruvian") and bleaching "bumholes".

General Ignorance

• The most depressing day of the week is Wednesday. According to research, people would say Monday, but if you asked the same people over a long period of time on each separate day, it becomes Wednesday. There is a French joke which says that if you had a meeting with an Englishman on a Wednesday, it would screw up 2 weekends of his, because the French think we are lazy. (Forfeit: Monday)
• The most popular British film made by Innovia Films Ltd is cellophane, which made more than £360 million in 2008 and around the same in 2007.

Luvvie Alarm: The first citation of the word "luvvie" in the Oxford English Dictionary is made by Stephen in the 1980s.

Episode 12 "Food"

Broadcast Date

• 20 March 2009

Recording Date

• 28 May 2008

Panellists

• Alan Davies
• Jimmy Carr 12th appearance
• Rich Hall 18th appearance
• David Mitchell 7th appearance

Notes

• Wolf, Ian. QI: Series F Episode Guide. British Comedy Guide. Accessed 2009-02-12.