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*Dara — [[Jazz]]y [[bass guitar]] [[riff]]
*Dara — [[Jazz]]y [[bass guitar]] [[riff]]
*Julian — Jazzy [[Cymbals|cymbal]] rhythm
*Julian — Jazzy [[Cymbals|cymbal]] rhythm
*Jo — Single [[electric guitar]] [[chord]]
*Jo — Single [[electric guitar]] [[chord (guitar)|chord]]
*Alan — Jazzy [[piano]] bit (first buzz only - then ''[[Chopsticks (music)|Chopsticks]]'')
*Alan — Jazzy [[piano]] bit (first buzz only - then ''[[Chopsticks (music)|Chopsticks]]'')


Revision as of 03:39, 11 July 2010

QI Series D
No. of episodes13
Release
Original networkBBC
Original release29 September –
15 December 2006
Season chronology
← Previous
Series C
Next →
Series E

This is a list of episodes of QI, the BBC comedy panel game television show hosted by Stephen Fry.

The first series started on 11 September 2003. Although not mentioned at the time, all of the questions (with the exception of the final "general ignorance" round) were on subjects beginning with "a" (such as "arthropods", "Alans" and "astronomy"). The following six series continued the theme: the second series' subjects all began with "b", and so on.

The dates in the lists are those of the BBC Two broadcasts. The episodes were also broadcast on BBC Four, generally a week earlier (as soon as one episode finished on BBC Two, the next was shown on BBC Four). Aside from Alan Davies and not adding clip shows, there are six guests that have appeared in ten or more episodes (out of 61), they are Jo Brand (18), Rich Hall (16), Phill Jupitus (16), Bill Bailey (15), Sean Lock (14) and Clive Anderson (10). Excluding the Pilot there have been a total of 51 different guest panellists in the four series to date. The fifth series began to air on BBC Two on 21 September 2007.

D Series (2006)

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

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

Episode 1 "Danger"

Broadcast dates
  • 29 September 2006 (BBC Two)
Panellists
Buzzers
  • Sean — A lion roaring
  • Jimmy — A train whistling
  • Jo — "Vehicle reversing, vehicle reversing"
  • Alan — A mosquito
Topics
  • Odds of very unusual accidents:
    • 1 in 48 million — Being burned alive whilst you sleep.
    • 1 in 30 million — Being murdered.
    • 1 in 120 million — Choking to death.
    • 1 in 20 billion — Death by tea cosy.
    • 1 in 257,000 — Dying today.
  • According to the United Nations, you are three times as likely to die at work than you are at war.
Tangent: Sean was once arrested for knocking a security guard's hat off.
  • Lumberjacks have the most dangerous jobs in America.
  • The most dangerous job in the world is said to be an Alaskan crab fisherman.
  • The most dangerous military stratagem was organised by King Goujian of Yue in 496 BC. Convicted criminals were in the front line of his army and were forced to cut off their own heads.
Tangent: If you cut off the legs of a duck, it can still swim.
Tangent: A story from the French Revolution says that two decapitated heads were put in the same basket, and one head bit the other so hard that they could not be separated.
  • The most dangerous sport in the world is flying kites in Pakistan (the most dangerous country in the world) during Basant. You have to sever kite strings filled with glass and metal shards. It can only be played for 15 days of the year.
Tangent: The biggest kite in the world weighs nearly a tonne, measures 40 feet (12 m) by 36 feet (11 m), has to be flown by 50 people, and has 200 strings.
Tangent: The 3rd person to go down Niagara Falls was a British man called Charles Stephens. He tied his legs to an anvil as he went down. All that was found of him was a severed arm inside the barrel, which had a tattoo which read, "Forget me not, Annie".
Tangent: A pirate ship filled with animals was sent over Niagara Falls, only two geese lived. Two bears crawled out, and were shot.
  • The most dangerous sporting activity for women is cheerleading.
Tangent: George W. Bush is the most famous cheerleader in America.
Tangent: You can get a detached retina from bungee jumping. You can also get detached breast tissue if you bungee jump naked.
Tangent: The Darwin Awards.
General Ignorance
Tangent: 3,000 white people died in the San Francisco quake, the Chinese dead weren't counted.
Tangent: People during the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco decided to set fire to their houses, because they were insured against fire, but not against earthquakes.
Tangent: Policemen were told to shoot 3 men who were trapped at the top of the Windsor Hotel. It was watched by 5,000 people. Someone else asked to be killed in a fire and the police took his name and address and shot him in the head.

Episode 2 "Discoveries"

Broadcast dates
  • 29 September 2006 (BBC Four)
  • 6 October 2006 (BBC Two)
Panellists
Buzzers
  • Clive — "Man Your Battle Stations!"
  • Arthur — A foghorn
  • Vic — The Blue Peter theme
  • Alan — A ship's cat
Theme
Topics
  • It rains the most on Saturdays, because of industrial activities over the week cause a seven day dust cycle.
Tangent: Babylonians first developed the seven day week.
Tangent: Many zoologists participate in a Phylum Feast on Darwin's birthday (12 February) where they eat as many different species as possible.
Tangent: Disgusting foods: you drink the blood of the cobra when eating its beating heart (a delicacy in China); this lead Alan to talk about eating ear wax.
General Ignorance
Tangent: Old English Sheepdogs are now referred to as "Dulux dogs". They have done more to popularise the dog, rather than the paint.

Episode 3 "Dogs"

Broadcast dates
  • 6 October 2006 (BBC Four)
  • 13 October 2006 (BBC Two)
Panellists
Buzzers
Topics
  • Dogs are much more varied than cats, and more varied than any other species.
  • When mating, dogs start in the Doggy position, then they turn so their backsides face each other, with the penis locked inside the vagina. The panel tried to demonstrate their answers using toy dogs. Alan was given a Scottie in tartan and a large Old English Sheepdog.
Tangent: Jeremy owns a labradoodle, the same kind of dog as Graham Norton. There is a type of dog called a Yorkiepoo, a cross between a Yorkshire terrier and a poodle.
Tangent: Sharks do not have to keep on moving in order to stay alive, though they do need water flowing through their gills.
Tangent: The largest egg in the world was laid by a whale shark.
Tangent: The German for "Dog" is "Hund" as in the English word "Hound." No-one knows where the word "Dog" comes from. "Dogger" is said to come from a Dutch word meaning "A type of ship."
Tangent: The area before Fisher is Dogger. Viking is always the first to be read out. Alan used to call the shipping forecast the "Chicken forecast" because that is what it sounded like when he was a kid.
Tangent: There is a sport called Canary Wrestling, similar to sumo.
Tangent: La Palma has a volcano on it, which could cause a tsunami that could wipe out the Eastern American seaboard if it erupted.
Tangent: "Karate" means "Empty hand" and "Judo" means "The gentle way".
Tangent: The first two planes shot down by Spitfires in World War II were Hurricanes.
  • Dogfights first started in World War I, but when they first fought, they had no guns, so they threw bricks at each other.
Tangent: Jeremy's favourite VC winner is Ferdinand West, a pilot from World War I. World War I pilots often had diarrhoea because bearings were lubricated with castor oil.
General Ignorance
  • Gorillas sleep in nests. They make a new nest every day, even if there is nothing wrong with it. The scientific name for Gorilla is Gorilla gorilla. This is known as a tautonym. The same is true of Bison and Iguana.
  • The scientific name for a rat is Rattus rattus.
  • The scientific name for a Golden Oriole is Oriolus oriolus.
  • The scientific name for a Whooper Swan is Cygnus cygnus.
  • The scientific name for a Manx Shearwater is Puffinus puffinus. The puffin's scientific name is Fratercula arctica. (Forfeit: Puffin)
Tangent: A Manx Shearwater in Cokeland Island, Northern Ireland was tagged as an adult (at least 5 years old) in July 1953 and was re-captured in July 2003, making it at least 55 years old, making it the oldest bird in the world.

Episode 4 "Dictionaries"

Broadcast dates
  • 13 October 2006 (BBC Four)
  • 20 October 2006 (BBC Two)
Panellists
Buzzers
  • Ronni — A note in the key of A
  • Rory — A note in the key of B
  • Phill — A note in the key of C
  • Alan — A man going "Do-di-do-di-do".
Topics
  • Dictionary writers like to start at the letter "M". (Forfeit: A)
  • A 3 volume book about Didcot contains The Long Years of Obscurity as its first volume.
Tangent: Alan was once performing at a concert with Phil Collins, who was singing a song called "Where's My Hat?" and he was wearing a hat throughout. (However, the song is actually called 'Wear My Hat', a song from Collins' 1996 Dance into the Light album.)
Tangent: Didcot Power Station was the third worst eyesore in the UK according to a poll by "Country Life". Number one was Wind farms.
Tangent: Didcot has the second oldest yew tree in the country. It's 1,600 years old.
Tangent: Ronni's impression of Mary Kingsley.
Tangent: Diana Mosley and her liking of Adolf Hitler.
Tangent: Stephen's time in prison.
Tangent: If a clergyman is knighted, the Queen doesn't use a sword.
Tangent: The last public degradation in Britain happened in 1621 to Sir Francis Mitchell.
Tangent: Denier and tights.
General Ignorance
Tangent: Scottish schools omit everything about the History of England, with the exception of the Battle of Bannockburn.
Tangent: The English soldiers were called "Tommy lobsters". The Battle of Culloden was the first battle to use bayonets.
Tangent: Dolphins can't distinguish between hunger and thirst.

Episode 5 "Death" (Halloween Special)

Broadcast dates
  • 20 October 2006 (BBC Four)
  • 27 October 2006 (BBC Two)
Panellists

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

Buzzers
Theme
  • The chairman and all the panellists are dressed in black.
  • There is a coffin in the centre of the set, replacing the "i" inside the "Qi" magnifying glass.
  • The forfeits on the wallscreens are coloured green as opposed to the normal white.
Topics
Tangent: A man with manic depression took apart his car during the manic phase, labelling every part, then got his depressive mood swing and lost all interest, just throwing all the parts around and ruining the project.
Tangent: Exercise and swimming with dolphins is proven to help with people who have depression.
  • The saddest song ever is "Gloomy Sunday" sung by Billie Holiday, also known as the "Hungarian Suicide Song". The song was originally written by Rezső Seress, who broke up with his girlfriend. After the song became popular, they got together briefly but then she committed suicide by poisoning herself and left only a two-word suicide note that said simply "Gloomy Sunday".
Tangent: People committing suicide by throwing themselves off Beachy Head.
Tangent: Stephen's dislike of the United States Army, mainly generals wearing sunglasses.
Tangent: Alan tells how a general once tried to get through to young troops by quoting MC Hammer.
  • Extremophiles are the only things that lives in the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea is the lowest place on Earth. People can't turn around in the Dead Sea if they are the wrong way round and could drown.
Tangent: Out of the 250 drownings in the UK each year, one-third are intentional.
General Ignorance
Tangent: The original Great Fire of London in 1212 killed more than 3,000 people.
Tangent: Not saying "Bless you", when you sneeze.

Episode 6 "Drinks"

Broadcast dates
  • 27 October 2006 (BBC Four)
  • 3 November 2006 (BBC Two)
Panellists
Buzzers
  • John, Jimmy & Phill — Various bells
  • Alan — Does not work. After Alan presses it to no effect seven times, Air on the G String plays, but not from the buzzer, which has not lit up (a reference to the famous long-running ad campaign for Hamlet Cigars)
Theme
  • The show is based around an old-time Pub theme, with various of the questions and decorations referencing classic British pub culture, games, etc.
  • There is a drinks rack behind Stephen Fry, including a keg of Watney's Red Barrel, and a Dartboard taking up the centre of the main background.
  • Every panellist has a drink — Alan Davies has a martini, the other three have pints of lager.
Topics
Tangent: John's problem with birds in his house.
  • You are not allowed to drink whilst playing darts. It was caused by a sketch from Not the Nine O'Clock News which featured darts players drinking heavily, and it ruined the view of the game, so drinking was banned. You are also not allowed to wear a hat, unless you are a Sikh.
Tangent: Darts commentator Sid Waddell's odd quotes.
Tangent: Absinthe was banned in Belgium in 1905, Switzerland in 1912 and France in 1915 due to wormwood being poisonous. It was re-legalised in 1926 after they removed the wormwood. It has never been banned in Britain because it was never popular.
  • The Great Binge (1870–1914) is a period in history given by social historians, due to Absinthe in Europe and other dangerous drugs such as heroin being commercially available. Heroin is a brand name.
  • The Vomit Comet is used to train astronauts.
Tangent: The difference between weight and mass.
  • The Great Stink occurred in 1858 when Parliament was trying to be held, but the smell of faeces was so bad they had to stop. (Forfeit: He Who Smelt It, Dealt It)
Tangent: The great-great-grandson of Joseph Bazalgette, who created London's sewage system after "The Great Stink", now runs Endemol.
Tangent: During World War II, Veronica Lake was forced to get her hair cut. She previously had her hair combed over one eye, and many women copied this style. However, the women then worked in munitions factories, and their hair got caught in the machinery.
General Ignorance
Tangent: Beer goggles.

Episode 7 "Differences"

Broadcast dates
  • 3 November 2006 (BBC Four)
  • 10 November 2006 (BBC Two)
Panellists
Buzzers
Topics
Tangent: Women have twice as many pain receptors on their skin as men.
  • Alcohol has a greater effect on men. In the long run, women are more likely to have alcohol-related brain and liver damage. (Forfeit: Women)
Tangent: On Alan's 30th birthday, he was so drunk, he forgot that people had been distributing sparklers throughout the house. Photographs showed he was even holding one.
  • Women get colder quicker, in order to keep the vital organs warm.
Tangent: Dara not being married, and his fictional Filipino wife.
  • The guests have to correctly identify a picture of a Yupik. (Forfeit: Inuit)
Tangent: The average height of an eskimo is 5' 4". The average life expectancy of an eskimo is 39 years old.
Tangent: The entire eskimo population would fit into the Los Angeles International Airport car park, if you put 5 eskimos in a car.
Tangent: Inuit throat singing, and Alan's impression of Andy Kershaw.
Tangent: 1 in 10,000 have their organs the wrong way round. The condition is known as Situs inversus.
  • Deaf people applaud by waving their hands in the air. There is a misconception that they clap louder or harder.
Tangent: Alan does the British Sign Language for "bullshit" and "drunkenness".
Tangent: Julian farting in front of the Queen backstage at the Royal Variety Performance and shitting himself.
Tangent: He also complained to Alfred Tennyson about a poem he wrote.
Tangent: Table tennis was banned in Russia as it was thought it would affect people's eyesight.
General Ignorance
Tangent: W. C. Fields once wrote a film under the pseudonym "Mahatma Kane Jeeves".
Tangent: Mahatma means "great soul" in Sanskrit.
Note: Alan Davies answered "Randy", and as a result was docked 150 points. The final scores were then revealed almost immediately afterwards, and Alan was on -144 points, a record lowest score in the show's history. However, without the 150 point penalty from the earlier question, Alan would have won with 6 points!

Episode 8 "Descendants" (Children in Need Special)

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

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

Buzzers
Theme
  • The show initially began with Pudsey Bear, the Children in Need mascot, in the place of Alan Davies, but Pudsey was replaced after all the panellists had demonstrated their buzzers.
  • Each panellist has a Pudsey bear in front of them, however Rich Hall's Pudsey does not have one eye covered. This is because Rich Hall, being American and not aware of Pudsey's trademark, removed the eyepatch and bound his Pudsey's hands behind its back using the eyepatch before the recording of the episode began.
Topics
Tangent: Winston Churchill famously said "A dog looks up to you, a cat looks down on you, but a pig looks you in the eye and treats you as an equal".
Tangent: If Barbie was a 5' 6", her feet would be a size 3 and her breasts would be 39 inches (990 mm) and she'd fall flat on herself, she also wouldn't have the necessary 17-22% body fat to menstruate.
Tangent: Barbie first got a navel in the year 2000.
Tangent: Barbie's first words spoken in 1992 were, "We will ever have enough clothes, I love shopping, math is tough."
Tangent: William Moulton Marston and his polyamorous relationship with the co-creator of Wonder Woman.
Tangent: Children invented earmuffs, the calculator, the trampoline and the Flag of Alaska.
Tangent: Alan mentions a Sherlock Holmes film, in which people were being murdered around a circus. An hour into the film, Holmes said to Dr Watson, "Pygmies".
Tangent: Jonathan's experience in France, when he saw a tiny elephant doing performance tricks and at the end of show, it was unzipped and a small dog was inside it.
  • An episode of Clangers called "Chicken" featured a scene when the voice actor says (through a swanee whistle) "Oh sod it, the bloody thing's stuck again".
Tangent: Oliver Postgate (the creator of Clangers) and his other creations including Noggin The Nog, Pogles' Wood and Bagpuss. He and Peter Firmin created each episode in a barn and they each took a month to make.
Tangent: The highest amount of viewers the Clangers got was 10 million, when they appeared on an episode of Doctor Who called The Sea Devils.
Tangent: Stephen reads out a letter from the son of Peter Hawkins, correcting an earlier mistake made on QI saying the language was Flobbadob (See QI Series "B", Episode 10).
General Ignorance
Tangent: The Nokia company produces 6½ mobile phones a second.
Tangent: Stephen's complete misunderstandings of Geordie slang.
Tangent: Wogan holds the record for the longest televised putt with a 33 yarder at Gleneagles.
  • 0% of money donated to Children in Need goes towards administration costs.
Tangent: The first Children in Need in 1980 raised £1 million.

Episode 9 "Doves"

Broadcast dates
  • 17 November 2006 (BBC Four)
  • 24 November 2006 (BBC Two)
Panellists
Buzzers
Topics
  • The pigeon is the bravest species of animal, having won more Dickin medals than any other. The medal was organised by Maria Dickin in 1943 to honour animals in war. Out of the 60 occasions, it has been awarded to a pigeon 32 times.
Tangent: It was once awarded to a cat that was aboard HMS Amethyst during the Yangtze incident in 1949, when it ate all the rats aboard.
  • A kamikaze pigeon unit was set up to use pigeons in missiles. The pigeon was trained to peck at a ship. In the missile, if the ship was slightly to one side, the pigeon would peck on a glass target and it would relay a signal moving the missile and it would continuously peck as the ship got bigger and bigger. Every time it pecked correctly, the pigeon would be showered with grain. It wasn't used in combat. See Project Pigeon.
Tangent: The extinction of the Passenger Pigeon.
Tangent: Giacomo Puccini enjoyed hunting snipe from his window while writing operas. He could kill fifty snipe in one shot with his handbuilt gun.
Tangent: Pablo Picasso was a pigeon fancier and his father was a painter of pigeons and never painted again when he saw how good his son was. He collected Fan tail pigeons and he named his daughter "Paloma", which is the Spanish for pigeon or dove.
Tangent: The Fountain is signed "R. Mutt". The R stood for "Richard", which is French slang for "Moneybags".[citation needed]
Tangent: One person was fined $6,500 for urinating in it. It's valued at $3.6million.
  • The dik-dik is able to hide, unlike the dodo, which is probably one of the reasons why the dodo is now extinct.
Tangent: The dodo is related to the pigeon. It was forgotten until 1860, when it appeared Alice in Wonderland.
Tangent: Sperm whales have a bone in their penis, like a badger.
Tangent: Nevison never harmed anyone as a highwayman.
Tangent: Dick Turpin, his brother-in-law and how his post master taught him to read.
Tangent: Timothy Spall's film about Pierrepoint, which revealed that Pierrepoint took 7 seconds from leaving his cell to hanging a prisoner.
Tangent: The life expectancy in some parts of America is lower than on Death Row.
General Ignorance
Tangent: Medical students rarely get to dissect a human in their studies any more.
Tangent: Fluffers in the porn industry aren't used any more, because of Viagra.
Tangent: There is a statue of the Mozambique-born Eusebio (their most famous player) outside Benfica's stadium.
Tangent: Laurence Llewellyn Bowen incorrectly answered the £1 Million on Who Wants to Be A Millionaire, the right answer being E pluribus unum, however this was found the be incorrect and he was asked back to answer a different £1 Million question
This was a bonus question for 50 points was supposed to subsequently asked, only for Fry to accidentally provide the answer before asking the question. Alan Davies then answered the question regardless, and earned the 50 point bonus. As it turned out, he would still have won without the bonus had nobody else answered the question correctly. In his words: 'That was supposed to be the answer to the bonus question and I fucked it up completely!'

Episode 10 "Divination"

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

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

Broadcast dates
  • 24 November 2006 (BBC Four)
  • 1 December 2006 (BBC Two)
Panellists
Buzzers
Theme
  • Each of the panellists were told to predict their scores using a form of divination.
  • Whoever managed to accurately predict their own score at the end would be rewarded with 666 bonus points. No-one managed to do so accurately with their own scores, but Vaughan correctly guessed Garden's score. The 666 points were not given because it had to be their own score they predicted.
  • There is also a Doctor Who theme in this episode. For instance, when Alan Davies disappears, the dematerialisation noise of the TARDIS is heard, and when he calls in for the answer, the Doctor Who theme music is used as his "buzzer".
Topics
Tangent: Margaritomancy is divination using pearls and spatulamancy is divination using sheep's shoulder blades, ornithomancy is reading the flight patterns of birds and hippomancy is using the behaviour of a horse for divination purposes.
Tangent: Horses are as intelligent as tropical fish, in terms of brain power.
Tangent: Derren Brown's trick when you have an empty seat on a train.
Tangent: The word "donkey" first came into the English language in the late 18th century, but it was pronounced as if it was a rhyme for monkey. Before then it was just the word "ass".
Tangent: When you breed a male horse and a female donkey, it is called a hinny.
Tangent: Donkey milk cannot be used to make cheese. Babies in India are all fed on donkey milk. Cleopatra bathed in asses milk and Nero's wife Poppaea Sabina had 300 donkeys milked for her bath.
Tangent: Garry Kasparov accused IBM of cheating, after he planted a trap which he claimed that could only avoided by thinking creatively.
Tangent: Stephen's experience of watching a match between Kasparov and Nigel Short in London.
General Ignorance
Tangent: A bus company in Moscow changed one of its routes from 666 to 616. The A666 is found in Lancashire between Pendlebury to Langho
Tangent: The numbers on a roulette wheel add up to 666.
Tangent: The fear of the number 666 is Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia. The fear of the number 616 is Hexakosioidekahexaphobia.
Tangent: Midgeley died aged 55. At the age of 51, he contracted polio and invented himself a harness to get himself out of bed, but one morning it swung around and in the ensuing struggle he strangled himself to death.

Episode 11 "Denial & Deprivation"

Broadcast dates
  • 1 December 2006 (BBC Four)
  • 8 December 2006 (BBC Two)
Panellists
  • Alan Davies (-39 points - this gave him a grand total beyond -1000 for the series)
  • Roger McGough (Joint Winner with 1 point) 1st and only appearance
  • Vic Reeves (Joint Winner with 1 point) 2nd appearance
  • Mark Steel (-6 points) 3rd appearance
Buzzers
  • Roger — Bell (by pulling decorated rope hanging from the ceiling)
  • Mark — Ruler twanged off the side of his desk
  • Vic — Hand-bell
  • Alan — Squeaky soft toy (causing Alvin and the Chipmunks' We Are the Chipmunks to be played)
Theme
  • The show was deprived of the normal set. Instead, Alan Davies and Mark Steel were sitting at school desks, Roger McGough and Vic Reeves had side tables and glasses of whisky and Stephen Fry sat at an auctioneer's stand with a gavel. The lighting director was "fired" so there was a lack of light. Some of the studio was lit by candles. The audience was forced to watch in the street (although only for a humorous pre-filmed segment). The buzzers were hand-cranked.
  • The team were each given a tray, containing dental floss, chilli powder, a potato and a green pen. The panellists had to find out how each item had been used in a prison escape.
    • Green pen - Steven Russell dyed his shirt green, the same colour shirts as those of the prison doctors, and walked out of the prison.
    • Dental floss - Vincenzo Curcio used floss to file down the bars.
    • Chilli powder — Five prisoners from Pakistan threw spice powder into the eyes of a warden and ran out of the prison.
    • Potato - John Dillinger stole a raw potato, carved it into the shape of a gun, painted it black with boot polish and held up a warden with it.
Topics
Tangent: Sigmund Freud's fear of the number 62 and his refusal to book into hotels with more than 61 rooms.
  • William Banting and the invention of diets. In 1864, he wrote a booklet called "Letter on Corpulence Addressed to the Public", which gave word to the term "to bant", which is dieting.
Tangent: William Taft and his idea of diets as he was so fat, he couldn't get out of his bath. This then moved to Hollywood. In the 1950s, people used a tapeworm pill, which is when you swallowed a tapeworm egg. Alan's friend had a tapeworm that was 3 feet (0.91 m) long.
Tangent: The Marquis de Sade's imprisonment in the Bastille, and the loss of his work. He was moved prisons for shouting obscenities at the other people in the prison through a tube.
Tangent: There are many misconceptions that the Tower of London was a poor place to be kept in, it was a very civilised place to be kept prisoner.
Tangent: Ronnie Kray's homosexuality, and the twins' relationship with David Bailey.
Tangent: David Puttnam used to manage the Kray twins.
Tangent: A poem about Hoover the talking seal is written by Roger.
General Ignorance
Tangent: Tibet supposedly smells of butter and the buttermilk sculptures of animals.
Tangent: A female yak is called a nak. A wild yak is around 6' 5", a domesticated yak is around 4' tall.
Tangent: Yak hair is the longest of any animal. A lot of the wigs found in the BBC store were made of yak and beards for people pretending to be Santa Claus are very likely to be made of yak hair.
Tangent: A poem about crabs by Roger.
Tangent: A Crab louse has 6 legs. Crab louses are so named because they latch onto the follicles onto pubes, eyelashes, or even beards.

Episode 12 "Domesticity"

Broadcast dates
  • 8 December 2006 (BBC Four)
  • 15 December 2006 (BBC Two)
Panellists
  • Alan Davies (-64 points)
  • Jo Brand (-18 points) 13th appearance
  • Jessica Hynes - at the time still going under her maiden name of Stevenson (Winner with -3 points) 1st and only appearance
  • Phill Jupitus (-4 points) 12th appearance
Buzzers

(Stephen jokes that the buzzer noises see the respective genders "comfortably assigned their tasks".)

Topics
Tangent: "Dry cleaning" is a term used by spies to see if they are being followed or not.
Tangent: Neutrinos are mainly invented to make all mathematics in modern physics work. They have no mass and travel through lead which is light year's thick without a trace. Correction: It was discovered in 1998 that neutrinos do have mass, albeit very small.
Tangent: Davis is the in the Guinness Book of Records as the oldest person ever to win the Nobel Prize, aged 88.
Tangent: Jo tries to guess her own quote: "How do you know if it's time to wash the dishes and clean your house? Look inside your pants, if you find a penis in there, it's not time."
  • "The first practical dishwasher was invented to wash dishes more..." "safely". The inventor of this dishwasher was called Josephine Cochrane. She invented the idea, because her porcelain kept being chipped by her servants and herself. It cost $250 to make, which was a lot in the 1880s, but it could clean and dry 200 dishes in 2 minutes and it won 1st prize at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. (Forfeits: Quickly, Cleanly)
Tangent: Cochrane's grandfather was John Fitch, who invented the steamboat.
Tangent: The 1893 World's Fair also had the first Ferris wheel on display, made by the inventor George Ferris.
Tangent: In Britain, the odds of being killed at home are the same as being killed in a car crash. In 2003, a woman in Scotland was killed in a freak dishwasher accident, when she slipped on the floor and was impaled on a knife that was sticking out of the dishwasher. Stephen cut his palm doing that once.
Tangent: Phill mocks Stephen for his mention of copper kettles and later mentions Stephen's Twinings adverts.
Tangent: Door hinges were originally made of wood.
Tangent: Stephen and Hugh Laurie's plasterers were Charlie Higson and Paul Whitehouse. Phill then does his impressions of Hugh & Stephen.
General Ignorance
Tangent: Stephen's story about a man called "Heinz", who was discovered wanking in a can of baked beans, while at school.
  • "Have you ever slid down a banister?" - No, because people slide down the balustrade. (Forfeit: Yes)
  • William Wordsworth could not smell. He suffered from Anosmia. (Forfeit: Daffodils) (This question was worth 200 points to everyone, but instead Alan said the forfeit answer, daffodils)

Episode 13 "December" (Christmas Special)

Broadcast dates
  • 15 December 2006 (BBC Four)
  • 22 December and 27 December 2006 (BBC Two)
Panellists
Buzzers
Theme
  • All the questions in General Ignorance are themed on saints.
Topics
Tangent: More than £20 billion is spent in the United Kingdom during Christmas. 1/3 of books, clothes and toys are sold in the last 8 weeks of the year. 150 million Christmas cards are sent. 7.5 million Christmas trees are decorated. Enough wrapping paper is bought to gift-wrap Guernsey.
Tangent: The Yule Festival, of which the Yule log is named after.
Tangent: What the Royals do on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Stephen is booed because he gets his Christmas tree from the Sandringham Estate, as does the Queen.
Tangent: There is a 25% increase in emergency call-outs in the 2 weeks up to Christmas.
Tangent: Things found inside photocopiers include sleeping cats, a snake, a kitchen knife, a sausage roll, a condom, stockings, a vibrator and a cheque for £6,000.
  • Champagne was invented by the English in the Champagne region of France. There was a 19th century myth that Dom Pérignon accidentally made the champagne fizzy and said, "Come quickly, I am drinking the stars!", which is false. In the 16th century, the British took the flat wine from the region and added sugar and molasses to make it fizzy. (Forfeit: The French)
Tangent: Jo tells about making ginger beer and vodka, and Dara tells the correct way to serve a pint of Guinness, which he learned when he was a barman.
Tangent: In English, turkeys are so called because the first merchants to sell them were from Turkey. Nearly all the other country|countries refer to them as Indian. In Choctaw language, they're referred to as "Fukit".
General Ignorance
Tangent: Saint Brigid's great miracles include laying down a cape and owning whatever land was covered by it. She could also turn used bath water into beer.
Tangent: Alan thinks he looks similar to Saint Bartholomew, but later Stephen thinks he looks like Saint Sebastian.
Tangent: Alan has a picture of "The Creation of Adam" on his mobile phone, even though he was told you weren't allowed to take any pictures.
Tangent: Jo recalls phoning a person called "Mr. Bastard". Stephen then tells of people who irritate Jesus College, Cambridge by ringing them up on Christmas Day and singing "Happy Birthday to You."

Notes

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