QI (H series)
Encyclopedia
This is a list of episodes of QI
QI
QI is a British comedy panel game television quiz show created and co-produced by John Lloyd, hosted by Stephen Fry, and featuring permanent panellist Alan Davies. Most of the questions are extremely obscure, making it unlikely that the correct answer will be given...

, the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 comedy panel game
Panel game
A panel game or panel show is a radio or television game show in which a panel of celebrities participates. Panelists may compete with each other, such as on The News Quiz; facilitate play by guest contestants, such as on Match Game/Blankety Blank; or do both, such as on Wait Wait.....

 television program
Television program
A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...

me hosted by Stephen Fry
Stephen Fry
Stephen John Fry is an English actor, screenwriter, author, playwright, journalist, poet, comedian, television presenter and film director, and a director of Norwich City Football Club. He first came to attention in the 1981 Cambridge Footlights Revue presentation "The Cellar Tapes", which also...

. Series H was aired on BBC One
BBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...

. It was the first series of the show to be aired in high definition (HD).

Episodes

As with the previous series, series H featured a total of 16 editions. During recordings, there was a return of the game that Stephen Fry had set up for his Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...

 followers during the previous series through AudioBoo
AudioBoo
AudioBoo is a website which allows users to post and share sound files. AudioBoo was developed by UK-based and partially funded by Channel 4 and was launched in March 2009.-Technology:...

. As before, the object was to decipher a word the audience shouts out, this time for words beginning with the letter "H". Debutant panellists for this series were; Chris Addison
Chris Addison
Chris Addison is an English stand-up comedian, writer and actor. He is known for his lecture-style comedy shows, two of which he later adapted for BBC Radio 4...

, Clare Balding
Clare Balding
Clare Balding is a BBC sports presenter, journalist and jockey.-Early life:In 1989 and 1990, Balding was a leading amateur flat jockey and Champion Lady Rider in 1990....

, Eddie Izzard
Eddie Izzard
Edward John "Eddie" Izzard is a British stand-up comedian and actor. His comedy style takes the form of rambling, whimsical monologue and self-referential pantomime...

, John Lloyd
John Lloyd (writer)
John Hardress Wilfred Lloyd CBE is a British comedy writer and television producer. He is the great nephew of John Hardress Lloyd.-Early life and career:...

, Ross Noble
Ross Noble
Ross Markham Noble is an English stand-up comedian, brought up in Cramlington, Northumberland, England.Noble rose to mainstream popularity through making appearances on British television, particularly interviews and on celebrity quiz shows such as Have I Got News for You...

, Daniel Radcliffe
Daniel Radcliffe
Daniel Jacob Radcliffe is an English actor who rose to prominence playing the titular character in the Harry Potter film series....

, Ruby Wax
Ruby Wax
Ruby Wax is a BAFTA nominated American comedian who made a career in the United Kingdom as part of the alternative comedy scene in the 1980s.-Early life:...

 and Robert Webb
Robert Webb (actor)
Robert Webb is an English actor, comedian and writer, and one half of the double act Mitchell and Webb, alongside David Mitchell.-Early life:...

. Lloyd is QIs creator and former producer, while Izzard was a panellist in the unaired pilot of the programme, but until this series had yet to feature in the actual televised show.

Episode 1 "Hodge Podge"

Broadcast date:
  • 17 Sept 2010

Recording date:
  • 19 May 2010


Panellists:
  • Alan Davies
    Alan Davies
    Alan Davies is an English comedian, writer and actor best known for starring in the TV mystery series Jonathan Creek and as the permanent panellist on the TV panel show QI.- Early life :...

     (−8 points)
  • Jack Dee
    Jack Dee
    James Andrew Innes "Jack" Dee is an English stand-up comedian, actor and writer known for his sardonic, curmudgeonly, and deadpan style.-Early life:...

     (winner with 2 points)
  • Phill Jupitus
    Phill Jupitus
    Phillip Christopher Jupitus is an English stand-up and improvised comedian, actor, performance poet, musician and podcaster....

     (−10 points)
  • Ross Noble
    Ross Noble
    Ross Markham Noble is an English stand-up comedian, brought up in Cramlington, Northumberland, England.Noble rose to mainstream popularity through making appearances on British television, particularly interviews and on celebrity quiz shows such as Have I Got News for You...

     (−6 points)


Notes:
  • Sean Lock
    Sean Lock
    Sean Lock is an English comedian and actor. He began his comedy career as a stand-up comedian. He won the British Comedy Award in 2000 in the category of Best Live Comic, and was nominated for the Perrier Comedy Award. He is also well known for his appearances on television and radio...

     was originally planned to appear on the panel, but was stranded on the Isle of Man
    Isle of Man
    The Isle of Man , otherwise known simply as Mann , is a self-governing British Crown Dependency, located in the Irish Sea between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, within the British Isles. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title of Lord of Mann. The Lord of Mann is...

     and unable to arrive in time. Phill Jupitus stepped in at the last minute to replace him.


Buzzers:
  • Jack – Booming bell
    Bell (instrument)
    A bell is a simple sound-making device. The bell is a percussion instrument and an idiophone. Its form is usually a hollow, cup-shaped object, which resonates upon being struck...

     noise
  • Phill – Tea bell noise
  • Ross – Ring-a-Ding-Ding!
  • Alan – The forfeit alarm with a forfeit of "Minus 10" shown on the screen.


Topics:
  • Bankers prefer long-haired men and short-skirted women because, by coincidence, all the booms
    Boom and bust
    A credit boom-bust cycle is an episode characterized by a sustained increase in several economics indicators followed by a sharp and rapid contraction. Commonly the boom is driven by a rapid expansion of credit to the private sector accompanied with rising prices of commodities and stock market index...

     in the 20th century occurred when shorter skirts and longer hair were in fashion, and all the recessions happened when longer skirts and shorter hair were in fashion.
  • Halitosis
    Halitosis
    Halitosis is a term used to describe noticeably unpleasant odors exhaled in breathing. Halitosis is estimated to be the third most frequent reason for seeking dental aid, following tooth decay and periodontal disease.- General :...

     was entirely made-up by Lambert Pharmacal
    Pfizer
    Pfizer, Inc. is an American multinational pharmaceutical corporation. The company is based in New York City, New York with its research headquarters in Groton, Connecticut, United States...

    , the company behind Listerine, named after Joseph Lister
    Joseph Lister, 1st Baron Lister
    Joseph Lister, 1st Baron Lister OM, FRS, PC , known as Sir Joseph Lister, Bt., between 1883 and 1897, was a British surgeon and a pioneer of antiseptic surgery, who promoted the idea of sterile surgery while working at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary...

    , the so-called father of antiseptic
    Antiseptic
    Antiseptics are antimicrobial substances that are applied to living tissue/skin to reduce the possibility of infection, sepsis, or putrefaction...

     surgery. Weirdly the antiseptic used in surgeries was also used to clean floors and used as a cure for gonorrhoea
    Gonorrhea
    Gonorrhea is a common sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium Neisseria gonorrhoeae. The usual symptoms in men are burning with urination and penile discharge. Women, on the other hand, are asymptomatic half the time or have vaginal discharge and pelvic pain...

    , then as a mouthwash
    Mouthwash
    Mouthwash or mouth rinse is a product used to enhance oral hygiene. Some manufacturers of mouthwash claim that antiseptic and anti-plaque mouth rinse kill the bacterial plaque causing cavities, gingivitis, and bad breath. Anti-cavity mouth rinse uses fluoride to protect against tooth decay...

     without changing the formula. The reason they made up halitosis was so they could sell the mouthwash, because there wasn't a need for it before, so the company made claims such as "hotel clerks say one in three guests checking in have halitosis" and "dentists say 83% of patients have halitosis". Mints were also invented to mask "dog breath" and get rid of halitosis.
Tangent: Alan tells of the time when he had to hold a koala
Koala
The koala is an arboreal herbivorous marsupial native to Australia, and the only extant representative of the family Phascolarctidae....

 and while it ate its eucalyptus
Eucalyptus
Eucalyptus is a diverse genus of flowering trees in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Members of the genus dominate the tree flora of Australia...

 leaves, its breath still smelt sweet.
  • A hoplophobe
    Hoplophobia
    Hoplophobia from the Greek hoplon, meaning weapon or armor, is defined as the "fear of firearms" and as the "fear of armed citizens".- Popular use of the term :...

     would be scared of a Sturmgewehr 44 with a Krummlauf
    Krummlauf
    The Krummlauf is a bent barrel attachment for the Sturmgewehr 44 assault rifle developed by Germany in World War II.The curved barrel included a periscope sighting device for shooting around corners from a safe position....

     modification, or indeed any other firearm because a hoplophobe is someone who is afraid of firearms. Stephen has the aforementioned weapon in the studio on loan from the Royal Armouries Museum, Leeds
    Leeds
    Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...

    , with instructions that only he could touch it, annoying Alan. The Krummlauf was a modification that allowed the holder to see round corners, because the Krummlauf was a periscope
    Periscope
    A periscope is an instrument for observation from a concealed position. In its simplest form it consists of a tube with mirrors at each end set parallel to each other at a 45-degree angle....

    . A modern version
    CornerShot
    CornerShot is a weapon accessory invented by Lt. Col. Amos Golan of the Israeli Defense Forces in cooperation with American investors. It was designed in the early 2000s for SWAT teams and special forces in hostile situations usually involving terrorists and hostages...

     was invented by the Israeli Army
    Israel Defense Forces
    The Israel Defense Forces , commonly known in Israel by the Hebrew acronym Tzahal , are the military forces of the State of Israel. They consist of the ground forces, air force and navy. It is the sole military wing of the Israeli security forces, and has no civilian jurisdiction within Israel...

    . The original periscope rifle
    Periscope rifle
    A periscope rifle was first invented by Sergeant William Beech, a builder's foreman in civilian life, of the 2nd Battalion NSW, Australian Imperial Force, in May 1915...

     was invented by an Australia
    Australia
    Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

    n during World War I
    World War I
    World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

    . It was invented by Hans-Joachim Schaede, who also was involved in the washing machine
    Washing machine
    A washing machine is a machine designed to wash laundry, such as clothing, towels and sheets...

     industry. Urbandictionary.com defines hoplophobia as "an irrational fear of weapons, generally guns, usually occurring as a result of a liberal upbringing, or the fact that the person is just a wimp in general. Rather than deal with the fear, said hoplophobe will acquire human characteristics to a weapon, i.e., "guns are evil", or "guns kill", to justify the fear, rather than deal with the core problem of being a sissy".
  • Ammunition Technician
    Ammunition Technician
    An Ammunition Technician is a British Army soldier trained to inspect, repair, test and store, and modify all ammunition and explosives used by the British Army...

    s use Silly String
    Silly String
    Silly String is a children's toy of flexible, sometimes brightly-coloured, plastic string propelled as a stream of liquid from an aerosol can. The solvent in the string quickly evaporates in mid-air, creating a continuous strand. Silly String is often used during weddings, birthday parties,...

     to help with detecting bombs. The string is used on tripwire
    Tripwire
    A tripwire is a passive triggering mechanism. Typically, a wire or cord is attached to some device for detecting or reacting to physical movement...

    s which can reveal them, but not set them off. There are also fluorescent versions, which can help detect booby trap
    Booby trap
    A booby trap is a device designed to harm or surprise a person, unknowingly triggered by the presence or actions of the victim. As the word trap implies, they often have some form of bait designed to lure the victim towards it. However, in other cases the device is placed on busy roads or is...

    s as well.
  • You can make a square with a circular drill bit
    Drill bit
    Drill bits are cutting tools used to create cylindrical holes. Bits are held in a tool called a drill, which rotates them and provides torque and axial force to create the hole. Specialized bits are also available for non-cylindrical-shaped holes....

    , or in particular, one with a Reuleaux triangle
    Reuleaux triangle
    A Reuleaux triangle is, apart from the trivial case of the circle, the simplest and best known Reuleaux polygon, a curve of constant width. The separation of two parallel lines tangent to the curve is independent of their orientation...

     shape, which Ross describes as a sort or Toblerone
    Toblerone
    Toblerone is a chocolate bar brand owned by Kraft Foods, who acquired the product from former owner Jacobs Suchard in 1990. It is well-known for its distinctive packaging, its prism shape and its ubiquity in duty-free shops.The triangular shape of the Matterhorn in the Swiss Alps is commonly...

    -Rolo
    Rolo
    Rolo is a brand of truncated-cone-shaped or frustum-shaped chocolates with a caramel centre, the shape resembling that of a shallow inverted bucket or tub or a traditional lampshade. They are made by Nestlé, except in the United States where production has been under licence by The Hershey Company...

     combo. Phill says the best 3 words he has ever heard from in a Geordie
    Geordie
    Geordie is a regional nickname for a person from the Tyneside region of the north east of England, or the name of the English-language dialect spoken by its inhabitants...

     accent are Toblerone, Rolo and combo. Wankel engine
    Wankel engine
    The Wankel engine is a type of internal combustion engine using an eccentric rotary design to convert pressure into a rotating motion instead of using reciprocating pistons. Its four-stroke cycle takes place in a space between the inside of an oval-like epitrochoid-shaped housing and a rotor that...

    s (invented by Felix Wankel
    Felix Wankel
    Felix Heinrich Wankel was a German mechanical engineer and inventor after whom the Wankel engine was named. He is the only twentieth century engineer to have designed an internal combustion engine which went into production.-Early life:Wankel was born in Lahr, Baden, in the upper Rhine Valley...

    ) use an approximation of the Reuleaux triangle shape.
Tangent: If you cut 2 wedges off a cylinder whose height is the same size as its length, then it can fit through a circular, square and triangular hole.
  • The Immortal jellyfish (Turritopsis)
    Turritopsis nutricula
    Turritopsis nutricula, the immortal jellyfish, is a hydrozoan whose medusa, or jellyfish, form can revert to the polyp stage after becoming sexually mature. It is the only known case of a metazoan capable of reverting completely to a sexually immature, colonial stage after having reached sexual...

     is made of jelly
    Gelatin dessert
    Gelatin desserts are desserts made with sweetened and flavored gelatin. They can be made by combining plain gelatin with other ingredients or by using a premixed blend of gelatin with additives...

     and lives forever. After it has had sex, it can turn back into a child, and its cells, muscle and sperm and egg cells regenerate. They only die by being eaten or by disease, never by old age. Human attempts for some sort of rejuvenation or immortality included monkey gland
    Gland
    A gland is an organ in an animal's body that synthesizes a substance for release of substances such as hormones or breast milk, often into the bloodstream or into cavities inside the body or its outer surface .- Types :...

    s, which were actually monkey testicles, and before that, human testicles. A Russian man called Serge Voronoff
    Serge Voronoff
    Serge Abrahamovitch Voronoff was a French surgeon of Russian extraction who gained fame for his technique of grafting monkey testicle tissue on to the testicles of men for purportedly therapeutic purposes while working in France in the 1920s and 1930s. The technique brought him a great deal of...

    , who was based in Paris, injected the human testicles into the person. Wolverhampton Wanderers
    Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C.
    Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club is an English professional association football club that represents the city of Wolverhampton in the West Midlands region. They are members of the Premier League, the highest level of English football. The club was founded in 1877 and since 1889 has played at...

     striker
    Striker
    Forwards, also known as strikers, are the players on a team in association football who play nearest to the opposing team's goal, and are therefore principally responsible for scoring goals...

     Dennis Westcott
    Dennis Westcott
    Dennis Westcott was an English footballer, who played for New Brighton, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Blackburn Rovers, Manchester City and Chesterfield as a striker....

     also had this treatment injected into him. Major Frank Buckley
    Frank Buckley (footballer)
    Franklin Charles Buckley was an English football player and, later, manager. He is the brother of Chris Buckley who played for Aston Villa.-Early life:...

    , the manager of the club, insisted on it and the following season, he scored 38 goals in 35 games. The manager of Plymouth Argyle
    Plymouth Argyle F.C.
    Plymouth Argyle Football Club is an English professional football club, based in Plymouth, Devon, that plays in Football League Two.Since becoming professional in 1903, the club has won five Football League titles, five Southern League titles and one Western League title. The 2009–10 season was the...

     also made his team get injected too.


General Ignorance:
  • If a snake's meal is bigger than their head, they get it down by stretching their mouths by using a bone that most mammals have in their ears, the quadrate bone
    Quadrate bone
    The quadrate bone is part of a skull in most tetrapods, including amphibians, sauropsids , and early synapsids. In these animals it connects to the quadratojugal and squamosal in the skull, and forms part of the jaw joint .- Evolutionary variation :In snakes, the quadrate bone has become elongated...

    , but it works as a sort of double jointed hinge. (Forfeit: they dislocate
    Dislocation
    In materials science, a dislocation is a crystallographic defect, or irregularity, within a crystal structure. The presence of dislocations strongly influences many of the properties of materials...

     their jaw)
Tangent: In 2005, a Burmese Python
Burmese Python
The Burmese Python is the largest subspecies of the Indian Python and one of the 6 largest snakes in the world, native to a large variation of tropic and subtropic areas of Southern- and Southeast Asia. They are often found near water and are sometimes semi-aquatic, but can also be found in trees...

 tried to eat an alligator in the Everglades National Park
Everglades National Park
Everglades National Park is a national park in the U.S. state of Florida that protects the southern 25 percent of the original Everglades. It is the largest subtropical wilderness in the United States, and is visited on average by one million people each year. It is the third-largest...

, Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

, but it exploded as the alligator tried to get out, so they both died. The main reason that there are so many Burmese Pythons in Florida is that many are pet
Pet
A pet is a household animal kept for companionship and a person's enjoyment, as opposed to wild animals or to livestock, laboratory animals, working animals or sport animals, which are kept for economic or productive reasons. The most popular pets are noted for their loyal or playful...

s, but many escape to the swamps, which they find similar to their habitat in Burma.
  • If a British judge wants order in the courtroom, he wouldn't (forfeit) bang his gavel
    Gavel
    A gavel is a small ceremonial mallet commonly made of hardwood, typically fashioned with a handle and often struck against a sound block to enhance its sounding qualities. It is a symbol of the authority and right to act officially in the capacity of a chair or presiding officer. It is used to call...

    , as British judges have never used them. The only people in the UK who use them are auctioneers. Oddly though, there is a picture of Stephen as a judge with a gavel, and Jack was in the television programme, Kingdom
    Kingdom (TV series)
    Kingdom is a British television series produced by Parallel Film and Television Productions for the ITV network. It was created by Simon Wheeler and stars Stephen Fry as Peter Kingdom, a Norfolk solicitor who is coping with family, colleagues, and the strange locals who come to him for legal...

     (which Stephen was in also), where he played a judge with a gavel, which leads Alan to suggest that that was another reason for why it was axed.


QI XL Extras:
Tangent: People buy more perishable foods
Shelf life
Shelf life is the length of time that food, drink, medicine, chemicals, and many other perishable items are given before they are considered unsuitable for sale, use, or consumption...

, such as meat and fish in a boom, and pasta is bought mainly in a bust, because it has a longer shelf life.
  • A person who might use a left-handed motorbike would be a policeman, mainly so that the right hand could be free to use a firearm. The Indian
    Indian (motorcycle)
    Indian is an American brand of motorcycles. Indian motorcycles were manufactured from 1901 to 1953 by a company in Springfield, Massachusetts, USA, initially known as the Hendee Manufacturing Company but which was renamed the Indian Manufacturing Company in 1928. The Indian factory team took the...

     motorcycle company was the biggest seller of motorbikes between World War I
    World War I
    World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

     and World War II
    World War II
    World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

    .
Tangent: The panellists are given some left-handed items to try out, such as a Biro
Ballpoint pen
A ballpoint pen is a writing instrument with an internal ink reservoir and a sphere for a point. The internal chamber is filled with a viscous ink that is dispensed at its tip during use by the rolling action of a small sphere...

, a pencil sharpener, a pair of scissors and a can opener. The word "sinister" derives from the Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 for "left". If you're ambisinistrous, you can't use either hand well, the opposite of ambidextrous
Ambidexterity
Ambidexterity is the state of being equally adept in the use of both left and right appendages . It is one of the most famous varieties of cross-dominance. People that are naturally ambidextrous are rare, with only one out of one hundred people being naturally ambidextrous...

. Jack actually once went to a left-handed shop to buy a present for his left-handed sister, but he crashed into the door, because the door was placed correctly for a left-handed person.
  • Motorbikes don't pay congestion charges
    Congestion pricing
    Congestion pricing or congestion charges is a system of surcharging users of a transport network in periods of peak demand to reduce traffic congestion. Examples include some toll-like road pricing fees, and higher peak charges for utilities, public transport and slots in canals and airports...

     because they have no registration plate
    Vehicle registration plate
    A vehicle registration plate is a metal or plastic plate attached to a motor vehicle or trailer for official identification purposes. The registration identifier is a numeric or alphanumeric code that uniquely identifies the vehicle within the issuing region's database...

     on the front of the vehicle and the ANPR cameras
    Automatic number plate recognition
    Automatic number plate recognition is a mass surveillance method that uses optical character recognition on images to read the license plates on vehicles. They can use existing closed-circuit television or road-rule enforcement cameras, or ones specifically designed for the task...

     only take shots of the front of the vehicle. There used to be sideways plates on the top of the mudguard
    Fender (vehicle)
    Fender is the US English term for the part of an automobile, motorcycle or other vehicle body that frames a wheel well . Its primary purpose is to prevent sand, mud, rocks, liquids, and other road spray from being thrown into the air by the rotating tire. Fenders are typically rigid and can be...

    , but they were removed a while ago.
Tangent: Alan struggles with getting the "cylinder" through the holes, and gets frustrated when he's still not allowed to use the gun.
  • The roundest thing in the universe is a neutron star
    Neutron star
    A neutron star is a type of stellar remnant that can result from the gravitational collapse of a massive star during a Type II, Type Ib or Type Ic supernova event. Such stars are composed almost entirely of neutrons, which are subatomic particles without electrical charge and with a slightly larger...

    , which is what a supernova
    Supernova
    A supernova is a stellar explosion that is more energetic than a nova. It is pronounced with the plural supernovae or supernovas. Supernovae are extremely luminous and cause a burst of radiation that often briefly outshines an entire galaxy, before fading from view over several weeks or months...

     becomes after it suffers from a gravitational collapse
    Gravitational collapse
    Gravitational collapse is the inward fall of a body due to the influence of its own gravity. In any stable body, this gravitational force is counterbalanced by the internal pressure of the body, in the opposite direction to the force of gravity...

    . They have a diameter of 15 miles, and there isn't one near enough to us to see with the naked eye. A thimble
    Thimble
    A thimble is a small hard pitted cup worn for protection on the finger that pushes the needle in sewing.The earliest known thimble was Roman and was found at Pompeii. Made of bronze, its creation has been dated to the 1st century AD...

     full of neutron stars would weigh more than a mountain. They're also believed to have twice the mass of the Sun. The highest mountain on a neutron star is just 5 millimetres high. Comparatively, Earth is actually smoother than a billiard ball, because if it was scaled up to the size of Earth, the mountains and trenches would be much bigger than Earth's are.


General Ignorance:
  • The "X" on treasure maps used by pirates didn't mean anything (forfeit: the spot) as they were rarely used. The idea surrounding buried treasure was brought up in Robert Louis Stevenson
    Robert Louis Stevenson
    Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer. His best-known books include Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde....

    's book
    Book
    A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...

    , Treasure Island
    Treasure Island
    Treasure Island is an adventure novel by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, narrating a tale of "pirates and buried gold". First published as a book on May 23, 1883, it was originally serialized in the children's magazine Young Folks between 1881–82 under the title Treasure Island; or, the...

    . The interesting thing is that pirates never really buried treasure, because they spent it rather than hide it from their enemies.
Tangent: Discussion about Robert Newton
Robert Newton
Robert Newton was an English stage and film actor. Along with Errol Flynn, Newton was one of the most popular actors among the male juvenile audience of the 1940s and early 1950s, especially with British boys...

, pirate speak and International Talk Like a Pirate Day
International Talk Like a Pirate Day
International Talk Like a Pirate Day is a parodic holiday created in 1995 by John Baur and Mark Summers , of Albany, Oregon, U.S., who proclaimed September 19 each year as the day when everyone in the world should talk like a pirate...

, as previously mentioned in Series "E".

Episode 2 "Hanatomy"

Broadcast date:
  • 24 Sept 2010

Recording date:
  • 5 May 2010


Panellists:
  • Alan Davies
    Alan Davies
    Alan Davies is an English comedian, writer and actor best known for starring in the TV mystery series Jonathan Creek and as the permanent panellist on the TV panel show QI.- Early life :...

     (−25 points)
  • Bill Bailey
    Bill Bailey
    Bill Bailey is an English comedian, musician and actor. As well as his extensive stand-up work, Bailey is well known for his appearances on Black Books, Never Mind the Buzzcocks, Have I Got News for You, and QI.Bailey was listed by The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy in...

     (−12 points)
  • Gyles Brandreth
    Gyles Brandreth
    Gyles Daubeney Brandreth is a British writer, broadcaster and former Conservative Member of Parliament and junior minister.-Early life:...

     (joint winner with −8 points)
  • Sue Perkins
    Sue Perkins
    Sue Perkins is an English comedienne, broadcaster, actress, and writer.-Education:Perkins was educated at Croham Hurst School, an independent school for girls in Croydon in South London, at the same time as the BBC Breakfast News presenter Susanna Reid...

     (joint winner with −8 points)


Buzzers:
Stephen prompts the audience to greet the guests in a series of ways, which is recorded and used for their buzzers:
  • Sue – "a big hand" (audience applause)
  • Bill – "a hearty cheer" (audience yells "Yay!")
  • Gyles – "hip hip..." (audience yells "Hooray!")
  • Alan – "a hair raising scream" (audience screams)


Topics:
  • Palmistry has never been proven, that your hands cannot tell the future (forfeit), but the ridges of your hand can tell you about your health, i.e.: your past. Francis Galton
    Francis Galton
    Sir Francis Galton /ˈfrɑːnsɪs ˈgɔːltn̩/ FRS , cousin of Douglas Strutt Galton, half-cousin of Charles Darwin, was an English Victorian polymath: anthropologist, eugenicist, tropical explorer, geographer, inventor, meteorologist, proto-geneticist, psychometrician, and statistician...

     discovered the ridges, and decades later down's syndrome was discovered to show signs on the palms, and by the 1920s, more than 20 illnesses and conditions have been shown on the palms.
Tangent: Palmistry was a favourite topic of famous individuals such as Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...

. Also, Alan pulls a wire on a skeleton prop to prod Stephen, but it topples over and breaks.
  • Marcel Proust
    Marcel Proust
    Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu...

     had a limp handshake, as the panel associated with homosexuality. Marcel was not outed as a homosexual, and even visited brothels to try to convert himself. He deliberately kept a limp handshake as a double-bluff to assert his appearance as straight. Handshakes are said to reveal personality.
Tangent: Gyles tells a story about a known individual who may have had a "limp handshake" and who learned the North African custom of lightly touching hands instead of gripping them in a handshake. He demonstrates the handshake on Sue, but realizes by the end of the story, he wasn't thinking of the correct individual; Fry suggests that Brandreth was probably thinking of André Gide
André Gide
André Paul Guillaume Gide was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1947. Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the symbolist movement, to the advent of anticolonialism between the two World Wars.Known for his fiction as well as his autobiographical works, Gide...

.
  • Trepanning or the drilling of a hole to the head, was performed in Papua New Guinea
    Papua New Guinea
    Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...

    , with more success than if performed in Europe, due to blood infections from less sanitary surgeries in Europe (forfeit: Just Here - Alan points to the top of his head when asked where would be the best place for trepanning). In New Guinea, they made the incision with found objects, like a sharp stone, and sterilized the wound with coconut milk afterwards. European hospitals of the 19th Century were rife with infection, and the exposed area, though operated on with more sophisticated methods, was more prone to infection and had only a 20% chance of survival. Open brain surgery occurs consciously sometimes so you know where you are operating, and what systems you are interfering with.
  • Authentic shrunken heads
    Shrunken Heads
    Shrunken Heads is a 1994 English language film directed by Richard Elfman and written by Matthew Bright.Shrunken Heads is Walt Disney meets West Side Story meets Dead End meets Richard Elfman. The good kids are bullied by the bad kids in what seems like a family-film drama…until notorious female...

     come from Ecuador and were made by the Shuar tribe. All the skin must be removed as a single piece, the skin must be scraped out, the lips must be bound and the eyes stitched, filled with stones and boiled, then smoked. This was an aggressive gesture. The tribe was notoriously fierce, having in 1599, poured molten gold down a Spanish governor's throat until his bowels burst, a repayment for his greed for gold. The tribe is also known for poison arrows.
  • When asked to draw the Queen's face on a blank coin, all the panellists believe she was facing left (forfeit). She has always faced right, though she faces left on the stamp. Images of each monarch will alternate between facing left and right when appearing on a coin, so the Queen's father George VI had a left facing coin, and presumably Prince Charles will. This has happened ever since Charles II. It is allegedly to do with right handedness, a natural presumption of a profile.


General Ignorance:
  • If you have a nosebleed you should not (forfeit) tilt back, since the blood could return through the canals in the eyes, or down your throat to the lungs. A common cause for the nosebleed is being punched in the face, or blowing your nose too hard. It should resolve itself after a few minutes, but if longer than 20, it is advised to seek medical help.
  • It is impossible to swallow your tongue. The fear is the tongue may block your airway, but it is impossible for it to go down your throat.
  • Cracking knuckles does not cause arthritis
    Arthritis
    Arthritis is a form of joint disorder that involves inflammation of one or more joints....

    . A science experiment was performed over 60 years where one hand had cracked knuckles, the other didn't. Both hands were examined and seemed equal for the potential for arthritis; cracking caused no noticeable damage.


QI XL Extras:
Tangent: The opening scene in the first episode of Proust's novel In Search of Lost Time
In Search of Lost Time
In Search of Lost Time or Remembrance of Things Past is a novel in seven volumes by Marcel Proust. His most prominent work, it is popularly known for its considerable length and the notion of involuntary memory, the most famous example being the "episode of the madeleine." The novel is widely...

 involves the narrator of the story dunking his madeleine cake in a cup of tea. The bulk of the novel consists of memories that flow from the sense memory of the tea and cake, which reminds the author of his childhood. A "madeleine moment
Involuntary memory
Involuntary memory is a conception of human memory in which cues encountered in everyday life evoke recollections of the past without conscious effort. Its binary opposite, voluntary memory, is a deliberate effort to recall the past. The term was coined by French author Marcel Proust...

" is one which brings forth lots of memories.
  • Famous people who experienced trepanning include Prince Rupert (nephew of Charles I
    Charles I of England
    Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...

    ) and Prince Philip of Nassau
    Philip of Nassau
    Philip of Nassau or Filips of Nassau was a Count of Nassau, Katzenelbogen, Vianden and Dietz, fought for the United Provinces during the Eighty Years' War...

    . In 1591 alone the latter prince had himself drilled into 27 times, but lived. He later went on to win a drinking competition against someone who died from alcohol-induced shock.
  • Imagery involving a decapitated saint brings to question where the halo should appear, suggesting the body or the head, or both. Saint Denis was represented in art with a glowing area above his neck and a halo at his head. Pope Gregory the Great was represented in some images with a squared halo, which was used for people who were still alive (and therefore not yet beatified) at the time of the painting.
Tangent: Some cultures have halos represented on other anatomical parts, as Gyles described a painting that showed a halo around the penis of Saint Joseph
Saint Joseph
Saint Joseph is a figure in the Gospels, the husband of the Virgin Mary and the earthly father of Jesus Christ ....

.
  • When you comb a ball covered with fur, it proves impossible to do it smoothly; it requires a bit of a twirl at the top of the head "the crown", otherwise it will have a cow lick. This can be proven mathematically using the Euler characteristic
    Euler characteristic
    In mathematics, and more specifically in algebraic topology and polyhedral combinatorics, the Euler characteristic is a topological invariant, a number that describes a topological space's shape or structure regardless of the way it is bent...

     and other mathematical concepts. Most men have a clockwise pattern in their hair, only 8% men have it anti-clockwise, but 30% of gay men do, potentially being a physiological indicator of sexuality.
Tangent: The panel is given a fur covered ball and asked to comb it flat, attempting to demonstrate how impossible it is, and how hair naturally needs swirls and directions. They then go on to discus the fact that the comb over is a patented invention, while Bill Bailey demonstrates his rebellion by combing his hair over.
  • The hula hoop
    Hula hoop
    A hula hoop is a toy hoop that is twirled around the waist, limbs or neck.Although the exact origins of hula hoops are unknown, children and adults around the world have played with hoops, twirling, rolling and throwing them throughout history...

     boomed in 1958. That year it was a massive craze, and it disappeared as fast as it came. It failed to make any money, since the companies had stockpiles still waiting to be sold when the demand vanished. There was a thought that it was brought around by a fad surrounding Elvis and his swivelling hips. There was a similar fad in the 1990s in China, but also public panic, since a few children were entered in hospital due to "twisted intestines", though that was unlikely to have been caused by the hula hoop.

Episode 3 "Hoaxes"

Broadcast date:
  • 1 Oct 2010

Recording date:
  • 1 June 2010


Panellists:
  • Alan Davies
    Alan Davies
    Alan Davies is an English comedian, writer and actor best known for starring in the TV mystery series Jonathan Creek and as the permanent panellist on the TV panel show QI.- Early life :...

     (−38 points)
  • Danny Baker
    Danny Baker
    Danny Baker is an English comedy writer, journalist, radio DJ and screenwriter. Since the late 1970s, he has worked for a wide range of publications and broadcasters including NME, LWT, the BBC, and Talk Radio....

     (−14 points)
  • Sean Lock
    Sean Lock
    Sean Lock is an English comedian and actor. He began his comedy career as a stand-up comedian. He won the British Comedy Award in 2000 in the category of Best Live Comic, and was nominated for the Perrier Comedy Award. He is also well known for his appearances on television and radio...

     (winner with −1 point)
  • David Mitchell
    David Mitchell (actor)
    David James Stuart Mitchell is a British actor, comedian and writer. He is half of the comedy duo Mitchell and Webb, alongside Robert Webb, whom he met at Cambridge University. There they were both part of the Cambridge Footlights, of which Mitchell became President. Together the duo star in the...

     (−13 points)


Buzzers:
Stephen says that one of the buzzer noises is a hoax, while the others are the mating call of a deer:
  • Sean, Danny & David – Deer noises
  • Alan – Scotsman saying "Hello dear!"


Theme:
Each of the panel have a "Hoax card". If the panel think they have spotted something that is a hoax, they can play their hoax card for bonus points. If they get it wrong they lose points.

Topics:
  • A crop circle
    Crop circle
    A crop circle is a sizable pattern created by the flattening of a crop such as wheat, barley, rye, maize, or rapeseed. Crop circles are also referred to as crop formations, because they are not always circular in shape. While the exact date crop circles began to appear is unknown, the documented...

     was commissioned by the BBC by three professional crop circle makers with a plank and rope. The crop circle was of the QI logo, in Wiltshire, with permission by a local landowner. Someone contacted the BBC, asking whether or not the crop circle was "real" or "man-made," baffling Stephen. Crop circles have been made since only the 1970s, Doug Bower and Dave Chorley admitting to being responsible for a large percent.
Tangent: Danny Baker used his hoax card, but was incorrect and had a forfeit.
  • The moon landing
    Moon landing
    A moon landing is the arrival of a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon. This includes both manned and unmanned missions. The first human-made object to reach the surface of the Moon was the Soviet Union's Luna 2 mission on 13 September 1959. The United States's Apollo 11 was the first manned...

     is not a hoax, though many people may believe it. Astronauts and former NASA
    NASA
    The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...

     scientists get so frustrated, and Buzz Aldrin
    Buzz Aldrin
    Buzz Aldrin is an American mechanical engineer, retired United States Air Force pilot and astronaut who was the Lunar Module pilot on Apollo 11, the first manned lunar landing in history...

     actually punched a disbeliever who had also called Aldrin a liar and a coward. 6% of Americans and 25% of Britons do not believe the moon landing actually happened. The "breeze" in the video is actually inertia. The fact that a camera is not seen in the reflection of a space helmet, is that the camera was chest mounted. The public's perception of Hollywood-style special effects is what confuses the audience. That the Soviet Union did not contest the fact that the moon landing happened is the biggest evidence enough, as during the Cold War
    Cold War
    The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

    , they were NASA's biggest competition, and would have raised the most objection.
Tangent: Sean Lock suggests NASA may have killed Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...

 for stealing the term 'moonwalk', and David opines that Buzz Aldrin may have done it because he is clearly an angry individual.
  • A bet between Samuel Beazley
    Samuel Beazley
    Samuel Beazley was an English architect, novelist and playwright. He became the leading theatre architect of his time and the first notable English expert in that field....

     and Theodore Hook in 1810 was to make one house "the most famous house in London" over the period of one week. During the week, commercial services were ordered to all converge at the same location. Four thousand different tradesmen and services were requested for the house in one day. A dozen chimney sweeps arrived in the morning, and were soon joined by cake makers, apothecaries, doctors, lawyers, fishmongers, haberdashers, milliners, etc. Other than the choice of location, the two men had no connection to Mrs. Tottenham, who owned the house.
  • After a lifetime of studying fish, Stephen Jay Gould
    Stephen Jay Gould
    Stephen Jay Gould was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was also one of the most influential and widely read writers of popular science of his generation....

     decided that there was no such thing as "fish". Biologically speaking, a salmon is more related to a camel than a hagfish
    Hagfish
    Hagfish, the clade Myxini , are eel-shaped slime-producing marine animals . They are the only living animals that have a skull but not a vertebral column. Along with lampreys, hagfish are jawless and are living fossils whose next nearest relatives include all vertebrates...

    . Just because they are sea-dwelling creatures doesn't mean they are more or less related to each other. Essentially, there is no common evolutionary ancestor for all species of fish such that the ancestor is not also an ancestor of non-fish species like mammals.
  • Nostradamus
    Nostradamus
    Michel de Nostredame , usually Latinised to Nostradamus, was a French apothecary and reputed seer who published collections of prophecies that have since become famous worldwide. He is best known for his book Les Propheties , the first edition of which appeared in 1555...

    ' quatrain
    Quatrain
    A quatrain is a stanza, or a complete poem, consisting of four lines of verse. Existing in various forms, the quatrain appears in poems from the poetic traditions of various ancient civilizations including Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, and China; and, continues into the 21st century, where it is...

     predictions are nonsense in that they can't be proven. However he did have a near-perfect recipe for cherry jam. It is still viable as a recipe today.
Tangent: Alan suggested that was a hoax with Sean's support. The fact was not a hoax and they had a forfeit.
  • The most famous person to be beaten by a machine at chess was Napoleon. He played chess with the Mechanical Turk
    The Turk
    The Turk, also known as the Mechanical Turk or Automaton Chess Player , was a fake chess-playing machine constructed in the late 18th century. From 1770 until its destruction by fire in 1854, it was exhibited by various owners as an automaton, though it was exposed in the early 1820s as an...

    , which contained a man hidden inside the cabinet.


General Ignorance:
  • Listening to a person's cadence and how they are speaking is a more reliable way to detect lying than trying to find a visual clue. (Forfeit: it's in the eyes)
  • Oranges are not always orange. The ones in the supermarket are grown green and the fruit companies use a gas to remove the chlorophyll. (Forfeit: They're orange)
  • The chemical smell of swimming pools is not chlorine. You add chlorine to get rid of the chloramines. (Forfeit: Chlorine)

a
QI XL Extras:
  • The alien connection to crop circles is mentioned in connection to the Nazca Lines
    Nazca Lines
    The Nazca Lines are a series of ancient geoglyphs located in the Nazca Desert in southern Peru. They were designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994. The high, arid plateau stretches more than between the towns of Nazca and Palpa on the Pampas de Jumana about 400 km south of Lima...

    , which some theories describe as marking points or runways for alien spaceships. The lines themselves have only remained because of the dryness of the climate in Peru, and the panel speculates they may not have been drawn with the intention of them lasting.
Tangent: The second largest crop in some states is marijuana (corn being the largest). Alan suggests that cauliflower
Cauliflower
Cauliflower is one of several vegetables in the species Brassica oleracea, in the family Brassicaceae. It is an annual plant that reproduces by seed...

 is in decline of production (reciting potentially made-up statistics), and Stephen professes his love of cauliflower-cheese. Sean finds it frustrating.
  • 400,000 people were employed to work on the moon landing, including the 12 astronauts who landed on the moon.
  • Huge sums of money were gambled on absurd bets amongst the leisure classes during the Regency period. Clubs such as Brooks's and White's had such bets. For example, there was a £3,000 bet between Lord Alvanley and a friend on the landing and timing of raindrops. In comparison, a servant cost around £10 a year.
  • The broken-rays mussel has an outcrop of its shell that looks like a fish, in order to lure other fish to disperse its larvae for it.
Tangent: "How many fish are in this picture?" Forfeit: There's no such thing as fish.
  • In 1989 American magic trick maker John Gaughan
    John Gaughan
    John Gaughan is a manufacturer of magic acts and equipment for magicians based in Los Angeles, California. His style of work is classic, not based heavily on machinery and technology....

     reproduced the Mechanical Turk
    The Turk
    The Turk, also known as the Mechanical Turk or Automaton Chess Player , was a fake chess-playing machine constructed in the late 18th century. From 1770 until its destruction by fire in 1854, it was exhibited by various owners as an automaton, though it was exposed in the early 1820s as an...

     costing $120,000.
  • The best way to make a squad of American soldiers panic in a plane is to make them think it is crashing. American soldiers were used to test panic scenarios on a plane (the pilot cuts one of the engines claiming it is damaged), and are given a questionnaire to rate their stress and recall personal information. It showed that people who genuinely think they are going to die are lousy at giving information.
Tangent: David Mitchell used his hoax card and was also proved wrong.
  • Stephen re-visits the concept that a person cannot lick their own elbow, and removes the points given to Danny on the very first show. A member of the audience shows that she is able to, in fact lick her own elbow.
  • When discussing the natural colour of oranges, Sean tells a story of working in an orange grove in an Israeli kibbutz
    Kibbutz
    A kibbutz is a collective community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economic branches, including industrial plants and high-tech enterprises. Kibbutzim began as utopian communities, a combination of socialism and Zionism...

     and he claims that the oranges grown there were orange coloured. Sean got the sack for sleeping on the job when he was meant to be working on irrigation pipes. As with most of Sean's stories, this may not be true.


Note:
There was no hoax within the hoax game. The program was entirely true.

Episode 4 "Humans"

Broadcast date:
  • 8 October 2010


Recording date:
  • 9 June 2010


Panellists:
  • Alan Davies
    Alan Davies
    Alan Davies is an English comedian, writer and actor best known for starring in the TV mystery series Jonathan Creek and as the permanent panellist on the TV panel show QI.- Early life :...

     (3 points)
  • Jo Brand
    Jo Brand
    Josephine Grace "Jo" Brand is a BAFTA winning British comedian, writer, and actor.- Early life :Jo Brand was born 23 July 1957 in Wandsworth, London. Her mother was a social worker. Brand is the middle of three children, with two brothers...

     (winner with 4 points)
  • Jimmy Carr
    Jimmy Carr
    James Anthony Patrick "Jimmy" Carr is an English-Irish comedian and humourist. He is known for his deadpan delivery and dark humour. He is also a writer, actor and presenter of radio and television....

     (−3 points)
  • Jack Dee
    Jack Dee
    James Andrew Innes "Jack" Dee is an English stand-up comedian, actor and writer known for his sardonic, curmudgeonly, and deadpan style.-Early life:...

     (−2 points)


Buzzers
  • Jo – Swampy, primordial noises
  • Jimmy – Dinosaur growls
  • Jack – Monkey screams and chatter
  • Alan – Football crowd chanting, "1-0 to the Arsenal
    Arsenal F.C.
    Arsenal Football Club is a professional English Premier League football club based in North London. One of the most successful clubs in English football, it has won 13 First Division and Premier League titles and 10 FA Cups...

    !"


Topics
  • The "Perfect Man" – Most species have a holotype
    Holotype
    A holotype is a single physical example of an organism, known to have been used when the species was formally described. It is either the single such physical example or one of several such, but explicitly designated as the holotype...

    , which is a standard shape to which other individuals are compared. Humanity does not have a holotype, though Linnaeus gave Homo sapiens its nomenclature, so it was felt the honour should go to him. The next aspirant, a scientist, was disqualified because he had syphilis
    Syphilis
    Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the spirochete bacterium Treponema pallidum subspecies pallidum. The primary route of transmission is through sexual contact; however, it may also be transmitted from mother to fetus during pregnancy or at birth, resulting in congenital syphilis...

    , which affected his skeleton. Bob Hope
    Bob Hope
    Bob Hope, KBE, KCSG, KSS was a British-born American comedian and actor who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in radio, television and movies. He was also noted for his work with the US Armed Forces and his numerous USO shows entertaining American military personnel...

    , Arnold Schwarzenegger
    Arnold Schwarzenegger
    Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger is an Austrian-American former professional bodybuilder, actor, businessman, investor, and politician. Schwarzenegger served as the 38th Governor of California from 2003 until 2011....

     and Raquel Welch
    Raquel Welch
    Jo Raquel Tejada , better known as Raquel Welch, is an American actress, author and sex symbol. Welch came to attention as a "new-star" on the 20th Century-Fox lot in the mid-1960s. She posed iconically in a animal skin bikini for the British-release One Million Years B.C. , for which she may be...

     were all nominated as "perfect" or the standard for humanity. Vitruvian Man
    Vitruvian Man
    The Vitruvian Man is a world-renowned drawing created by Leonardo da Vinci circa 1487. It is accompanied by notes based on the work of the famed architect, Vitruvius. The drawing, which is in pen and ink on paper, depicts a male figure in two superimposed positions with his arms and legs apart and...

     demonstrates the dimensions of the human. The height is the length of the arms outstretched perpendicularly as a square, and when arms are spread at an angle with legs, it fits a circle. The image appears on the one Euro
    Euro
    The euro is the official currency of the eurozone: 17 of the 27 member states of the European Union. It is also the currency used by the Institutions of the European Union. The eurozone consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg,...

     coin in Italy.
  • The Neanderthal man looked more like a member of the public than you realize. If, for example, a Neanderthal were dressed in a T-shirt and other modern clothes, they might go unnoticed in today's crowds. Neanderthals lived contemporaneously with Homo sapiens (modern humans) for some time, and the two species did interbreed, though the Neanderthals eventually died out entirely, for unknown reasons. Neanderthal
    Neanderthal
    The Neanderthal is an extinct member of the Homo genus known from Pleistocene specimens found in Europe and parts of western and central Asia...

     is named for a region in Germany where they were discovered.
  • The part of the human body which is evolving the quickest is the nose, which has changed the most over the past 10,000 years. It is theorised that humans' relationship with dogs has removed humans' need for an acute sense of smell, so the ability has atrophied.
Tangent: Hippopotami spin their tails to spread their faeces over a wider area to mark territory. The topic was brought up because Jo claims to have heard "revolving" when Stephen asked what part of them is evolving the quickest- to which she replied "my propeller".
  • Hero Syndrome
    Hero Syndrome
    The hero syndrome is a phenomenon affecting people who seek heroism or recognition, usually by creating a desperate situation which they can resolve. This can include unlawful acts, such as arson. The phenomenon has been noted to affect civil servants, such as firefighters, nurses, police officers,...

     is a psychological disorder in which sufferers cause scenarios where they appear to save the day, like setting a building on fire in order to rescue residents and be seen as a hero. Firemen have a higher probability for this illness. A news reporter, Wallace Souza
    Wallace Souza
    Wallace Souza was a Brazilian television presenter and politician. He was an elected member of the Legislative Assembly of Amazonas until his expulsion in October 2009...

    , was allegedly responsible for the commission of five murders in order to go on reporting about the case.
  • Human parts as a commodity: the individual pieces or elements are quite low cost, although specialized organs are quite expensive, for example the corneas of the eyes. The whole body would work up to about ₤420,000 including trace metals and full organs.
  • Teenagers think differently than adults. A test was performed to demonstrate emotional recognition: adults could accurately discern the emotions displayed in facial photographs, whereas the teenagers could not. Teenagers use a different way of thinking, and rely on different parts of their brains.


General Ignorance
  • The fastest human runner (forfeit: Usain Bolt
    Usain Bolt
    The Honourable Usain St. Leo Bolt, OJ, C.D. , is a Jamaican sprinter and a five-time World and three-time Olympic gold medalist. He is the world record and Olympic record holder in the 100 metres, the 200 metres and the 4×100 metres relay...

    ) is identified by a set of fossilized footprints near Willandra Lakes, Southeast Australia. The runner appears to be running at over 23 mph, based on analysis of the prints (spacing, depth of indentation, etc.).
  • Male mosquitoes buzz, and do not give malaria
    Malaria
    Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...

    . Half the people who have ever lived have died from diseases spread by mosquitoes (such as malaria). Bill Gates
    Bill Gates
    William Henry "Bill" Gates III is an American business magnate, investor, philanthropist, and author. Gates is the former CEO and current chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen...

     and Warren Buffett
    Warren Buffett
    Warren Edward Buffett is an American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. He is widely regarded as one of the most successful investors in the world. Often introduced as "legendary investor, Warren Buffett", he is the primary shareholder, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. He is...

     are part of a foundation whose goal is to cure malaria. (forfeit: malaria
    Malaria
    Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...

    )


QI XL Extras
Tangent: Alan once portrayed a dog on a radio show.
Tangent: It is impossible for a person to pass on an acquired trait or skill to the next generation genetically. For example, because people text a lot the next generation will have flat thumbs - this is not true.
  • Many items sold as fossils are forgeries, often filled with plastic. One way to tell if a fossil is a forgery is by looking at it under ultraviolet light. Stephen suggest taking the purported fossil into a nightclub as a way of achieving this. Genuine fossil appears quite different under UV light than plastic. A photograph of Peter Stringfellow
    Peter Stringfellow
    Peter James Stringfellow is an English nightclub owner.-Early life:Stringfellow was born on 17 October 1940 to Elsie and James William Stringfellow , a steelworker...

     with some young women in a nightclub is shown on the screens for humorous effect, leading onto...
Tangent: Jo tells a story how Peter Stringfellow would not allow overweight women to enter his club just in case they broke his antique chairs.
  • Human evolution may be slowing down as we build around us in order to make our world easier. The part of the body that has changed most recently is the nose, since dogs were domesticated 15,000 years ago, we don't need to have a more heightened sense of smell. With changes in nutrition, people are getting taller in recent generations.
  • Cortical homunculi are drawings of people, but with the parts of the body in proportion to the portion of the brain that is responsible for navigating its sensation. Each panellist was represented as a cortical homunculus, and had large hands, ears and tongues, and emaciated arms and legs. Dr.Wilder Penfield
    Wilder Penfield
    Wilder Graves Penfield, OM, CC, CMG, FRS was an American born Canadian neurosurgeon. During his life he was called "the greatest living Canadian"...

     came up with the concept.
  • There are 100 billion brain cells in the brain, and each cell may contain between 1,000–10,000 synapses. The brain is 80% water.
  • The naked mole rat
    Naked Mole Rat
    The naked mole rat , also known as the sand puppy or desert mole rat, is a burrowing rodent native to parts of East Africa and the only species currently classified in the genus Heterocephalus...

     is a recent discovery in the animal kingdom, though it is neither a mole, nor a rat. It is a rodent. It is a social mammal that lives underground, nearly like an ant farm. They do not have "substance p
    Substance P
    In the field of neuroscience, substance P is a neuropeptide: an undecapeptide that functions as a neurotransmitter and as a neuromodulator. It belongs to the tachykinin neuropeptide family. Substance P and its closely related neuropeptide neurokinin A are produced from a polyprotein precursor...

    ," a neurotransmitter that projects pain.
Tangent: Jimmy and Jack tell stories of a German cannibal who requested for a victim in advertisements. He found someone who was happy to volunteer and was ultimately eaten.
  • Saunas are not good at releasing "toxins" from the body; they actually dehydrate your body and release sweat, removing the essential salts. Boxers and jockeys use them to lose weight in a short period of time.

Episode 5 "H Animals"

Broadcast date:
  • 15 October 2010


Recording date:
  • 7 June 2010


Panellists:
  • Alan Davies
    Alan Davies
    Alan Davies is an English comedian, writer and actor best known for starring in the TV mystery series Jonathan Creek and as the permanent panellist on the TV panel show QI.- Early life :...

     (−6 points)
  • Sean Lock
    Sean Lock
    Sean Lock is an English comedian and actor. He began his comedy career as a stand-up comedian. He won the British Comedy Award in 2000 in the category of Best Live Comic, and was nominated for the Perrier Comedy Award. He is also well known for his appearances on television and radio...

     (−5 points)
  • Ross Noble
    Ross Noble
    Ross Markham Noble is an English stand-up comedian, brought up in Cramlington, Northumberland, England.Noble rose to mainstream popularity through making appearances on British television, particularly interviews and on celebrity quiz shows such as Have I Got News for You...

     (winner with 7 points)
  • Ruby Wax
    Ruby Wax
    Ruby Wax is a BAFTA nominated American comedian who made a career in the United Kingdom as part of the alternative comedy scene in the 1980s.-Early life:...

     (−36 points)


Buzzers:
  • Sean – Distant trumpeting
  • Ruby – Squeaky toy
  • Ross – Foghorn
  • Alan – Trumpeting with a crash


Topics:
  • Animals with horns
    Horn (anatomy)
    A horn is a pointed projection of the skin on the head of various animals, consisting of a covering of horn surrounding a core of living bone. True horns are found mainly among the ruminant artiodactyls, in the families Antilocapridae and Bovidae...

     are suggested (forfeit: unicorn
    Unicorn
    The unicorn is a legendary animal from European folklore that resembles a white horse with a large, pointed, spiraling horn projecting from its forehead, and sometimes a goat's beard...

    , rhinoceros
    Rhinoceros
    Rhinoceros , also known as rhino, is a group of five extant species of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. Two of these species are native to Africa and three to southern Asia....

    ), though many of them are confused with antlers. A true horn is made out of bone. A rhino's "horn" is technically hair or fingernail related, as it is made from keratin
    Keratin
    Keratin refers to a family of fibrous structural proteins. Keratin is the key of structural material making up the outer layer of human skin. It is also the key structural component of hair and nails...

    . Antlers are shed (typically annually), and horns are permanent. Antelope, horned toads and buffalo all have proper horns, where deer
    Deer
    Deer are the ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. Species in the Cervidae family include white-tailed deer, elk, moose, red deer, reindeer, fallow deer, roe deer and chital. Male deer of all species and female reindeer grow and shed new antlers each year...

     and moose have antlers.
  • A late 18th century nun
    Nun
    A nun is a woman who has taken vows committing her to live a spiritual life. She may be an ascetic who voluntarily chooses to leave mainstream society and live her life in prayer and contemplation in a monastery or convent...

     grew a horn in her head as her nunnery was being invaded by Napoleonic troops. She banged her head for a long period of time and eventually grew a horn, though it had to be cut off to keep it from piercing her eye.
Tangent: Ruby Wax has a difficult time understanding Ross Noble's Geordie
Geordie
Geordie is a regional nickname for a person from the Tyneside region of the north east of England, or the name of the English-language dialect spoken by its inhabitants...

 accent. He was mentioning an evolutionary hypothesis and Ruby interjected with "are you speaking English?". Stephen asks, "have you ever heard a Geordie accent?" and Ruby replies with "not from something whose hair has never been combed". Ross then assures her he is a real panellist and not just a prop or creature that was on the projector.
  • If you put a hippopotamus
    Hippopotamus
    The hippopotamus , or hippo, from the ancient Greek for "river horse" , is a large, mostly herbivorous mammal in sub-Saharan Africa, and one of only two extant species in the family Hippopotamidae After the elephant and rhinoceros, the hippopotamus is the third largest land mammal and the heaviest...

     in the deep end of a swimming pool, it would sink and would walk along the shallow end of the pool. Hippos also can float, but not swim. If at the bottom of a river, they walk to the shallower end of a river and climb embankments. With no embankment, a hippo will have a difficult or impossible time getting out of a swimming pool. Hippos have four teeth when they are full grown (Sean says "forty" though it might have sounded like "four teeth"). They are difficult to kill by gun, since their hide is so thick, weighing nearly a ton. Hippos do not get sunburned as once thought; their skin goes red as an external moisturizing technique.
Tangent: Sean tells a story about completing a plan where pushing a hippo into a pool was the ultimate goal. Ross keeps interjecting the conversation with sidelines like, "how many hippos are killed by pushing into swimming pools each year".
  • Hammerhead sharks have eyes on the protrusions of their faces, increasing their depth perception
    Depth perception
    Depth perception is the visual ability to perceive the world in three dimensions and the distance of an object. Depth sensation is the ability to move accurately, or to respond consistently, based on the distances of objects in an environment....

     greatly, to keep aware of prey, however the precise reason is still unknown to science. They are bottom feeders, eating flatfish
    Flatfish
    The flatfish are an order of ray-finned fish, also called the Heterosomata, sometimes classified as a suborder of Perciformes. In many species, both eyes lie on one side of the head, one or the other migrating through and around the head during development...

     and stingrays, and can detect camouflaged animals under sand. They have structures called the Ampullae of Lorenzini
    Ampullae of Lorenzini
    The ampullae of Lorenzini are special sensing organs called electroreceptors, forming a network of jelly-filled pores. They are mostly discussed as being found in cartilaginous fishes ; however, they are also reported to be found in Chondrostei such as Reedfish and sturgeon. Lungfish have also been...

     that detect electrical impulses in the movement of muscles, so even a disguised fish's breathing or heart beating will reveal it. Sharks have rows of teeth on a kind of conveyor belt of teeth.
Tangent: Swimming with dolphins is mentioned. Sean says the worst would be if they rejected you, swimming away while a therapist and family look on, with the patient ultimately having to "continue with the medication". Dolphins are also quite violent in the wild.
Tangent: After a series of wrong answers, Sean suggests his information was coming from Jordan.
  • Hagfish
    Hagfish
    Hagfish, the clade Myxini , are eel-shaped slime-producing marine animals . They are the only living animals that have a skull but not a vertebral column. Along with lampreys, hagfish are jawless and are living fossils whose next nearest relatives include all vertebrates...

     release an incredible amount of slime as a defence mechanism. A hagfish can turn 20 litres of water into slime in a single minute. It can tie itself into a knot.
Tangent: Ross wants to be a super hero based on the powers of a hagfish. He suggests his mucous can help people; for example if a child happens to have his head stuck in the railings etc. Alan would rather have hippo powers, being bulletproof, run at 35 mph and only having to brush 4 teeth in the morning. Ross suggests Alan's archenemy would be Sean who is constantly pushing him into swimming pools.
  • Aspirated water from a humpback whale
    Humpback Whale
    The humpback whale is a species of baleen whale. One of the larger rorqual species, adults range in length from and weigh approximately . The humpback has a distinctive body shape, with unusually long pectoral fins and a knobbly head. It is an acrobatic animal, often breaching and slapping the...

     is tested to see trends in health, seeing if any illness will be translated to humans. Scientists use a toy helicopter to fly over a surfacing whale to collect the samples when the whale spouts. The data is used to keep track of the illness spread through the different pods, since they travel thousands of miles over the ocean.
  • Justin Schmidt has devoted his life to his study called the Schmidt Sting Pain Index
    Schmidt Sting Pain Index
    The Schmidt Sting Pain Index is a pain scale rating the relative pain caused by different Hymenopteran stings. It is mainly the work of Justin O. Schmidt, an entomologist at the Carl Hayden Bee Research Center in Arizona...

     where he has subjected himself to numerous species of stinging insects, and grades the pain from each exposure as an almost wine-tasting description. "Pure, intense, brilliant pain, like fire-walking over charcoal with a three inch nail in your heel" is the description for bullet ant.


General Ignorance:
  • Three animals are shown on a screen, the panel is asked to identify them. They look like hedgehogs, shrews, mice, but are unrelated animals that evolved separately in Madagascar
    Madagascar
    The Republic of Madagascar is an island country located in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa...

     and are known as tenrecs. The point is they fit the gaps in the ecosystem where hedgehogs, mice, shrews, etc. would be in other areas.
  • While showing video of two hares fighting, the panel was asked what they were fighting over (forfeit - a female). It was one female, fighting off the advances of an aggressive male.
  • Rhino horn is not used as an aphrodisiac
    Aphrodisiac
    An aphrodisiac is a substance that increases sexual desire. The name comes from Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of sexuality and love. Throughout history, many foods, drinks, and behaviors have had a reputation for making sex more attainable and/or pleasurable...

     in Chinese medicine. It is thought to reduce fevers, though this is unlikely to be true, being how it is like ingesting hair or fingernails and expecting that to work.


QI XL Extras
  • Dolphins may get overexcited and stimulated if even casually touched "below the waistline". Dolphins are also quite violent in the wild, which is often overlooked.

Tangent: Ross tells a story of a friend who wanted to steal a squid from an aquarium in a carrier bag. Once he found one that was waterproof, the handles broke under the weight of the water. He specified that it needed to be a plastic carrier bag, as he had to take it home on the bus.
  • Hamsters have been used on testing cures for jet lag
    Jet lag
    Jet lag, medically referred to as desynchronosis, is a physiological condition which results from alterations to the body's circadian rhythms; it is classified as one of the circadian rhythm sleep disorders...

    . It has been show that taking viagra may relieve eastward bound jet lag.
  • Honeybees are easily pacified by smoke because it alarms them into thinking they are under attack. The bees then eat as much of their honey as they can, making them bloated, tired and docile. Scientists can interpret the dances of bees and understand the directional instructions that they are giving. If a bee is given cocaine
    Cocaine
    Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system, an appetite suppressant, and a topical anesthetic...

     it will greatly exaggerate the source, it would become "boastful". This is similar to how the drug would behave on people. 85% of all bee species are non-colony bees. 75% of all fruit is pollinated by bats, not bees.
  • The world's most aggressive mammal is the honey badger (10 points to the audience). Scientific American says that pound for pound it is the most fearsome land animal because it is so aggressive with such big claws. The honey badger is not of the same family as the European badger
    Badger
    Badgers are short-legged omnivores in the weasel family, Mustelidae. There are nine species of badger, in three subfamilies : Melinae , Mellivorinae , and Taxideinae...

    , other than a similar colouring and shape, though they do eat honey, using a bird called a honeyguide
    Honeyguide
    Honeyguides are near passerine bird species of the order Piciformes. They are also known as indicator birds, or honey birds, although the latter term is also used more narrowly to refer to species of the genus Prodotiscus. They have an Old World tropical distribution, with the greatest number of...

    . They will attack anything, including lions, hyenas and cobras; animals known for their viciousness have been bested by honey badgers, which is about the size of a cat. They attack by clawing the testicles of an animal, and have been witnessed castrating a full grown buffalo.

Episode 6 "Happiness"

Broadcast date:
  • 22 October 2010


Recording date:
  • 11 May 2010


Panellists:
  • Alan Davies
    Alan Davies
    Alan Davies is an English comedian, writer and actor best known for starring in the TV mystery series Jonathan Creek and as the permanent panellist on the TV panel show QI.- Early life :...

     (−35 points)
  • Rich Hall
    Rich Hall
    Richard "Rich" Hall is an American comedian, writer and musician.-Early life and career:Hall was born in Alexandria, Virginia and grew up in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. He is part Cherokee Indian...

     (1 point)
  • Andy Hamilton
    Andy Hamilton
    Andrew Neil Hamilton is a British comedian, game show panellist, television director, comedy screenwriter and radio dramatist.-Early life:...

     (−15 points)
  • Phill Jupitus
    Phill Jupitus
    Phillip Christopher Jupitus is an English stand-up and improvised comedian, actor, performance poet, musician and podcaster....

     (winner with 4 points)


Buzzers:
  • Andy – man cackling
  • Rich – lady chortling
  • Phill – gentleman belly laughter
  • Alan – woman laughing and snorting


Theme:
The 'Pleasure Gauge' measures the audience's happiness. If the needle enters the red zone the panellists win points.

Topics:
  • Equality and the lack of disparity between rich and poor leads the country to have a more happy outlook. Britain's gap between rich and poor has widened 10% since 1984, consequently leaving the country "less happy". There is no unit of happiness, and therefore the empirical measurement of happiness is difficult. Specific events (like a lottery win or car accident) can make a person's mood more or less happy, but they will eventually level out to the state they were in before the event. Bhutan
    Bhutan
    Bhutan , officially the Kingdom of Bhutan, is a landlocked state in South Asia, located at the eastern end of the Himalayas and bordered to the south, east and west by the Republic of India and to the north by the People's Republic of China...

     is the first country to record the gross national happiness
    Gross national happiness
    The assessment of gross national happiness was designed in an attempt to define an indicator that measures quality of life or social progress in more holistic and psychological terms than only the economic indicator of gross domestic product .-Origins and meaning:The term...

    , though it was also tested in Slough
    Slough
    Slough is a borough and unitary authority within the ceremonial county of Royal Berkshire, England. The town straddles the A4 Bath Road and the Great Western Main Line, west of central London...

    , where prioritizing daily laughter, watching less television and cultivating a positive outlook were encouraged, and a 33% upswing was seen in their life satisfaction index
    Satisfaction with Life Index
    The Satisfaction with Life Index was created by Adrian G. White, an Analytic Social Psychologist at the University of Leicester, using data from a metastudy. It is an attempt to show life satisfaction in different nations....

    .
Note: Rich, Andy and Phill get audience approval through the Pleasure Gauge.
Tangent: The panel decides that giving towns like Slough more fun names may make them happier places to be. Some suggestions included Yippee! (Slough
Slough
Slough is a borough and unitary authority within the ceremonial county of Royal Berkshire, England. The town straddles the A4 Bath Road and the Great Western Main Line, west of central London...

), Woo-hoo! (Staines
Staines
Staines is a Thames-side town in the Spelthorne borough of Surrey and Greater London Urban Area, as well as the London Commuter Belt of South East England. It is a suburban development within the western bounds of the M25 motorway and located 17 miles west south-west of Charing Cross in...

) and Hot Diggity! (Hull
Kingston upon Hull
Kingston upon Hull , usually referred to as Hull, is a city and unitary authority area in the ceremonial county of the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It stands on the River Hull at its junction with the Humber estuary, 25 miles inland from the North Sea. Hull has a resident population of...

)
  • The Dunbar number is the limit a person has to maintaining friendships. It was calculated a person can have a maximum of 150 friends, defined as people whom you would not feel "embarrassed to join at the bar of the transit lounge of Hong Kong airport at 3am". Groups of 150 people are statistically significant in human anthropology, including tribe sizes, religious groups and village households, as well as the number of Christmas cards an average person would send, and the average number of friends a person has on Facebook
    Facebook
    Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...

    . This is the widest definition of friendship, however.
Note: Alan gets audience approval through the Pleasure Gauge.
  • Smile interpretation is a key to telling whether someone is genuinely pleased to meet you. Facial cues, such as "smiling with one's eyes", have only been studied since the 19th century when French scientist Guillaume Duchenne
    Guillaume Duchenne
    Guillaume-Benjamin-Amand Duchenne was a French neurologist who revived Galvani's research and greatly advanced the science of electrophysiology...

     tried electrocuting people's faces into smiling, while having "unsmiling eyes". Making your eyes smile is an involuntary response; you can't force your eyes to look more sincere. The false smile is known as a Pan Am Smile where a genuine smile is known as a Duchenne smile.
Note: Alan gets audience approval through the Pleasure Gauge.
  • Waiters draw smiley faces
    Smiley Faces
    "Smiley Faces" is a song by Gnarls Barkley and is featured on their debut album, St. Elsewhere. It was released 17 July 2006 as the second single from that album in the United Kingdom .-Music videos:...

     on the bill in order to get a bigger tip, and it works. If a server introduces themselves, tells a joke and keeps the customers entertained, their tip will be bigger. This is perceived as better service. America is the country that tips the best, where 20% is considered fair, and it is mandatory. In Britain, 10% is considered the norm, but typically 8% is left. The Welsh are the best tippers in the UK.
  • Florence Nightingale
    Florence Nightingale
    Florence Nightingale OM, RRC was a celebrated English nurse, writer and statistician. She came to prominence for her pioneering work in nursing during the Crimean War, where she tended to wounded soldiers. She was dubbed "The Lady with the Lamp" after her habit of making rounds at night...

     did her most influential work when she was in bed. When she came back from the Crimean war
    Crimean War
    The Crimean War was a conflict fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the French Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining...

    , it was revealed that patients under her care had an abysmal chance of survival, and she felt her career and reputation were over. She stayed in bed for over 50 years, writing letters and campaigning to make up for her failures in Crimea.


General Ignorance:
  • Africa's dominant animal predator is the hyena
    Hyena
    Hyenas or Hyaenas are the animals of the family Hyaenidae of suborder feliforms of the Carnivora. It is the fourth smallest biological family in the Carnivora , and one of the smallest in the mammalia...

    , considering numbers of kills. Lions will more likely scavenge the kill of a hyena, than the reverse. The hyena's laughter is a submissive noise.
Tangent: Actors use a technique of emptying their lungs in order to create believable laughter. The natural inclination is to take a breath before a false laugh, but true laughter is notable from the breathlessness it causes.
  • The five pound note is made from a cotton blend, not (forfeit) paper. Paper is too fragile.
  • As you age, your general mood and disposition is typically fixed. There is no evidence of people becoming grumpier or more depressed as they age. Disposition changes very little after the age of 30.


QI XL Extras:
Tangent: When Phill was about 10 he found a serious mining disaster which killed around 400 people in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 funny because it took place at the Wankie Colliery
Hwange
Hwange is a town in western Zimbabwe, in the province of Matabeleland North. It is named after the chieftain of Zwange, who is now called Chief Hwange. The town was known as Wankie until 1982. According to the 1992 Population Census, the town had a population of 42,581...

.
  • On the topic of tipping: Singapore discourages tipping, as does Japan.
  • In 1910, it was predicted that the world would die of mass hysterical laughter because of Halley's Comet approaching. The theory was that the nitrogen in the tail of the comet would combine with the atmosphere of the earth, producing nitrous oxide
    Nitrous oxide
    Nitrous oxide, commonly known as laughing gas or sweet air, is a chemical compound with the formula . It is an oxide of nitrogen. At room temperature, it is a colorless non-flammable gas, with a slightly sweet odor and taste. It is used in surgery and dentistry for its anesthetic and analgesic...

     which would cause uncontrollable giggles. This didn't happen. A man laughed himself to death while watching the Goodies
    The Goodies (TV series)
    The Goodies is a British television comedy series of the 1970s and early 1980s. The series, which combines surreal sketches and situation comedy, was broadcast by BBC 2 from 1970 until 1980 — and was then broadcast by the ITV company LWT for a year, between 1981 to 1982.The show was...

    . He laughed uncontrollably for 25 minutes and the strain caused him to have a heart attack and die.
Note: Alan gets audience approval through the Pleasure Gauge.
Tangent: Alan's goddaughter laughed uncontrollably when watching a YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....

 video of people falling off escalators in a succession like dominoes.
Tangent: Rich tells a story of the funniest thing he had ever seen: During an interview with John McCririck
John McCririck
John McCririck is an English television horse racing pundit. He is notable not only for his racing opinions but also for his old-fashioned style of dress and mannerisms...

, the two had to get out of a boat. McCririck promptly fell, but pretended it hadn't happened. Because the interview was continuing, the crew was unable to laugh until two hours later while driving away.
  • The original 'Mr. Happiness' considered using corpses (forfeit: gnomes) to "cheer up" his front garden. Jeremy Bentham
    Jeremy Bentham
    Jeremy Bentham was an English jurist, philosopher, and legal and social reformer. He became a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law, and a political radical whose ideas influenced the development of welfarism...

     was one of the founders of utilitarianism
    Utilitarianism
    Utilitarianism is an ethical theory holding that the proper course of action is the one that maximizes the overall "happiness", by whatever means necessary. It is thus a form of consequentialism, meaning that the moral worth of an action is determined only by its resulting outcome, and that one can...

    , where happiness was measured and scored for "the greatest good for the greatest number". He requested council permission to replace his shrubberies with hanging corpses for the benefit of mankind. His will instructed that his corpse be preserved and kept in a cabinet as an "auto-icon" at the University College of London.
  • A species of bee drinks the salts of the tears of deer. There are three species that drink out of the eyeball, even of humans.

Episode 7 "Horrible" (Halloween Special)

Broadcast date:
  • 29 October 2010


Recording date:
  • 25 May 2010


Panellists:
  • Alan Davies
    Alan Davies
    Alan Davies is an English comedian, writer and actor best known for starring in the TV mystery series Jonathan Creek and as the permanent panellist on the TV panel show QI.- Early life :...

     (−35 points)
  • Chris Addison
    Chris Addison
    Chris Addison is an English stand-up comedian, writer and actor. He is known for his lecture-style comedy shows, two of which he later adapted for BBC Radio 4...

     (−13.8 points)
  • Sean Lock
    Sean Lock
    Sean Lock is an English comedian and actor. He began his comedy career as a stand-up comedian. He won the British Comedy Award in 2000 in the category of Best Live Comic, and was nominated for the Perrier Comedy Award. He is also well known for his appearances on television and radio...

     (−33 points)
  • Dara Ó Briain
    Dara Ó Briain
    Dara Ó Briain is an Irish stand-up comedian and television presenter, noted for hosting topical panel shows such as The Panel and Mock the Week....

     (winner with 2 points)


Buzzers:
  • Chris - a man saying "Euuuugggghh!"
  • Dara - a man saying "That is disgusting!"
  • Sean - a person vomiting
  • Alan - "Hello, I'm Piers Morgan
    Piers Morgan
    Piers Stefan Pughe-Morgan , known professionally as Piers Morgan, is a British journalist and television presenter. He is editorial director of First News, a national newspaper for children....

    ."


Theme:
The set is decorated with spiders webs and Halloween
Halloween
Hallowe'en , also known as Halloween or All Hallows' Eve, is a yearly holiday observed around the world on October 31, the night before All Saints' Day...

 themed props.

Topics:
  • The tongue-eating louse
    Cymothoa exigua
    Cymothoa exigua, or the tongue-eating louse, is a parasitic crustacean of the family Cymothoidae. It tends to be long. This parasite enters through the gills, and then attaches itself at the base of the spotted rose snapper's tongue. It extracts blood through the claws on its front, causing the...

     latches on to the tongue of a fish, drains it of blood and fluid, and replaces it in the mouth of the fish. The fish continues its life believing the parasite is its tongue. The fish does not die, it shares the food with the louse inadvertently. There is also a parasite that lives off the bones of dead whales after it sinks to the bottom of the ocean. It is covered in a thick mucous and is known as a Snot Flower. Tapeworms do not cause people to eat more. It is a misapprehension, since having a tapeworm will cause a person to lose appetite. Tapeworms can be up to 8 meters long, and live in you for up to 20 years
  • The key ingredient in the world's "nastiest" cocktail is a severed human toe (forfeit: Malibu
    Malibu Rum
    Malibu Rum is a flavored rum made with natural coconut extract, possessing an alcohol content by volume of 21.0% . The brand is owned by Pernod Ricard and it is made in Canada.-History:...

    ). A bar in Dawson City in Canada
    Canada
    Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

     is famous for its "Sour Toe Cocktail", where a severed toe is offered in a drink, and the patron's lips have to touch the toe as the drink is consumed before passing the toe to the next glass. It is a gross-out challenge that has been around the 1960s when the proprietor of the hotel bar discovered a preserved, pickled toe in a hunting cabin. The toe was accidentally swallowed in 1980, and has been replaced by a number of donated toes. About 35,000 have taken the challenge.
  • When you are trying to remove a leech
    Leech
    Leeches are segmented worms that belong to the phylum Annelida and comprise the subclass Hirudinea. Like other oligochaetes such as earthworms, leeches share a clitellum and are hermaphrodites. Nevertheless, they differ from other oligochaetes in significant ways...

    , it is better to let the leech drop off itself than rip it off or burn it off. The leech will put in some anticoagulant so if it is ripped off it will continue to bleed, but if the leech falls off itself, it will seal the wound. Leeches are used in scientific research for bloodletting and in microsurgery for blood vessels.
  • Bonnie and Clyde
    Bonnie and Clyde
    Bonnie Elizabeth Parker and Clyde Chestnut Barrow were well-known outlaws, robbers, and criminals who traveled the Central United States with their gang during the Great Depression. Their exploits captured the attention of the American public during the "public enemy era" between 1931 and 1934...

     syndrome is a fetish where typically a woman falls in love with a terribly violent criminal. Hybristophilia
    Hybristophilia
    Hybristophilia is a paraphilia involving being sexually aroused or attracted to people who have committed an outrage or a gruesome crime. In popular culture, this phenomenon is also known as "Bonnie and Clyde Syndrome"....

     is one of the few paraphilia
    Paraphilia
    Paraphilia is a biomedical term used to describe sexual arousal to objects, situations, or individuals that are not part of normative stimulation and that may cause distress or serious problems for the paraphiliac or persons associated with him or her...

    s that more women have than men. An estimated 100 women in Britain are engaged to American criminals on death row
    Death row
    Death row signifies the place, often a section of a prison, that houses individuals awaiting execution. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of awaiting execution , even in places where no special facility or separate unit for condemned inmates exists.After individuals are found...

    . The emphasis is that the criminals are not petty in any way, they are murderers of the most gruesome and cruel kind. It is speculated that one of the reasons some women choose this kind of man is their need to care for or morally cleanse the criminal, sometimes due to a strong Christian background. Harpaxophilia is a condition where an individual becomes aroused while being robbed.
  • A pizza topping that eats insects is tomatoes (forfeit: pineapple, anchovies). Tomatoes trap insects in the furry layer of their stems until they die and fall off. As the insect dissolves into the soil, the tomato plant will absorb its nutrients.
  • The expression "to heckle" is derived from the textile trade. A person who would tease out fibers with a comb was known as a heckler. In Dundee
    Dundee
    Dundee is the fourth-largest city in Scotland and the 39th most populous settlement in the United Kingdom. It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firth of Tay, which feeds into the North Sea...

     the hecklers were known for being trouble makers, and the term was eventually applied to people who would call out and disrupt a show.
Tangent: The panel discuss times where they were heckled as performers.


General Ignorance:
  • A snake's tail 'begins' where immediately following its anus, meaning they have surprisingly short tails.
  • The dimensions of a 2x4 piece of wood is not 2x4 inches; it is typically closer to 1.5 x 3.5 inches.
  • Scandinavian rotting fish called Surströmming
    Surströmming
    Surströmming herring") is a northern Swedish dish consisting of fermented Baltic herring. Surströmming is sold in cans, which often bulge during shipping and storage, due to the continued fermentation. When opened, the contents release a strong and sometimes overwhelming odor, which explains why...

     is banned from aeroplanes, and can allegedly cause birds to fall from the sky from its stench. Herring is fermented and putrefied in a barrel with not enough salt to cure it. The can is designed to buckle as it expands from the gases produced by the decomposition. It is apparently tasty, but the smell is incredibly foul. Stephen explains that if he opened the tin, the smell would never leave the studio.


QI XL Extras:
Tangent: It was suggested to Dara that the only way to get rid of a tapeworm is to starve yourself and then wave some steak in front of your mouth. This was told by a 16 year old girl that Dara was attempting to chat up.
  • A "good reason" to put a frog to your mouth is to drink the water that is inside of it. The water holding frog (Litoria paltycephala) is an Australian frog that engorges itself before going dormant, and is a source of potable water for a person in need. It was first discovered by the Aborigines
    Indigenous Australians
    Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....

    . The dormant period it spends in the summer is underground and for several months, as mammals do in the winter. This summertime variation of hibernation
    Hibernation
    Hibernation is a state of inactivity and metabolic depression in animals, characterized by lower body temperature, slower breathing, and lower metabolic rate. Hibernating animals conserve food, especially during winter when food supplies are limited, tapping energy reserves, body fat, at a slow rate...

     is called aestivation.
  • Vaccination was discovered in the early 19th century. Edward Jenner
    Edward Jenner
    Edward Anthony Jenner was an English scientist who studied his natural surroundings in Berkeley, Gloucestershire...

     discovered that if you were injected with cowpox, you would be immune to smallpox
    Smallpox
    Smallpox was an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning "spotted", or varus, meaning "pimple"...

    . Around 1809, the infant son of the King of Spain died of smallpox, and it was declared that everyone in Spain's colonies in South America must be vaccinated. To get the vaccine to the settlements, which were months away by sea, the Spanish government's solution was to gather a load of orphans, and infect them with the vaccine, allowing the blood to develop antibodies and develop an immunity. The technique was successful, saved hundreds of thousands of lives.
Tangent: Smallpox is a nearly extinct disease; with technology and medical health advancements, the disease has nearly been eradicated. In 2002 it was decided that perhaps humanity doesn't have the right to wipe it out entirely, so a small sample has been saved- especially if a vaccine is needed to be made, though it is also feared that another sample may be used to make biological weapons.
Tangent: In the 18th century, it was more likely for you to get a job if you had smallpox scars. It showed the potential employer that you had already had the disease and were not able to pass along the disease to your employers.
  • Handbooks for travellers from 19th century had often strange advice:
    • "Never rub your eyes except with your elbow." Taken from a handbook for travellers in Spain by Richard Ford in 1847.
    • "Keep a spare jewel in case of emergencies in your arm." Taken from The Art of Travel; or, Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries by Sir Francis Galton in 1872.
    • "Beware the dirty habits of the native cooks, who will often be seen buttering toast with the greasy wing of a fowl." Taken from Hardships in Travel Made Easy.
    • "The Germans are the worst offenders, having a grossness in their way of eating and a gloating zeal in collecting salacious postcards." Also taken from Hardships in Travel Made Easy.

Episode 8 "Hypothetical"

Broadcast date:
  • 5 November 2010


Recording date:
  • 26 May 2010


Panellists:
  • Alan Davies
    Alan Davies
    Alan Davies is an English comedian, writer and actor best known for starring in the TV mystery series Jonathan Creek and as the permanent panellist on the TV panel show QI.- Early life :...

     (−27 points)
  • John Lloyd
    John Lloyd (writer)
    John Hardress Wilfred Lloyd CBE is a British comedy writer and television producer. He is the great nephew of John Hardress Lloyd.-Early life and career:...

     (−1 point)
  • Sandi Toksvig
    Sandi Toksvig
    Sandra Brigitte “Sandi” Toksvig is a Danish comedian, author and presenter on British radio and television.-Career:...

     (winner with 2 points)
  • Johnny Vegas
    Johnny Vegas
    Johnny Vegas is an English actor and comedian. He is known for his angry rants, portly figure, high husky voice and support of St Helens rugby league club. More recently he has moved into dramatic acting.-Early life:He was born in St Helens, Lancashire, the youngest of four children of Laurence...

     (−7 points)


Notes:
  • Stephen introduces the episode as the 99th recorded episode and to celebrate, the show's creator John Lloyd
    John Lloyd (writer)
    John Hardress Wilfred Lloyd CBE is a British comedy writer and television producer. He is the great nephew of John Hardress Lloyd.-Early life and career:...

     joins the panel. Because Stephen saved John's name for last, Alan accidentally applauded for himself.


Buzzers:
  • Sandi - "Umm"
  • Johnny - "Hmm"
  • John - "Ooh, umm"
  • Alan - "Sir! Sir! I know! Me, sir!"


Theme:
  • The questions are supposed to be hypothetical and without any "correct" answer.


Topics:
  • To weigh your own head, the easiest way would be to put it in a bucket of water and measure the water displacement (forfeit: cut it off). This uses the Archimedes
    Archimedes
    Archimedes of Syracuse was a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer. Although few details of his life are known, he is regarded as one of the leading scientists in classical antiquity. Among his advances in physics are the foundations of hydrostatics, statics and an...

     concept of buoyancy and displacement. With air cavities being lighter than water and cranial bones being denser than water the two figures are averaged out to get a reasonably accurate measurement. A CT Scan can give a more accurate measure and give you greater detail of the density of every part of the body. The average head weighs 12 pounds, as studied in the University of Sydney
    University of Sydney
    The University of Sydney is a public university located in Sydney, New South Wales. The main campus spreads across the suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington on the southwestern outskirts of the Sydney CBD. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania...

    .
Tangent: John recalls an old joke "Do you want to lose 12 pounds of unsightly fat? Cut off your head."
Tangent: Sandi's grandfather had two glass eyes, a bloodshot one and a matching one for his working eye. The bloodshot eye was referred to as the "party eye". He used to put in his bloodshot one when he was going out for the evening and would say he would not return until his eyes matched.
Tangent: Sir Walter Raleigh's wife kept his severed head in a red velvet bag for 30 years. Stephen mistakenly introduced the tangent by asking about Sir Francis Drake, when he really meant Raleigh.
  • Hypothermia
    Hypothermia
    Hypothermia is a condition in which core temperature drops below the required temperature for normal metabolism and body functions which is defined as . Body temperature is usually maintained near a constant level of through biologic homeostasis or thermoregulation...

     has a curious side effect of paradoxical undressing. This may be a mental or physiological condition; it is unknown as people who have reached this state of hypothermia are the least likely to survive. One theory is that the hot feeling comes from opening blood vessels at the surface of the skin reacting and dying due to the cold. Hypothermia tends to start when the body temperature falls below 35 degrees. Being accustomed to the cold by living in a typically more frigid part of the world makes one less likely to experience hypothermia, as presumably being closer to a hot climate would make you more tolerant to conditions like heat stroke.
Tangent: Lewis Pugh could control his own body temperature and is the only person known to science who can knowingly raise his own temperature. He claims it has to do with his endurance swimming training and instinctively is able to alter his temperature in anticipation.
Tangent: Sadhu
Sadhu
In Hinduism, sādhu denotes an ascetic, wandering monk. Although the vast majority of sādhus are yogīs, not all yogīs are sādhus. The sādhu is solely dedicated to achieving mokṣa , the fourth and final aśrama , through meditation and contemplation of brahman...

 people of India can also control their body temperature. They apparently have the ability to dry wet towels with their touch.

  • Quickfire Hypotheticals: Special for the Hypothetical episode.
    • A tree falling in the forest may or may not make a sound, depending on if one asks a semanticist or a neurologist
      Neurologist
      A neurologist is a physician who specializes in neurology, and is trained to investigate, or diagnose and treat neurological disorders.Neurology is the medical specialty related to the human nervous system. The nervous system encompasses the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nerves. A specialist...

      . A sound may be something that is perceived by the vibration of the ear drum or the vibration of the source of the sound. (forfeit: no)
    • There is no semantic explanation of left and right, therefore it would be impossible to describe right and left to an alien in a distant galaxy verbally without a visual cue or common reference point. Also, it might be the case that the alien might not be symmetrical and would have no need to know left and right. (The way John remembers right and left is by looking at his right thumb which he sucked as a child. Sandi then tells the story of an once an ocean-liner captain who carried a small silver box which he looked into every time he came into port. His second-in-command asked on the captain's deathbed if he could see what was in the box. Inside was a note saying: "Port - Left. Starboard - Right.")
    • If a sealed truckload of birds is transported to weighing scales, and the birds are prompted to fly up at once, the weight would remain the same. The volume and air pressure of accounted for the birds still remains in the sealed system.
(This principle was tested on Mythbusters)

  • If Schrödinger put a Siamese cat in a fridge not only would the cat get cold, but it would also turn black. (The concept of Schrödinger's cat
    Schrödinger's cat
    Schrödinger's cat is a thought experiment, usually described as a paradox, devised by Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1935. It illustrates what he saw as the problem of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics applied to everyday objects. The scenario presents a cat that might be...

    —that an unseen cat is both dead and alive at the same time—is technically irrelevant to the question). For Siamese cats, their fur has an unusual quality of being temperature sensitive. The warmer core shows white fur, and the cooler extremities are coloured by dark fur. If one were to expose the cat evenly to cool temperatures over a long time, the fur would become evenly black.
Tangent: The buttered cat paradox
Buttered cat paradox
The buttered cat paradox is a paradox based on the tongue-in-cheek combination of two adages:* Cats always land on their feet.* Buttered toast always lands buttered side down....

 is a paradox based on the joke that results in combining a cat (that always lands on its feet) and a slice of toast (that always lands buttered-side down). Logically the cat would never reach the ground and hover or spin indefinitely since the two laws are in competition. The panel suggest alternate toppings that may change the paradox, such as margarine
Margarine
Margarine , as a generic term, can indicate any of a wide range of butter substitutes, typically composed of vegetable oils. In many parts of the world, the market share of margarine and spreads has overtaken that of butter...

.


General Ignorance
  • "It's an insectivorous mammal. It's found all around the world. It's active at night. It's almost totally blind." The answer is a mole (forfeit: bats). Bats use different methods for seeing, but none of the 1,100 species of bat is totally sightless. Moles can tell the difference between light and dark, but that is typically the limit. There are no moles in Ireland due its separation of Ireland from the rest of Britain and Europe. Almost all photographs of moles for wildlife stills are of dead moles; the photographers fluff them up to look like they are burrowing.
  • The ultimate hypothetical question (which came first, chicken or egg) is quite simply solved in realizing that eggs have been laid for millions of years before chickens started, and then presumably a species gradually evolved and laid the egg that became the first chicken. (forfeit: chicken
    Chicken
    The chicken is a domesticated fowl, a subspecies of the Red Junglefowl. As one of the most common and widespread domestic animals, and with a population of more than 24 billion in 2003, there are more chickens in the world than any other species of bird...

    )
Tangent: There is an old joke about a chicken and an egg which have just made love and the chicken says: "Well, that answers that old question."
Tangent: When prompted, John immediately knows the longest recorded flight by a chicken is 13 seconds to Stephen's astonishment.

Episode 9 "House and Home"

Broadcast date:
  • 12 November 2010


Recording date:
  • 4 May 2010


Panellists:
  • Alan Davies
    Alan Davies
    Alan Davies is an English comedian, writer and actor best known for starring in the TV mystery series Jonathan Creek and as the permanent panellist on the TV panel show QI.- Early life :...

     (−19 points)
  • Bill Bailey
    Bill Bailey
    Bill Bailey is an English comedian, musician and actor. As well as his extensive stand-up work, Bailey is well known for his appearances on Black Books, Never Mind the Buzzcocks, Have I Got News for You, and QI.Bailey was listed by The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy in...

     (winner with 3 points)
  • Danny Baker
    Danny Baker
    Danny Baker is an English comedy writer, journalist, radio DJ and screenwriter. Since the late 1970s, he has worked for a wide range of publications and broadcasters including NME, LWT, the BBC, and Talk Radio....

     (−17 points)
  • Eddie Izzard
    Eddie Izzard
    Edward John "Eddie" Izzard is a British stand-up comedian and actor. His comedy style takes the form of rambling, whimsical monologue and self-referential pantomime...

     (−16 points)


Buzzers:
  • Danny - Old fashioned telephone ring
  • Eddie - Doorbell
  • Bill - Chiming doorbell
  • Alan - Door knock followed by "Helloooo? Only me!"


Topics:
  • A dog
    Dog
    The domestic dog is a domesticated form of the gray wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties. The dog may have been the first animal to be domesticated, and has been the most widely kept working, hunting, and companion animal in...

     takes up as much energy as the use and manufacture of two Toyota Land Cruiser
    Toyota Land Cruiser
    The is a series of four-wheel drive vehicles produced by the Japanese car maker Toyota Motor Corporation. It is not related to the Studebaker Land Cruiser car produced in the US from 1934-1954....

    s because of the energy required to make the meat they eat (ecological footprint
    Ecological footprint
    The ecological footprint is a measure of human demand on the Earth's ecosystems. It is a standardized measure of demand for natural capital that may be contrasted with the planet's ecological capacity to regenerate. It represents the amount of biologically productive land and sea area necessary to...

    .
Tangent: Along the same principle, a Cat
Cat
The cat , also known as the domestic cat or housecat to distinguish it from other felids and felines, is a small, usually furry, domesticated, carnivorous mammal that is valued by humans for its companionship and for its ability to hunt vermin and household pests...

 is the equivalent of a Volkswagen Golf
Volkswagen Golf
The Volkswagen Golf is a small family car manufactured by Volkswagen since 1974 and marketed worldwide across six generations, in various body configurations and under various nameplates – as the Volkswagen Rabbit in the United States and Canada , and as the Volkswagen Caribe in Mexico .The...

 and two hamster
Hamster
Hamsters are rodents belonging to the subfamily Cricetinae. The subfamily contains about 25 species, classified in six or seven genera....

s are the equivalent of a Plasma screen TV.
  • The value of a home in America
    United States
    The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

     can be instantly reduced by a third if it is thought to be haunted.
Tangent: Ghosts and Pipes
  • When the habitants of Chiloé Island
    Chiloé Island
    Chiloé Island , also known as Greater Island of Chiloé , is the largest island of the Chiloé Archipelago off the coast of Chile, in the Pacific Ocean...

     move house, they literally move house. If they think their house is haunted, they roll logs underneath and tie the house to a team of cows, who then pull it away. Tourists come from Chile
    Chile
    Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

     just to see it happen.
  • For a large number of reasons, straw
    Straw
    Straw is an agricultural by-product, the dry stalks of cereal plants, after the grain and chaff have been removed. Straw makes up about half of the yield of cereal crops such as barley, oats, rice, rye and wheat. It has many uses, including fuel, livestock bedding and fodder, thatching and...

     is a stronger building material than brick
    Brick
    A brick is a block of ceramic material used in masonry construction, usually laid using various kinds of mortar. It has been regarded as one of the longest lasting and strongest building materials used throughout history.-History:...

    s.
  • The Queen does not require a new toilet seat for every residence or building she visits.


General Ignorance
  • It only became illegal to own a slave in the UK as of April 2010
    April 2010
    April 2010 was the fourth month of that year. It began on a Thursday and ended after 30 days on a Friday.- Portal:Current events :This is an archived version of Wikipedia's Current events Portal from April 2010....

    . It had been outlawed in the British empire in 1837 but was not made a criminal offence.
Tangent: It is estimated that there are 27 million people living in slavery today, more than there ever were during the heyday of the slave trade.
Tangent: Crimes rendered obsolete in 1967 include barratry
Barratry
Barratry is the name of four legal concepts, three in criminal and civil law, and one in admiralty law.* Barratry, in criminal and civil law, is the act or practice of bringing repeated legal actions solely to harass...

, scolding, eavesdropping and challenging someone to a fight.
  • Great Britain
    Great Britain
    Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...

     has the smallest average house size in Europe
    Europe
    Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

     (76 Square meters).
  • Bleaches may kill 100% of all bacteria but say they only kill 99% because some germs are so small it's impossible to tell if they've been killed (Forfeit: so they don't get sued).

Episode 10 "Health and Safety"

Broadcast date:
  • 26 November 2010


Recording date:
  • 28 May 2010


Panellists:
  • Alan Davies
    Alan Davies
    Alan Davies is an English comedian, writer and actor best known for starring in the TV mystery series Jonathan Creek and as the permanent panellist on the TV panel show QI.- Early life :...

     (−6 points)
  • Jeremy Clarkson
    Jeremy Clarkson
    Jeremy Charles Robert Clarkson is an English broadcaster, journalist and writer who specialises in motoring. He is best known for his role on the BBC TV show Top Gear along with co-presenters Richard Hammond and James May...

     (−4 points)
  • David Mitchell
    David Mitchell (actor)
    David James Stuart Mitchell is a British actor, comedian and writer. He is half of the comedy duo Mitchell and Webb, alongside Robert Webb, whom he met at Cambridge University. There they were both part of the Cambridge Footlights, of which Mitchell became President. Together the duo star in the...

     (winner with 6 points)
  • Ross Noble
    Ross Noble
    Ross Markham Noble is an English stand-up comedian, brought up in Cramlington, Northumberland, England.Noble rose to mainstream popularity through making appearances on British television, particularly interviews and on celebrity quiz shows such as Have I Got News for You...

     (2 points)


Buzzers:
  • Ross - "Dive, dive, dive!"
  • David - "Stay clear of the doors, please."
  • Jeremy - "Vehicle reversing! Vehicle reversing!"
  • Alan - "Don't touch the button!"


Theme:
  • There are safety warning signs decorating the set and the panellists wear safety goggles, high-visibility vests
    High-visibility clothing
    High-visibility clothing, a type of personal protective equipment , is any clothing worn that has highly reflective properties or a colour that is easily discernible from any background. Yellow waistcoats worn by emergency services are a common example....

     and hard hats. Stephen wears a lab coat.


Notes:
  • This was the 100th (not including the pilot) recorded episode of QI.


Topics:
  • The panellists were given the Whitely test, to see if they were hypochondriacs and were to rate questions between 1 and 5. David is frustrated with the logic of the test, second guessing the wording of the questions, and suggesting that without comparison, there is no baseline to compare the results to. Ross is not a hypochondriac; Alan is a mild hypochondriac; David is a borderline hypochondriac; and Jeremy, who answered "5" for all the questions (not bothering to read them), is dangerously hypochondriac according to the test. Part of hypochondria is people not expecting to get pain and when they do they think it is very serious.
Tangent: Jeremy suggests that when smoking wearing his high-visibility vest, he is safe from lung cancer
Lung cancer
Lung cancer is a disease characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. If left untreated, this growth can spread beyond the lung in a process called metastasis into nearby tissue and, eventually, into other parts of the body. Most cancers that start in lung, known as primary...

.
Tangent: Ross claims the people he feels sorry for the most are goth construction workers, because they would have to wear the high visibility clothing when they are comfortable in black.

  • Stephen shows the panel a strange set of bellows
    Bellows
    A bellows is a device for delivering pressurized air in a controlled quantity to a controlled location.Basically, a bellows is a deformable container which has an outlet nozzle. When the volume of the bellows is decreased, the air escapes through the outlet...

    , asking how this device will save a person from drowning. The bellows are filled with tobacco
    Tobacco
    Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...

     smoke and is inserted into the drowning victim's bottom. It was believed this was able to resuscitate an individual from the symptoms of drowning. This was a common medical practice between the 17th and 19th centuries. It was suggested that this may have been a coincidence when a woman happened to come back to life after being treated in this way, and became a part of the common medical knowledge.

  • The panel provided with sets of paper glasses with pictures of eyes staring upwards on them. These glasses were designed for observing gorillas in zoos who, as a species, do not like to be stared at in the eyes. They are called "Bokito
    Bokito (gorilla)
    Bokito is a male Western Gorilla born in captivity. Currently living in Diergaarde Blijdorp zoo in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, he became the subject of considerable media coverage after breaking out of his enclosure on May 18, 2007, abducting a female visitor and injuring the woman severely...

     viewers", named after a gorilla in Rotterdam Zoo who attacked a woman for staring at him (she thought she was creating an emotional bond). Dark glasses would work just as well.
Tangent: Ross and his friend Mike went to a monkey enclosure in a zoo. Mike stared at a monkey and as the monkey stared back it licked its own nipple.

  • It is a myth that when playing conkers, children are now required to wear safety goggles. A school headmaster near Carlisle was frustrated with the health and safety gone mad
    Occupational safety and health
    Occupational safety and health is a cross-disciplinary area concerned with protecting the safety, health and welfare of people engaged in work or employment. The goal of all occupational safety and health programs is to foster a safe work environment...

     movement and suggested issuing goggles and safety warnings as a joke. Media misinterpreted the story as fact, and thought that the school was being too health and safety conscious. (Forfeit: Goggles)

Tangent: Ross says he always to find "Wet Floor" signs when he visits supermarkets and trips over the intentionally. When people go to assist him, he exclaims the sign was what tripped him. David suggests that the "Wet Floor" sign should have its own "Warning: Wet Floor Sign" sign.

  • The only medically known way to cure hiccups is "digital rectal massage," or the insertion of a finger up the bottom. Stephen poses the cure as a punishment for not being able to name seven bald men apart from Yul Brynner
    Yul Brynner
    Yul Brynner was a Russian-born actor of stage and film. He was best known for his portrayal of Mongkut, king of Siam, in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The King and I, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor for the film version; he also played the role more than 4,500 times on...

     (a commonly known folk remedy for hiccups).

Tangent: Alan mentions that insertion of a finger into a dog's bottom is a sure fire way to stop it from biting you, startling it enough to release locked jaws. Ross comments that you could also use something like a pen or stick.

  • The spelling "hiccough" is an incorrect spelling for the word "hiccup". Previous spellings had "y", "ck" and "hiccop", and the idea that hiccough has something to do with coughing is erroneous.

  • During an out-of-body experience
    Out-of-body experience
    An out-of-body experience is an experience that typically involves a sensation of floating outside of one's body and, in some cases, perceiving one's physical body from a place outside one's body ....

    , one should look at the tops of shelves for random pictures and objects. Dr. Sam Parnia at the University of Southampton has done a three-year-test of 25 hospitals to see if people claiming to have an OBE, they will be able to confirm their experience. The doctor refused to tell QI his findings before the results had been published.


General Ignorance:
  • Three birds are shown on the viewer: a robin
    Erithacus
    The robins are small passerine birds comprising the genus Erithacus. They were formerly classed as members of the thrush family, but now considered to be Old World flycatchers of the chat subfamily ....

     with its left eye covered, a robin with its right eye covered and a blindfolded pigeon. The question is which bird would be trusted to direct you home. Either the pigeon or the robin with the left eye covered would be able to do it, since they can sense magnetism without the use of their eyes. This is because pigeons can sense magnetic forces so can tell the direction even if blind. Robins can do this also, but only with their right eye.

  • Except for special circumstances, it is typically alright to drink while taking antibiotics. It was originally suggested to prevent people from partying while infectious. In most cases, if advised not to drink, it is more that the issue involves making you feel more ill, not preventing the antibiotic from working. This said with the assumption that you will consult your doctor before indulging.


QI XL Extras:
Tangent: Jeremy claims to have "every disease imaginable," including elephantitis, and having an aneurysm
Aneurysm
An aneurysm or aneurism is a localized, blood-filled balloon-like bulge in the wall of a blood vessel. Aneurysms can commonly occur in arteries at the base of the brain and an aortic aneurysm occurs in the main artery carrying blood from the left ventricle of the heart...

 less than an hour ago.
Tangent: The Whitely test has a failure rate of plus or minus 11 points, so the results are not very reliable. Alan recites some of his favourite questions: "If you don't feel very well, do you get annoyed when someone says: 'You look like you're getting better?'" and "If a disease is brought to your attention by TV, radio or newspapers, do you worry about getting it yourself?"

  • Jeremy immediately (and correctly) identifies the centre of the steering wheel as the safest place to put a large metal spike in the car. The reasoning behind this is it will make people drive more carefully without the knowledge that an airbag
    Airbag
    An Airbag is a vehicle safety device. It is an occupant restraint consisting of a flexible envelope designed to inflate rapidly during an automobile collision, to prevent occupants from striking interior objects such as the steering wheel or a window...

     will save them were they to come into any accidents. Risk compensation
    Risk compensation
    In ethology, risk compensation is an effect whereby individual people may tend to adjust their behavior in response to perceived changes in risk. It is seen as self-evident that individuals will tend to behave in a more cautious manner if their perception of risk or danger increases...

     is the idea of feeling so safe that they then behave more recklessly. The advent of seat belts increased the number of cyclist deaths, as people drove more recklessly and unintentionally caused the accidents.

  • Stephen asks the panel whether or not they would help Jeremy if he were being attacked by environmental protesters. According to the bystander effect
    Bystander effect
    The bystander effect or Genovese syndrome is a social psychological phenomenon that refers to cases where individuals do not offer any means of help in an emergency situation to the victim when other people are present...

    , the more people witnessing a dangerous event, the fewer people are likely to respond to help. One theory for this is that you may be subconsciously embarrassed by reacting incorrectly towards the situation, no matter how obvious the moral judgement should be.

Tangent: Environmentalists have actually attacked Jeremy in the past. A woman once threw a pie in his face and Jeremy said afterwards he told her she she used too much sugar.

Tangent: Jeremy came across something akin to the bystander effect. He was while go-karting, a friend rolled his go-kart over then caught fire. There were about 40 people there, and Jeremy just stood there. The worst thing Jeremy ever experienced, when he was on his own and did want to help, was when he was on a cross-channel ferry during a storm. While the boat violently rocked, the lavatories were complete with people being sick. One business man, himself ill and covered in vomit, looked Jeremy straight in the eye and said: "Kill me."

Tangent: In France there is a "Good Samaritan" law which makes you legally responsible for NOT helping if you witness a crime.

  • The hippocampus
    Hippocampus
    The hippocampus is a major component of the brains of humans and other vertebrates. It belongs to the limbic system and plays important roles in the consolidation of information from short-term memory to long-term memory and spatial navigation. Humans and other mammals have two hippocampi, one in...

     is an area of the brain that helps with the sense of direction. It is named after the taxonomical name for the common seahorse
    Seahorse
    Seahorses compose the fish genus Hippocampus within the family Syngnathidae, in order Syngnathiformes. Syngnathidae also includes the pipefishes. "Hippocampus" comes from the Ancient Greek hippos meaning "horse" and kampos meaning “sea monster”.There are nearly 50 species of seahorse...

    . It is part of the limbic system, which also helps with sensing danger.

Tangent: David refutes the idea of male seahorses give birth, why not name the one that actually gives birth the female. Though it is an unusual arrangement, Stephen comments that the female seahorse implants its eggs into the male, which fertilizes them, hatches them and releases them once hatched.

  • Hernias are caused by a weakness of the muscles of the abdominal wall, not by lifting something heavy (though lifting a weight may make it worse or call attention to it). A weakening in the abdominal wall, which could be due to a congenital weakness or smoking.

Episode 11 "Highs and Lows"

Broadcast date:
  • 3 December 2010


Recording date:
  • 18 May 2010


Panellists:
  • Alan Davies
    Alan Davies
    Alan Davies is an English comedian, writer and actor best known for starring in the TV mystery series Jonathan Creek and as the permanent panellist on the TV panel show QI.- Early life :...

     (−39 points)
  • Rob Brydon
    Rob Brydon
    Rob Brydon is a BAFTA-nominated Welsh actor, comedian, radio and television presenter, singer and impressionist...

     (1 point)
  • Fred MacAulay (winner with 8 points)
  • Sandi Toksvig
    Sandi Toksvig
    Sandra Brigitte “Sandi” Toksvig is a Danish comedian, author and presenter on British radio and television.-Career:...

     (6 points)


Buzzers:
  • Sandi – A singer holding a note
  • Rob – A note higher than Sandi's
  • Fred – A note higher than Rob's
  • Alan – An extremely low note


Topics
  • Four tartans were shown on screen to the panel. It was decided that the only tartan that Stephen would be able to wear would be the Royal Stewart tartan
    Royal Stewart Tartan
    The Royal Stewart Tartan is the best known tartan of the royal House of Stewart, and is also the personal tartan of Queen Elizabeth II. It is appropriate for all subjects of Elizabeth II to wear the Royal Stewart tartan , in much the same way that clansmen may wear the tartan of their clan chief...

    , as it is the tartan of the "chieftain
    Chieftain
    Chieftain may refer to:The leader or head of a group:* a tribal chief or a village head.* a member of the 'House of chiefs'.* a captain, to which 'chieftain' is etymologically related.* Clan chief, the head of a Scottish clan....

    " which is the Queen, and any citizen of the UK can wear it. Clan tartans are not as traditional as typically believed, only surfacing in the 19th century, and having more to do with trade than family. The word originates from the French "tiretain", and more resembled a toga than what we know today. The short version of the kilt that is used today was actually an English invention, and was thought to be simply quicker and more convenient to wear.
Tangent: A purple and green tartan displayed was mocked by the panel as a mistake. In fact it was the Sikh
Sikh
A Sikh is a follower of Sikhism. It primarily originated in the 15th century in the Punjab region of South Asia. The term "Sikh" has its origin in Sanskrit term शिष्य , meaning "disciple, student" or शिक्ष , meaning "instruction"...

 tartan for the Singh
Singh
Also see SinhaSingh is a common title, middle name, or surname in Northern India and South India used by sikhs warriors and kings. eg. Man Singh I, Maharana Pratap Singh. It is derived from the Sanskrit word Siṃha meaning "lion and used by Ahir kings of Nepal". It is also used in Sri Lanka by...

, which is mainly purple and green. A rich Sikh businessman commissioned a tartan for his people from a popular tartan company.

Tangent: Fred explains the correct way to measure a kilt as to kneel down, the skirt having to just touch the floor. Sandi explains that it was also the way to measure skirts when she was at a girls boarding school growing up.

  • Caber toss
    Caber toss
    The caber toss is a traditional Irish athletic event practised at the Irish Highland Games involving the tossing of a large wooden pole called a caber. It is said to have developed from the need to toss logs across narrow chasms to cross them. In Irishtown the caber is usually made from a Larch tree...

     competitions are won not by height or distance thrown, but by the most parallel trajectory to the tosser, landing directly straight in front of him. You lose points for every "minute" off the "12 o'clock" measurement. Other events at the Highland Games include weight over the bar
    Weight over the bar
    The Weight Over the Bar competition is a test of strength featured at Scottish Highland games. The weight is a steel or lead weight attached to a metal circular handle. The weight is thrown one-handed over a bar set at increasing heights above the thrower. The thrower has three attempts for each...

    , sheaf toss
    Sheaf toss
    The sheaf toss is a traditional Scottish agricultural sport event originally contested at country fairs. A pitchfork is used to hurl a burlap bag stuffed with straw over a horizontal bar above the competitor's head. Typical weight for the bag is 16 pounds . Three chances are given to each...

    , hammer throw
    Hammer throw
    The modern or Olympic hammer throw is an athletic throwing event where the object is to throw a heavy metal ball attached to a wire and handle. The name "hammer throw" is derived from older competitions where an actual sledge hammer was thrown...

    , shot put
    Shot put
    The shot put is a track and field event involving "putting" a heavy metal ball—the shot—as far as possible. It is common to use the term "shot put" to refer to both the shot itself and to the putting action....

    , and "dancing". While some people try to claim it goes back to King Malcolm III, son of murdered King Duncan, it is actually another recent invention dating back to the 19th century which was liked by the royals.

  • Between 1989 and 2010, haggis
    Haggis
    Haggis is a dish containing sheep's 'pluck' , minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and traditionally simmered in the animal's stomach for approximately three hours. Most modern commercial haggis is prepared in a casing rather than an actual stomach.Haggis is a kind...

    es were smuggled into the USA from Canada
    Canada
    Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

    , since bovine lungs were blocked from trade at the border due to worries of BSE
    Bovine spongiform encephalopathy
    Bovine spongiform encephalopathy , commonly known as mad-cow disease, is a fatal neurodegenerative disease in cattle that causes a spongy degeneration in the brain and spinal cord. BSE has a long incubation period, about 30 months to 8 years, usually affecting adult cattle at a peak age onset of...

     and other infections. Haggis was first referenced in Lancashire in the UK, but it may have a Scandinavian or Viking origin. Burns Night is celebrated on Robert Burns
    Robert Burns
    Robert Burns was a Scottish poet and a lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated worldwide...

    's birthday, 25 January.
Tangent: Fred recites a part of the address to the haggis for Burns Night, and tells a later anecdote about a reverse German translation of the line, in which the line, "Great chieftain o' the puddin-race!" was translated as: "Mighty Führer of the sausage people!"

Tangent: Robert Burns was fiercely opposed to the slave trade. In the Burns Museum there is a photograph of Muhammad Ali, who visited the Museum in Scotland because he was a student of Burns due to his opposition to slavery.

Tangent: Stephen told a story about some Scottish people complaining that their accent
Accent (linguistics)
In linguistics, an accent is a manner of pronunciation peculiar to a particular individual, location, or nation.An accent may identify the locality in which its speakers reside , the socio-economic status of its speakers, their ethnicity, their caste or social class, their first language In...

 was not difficult to understand and Americans could understand them, though Stephen later found out that the North American release of the movie Trainspotting
Trainspotting (film)
Trainspotting is a 1996 British satirical/drama film directed by Danny Boyle based on the novel of the same name by Irvine Welsh. The movie follows a group of heroin addicts in a late 1980s economically depressed area of Edinburgh and their passage through life...

 was so difficult for Americans to understand that it had subtitles.

  • A helicopter ascent of Everest was once attempted by Frenchman Didier Desalle, because the thinness of the air and intensity of the 160 mph winds makes keeping a helicopter stable incredibly difficult. He stayed for two minutes before taking off again, making it the highest ever landing and taking off of a vehicle. Brian Blessed
    Brian Blessed
    Brian Blessed is an English actor, known for his sonorous voice and "hearty, king-sized portrayals".-Early life:The son of William Blessed, a socialist miner, and Hilda Wall, Blessed was born in the town of Goldthorpe, West Riding of Yorkshire, England...

     attempted an Everest climb, but only got to 28,000 feet before having to turn back in aid of a member of his crew. He is the oldest man to climb this distance without the assistance of oxygen. Blessed is also a black belt in judo, a boxing champion (he once boxed with the Dalai Lama), the oldest man to go to the North Pole, and keeps overs 2,000 animals in his house and gardens in Surrey.
Tangent: Rob once went skydiving and was told you could not skydive higher than 17,500 feet without the assistance of oxygen.

Tangent: Many of the people who attempt the climb die, and most of them die from oedemas in either the brain or lungs. Signs along the trail route warn of the risks, and if there is any headache or illness to turn back immediately, as it could very quickly turn into something serious. There is an area on the mountain called the "Dead zone" which contains a lot of bodies in it. Local Sherpas have been planning to collect the bodies and waste from the area.

  • If you are on the top of a mountain you can tell how high you are without electric instruments by boiling water. For every 1,000 feet you climb the boiling point of water drops by one degree Celsius. So if you tried to boil water on the top of Mount Everest it would be at 72 degrees, but if you were at the bottom of the Marianas Trench it would be 584 degrees. This is because of the air pressure. The field of telling your height using these methods is "hypsometry
    Hypsometry
    Hypsometry is the measurement of land elevation relative to sea level. Bathymetry is the underwater equivalent...

    ".
Tangent: You can use field crickets to tell the temperature. Below 13 degrees Celsius a field cricket makes no noise, at 13 degrees exactly it chirps once a second. It then increases at a steady rate, so if it is at 140 chirps per minute it is 22.5 degrees.

Tangent: Sandi claims you can use the bubbles in a stirred cup of coffee to tell the weather. If the bubbles make their way to the middle of the cup it is a sign that the pressure is low, and if they make their way to the edge the pressure is high.


General Ignorance
  • English is an official language in many countries including Wales
    Wales
    Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

     and India, and Canada
    Canada
    Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

     but not in England (Forfeit) since there was never a need to set one up. Official languages are those that are defined in the legal system. It is more typical to define a language as "official" when more languages are universally spoken. Official languages are ones which are established in the legal system. Official languages have also never arisen in the USA, although President Theodore Roosevelt
    Theodore Roosevelt
    Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...

     said English should be it. Every time it has been suggested that English should become the official language of the USA, the Hispanic population have protested against it because they see it as a form of discrimination.

  • No country can lay claim to being the modern home of the Huns. The idea of Germany being the home of the Hun came from a speech made by Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1910 during the Boxer Wars, when he said: "We shall take no prisoners. We shall show no mercy. We shall sweep down on them like the Hun." The actual Huns came from the East, and were an army rather than a people. (Forfeit: Germany)
Tangent: During the 1970s when Fred was a student at Dundee University he went to a bar called the Speedwell Tavern whose landlord was married to a German woman. The students referred to her as: "The Hun at the till". Stephen also drank there when he was Rector of the Dundee University.

  • If you are afraid of heights you suffer from acrophobia. Vertigo is the name given to the dizziness induced by heights. (Forfeit: Vertigo)
Tangent: There is a story that James Stewart, the lead actor in Alfred Hitchcock's film Vertigo smuggled a yeti's hand out of India and hid it in his wife Gloria's underwear in the luggage.

  • The point on the Earth which is furthest from the centre is Mount Chimborazo
    Chimborazo (volcano)
    Chimborazo is a currently inactive stratovolcano located in the Cordillera Occidental range of the Andes. Its last known eruption is believed to have occurred around 550 AD....

    . This is a mount near the equator, which is further from the centre of the Earth than Mount Everest because the world is an oblate spheroid which bulges outwards in the middle. Chimborazo is 1.3 miles further from the centre than Everest. (Forfeit: Everest)
Tangent: Everest should be pronounced "Eve-rest", because the person whom it was named after pronounced his name that way.


QI XL Extras
Tangent: The American word for tartan, "plaid
Plaid (pattern)
For other meanings, see plaid.A plaid is a pattern consisting of crossed horizontal and vertical bands in two or more colors in woven cloth.Common examples of plaid patterns include:*Tartan, the pattern most commonly associated with plaid....

", comes from the Gaelic
Goidelic languages
The Goidelic languages or Gaelic languages are one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic languages, the other consisting of the Brythonic languages. Goidelic languages historically formed a dialect continuum stretching from the south of Ireland through the Isle of Man to the north of Scotland...

 for "blanket".

Tangent: Donald Dinnie
Donald Dinnie
Donald Dinnie was a Scottish strongman, born at Balnacraig, Birse, near Aboyne, Aberdeenshire. He has been recognized as "The Nineteenth Century's Greatest Athlete"...

 is the most successful competitor at the Highland Games
Highland games
Highland games are events held throughout the &Highland games are events held throughout the &Highland games are events held throughout the &(-è_çà in Scotland and other countries as a way of celebrating Scottish and Celtic culture and heritage, especially that of the Scottish Highlands. Certain...

. In his career between 1850-90, he earned medals in all disciplines, once winning 20 medals in one day. Dinnie was best at caber tossing, but also good at high jumping. During one high jump his kilt knocked the bar off twice, so in the final attempt he took his kilt off and successfully completed the jump.

Tangent: In Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...

, Canada, they celebrate Chinese Burns Night because Burns Night and Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year – often called Chinese Lunar New Year although it actually is lunisolar – is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. It is an all East and South-East-Asia celebration...

 often fall close together. It is also known as Gung Haggis Fat Choy
Gung Haggis Fat Choy
Gung Haggis Fat Choy is a cultural event originating from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The name Gung Haggis Fat Choy is a combination wordplay on Scottish and Chinese words: haggis is a traditional Scottish food and Gung Hay Fat Choy / Kung Hei Fat Choi is a traditional Cantonese greeting ...

 and the haggis is served with bean curd sauce.

Tangent: The biggest Highland Games in the world are held in San Francisco.

  • Once he conquered Mount Everest, Sir Edmund Hillary decided to settle whether the yeti
    Yeti
    The Yeti or Abominable Snowman is an ape-like cryptid said to inhabit the Himalayan region of Nepal, and Tibet. The names Yeti and Meh-Teh are commonly used by the people indigenous to the region, and are part of their history and mythology...

     existed or not, undertaking an expedition to the Himalayan
    Himalayas
    The Himalaya Range or Himalaya Mountains Sanskrit: Devanagari: हिमालय, literally "abode of snow"), usually called the Himalayas or Himalaya for short, is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau...

     mountain range. He concluded that it did not exist, explaining that the massive "yeti tracks" could be accounted by regular footprints becoming elongated when they melt in the sun. Some believe that actually Hillary was not on a yeti hunt, but that he was really on a spying mission because two of the people with him were rocket experts. Thus some think he was spying on Chinese rocket installations in Tibet.
Tangent: It was Hillary who got to the top of Mount Everest first and not Sherpa Tenzing Norgay
Tenzing Norgay
Padma Bhushan, Supradipta-Manyabara-Nepal-Tara Tenzing Norgay, GM born Namgyal Wangdi and often referred to as Sherpa Tenzing, was a Nepalese Sherpa mountaineer...

. Tenzing wrote in his autobiography that Hillary reached the top first and Hillary told Tenzing that they should say that they both reached the top together. Then the King of Nepal
Nepal
Nepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked sovereign state located in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...

 said that it was Tenzing who got to the top first and Hillary did not say a word against the claim. Hillary devoted most of his life to helping the people of Nepal including the building of 25 schools.

  • When digging the Channel Tunnel, the person who made sure that the English and the French met in the middle was German Max Schuler
    Max Schuler
    The German engineer Maximilian Schuler is best known for discovering the principle known as Schuler tuning which is fundamental to the operation of a gyrocompass or inertial guidance system that will be operated near the surface of the earth....

    . His invention, a gyrotheodolite
    Gyrotheodolite
    A gyro-theodolite is a surveying instrument composed of a gyroscope mounted to a theodolite. It is used to determine the orientation of true north by locating the meridian direction...

     uses the rotation of the Earth to calculate the direction, since there was no other unit of measure that would not be affected by the magnetic ore and being buried with no line of sight. The two people who met in the middle were Frenchman Philippe Cozette and Englishman Graham Fagg. They were just 300 millimetres out. However, they actually did not meet in the exact middle. The English made further ground because of French geological difficulties.
Tangent: Alan talks about the novel Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks, which is about the tunnelling toward enemy trenches and burying bombs by sappers during World War One, however stops before giving too much away of the plot.

Tangent: Unlike the British, who left their machines unnamed, the French called their machines Brigitte, Europa, Catherine, Virginie, Pascaline and Séverine. After the tunnel was completed they were broken down, rebuilt and sent to other parts of France and the British buried their machines into the ground and abandoned them.

Tangent: A man called Colonel Barog once dug a tunnel for the Indian railway and the two ends of the tunnel missed each other in the middle. He was so ashamed he shot himself.

Episode 12 "Horses and Hunting"

Broadcast date:
  • 10 December 2010


Recording date:
  • 2 June 2010


Panellists:
  • Alan Davies
    Alan Davies
    Alan Davies is an English comedian, writer and actor best known for starring in the TV mystery series Jonathan Creek and as the permanent panellist on the TV panel show QI.- Early life :...

     (−6 points)
  • Clare Balding
    Clare Balding
    Clare Balding is a BBC sports presenter, journalist and jockey.-Early life:In 1989 and 1990, Balding was a leading amateur flat jockey and Champion Lady Rider in 1990....

     (winner with 5 points)
  • Jimmy Carr
    Jimmy Carr
    James Anthony Patrick "Jimmy" Carr is an English-Irish comedian and humourist. He is known for his deadpan delivery and dark humour. He is also a writer, actor and presenter of radio and television....

     (−13 points)
  • Dara Ó Briain
    Dara Ó Briain
    Dara Ó Briain is an Irish stand-up comedian and television presenter, noted for hosting topical panel shows such as The Panel and Mock the Week....

     (4 points)


Buzzers:
  • Jimmy - A horse snorting
  • Dara - A horse neighing
  • Clare - A horse galloping
  • Alan - A donkey going "Hee-haw!"


Theme
  • Stephen wears traditional fox hunting attire including a scarlet jacket.


Topics:
  • The horse
    Horse
    The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...

    s of New York City
    New York City
    New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

     killed 20,000 people in 1900 because of their manure
    Manure
    Manure is organic matter used as organic fertilizer in agriculture. Manures contribute to the fertility of the soil by adding organic matter and nutrients, such as nitrogen, that are trapped by bacteria in the soil...

    . While it was used as a fertiliser, they were so many horses in the city that there was too much manure (2.5 million tonnes a day) and so it helped to spread diseases like typhus
    Typhus
    Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...

    , typhoid and cholera
    Cholera
    Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...

    . Horses were used in transportation; pulling most vehicles (London
    London
    London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

     had 50,000 of them just in the public transport
    Public transport
    Public transport is a shared passenger transportation service which is available for use by the general public, as distinct from modes such as taxicab, car pooling or hired buses which are not shared by strangers without private arrangement.Public transport modes include buses, trolleybuses, trams...

     system). In New York, 41 horses died a day. The people preferred to leave the bodies to putrefy because the bodies were easier to carve up. Apart from fertiliser, horse manure can be ground into a powder which can be used for moulds. Astronomer William Hershel used such a mould to make one of his telescope
    Telescope
    A telescope is an instrument that aids in the observation of remote objects by collecting electromagnetic radiation . The first known practical telescopes were invented in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 1600s , using glass lenses...

     mirrors or "speculum". Other than manure, the horses themselves were dangerous because they can bolt, drag people off with them, trample people, and make a lot of noise. Interestingly, the thing which helped stop this environmental disaster was cars, because they made traffic safer, quieter and faster. Having horses in a city is seven times more dangerous than cars. While people say that traffic today is at the same speed as the horse, it should be pointed out that there is a lot more traffic.
Tangent: When Clare first went to school she was told she smelt of horse manure.
  • The advantages of guide horses, or rather guide ponies, for the blind over dogs is that less people are allergic to them, they have good memories, they live longer, and have greater stamina. Disadvantages are that they are flight animals rather than pack animals, restaurants tend not to allow them in, and they blend into the background less easily.
Tangent: When a blind person
Blindness
Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define blindness...

 with a guide dog wants to cross the road it is the human who makes the decision, with the dog being able to overrule the human due to what is known as "selective disobedience". It is done by the feeling of the harness. For example, when the dog gets to the other end its paws hit the curb which alters the angle of the harness, so the blind person knows they are near the end of the road.
Tangent: Jimmy's Uncle Harry takes in dogs that are failed guide dogs. To show people how good one dog was he would send the dog out to pee. It would come back and he would send the dog out again, and you can tell that the dog is going to have to "force it out".
Tangent: The first people to use the guide dogs where the Romans
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 in the 1st-2nd century AD in Herculaneum
Herculaneum
Herculaneum was an ancient Roman town destroyed by volcanic pyroclastic flows in AD 79, located in the territory of the current commune of Ercolano, in the Italian region of Campania in the shadow of Mt...

. The first school for "Seeing Eye Dogs" as they were known in the USA was set up after the First World War (due to the gas attacks blinding people). The first were used by the Germans. When guide dogs were introduced to Britain in the 1930s there were protests because people thought it was cruel to the dog. Anyone seen with a guide dog was attacked by the public.
Tangent: Once during Blue Peter
Blue Peter
Blue Peter is the world's longest-running children's television show, having first aired in 1958. It is shown on CBBC, both in its BBC One programming block and on the CBBC channel. During its history there have been many presenters, often consisting of two women and two men at a time...

 children collected milk bottle tops in order to raise money to train a guide dog. However, because it cost 22 million bottle tops to train just one dog, only a single dog got trained.
  • The panel are given a strange device, which looks like a pair of pliers
    Pliers
    Pliers are a hand tool used to hold objects firmly, for bending, or physical compression. Generally, pliers consist of a pair of metal first-class levers joined at a fulcrum positioned closer to one end of the levers, creating short jaws on one side of the fulcrum, and longer handles on the other...

    , and are asked how it can be used to calm a horse down. It is in fact a "twitch" and his used for grabbing hold of and twisting the upper lip
    Lip
    Lips are a visible body part at the mouth of humans and many animals. Lips are soft, movable, and serve as the opening for food intake and in the articulation of sound and speech...

     of a horse, which causes it to release endorphins, but at first it was thought to be the distraction of the twisting that calmed them down. It is used when giving a horse medication
    Medication
    A pharmaceutical drug, also referred to as medicine, medication or medicament, can be loosely defined as any chemical substance intended for use in the medical diagnosis, cure, treatment, or prevention of disease.- Classification :...

    . You can also calm some horses down by twisting their ear.
Tangent: If you want to make a horse more excited, the traditional way of doing it is to stick ginger
Ginger
Ginger is the rhizome of the plant Zingiber officinale, consumed as a delicacy, medicine, or spice. It lends its name to its genus and family . Other notable members of this plant family are turmeric, cardamom, and galangal....

 up the bottom.
  • The panel are played a piece of film which shows a black bear roaring and are asked what the sound accompanying the film is. It is however not the sound of a black bear, because they do not roar. Instead, in films and sometimes even in nature documentaries they play the sound of another animal like a wolf or lion
    Lion
    The lion is one of the four big cats in the genus Panthera, and a member of the family Felidae. With some males exceeding 250 kg in weight, it is the second-largest living cat after the tiger...

     roaring because people expect a bear to roar. Black bears are hunted in the USA, but they usually do not attack people. Black bears can climb trees. People jokingly say that the difference between a black bear and a brown bear
    Grizzly Bear
    The grizzly bear , also known as the silvertip bear, the grizzly, or the North American brown bear, is a subspecies of brown bear that generally lives in the uplands of western North America...

     is that if you climb a tree the black bear will follow you up it and kill you, while the brown bear will knock the tree over and kill you. The strength of the bear is mainly used to turn over stones to find food. (Forfeit: A bear)
  • Out of the million horses that were sent by the British to the front during the First World War, almost none of them made it back. The vast majority were killed, either for food
    Food
    Food is any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for the body. It is usually of plant or animal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals...

     or to be turned into other products. According to Michael Morpurgo
    Michael Morpurgo
    Michael Morpurgo, OBE FKC AKC is an English author, poet, playwright and librettist, best known for his work in children's literature. He was the third Children's Laureate.-Early life:...

    , author of the children's novel War Horse, 8-10 million horses died during WWI. One belief at the time was they thought they would bring disease with them if they came back to Britain.
Tangent: Clare says that she wants the theme from Black Beauty
Black Beauty
Black Beauty is an 1877 novel by English author Anna Sewell. It was composed in the last years of her life, during which she remained in her house as an invalid. The novel became an immediate bestseller, with Sewell dying just five months after its publication, long enough to see her first and only...

 to be played at her funeral
Funeral
A funeral is a ceremony for celebrating, sanctifying, or remembering the life of a person who has died. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember the dead, from interment itself, to various monuments, prayers, and rituals undertaken in their honor...

. A common piece of music played at funerals today is theme from Countdown
Countdown
A countdown is a sequence of counting backward to indicate the seconds, days, or other time units remaining before an event occurs or a deadline expires. Typical events for which a countdown is used include the launch of a rocket or spacecraft, the detonation of a bomb, the start of a race, and the...

.
Tangent: The first time Jimmy saw someone who was really upset about something was at primary school, when he saw a six-year-old girl crying. He asked what was wrong and the girl said: "I just love horses so much."
Tangent: Clare claims her first love was a pony called Frank who was not handsome. Clare's mother said that if she could love Frank everything in the world would always be beautiful.
  • The panel are shown some illustrations of horses and are asked what they are thinking. You can tell by the ears. Ears straight up: It is startled by something. Ears slightly forward: Eagerness. Ears slopped on their sides: Tiredness or surrendering. Ears pulled back: Scared or angry.Ears flicking: Panic. Ears drooping sideways: On depressant drugs. Ears stiff: On stimulants.


General Ignorance:
  • The Lone Ranger's horse is white
    White
    White is a color, the perception of which is evoked by light that stimulates all three types of color sensitive cone cells in the human eye in nearly equal amounts and with high brightness compared to the surroundings. A white visual stimulation will be void of hue and grayness.White light can be...

     in colour. While most people generally call all white and grey
    Grey
    Grey or gray is an achromatic or neutral color.Complementary colors are defined to mix to grey, either additively or subtractively, and many color models place complements opposite each other in a color wheel. To produce grey in RGB displays, the R, G, and B primary light sources are combined in...

     horses "grey", some are completely white. However, they actually start off black and get lighter. (Forfeit: Grey)
Tangent: The notion of white horses starting as black appears in the film Crimson Tide
Crimson Tide (film)
The film has uncredited additional writing by Quentin Tarantino, much of it being the pop-culture reference-laden dialogue.The U.S. Navy objected to many of the elements in the script — particularly the aspect of mutiny on board a U.S. naval vessel — and as such, the film was produced...

.
Tangent: All grey thoroughbred horses descend from one horse called Alcock Arabian. All thoroughbred horses used in racing are descended from three horses; Darley Arabian, Godolphin Arabian and Byerley Turk.
  • If a shoal of piranha
    Piranha
    A piranha or piraña is a member of family Characidae in order Characiformes, an omnivorous freshwater fish that inhabits South American rivers. In Venezuela, they are called caribes...

    s meet a dolphin
    Dolphin
    Dolphins are marine mammals that are closely related to whales and porpoises. There are almost forty species of dolphin in 17 genera. They vary in size from and , up to and . They are found worldwide, mostly in the shallower seas of the continental shelves, and are carnivores, mostly eating...

     usually the dolphin eats them. The idea that piranhas are deadly flesh eaters is wrong and goes back to US President Theodore Roosevelt
    Theodore Roosevelt
    Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...

     who was shown a display of them an exaggerated about them. Piranhas are actually frightened of humans and are scavengers.
  • The weapon used by 19th century whalers
    Whaling
    Whaling is the hunting of whales mainly for meat and oil. Its earliest forms date to at least 3000 BC. Various coastal communities have long histories of sustenance whaling and harvesting beached whales...

     to kill whales was a lance
    Lance
    A Lance is a pole weapon or spear designed to be used by a mounted warrior. The lance is longer, stout and heavier than an infantry spear, and unsuited for throwing, or for rapid thrusting. Lances did not have tips designed to intentionally break off or bend, unlike many throwing weapons of the...

    . Harpoon
    Harpoon
    A harpoon is a long spear-like instrument used in fishing to catch fish or large marine mammals such as whales. It accomplishes this task by impaling the target animal, allowing the fishermen to use a rope or chain attached to the butt of the projectile to catch the animal...

    s were actually used to tire the whale out. You threw a harpoon with a rope attached to the boat
    Boat
    A boat is a watercraft of any size designed to float or plane, to provide passage across water. Usually this water will be inland or in protected coastal areas. However, boats such as the whaleboat were designed to be operated from a ship in an offshore environment. In naval terms, a boat is a...

     into the whale and then a "Nantucket sleigh-ride" took place where the boat was dragged by the whale and would become tired. A lance would then be used to kill the whale. While most countries today ban whale hunting, some countries like Norway
    Norway
    Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

     and Japan
    Japan
    Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

     still hunt whales. (Forfeit: Harpoon)


QI XL extras:
Tangent: The early comedy cinema
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

 joke of slipping on a banana peel was a reference to slipping in horse manure. During the early days when cinema was considered an art form and they were worried that showing manure would cheapen the art, so they used a banana peel instead. Dara goes onto claim that no-one has ever really slipped on a banana peel only for Alan to claim that he really did once slip on one in Chapel Market
Chapel Market
Chapel Market is a daily street market in London, United Kingdom. The market is located on a street of the same name near Angel, and sells fruit, vegetables and fish, as well as bargain household goods and cheap clothes. It is open every day except Monday, operating in the mornings only on...

 in Islington
Islington
Islington is a neighbourhood in Greater London, England and forms the central district of the London Borough of Islington. It is a district of Inner London, spanning from Islington High Street to Highbury Fields, encompassing the area around the busy Upper Street...

.
Tangent: Because a horse's memory mostly works by seeing distressing events, if a race horse were to fall at a fence they will be scared of it again if they do the race again. According to Clare, if a horse is scared by the first big fence at Aintree
Aintree
Aintree is a village and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton, Merseyside. It lies between Walton and Maghull on the A59 road, about north of Liverpool city centre, in North West England....

 (the third), home of the Grand National
Grand National
The Grand National is a world-famous National Hunt horse race which is held annually at Aintree Racecourse, near Liverpool, England. It is a handicap chase run over a distance of four miles and 856 yards , with horses jumping thirty fences over two circuits of Aintree's National Course...

, then the horse will not win.
Tangent: Horses do not sleep soundly, and usually sleep for three hours a day, normally standing up. If a horse gets to close to a wall while sleeping they can get stuck, which is known as "getting cast". Dara compares this to a rubbish video game where your character gets trapped in a wall
Wall
A wall is a usually solid structure that defines and sometimes protects an area. Most commonly, a wall delineates a building and supports its superstructure, separates space in buildings into rooms, or protects or delineates a space in the open air...

. Horses are also one of the few mammal
Mammal
Mammals are members of a class of air-breathing vertebrate animals characterised by the possession of endothermy, hair, three middle ear bones, and mammary glands functional in mothers with young...

s that cannot vomit. They can die from not vomiting, known as "Colic". No-one knows why they cannot vomit.
Tangent: Dogs like to eat the shaven parts of hooves which are made when a farrier comes to shoe a horse.
Tangent: Bovines can also be calmed down by taking the top lip. Bulldogs were bred so that would bring down bull
Bull
Bull usually refers to an uncastrated adult male bovine.Bull may also refer to:-Entertainment:* Bull , an original show on the TNT Network* "Bull" , an episode of television series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation...

s by jumping at them, grabbing the lip and pulling it down.
  • The panel are show a picture of three cowboy
    Cowboy
    A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the vaquero traditions of northern Mexico and became a figure of...

    s, one in a white hat and clean shaven, another in the background who is also in a white hat and clean shaven, and another in a black hat and with facial hair
    Facial hair
    Facial hair is a secondary sex characteristic of human males. Men often start developing facial hair in the later years of puberty or adolescence, approximately between 17–20 years of age, and most do not finish developing a fully adult beard until their early 20s or even later...

    . The panel are asked which one just held up a stagecoach
    Stagecoach
    A stagecoach is a type of covered wagon for passengers and goods, strongly sprung and drawn by four horses, usually four-in-hand. Widely used before the introduction of railway transport, it made regular trips between stages or stations, which were places of rest provided for stagecoach travelers...

    , used bad language
    Profanity
    Profanity is a show of disrespect, or a desecration or debasement of someone or something. Profanity can take the form of words, expressions, gestures, or other social behaviors that are socially constructed or interpreted as insulting, rude, vulgar, obscene, desecrating, or other forms.The...

     in front of a lady, drinks whisky
    Whisky
    Whisky or whiskey is a type of distilled alcoholic beverage made from fermented grain mash. Different grains are used for different varieties, including barley, malted barley, rye, malted rye, wheat, and corn...

     and chases people from right to left. The answer is the man in the black hat. In the 1950s eight out of the top ten primetime TV programmes in the USA were westerns (the other two were comedies). During this time people watched TV mostly on small black-and-white sets, so it made it easier for the viewers to tell the characters apart. In terms of stage directions, the goodie walked from left-to-right which meant that his gun was facing the camera.
Tangent: Alan argues that there should by a TV channel devoted to westerns, Champion the Wonder Horse
Champion the Wonder Horse
The Adventures of Champion is an American children's Western series that aired from September 23, 1955 to March 3, 1956 for 26 episodes on CBS. In the United Kingdom, the series was re-broadcast under the title Champion the Wonder Horse....

, Casey Jones
Casey Jones
John Luther Jones was an American railroad engineer from Jackson, Tennessee, who worked for the Illinois Central Railroad...

 and Alas Smith and Jones
Alas Smith and Jones
Alas Smith and Jones is a British comedy sketch television series featuring Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones. It was broadcast on the BBC from 1984 to 1998...

. It is proposed that channel should be called "Alan" and Stephen says the best thing would be that it would not show QI all the time.
Tangent: Westerns are some times known as "Horse operas", but Hollywood insiders also called them "Oaters".
  • America's most wasteful hunters were the Native Americans
    Native Americans in the United States
    Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...

     who killed herds of bison
    Bison
    Members of the genus Bison are large, even-toed ungulates within the subfamily Bovinae. Two extant and four extinct species are recognized...

     by making them run off cliffs and only eating and using little of the animal, thereby wasting a lot of food over a period of 5,000. It could be argued that European settlers made them more efficient by importing horses and then they started hunting on horseback. Buffalo Bill
    Buffalo Bill
    William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody was a United States soldier, bison hunter and showman. He was born in the Iowa Territory , in LeClaire but lived several years in Canada before his family moved to the Kansas Territory. Buffalo Bill received the Medal of Honor in 1872 for service to the US...

     did kill lots of bison, with the European settlers reducing it to the most populous herd species of its kind to almost extinction (70 million to almost zero in 15 years), but they used more of the bison. Also they killed bison as a method of controlling the native population by getting rid of the main source of food. Other things the European settlers did were to give smallpox
    Smallpox
    Smallpox was an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning "spotted", or varus, meaning "pimple"...

     infected blankets to the Lakota Sioux people.
Tangent: Dara talks about stand-up routines about the best way to avoid being attacked by a bear, and talks about the idea that running down a hill and stopping is a good method because the bear will just roll down the hill. He then mentions the comic Craig Campbell who says that what you have just done is, "embarrass the bear".
  • Hunting cannot work on the internet
    Internet
    The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

     because it does not exist, although it is illegal in 34 US states. Texan John Lockwood in 2004 proposed the idea which involved using a computer with an internet connection to move a gun
    Gun
    A gun is a muzzle or breech-loaded projectile-firing weapon. There are various definitions depending on the nation and branch of service. A "gun" may be distinguished from other firearms in being a crew-served weapon such as a howitzer or mortar, as opposed to a small arm like a rifle or pistol,...

     with a webcam on it so that an online user can fire the gun from their computer. However, as soon as he proposed the idea he was banned from doing so as soon as he set up the website, by both the anti-hunting and the pro-hunting lobbies. Similarly, in California
    California
    California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

     internet fishing
    Fishing
    Fishing is the activity of trying to catch wild fish. Fish are normally caught in the wild. Techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping....

     is illegal which also does not exist.


General Ignorance:
Tangent: You can name your race horse anything provided that a name has not already been taken by a previous horse, hence why there are so many unusual names. Robbie Fowler
Robbie Fowler
Robert Bernard Fowler is an English footballer who is currently player/manager for Thai Premier League club Muangthong United....

 has race horses called Some Horse and Another Horse. If you want to name it after a person you have get the person's permission.
  • You get just less than one horsepower
    Horsepower
    Horsepower is the name of several units of measurement of power. The most common definitions equal between 735.5 and 750 watts.Horsepower was originally defined to compare the output of steam engines with the power of draft horses in continuous operation. The unit was widely adopted to measure the...

     from one horse. When James Watt developed and demonstrated the steam engine
    Steam engine
    A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid.Steam engines are external combustion engines, where the working fluid is separate from the combustion products. Non-combustion heat sources such as solar power, nuclear power or geothermal energy may be...

    , he was generous to the horses and so he decided that one horsepower had to produce more effort than a horse. As a result one horse produces 794 watts of power.

Episode 13 "Holidays"

Broadcast date:
  • 17 December 2010


Recording date:
  • 12 May 2010


Panellists:
  • Alan Davies
    Alan Davies
    Alan Davies is an English comedian, writer and actor best known for starring in the TV mystery series Jonathan Creek and as the permanent panellist on the TV panel show QI.- Early life :...

     (−28 points)
  • Bill Bailey
    Bill Bailey
    Bill Bailey is an English comedian, musician and actor. As well as his extensive stand-up work, Bailey is well known for his appearances on Black Books, Never Mind the Buzzcocks, Have I Got News for You, and QI.Bailey was listed by The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy in...

     (−22 points)
  • Rob Brydon
    Rob Brydon
    Rob Brydon is a BAFTA-nominated Welsh actor, comedian, radio and television presenter, singer and impressionist...

     (winner with 7 points)
  • Rich Hall
    Rich Hall
    Richard "Rich" Hall is an American comedian, writer and musician.-Early life and career:Hall was born in Alexandria, Virginia and grew up in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. He is part Cherokee Indian...

     (−5 points)


Notes
  • This is the fourth instance of a complete panel appearing twice. Bailey, Brydon and Hall all appeared together in episode 1 of series C.


Theme
  • Stephen and the panel all wore Hawaiian shirts and leis
    Lei (Hawaii)
    Lei is a Hawaiian word for a garland or wreath. More loosely defined, a lei is any series of objects strung together with the intent to be worn. The most popular concept of a lei in Hawaiian culture is a wreath of flowers draped around the neck presented upon arriving or leaving as a symbol of...

    .


Buzzers
  • Rich - A banjo playing a bluegrass tune
  • Rob - A harp playing a dreamy glissando
  • Bill - An accordion and some jingle bells
  • Alan - A comedic fanfare


Topics:
  • At his own expense, Stephen had sent each panellist to a place beginning with 'H' (the series' letter) and asks them to report back with anything interesting about their destination
    • Rob went to Hungary
      Hungary
      Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

      , birthplace of Ignaz Semmelweis
      Ignaz Semmelweis
      Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis was a Hungarian physician now known as an early pioneer of antiseptic procedures. Described as the "savior of mothers", Semmelweis discovered that the incidence of puerperal fever could be drastically cut by the use of hand disinfection in obstetrical clinics...

       the surgeon who came up with the theory of cleanliness in hospitals. Doctors rejected this theory as they could not bear the idea of being responsible for the deaths of thousands of people. Semmelweis went mad because no one would believe him and he died in an insane asylum in 1865. There is also a museum dedicated to him in Budapest
      Budapest
      Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...

      . Other Hungarian inventions include the Rubik's Cube
      Rubik's Cube
      Rubik's Cube is a 3-D mechanical puzzle invented in 1974 by Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Ernő Rubik.Originally called the "Magic Cube", the puzzle was licensed by Rubik to be sold by Ideal Toy Corp. in 1980 and won the German Game of the Year special award for Best Puzzle that...

      , the biro
      Ballpoint pen
      A ballpoint pen is a writing instrument with an internal ink reservoir and a sphere for a point. The internal chamber is filled with a viscous ink that is dispensed at its tip during use by the rolling action of a small sphere...

      , Goulash
      Goulash
      Goulash is a soup or stew of meat, noodles and vegetables , seasoned with paprika and other spices. Originating in Hungary, goulash is also a popular meal in Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Romania, Scandinavia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and the north-eastern Italian region of Friuli Venezia...

      , Pasteurization
      Pasteurization
      Pasteurization is a process of heating a food, usually liquid, to a specific temperature for a definite length of time, and then cooling it immediately. This process slows microbial growth in food...

      , the Manual Gearbox and the word "Hello".
    • Bill went to Bhutan
      Bhutan
      Bhutan , officially the Kingdom of Bhutan, is a landlocked state in South Asia, located at the eastern end of the Himalayas and bordered to the south, east and west by the Republic of India and to the north by the People's Republic of China...

       in the Himalayas
      Himalayas
      The Himalaya Range or Himalaya Mountains Sanskrit: Devanagari: हिमालय, literally "abode of snow"), usually called the Himalayas or Himalaya for short, is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau...

      . It is the only country in the world that is a 'Carbon Sink', meaning they take in far more carbon dioxide
      Carbon dioxide
      Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom...

       than they expel. Its constitution states that the forest area should never be reduced to less than 60% of the entire country. Its major export is hydroelectric power
      Hydroelectricity
      Hydroelectricity is the term referring to electricity generated by hydropower; the production of electrical power through the use of the gravitational force of falling or flowing water. It is the most widely used form of renewable energy...

      . The state of the country is not measured in wealth, but in the happiness of its people. Bhutan is Buddhist and the major sports are archery
      Archery
      Archery is the art, practice, or skill of propelling arrows with the use of a bow, from Latin arcus. Archery has historically been used for hunting and combat; in modern times, however, its main use is that of a recreational activity...

       and a larger version of darts
      Darts
      Darts is a form of throwing game where darts are thrown at a circular target fixed to a wall. Though various boards and games have been used in the past, the term "darts" usually now refers to a standardised game involving a specific board design and set of rules...

      , more akin to javelin.
    • Rich went to Hawaii
      Hawaii
      Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...

      . It was discovered by James Cook
      James Cook
      Captain James Cook, FRS, RN was a British explorer, navigator and cartographer who ultimately rose to the rank of captain in the Royal Navy...

      , who was eaten by the cannibalistic Hawaiian natives. Most land in Hawaii is owned by Dole Food Company
      Dole Food Company
      Dole Food Company, Inc. is an American-based agricultural multinational corporation headquartered in Westlake Village, California. The company is the largest producer of fruits and vegetables in the world, operating with 74,300 full-time and seasonal employees who are responsible for over 300...

      . Mauna Loa
      Mauna Loa
      Mauna Loa is one of five volcanoes that form the Island of Hawaii in the U.S. state of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean, and the largest on Earth in terms of volume and area covered. It is an active shield volcano, with a volume estimated at approximately , although its peak is about lower than that...

      , the highest mountain in the world, is in Hawaii. Canoes there are fitted with special outriggers, which allows people to ride the canoe without paddling. The Hawaiian alphabet has only twelve letters.
    • Alan went nowhere as "he was in detention"

  • White sand is made of Parrotfish
    Parrotfish
    Parrotfishes are a group of fishes that traditionally had been considered a family , but now often are considered a subfamily of the wrasses. They are found in relatively shallow tropical and subtropical oceans throughout the world, but with the largest species richness in the Indo-Pacific...

     droppings; a single fish excretes a ton of white sand every year
  • Tsutomu Yamaguchi
    Tsutomu Yamaguchi
    , was a Japanese national who survived both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings during World War II. Although at least 160 people are known to have been affected by both bombings, he is the only person to have been officially recognized by the government of Japan as surviving both...

     was a Japanese engineer at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries - Nagasaki Shipyard & Machinery Works who was in Hiroshima
    Hiroshima
    is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture, and the largest city in the Chūgoku region of western Honshu, the largest island of Japan. It became best known as the first city in history to be destroyed by a nuclear weapon when the United States Army Air Forces dropped an atomic bomb on it at 8:15 A.M...

     when the atomic bomb
    Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
    During the final stages of World War II in 1945, the United States conducted two atomic bombings against the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, the first on August 6, 1945, and the second on August 9, 1945. These two events are the only use of nuclear weapons in war to date.For six months...

     was dropped. He survived the blast and the next day went home to Nagasaki
    Nagasaki
    is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. Nagasaki was founded by the Portuguese in the second half of the 16th century on the site of a small fishing village, formerly part of Nishisonogi District...

     when the second atomic bomb destroyed the town. He claims he met over a hundred people who experienced the same thing as he, but became renowned for his longevity. He died in January 2010
    January 2010
    January 2010 was the first month of that year. It began on a Friday and ended after 31 days on a Sunday. It was the first month of the 2010s.- Portal:Current events :This is an archived version of Wikipedia's Current events Portal from January 2010....

    , aged 93.
  • The most powerful steam engine
    Steam engine
    A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid.Steam engines are external combustion engines, where the working fluid is separate from the combustion products. Non-combustion heat sources such as solar power, nuclear power or geothermal energy may be...

     was used to reclaim Dutch land, as part of the Delta Works
    Delta Works
    The Delta Works is a series of construction projects in the southwest of the Netherlands to protect a large area of land around the Rhine-Meuse-Scheldt delta from the sea. The works consist of dams, sluices, locks, dikes, levees, and storm surge barriers...

    .


General Ignorance:
  • Sudan
    Sudan
    Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...

     (forfeit: Egypt
    Egypt
    Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

    ) contains most of the River Nile
  • An embassy
    Diplomatic mission
    A diplomatic mission is a group of people from one state or an international inter-governmental organisation present in another state to represent the sending state/organisation in the receiving state...

     is not considered the sovereign soil of its corresponding nation. It belongs to the country the embassy is in. However, there is a memorial to John F. Kennedy
    John F. Kennedy
    John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....

     in Runnymede
    Runnymede
    Runnymede is a water-meadow alongside the River Thames in the English county of Berkshire, and just over west of central London. It is notable for its association with the sealing of Magna Carta, and as a consequence is the site of a collection of memorials...

     which is considered American soil.
  • Air planes do not jettison waste while airborne. (Forfeit: urine
    Urine
    Urine is a typically sterile liquid by-product of the body that is secreted by the kidneys through a process called urination and excreted through the urethra. Cellular metabolism generates numerous by-products, many rich in nitrogen, that require elimination from the bloodstream...

    )
  • Vatican City
    Vatican City
    Vatican City , or Vatican City State, in Italian officially Stato della Città del Vaticano , which translates literally as State of the City of the Vatican, is a landlocked sovereign city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, Italy. It has an area of...

     has the lowest age of consent (12) in Europe, in statutes dating from Renaissance times.
Tangent: The population of the Vatican is 500 and it also has the most helipads, TV stations and the highest crime rate per capita in the world, with 600 reported offences per year.

Episode 14 "Hocus Pocus" (Christmas Special)

Broadcast date:
  • 24 December 2010


Recording date:
  • 4 June 2010


Panellists:
  • Alan Davies
    Alan Davies
    Alan Davies is an English comedian, writer and actor best known for starring in the TV mystery series Jonathan Creek and as the permanent panellist on the TV panel show QI.- Early life :...

     (−19 points)
  • Lee Mack
    Lee Mack
    Lee Gordon McKillop is an English stand-up comedian and actor, known by the stage name Lee Mack. He is well known in the United Kingdom for writing and starring in the sitcom Not Going Out, for being a team captain on Would I Lie to You? and for hosting Lee Mack's All Star Cast.-Personal life:Mack...

     (−18 points)
  • Graham Norton
    Graham Norton
    Graham William Walker, known by his stage name Graham Norton , is an Irish actor, comedian, television presenter and columnist...

     (4 points)
  • Daniel Radcliffe
    Daniel Radcliffe
    Daniel Jacob Radcliffe is an English actor who rose to prominence playing the titular character in the Harry Potter film series....

     (winner with 10 points)


Theme:
  • Stephen wears a magicians cloak, and a Tommy Cooper
    Tommy Cooper
    Thomas Frederick "Tommy" Cooper was a very popular British prop comedian and magician from Caerphilly, Wales.Cooper was a member of The Magic Circle, and respected by traditional magicians...

    -esque red fez on his head.


Buzzers:
  • Graham - "Hey Presto!"
  • Lee - "Abracadabra!"
  • Daniel - "Expelliarmus!"
  • Alan - "Please!"


Topics:
  • The oldest trick
    Magic (illusion)
    Magic is a performing art that entertains audiences by staging tricks or creating illusions of seemingly impossible or supernatural feats using natural means...

     in the book is removing a goose's head and restoring it. It dates back to Ancient Egypt
    Ancient Egypt
    Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...

    , where it was written by Dedi
    Dedi
    Dedi is the name of a fictitious ancient Egyptian magician appearing in the fourth chapter of a story told in the legendary Westcar Papyrus. He is said to have worked wonders during the reign of king Khufu .-Literary person:Dedi appears only in the fourth story of the Westcar Papyrus - there is no...

     in the Westcar Papyrus
    Papyrus
    Papyrus is a thick paper-like material produced from the pith of the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus, a wetland sedge that was once abundant in the Nile Delta of Egypt....

    , who also did the trick with other animals including a duck and an ox. The trick is still performed today, and is shown to the panel by the Vice President of the Magic Circle
    Magic circle
    A magic circle is circle or sphere of space marked out by practitioners of many branches of ritual magic, which they generally believe will contain energy and form a sacred space, or will provide them a form of magical protection, or both. It may be marked physically, drawn in salt or chalk, for...

    , Scott Penrose
    Scott Penrose
    Scott Penrose is an English magician and magic consultant and is the son of magician John Penrose.Scott is the Vice President of The Magic Circle and a Gold Star member of the Inner Magic Circle. He was awarded the title The Magic Circle Stage Magician of the Year in 2000.He also works as a magic...

    .
  • Many things can go wrong if you tried to catch a bullet with your teeth. For example, you can break your teeth because you hide the bullet in your mouth. Several magicians have died because of this trick. In 1869 magician Dr. Epstein tapped a bullet into a gun down with his wand, but part of the wand got stuck in the gun and when it fired the wand shot out and killed him. In 1880 magician Raoul Curren performed the trick in the Wild West and a drunken member of the audience fired his gun at Curren to see if he could catch his bullet, shooting him dead.
  • The panel are asked to complete the following sentence: "I before E except...". There is no actual answer to this because the "magic e" rule, which is "I before E except after C
    I before e except after c
    "I before E, except after C" is a mnemonic rule of thumb for English spelling. If one is unsure whether a word is spelled with the sequence ei or ie, the rhyme suggests that the correct order is ie unless the preceding letter is c or the combination is being pronounced as an 'A' , in which case it...

    ", is wrong. There are more exceptions to the rule and thus it is no longer taught in schools. There are 923 words in English
    English language
    English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

     that have "cie" in them, and there are 21 times as many words which break the rule than obey it, i.e. they contain the letter string 'cie' or another consonant other than c followed by 'ei'. Words which break the rule include "glacier
    Glacier
    A glacier is a large persistent body of ice that forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. At least 0.1 km² in area and 50 m thick, but often much larger, a glacier slowly deforms and flows due to stresses induced by its weight...

    ", "species
    Species
    In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

    ", "concierge
    Concierge
    A concierge is an employee who either works in shifts within, or lives on the premises of an apartment building or a hotel and serves guests with duties similar to those of a butler. The position can also be maintained by a security officer over the 'graveyard' shift. A similar position, known as...

    ", "caffeine
    Caffeine
    Caffeine is a bitter, white crystalline xanthine alkaloid that acts as a stimulant drug. Caffeine is found in varying quantities in the seeds, leaves, and fruit of some plants, where it acts as a natural pesticide that paralyzes and kills certain insects feeding on the plants...

    ", "weird", "Madeira
    Madeira
    Madeira is a Portuguese archipelago that lies between and , just under 400 km north of Tenerife, Canary Islands, in the north Atlantic Ocean and an outermost region of the European Union...

    ", "hacienda
    Hacienda
    Hacienda is a Spanish word for an estate. Some haciendas were plantations, mines, or even business factories. Many haciendas combined these productive activities...

    ", "weir", "being" and "veil
    Veil
    A veil is an article of clothing, worn almost exclusively by women, that is intended to cover some part of the head or face.One view is that as a religious item, it is intended to show honor to an object or space...

    ". (Forfeit: After C)
Tangent: The panel, especially Lee, annoy Stephen by failing to give him examples where the rule does not work, with Lee constantly giving the example of "ceiling" which does follow the rule.
  • The panel are asked whether they would prefer a muggle
    Muggle
    Muggle, a term from the Harry Potter book series by J. K. Rowling, refers to a person who lacks any sort of magical ability and was not born into the magical world...

    , Hagrid or Dumbledore on their quidditch
    Quidditch
    Quidditch is a fictional sport developed by British author J. K. Rowling for the Harry Potter series of novels. It is described as an extremely rough, but very popular, semi-contact sport, played by wizards and witches around the world...

     team. The words "muggle", "hagrid" and "dumbledore" have origins before they became associated with the Harry Potter books. A "muggle" is jazz slang for someone who uses cannabis
    Cannabis
    Cannabis is a genus of flowering plants that includes three putative species, Cannabis sativa, Cannabis indica, and Cannabis ruderalis. These three taxa are indigenous to Central Asia, and South Asia. Cannabis has long been used for fibre , for seed and seed oils, for medicinal purposes, and as a...

    . To be "hagrid" or "hag-ridden" is to be inflicted with nightmares. A "dumbledore" is a bumblebee
    Bumblebee
    A bumble bee is any member of the bee genus Bombus, in the family Apidae. There are over 250 known species, existing primarily in the Northern Hemisphere although they are common in New Zealand and in the Australian state of Tasmania.Bumble bees are social insects that are characterised by black...

     and was later used as a term for a village idiot
    Village idiot
    The village idiot in strict terms is a person locally known for ignorance or stupidity, but is also a common term for a stereotypically silly or nonsensical person. The term is also used as a stereotype of the mentally disabled...

     which appears in Thomas Hardy
    Thomas Hardy
    Thomas Hardy, OM was an English novelist and poet. While his works typically belong to the Naturalism movement, several poems display elements of the previous Romantic and Enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural.While he regarded himself primarily as a...

    's Under the Greenwood Tree
    Under the Greenwood Tree
    Under the Greenwood Tree or The Mellstock Quire: A Rural Painting of the Dutch School is a novel by Thomas Hardy, published anonymously in 1872. It was Hardy's second published novel, the last to be printed without his name, and the first of his great series of Wessex novels...

    .
  • Hogworts
    Hogwort
    Croton capitatus, known as the hogwort or woolly croton, is an annual plant with erect, branched stems, densely covered with light brown, wooly hairs that give it a whitish appearance. It grows in dry, open areas, especially sandy and rocky soils...

     (the panel was mean to assume that Fry by this meant Hogwarts
    Hogwarts
    Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry or simply Hogwarts is the primary setting for the first six books of the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling, with each book lasting the equivalent of one school year. It is a fictional boarding school of magic for witches and wizards between the ages of...

    ) tackled drinking problems by being put into submarine
    Submarine
    A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...

     fuel. Early torpedo
    Torpedo
    The modern torpedo is a self-propelled missile weapon with an explosive warhead, launched above or below the water surface, propelled underwater towards a target, and designed to detonate either on contact with it or in proximity to it.The term torpedo was originally employed for...

    es in the US Navy were fuelled by ethyl alcohol (ethanol
    Ethanol
    Ethanol, also called ethyl alcohol, pure alcohol, grain alcohol, or drinking alcohol, is a volatile, flammable, colorless liquid. It is a psychoactive drug and one of the oldest recreational drugs. Best known as the type of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages, it is also used in thermometers, as a...

    ) which is 80% proof. In 1914 the US Navy banned alcohol, so the fuel was the only supply of alcohol the navy had. Sailors would thus drink it and flavour it various ways. To try and stop sailors from drinking it they first put methanol
    Methanol
    Methanol, also known as methyl alcohol, wood alcohol, wood naphtha or wood spirits, is a chemical with the formula CH3OH . It is the simplest alcohol, and is a light, volatile, colorless, flammable liquid with a distinctive odor very similar to, but slightly sweeter than, ethanol...

     in the fuel and told the sailors it would make them blind if they drank it, but they still went for it. They then added croton oil
    Croton oil
    Croton oil is an oil prepared from the seeds of Croton tiglium, a tree belonging to the natural order Euphorbiales and family Euphorbiaceae, and native or cultivated in India and the Malay Archipelago. Small doses taken internally cause diarrhea. Externally, the oil can cause irritation and swelling...

     which comes from the hogwort plant, which when consumed made you vomit and gave you diarrhoea. The sailors however still got around this by boiling the fuel.
Tangent: J. K. Rowling
J. K. Rowling
Joanne "Jo" Rowling, OBE , better known as J. K. Rowling, is the British author of the Harry Potter fantasy series...

 has been told in interviews that there is such a hogwort plant. She says that she thought she made the word up, but maybe she went to Kew Gardens, spotted this plant and the name stuck. "Rowling" is pronounced to rhyme with "bowling" not "howling".
  • A question about a different type of "Harry". The Domesday Book
    Domesday Book
    Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...

     contains so many empty village
    Village
    A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...

    s in Yorkshire
    Yorkshire
    Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...

     because of the Harrying of the North
    Harrying of the North
    The Harrying of the North was a series of campaigns waged by William the Conqueror in the winter of 1069–1070 to subjugate Northern England, and is part of the Norman conquest of England...

    . When towns in the North rebelled against William the Bastard (whom we now call William the Conqueror) William ordered the area to be destroyed, killing 100,000 people outright and causing many more to die of starvation
    Starvation
    Starvation is a severe deficiency in caloric energy, nutrient and vitamin intake. It is the most extreme form of malnutrition. In humans, prolonged starvation can cause permanent organ damage and eventually, death...

     and disease. It is the worst act of genocide
    Genocide
    Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...

     committed on British soil.


General Ignorance:
The panel all pulls some Christmas crackers and tell each other the jokes which are:
  • Graham: Knock, knock. Who's there? To. To who? To whom, surely.
  • Lee: What cheese do you use to coax a bear out of its cave? Come-on-bear
    Camembert
    Camembert is a commune in the Orne department in north-western France.It is most famous as the place where camembert cheese originated.Camembert has been called "The largest small village in France." This is because the area of the commune itself is out of proportion to the center of the village...

    .
  • Daniel: Who is the most famous married woman in America? Mrs sissippi
    Mississippi
    Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...

    .
  • Alan: What disease can you get from decorating your Christmas tree
    Christmas tree
    The Christmas tree is a decorated evergreen coniferous tree, real or artificial, and a tradition associated with the celebration of Christmas. The tradition of decorating an evergreen tree at Christmas started in Livonia and Germany in the 16th century...

    ? Tinsellitis
    Tonsillitis
    Tonsillitis is an inflammation of the tonsils most commonly caused by viral or bacterial infection. Symptoms of tonsillitis include sore throat and fever. While no treatment has been found to shorten the duration of viral tonsillitis, bacterial causes are treatable with antibiotics...

    .

The panel are asked why their jokes are so bad. The answer is that in most cases not everyone will find a joke funny. Thus if you tell a good joke the chances are you will split the room in two; between those who like the joke and those who do not, and thus some people may dislike you. However, if you know the joke is going to be bad, then the figure of dislike is the joke itself rather than the person telling it.

Final tricks:
To end the show the panel perform their own magic tricks. Alan saws Lee in half successfully. Graham guillotine
Guillotine
The guillotine is a device used for carrying out :executions by decapitation. It consists of a tall upright frame from which an angled blade is suspended. This blade is raised with a rope and then allowed to drop, severing the head from the body...

s Daniel but actually gets the trick wrong and cuts off Daniel's head (this is revealed to be, of course, an illusion at the end of the credits).

QI XL extras:
Tangent: The Dedi trick was done for King Cheops around 2,600 BC. It is he after whom the Great Pyramid
Great Pyramid of Giza
The Great Pyramid of Giza is the oldest and largest of the three pyramids in the Giza Necropolis bordering what is now El Giza, Egypt. It is the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the only one to remain largely intact...

 in Giza is named after. It was also the first trick that was done purely as a trick, rather than something that was supposed to depend on supernatural forces.
Tangent: Another trick which went disastrously wrong was when one magician attempted to stab himself with a sword. The trick involved having sheep intestines hidden in your clothing and a metal plate behind it so you cut out the sheep guts and did not stab yourself. This magician however one night forgot the plate and stabbed himself to death.
Tangent: Someone else who died from the bullet trick Chung Ling Soo
Chung Ling Soo
Chung Ling Soo was the stage name of the American magician William Ellsworth Robinson who is mostly remembered today for his tragic death after a bullet catch trick went wrong.- Biography :...

, who was not Chinese and was actually called William Robinson. He spoke cod Chinese on stage and never spoke English, until the day he performed the bullet trick and it went wrong, was shot. He said in English: "Oh God, something's gone wrong. Close the curtain." Those were his last words on stage.
  • The Great Lafayette's last and greatest disappearing act was when his body turned up three days after it was cremated
    Cremation
    Cremation is the process of reducing bodies to basic chemical compounds such as gasses and bone fragments. This is accomplished through high-temperature burning, vaporization and oxidation....

    . Lafayette was the most successful performer of his day, sold out 10 years in advance and earned £44,000 per year (£2.3 million in today's money). He had a pet dog called Beauty that was given to him by Harry Houdini
    Harry Houdini
    Harry Houdini was a Hungarian-born American magician and escapologist, stunt performer, actor and film producer noted for his sensational escape acts...

    . Lafayette used to travel in his own private railway carriage and Beauty in another containing a porcelain
    Porcelain
    Porcelain is a ceramic material made by heating raw materials, generally including clay in the form of kaolin, in a kiln to temperatures between and...

     bath, its own china and crystal
    Crystal
    A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituent atoms, molecules, or ions are arranged in an orderly repeating pattern extending in all three spatial dimensions. The scientific study of crystals and crystal formation is known as crystallography...

    . Beauty died from being overfed and Lafayette insisted that Beauty should be embalmed and buried. The cemetery allowed it on condition that Lafayette was buried with the dog. Lafayette died four days after Beauty died in a fire caused by a lamp while performing on stage. The audience first thought it was part of the trick and by the time they realised it was not 11 people had burned to death including a midget in a mechanical bear suit. The people found what they thought was the body of Lafayette, cremated the bits that were not already burned and buried the body next to Beauty. They then pulled down the burned theatre, and found another body which they recognised to be the real Lafayette due his diamond ring, so they had to exhume the first body and bury the actual one. The reason for this confusion may stem from the fact he used doubles on stage, which made it look like he appeared and disappeared on stage very quickly.
  • Stephen asks which sport is it where the aim is to thrown a ball with handles on it into a goal consisting of a long vertical pole with a hoop on the end. The sport is horseball
    Horseball
    Horseball is a game played on horseback where a ball is handled and points are scored by shooting it through a high net . The sport is like a combination of polo, rugby, and basketball. It is one of the ten disciplines officially recognized by the International Federation for Equestrian...

    , which was invented in France
    France
    The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

     in 1970. It is played on horseback and it involves throwing a ball, catching it by the handles and throwing it through the hoop to score a goal. The game is related to a Spanish game called pato. The word is Spanish for "duck" and it involved throwing a basket with a live duck in it. It became the national game of Argentina
    Argentina
    Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

     under President Juan Peron
    Juan Perón
    Juan Domingo Perón was an Argentine military officer, and politician. Perón was three times elected as President of Argentina though he only managed to serve one full term, after serving in several government positions, including the Secretary of Labor and the Vice Presidency...

     in 1953. (Forfeit: Quidditch)
Tangent: Daniel comments that in quidditch the rules say that if you catch the snitch you automatically win the match, which he claims is unfair because it does not matter how many points you score with the other ball you can still lose straight away. A form of quidditch is played in real life. It is known as "muggle quidditch" because the people who play it have no magical powers and so run with a broomstick between their legs. There are over 200 muggle quidditch college
College
A college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...

 teams in American universities.
  • The subject of Beatrix Potter
    Beatrix Potter
    Helen Beatrix Potter was an English author, illustrator, natural scientist and conservationist best known for her imaginative children’s books featuring animals such as those in The Tale of Peter Rabbit which celebrated the British landscape and country life.Born into a privileged Unitarian...

    's first book was fungi. Before writing her series of children's books, she wrote a book about fungus which was presented by her uncle to Linnean Society. She could not present as women were barred from the meetings and the society did not apologise until 100 years afterwards. Potter wrote The Tale of Peter Rabbit
    The Tale of Peter Rabbit
    The Tale of Peter Rabbit is a children's book written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter that follows mischievous and disobedient young Peter Rabbit as he is chased about the garden of Mr. McGregor. He escapes and returns home to his mother who puts him to bed after dosing him with camomile tea...

     for the son of her former governess. The opening line of the book is: "Once upon a time there were four rabbits called Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail and Peter." Peter Rabbit
    Peter Rabbit
    Peter Rabbit is a fictional anthropomorphic character in various children's stories by Beatrix Potter. He first appeared in The Tale of Peter Rabbit in 1902, and subsequently in five more books between 1904 and 1912. Spinoff merchandise includes dishes, wallpaper, and dolls...

     was the first ever merchandised toy. It appears that the names of many of her characters come from the tombstones in a cemetery near where she lived.


General Ignorance:
  • You should open the first door of your advent calendar
    Advent calendar
    An Advent calendar is a special calendar which is used to count or celebrate the days of Advent in anticipation of Christmas. Some calendars are strictly religious, whereas others are secular in content...

     on the first Sunday of Advent which is four Sundays before Christmas
    Christmas
    Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...

     and occurs more often in November
    November
    November is the 11th month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian Calendars and one of four months with the length of 30 days. November was the ninth month of the ancient Roman calendar...

     than December
    December
    December is the 12th and last month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian Calendars and one of seven months with the length of 31 days.December starts on the same day as September every year and ends on the same day as April every year.-Etymology:...

    . The date moves around between 27 November and 3 December. It only occasionally occurs on 1 December. (Forfeit: December 1st) (this seems to be saying that an advent calendar should really follow advent, however standardly advent calendars have 24 doors number 1-24 indicating 1-24 December)
Tangent: Alan talks about pubs when there used to be sold bags of nuts stuck onto a picture of a naked woman. Lee says that Johnny Vegas told him about a pub in St. Helens
St Helens, Merseyside
St Helens is a large town in Merseyside, England. It is the largest settlement and administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough of St Helens with a population of just over 100,000, part of an urban area with a total population of 176,843 at the time of the 2001 Census...

 where there was a topless bar where if you paid an extra 50p the barmaid would stick her breasts in the beer.

Episode 15 "Hypnosis, Hallucinations & Hysteria"

Broadcast date:
  • 7 January 2011


Recording date:
  • 14 May 2010


Panellists:
  • Alan Davies
    Alan Davies
    Alan Davies is an English comedian, writer and actor best known for starring in the TV mystery series Jonathan Creek and as the permanent panellist on the TV panel show QI.- Early life :...

     (−8 points)
  • Ronni Ancona
    Ronni Ancona
    Ronni Ancona is a Scottish actress, impressionist and author. Ancona won the Best TV Comedy Actress award at the 2003 British Comedy Awards for her work in Big Impression.- Career :...

     (−17 points)
  • Phill Jupitus
    Phill Jupitus
    Phillip Christopher Jupitus is an English stand-up and improvised comedian, actor, performance poet, musician and podcaster....

     (winner with −2 points)
  • Robert Webb
    Robert Webb (actor)
    Robert Webb is an English actor, comedian and writer, and one half of the double act Mitchell and Webb, alongside David Mitchell.-Early life:...

     (−32 points)


Buzzers:
  • Ronni - "You're feeling sleepy."
  • Robert - "Very sleepy."
  • Phill - "Your eye lids are heavy."
  • Alan - A person snoring


Topics:
  • If you hypnotised someone and then cut off their leg the chances are they would not make a fuss, unless they did not want their leg to be cut off in the first place. Some people have a strong resistance to anaesthetics so for some patients it is better to be hypnotised than to be put under in case you wake up during an operation
    Surgery
    Surgery is an ancient medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a patient to investigate and/or treat a pathological condition such as disease or injury, or to help improve bodily function or appearance.An act of performing surgery may be called a surgical...

    . Hypnosis
    Hypnosis
    Hypnosis is "a trance state characterized by extreme suggestibility, relaxation and heightened imagination."It is a mental state or imaginative role-enactment . It is usually induced by a procedure known as a hypnotic induction, which is commonly composed of a long series of preliminary...

     has been used for this since in the 1830s, before ether. The reason for using hypnosis is that most pain we feel is actually caused by the anxiety of it which is in the brain, so hypnosis helps you relax. Pain itself is created by the brain. Other than hypnosis, you can also take Valium to calm yourself down.
  • The best way to hypnotise an alligator or a tiger shark
    Tiger shark
    The tiger sharks, Galeocerdo cuvier, is a species of requiem shark and the only member of the genus Galeocerdo. Commonly known as sea tigers, tiger sharks are relatively large macropredators, capable of attaining a length of over . It is found in many tropical and temperate waters, and is...

     is to turn it upside down. Whales tip sharks over to hypnotise them, which causes them to suffocate and die. Frogs, lizards and crocodiles can also be hypnotised this way. To hypnotise chicken
    Chicken
    The chicken is a domesticated fowl, a subspecies of the Red Junglefowl. As one of the most common and widespread domestic animals, and with a population of more than 24 billion in 2003, there are more chickens in the world than any other species of bird...

    s, you hold them down and then draw a line from their beak along the ground. Another way to do it to chickens is to take a stick or paddle and fix fake eyes to it. However, the producer of the show tried it on his chickens and it did not work. Rabbit
    Rabbit
    Rabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae of the order Lagomorpha, found in several parts of the world...

    s and guinea pig
    Guinea pig
    The guinea pig , also called the cavy, is a species of rodent belonging to the family Caviidae and the genus Cavia. Despite their common name, these animals are not in the pig family, nor are they from Guinea...

    s can be hypnotised if you stroke them or roll them over a few times first. They are woken up by blowing on their noses. Stephen once hypnotised a lobster when doing his documentary Stephen Fry in America
    Stephen Fry in America
    Stephen Fry in America is a six part BBC television series in which Stephen Fry travels across America to reveal a country in which he was almost born. Just before Fry was born, his father was offered a job at Princeton University, in New Jersey, but chose to turn it down in favour of Hampstead. In...

     and does so again in the studio, which is done by stroking the top of the head, bottom to top. They wake up by lifting them up. In animals, hypnosis is called "tonic immobility
    Tonic immobility
    Apparent death, colloquially known as playing dead or playing possum, is an antipredator behavior observed in a wide range of animals in which they take on the appearance of being dead to an observer...

    ".
Tangent: There was a dog in Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

 called Oscar who was able to hypnotise humans. He was trained by one Hugh Lennon. He went missing and people trying to find him were warned not to look into Oscar's eyes. Snakes can also hypnotise rabbits by staring at them.
  • You should not consult Dr. Zoe D. Katze Ph.D., C.Ht., DAPA because she is a cat with bogus qualifications including hypnotherapy. Academic Steve Eichel
    Steve Eichel
    Steve K. D. Eichel is a psychologist known primarily for his work on destructive cults, coercive persuasion, mind control, brainwashing, and deprogramming...

     wanted to prove just how easy it was to get qualifications over the internet. Once you get one then you can use the others to parley
    Parley
    Parley is a discussion or conference, especially one between enemies over terms of a truce or other matters. The root of the word parley is parler, which is the French verb "to speak"; specifically the conjugation parlez "you speak", whether as imperative or indicative.Beginning in the High Middle...

     until you get a whole list of them. Zoe has a doctorate in counselling psychology from a mail-order university, she has a C.Ht. meaning she is a certified hypnotherapist, she is in the National Guild of Hypnotists, and is a Diplomat of the American Psychotherapy Association. Zoe also has qualifications that allow her to be an energy therapist, a past-life regression therapist and an alien abduction therapist. There are "diploma mills" and "degree mills" which give either fake diplomas from a real university or a real diploma from a fake university. Stephen then gives the panel a fake diploma each in "Advanced Banter". The whole business of fake degrees is called "pseudo-credentialing".
  • You could not persuade the audience to elect Stephen as the Pope
    Pope
    The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...

     without them noticing that they have done it. This is because subliminal advertising does not work (although messages saying "Stephen Fry for Pope" do appear quickly during this discussion). Although it is banned by most broadcasters, including the Federal Communications Commission
    Federal Communications Commission
    The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...

     (FCC) in the United States, it has never been shown to work. The person who invented was a man called Vicary
    James Vicary
    James McDonald Vicary was a market researcher best known for pioneering the notion of subliminal advertising in 1957.-Biography:...

     in 1957, but in 196] he admitted that he faked the evidence. (Forfeit: Subliminal advertising)
Tangent: The most famous stories of audio subliminal messages are stories of satanic messages in heavy metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...

 tracks when played backwards (known as "backward masking"); the most famous messages being supposedly made by Judas Priest. The band went to court after two teenagers attempted suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

 after listening to a message in one track which supposedly said: "Do it. Do it now." The band defended themselves by playing loads of albums and showing that most have things you can claim to be messages when played backwards. Frontman Rob Halford
Rob Halford
Robert John Arthur "Rob" Halford is an English singer-songwriter, who is best known as the lead vocalist for the Grammy Award-winning heavy metal band Judas Priest. He is nicknamed the "Metal God" as a tribute to his influence on metal, and after the Judas Priest song of the same name from 1980's...

 also said in court: "I don't wish to paint myself as greedy, but if we were going to put a message in it would be: 'Buy more of our records.'" Halford also said that "Do it", does not mean "kill yourself", but Phill points out the track was called "Suicide Solution".
Tangent: Another supposed subliminal message is the face of Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...

 appearing in the Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

 rose logo.
  • The kind of behaviour you would get from a superstitious pigeon would be repetitive. American psychiatrist B. F. Skinner
    B. F. Skinner
    Burrhus Frederic Skinner was an American behaviorist, author, inventor, baseball enthusiast, social philosopher and poet...

     found out that if you feed pigeons at predetermined intervals, the pigeons registered what they did before they got fed, so they do what they did previously to try and get food. It is rather similar to people doing things such as wearing a certain piece of clothing when their favourite football team scored a goal. This is known as "magical thinking", when you think you can effect the world by doing such things. It is also hard to find any definition of superstition that does not cover religion. Also, other religions tend to treat each other as superstitions, but claim that they are real. In the Catholic Church it is a sin to be superstitious.
  • The thing which is hysterical about wondering womb trouble is that in Ancient Greece
    Ancient Greece
    Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

     many medical complaints given by women including madness were blamed on the "fact" that their wombs moved around the body. The word "hysterical" comes from the same root as "hysterectomy". The Greek for "uterus" is "hystera". Freud said that for every real condition there is a hysterical one which is created in the mind. You can have hysterical blindness or dumbness which means you cannot see or speak even if there is nothing wrong with your eyes or mouth.
  • The panel are shown a clip of the sun setting and are asked to buzz in when they think it has dropped blow the horizon. However they are too late when they buzz because what we see in the sky is a mirage
    Mirage
    A mirage is a naturally occurring optical phenomenon in which light rays are bent to produce a displaced image of distant objects or the sky. The word comes to English via the French mirage, from the Latin mirare, meaning "to look at, to wonder at"...

    . The sun has actually dropped below the horizon when the bottom of it just touches the horizon. This is because of the way the light bends when it shines through to the bottom of the atmosphere which has a different air pressure. Other examples of mirages include what we think of as water evaporating off roads. (Forfeit: Too late!)
Tangent: In New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

 motorists suffer from sun strike. This occurs because New Zealand is so far down on the planet
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...

, so the sun has to pass through a lot of atmosphere to get to the surface. So at that angle when the sun shines down on the road the light gets reflected back up making it hard to see the road.


General Ignorance:
  • Spiral staircases are not spiral in shape. They are helical. Spirals get wider and wider as they go up. Helixes stay the shame width all the way. (Forfeit: Spiral)
  • There are so many lavatories in the Pentagon
    The Pentagon
    The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...

     because originally there were going be toilets just for white people
    White people
    White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...

     and toilets just for black people
    Black people
    The term black people is used in systems of racial classification for humans of a dark skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups.Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class, socio-economic status also plays a...

    . The Pentagon is in Virginia
    Virginia
    The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...

    , a southern state where segregation was common. However, when it was built President Franklin D. Roosevelt
    Franklin D. Roosevelt
    Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...

     banned all segregation in federal buildings. He was furious when he learned about this situation and so prevented the segregation, but the lavatories (at least 284 in total) were still built. The Pentagon has 23,000 people working in it; the centre open area is five acres in size, there are 17.5 miles of corridor, and it has six Zip codes. However, it only takes seven minutes to walk from one place to the other.
  • Vyacheslav Molotov
    Vyacheslav Molotov
    Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov was a Soviet politician and diplomat, an Old Bolshevik and a leading figure in the Soviet government from the 1920s, when he rose to power as a protégé of Joseph Stalin, to 1957, when he was dismissed from the Presidium of the Central Committee by Nikita Khrushchev...

     did not invent anything apart from some death lists and the Molotov Line system of defences. Molotov was the foreign minister under Joseph Stalin
    Joseph Stalin
    Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...

     and lived until 1986. In 1939 the Soviet Union
    Soviet Union
    The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

     was at war with Finland
    Finland
    Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

     and Molotov claimed that the Soviets were dropping food parcels into the country, but they were actually cluster bombs. The Finns nicknamed them "Molotov's breadbaskets", and Finns fought back with petrol bombs against Soviet tanks, and the bombs were Molotov cocktails to go with the breadbaskets. The Finns eventually defeated the Soviets. (Forfeit: The Molotov cocktail)


QI XL extras:
Tangent: In the 1830s a Scottish doctor called Esdaile working in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 used hypnosis on patients suffering from filariasis
Filariasis
Filariasis is a parasitic disease and is considered an infectious tropical disease, that is caused by thread-like nematodes belonging to the superfamily Filarioidea, also known as "filariae"....

, which causes hydroceles of the scrotum. This causes large tumours in the testicles, and the operation was so uncomfortable that sufferers would not see a doctor for many years. As a result, one sufferer had a scrotum weighing 46kg. One man had a scrotum so big he was using it as a writing desk.
Tangent: Robert tried hypnosis to stop smoking but found that he could not be hypnotised so he pretended to faint in order to prevent the hypnotherapist from being embarrassed. Robert eventually gave up smoking, but using prescription drugs.
  • The most likely reason that your life flashes before your eyes is because you brain is trying to find a similar situation which has happened previously in order to find a way to save your life. Life flashing before your eyes can be dated back to Rear-Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort (who invented the Beaufort wind scale) who wrote in a letter claiming that it happened to him once when he nearly drowned in Portsmouth Harbour
    Portsmouth Harbour
    Portsmouth Harbour is a large natural harbour in Hampshire, England. Geographically it is a ria: formerly it was the valley of a stream flowing from Portsdown into the Solent River. The city of Portsmouth lies to the east on Portsea Island, and Gosport to the west on the mainland...

     in 1795. In one much more recent case, a man was being attacked by a great white shark
    Great white shark
    The great white shark, scientific name Carcharodon carcharias, also known as the great white, white pointer, white shark, or white death, is a large lamniform shark found in coastal surface waters in all major oceans. It is known for its size, with the largest individuals known to have approached...

     and remembered a DVD his son was watching years ago which said to fend of an attack shark you should put your hands down the gills, which he did and survived. Phrases for life passing before your eyes exist in Persian, Portuguese, Italian, Russian, German, Norwegian, Romanian, Spanish, Swedish, Arabian, Dutch and French.
Tangent: Hypnopaedia is when you play music tracks which contain subliminal messages in order to help you learn things. You can even buy pillows with speakers in them. However, there is no real evidence to suggest hypnopaedia actually works in terms of what is being taught. However, if you sell someone some classical music
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...

 and tell them it contains subliminal messages to increase your self-confidence, it works, even if it is just the music.
Tangent: Another form of self-hypnosis is banging your head on the pillow so many times and then you wake up on the number of bangs on the hour. For example, if you bang your head four times, you wake up at four o'clock. Stephen claimed it worked for him at prep school when the pupils raided the kitchens.
Tangent: Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

 suffered from hysterical blindness and dumbness after suffering from a gas attack during World War One. Unfortunately it was during this time when he was recovering in hospital he decided then that he would lead the German people. American psychologist Walter Langer wrote a report on Hitler during the war which made some interesting observations and predictions using Freudian analysis. Langer wrote that in Hitler's symbolic vision Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

 was his father in 1914, old, dying and exhausted, and Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 was his symbolic mother who was about to be violated. Hitler, unlike most Germans at the time, referred to Germany as the Motherland (Mutterland) rather than the Fatherland (Vaterland). Langer also went onto say that Hitler would most likely commit suicide in a symbolic womb.


General Ignorance:
Tangent: DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...

 is a double helix in shape. If you took out your DNA and stretched it out it would be a tenth of a light year long, so it would stretch beyond the Solar System
Solar System
The Solar System consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects gravitationally bound in orbit around it, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun...

. There are 50 trillion cells, 23 chromosome
Chromosome
A chromosome is an organized structure of DNA and protein found in cells. It is a single piece of coiled DNA containing many genes, regulatory elements and other nucleotide sequences. Chromosomes also contain DNA-bound proteins, which serve to package the DNA and control its functions.Chromosomes...

s per cell, 220 million base pairs per chromosome.
Tangent: The Argentine blue bill duck or Argentine lake duck has a penis
Penis
The penis is a biological feature of male animals including both vertebrates and invertebrates...

 the shape of a corkscrew. It also has the longest penis relative to its body size of any vertebrate. It is the length of its whole body. It also has a brush on the end of penis to wipe away the sperm of other males. The female's vagina
Vagina
The vagina is a fibromuscular tubular tract leading from the uterus to the exterior of the body in female placental mammals and marsupials, or to the cloaca in female birds, monotremes, and some reptiles. Female insects and other invertebrates also have a vagina, which is the terminal part of the...

 is also corkscrew shaped, but in the opposite direction.
Tangent: During the Second World War American army camps in Britain were racially segregated, but the British were opposed to it. When the Americans insisted on segregated pubs the British refused. When white Americans came in and saw black Americans drinking in a bar they would start fights and the British fought alongside the black Americans. Ronni then talks about US propaganda films showing a white US soldier and a black US soldier meeting an old British lady and invites both of them around for tea, so the film prepared soldiers for the non-racist treatment the British gave to American soldiers.

Episode 16 "History"

Broadcast date:
  • 14 January 2011


Recording date:
  • 21 May 2010


Panellists:
  • Alan Davies
    Alan Davies
    Alan Davies is an English comedian, writer and actor best known for starring in the TV mystery series Jonathan Creek and as the permanent panellist on the TV panel show QI.- Early life :...

     (−29 points)
  • Rob Brydon
    Rob Brydon
    Rob Brydon is a BAFTA-nominated Welsh actor, comedian, radio and television presenter, singer and impressionist...

     (winner with 2 points)
  • David Mitchell
    David Mitchell (actor)
    David James Stuart Mitchell is a British actor, comedian and writer. He is half of the comedy duo Mitchell and Webb, alongside Robert Webb, whom he met at Cambridge University. There they were both part of the Cambridge Footlights, of which Mitchell became President. Together the duo star in the...

     (−4 points)
  • Sandi Toksvig
    Sandi Toksvig
    Sandra Brigitte “Sandi” Toksvig is a Danish comedian, author and presenter on British radio and television.-Career:...

     (−27 points)


Notes:
  • Jo Brand
    Jo Brand
    Josephine Grace "Jo" Brand is a BAFTA winning British comedian, writer, and actor.- Early life :Jo Brand was born 23 July 1957 in Wandsworth, London. Her mother was a social worker. Brand is the middle of three children, with two brothers...

     was originally planned to be a panellist for this episode but she was taken ill and Sandi Toksvig
    Sandi Toksvig
    Sandra Brigitte “Sandi” Toksvig is a Danish comedian, author and presenter on British radio and television.-Career:...

    agreed to step in at short notice.
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