QI Series B

The front cover of the QI series B DVD, featuring Stephen Fry (left) and Alan Davies (right).
Country of origin  United Kingdom
Network BBC
Original run 8 October, 2004 – 26 December, 2004
No. of episodes 12
DVD release date 17 March, 2008
Previous series Series A
Next series Series C

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

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

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

Contents

B Series (2004)

Episode 1 "Blue"

Broadcast dates
  • 8 October 2004 (BBC Two)
Panellists
Buzzers
  • Bill — The sound of a harmonica being blown
  • Sean — The sound of a melancholy guitar twang
  • Jo — The sound of a woman singing soulfully
  • Alan — The sound of a woman having an orgasm
Topics
  • The Ancient Greeks claimed the sky was bronze as they had no word for blue. The Greeks never used colour to describe things. Homer believed that wine, the sea and sheep were red. (Forfeit: Blue)
Tangent: The word "television" comes from the Greek "tele" and the Latin "vision", making it one of the few Greek-Latin hybrid words.
Tangent: (Incorrect) The Welsh have no word for blue. (The Welsh for blue is "Glas")
  • Rainbows happen when the sun reflects off the back of a raindrop at 42 degrees. In Estonia, it's believed that if you point your finger at a rainbow, it will fall off.
Tangent: Indigo is an Indian plant used for dyeing jeans and police uniforms.
Tangent: Alan's friend who could urinate through a high window.
Tangent: The difference between bugs and beetles is that bugs have sucking and piercing mandibles.
Tangent: The controversy over Smarties still using crushed bugs in their sweets and conning vegetarians into think they're vegetarian.
  • A new type of beetle is discovered roughly every hour. Since 1700, the rate has been no more than 6 hours. There are around 2,000 coleopterists in the world, and 10 million different species of beetle — around two thirds of all insects are beetles. If every species of animal and plant was placed in a row, every fifth one would be a beetle and every tenth one would be a weevil.
Tangent: Bill & Stephen's experiences as lepidopterists.
Tangent: The Natural History Museum has 12,000,000 varieties of beetle. The largest is the Titanus giganteus and the second largest is the Hercules beetle.
General Ignorance
Tangent: Stephen Fry's school's tailor was named Gorringe. The man who brought Cleopatra's Needle to New York's Central Park was called Henry Honychurch Gorringe.

Episode 2 "Birds"

Broadcast date
  • 15 October 2004 (BBC Two)
Panellists
Buzzers
  • Jo - A peacock call
  • Rich - A crow call
  • Phil - A cockerel crow (Phil had correctly guessed this)
  • Alan - A person singing "Fruity" a number of times
Task
  • At the start the panel were asked to draw a kiwi, paying particular attention to the position of the nostrils. Alan correctly drew its nostrils at the end of the beak. Officially, a bird's bill is measured from the tip to the nostril, so the kiwi has the shortest bill of all birds.
Topics
Tangent: The national bird of England is the European Robin.
  • David Livingstone couldn't distinguish between the roar of an ostrich and the roar of a lion and claimed that the only difference was that the ostrich is seen during the day and the lion during the night.
Tangent: Johnny Cash was attacked ferociously by an ostrich.
  • The tongue of a woodpecker can extend to two-thirds of its body-length, has sticky saliva, is covered in vicious barbs and has an ear at the end of it. The tongue goes around the back of its head when it's not outside of its mouth. They can also beat wood 15 times a second, which is 250 times the force that astronauts are subjected to. It has lots of cartilage around its head as well.
  • Since they have only 20-30 taste buds, birds can't distinguish the taste of chocolate, which is toxic to them anyway. Humans have 9-10,000 taste buds, but new ones are grown every 5 days.
Tangent: The lethal dose of chocolate for a human is about 22lbs. One Smartie would kill a songbird.
Tangent: Alan's friend had a hamster who wasn't feeling very well and his dad gave it some brandy and it died. One of Jo's friends gave their dog some LSD. Fry once kicked a hamster-ball through a friend's window, because he didn't know what it was. The rodent survived. Bill Bailey's girlfriend's dog ate boxes of Daz, as well as underwear. Alan's cat could open a fridge.
  • Skin, the largest organ in the body, weighs 6 lb (2.7 kg) and covers 18 square feet on average. A single square inch of skin has 20 feet (6.1 m) of blood vessels, 1,300 nerve cells and 100 sweat glands. 50,000 cells are lost every second. A person will get through around 900 "skins" in a lifetime. (Forfeit: Speak For Yourself)
  • Sperm can "smell" the aroma of Lily of the Valley.
  • Chang and Eng Bunker were Siamese twins. Chang was once convicted of general assault on a member of the audience during one of the twins' variety acts. However, the judge in the case could not hold Eng in prison as well, so he set them both free. The Bunkers created the term "Siamese twins" for people who are conjoined, because they were originally from Siam. They lived till the age of 63 and married a pair of sisters and had 21 children between them. On the journey from Siam, one of the twins wanted a cold bath and the other didn't, so the captain had to separate them. Chang was a drunk and died first, so Eng woke up waiting for a doctor to separate them. Eng then died an hour later as he wrapped himself round his twin. It is believed he died from a broken heart, because he had no reason to die.
General Ignorance
  • The loudest thing in the ocean is the shrimp layer. All the bubbles that come out from them clapping their claws make the noise. It travels at 30 feet per second (9.1 m/s) and then pops. It can wake people up on coastal communities. They can white out the sonar of a submarine and deafen the operators through their headphones. A blue whale can hear another blue whale 10,000 miles away, but in terms of amplitude, a normal person can't hear that. (Forfeit: Blue Whale)
  • Which is more likely to happen — Being killed by an lightning or by an asteroid? - Statistically in the UK, one is more likely to be killed by an asteroid than by lightning. A large asteroid is expected to come to Earth once every 1 million years, with the death toll in excess of 1 billion. The chances of dying from an asteroid is 1 in 6 million. (Forfeit: Struck By Lightning)
Tangent: Rich's aunt got struck by lightning on a golf course.
  • Camels originated from the continent of America, 20 million years ago. They spread across to other continents, because back then Bering Strait was land, rather than sea. They became extinct in North America during the last Ice Age. (Forfeit: Africa, Asia)
  • Despite being pink, the Flamingo eats blue-green algae to get their pink colour. Flamingos fall over if they stood on both legs. (Forfeit: Eating Shrimps)

Fry ends the show with an anecdote about the Stephens Island Wren, about the lighthouse keepers' cat killing the entire species. However, in 2004, the year this episode was first aired, this was found to be untrue.

Episode 3 "Bombs"

Broadcast date
  • 22 October 2004 (BBC Two)
Panellists
Buzzers
  • Rich - First four bells of the Westminster chime
  • Clive - Next four bells of the Westminster chime
  • Phil - Third four bells of the Westminster chime
  • Alan - An alarming cuckoo clock
Topics
Tangent: Kamikaze is Japanese for divine wind.
Tangent: Aeroplanes are theoretically kamikaze, because like kamikaze aircraft, they're only filled for a single journey.
Tangent: Groucho Marx believed Zeppo was the worst actor of all the Marx brothers, but everyone believes he was the funniest off-stage. Harpo Marx could actually talk in real life. His autobiography states that he and the other brothers stole stuff for 15 years and was happy of it.
  • Russian forces trained dogs with bombs attached to hide under tanks in order to blow them up. In training, food would be put underneath the tank, which is the most vulnerable part and then a trigger would detonate the bomb. However, the dogs would turn around in the battle and blew up the Russian tanks that they recognised in training and then the dogs were all shot.
  • The first postcard sent from Antarctica featured a penguin being serenaded by a bagpiper.
Tangent: 50% of bagpipers suffer from repetitive strain injury.
Tangent: The easiest way to tell Ant & Dec apart is that Ant always stands on the left.
  • Polar bears disguise themselves by hiding in something white like snow. There is a misconception that they cover their nose with their left paw.
General Ignorance
Tangent: Hawaii is the only state not to have a straight line along one of its borders.
  • During World War II, the only six Americans to lose their lives on home soil did so on a church picnic in Bly, Oregon. They were killed by Japanese fugos - balloon bombs. They were hard to detect on radar, because they were mostly made by schoolgirls who didn't know what they were making out of a paper called washi. They also used the jet stream to make the balloon go faster, the interesting thing about that is that no-one else knew about it at the time. The fugo should not be confused with the Fugu fish. Between 30-100 people in Japan are poisoned by fugu and half of those die. It is believed that most Japanese people are daring enough to eat the fugu, but there are always traces of poison left, so you have to be an expert filleter. Japanese restaurants have lanterns outside with fugu skin, to show that a trained fugu filleter is inside. Part of the training involves eating the fugu that you have sliced up.
Tangent: The Mainland United States is not largely wasteland! Birmingham, UK and Birmingham, Alabama are both wastelands!
Tangent: 800 Americans die in a McDonald's every year.
Tangent: Polar bears and penguins never meet in the wild, because they live at the other ends of the earth. Tigers and lions have never met each other either, because they live on different continents.
  • The panellists are shown a picture of Saturn and have to recognise that it is actually shown upside-down. Alan answered it correctly, but he revealed that he actually thought it should have been sideways, probably thinking it was Uranus.
  • The Boy Scout salute is almost identical to the Polish army salute. The Polish army's salute is believed to originate from a Polish hero who had three fingers blown off.
Tangent: It's now believed that the Boy Scout movement is an American invention, because of the Woodcraft Indians, created by Ernest Thompson Seton.

Episode 4 "Bible"

Broadcast date
  • 29 October 2004 (BBC Two)
Panellists
Buzzers
  • Jeremy H. - An alarm clock going off
  • Barry — A car starting
  • Jeremy C. - A car starting, driving off and crashing
  • Alan — A car refusing to start
Topics
Tangent: Hercules the bear mauled a television presenter. The Sugar Puffs bear was called Jeremy. Peter Brough always moved his lips when the doll was talking.
Tangent: The Archbishop of Glastonbury and Stonehenge is called Rollo Maughfling.
Tangent: The rulebook for Dutch prostitutes is about an inch thick.
Tangent: Jeremy Clarkson's description of how Birmingham people are dull, like Nigel Mansell. Many people who worked for British Leyland in the 1970s had the same colour paint all over their houses, like burnt orange. The Austin Allegro was more aerodynamic going backwards.
Tangent: Examples of Birmingham sayings include "He'd skin a turd for a farthing." The discussion of the folklore of Enoch and Eli and Noddy Holder's discussion with a costumier where Noddy misinterprets his accent and the possibility that Jimmy Savile invented bling.
  • The Kingdom of Bhutan, having little television and no cars, has the least use for Jeremy Clarkson. Television was only placed in Bhutan in 1999 and parking fees were recently introduced, although it has no traffic lights. Most people in Bhutan live 1 day away from a road and only 0.01% are on the Internet. The domain name for Bhutan is .bt. There are only 6,000 telephones in Bhutan, but they were only brought into Bhutan in 1980.
Tangent: India has no speed limits, and every car bought there will be involved in a fatal road accident within 5 years. The UK has the highest amount of car thefts in the world, which led to Alan revealing that his motorcycle was stolen recently and pleaded for its return.
Tangent: Stephen's discussion about his American cousin, who is a doctor and talked about taking corneas from people who'd been involved in motorcycle accidents in the rain.
Tangent: Britain and Finland are the only two democracies to have declared war on each other. It happened during World War II, because when Finland declared war on Russia, Britain declared war on Finland.
Tangent: The story of a man who accidentally shot a Golden Eagle, while hunting for pheasants and then told the judge he ate it and that it tasted of swan.
Tangent: Leviticus is a Latinisation of the "Levi", which is a type of priest. Jeremy's third puppy is called Leviticus. His first and second were called Genesis and Exodus and his fourth was called Numbers.
Tangent: The Roadkill Cafe in Wyoming, where you can bring in any roadkill and have it cooked. Their poster says "From Your Grille To Ours!
Tangent: The Wedge-tailed Eagle in Australia hunts for roadkill and during the morning, the road train runs over it and windscreen height and splatters over the driver.
Tangent: Vladimir Putin hit someone who thought he resembled Dobby the House Elf in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. The brother of the Brontë sisters, Branwell Brontë died standing up.
General Ignorance
  • The English Civil War resulted in the highest proportion of British soldiers dying. (85,000 on the battlefield, another 100,000 of wounds subsequently - 10% of the adult population) The Irish population was halved by Cromwell.
Tangent: 90% of British people cannot name a battle in the English Civil War, 80% do not know which English king was executed by Parliament, and 67% of schoolchildren have never heard of Oliver Cromwell.
  • Less than 0.02% of the Earth is water. Seven-tenths of the Earth is covered in water. Earth can also go into the Eye on Jupiter. (Forfeit: Two-Thirds)
  • Andy Warhol always wore green underwear. The only funeral he went to was his own and he didn't dance.
  • Robert Burns never wore a kilt, since kilt-wearing was illegal in the 18th century, mainly because of the Jacobite Rebellion. He was never referred to as "Robbie" or "Rabby" Burns, but sometimes "Rab".

Episode 5 "Bears"

Broadcast date
  • 5 November 2004 (BBC Two)
Panellists
Buzzers
  • Jo - Tugboat Hooter
  • Jimmy - Ship horn
  • Bill - Lower pitch ship horn
  • Alan - A woman saying "Ahoy. Hello, sailor" sexually. Which changes to a man yelling "AHOY!"
Tasks
  • The panel's "QI Brainteaser" was to make interesting phrases from a collection of fridge-magnet letters. Answers included:
  • Other ones seen on the "QI Series "B" DVD" are:
    • Lady Bush Trap (Jo)
    • Koala Soup (Alan)
    • Golum Kix Habit (Bill)
    • Al-Quaeda Goose Pet (Bill)
    • Sex Up Fry (Alan)
Topics
Tangent: Wombats have cubical faeces.
Tangent: Koalas can tell how old a eucalyptus leaf is, but scientists can't. It has to be between 1 year to 18 months old, if it's any younger, it has no value to the koala. They also sleep for between 20-22 hours a day. "Koala" means "no water" in the Dharug language.
  • For the seven months that they hibernate, bears do not defecate anywhere in the winter. They recycle the urea as protein, so they don't need to urinate and they mix the hair and faeces to make a sort of plug that blocks the anus during winter. She-bears give birth during hibernation. They can also give birth to 4 cubs from 4 different fathers. (Forfeit: Woods)
  • Toothpaste makes bears go crazy with desire. You'd be safer carrying a butchered elk leg. Dogs also go crazy from toothpaste, but there are dog toothpastes available in flavours such as peanut butter and beef.
  • The animal with huge teeth and only one facial expression is the Giant Panda. It has the biggest teeth of any mammal and is a bear, but until 1996, it was thought to be a member of the raccoon family. The odd thing was that it was designated as a carnivore, but everyone knows it only eats bamboo and they're also the only bear that doesn't hibernate, because it has to eat bamboo for 12 hours a day to get enough nutrients. (Forfeit: Janet Street-Porter)
Tangent: A panda's penis points backwards.
Tangent: Bill owned a type of cactus that flowers only once every 25 years and within 2 weeks of him buying it, it flowered.
  • Thomas Edison believed that 15 tiny people lived within the human mind. He also believed that when you die, they moved to another person.
  • Edison did not invent the light bulb, but he used bamboo as a filament for his prototype, although one of his letters contains the first written reference of the word "hello". He had 1,093 patents in his name. The original word, "Hullo", was intended as an act of surprise, rather than a form of greeting.
Tangent: Floccinaucinihilipilification means the act of assessing something as worthless. The Evening Standard held a competition to find the word that people would say when answering a telephone and "hello" was top, 2nd was "Ahoy-hoi", which was Alexander Graham Bell's preferred method.
Tangent: Due to government regulations, Stephen Fry will probably be the last official Pipe Smoker of the Year. Bill read an article about Stephen in "The Chap" magazine, which showed that people who have a pipe have a sign of trustworthiness.
General Ignorance
Tangent: It takes a live chicken 55 minutes to become a Pret a Manger sandwich.

Episode 6 "Beavers"

Broadcast date
  • 12 November 2004 (BBC Two)
Panellists
Topics
Tangent: 400 tonnes of capybara (the largest rodent on Earth) are eaten in Venezuela during Lent. Beavers excrete castoreum, which is used to make aspirin.
  • If aliens were looking to abduct Earth's most successful inhabitants, they would look to bacteria. If chicken had no bacteria, it wouldn't taste of anything and only a few types of bacteria are dangerous. There are 40,000 species in a gram of soil. 75% of bacteria in the stomach aren't fully identified as separate species.
Tangent: The Latin for bulge is "torus", which is the doughnut shape in a particle accelerator and the fleshy part of an apple.
Tangent: There is a named phobia of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth, which is Arachibutyrophobia. Begonnophobia is the irrational phobia of beards. Anthropophobia is the fear of people and antherphobia is the fear of flowers and ailurophobia is the fear of cats. Every phobia has an opposite philia. (a love of something, e.g. arachnophilia is the love of spiders)
Tangent: German for diarrhoea = Durchfall literally "through fall".
Tangent: At one Paralympics, the Spanish national basketball team pretended to be mentally ill so they could compete. They won the gold medal.
  • The Earth bulges by up to 30cm twice a day.
Tangent: Stephen's attempt to explain to Alan how the Moon causes the tides.
  • The Earth has either 1 or 5 moons. Since the discovery of 3753 Cruithne in 1997, three more 'moons' have been discovered: 2000 PH5, 2000 WN10 and 2002 AA29. If Cruithne is classed as a moon, then so must the others. Otherwise, Earth only has one moon. (Forfeit: Two)
Tangent: There is no evidence of lunacy being related to the full Moon.
General Ignorance
  • Since 2003, only 11 points are required to win at table tennis. Also in 2003, the regulation size of a table tennis ball was increased by 2mm to make it slower and easier to watch on television. (Forfeit: 21)
  • A kangaroo has three vaginas, but only two wombs. Soon as a joey is born it crawls along its mothers body into its pouch. If the joey doesn't survive the year, another joey is triggered and comes from the other womb, but the third vagina is a mystery to most researchers. The male only has two penises.
Tangent: The clitoris is the only organ designed purely for pleasure. It also has 8,000 nerve endings, which is twice as many as in the penis.
Tangent: Roman statues' eyes are blank because they were later painted.
Tangent: The most common Death Row prisoner's last meal is a cheeseburger, French fries and a Coke (A Happy Meal).

Episode 7 "Biscuits"

Broadcast date
  • 19 November 2004 (BBC Two)
Panellists
  • Alan Davies (-20 points)
  • Rich Hall (2 points) 6th appearance
  • Dara Ó Briain (Winner with 4 points — however, on his second appearance it was discovered that he should not have won because of his statement about water's triple point below, and as a forfeit had points deducted from his score on the second show to make up for his win on this show) 1st appearance
  • Arthur Smith (-18 points) 1st appearance
Buzzers
  • Rich — The sound of a saw sawing wood
  • Arthur — The sound of a hammer hammering
  • Dara — The sound of a rugby squad chanting
  • Alan — The sound of the Nokia ringtone
Topics
  • If someone said that the British Empire was built on diarrhoea, they'd be talking rubbish as no-one suffered from diarrhoea during the reign of the British Empire. They were the first imperial power to overcome diarrhoea. Pringle managed to sort it for the army and Lind managed to solve it for the Royal Navy. They originally thought that if anything smelt bad, it shouldn't be consumed. Lind also suggested that the Navy ate lemons to combat scurvy, but everywhere that had lemons hated Britain, so instead they got limes from the Caribbean, but they were only half as effective.
Tangent: On the approach to Moscow, the French Army slept inside the dead bodies of horses. In the Battle of El Alamein, it is believed that 50% of the Germans had diarrhoea and Rommel was in hospital on the morning of the battle. Arthur's father was at the battle himself and according to him, he was the only one who didn't get the runs, but he got constipated. He also claims "He had to dig it out with a stick."
  • Ballet is illegal in Turkmenistan, which is odd as Turkmenistan used to be part of the Soviet Union.
Tangent: In Turkmenistan, there is a city called Mary and a region called Mary.
Tangent: The President of Turkmenistan (who was born in the capital, Ashgabat) has his face on every yoghurt pot in the country. He has also named January after himself. He also fired 15,000 nurses and replaced them with army conscripts.
Tangent: The Duke of Devonshire had two pastry chefs, one just for making biscuits. During World War II, he was asked to spare as much men as possible for the war, he was asked to sacrifice one of his pastry chefs and replied "Oh damn it, can't a man have a biscuit?!".
Tangent: Peter Ustinov once went to a school sports day that was so posh, there was a chauffeur's race.
Tangent: The British call posh cake "gateau", whereas the French call it "le cake". The origin of biscuit is from the Italian version known as Biscotti, which mean "twice cooked". The French shout "bis", instead of "encore" at a theatre.
  • Straight roads were invented in the Iron Age. Although, the Romans can rightly claim to have made longer road networks. Another proof that roads weren't invented by the Romans, was that there were many straight roads in Ireland, which was never invaded by the Romans. (Forfeit: Romans)
Tangent: In America, some roads in the Midwest go straight for miles, then make a sudden right turn, to account for the curvature of the Earth, so that it conforms to the map. The Americans didn't invent the car as Rich claims, it was invented by the Germans.
General Ignorance
Tangent: The triple point of water (when all three states of water (gas, liquid and solid) may coexist in thermodynamic equilibrium) is 0°C (In Series "C", Episode 12, this was found to be false).
Tangent: -40°C & -40°F are the same temperature. Fahrenheit was invented before Celsius. The British way of using Fahrenheit when it's hot and Celsius when it's cold.
  • What did Mussolini do? - The only train he made run on time was one carrying himself from Milan to Rome run on time so he could become Prime Minister. All other improvements in the Italian transport system happened before he came to power. (Forfeit: Made Trains Run On Time)
  • Which eye did Nelson wear his eyepatch on? - He never wore one, he only wore an eyepatch in Ladybird Books. (Forfeit: Right)
Tangent: Nelson bought a lot of shiny silver stars for 25 shillings and then put on a sash from the King of Naples. Then, from around 50 feet, the French shot him. He never lost his eye, just the sight of his eye. Lady Hamilton was vastly overweight and had a Lancashire accent.

Episode 8 "Bees"

Broadcast date
  • 26 November 2004 (BBC Two)
Panellists
Buzzers
Topics
Tangent: Termite mounds are spiral shape, because as termites build them, they keep out of the Sun.
Tangent: If you put a magnet next to a honeycomb, it becomes cylindrical. The reason that the cells are hexagons, because it uses the minimum amount of wax for the maximum amount of storage in a given area.
Tangent: Eddie Izzard once claimed that it was odd that bees make honey, but earwigs don't make chutney. The lifetime of 12 bees, makes a teaspoon of honey. Bees also only have 950,000 neurons in their brain, whereas humans have 10 billion.
  • Bees buzz because they control their breathing through 14 valves on their body known as spiracles. Less than 1% of the noise comes from their wings. The bees breathing is a comparison to a human using a trumpet. (Forfeit: Wings)
  • Barnacles were thought to be the embryos of a Barnacle Goose. Barnacles have the biggest penis of any existing animal, relative to their size. It's 7 times bigger than its shell.
Tangent: When W. H. Auden was growing old, he had an incredibly lined face and David Hockney was commissioned to do some paintings of him and said "Blimey, if that's his face, what can his scrotum look like?"
Tangent: Jo once did a gig in the Isle of Man, where she got given a curry served with a cup of tea and some bread and butter.
Tangent: Scottish people have the worst teeth and hearts in Europe.
Tangent: Alan's relentless silly jokes.
General Ignorance
  • Which has more caffeine - a cup of tea or a cup of coffee? - A cup of coffee contain 3 times more caffeine than a cup of tea. Weight for weight though there is more caffeine in tea. (Forfeit: Cup Of Tea)
  • The only ball game completely invented in the United States is basketball. Originally, the basket was a peach basket, but they didn't put a hole in it, so every time there was a score, they had to get a ladder to get the ball out. A woman then created netball, but she misinterpreted the rules and thought that you had to stay still when you received the ball. Volleyball was also invented at Springfield College like basketball and netball. Lacrosse was also invented in America, but it was before it became the United States. (Forfeit: Baseball)
  • Nelson's last words were "Drink, drink, fan, fan, rub, rub!" This was a request to alleviate his symptoms of thirst, heat, and the pains of his wounds from battle. He was given lemonade, water and wine to alleviate his thirst, he was fanned by a fan and another person massaged his back. "Kiss me, Hardy" is what was actually claimed to be said, "Kismet, Hardy" is completely made-up.(Forfeit: Kismet, Hardy)

Episode 9 "Bats"

Broadcast dates
  • 3 December 2004 (BBC Two)
Panellists
Buzzers
Topics
Tangent: Leopards take their dead prey up a tree and leave it for days, often returning and eating the rotting animal carcass. Cheetahs only eat fresh flesh. It is also believed that Tyrannosaurus rex also wait for their prey to rot as well.
Tangent: Rich claims he ate animals that had food in their names, such as "butterfly", "honey bee" and "hamster".
Tangent: If anyone put cotton wool in the ears of a bat, they would be completely useless, because they couldn't use their echolocation. A French scientist proved this theory in the 18th century, but it was poo-pooed and only believed 150 years later.
Tangent: Stephen once saw David Attenborough do an interview where he was explaining that bats never got caught in your hair, while he was trying to get one out. Josie once did an interview when she was asked "Who do you want to be like?" She said Attenborough, because she liked the work he's done and his wisdom, etc. But a couple of weeks later, it was revealed that the question was "Who do you most want to look like?"
Tangent: When Richard Attenborough was directing Ben Kingsley in Gandhi and Attenborough's first assistant director David Tomblin was told to tell the 1 million extras to feel sad, because Gandhi had died, but then he shouted through his megaphone, "Right, listen up, Gandhi's dead and you're all fucking sad".
Tangent: Stephen tells the story of how his aga kept going out, so the man stayed overnight in his house. It was discovered that an owl had roosted on top of the cowling of the flue and blocked the chimney.
  • Batology is the study of brambles and blackberries, chiroptology is the study of bats. There are over 1,000 different types of bramble.
  • Batophobia is the fear of being close to tall buildings. Another phobia similar to that is bathophobia, which is the fear of depth. (Forfeit: Fear Of Blackberries)
  • Battology means pointlessly repeating the same thing over again.
Tangent: One of Stephen's friends claimed that sugar was the only English word that had the "shu" sound at the start and began with the letters 'su'. Stephen then asked "Are you sure?" One of Alan's friends called Dave constantly repeats all his words, so he is referred to as "Dave-ja vu".
  • In Sweden on 1 January 1994, there was the same number of 8 year old girls (112,521) as there were 9 year old girls on 1 January 1995, with no migration or death, which is unique in all population statistics. In Britain during 1994, 8 people were injured by placemats, 13 were injured by cruets, 5 were wounded by dustpans, 8 had bread bin accidents, 5 were injured by sieves, 14 were injured by serving trolleys, 17 for draught excluder injuries, 476 were injured on the toilet, underwear hurt 11 people. Tea cosy damage was down from 3 in 1993 to 0 in 1994.
Tangent: Acronyms used in hospitals such as, GOOMER — Get Out Of My Emergency Room and SARA - Sexual Activity Related Accident and NFN — Normal For Norfolk.
General Ignorance
Tangent: St. Anthony is the patron saint of lost things. Stephen dismisses as bullshit Josie's claims that if you stood still for half an hour, he'd help find any missing article.

Episode 10 "Bills"

Broadcast date
  • 10 December 2004 (BBC Two)
Panellists
Buzzers
  • Clive — A ruler being twanged
  • Phil — A mobile phone tune
  • John — An enthusiastic schoolboy saying "I know Sir! Sir, please Sir! I know!"
  • Alan — A toilet flushing
Task
  • A "Draw A Wigwam Contest":The panellists were originally asked to do it in the style of an artist whose surname began with "B" (the letter of the series).
  • Clive: Boticelli
  • Phil: Blake
  • John: Braque
  • Alan: Bosch

They were then told to do it however they wanted.

At the end, everyone revealed their drawings, but everyone accidentally drew teepees instead of a wigwam (except Clive Anderson, who twisted the competition by drawing the pop group Wham! wearing wigs). The main difference between a teepee and a wigwam is that a teepee is made out of buffalo hide and sticks and were mainly lived in by Indians from the Great Plains, whereas wigwams are mainly made of hay and were lived in by Indians from the Northeast.

Topics
  • There are over 200 folk names for a pansy, more than any other flower, including "jolly jump-up and meet me in the corner", "tickle my fancy", "love idol", "kiss me in the buttery", "pink of my John" and Heartsease. The word "pansy" originates from the French word pensée meaning "thought" or "idea", because they were believed to help with the memory. You can eat them in a tea that can be used to help the complexion and clearing the phlegm.
  • Bottomry is when the master of a ship borrows money upon the bottom or keel of it, so as to forfeit the ship itself to the creditor, if the money is not paid at the time appointed with interest at the ship's safe return.
  • Buffalo Bill did nothing with buffaloes, because buffaloes in America are actually bison. The bison aren't even related to the buffaloes. In 18 months, Buffalo Bill killed 4,280 bison, while he worked for the Pony Express as a boy. The advert that Buffalo Bill applied to says "Wanted: Young, skinny, wiry fellows not over eighteen. Must be expert riders willing to risk death daily, orphans preferred. Wages: $25 a week." The Pony Express only lasted 19 months, so Buffalo Bill was then hired by the Kansas Pacific Railway to kill bison to gather food for the construction workers. In Dances with Wolves, the Native Americans just killed them for fun. The Native Americans preferred to lure them over cliffs, by causing them to stampede, because they can't stop stampeding. Cows eventually replaced the bison, but they created a dust bowl, so then bison were re-introduced by crossing them with the cattle. There were 60 million bison at the end of the 17th century, down to a few hundred at the end of the 19th century. There are now around 50,000.
Tangent: The Bayeux Tapestry isn't a tapestry either, it's officially a piece of embroidery. John was in Buffalo when he heard of the death of Elvis Presley.
Tangent: Flobbadob (the language used by the Flower Pot Men) was named by Peter Hawkins (who also was a Dalek and Cyberman in Doctor Who and in 1999, was associate producer of a show called "The Lifestyle: Group Sex In The Suburbs") because it sounded like a fart in a bath. (which turns out to be untrue, see QI Series "D", Episode 8).
Luvvie Alarm: When John Sessions met Robert Redford at the Sundance Film Festival, he mentioned to him that The Sundance Kid was Welsh or at least had Welsh stock.
  • As you go upstairs in a tall building, your thoughts in your head, your breathing and metabolism go faster, because time is slower, the weaker the gravity.
  • The best floor of a building to throw a cat without killing it is the 7th floor. Experiments were done on them from different floors. The higher up to the 5th floor, the rate of injury increased. But, after the 7th floor, they can reach their terminal velocity of 60 mph. Like a squirrel, they spread themselves out and parachute down. Cats have even survived from falling aeroplanes.
Tangent: The story of a Shropshire man who catapults dead cows.
General Ignorance
Tangent: Alan talks about his trip to Pompeii, where there are bits of sulphur