Series B saw the first attempts to pay attention to a single theme within one episode, such as “Birds” in episode 2. The theme alluded to though, did not always begin with B (for example, episode 1 is announced as being about “Colour”), if present at all. As with series A, most of the titles below have been applied retrospectively to the episodes. First-time panellists included Jeremy Clarkson, Fred MacAulay, Dara Ó Briain, Arthur Smith and Mark Steel. This series also saw the only appearances (as of the series H recordings) of Barry Cryer, Mark Gatiss, Phil Kay, Josie Lawrence and Anneka Rice, as well as the last appearance of Linda Smith before her death from ovarian cancer in 2006.

Episode 1 “Blue”

;Broadcast dates:

*8 October 2004 (BBC Two)

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (-22 points)

*Bill Bailey (7 points)

*Jo Brand (-20 points)

*Sean Lock (Winner with 17 points)

;Buzzers:

*Bill& — A harmonica being blown

*Sean& — A melancholy guitar twang

*Jo& — A woman singing soulfully

*Alan& — 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.”

*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.”

*Urine used to be the third largest export from Newcastle after coal and beer, it was used to fix dye.

:”Tangent: Alan’s friend who could urinate through a high window.”

*Crushed insects are used in food colouring: Red E120 (cochineal) is made from bugs. 70,000 bugs are crushed to make one pound of cochineal. E122 is mentioned as an alternative, but also that it is bad for you if you have an allergy to aspirin and tends to make you hyperactive. (Forfeit: Beetles)

:”Tangent: As mentioned in Series A, Episode 7, 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.”

*A ptiliidae beetle can pass through the eye of a needle, unlike a camel or the Sultan of Brunei (an example of a rich person).

:”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:

*Blorenge, a place in Wales, near Abergavenny and [http://www.gorringe.com/ Gorringe] (a surname) rhyme with orange. Blorenge has a famous car park in it. The horse, Foxhunter, is buried there. (Forfeit: Nothing)

:”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.”

*The planet Mars is brown. According to the New Scientist, recent NASA images were tweaked using filters to make it appear red. (Forfeit: Red)

*Nothing prevented Henry VIII from marrying Lord Pembroke, because it was one of the titles given to Anne Boleyn. (Forfeit: Gay Marriages Were Illegal)

*There are no green mammals. There is a sloth that looks green, but it has algae growing on it, so it isn’t green.

*In ancient Greece, dildos were made from bread. This was only discovered in 1987.

Episode 2 “Birds”

;Broadcast date:

*15 October 2004 (BBC Two)

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (-40 points)

*Jo Brand (-8 points)

*Rich Hall (Winner with 3 points)

*Phil Kay (1 point)

;Buzzers

*Jo& — A peacock call

*Rich& — A crow call

*Phil& — A cockerel crow (Just before pressing it, Phil correctly guessed this)

*Alan& — An advert-like jingle based around the word “Fruity”

;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. Rich then tries to claim that some countries use linoleum as currency, which obviously is rubbish, but Rich mentioned it hoping to get points, as Stephen said, “you get points for being “interesting”, but Rich pointed out that it didn’t have to be true.”

*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 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 .

. 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 and covers 18 square feet on average. A single square inch of skin has 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 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. (Forfeits: 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:

*Alan Davies (-4 points)

*Clive Anderson (1 point)

*Rich Hall (2 points)

*Phill Jupitus (Winner with 4 points)

;Buzzers

*Rich& — First four bells of the Westminster Chimes

*Clive& — Next four bells of the Westminster Chimes

*Phil& — Third four bells of the Westminster Chimes

*Alan& — An alarming cuckoo clock

;Topics:

*In World War II, the American forces planned to equip Mexican free-tail bats with napalm-filled ‘waistcoats’ so they could blow up Japanese towns, during dawn, so when the light was rising up, the bats would go into houses and they would detonate. In testing, however, the wind changed and the bats instead flamed a US army base.

:”Tangent: Kamikaze is Japanese for divine wind.”

:”Tangent: Aeroplanes are theoretically kamikaze, because like kamikaze aircraft, they’re only filled for a single journey.”

*Zeppo Marx contributed to the design of release clamps used to hold the Hiroshima bomb inside the Enola Gay. Zeppo joined the Marx Brothers after Gummo Marx left. He appeared in 5 films, the last one was ”Duck Soup”. He then left to become an agent for an engineering and design company. Zeppo also invented a wristwatch that could detect your pulse and gave an alarm if you were having a heart attack.

:”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 he was proud of it.”

*Russian forces trained dogs with bombs attached to hide under tanks 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.”

*The common name for ”Ursus Arctos” is the Grizzly Bear, if you’re a European or the Brown Bear, if you’re an American. Ursus is the Latin for bear and Arctos is from the ancient Greek for bear. The Arctic region gets its name from the constellations of the Great Bear and Little Bear. (Forfeit: Polar Bear)

:”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:

*Is this a rhetorical question? (No!)

*Technically there are only 46 states in the USA, because Kentucky, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts are commonwealths. (Forfeit: Fifty)

:”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: 800 Americans die in a McDonald’s every year.”

*Penguins will live near the magnetic north pole in the event of a magnetic pole shift.

:”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:

*Alan Davies (-6 points)

*Jeremy Clarkson (Winner with 5 points)

*Barry Cryer (-6 points)

*Jeremy Hardy (3 points)

;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:

*There are only 15 professional ventriloquists left in Britain. Ventriloquist means “stomach talker”. There are 280,000 heroin and crack addicts in Britain, 50,000 practitioners of alternative medicine, 75,000 people are in prison and 10,000 practising druids.

:”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.

*A Birmingham screwdriver is slang for a hammer. (Forfeit: Drink)

:”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.”

*According to the book of Leviticus, Jews are permitted to eat grasshoppers but not cuckoos, ferrets or camels. Other things that are defined as not being kosher are lobsters, crabs, frogs, chameleons, eels, hares, snails, lizards, moles, ravens, ospreys, vultures, swans, owls, storks, herons, bats, pelicans, lapwings, prawns and eagles.

:”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.”

*Leaders of Russia have alternated between being hairy and bald since Alexander III in 1881. The sequence goes Alexander III (bald) – Nicholas II (hairy) – Lenin (bald) – Stalin (hairy) – Khrushchev (bald) – Brezhnev (hairy) – Andropov (bald) – Chernenko (hairy) – Gorbachev (bald) – Yeltsin (hairy) – Putin (bald).

:”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:

*Alan Davies (-35 points)

*Bill Bailey (-5 points)

*Jo Brand (8 points)

*Jimmy Carr (Winner with 15 points)

;Buzzers

*Jo& — Tugboat hooter

*Jimmy& — Ship horn

*Bill& — Lower pitch ship horn

*Alan& — A woman saying “Ahoy. Hello, sailor” in a sultry manner. 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:

**QI Is A Queer Idea (Stephen)

**Quim (Jo)

**Vagina Doom (Alan)

**Fox (Alan)

**I Love A Fry up (Jo)

**Frodo Lap Shame (Bill)

**Sit Look Rub Panda (Alan)

**Put Smarties Tubes On Cats Legs Make Them Walk Like A Robot (Jimmy)

**Gay Elf Romp (Bill)

**Tiberius Can Look Mad (Alan)

**Oh Bum (Jo)

*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:

*Koalas make a kind of soup from their faeces for their young. It comes out of their bottom. They are the only animal that makes a kind of “soup” or “pap”. Jo wonders why this soup hasn’t been used as a bushtucker trial on ”I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!”. Koalas aren’t bears, they are marsupials.

:”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.”

*Bamboo has a tensile strength greater than steel and can grow up to 4 foot a day. It is used as scaffolding for buildings in Hong Kong and other parts of Southeast Asia. There are over 5,000 uses for bamboo. It is also a grass.

:”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:

*Dinosaurs beginning with ‘b’ include the Brachiosaurus, Barney, Barosaurus, Barapasaurus, Bagaceratops, Becklespinax, Byronosaurus and Bambiraptor. The Brontosaurus was misidentified with the body of an Apatosaurus, with the skull of a Camarasaurus. (Forfeit: Brontosaurus)

*Mike the Headless Chicken lived for two years without a head. He was fed with an eye dropper. There is even a song about him.

:”Tangent: It takes a live chicken 55 minutes to become a Pret a Manger sandwich.”

*Penicillin was discovered by Ernest Duchesne. He discovered that Arab stable boys rubbed a mould on themselves that helped them get rid of saddle sores. The Institut Pasteur rejected his claims, but in 1949, five years after Fleming discovered it, he was posthumously given the credit of re-discovering it, so Fleming can only claim to have re-re-discovered it. Ironically, he died of TB, which if he had some penicillin, he wouldn’t have died. (Forfeit: Alexander Fleming)

*Who is the odd one out? – Arthur Conan Doyle, Niels Bohr, Dmitri Shostakovich or Albert Camus? – Shostakovich was a qualified soccer referee, all the other played as football goalkeepers. Arthur Conan Doyle played in goal for Portsmouth, Niels Bohr played for the University of Copenhagen 1st team, Albert Camus was goalkeeper for the University of Algiers team.

Episode 6 “Beavers”

;Broadcast date:

*12 November 2004 (BBC Two)

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (-18 points)

*Bill Bailey (6 points)

*Sean Lock (-18 points)

*Anneka Rice (Winner with 7 points)

;Buzzers:

*Anneka& — An electric guitar

*Bill& — A saxophone

*Sean& — Drums

*Alan& — A bus bell

;Topics:

*The Pope could eat beaver on a Friday as it is designated by the Roman Catholic Church as a fish, because they’re scaly and live in water and in Fridays during Lent, you can’t eat anything fleshy.

:”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. Pogonophobia 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)”

*In the Battle of the Bulge, the ‘stomach division’ were the soldiers with illnesses not deemed severe enough to prevent them fighting in battle. They had their own latrines and their own special diet. It was the largest and bloodiest battle in American military history. 600,000 Americans were involved, which is more than the Battle of Gettysburg, in which the Americans were on both sides.

:”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.”

*There is nothing special about Julius Caesar’s birth. The phrase is derived from the Latin word for cut. There was a form of Caesarean section back in Caesar’s time, but the mother always died and his mother was alive well into his adulthood. Sean confused Caesar’s birth with Romulus and Remus, who were famously pulled out by a wolf. (Forfeit: Caesarean Section)

:”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).”

*There are no offences for which you can be put to death in the UK. The last capital punishments were outlawed in 1999 by Jack Straw. Arson in the Royal Dockyards was outlawed in 1971. (Forfeits: Arson In The Royal Dockyards, Treason)

*Dead bodies are eaten by bacteria. Kitchen chopping boards contain 3 times more bacteria than toilet seats and dishcloths contain 1,000,000 times more than that. (Forfeit: Worms)

Episode 7 “Biscuits”

;Broadcast date:

*19 November 2004 (BBC Two)

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (-20 points)

*Rich Hall (2 points)

*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)

*Arthur Smith (-18 points)

;Buzzers:

*Rich& — A saw sawing

*Arthur& — A hammer hammering

*Dara& — A rugby squad’s ritual chant

*Alan& — 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.”

*Digestive biscuits aren’t an aid to digestion. Digestives were called digestive because they were said to be anti-flatulent. In America, it’s illegal to call them digestives. The word cookie is derived from the Dutch word ”Koekje”, meaning a cake. The Americans also have a savoury snack called biscuits and gravy. 450 digestive biscuits are made every second in the UK.

*The difference between a cake and a biscuit is that when they go stale, a cake goes hard and a biscuit goes soft. A Jaffa Cake is a cake, despite many people thinking it’s a biscuit. It was proven because in 1991, Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise decided to re-classify the Jaffa Cake as a biscuit, but VAT was added to chocolate-covered biscuits as a luxury item. So, McVitie’s baked a one and proved that when it went stale, it was hard, so it was a cake.

:”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:

*A group of baboons is called a congress. A replacement word, a “flange”, originates from the sketch Gerald the Gorilla, on “Not the Nine O’Clock News”.

*Aardvarks have the most bones in their noses, they have nine or ten. Elephants don’t have any. (Forfeit: Elephants)

*According to Anders Celsius, the boiling point of water is 0°C. He decided that water should boil at 0°C and that ice should melt at 100°C. (Forfeit: 100 Degrees)

:”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:

*Alan Davies (-19 points)

*Jo Brand (-8 points)

*Rich Hall (Winner with 5 points)

*Fred MacAulay (4 points)

;Buzzers:

*Rich& — A bottle being uncorked

*Fred& — Wine pouring

*Jo& — Sausages sizzling

*Alan& — A belch

;Topics:

*Bees discovered that the world was round, as they used the Sun as a radar to find nectar. Out of all the bees in the world, only the honey bee dies, when it stings you, but wasps are more likely to die after stinging you.

:”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?””

*Nelson inspired his men after he died by asking them to store his body in a barrel of brandy on the journey back from Cape Trafalgar to Portsmouth. It’s believed that his men used tubes of macaroni through the barrel to have a drink and the phrase “Tapping The Admiral” was made, but this story is believed to be untrue.

*Male anglerfish are deemed to be pathetic compared to their female counterparts, because they are 6 times smaller and after latching on to the female while mating, they disappear until their testes were left on the female’s body. The rod on top of the anglerfish’s head is bioluminescent.

*Chicken tikka masala was invented in Glasgow and it glows in the dark, thanks to a company called Biolume, who have created a chemical that makes food glow in the dark. Chicken tikka masala doesn’t exist in Bangladesh or India. In a restaurant in Glasgow, a chicken tandoori was made and a customer asked for some gravy on it, so the chef improvised with tomato soup, cream and spices. It has no official definition, but it can be any temperature or any colour. Robin Cook claims it is the “great British national dish”.

:”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.”

*It’s possible to live in Mexico and not get complaints from your neighbours about eating Smut, a fungus that is grown there.

:”Tangent: Alan’s relentless silly jokes. Stephen and Rich join in.”

;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)

:”Tangent: Alan asks when the panel would go back to if they had a time machine.”

Episode 9 “Bats”

;Broadcast dates:

*3 December 2004 (BBC Two)

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (-72 points)

*Rich Hall (Joint Winner With 4 points)

*Josie Lawrence (Joint Winner With 4 points)

*John Sessions (-14 points)

;Buzzers:

*Rich& — A cow bell

*John& — A bicycle bell

*Josie& — A small tea bell

*Alan& — Leslie Phillips; “Well, hello! Ding-dong!”

;Topics:

*Moth larvae eat clothes. Moths are only a quarter of an inch long. They don’t eat synthetic clothing or anything that has been dry cleaned, which is why there are probably fewer of them. They work as well as a mothball. (Forfeit: Moths)

:”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.”

*Butterflies are an evolution from moths–they came out during the daytime to avoid being eaten by bats. There are two theories on why butterflies are so called; one is that it is derived from the Dutch word “to excrete butter” and the other is that the most common butterfly when the Anglo-Saxons invaded Britain were yellow. (See also Differences between butterflies and moths)

:”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”.”

*Bats use sonar, shown in an experiment using bells: a pitch black room with bells hung from the ceiling and bats flying around created no noise, but owls did run into the bells.

:”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.”

*The biggest tourist attraction in Canada between 1934 and 1943 was the Dionne quintuplets. They were 5 girls who were born from a single egg to a poor family. Their father wanted to exhibit them, so the Canadian Government agreed to exhibit them to raise money. The parents got their children 9 years later, but they all left at the age of 18. In 1998, the two surviving quintuplets were given $4 million from Mike Harris as compensation. (Forfeit: Niagara Falls)

*In the first recorded Olympic Games in 776 BC, the only event was the 192& m (600& ft) sprint. (Forfeits: Discus, Javelin, Hammer, 200m)

*The winner of the first Olympics was Koroibos, who was a naked chef. All the other competitors ran in the nude.

*The length of the marathon (26 miles and 385 yards) was dictated by the one run at 1908 Olympic Games in London. The British Royal Family dictated that the race started outside a window at Windsor Castle and the finish line at the White City Stadium. The original marathon ran by Pheidippides who was delivering a message from the Battle of Marathon to Athens. The nearest source came from Herodotus, who was born 6 years later, he claimed that Pheidippides ran from Marathon to Sparta, which was about and ran back, he also didn’t die as many sources claim. It was a myth created by Plutarch 500 years later.

;General Ignorance:

*The first modern Olympic Games were held in 1850 in Much Wenlock, Shropshire, England and arranged by William Penny Brookes of the Wenlock Olympian Society, according to Baron de Coubertin, the man credited with finding the modern Olympics. As a baron, he used his political connections to inform people about the 1896 Olympics in Athens. King George I of Greece sent a silver medal as a prize to the Much Wenlock Games. Brookes died a year before the Athens Olympics. (Forfeits: Athens, Greece)

*Charles XIV of Sweden had a tattoo saying “Death to kings”, because he used to work for Napoleon Bonaparte. Charles XIII of Sweden adopted him, then after he died, he became king and backed away from France, forged an alliance with England and Russia, invaded Norway and his family are still the rulers of Sweden.

*Harald I of Denmark was the source of the name of Bluetooth technology.

*St. Bernard dogs carried barrels of milk not brandy. It is a myth created by the tourism industry. Brandy would kill a person with hypothermia. The only evidence of St. Bernard’s with brandy is from an 1831 painting by Landseer. The dog in the painting was called Barry, who saved 40 lives, but was killed by his 41st rescuee, who mistook him for a wolf. In his honour, the handsomest dog at the Great St Bernard Pass hospice is named “Barry” in his honour. (Forfeit: Brandy)

:”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:

*Alan Davies (-26 points)

*Clive Anderson (Winner with 1 point)

*Phil Kay (0 points)

*John Sessions (-10 points)

;Buzzers:

*Clive& — An arrow hitting its target

*Phil& — A mobile phone ringtone

*John& — An enthusiastic schoolboy; “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

Much to Alan’s relief, they were then told that was a joke and they could 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.”

*Sitting Bull’s (who defeated General Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn) real name was Jumping Badger. He inherited the name “Sitting Bull” from his father when he was a teenager. He killed his first bison when he was 10. He then took part in a rading on a pro-Crow Indian settlement. Bulls sit down when it’s about to rain, like Ferdinand the Bull. Her mother was called “Her-Holy-Door”.

*The BBC paid Hilda Wright 3 guineas for the 3 radio programmes of the Flower Pot Men. Since acquiring the rights, the BBC made £2 million from video sales of the series. She named Bill and Ben after her brothers. When they were naughty, their mother said ”Was it Bill or was it Ben?”, which became the catchphrase of the show. Their little sister, Phyllis was Little Weed.

:”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).”

*Billy the Kid and Ben-Hur are connected to Lew Wallace. He signed Billy the Kid’s death warrant while he was Governor of New Mexico and wrote Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ in 1880.

:”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:

*The commonest material in the world is Perovskite, named after the minerologist Count Lev Perovski. It’s a mineral compound of magnesium, silicon and oxygen. It accounts for half of the world’s mass and is what most of the Earth’s mantle is made of. (Forfeits: Oxygen, Water)

*In 63 AD, Pompeii was destroyed by an earthquake. Then of course around 16 years later, it was destroyed by Mount Vesuvius, even though it wasn’t fully rebuilt. It’s also due to erupt soon. It’s also believed that the Phoenician civilization was finished by a volcanic eruption.

:”Tangent: Alan talks about his trip to Pompeii, where there are bits of sulphur crust that you can walk across, although they are fenced off, but you can only go over it in pairs and the guides tell the school people not to jump up and down on the thin crust.”

*Roman Emperors ordered gladiators’ deaths by putting their thumbs up. The saving symbol involved placing the thumb inside the hand, known as ”pollex compressus”. The gladiator’s sword is known as the gladius. (Forfeit: Thumbs Down)

:”Tangent: In Sicily, many hitchhikers are killed on the roadside, by putting their thumbs up.”

:”Tangent: In Ancient Greece, instead of gladiator fights, they had naked wrestling.”

*The organization that the Americans fought in the Vietnam War was the Việt Minh, named after their greatest hero, Hồ Chí Minh. The Americans invented the words “Việt Cộng”, “Charlie” and “the Gooks”. The CIA believed that “Việt Cộng” sounded more menacing and was associated with communism. (Forfeit: Việt Cộng)

:”Tangent: The Americans gave the Viet Minh a huge amount of money, when they were on the same side. Then using the Americans arms, the Viet Minh forced the French to surrender Indochina in 1954.”

:”Tangent: In Denmark, King Kong is known as Kong King. (NB: Though said by Stephen Fry in the episode, this is in fact not true. See discussion page for more info.)”

Episode 11 “Beats”

;Broadcast date:

*17 December 2004 (BBC Two)

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (-13 points)

*Mark Gatiss (-4 points)

*Sean Lock (-8 points)

*Linda Smith (Winner with 2 points)

;Buzzers:

*Sean& — Beethoven’s ”Fifth Symphony”

*Mark& — Handel’s ”Water Music”

*Linda& — Vivaldi’s ”Spring”

*Alan& — ”Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” – slowly, on a glockenspiel

;Topics:

*Snakes prefer to look at musical instruments, since they have no ears. Although it was recently revealed that they have an otic nerve. All you have to do is pretend you have an instrument and it will still move around as if it was mesmerised by the actions.

:”Tangent: Alan’s claims that there aren’t any rattlesnakes on television anymore.”

*What have cats got to do with violins? – Nothing, sheep’s guts are used for making violin strings. In Medieval times, it was considered unlucky to kill cats, so the people who had the monopoly on violins claimed that they used catguts, because their rivals would never kill a cat. The same rival families have been making them for over 600 years. Nowadays nylon and steel are added, but many claim the sheepgut is still the best. A cat’s penis has barbs and a bone in it. (Forfeit: Catgut Strings)

:”Tangent: In Australia, it was discovered that sheep possess Morphic resonance, mainly because they use this knowledge to get across cattle grids. It started in Britain with blue tits, they were able to peck the bottle top of a milk bottle within a week of it being discovered in Scotland and England.”

*Spiders like listening to classical music, according to research at the Ohio University. When listening to techno and rap, they made their webs as far away from the speaker as possible, but when listening to Bach, they made their webs as near to the speaker as possible. Huntsman spiders are the only spiders with lungs.

:”Tangent: Spiders wrap flies in their web and drink them by dissolving them.”

:”Tangent: Spiders listen with their eight feet and their penis is on the end of their feeler on top of their head. As well as having eight feet, they have eight eyes.”

:”Tangent: ”Tesco music” – a mix of techno and disco music.”

*In 1995, NASA did an experiment on spider webs after the spider has had caffeine, LSD and marijuana. When subjected to LSD, they were more geometrical. When they had caffeine, they were all over the place and with marijuana, they slightly in between the other two.

:”Tangent: 80% of humans take caffeine at least once a day.”

:”Tangent: At the British Museum, there is an exhibition which has a mesh with 14,000 pills sewn into it, which dictates the amount of pills taken by an average First World person during their lives.”

*Synesthesia is a term created by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, which is when you think of a colour when you hear a sound. Neuroscientist Julian Asher tried to explain it while he was a child, because when the orchestra played, the colour seemed to improve while the music was playing.”

*In 1988, Warner Communications paid $28,000,000 for the rights to the song “Happy Birthday To You”. It was composed in 1924 by two women, but Irving Berlin first included the words to the music in 1933. Officially, if you sing it in a public place, you owe Warner Communications money. It was also the first song to be sung in space, by the Apollo 9 crew. The song was originally a song to be sung in class, referred to as “Good Morning To All”.

*Mike Batt’s (who wrote the song for “The Wombles”) worst compilation was the song “One Minute Silence”, which he stole from John Cage’s notable 1952 record 4′33″, which is total silence. He actually credited the song as “One Minute Silence (Batt/Cage)” and he also wrote the song for William Hague’s 1997 leadership campaign.

:”Tangent: Sean’s best radio link was when Dale Winton was linking Batt’s song “Bright Eyes”, in which he said, “Listen to that, a song about a rabbit, written by a Batt.””

:”Tangent: Alan was frightened when he saw “The Wombles” as a child, because they were normal-sized men in Womble suits, rather than the small creatures seen on the TV.”

:”Tangent: Linda’s friends were in a production of “The Wind in the Willows” and they weren’t getting on. One was the badger, the other was Mr. Toad. When Badger told him to mend his ways, Toad said “Fuck off, you stripey bastard!””

*During a news bulletin on Good Friday in 1930, there was no news, so the presenter played some music for a period of 10 minutes. Apart from football matches, the only main thing going on was a rebellion in Chittagong, India, but that didn’t happen until after the news had finished.

:”Tangent: Linda’s claim that local newspapers never have a good story to write. Her former local paper, the Sheffield Star once had the main headline as “WORKSOP MAN DIES OF NATURAL CAUSES”.”

;General Ignorance:

*A stave is shown using the Benesh movement notation, displaying steps of the Hokey Cokey. The American version was made by a man called Larry LaPrise who died in 1996. At his funeral, it is claimed they had trouble with his coffin, because they put his left leg in, then the trouble started.

*The first invention to break the sound barrier was a whip’s sonic boom. The sound of a whip isn’t leather hitting leather, it a loop made by the whip that tapers to a point and reaches a speed of 724mph. It was only discovered after humans used high-speed cameras to slow it down. (Forfeit: Cannonball)

*When you listen to the waves in a seashell, you hear the air. (Forfeits: The Sea, Blood Vessels)

*The composer of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star was, according to Stephen, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who wrote 12 variations of the theme when he was 5 years old. This is actually a common misconception as the melody is actually a traditional French one and was not composed by Mozart.

:”Tangent: Alan’s similarity to the “new” Anne Robinson.”

Episode 12 “Birth” (Christmas Special)

;Broadcast dates:

*26 December 2004 (BBC Two)

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (-52 points)

*Rich Hall (Winner with 7 points)

*Phill Jupitus (-3 points)

*Mark Steel (2 points)

*Stephen Fry (-56 points)

;Buzzers:

*Rich& — A drum intro, à la “20th Century Fox”

*Mark& — A brief but elaborate piano sequence

*Phill& — A rousing marching band piece on trumpet (which Phill stands to attention to)

*Alan& — Some upbeat yodellers

*Stephen& — Christmas bells

;Topics:

*As well as being the gas that inflates balloons, helium alters the timbre of the voice and the sound travels faster through helium. (Forfeit: Makes It Go Up)

:”Tangent: Health & Safety wouldn’t allow a demonstration of using helium on people’s voices.”

*The link between Santa Claus and Emperor Penguins is that they “come once a year”.

:”Tangent: Aristotle believed that having sex while facing northwards led to stronger and healthier babies.”

*People who smoke shorten their life expectancy by 5 years, while cutting off the testicles adds 13 years.

*Italian barbers did castrations as the practice was illegal, they explained it as an accident; Castrati are people that sing in a high pitch because they have been castrated.

*There were no animals present at birth of Jesus. In 1223, St. Francis of Assisi first came up with the idea that Jesus was in a crib. (Forfeits: Donkey, Camel, Cow, Sheep)

*The Bible does not state that there were three Wise Men (or kings), they were priests, it just said that there were three gifts. It doesn’t even say there were three of them or even if they were male.

:”Tangent: Fry talks about his interview with the President of Uganda (and David Frost).”

*The name of Herod’s wife was Doris. (Forfeit: Mrs Herod)

*In the Middle Ages, the church simultaneously recognised Saint Anne (Jesus’ grandmother) had seven different heads. (Forfeit: One)

*Water bears can die and come back to life after three days of being dead.

:”Tangent: What special powers would panellist have?”

*The coldest place in the universe is in Louisiana – scientists at LSU took the temperature down to a fraction above absolute zero.

;General Ignorance:

avies insists that he will not be humiliated on Christmas, so Fry offers for the two to change place. Davies asks his own set of questions, most of them “just for Stephen Fry”. (All Alan’s questions still had pictures relating to them on the studio’s big screens, indicating that the switch was thoroughly pre-planned. As evidenced by his regular forfeits though, Stephen was still unaware as to what the questions would be.)

*Thomas Sørensen plays in goal for Aston Villa.

*Mozart’s middle name was Wolfgang. (Forfeit: Amadeus)

*There are six different states of matter (Solid, Liquid, Gas, Plasma, Bose–Einstein condensate and Fermionic condensate). (Forfeit: Four)

:”Note: There are actually either 4 or 23 states of matter, depending on definition.”

*In the Northern Hemisphere, water drains in whichever direction you choose. (Coriolis effect)

*When penguins in the Falkland Islands see jets they move away from the noise. (Forfeit: Fall Over)

*The cow is not a sacred animal in India. (Forfeit: Cow)

Adapted from the Wikipedia article QI (B series), under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Healthy ecosystems provide vital goods and services to humans and other organisms. There are two major ways of reducing negative human impact and enhancing ecosystem services:

:a) Environmental management. This direct approach is based largely on information gained from earth science, environmental science and conservation biology.

However, this is management at the end of a long series of indirect causal factors that are initiated by human consumption, so a second approach is through demand management of human resource use.

:b) Management of human consumption of resources, an indirect approach based largely on information gained from economics. Herman Daly has suggested three broad criteria for ecological sustainability: renewable resources should provide a sustainable yield (the rate of harvest should not exceed the rate of regeneration); for non-renewable resources there should be equivalent development of renewable substitutes; waste generation should not exceed the assimilative capacity of the environment.

Environmental management

At the global scale and in the broadest sense environmental management involves the oceans, freshwater systems, land and atmosphere, but following the sustainability principle of scale it can be equally applied to any ecosystem from a tropical rainforest to a home garden.

Atmosphere

In March 2009 at a meeting of the Copenhagen Climate Council 2,500 climate experts from 80 countries issued a keynote statement that there is now “no excuse” for failing to act on global warming and that without strong carbon reduction targets “abrupt or irreversible” shifts in climate may occur that “will be very difficult for contemporary societies to cope with”. Management of the global atmosphere now involves assessment of all aspects of the carbon cycle to identify opportunities to address human-induced climate change and this has become a major focus of scientific research because of the potential catastrophic effects on biodiversity and human communities (see Energy below).

Other human impacts on the atmosphere include the air pollution in cities, the pollutants including toxic chemicals like nitrogen oxides, sulphur oxides, volatile organic compounds and particulate matter that produce photochemical smog and acid rain, and the chlorofluorocarbons that degrade the ozone layer. Anthropogenic particulates such as sulphate aerosols in the atmosphere reduce the direct irradiance and reflectance (albedo) of the Earth’s surface. Known as global dimming the decrease is estimated to have been about 4% between 1960 and 1990 although the trend has subsequently reversed. Global dimming may have disturbed the global water cycle by reducing evaporation and rainfall in some areas. It also creates a cooling effect and this may have partially masked the effect of greenhouse gases on global warming.

Oceans

Forests moderate the local climate and the global water cycle through their light reflectance (albedo) and evapotranspiration. They also conserve biodiversity, protect water quality, preserve soil and soil quality, provide fuel and pharmaceuticals, and purify the air. These free ecosystem services are not given a market value under most current economic systems, and so forest conservation has little appeal when compared with the economic benefits of logging and clearance which, through soil degradation and organic decomposition returns carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that about 90% of the carbon stored in land vegetation is locked up in trees and that they sequester about 50% more carbon than is present in the atmosphere. Changes in land use currently contribute about 20% of total global carbon emissions (heavily logged Indonesia and Brazil are a major source of emissions). Climate change can be mitigated by sequestering carbon in reafforestation schemes, plantations and timber products. Also wood biomass can be utilized as a renewable carbon-neutral fuel. The FAO has suggested that, over the period 2005–2050, effective use of tree planting could absorb about 10–20% of man-made emissions – so monitoring the condition of the world’s forests must be part of a global strategy to mitigate emissions and protect ecosystem services. However, climate change may pre-empt this FAO scenario as a study by the International Union of Forest Research Organizations in 2009 concluded that the stress of a 2.5C (4.5F) temperature rise above pre-industrial levels could result in the release of vast amounts of carbon so the potential of forests to act as carbon “sinks” is “at risk of being lost entirely”.

Cultivated land

In many parts of the industrial world land clearing for agriculture has diminished and here the greatest threat to biodiversity, after climate change, has become the destructive effect of invasive species. Increasingly efficient global transport has facilitated the spread of organisms across the planet. The potential danger of this aspect of globalization is starkly illustrated through the spread of human diseases like HIV AIDS, mad cow disease, bird flu and swine flu, but invasive plants and animals are also having a devastating impact on native biodiversity. Non-indigenous organisms can quickly occupy disturbed land and natural areas where, in the absence of their natural predators, they are able to thrive. At the global scale this issue is being addressed through the Global Invasive Species Information Network but there is improved international biosecurity legislation to minimise the transmission of pathogens and invasive organisms. Also, through CITES legislation there is control the trade in rare and threatened species. Increasingly at the local level public awareness programs are alerting communities, gardeners, the nursery industry, collectors, and the pet and aquarium industries, to the harmful effects of potentially invasive species.

Management of human consumption

The underlying driver of direct human impacts on the environment is human consumption. This impact is reduced by not only consuming less but by also making the full cycle of production, use and disposal more sustainable. Consumption of goods and services can be analysed and managed at all scales through the chain of consumption, starting with the effects of individual lifestyle choices and spending patterns, through to the resource demands of specific goods and services, the impacts of economic sectors, through national economies to the global economy. Analysis of consumption patterns relates resource use to the environmental, social and economic impacts at the scale or context under investigation. The ideas of embodied resource use (the total resources needed to produce a product or service), resource intensity (the resources needed for each dollar spent on a good or service), and resource productivity (the amount of good or service produced for a given input of resource) are important tools for understanding the impacts of consumption with simple key resource categories indicating human needs being food, energy, materials and water.

Energy

The Sun’s energy, stored by plants (primary producers) during photosynthesis, passes through the food chain to other organisms to ultimately power all living processes. Since the industrial revolution the concentrated energy of the Sun stored in fossilized plants as fossil fuels has been a major driver of technology which, in turn, has been the source of both economic and political power. In 2007 climate scientists of the IPCC concluded that there was at least a 90% probability that atmospheric increase in CO2 was human-induced, mostly as a result of fossil fuel emissions but, to a lesser extent from changes in land use. Stabilizing the world’s climate will require high income countries to reduce their emissions by 60-90% over 2006 levels by 2050 which should hold CO2 levels at 450-650 ppm from current levels of about 380 ppm. Above this level and temperatures could rise by more than 2° C to produce “catastrophic” climate change. Reduction of current CO2 levels must be achieved against a background of global population increase and developing countries aspiring to energy-intensive high consumption Western lifestyles.

Reducing greenhouse emissions, referred to as decarbonization, is being tackled at all scales, ranging from tracking the passage of carbon through the carbon cycle to the exploration of renewable energies, developing less carbon-hungry technology and transport systems and attempts by individuals to lead carbon neutral lifestyles by monitoring the fossil fuel use embodied in all the goods and services they use.

Water

Water security and food security are inextricably linked. In the decade 1951-60 human water withdrawals were four times greater than the previous decade. This rapid increase resulted from scientific and technological developments impacting through the economy – especially the increase in irrigated land, growth in industrial and power sectors, and intensive dam construction on all continents. This altered the water cycle of rivers and lakes, affected their water quality and had a significant impact on the global water cycle. Currently towards 35% of human water use is unsustainable, drawing on diminishing aquifers and reducing the flows of major rivers: this percentage is likely to increase if climate change worsens, populations increase, aquifers become progressively depleted and supplies become polluted and unsanitary. From 1961 to 2001 water demand doubled – agricultural use increased by 75%, industrial use by more than 200%, and domestic use more than 400%. Humans currently use 40-50% of the globally available freshwater in the approximate proportion of 70% for agriculture, 22% for industry, and 8% for domestic purposes and the total volume is progressively increasing.

Water efficiency is being improved on a global scale by increased demand management, improved infrastructure, improved water productivity of agriculture, minimising the water intensity (embodied water) of goods and services, addressing shortages in the non-industrialised world, concentrating food production in areas of high productivity; and planning for climate change. At the local level people are becoming more water-self-sufficient by harvesting rainwater and reducing use of mains water.

Food

The American Public Health Association (APHA) defines a “sustainable food system” as “one that provides healthy food to meet current food needs while maintaining healthy ecosystems that can also provide food for generations to come with minimal negative impact to the environment. A sustainable food system also encourages local production and distribution infrastructures and makes nutritious food available, accessible, and affordable to all. Further, it is humane and just, protecting farmers and other workers, consumers, and communities.” Concerns about the environmental impacts of agribusiness and the stark contrast between the obesity problems of the Western world and the poverty and food insecurity of the developing world have generated a strong movement towards healthy, sustainable eating as a major component of overall ethical consumerism. The environmental effects of different dietary patterns depend on many factors, including the proportion of animal and plant foods consumed and the method of food production. The World Health Organization has published a ”Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health” which was endorsed by the May 2004 World Health Assembly. It recommends the Mediterranean diet which is associated with health and longevity and is low in meat, rich in fruits and vegetables, low in added sugar and limited salt, and low in saturated fatty acids; the traditional source of fat in the Mediterranean is olive oil, rich in monounsaturated fat. The healthy rice-based Japanese diet is also high in carbohydrates and low in fat. Both diets are low in meat and saturated fats and high in legumes and other vegetables; they are associated with a low incidence of ailments and low environmental impact.

At the global level the environmental impact of agribusiness is being addressed through sustainable agriculture and organic farming. At the local level there are various movements working towards local food production, more productive use of urban wastelands and domestic gardens including permaculture, urban horticulture, local food, slow food, sustainable gardening, and organic gardening.

Materials, toxic substances, waste

As global population and affluence has increased, so has the use of various materials increased in volume, diversity and distance transported. Included here are raw materials, minerals, synthetic chemicals (including hazardous substances), manufactured products, food, living organisms and waste.

;Materials:

Sustainable use of materials has targeted the idea of dematerialization, converting the linear path of materials (extraction, use, disposal in landfill) to a circular material flow that reuses materials as much as possible, much like the cycling and reuse of waste in nature. This approach is supported by product stewardship and the increasing use of material flow analysis at all levels, especially individual countries and the global economy.

;Toxic substances:

Synthetic chemical production has escalated following the stimulus it received during the second World War. Chemical production includes everything from herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers to domestic chemicals and hazardous substances. Apart from the build-up of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere, chemicals of particular concern include: heavy metals, nuclear waste, chlorofluorocarbons, persistent organic pollutants and all harmful chemicals capable of bioaccumulation. Although most synthetic chemicals are harmless there needs to be rigorous testing of new chemicals, in all countries, for adverse environmental and health effects. International legislation has been established to deal with the global distribution and management of dangerous goods.

;Waste:

Every economic activity produces material that can be classified as waste. The average human uses 45-85 tonnes of materials each year. To reduce waste industry, business and government are now mimicking nature by turning the waste produced by industrial metabolism into resource. Dematerialization is being encouraged through the ideas of industrial ecology, ecodesign and ecolabelling (see side bar). In addition to the well-established “reduce, reuse and recycle” shoppers are using their purchasing power for ethical consumerism.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Sustainability, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Each train consists of a locomotive pushing a single passenger car up the mountain, and descending the mountain by going backwards. Both locomotive and car were originally equipped with a ratchet and pawl mechanism engaged during the climb that prevents any roll-back; during descent, both locomotive and car are braked. Recent improvements in design have replaced the ratchet (gear and pawl mechanism) with sprague clutches and disc brake assemblies. Most of the locomotives were made by the Manchester Locomotive Works.

The rack rail design used is one of Marsh’s own invention, using a ladder-like rack with open bar rungs engaged by the teeth of the cog wheel. This system allows snow and debris to fall through the rack rather than lodge in it. A similar design, called the Riggenbach rack system, was invented by engineer Niklaus Riggenbach in Switzerland at about the same time. The Swiss Consul to the United States visited Marsh while constructing the railway up Mount Washington, and his enthusiastic reports persuaded the Swiss government to commission Riggenbach to build on Rigi Mountain the Vitznau-Rigi-Bahn, opened on May 21, 1871.

Initially, there was no way to pass on the Mount Washington Cog Railway. In 1941, a nine-motion switch was invented, and two spur sidings were added, each long enough to divert two up trains so others could pass down, enabling more round trips per day.

In 2004, work was completed replacing the lower ”Waumbek Switch and Siding” with an convert|1800|ft|m|adj=on passing loop equipped with electric and hydraulicly powered automated switches. These switches are powered by batteries and recharged by solar panels. One switch is located at each end of the loop, allowing ascending and descending trains to pass one another.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Mount Washington Cog Railway, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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green-collar worker is a worker who is employed in the environmental sectors of the economy. Environmental green-collar workers (or green jobs) satisfy the demand for green development. Generally, they implement environmentally conscious design, policy, and technology to improve conservation and sustainability. Formal environmental regulations as well as informal social expectations are pushing many firms to seek professionals with expertise with environmental, energy efficiency, and clean renewable energy issues. They often seek to make their output more sustainable, and thus more favorable to public opinion, governmental regulation, and the Earth’s ecology.

Green collar workers include professionals such as conservation movement workers, environmental consultants, environmental or biological systems engineers, green building architects, holistic passive solar building designers, solar energy and wind energy engineers and installers, green vehicle engineers, “green business” owners,, organic farmers, environmental lawyers, ecology educators, and ecotechnology workers, and sales staff working with these services or products. Green collar workers also include vocational or trade-level workers: electricians who install solar panels, plumbers who install solar water heaters, construction workers who build energy-efficient green buildings and wind power farms, construction workers who weatherize buildings to make them more energy efficient, or other workers involved in clean, renewable, sustainable future energy development.

There is a growing movement to incorporate social responsibility within the green industries. A sustainable green economy simultaneously values the importance of natural resources and inclusive, equitable, and healthy opportunities for all communities.

In the context of the current economic crisis facing the US and the world, many experts now argue that a massive push to develop renewable sources of energy could create millions of new jobs and help the economy recover while simultaneously improving the environment and strengthening energy security.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Green-collar worker, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Mission overview

The Mars Express mission is dedicated to the orbital (and originally in-situ) study of the interior, subsurface, surface and atmosphere, and environment of the planet Mars.

The scientific objectives of the Mars Express mission represent an attempt to fulfil in part the lost scientific goals of the Russian Mars-96 mission, complemented by exobiology research with Beagle-2. Mars exploration is crucial for a better understanding of the Earth from the perspective of comparative planetology.

The spacecraft originally carried seven scientific instruments, a small lander, a lander relay and a Visual Monitoring Camera, all designed to contribute to solving the mystery of Mars’ missing water. All of the instruments take measurements of the surface, atmosphere and interplanetary media, from the main spacecraft in polar orbit, which will allow it to gradually cover the whole planet.

The overall Mars Express budget excluding the lander is €150 million (roughly US$185 million).

Spacecraft construction

The prime contractor for the construction of Mars Express Orbiter was EADS Astrium Satellites.

Mission preparation

In the years preceding the launch of a spacecraft numerous teams of experts distributed over the contributing companies and organisations prepared the space and ground segments. Each of these teams focussed on the area of its responsibility and interfacing as required. A major additional requirement raised for the Launch and Early Orbit Phase (LEOP) and all critical operational phases was that it was not enough merely to interface; the teams had to be integrated into one Mission Control Team. All the different experts had to work together in an operational environment and the interaction and interfaces between all elements of the system (software, hardware and human) had to run smoothly for this to happen:

* the flight operations procedures had to be written and validated down to the smallest detail;

* the control system had to be validated;

* system Validation Tests (SVTs) with the satellite had to be performed to demonstrate the correct interfacing of the ground and space segments;

* mission Readiness Test with the Ground Stations had to be performed;

* a Simulations Campaign was run.

Launch

The spacecraft was launched on June 2, 2003 at 23:45 local time (17:45 UT, 1:45 p.m. EDT) from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, using a Soyuz-FG/Fregat rocket. The Mars Express and Fregat booster were initially put into a 200& km Earth parking orbit, then the Fregat was fired again at 19:14 UT to put the spacecraft into a Mars transfer orbit. The Fregat and Mars Express separated at approximately 19:17 UT. The solar panels were then deployed and a trajectory correction maneuver was performed on June 4 to aim Mars Express towards Mars and allow the Fregat booster to coast into interplanetary space.

Near earth commissioning phase

The Near Earth Commissioning phase extended from the separation of the spacecraft from the launcher upper stage until the completion of the initial check out of the orbiter and payload. It included the solar array deployment, the initial attitude acquisition, the declamping of the Beagle-2 spin-up mechanism, the injection error correction manoeuvre and the first commissioning of the spacecraft and payload (final commissioning of payload took place after Mars Orbit Insertion). The payload was checked out one instrument at a time. This phase lasted about one month.

The interplanetary cruise phase

This five month phase lasted from the end of the Near Earth Commissioning phase until one month prior to the Mars capture manoeuvre and included trajectory correction manoeuvres and payloads calibration. The payload was mostly switched off during the cruise phase, with the exception of some intermediate check-outs.

Although it was originally meant to be a “quiet cruise” phase, It soon became obvious that this “cruise” would be indeed very busy. There were star Tracker problems, a power wiring problem, extra manoeuvres, and on the 28th of October, the spacecraft was hit by one of the largest solar flares ever recorded.

Lander jettison

The Beagle 2 lander was released on December 19 at 8:31 UTC (9:31 CET) on a ballistic cruise towards the surface. It entered Mars’ atmosphere on the morning of December 25. Landing was expected to occur at about 02:45 UT on December 25 (9:45 p.m. EST December 24). However, after repeated attempts to contact the lander failed using the Mars Express craft and the NASA Mars Odyssey orbiter, it was declared lost on February 6, 2004, by the Beagle 2 Management Board. On February 11, ESA announced an inquiry would be held into the failure of ”Beagle 2”.

Orbit insertion

Mars Express arrived at Mars after a 400 million km journey and course corrections in September and in December 2003.

On December 20 Mars Express fired a short thruster burst to put it into position to orbit the planet. The Mars Express Orbiter then fired its main engine and went into a highly elliptical initial-capture orbit of 250& km × 150,000& km with an inclination of 25 degrees on December 25 at 03:00 UT (10:00 p.m., December 24 EST).

First evaluation of the orbital insertion showed that the orbiter had reached its first milestone at Mars. The orbit was later adjusted by four more main engine firings to the desired 259& km × 11,560& km near-polar (86 degree inclination) orbit with a period of 7.5 hours. Near periapsis the top deck is pointed down towards the Martian surface and near apoapsis the high gain antenna will be pointed towards Earth for uplink and downlink.

After 100 days the apoapsis was lowered to 10,107& km and periapsis raised to 298& km to give an orbital period of 6.7 hours.

MARSIS deployment

On May 4, 2005, ”Mars Express” deployed the first of its two 20-metre-long radar booms for its MARSIS (Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding) experiment. At first the boom didn’t lock fully into place; however, exposing it to sunlight for a few minutes on May 10 fixed the glitch. The second 20 m boom was successfully deployed on June 14. Both 20 m booms were needed to create a 40 m dipole antenna for MARSIS to work; a less crucial 7-meter-long monopole antenna was deployed on June 17. The radar booms were originally scheduled to be deployed in April 2004, but this was delayed out of fear that the deployment could damage the spacecraft through a whiplash effect. Due to the delay it was decided to split the four week commissioning phase in two parts, with two weeks running up to July 4 and another two weeks in December 2005.

The deployment of the booms was a critical and highly complex task requiring effective inter-agency cooperation ESA, NASA, Industry and public Universities.

Nominal science observations began during July 2005. (For more info, see ,

, and [http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMEV82DU8E_index_0.html ESA Portal - Mars Express radar ready to work] ESA press release.)

Operations of the spacecraft

Operations for Mars Express are carried out by a multinational team of engineers from ESA’s Operation Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt. The team began preparations for the mission about 3 to 4 years prior to the actual launch. This involved preparing the ground segment and the operational procedures for the whole mission.

The Mission Control Team is composed of the Flight Control Team, Flight Dynamics Team, Ground Operations Managers, Software Support and Ground Facilities Engineers. All of these are located at ESOC but there are additionally external teams, such as the Project and Industry Support teams, who designed and built the spacecraft.

The Flight Control Team consists of:

* The Spacecraft Operations Manager

* Eight Operations Engineers

* Three Mission Planners

* One Spacecraft Analyst

* Five Spacecraft controllers

The team build-up, headed by the Spacecraft Operations Manager, started about 4 years before launch . He was required to recruit a suitable team of engineers that could handle the varying tasks involved in the mission. For Mars Express the engineers came from various other missions. Most of them had been involved with Earth orbiting satellites.

Routine phase: Science return

Since orbit insertion Mars Express has been progressively fulfilling its original scientific goals. Nominally the spacecraft points to Mars while acquiring science and then slews to earth-pointing to downlink the data, although some instruments like Marsis or Radio Science might be operated while spacecraft is earth-pointing.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Mars Express, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Over the years, ENSS has been known as a “Green” school, with regular garbage clean-ups, tree-plantings, and a heavily involved Environmental Club[http://eastnorthumberland.kprdsb.ca/Clubs_ens/EnvironmentalClub_ens]. After many years of fund raising, ENSS was able to install a wind turbine in June 2009[http://www.trentonian.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1582469], generating power and reducing ENSS’s carbon footprint. Currently, ENSS is in a competition to receive a grant from Aviva Community Fund to install 210 solar panels on the roof of the school[http://www.avivacommunityfund.org/ideas/acf2898], generating an estimated 46,909 kWh of energy annually. The purchase and installation has a price tag of about $250 000, hence the competition for the grant. ENSS is also involves in a program called ECO-Cell and E-Waste. ECO-Cell is where we take old cell phones and recycle them properly which continues through out the entire school year, and E-Waste is an event which cannot happen all the time but is where we have a truck come in and we collect any TV monitors or any electronics with precious metals and properly dispose of them. Also the Student Beautification Committee is a group which is focused on cleaning up litter on school property and surrounding areas. ENSS has also been getting a yearly tradition going which is an event about sustainable living called ‘Earth Song’. In the future ENSS wants to try and build a living wall.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article East Northumberland Secondary School, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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There are several sectors that fall under the Eco investing umbrella. Renewable energy refers to both solar, wind, tidal current,wave and conventional hydro technology. This includes companies that build solar panels or wind turbines, or the raw materials and services that contribute to these technologies It also refers to Energy Storage – companies that develop and use technologies to store large amounts of energy, particularly renewable energies. A good example of this is the fuel cells used in hybrid cars. Also under the renewable energy sector are Biofuels. This group includes companies that use or supply biological resources (like algae, corn or waster wood) to create energy or fuel. Other technologies that are included in the renewable energy group are: Geothermal (companies who use or convert heat to electric energy), Hydroelectricity (companies who harness water energy to make electricity), and natural gas.

The Buildings and Efficiency sector refers to companies that manufacture green building materials or energy-efficient services in the world of engineering and architecture. Green building materials include energy-efficient glass, insulation, and lighting among others. Recycling companies and energy conservation companies also fall under this sector.

The Eco Living sector refers to companies that offer sustainable goods and services for healthy living. This includes organic farming, green pesticides, health care and pharmaceuticals.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Eco investing, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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The economy of the town has been expanding since the end of the Second World War. GlaxoSmithKline has been a major source of jobs since the 1950s. Other significant employers include Tesco, Somerfield, Petrofac and Merpro. Argos has recently opened an outlet in the town. In 2009 Sainsbury’s announced plans to build a new superstore on the edge of the town which will provide work for an estimated 200 people. The average price of housing in the town is between £106,054 and £131,539, a rise on the 1998 average between £42,640 and £51,200.

Tourism

Since 2002 there has been a focus on attracting new visitors to the town with the foundation of the Montrose Town Partnership which aims to “encourage representatives of the public, private and community sector to act together to develop the economic potential of Montrose to address the needs of local people and visitors alike”. Membership includes The Montrose Society, Montrose Heritage Trust, Montrose Community Council, Montrose Golf Links Ltd, MERPRO Leisure, Montrose Business and Retailers Association, Scottish Wildlife Trust, Dunninald and Angus Council, Ferryden & Craig and Hillside, Dun and Logie Pert community councils.. Since 2002 they have produced a number of promotional leaflets and have established a weekly Saturday market in the town centre. In 2002 plans were unveiled to renovate the Mid Links. The project was completed in 2003 at the total cost of £1.8million with £1.2million granted by the Heritage Lottery Fund. Plaques have been incorporated to inform visitors of the historical heritage of the town’s buildings. In 2009 the council made a bid to improve the appearance of the town centre with solar panelled lamps with a moving banner, new benches and a decorative arch.

Montrose Museum will be refurbished in October 2009 with work completed before Summer 2010 adding disabled toilet facilities, wheelchair access, a loop system and special lighting for the visually impaired.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Montrose, Angus, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Miralles sought to design a parliament building that could represent and present a national identity. This intractably difficult question was tackled by displacing the question of identity into the landscape of Scotland. In a characteristically poetic approach he talked about slotting the building into the land “in the form of a gathering situation: an amphitheatre, coming out from Arthur’s Seat.” where the building would reflect a dialogue between the landscape and the act of people sitting. So an early goal of the design was to open the building and its public spaces, not just to Edinburgh but to a more general concept of the Scottish landscape. Miralles intended to use the parliament to help build the end of Canongate—”not just another building on the street…it should reinforce the existing qualities of the site and its surroundings. In a subtle game of cross views and political implications.”

The result was a non-hierarchical, organic collection of low-lying buildings intended to allow views of, and blend in with, the surrounding rugged scenery and symbolise the connection between nature and the Scottish people. As a consequence the building has many features connected to nature and land, such as the leaf shaped motifs of the roof in the Garden Lobby of the building, and the large windows of the debating chamber, committee rooms and the Tower Buildings which face the broad expanse of Holyrood Park, Arthur’s Seat and the Salisbury Crags. Inside the buildings, the connection to the land is reinforced by the use of Scottish rock such as gneiss and granite in the flooring and walls, and the use of oak and sycamore in the construction of the furniture.

The Parliament is actually a campus of several buildings, reflecting different architectural styles, with a total floor area of 31,000& square metres (312,000& sq& ft), providing accommodation for MSPs, their researchers and parliamentary staff. The buildings have a variety of features, with the most distinctive external characterisation being the roof of the Tower Buildings, said to be reminiscent of upturned boats on the shoreline. The inspiration had come from Edwin Lutyens’ sheds, made from upturned herring busses (boats) which Miralles saw on a visit to Lindisfarne in Northumberland. It is said that in the first design meeting, Miralles, armed with some twigs and leaves, thrust them onto a table and declared “This is the Scottish Parliament” reinforcing the unique and abstract nature of the parliamentary campus.

The north-western boundaries of the site, the MSPs’ building, Queensberry House and the Canongate Building reinforce the existing medieval street patterns “expressing intimacy with the city and its citizens”. The south-eastern aspect of the complex is extensively landscaped. Concrete “branches”, covered in turf and wild grass extend from the parliamentary buildings, and provide members of the public with somewhere to sit and relax. Indigenous Scottish wildflowers and plants cover much of the area, blending the Parliament’s grounds with the nearby Holyrood Park and Salisbury Crags. Oak, Rowan, Lime and Cherry trees have also been planted in the grounds. Adjacent to the landscaped area of the complex, where it meets Horse Wynd, there is an open plan piazza, with bike racks, seating and external lighting shaped like rocks incorporated into concrete paving. Three distinctive water features provide the centrepiece for this area.

The debating chamber contains a shallow elliptical horseshoe of seating for the MSPs, with the governing party or parties sitting in the middle of the semicircle and opposition parties on either side, similar to other European legislatures. Such a layout is intended to blur political divisions and principally reflects the desire to encourage consensus amongst elected members. This is in contrast to the “adversarial” layout reminiscent of other Westminster style national legislatures, including the House of Commons, where government and opposition sit apart and facing one another. There are 131 desks and chairs on the floor of the chamber for all the elected members of the Scottish Parliament and members of the Scottish Government. The desks are constructed out of oak and sycamore and are fitted with a lectern, a microphone and in-built speakers as well as the electronic voting equipment used by MSPs. Galleries above the main floor can accommodate a total of 255 members of the public, 18 guests and 34 members of the press.

The most notable feature of the chamber is the roof. The roof is supported by a structure of laminated oak beams joined with a total of 112 stainless steel connectors (each slightly different), which in turn are suspended on steel rods from the walls. The connecting nodes were fabricated by welders for Scotland’s oil industry. Such a structure enables the debating chamber to span over 30& metres (100& ft) without any supporting columns. In entering the chamber, MSPs pass under a stone lintel—the Arniston Stone—that was once part of the pre-1707 Parliament building, Parliament House. The use of the Arniston Stone in the structure of the debating chamber symbolises the connection between the historical Parliament of Scotland and the present day Scottish Parliament.

The Garden Lobby is at the centre of the parliamentary complex and connects the debating chamber, committee rooms and administrative offices of the Tower Buildings, with Queensberry House and the MSP building. The Garden Lobby is the place where official events as well as television interviews normally take place and it is used as an open social space for MSPs and parliamentary staff.

The main feature of the Garden Lobby are the rooflights, which when viewed from above resemble leaves or the early Christian “vesica” shape and allow natural light into the building. The rooflights are made from stainless steel and the glasswork is covered by a lattice of solid oak struts. The route through the Garden Lobby up the main staircase to the debating chamber has been described as “one of the great processional routes in contemporary architecture.”

MSP building

Four tower buildings fan out along the front, or eastern edge, of the parliamentary complex and are notable for the curvature of their roofs. The Tower Buildings are home to the public entrance of the Scottish Parliament and to the Main Hall which is located on the eastern side of the parliamentary complex, beneath the debating chamber. A stone vaulted ceiling is the principal feature of the Main Hall, which has cross like representations carved into it, reminiscent of the Saltire—the national flag of Scotland. The main hall contains permanent exhibitions on the role of the Scottish Parliament, as well as public seating, a visitor information desk, a shop, lockers and a creche. Like much of the parliamentary complex, the materials used to construct the Main Hall and its vaulted ceiling include Kemnay Granite from Aberdeenshire in north east Scotland and Caithness stone which is used in much of the flooring in the buildings. Connected to the Tower Buildings in the eastern portion of the complex are the Media and Canongate Buildings, which house the IT and procurement departments of the Parliament, as well as media offices and the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (SPICe). The centrepiece of the Canongate Building is a two-storey cantilever structure, with the building connected at one end by reinforced concrete and 18 metres (60& ft) of the building suspended above ground and protruding outwards unsupported by any columns.

Originally dating from 1667, Queensberry House is an example of a seventeenth century Georgian Edinburgh townhouse and contrasts with the modern architecture of the rest of the parliamentary complex. For much of its modern history, Queensberry House has been used as a hospital, army barracks, a refuge and a geriatric hospital. In 1996, the geriatric hospital closed and the building was incorporated into the Scottish and Newcastle brewery, who owned the surrounding site. The building has been extensively refurbished, and returned to its original height of three storeys to provide facilities for the Presiding Officer, Deputy Presiding Officers, the Chief Executive of the Scottish Parliament and various parliamentary support staff. Internally and externally the building has been strengthened with reinforced steel and concrete. The original timber flooring has been replaced throughout with a mixture of carpet, vinyl, oak and Caithness stone. Queensberry House also contains the Donald Dewar Room, dedicated to the founding First Minister of Scotland who died in October 2000. The room hosts the personal collection of books and other memorabilia donated to the Parliament by the family of Donald Dewar after his death.

Artwork and features

There is a wide variety of artwork and sculptures in the Scottish Parliament ranging from specially commissioned pieces to official gifts from overseas parliamentary delegations. The intention of including artwork and sculptures in the building reinforces the desire of Miralles that the project should reflect the nature of Scotland, particularly its land and people. In order to facilitate the incorporation of art into the building, a consultative steering group was established by the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (SPCB) under the chairmanship of Jamie Stone MSP with the remit of deciding which artworks should be chosen. Over 80 pieces of artwork have been chosen by the steering group to be displayed in the building.

As well as artwork and sculptures, quotations, furniture and photography have been commissioned as part of the art strategy. A range of quotations have been inscribed onto the stonework in and around the parliamentary complex. Beneath the Canongate Building façade is the Canongate Wall, constructed from a variety of indigenous Scottish rocks such as Lewisian gneiss, Torridonian sandstone and Easdale slate. The stones are set into large concrete casts, each one inscribed with a quotation. There are a total of 24 quotations on the Canongate Wall. Etched along the lower stretch of the wall is a pictorial representation of the Old Town of Edinburgh based around a sketch by Enric Miralles showing the view of the Old Town from his bedroom window in the Balmoral Hotel.

The Main Hall of the Parliament contains a number of distinctive features and sculptures, including the gold-plated ”Honours of Scotland” sculpture. Presented by the Queen upon the opening of the Parliament building, the sculpture is modelled on the actual Honours of Scotland, the crown, sceptre and the sword of the state, and combines these three separate elements into one composition. During meetings of the original Parliament of Scotland, the actual Honours were always present but since 1819 they have been permanently housed in Edinburgh Castle. The 11& m (36& ft) long Visitor Information Desk also stands in the Main Hall. Commissioned by the art strategy group, the desk combines a unique design constructed from oak and sycamore and functions as a workstation for six members of parliamentary staff. At a cost of £88,000 the desk has been criticised by some over its price and functionality.

Another feature gifted to the Scottish Parliament by the Queen, following its inauguration in July 1999, is the parliamentary mace. The mace is housed in a glass case in the debating chamber and has a formal, ceremonial role during meetings of the Parliament. The mace sits in front of the Presiding Officers’ desk and is made from silver and inlaid with gold panned from Scottish rivers and inscribed with the words: ”Wisdom”, ”Compassion”, ”Justice” and ”Integrity”. The words – ”There shall be a Scottish Parliament” (which are the first words of the Scotland Act 1998), are inscribed around the head of the mace. At the beginning of each session in the chamber, the case is removed to symbolise that a full meeting of the Parliament is taking place.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Scottish Parliament Building, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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The Liberals won a majority government in the 2003 provincial election. Duncan was appointed Minister of Energy and Government House Leader on October 23, 2003.

Minister of Energy (first time)

One of Duncan’s primary responsibilities as Energy Minister was managing Ontario Power Generation, which was in an extremely troubled state when the Liberals assumed power in 2003. A damning report into systemic mismanagement at OPG was issued shortly soon the new government assumed power, and several high-level executives were forced to submit their resignations. Duncan appointed a new interim board led by former federal Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources Jake Epp to lead the organization’s renewal.

Duncan subsequently announced plans for a comprehensive audit of OPG, when its budgetary shortfall was found to be $850 million. Reports in early 2004 indicated that Tory advisers with close ties to Mike Harris and Ernie Eves had received untendered contracts worth $5.6 million in 1999, when the Progressive Conservatives were still in government. The OPG’s situation improved under its new management, and it was able to post a $42 million profit in 2005.

Duncan issued a strategic report from the Electricity Conservation and Supply Task Force in January 2004. The report called for Ontario to emphasize energy conservation, while also ensuring “reliability, diversity and affordability”, and consumer protection. Two months later, Duncan brought forward a conservation plan highlighted by the use of “smart” electricity meters to discourage overuse during peak hours. The government plans to have smart meters installed throughout the province by 2010.

In April 2004, Duncan announced the creation of a new body called the Ontario Power Authority to purchase energy for the province and plan its long-term energy strategy. Duncan argued that the body would “depoliticize” energy debates in Ontario. Most energy companies supported this decision, while a number of environmental groups criticized it. The ”Globe and Mail” newspaper raised concerns over the Authority’s expanding budget in late 2006, but Duncan argued that its expenses are necessary to create a planning regime for the future.

Hydro rates increased twice during Duncan’s first tenure as Energy Minister. The Liberal Party had campaigned on a pledge to keep energy rates frozen until 2006, but reconsidered their options after discovering a $5.6 billion deficit left by the previous government. Homeowners and small business owners were paying 4.3 cents per kilowatt hour of hydro energy in 2003, even though the market rate was close to six cents. Premier McGuinty described this situation as “completely unsustainable” in light of the deficit, and Duncan announced that the rate would increase to 4.7 cents per kilowatt on 1 April 2004. In an effort to promote conservation, usage above 750 kilowatt hours was priced at 5.5 cents. Rates were increased a second time in March 2005, to 5 cents and 5.8 cents beyond 750 kilowatt hours. In making the change, Duncan acknowledged that his party had erred in its initial support for a freeze.

Duncan was also forced to revise his government’s plans to shut down all of Ontario’s coal-burning generators by 2007. In 2004, he acknowledged that “one or two” generators would be required as backup in the event of a failure elsewhere in the system. In June 2005, Duncan announced that the Nanticoke coal plant would remain open past 2007. He later announced that the Lambton station would remain open as well. A 2006 government report recommended keeping some plants open until 2014. In November 2006, the McGuinty government asked the provincial power authority to create a new timetable for plant closure. Duncan has said that Ontario will reduce its coal consumption in the coming years, even if plants remain open.

In April 2005, Duncan granted approval for four private companies to create new energy projects to replace the coal plants. The firms are expected to generate 1,675 megawatts of electricity.

In a speech to the Canadian Club on May 2 2005, Minister Duncan announced that it was time for an “open and public debate” on the future of nuclear power. He instructed the Ontario Power Authority to begin developing a long term electricity plan – referred to as an Integrated Power System Plan – so that the government could “move forward judiciously when it comes to nuclear energy in Ontario.”

Shortly after assuming office, he cancelled the previous government’s plans to privatize the Nuclear Inspection Services Division of Ontario Power Generation.

In July 2004, based on a recommendation of the OPG Review Committee, which Duncan appointed to review the cost over-runs and delays plaguing the restart of the four reactors at the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station, Duncan announced the government would proceed with the restart of reactor one at the Pickering station. Although smaller, the restart project still underwent cost over-runs and delays. As a result, the McGuinty government announced that it would not proceed with the restart of the two remaining Pickering A reactors and permanently mothballed them.

In 2005, Duncan concluded a deal with Bruce Power to provide the province with nuclear energy at a cost above the market rate. In 2007, the provincial Auditor-General later criticized this deal as too costly. Duncan has maintained that it was a good policy decision, and argued that much of the financial risk had been transferred to the private sector.

Duncan also promoted green energy initiatives such as the Deep lake water cooling project, wherein water from Lake Ontario is used to provide energy to buildings in Toronto. In 2005, he called for Ontario companies to bid for the right to produce an additional 1,000 megawatts of electricity from renewable sources. The province plans to have 10% of its energy come from renewable sources by 2010.

Duncan has proposed a national power grid to provide Canada with more autonomy in determining its energy policies. He outlined his support for the policy in a speech before power company executives in Toronto in February 2007, arguing that the grid would significantly reduce Canada’s rate of greenhouse gas emissions. Premier Gary Doer is also a prominent supporter of this plan.

Government House Leader

Shortly after the 2003 election, Duncan was required to enter into discussions on the legislative status of the New Democratic Party. The NDP won seven seats in the election, one fewer than the number required for official party status in the legislature. Recognized parties receive $2 million in government funding and have guaranteed speaking time. The NDP requested that the rules be changed, arguing that they should receive official status to reflect the 15% popular vote they received. Duncan and McGuinty initially refused to consider this possibility. Duncan offered to provide the NDP with $420,000 and some guaranteed speaking time, but NDP leader Howard Hampton rejected this as “nothing short of a bribe” After an extended filibustering campaign by the New Democrats, a compromise was reached wherein the NDP received $775,000 and was permitted to take part in Question Period. The NDP later regained full party status after winning an eighth seat in a by-election.

Minister of Finance

Ontario Finance Minister Greg Sorbara unexpectedly resigned from office on October 11, 2005, after he was named on a Royal Canadian Mounted Police warrant issued in an investigation of his former real estate development firm. Later in the same day, Duncan was appointed to replace Sorbara as Minister of Finance and Chair of the Management Board of Cabinet. He became the first Finance Minister in Ontario history to represent a Windsor riding.

Duncan’s first budget was introduced on March 23, 2006. It focused on infrastructure spending, and particularly new spending on public transit projects in the Greater Toronto Area including extension of the Yonge-University-Spadina subway line, and roads and bridges in other parts of the province. Health spending increased by $1.9 billion, and Ontario’s universities were given $290 million more in operating revenue. The budget deficit was $2.4 billion, consistent with the previous year’s projection. There were no new taxes or tax increases. One month later, the federal government announced that it would provide Ontario with a further $1 billion for public transit spending in Toronto.

Minister of Energy (second time)

Greg Sorbara’s returned to cabinet as Minister of Finance on May 23, 2006, after a judge ruled that there was no cause for including his name on the RCMP search warrant. Duncan was reassigned as Energy Minister.

Duncan announced his government’s long-term strategic energy plan in June 2006, calling for an increased investment in nuclear power and the construction of two new reactors in the next ten years. The government will also promote a series of wind energy and conservation projects, including a plan to build dozens of windmills by 2025. The total cost is estimated at $46 billion over roughly twenty years. In November 2006, Duncan opened Canada’s largest wind farm near Sault Ste. Marie.

In July 2006, Duncan directed the Ontario Power Authority to provide $400 million over three years to assist local electricity distribution utilities in conservation and demand-side management projects. Toronto Hydro responded almost immediately by promising a fee reduction for consumers who cut their electricity usage by 10%. The project was successful, and Duncan announced in November 2006 that Toronto Hydro’s conservation measures would be expanded across the province.

The financial situation at Ontario Power Generation has improved significantly since 2003. Its profits for 2005 were $366 million, and its credit rating was upgraded. In July 2006, Duncan described OPG’s turnaround as “[o]ne of the untold stories of the last two years”. He also indicates that his government has added 3,000 megawatts of power to the provincial grid.

In October 2006, the Ontario Energy Board reduced the price of energy from 5.8 cents to 5.5 cents per kilowatt-hour, and from 6.7 cents to 6.4 above the 1,000 kilowatt-hour threshold. There was a further reduction to 5.3% and 6.2% in April 2007.

As in October 2006, the Ontario Power Authority signed contacts with seven high-efficiency co-generation projects across Ontario, with combined capacity of 414 megawatts. All of the plants are expected to come online by May 2010.

In November 2006, Duncan announced that the governments of Ontario and Quebec had agreed to join their power grids, to reduce Ontario’s dependence on American power when demand exceeds capacity. The arrangement will see Ontario receive an additional 1,250 megawatts per year by 2010. Duncan is also attempting to finalize a deal with Manitoba, which has an abundance of hydroelectric power.

Tom Parkinson, the chair of Ontario Hydro One, resigned in December 2006 after accusations of lavish overspending. The following month, Duncan established a four-member panel to recommend a new system of compensation for energy executives. He said that the review would help reduce bureaucratic waste. Critics have argued that the panel is too expensive, and unnecessary.

In February 2007, Duncan said that Ontario is on target for meeting its Kyoto Protocol targets and that the province has achieved a 29% reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions from its coal plants since 2003. Opposition parties have argued that these reduced figures reflect a decline in the manufacturing sector, a charge that Duncan has rejected. In April, Duncan said that the province would not spend $1.6 billion to clean up the existing coal plants, arguing that the proposal was too expensive, would do nothing to benefit the environment, and was unnecessary given that the government still plans to phase out the coal plants by 2014.

Also in April 2007, Duncan announced that Ontario would ban the sale of inefficient incandescent light bulbs by 2012. The decision makes Ontario the first jurisdiction in Canada, and one of the first in the world, to take this step. In the same month, Duncan announced that a California company would construct the largest solar farm in Ontario, near Sarnia.

Future plans

Duncan has been described as a possible candidate for the leadership of the Ontario Liberal Party when Dalton McGuinty retires.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Dwight Duncan, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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