Series G featured a total of 16 editions, plus an extra two compilation episodes, making it the longest series yet, and was the first to be broadcast in its entirety on BBC One. As with the previous series, extended “XL” editions are also being shown on BBC Two soon after the normal broadcast. Because of scheduling issues, this only began with the fourth episode. The first episode had an “XL” edition aired some time after the original edition. Episodes 2, 3, 15 and 16 currently have no scheduled “XL” editions. It is not known when they will be aired.

Nine new guests appeared in this series; Jack Dee, John Hodgman, Barry Humphries, Lee Mack, Graham Norton, Sue Perkins, Jan Ravens, David Tennant and Sandi Toksvig. Another significant first is that episode 2 featured four guests instead of the usual three (with regular Alan Davies also present).

Accompanying the recordings was a little game Stephen Fry had set up for his Twitter followers. The object was to decipher a word the audience had shouted. The response for “glabrous” was so overwhelming that it made Twitter’s Trending Topics list on 9 May 2009.

In Australia, this series being currently broadcast on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation flagship network, ABC1, on Tuesday nights, and then placed on iView, the ABC’s online viewing site after the airing, expiring after 2 weeks.

Episode 1 “Gardens”

;Broadcast date:

*26 November 2009

*20 March 2010 (XL edition)

;Recording date:

*11 June 2009

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (−8 points)

*Rob Brydon (−6 points)

*David Mitchell (Joint winner with 3 points)

*Dara Ó Briain (Joint winner with 3 points)

;Buzzers:

* Rob – A bell tinkling

* Dara – A cash register kerching

* David – A shop bell ringing

* Alan – A Cockney market trader shouting out “Pound a punnet! Go on, I’ve gotta couple of juicy ones here!”

;Theme:

As part of the “Gardens” theme, the set was decorated with trees and the inner part of the QI magnifying glass became a garden with flowers in it.

;Topics:

*The tools required for do nothing gardening (otherwise known as natural gardening or natural farming) are animals. Examples include using ducks for paddy fields, rather than herbicide, and using carp to purify water.

*The panellists are given four tools, donated to them by the Garden Museum, that were used by gentleman gardeners in the 18th & 19th century.

**Alan’s was a walking stick which contained a hidden saw blade, which would be used by people to cut stray trees.

**David’s was a hoe that when you put a leather cap on made it look like a walking stick, and when you took the cap off the hoe could be used to remove obstructive weeds.

**Rob’s was a glass bottle that was used to grow straight, uniformly shaped cucumbers, by forcing the cucumber to grow in the shape of the bottle. It was invented by George Stephenson, the inventor of the Rocket locomotive.

**Dara’s was a sort of seed shaker, out of which seeds would be dispersed through the different sized holes.

*The best place in the world to discover an entirely new species is your own garden (forfeit: the rainforest). In 1971, a biologist called Jennifer Owen conducted a study in her suburban house in Leicester and discovered 533 species of ichneumon wasp in her back garden, of which 15 were new to Britain and 4 were new to science. The naturalist Gilbert White said that “nature is so full and varied that if you want to find the place with the most variety, it’s the place you most study”.

:”Tangent: When catching wasps, Rob uses a jam jar filled with jam, so that the wasps get stuck and can’t get out again.”

:”Tangent: If a bee is dying, you should give it honey, as that’s the only thing it can eat, but Dara prefers to use the sole of his shoe rather than rescue it. A bee makes enough honey in its lifetime to fill one teaspoon. Alan claims that bees can’t drown.”

*The vegetarian spiritualist Charles Isham believed that real gnomes would be attracted to Garden gnomes. Isham first brought them into Britain in 1847. He wanted to try to commune with real gnomes by claiming that “seeing and hearing gnomes is not mental delusion, but extension of faculty”. Isham made 21 gnomes, of which only 1 still exists today and has been insured for £1 million. The red cap worn by all garden gnomes derived from German miners, as they wore red caps. (Forfeit: Phwoarr! (said when a bikini-clad gnome was displayed))

:”Tangent: In Wast Water in the English Lake District, there were some gnomes put at 48 metres deep for divers to look at; but 3 divers drowned while trying to look at them, so the gnomes were taken away by the police. Oddly, when the gnomes were moved to a depth of 50 metres, the police didn’t take them away, because health and safety rules say that the police divers can’t go that deep, hence they couldn’t take them away. The original idea was just to have gnomes in the lake for people to look at, as it was said to be dull.”

:”Tangent: In Leicester, there is an old quarry, which an aeroplane and a bus have been put in for people to look at. In Scapa Flow, there is a massive German fleet, dating from World War I. It’s there because the Germans, required by the Armistice terms to surrender it, scuttled it instead. The French Fleet was sunk by the British in World War II, to the annoyance of Charles de Gaulle, so that the defeated French couldn’t hand it over to the Nazis. It was sunk at Mers-el-Kébir, in Morocco.”

*American farmers hate William Shakespeare because of a drug manufacturer called Eugene Schieffelin, who suggested that every species of bird named in Shakespeare’s works should be represented in America. The only bird species that wasn’t already there was the starling, so he released 100 into Central Park, and in consequence there are now 200 million in North America. The main problem with the starlings is that they befoul everything that they don’t eat, so they have become a major pest in America.

:”Tangent: Starlings come to Brighton in flocks of up to 1 million birds, some even coming from as far away as Germany and Poland.”

*The Grocers’ apostrophe is a term used to describe somewhere where apostrophes shouldn’t be, such as “potato’s”. Societies have even been set up to protect the apostrophe, and in Dublin there is even a grocer’s spelt “GROCER,S”. This led to a discussion about sign writers, and how they spell “accommodation”. The Grocers’ apostrophe has been ridiculed since the 18th century, when the ”Oxford Companion to the English Language” said “there was never a golden age in which the rules for the use of the possessive apostrophe were clear-cut and known, understood and followed by most educated people”. Places like Birmingham, England have now abolished the apostrophe.

:”Tangent: There are only 5 places in America which have an apostrophe in their name. They are Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts; Ike’s Point, New Jersey; John E’s Pond, Rhode Island; Carlos Elmer’s Joshua View, Arizona; and Clark’s Mountain, Oregon.”

*The way to distinguish between an apple and a pear without tasting or cutting open either of them, is to put them in water to see if they float. Apples float, hence the pastime of bobbing for apples, whereas Pears sink because they are denser. The oldest variety of apple is called a Pearmain.

;General Ignorance:

*The carbon which makes up the wood in a tree comes from the air (forfeit: earth). It was previously thought that trees took it in as a nutrient from the soil, but in actuality it’s mainly absorbed from the carbon dioxide in the air.

*Australian spiders remain dangerous. Although no one there has died from a spider’s bite since 1981, when antivenoms were introduced, a number of fatalities have resulted from road traffic accidents caused by redback spiders and Australian funnel-web spiders dropping out of such things as sun visors in cars during journeys.

Episode 2 “Ganimals”

;Broadcast date:

*3 December 2009

;Recording date:

*8 May 2009

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (−4 points)

*Bill Bailey (−7 points)

*John Hodgman (Winner with unknown score)

*Sean Lock (−7 points)

*Sandi Toksvig (−3 points)

;Buzzers:

* Bill – An ape screeching

* Sean – A chimpanzee screaming

* Sandi – A parrot screeching

* Alan – A dog yapping

* John (who has no buzzer) – Blowing a duck whistle

;Topics:

*In the book, Gargantua by Rabelais, it is suggested that a goose would be a good alternative to toilet paper. The quote actually said, “I have, by a long and curious experience found out a means to wipe my bum. The most lordly, the most excellent and the most convenient that was ever seen. I wipe my tail with a hen, with a cock, with a pullet, with a calf’s skin, with a hare, with a pigeon, with a cormorant, with an attorney’s bag, with a montero, with a falconer’s lure. But to conclude, I say and maintain, that of all the torcheculs, arsewisps, bumfodders, tail napkins, bunghole cleansers and wipe breeches, there is none in the world comparable to the neck of a goose, that is well-downed, if you hold her head betwixt your legs. And, believe me, therein upon my honour, for you will thereby feel in your nockhole, a most wonderful pleasure, where in regard of the softness of the said down and of the temperate heat of the goose which is easily communicated to the bum-gut and the rest of the inwards, insofar as to come even to the regions of the heart and brains.”

:”Tangent: Alan suggested that a hedgehog might be a good alternative as you could use both sides to clean out the bum.”

:”Tangent: Other uses of a goose include the use of goose fat for making roast potatoes, and for people to cover themselves with in order to swim the English Channel, as David Walliams in fact did. It’s not used much for that any more, because it causes people to slip out of the grasp of the lifeboat crew when being rescued. Geese are also reputed to be better watchdogs than dogs. They were also used as chimney sweeps.”

:”Tangent: It was reputed that at the Nottingham Goose Fair the legendary Robin Hood used goose feathers for his arrows. The Bar-headed Goose can travel unbelievable distances: they increase their range by 70% by making a V-shape which reduces wind shear, by controlling the air vortices, which makes the air less difficult for those birds flying behind the leader to fly through”.

*The reason why giraffes have long necks is so they can fight other giraffes (forfeit: to reach tree tops). Giraffes have short necks in comparison to their legs: whereas animals such as deer can drink by just dipping their head to take a sip, giraffes have to mount an unbalanced position with their legs because of their long neck. But a single swipe with the neck can kill a rival giraffe. They don’t use them to reach the tree tops, as they have to bend their necks in order to eat. It used to be believed that giraffes were solitary; but in actuality they were in widely spaced groups, just close enough to see each other. At birth a baby giraffe comes out head first, and is 6 feet tall. The staple diet of the giraffe is the acacia plant, which tries to avoid being eaten by giraffes by having a bitter taste and by warning its neighbours when giraffes are coming, giving off a chemical signal known as the wind-borne warning burst.

*The commonest form of death for mountain goats is falling off mountains. Despite being nimble, secure and sure-footed, they tend to fight with each other 3 to 4 times an hour. It is said that female goats get sexually aroused by the sweat of a human, because it has a similar goaty smell.

:”Tangent: Sean tells of the time when he was a lonely goatherd.”

*In World War I, seagulls were trained to identify the periscopes of submarines and crap on them, to blind the lens. The training involved placing food on British submarines, so the seagulls would come to recognise a submarine. Then when sighting a submarine, they would tend to associate the submarine with food, and hence perch on its periscope and coat it in droppings. This failed because the birds couldn’t distinguish between British submarines and enemy submarines. It was also an ornithological mistake to refer to them as seagulls, as they are in fact simply gulls: they are not seabirds, but land birds. Although they do live mainly on cliffs, they don’t go far out to sea, so would be of little use against a submarine unless it was very close inshore.

:”Tangent: In World War II, parrots were kept in the Eiffel Tower to warn when enemy aircraft were approaching.”

*Camels blow out their soft palate, known as the ”palatinus diverticulus” or ”gula” to attract females. The camels with the most testosterone have the biggest gulas. In Saudi Arabia, the gulas are cut out to make the camels better at camel racing. Interestingly, Saudi Arabia imports its camels from Australia, because they’re good to eat. They also import sand from Australia, because it’s the right sand for building.

*Goldfish don’t swim into the side of their bowls because they can tell the water pressure with their pressure sensors, similar to what humans have in their ears. They activate little gelatinous caps which activate little hairs, which like the cochlear fluid we have, are used to tell the pressure.

:”Tangent: Sharks also have neuromasts known as the Ampules of Lorenzini, but they detect electricity, because a lot of fish give off electricity as a weapon.”

;General Ignorance:

*There are no insects in the sea because there are no trees or flowering plants there: nothing they have evolved to deal with exists in the sea. There are insects in rivers despite the saltwater. There are also saltwater spiders and sea spiders, but they aren’t insects: they can survive in the sea because they can hunt.

*The Russian Army (forfeit: geese, the Nazis) goose-stepped across Europe in the 1940s. The Nazis stopped goose-stepping (known to them as the Stechschritt) in the 1930s: they only used it during the Nuremberg rallies, and it fell out of fashion; no new recruits were asked to do it. Only the armies of North Korea, Russia, China, Cuba, Vietnam, Chile and Iran used it thereafter.

Episode 3 “Games”

;Broadcast date:

*10 December 2009

;Recording date:

*15 May 2009

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (−17 points)

*Phill Jupitus (2 points)

*Sean Lock (−7 points)

*Liza Tarbuck (Winner with 5 points)

;Buzzers:

* Phill – An impression of John Anderson saying “Gladiators ready!”

* Sean – An American sports-style buzzer

* Liza – Football crowd cheering with commentator shouting “Goal!”

* Alan – An impression of Bruce Forsyth saying “Good game, good game.”

;Theme:

*Each panellist is given a Bang! gun during the first question.

;Topics:

*Alan, Phill and Sean are in love with Liza. To settle the matter, they are to have a truel (a three-way duel). Sean hits the target 90% of the time, Phill 60% of the time, and Alan only 10% of the time. Alan is to shoot first, but everyone only has one bullet. His best strategy is to deliberately miss (forfeits: shoot myself; shoot Liza), because then the next man to fire would aim at the other opponent, who is the better shot. This is an example of game theory, a concept devised by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern, but also by Nobel Prize winner John Forbes Nash, Jr., the man portrayed by Russell Crowe in the film A Beautiful Mind. The theory has been applied to business and economics; for example, in tobacco advertising the manufacturers were wasting money trying to persuade more people to buy their tobacco: when such advertising was banned they suddenly found themselves saving money, without losing any market share. Another example was in the tv show Big Brother, when the two finalists were asked if they wanted to share the £50,000 prize money, or not. If both choose “share”, they get £25,000 each; if one says “I’ll take the lot” and the other says “share”, the person who said “I’ll take the lot” would get the lot; but if they both say “I’ll take the lot”, both get nothing. The best option there is to say “share”. In the end, both shared.

*The game in which all players traditionally end up being thrown into a lake of fiery sulphur is the ouija board. In 1972 it was more popular than Monopoly, but by the end of that year it had gone out of fashion because of the film The Exorcist. Interestingly, the name “ouija” still belongs to Parker Brothers as a proprietary name. The origin of the name is unknown, but is believed to be the French and German for “yes” (“Oui” and “Ja”). Originally, the idea of the game had nothing to do with dead people, but was an attempt to connect with the subconscious: the part of one’s mind which controls Automatic writing. Only one-third of people nowadays use the ouija board to contact the dead. During World War I, it was used to give messages to troops abroad. The part about sulphur derives from the Book of Revelations in the Bible.

:”Tangent: In 1995 a British court dismissed a jury, because it used a ouija board to contact the dead person in the case. It is claimed that the dead person told them that the accused man was guilty; but the jury was dismissed because this hadn’t been done in the jury room (it was done in a hotel): oddly enough, if it had been, the judge could not have dismissed them, as he has no right to know what transpires in the jury room. The accused was eventually found guilty after a re-trial.”

:”Tangent: There is an Elvis Presley séance website which says, “If you wish to repeat this experiment, please be considerate. Many people want to contact Elvis, and we’re sure he’s quite busy. Please treat this information as you would if he were alive, and you had his e-mail address, with respect”.”

*During World War II, the “Scallywags” were the Home Guard. The word “scallywag” actually referred to them being assassins: they were trained in assassination techniques in case of a German invasion of Britain. They were to be a guerilla force, who weren’t mainstream military, including clergymen and doctors, who were secretly given training, money, supply dumps, ammunition, and a gallon of rum. Their job was to kill Germans and also make sure that Winston Churchill wasn’t removed, as it was believed that someone like Lord Halifax might try to take over. Amongst the “Scallywags” were Michael Foot, George Orwell and J. B. Priestley. They were trained to kill anyone who collaborated with the Nazis. Foot once said that he’d have killed Lord Halifax. They only had 2 weeks worth of food rations, as it was believed they wouldn’t survive any longer, as they were basically terrorist suicide squads. Their motto was “Terror By Night”.

:”Tangent: Boy Scouts at ages 12 to 14 were taught at Osterley Park (where the Home Guard trained) how to decapitate motorists using a taut wire stretched across a road. British roller skating champion Harry Lee also taught them how to knee someone in the groin while using roller skates.

*The toughest vegetarians in history were the gladiators, although they were actually vegans. A mass grave of gladiators was found in Ephesus, which gave all indications that they didn’t eat meat. They were known as barleymen: from “horeardii”, meaning “eaters of barley”. It was believed they ate barley and beans and dry ash, but they needed to be fat. Scientists could work out that they were vegetarians because of low zinc levels. The bulls are the strongest animal vegetarians, but almost every animal is a vegetarian. Adolf Hitler wasn’t a vegetarian, although he did smoke and drink, but not very much.

:”Tangent: Discussion of how people perceive scientists as being arrogant, despite religionists never being able to say “I don’t know”, whereas “we just don’t know” is the default position of a scientist until something can be proven.”

*The panellists were shown a picture of a white gondola floating on water, and asked where the picture was taken. The answer was Las Vegas, because since 1633 all Venice gondolas have to be black. They can have ornaments and bling on them, but have to be black.

*The easiest way to win money in a Las Vegas casino is by card counting while playing blackjack. It was originally used by the MIT Blackjack Team, who used the skill to win money. It’s not illegal, just a method of playing the game very well. Since it’s become more common, casinos have introduced a facial recognition system to identify card counters, so that any time they go into a casino anywhere in the world they’re instantly recognised because of these countermeasures. Card counting was devised by Ben Campbell, who decided the best way was to divide into teams to do the counting. He also tried to do this with roulette.

*In poker, the easiest way to tell if someone is bluffing is to try to spot their tell, which normally involves blinking. Gamblers usually try double-bluffing to phase an opponent.

;General Ignorance:

*Greyhounds are actually blue in colour, not grey. The word “greyhound” is derived from “grighound”, which means a “bitch hound”. Greyhound racing is the second most popular spectator sport in the UK, after football: £2.5 billion is wagered on the sport every year. The hare in greyhound racing can go up to 100 mph.

:”Tangent: Kenneth Gandar-Dower once tried to see who would win in a race between a cheetah and a greyhound. The cheetah was uninterested and refused to race.”

*Mussels which don’t open are safe to eat. A cookery writer called Jane Grigson wrote a book on seafood in which she created the myth that you should throw them away if they don’t open, and by the 1990s ninety percent of cookbooks contained this myth, but it isn’t correct. The Australian Seafood Commission claims you should only cook ones that are shut, and should throw away ones which are open because they’ll be dead.

*At the beginning of tournaments, Roman gladiators never said anything. (Forfeit: “We who are about to die salute you.”) Only prisoners of the Emperor Claudius were believed to say “We who are about to die salute you”.

Episode 4 “Geography”

;Broadcast date:

*17 December 2009

*23 December 2009 (XL edition)

*14 April 2010 (ABC1 airing/iView upload)

;Recording date:

*14 May 2009

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (Winner with −7 points)

*Jo Brand (−10 points)

*Rob Brydon (−28 points)

*Jimmy Carr (−21 points)

;Buzzers:

* Jimmy – A thunder clap

* Rob – A ship’s horn

* Jo – An air raid siren

* Alan – A mock shipping forecast, with several sea-faring related puns on Alan’s status as the show’s resident ‘dunce’ – (the voice reading it is recognisable as that of John Lloyd, creator of ”QI”)

;Topics:

*Sat-navs ruin nearly 300,000 British road journeys every year: in that 300,000 insurance claims are made which are blamed on faulty sat-navs. People who have done sat-nav voices include John Cleese, Joanna Lumley and Julian Clary (Clary’s is advertised as “with free Dale Winton voice and alerts”). Alan Davies did the voice for his own sat-nav, which left his wife less than impressed. The favourites are Nigella Lawson, Billy Connolly and Julie Walters. The least favourite are Simon Cowell, Catherine Tate and Baroness Thatcher. The worst case of a sat-nav going wrong was when a Syrian lorry driver who was taking luxury cars from Turkey to Gibraltar got directed to Grimsby, because there is a Gibraltar Point nearby: so he was misdirected by 1,600 miles. He was stopped just before driving into the North Sea. According to RoSPA, a quarter of all road accidents are down to driver distraction; and in this respect accidents due to mobile phones and sat-navs are about equal. (Forfeit: “Are we nearly there yet?”)

:”Tangent: Jimmy’s girlfriend once said: “Where would we be without sat-navs?””

:”Tangent: Some musicians had to be rescued by a helicopter, because their pink Mercedes-Benz van was directing them through a ford.”

:”Tangent: Jimmy has the idea of printing out the information from a sat-nav and make it into a book, which Stephen terms a “satlas”.”

:”Tangent: Rob’s irritation with sat-navs when they interrupt the radio leads to Rob doing his impression of a man who is trapped in a small box, followed later by his impression of a “Welsh attitude sat-nav”.”

*Genghis Khan is buried next to a baby camel. According to Mongolian tradition the burial place of any great ruler had to be anonymous. According to Marco Polo, 20,000 people were executed to keep the Khan’s burial place secret, including all the slaves who excavated the grave and all the soldiers who killed the slaves; but this led to a problem, since it would have eventually led to everyone who was alive being killed. So, since they realised that camels have long memories, they took a suckling baby camel and killed it in front of its mother at the place where Genghis Khan was going to be buried, then they took the mother away. Every year the camel would go back to the grave, because that was where her baby died. Then when the camel died, no-one knew where he was buried.

:”Tangent: Genghis Khan was married 500 times. It is said that 8% of all males in Central Asia are related to a common ancestor from around 1,000 years ago and this ancestor may be Genghis Khan.”

*The invention of the teacup changed the course of Chinese history: because it was invented so early, the Chinese never invented glass. For instance, the Chinese never drank wine; but Europeans did, and liked to drink it from glass vessels. The invention of glass meant Europeans also had the technology of lens grinding, telescopes and microscopes; and the invention of spectacles meant that intellectuals and scientists had an extra 15 to 20 years of reading and an active lifestyle; and the invention of beakers, flasks and retorts was useful because glass is chemically neutral. But between the 14th century and the 19th century no glass was made in China, which also meant they had no mirrors and that their windows were made of paper, so they had dark houses. Simply because they liked drinking tea from the teacup, they never bothered to invent glass.

*The best place to view Wyld’s Globe was from the inside. In 1851, James Wyld installed a 60-foot high scale model of the Earth in the middle of London. It included all the land masses and all the seas and mountains, built to scale. It was situated in Leicester Square between 1851 and 1862. One visitor said, “I visited it several times, and I never met with any one who was not delighted with it, or who did not find it most instructive.” The most interesting thing about it, is that it’s an inverse of what the Earth is: you’re looking at it from the inside, but anything that is shown on a globe on the outside is exactly the same on the inside. Unfortunately, in 1862 the lease expired and the Leicester Square which exists today took its place. It was originally built to coincide with The Great Exhibition of 1851 in Hyde Park.

*The Arctic Highlanders (otherwise known as the Inughuit or Polar Eskimos) got their cutlery from meteorites. (Forfeits: Sheffield; IKEA) An explorer called Ross (after whom the Ross Sea is named) became the first person to encounter them. Up until that point, the Inughuit thought they were the only people on the planet. In 1818 Ross discovered that the Inughuit had cutlery made out of bone and metal, despite their having no technology to smelt metal. To the Inughuit, the bits of meteorite looked like “a woman”, “a tent” and “a dog” to them, so they took bits from the woman and used a bit of bone to make their eating implements.

:”Tangent: The first person to reach the North Pole was an American called Admiral Peary, who got there around 70 years after Ross first reached the Arctic. Peary took all the Inughuit’s meteorites, and sold them to a museum for US$40,000. He also took 6 children, 4 of whom died of TB immediately. Another one eventually saw his parents as skeletons at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. He complained to Peary, who did nothing about it; and it wasn’t until 1993 that they were eventually returned home. Some people even refuse to believe that Peary got to the North Pole, as he would have had to have travelled at speeds no other Arctic explorer has ever managed.”

*The “father of geography”, Alexander von Humboldt was taught the language of the Ature by a parrot, 40 years after the last person who spoke it died. Von Humboldt was in Venezuela when he heard about the Carib cannibals, who had eaten the last of the Atures; but it was revealed that there was a pet parrot still alive. So von Humboldt learned all 40 words that the parrot knew, although they were slightly inaccurate, as no-one living could say what they were exactly: so he found someone who knew a similar language and guessed at what the words might have been. Von Humboldt was a homosexual.

:”Tangent: Parrots can learn up to 200 words, but the odd thing is that they only mimic humans. It’s unknown why, in the wild, they never mimic any other bird or animal.”

;General Ignorance:

*Mongolians live in gers (forfeit: yurts). “Ger” means “home” in Mongolian. The word “yurt” is of Turkish origin.

*The Dutch city of Groningen is not to be found in Holland; it’s located in the Netherlands. There are two areas called Holland: these are North Holland and South Holland, where the major cities including Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague are located; but both are further south than Groningen. Holland is often used incorrectly as the name of the whole country, which is more properly called the Netherlands (originally the Spanish Netherlands). Groningen claims to have had a pub that opened non-stop for 10 years.

*The interesting thing about Church Flatts Farm in Derbyshire is that it’s the furthest point from the sea in the whole UK. It’s 70 miles away from the sea: no place is further away in the whole country.

*The national anthem of Spain (Marcha Real) is not sung in any language (forfeits: Spanish; Catalan), as it’s an instrumental piece. The old lyrics, inspired by Franco, were dropped after his death in 1975. They were inspired to create new lyrics after listening to Liverpool fans singing “You’ll Never Walk Alone”, which originally came from the musical “Carousel”. So, in 2007, the Spanish Olympic Committee organised a competition to create new lyrics for the anthem, but they were withdrawn after 5 days, for being too nationalistic. The song was to be called “Viva España”. The lyrics went, “Long live Spain! Let’s all sing together with different voices and only one heart.”

:”Tangent: Words to national anthems which seem more controversial than the Spanish one include this from La Marseillaise: “Do you hear in the countryside, those ferocious soldiers roaring? They come up to your arms, to slit the throats of your sons and wives!” The 6th verse of God Save the Queen goes, “Lord grant that Marshal Wade, may by that mighty aid, victory bring; May he sedition hush, and like a torrent rush, rebellious Scots to crush! God Save the King/Queen!” Even more bizarre, the current Dutch national anthem goes, “William of Nassau, scion of a Dutch and ancient line, Dedicate undying faith to this land of mine, A prince I am undaunted of Orange ever free, To the King of Spain, I’ve granted a lifelong loyalty”. The Netherlands was part of the Spanish Netherlands 350 years ago.”

;QI XL Extras:

*It is believed that the Mongol hordes amounted to 2,000,000 people, but they managed to kill 50,000,000 of their enemies. Their main advantage was that they had short bows that could be easily carried around in the saddles of their horses, which they would ride on for days. They were also very violent.

*The world’s driest lake, the world’s smallest mountain range, and the world’s wettest desert are all to be found in the Western United States. The world’s driest lake is the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, famous for being the place where land speed records are set: so flat that you can actually see the curvature of the Earth. The world’s smallest mountain range is the Sacramento Mountains of California, which shares a name with the state’s capital, Sacramento. The official United States difference between a hill and a mountain is that mountains are at least 1,000 feet high from base to apex. In the UK, the current definition is 600 yards above sea level. The world’s wettest desert is the Sonoran Desert; the definition of a desert being that it is a place where more water is lost than falls.

:”Tangent: The Mediterranean Sea was once the driest lake in the world, until, in the late Miocene era 6 million years ago, the water from the Atlantic Ocean came over the Rock of Gibraltar, which cause the Mediterranean to flood, but also caused the Rock of Gibraltar to crumble. Because of this, all the fish in the Mediterranean are descended from Atlantic Ocean types. Alan Davies found out this information from the Plymouth Aquarium.”

:”Tangent: Barbary monkeys are actually miscalled Barbary apes.”

*The things that are large, blue, rare, slow-moving, have calves, suffer from wet bottoms and are found all over the world are glaciers, otherwise known as ice floes (not Blue Whales). A glacier has been found that is 250 miles long, 60 miles wide, and 1 mile deep. The bits that break off from glaciers are known as calves, which come from ice calving. They have “wet bottoms”, because when one gets to warmer climes, its bottom reaches 0°C and melts, as it slides downhill and becomes warmer. They can travel up to 65 feet a day, although one in Pakistan did 7½ miles in 3 months. You can even get glaciers in the Tropics: one was spotted on a mountain near Uganda and the Congo. The only things that live in glaciers are ice worms, which live on red algae. In one glacier they found more worms within than there are people living on the planet. Their ideal temperature is 0°C, but they freeze to death at −7°C, yet they also melt at 5°C. It couldn’t be a Blue Whale, because they can reach speeds of 30mph.

:”Tangent: There are no snakes in Ireland because of glaciation, as snakes can’t survive in freezing temperatures.”

*Since 1856, the United States has the legal right to seize any territory where there is a supply of guano (forfeit: oil), which is the droppings of birds who have eaten anchovies in Peru. In the 19th century guano was as valuable as gold: it was used as a very rich fertilizer, mainly because it was full of nitrates, potassium, and all the things needed to double, treble, quadruple or even quintuple the crop yields from agricultural land. It contributed 75% of the economy of Peru. The problem was that guano sets like concrete, which made it tough for slaves to dig out from the open-cast mines. Guano isn’t used as much now, because anchovies are mainly used in fish farms and for feeding chickens in China. Its properties were first discovered by the aforementioned Alexander von Humboldt.

:”Tangent: It takes 5lbs of anchovies to make 1lb of farmed salmon.”

:”Tangent: The 4th best-selling book of all-time, ”Green Eggs and Ham”, has a vocabulary of only 50 words.”

*In the James Bond novel, Dr. No, Dr. No actually dies in it.

Episode 5 “Groovy” (Christmas Special)

;Broadcast date:

*24 December 2009

*29 December 2009 (XL edition)

*21 April 2010 (ABC1 airing/iView upload)

;Recording date:

*28 May 2009

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (Winner with 5 points)

*Bill Bailey (−6 points)

*Lee Mack (−29 points)

*David Tennant (−4 points)

;Buzzers:

*Lee – ”It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas”

*Bill – ”Merry Xmas Everybody” by Slade

*David – ”Last Christmas” by Wham!

*Alan – ”Hava Nagila”

;Theme:

*In keeping with the Christmas mood of the show, the studio is decorated with silver decorations, such as the silver Christmas trees either side of Stephen Fry.

;Topics:

*Buttercup, the QI cow (or to be precise, pantomime horse) shows the panellists an impression of the way a certain animal walks: she walks with both her right feet moving at the same time, then both her left feet at the same time. The only animals that walk like this are giraffes and camels; cows and horses walk with their front legs bending as they move forward. The first person to show how horses walk was Eadweard Muybridge, the British cinematographer. He showed this in his book ”Animal Locomotion”, in a series of photographs which show the differences between a horse walking, galloping, cantering and trotting.

:”Tangent: Muybridge murdered his love rival in cold blood. He became the first person in American legal forensic history to claim insanity as his defence for a murder charge.”

*People don’t seem to mind queue bargers as much as you think. Stanley Milgram did an experiment in which people were asked to obey orders that they wouldn’t normally, but where the person who gave the orders wore a white coat it gave them some authority, so they did it. His lesser-known experiments involved queues (or lines, as he called them), observed 129 lines in railway stations and betting shops. He’d make a person shove in between the 3rd and 4th person in the line by saying in a neutral tone, “Excuse me, I’d like to get in here”. He’d leave either when he was admonished or when one minute was up, whichever was sooner. The experiments showed that on only 10% of occasions was the person asked to leave or admonished, and that 50% of the time people only did as much as tut.

:”Tangent: A discussion about lane mergers and bar-jumpers. In America, they refer to lane-merging as “like a zip!””

:”Tangent: David’s annoyance at people with more than 5 items going in the “5 items or less” queue in supermarkets.”

:”Tangent: During World War I, a tank toured Britain to help raise money for the war effort. It toured all the major UK cities and the place where the most money was made was Glasgow. David mentioned this fact to prove to Lee that not all Scottish people are tight-fisted; Lee replied that they probably thought the tank was a fruit machine.”

*Many words that were believed to have originated in the jazz era seem to have originated much earlier than anyone thought. The first use of the word “cool” in the fashionable sense of the word was in 1933. The first jazz use was by Miles Davis in his album Birth of the Cool in 1957. “Groovy” was first mentioned by black jazzers in the 1930s, because the songs were played by placing the pickup needle in the groove of the record. “Hip” or “Hep” originated from Black American slang in 1904. Some of these words have sexual meanings: “in the groove” was also believed to refer the shape of the “ladypiece” (vagina). “Cat”, in reference to a person, was first mentioned in 1920. “Chick”, meaning a girl, was first mentioned in the modern age in 1927, although there is also a mention in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. “Dude” was first mentioned in 1883. “Foxy” was first mentioned in 1895. “Wicked”, as in cool, was first mentioned in 1920 by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

*A Mormon can only have 1 wife (Forfeit: many). The founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Joseph Smith, had a divine revelation which said that he could have as many wives as he liked, but this was stopped by the US government, who basically said “you can believe what you like, but you can’t do what you like”. So they can have their own beliefs, but they can’t put it into practice because that would break the law. The odd thing is that polygamy is breaking the law, but someone cheating on their partner with someone else and having another family (outside of marriage) is perfectly legal. Interestingly, when the law changed to make polygamy illegal, the head of the Mormon Church had another divine revelation saying it should stop. So for the past 120 years polygamy has been banned in the Mormon Church.

:”Tangent: Argument as to what is classified as “many”, because Bill set off the forfeit alarm by saying “up to nine”.”

:”Tangent: Discussion about The Osmonds (the world’s most famous Mormons).”

;General Ignorance:

*The Beatles album Help! features the group spelling out NUJV (forfeit: “Help”) in flag semaphore on the front cover. The photographer Robert Freeman wanted to spell out HELP, but he didn’t like that arrangement of the flags visually, so he changed it to NUJV, which became one of the Beatles conspiracy theories: some believed that NUJV stood for New Unknown John Vocalist.

:”Tangent: Another infamous conspiracy theory is Paul McCartney being barefoot on the Abbey Road cover. The cover seems to show John as a preacher, Ringo Starr as an undertaker, George Harrison as a gravedigger (in denim), and Paul as a corpse. Interestingly, modern versions of the album have the cigarette that McCartney is holding digitally removed.”

*There is no connection (forfeit: drugs) between the songs Puff, the Magic Dragon and Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. ”Puff, the Magic Dragon” is based on an Ogden Nash rhyme about a “realio, trulio little pet dragon”. It was written by Peter Yarrow, who said on being asked about its drug connection, “Even if I had the intention of writing a song about drugs, which I may have had later, I was 20 years old at Cornell in 1959. I was so square, drugs had not emerged. I know Puff was a good dragon, you’ve heard that from the mouth of the dragon’s daddy. It is not about that”. The origin of ”Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” comes from a picture painted by Julian Lennon, at playgroup, of his friend Lucy. It wasn’t until much later on that any of the Beatles realised that the initials of the title spelt out LSD.

*Stephen reads out the following joke and asks the panellists to identify what’s wrong about it: A man goes to a doctor saying, “Doctor, Doctor, I can’t stop singing Auld Lang Syne”. The doctor says, “I’ll have to send you to the Burns unit”. (Forfeit: It isn’t funny) The problem with the joke is that Robert Burns, who is claimed to have written Auld Lang Syne, did not write it. Although most people in the Burns Society believe he wrote it, he himself said it was an old song that he had written down. It was first mentioned in 1724, 35 years before Burns was born. It’s popular in the Far East; in Japan it’s used daily to signal the closing of large department stores. Bill said it could have been to do with Burns Night, which is 25 January, whereas you sing Auld Lang Syne on New Year’s Eve. Auld Lang Syne means “Old Long Since” or “In The Old Days”.

:”Tangent: As previously mentioned in Series B, Episode 4, Burns was never referred to as Robbie or Rabbie Burns. He preferred to use Robin, Rab or Robert.”

;QI XL Extras:

*Giraffe bicycles were used to light gas lamps. The bicycle was so tall, that the rider would light it from the bike in a leaning position, with the aid of a torch and an assistant. When he was done, he would return to the depot, or wherever he started from and the assistant would help the rider dismount from the bicycle.

:”Tangent: The penny-farthing was known as an ”ordinary bicycle” in its day, despite its unusual shape. Most bikes in the old days were considerably taller than the bikes of today. The first regular-sized bikes with chain drive mechanisms were known as ”dwarf safeties”. The Clark brothers built a tall bike, known as a “flood bike”, that could ride through floodwater.”

:”Tangent: Nowadays, many tall bikes are used in tourneys for jousting, whereby lances would be attached to the bikes. When he was at school, Stephen played a bike version of quad hockey.”

*Up until July 2008, it was legal to smoke tobacco in Dutch coffee shops or libraries. In these coffee shops, if you mixed your tobacco with cannabis, you would be fined. But you can smoke normal tobacco in the streets, but you’d break the law if you mixed it with cannabis. You can only smoke it in pure grass or hashish form. Cannabis is 7 times more carcinogenic than tobacco. The first smoking ban took place in Nazi Germany in 1933. The ban included banning smoking in public places, advertising, women’s rations and linking tobacco use with lung cancer. Adolf Hitler referred to smoking as “the wrath of the Red Indian Man against the White Man, for having been given hard liquor.” He even suggested that Nazism might not have worked had he not given up smoking. The earliest known smoking ban was in 1640 when Czar Michael of Russia declared it a “deadly sin”. People who did it were flogged and had their lips slit. James I of England wrote a pamphlet about smoking called “A Counterblaste to Tobacco”, in which he damned tobacco, mainly citing it as being bad for the eyes, lungs and nose, making him the first anti-smoking tyrant.

:”Tangent: Lee visited Amsterdam when he was 19, and because he didn’t do drugs, he just said he’d “have some cake”, which of course were hash brownies. Lee had so many that he claimed that at 2am, he accused a taxicab driver of trying to kill him.”

:”Tangent: Fly agaric mushrooms in Siberia are eaten by reindeer, and it makes them bounce around. It’s believed that’s where the idea of the flying reindeer came from. Unfortunately, it’s highly toxic to humans, so they would drink the urine of the reindeer to avoid the toxic.”

*Book sniffing is when you sniff an ageing book that grows mildew, mould and fungi on it. One of these fungi is hallucinogenic, which is claimed to have affected many scholars and antiquarians. A leading European mycologist said, “The source of inspiration for many great literary figures may be nothing more than a quick sniff of the bouquet of many mouldy books”. The thing is that books rot faster because the paper rots into an acid that makes them rot even faster.

:”Tangent: Lee tells of how he sniffs magazines at dentists to see if any of the smelly aftershave pages still smell after a long time.”

:”Tangent: The correct term for the magic mushroom is psilocybin. Experiments involving magic mushrooms seem to try and prove that some religious experiences are based on hallucinations. Some Americans are even trying to prove that there is a God Spot, which has some connection with psilocybin. Magic mushrooms were re-discovered by Albert Hofmann. He more famously discovered LSD, which he found on ergot, which grows on wheat and rye. To test it, he took what he thought was a small dose, but it turned out to be a thousand times more potent than he expected, he described his experience by saying “a demon had invaded me, it had taken possession of my body, mind and soul. I jumped up and screamed to try to free myself from it, sat down again, helpless on the sofa, the substance which I had wanted to experiment on had vanquished me, I was seized by the dreadful fear of going insane”. It was also believed that Hofmann was involved in a CIA operation known as Project MKULTRA, which tried to see if LSD could be used as a truth drug.”

Episode 6 “Genius”

;Broadcast date:

*1 January 2010

*2 January 2010 (XL edition)

*28 April 2010 (ABC1 airing/iView upload)

;Recording date:

*21 May 2009

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (Winner with 4 points)

*David Mitchell (−8 points)

*Graham Norton (−19 points)

*Dara Ó Briain (−7 points)

;Buzzers:

*Dara – ”University Challenge” style intro: “University College Dublin, Ó Briain”

*David – ”University Challenge” style intro: “Peterhouse, Cambridge, Mitchell”

*Graham – ”University Challenge” style intro: “University College Cork, Norton”

*Alan – “Can I have a P please, Bob?” – (”Blockbusters” catchphrase)

After Stephen points out that Alan is also a university graduate – from the University of Kent – and the holder of an honourary doctorate, his buzzer changes to an irate Scotsman shouting, “The doctor’ll see you NOW!”

;Theme:

*In keeping with the “Genius” theme, each of the panellists are seen wearing stereotypical ‘nerdy glasses’ at the start of the show.

;Topics:

*The panellists are each asked to put some tissue paper up their left nostril, then say something intelligent. This is because your nostrils control your ability to do certain tasks. If your left nostril is blocked, like the panellists’ were, then you should be better at being able to do visual and spatial things, whereas, if the right nostril is blocked, you should be better at being able to do verbal things. This was looked at in a study in 1989 about unilateral nostril breathing by Block, Arnott, Quigley & Lynch. Sportspeople usually wear a nasal strip while playing sports, which of course means they are at their most verbally dextrous, since their noses are unblocked during the time they’re on the field, although Graham suggests that they’re used mainly to get cocaine up their nose. According to the Spielberger State Anxiety Inventory, the right nostril makes you more emotionally negative as well.

*The panellists are given this problem: ”Consider an n-dimensional hypercube, and connect each pair of vertices to obtain a complete graph on 2n vertices. Then colour each of the edges of this graph using only the colours red and black. What is the smallest value of n for which every possible such colouring must necessarily contain a single-coloured complete sub-graph with 4 vertices which lie in a plane?” Interestingly, Graham gave the answer, “6″, which was what graph theorists used to think the answer was, up until 2003. The answer has a connection with Graham’s number, a number devised by Ronald Graham, which is so big, that all the material in the universe couldn’t make enough ink to write it out, but interestingly scientists know that it ends in a “7″ (Graham ”Norton” decided he wanted ”his” number to be one higher and end in an “8″). The number is commonly written as “…9404248265018193851562535796399618993967905496638003222348723967018485186439059104575627262464195387″. It is now believed to be at least 11, possibly 12, but definitely anywhere between 11 and Graham’s number.

*Exams are believed to easier nowadays, which is not the case. In the old days, IQ tests were done by percentile. Nowadays, the IQ test gets better by 0.3% every year, so 3% over 10 years, meaning children get smarter, so they have to normalise. So, under the Mental Health Act 1983, your great-great-grandparents would be retarded, because their IQ’s would be 70. The Flynn effect was designed to try and bring the scores up above the IQ of 70, because in America, you cannot be executed for a capital crime, which would mean that Flynn would often be called up to try and prove that some people retarded, so that they wouldn’t be killed. So, the main reason that children find IQ test easier is because they do more problem solving in life, than their parents did.

*Geniuses might be bred through eugenics, a form of selective human breeding, which was also used by the Nazis. Someone who sort of bred a genius was Leonardo da Vinci, or to be accurate, his brother, Bartolomeo. Bartolomeo wanted his son to be a genius like Leonardo, and he was, in a way. This son, Pierino da Vinci was born just after Leonardo died and he became a genius after being sent to Florence, where he demonstrated great talent, but he died aged 22, leaving 20 works behind him.

:”Tangent: Graham talks about the time that he hosted an American game show and a female contestant on the show was asked what her “fun fact” was, and it was that her father was a serial killer, and her other “fun fact” was that she didn’t tell her husband until after they were married. When asked why she hadn’t told him, it was because his son had committed suicide.”

:”Tangent: The screens show a portrait of Leonardo da Vinci dying with someone in the picture looking like Rodney Bewes from ”The Likely Lads”, which leads to Graham admitting that he didn’t know who he was, because ”The Likely Lads” was never shown in Ireland. This leads to Stephen talking about the brilliance of QI, as they usually don’t discuss popculture and celebrities, so Alan talking about Bewes annoys Stephen, as it was on a popculture topic. This eventually leads to Alan & Stephen suggesting that 2 other people in the painting look like Matthew Kelly and Brian Blessed.”

*The first animal to be cloned was a sea urchin, which was cloned in 1885 by the German Driesch. In 1902, another German, Hans Spemann cloned a salamander by using a rudimentary noose to separate the cells from the embryo. The noose was made by the hair of a baby. Dolly the sheep was cloned in 1996. Dolly was named after Dolly Parton, because the cells came from a mammary gland.

:”Tangent: The first cloned cat came from the cat, Rainbow, but it’s clone looked nothing like the original. It was called CC, which was short for “CopyCat”. This was part of the project called “Operation CopyCat”, part of a larger project to clone a dog, called Missy after Missyplicity. The first clone dog was the South Korean dog, Snuppy.”

;General Ignorance:

*The panellists are asked “How old are you?” The official answer is it depends on which part of the body it is. Red blood cells regenerate every 120 days, your liver regenerates every 300–500 days, so roughly 1½ years and the entire human skeleton is replaced every 10 years, although the process makes the bones age. So, the entire body is roughly 7–10 years old, but some of the cells are younger than that. 98% of the 7 billion billion billion atoms in the human body are replaced yearly. Most of the cells in your body aren’t even human, they’re bacteria. There are 50 species of bacteria in the human body, more than 10 times the number of human cells. (Forfeits: Dara – 37; David – 34; Graham – 46)

*The Church of England thought nothing much of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Not many people cared about it in the early stages, but by the time it was published, it was the biggest selling book of all time. It had actually sold out before it was printed. He was one of 5 non-royal people to have be buried at Westminster Abbey. The odd thing was that the people of the Church of England were told to believe that everything in the Bible was metaphorical, but it showed that nature doesn’t care. They thought that there might have been a linear evolution, but it showed that there was also an horrific side to it as well. The main bad thing was that Victorians loved the countryside as mentioned in Mrs. Alexander’s song ”All Things Bright and Beautiful”.

*The Man with Two Brains, like every other person had 2 brains. Dr Michael Gerschwin discovered that the gut has an enteric nervous system, which can work perfectly if all connections to the brain in your head are severed. It doesn’t have the intelligence or consciousness that the brain has, but it can work separately from it.

;QI XL Extras:

*There is no proof that making babies listen to music like Mozart makes them brainier. Alan claims that babies should only hear natural sounds, otherwise they go destructive and start having behavioural difficulties. It’s also believed that because of this children shouldn’t watch television until they’re 4 years old. There was a study done which was later debunked by many others which claimed that peoples’ IQ went up after listening to Mozart, but these people were students, not children.

:”Tangent: Mozart was so talented at a young age that he regularly entertained for people in the House of Bourbon and the House of Hohenzollern.”

:”Tangent: “The English Mozarts” – Thomas Linley, who played a concerto at a younger age than Mozart did, he and Mozart played together when they were 14, but he died aged 22, when he drowned after being pushed from a boat into a lake. Samuel Wesley, most of his genius was suppressed because he suffered brain damage after banging his head.”

:”Tangent: Interestingly, Mensa is Latin for “table”, it was originally called “Mens”, the Latin for “mind”, but some people thought their “Mens Magazine” would be a gay porn mag. The table represents the “round table of equality”. Apparently, “everyone’s equal at Mensa, there’s no elitism”.

*The Last Supper is decaying badly because Leonardo painted it on dry plaster, rather than wet plaster, which is what you normally do when it’s fresco, so it decayed during Leonardo’s lifetime. After his death, it decayed more because it was used in Napoleonic times as stabling. Interestingly, the bottom of it was destroyed, so a door was put in the painting at the point where Jesus’ legs would’ve been. There is no proof that da Vinci substituted people in The Last Supper with some people that he knew, which other painters at the time used to do.

:”Tangent: If da Vinci’s helicopter had been built, it wouldn’t have worked. He isn’t known as a great person in the field of science, because of his mirror diary, which had a code, which wasn’t deciphered in his time, which had ideas of many inventions that were new at the time, but by the time it was deciphered in the 19th century, just about everything in it had been discovered independently.”

*Tongue rolling has nothing to do with genetics. Many believed that was a genetic connection, but it’s not true. There is a similar connection with the connection between your urine smelling after eating asparagus. It is believed that most women don’t have the effects of smelly urine after eating asparagus. It used to be known as housemaid’s despair, because of housemaids finding chamber pots filled with urine.

:”Tangent: When Stephen was a child, Sugar Puffs made his urine smell of Sugar Puffs. This was followed by a discussion about people being more interested in urine than they let on.”

:”Tangent: Alan brings up the theory that people who read books then bring themselves up to have a little smell, aren’t smelling the book, they’re smelling their own farts.”

;General Ignorance:

:”Tangent: Discussion about animals in circuses.”

*Charles Cruft owned a pet cat. He never really cared for dogs. He originally began in the jewellery business in the 19th century, before leaving to work with Spratt, who made dog cakes and dog biscuits. He founded the first dog show, which became bigger and bigger up until his death in 1938. The Kennel Club took over the show, now named Crufts. In recent years it has come under fire because of inbreeding, losing Pedigree as its sponsor, the BBC withdrew television coverage of the show, the RSPCA and the pet charity withdrew. So, the 2009 show was shown live on the Internet for the first time.

:”Tangent: When Alan first heard of “dog cakes”, he thought they were cakes made out of dog, like fishcakes are cakes made out of fish.”

:”Tangent: Dara talks about cat shows and how people have to try and force their cat to do things, because they’re unaware of where they are.”

:”Tangent: David describes Crufts as the most pointless show on the TV, which leads to Alan & Graham saying that golf shouldn’t be on the TV, but, Stephen defends it.”

Episode 7 “Girls and Boys”

;Broadcast date:

*8 January 2010

*9 January 2010 (XL edition)

*5 May 2010 (ABC1 airing/iView upload)

;Recording date:

*29 May 2009

;Panellists:

*Boys total: -5 points

**Alan Davies (Unknown score)

**Jack Dee (Unknown score)

*Girls total: 8 points

**Ronni Ancona (3 points)

**Sandi Toksvig (5 points)

;Buzzers:

*Sandi – A woman singing a rising and falling scale

*Ronni – A harp glissando

*Jack – A wolf-whistle

*Alan – A man shouting, “‘Ello darlin’!”

;Topics:

*Up until the 20th century, baby boys wore pink and baby girls wore blue. Boys at that time were also referred to as girls. In 1900, Dressmaker Magazine said “The preferred colour to dress young boys in is pink. Blue is reserved for girls as it is presumed paler and the more dainty of the two colours, and pink is thought to be stronger”. In 1927, Princess Astrid of Belgium caused controversy when she gave birth to a girl, as “the cradle had been optimistically outfitted in pink, the colour for boys”. It was believed that blue was more serene and paler, hence it was used for girls. Interestingly, up until the mid-15th century, all children were referred to as girls. Boys were known as “knave girls” and girls were known as “gay girls”. Only in recent times, has calling a boy been referred to a male child, before that it meant a servant.

:”Tangent: Female monkeys are attracted to pink because of the pink faces of the young primates.”

:”Tangent: It’s believed that if someone is picking up a child, that’s not theirs, if the child is dressed in pink, they’d be hugged inwards, and if the child is dressed in blue, they’d be hugged outwards.”

:”Tangent: An experiment with baby chimpanzees showed that when given the choice of which toy to play with, either a toy truck or a doll, the baby boys all chose the truck and the baby girls all chose the doll.”

:”Tangent: The traje de luces, the suit worn by a torero (a matador) in a bullfight, is often pink. It means “suit of light”.”

:”Tangent: Pink doesn’t appear on the spectrum, it’s an extra-spectral colour. It’s said that girls head towards the red side of a rainbow, whereas boys head towards the blue sky.”

:”Tangent: It’s also believed that nine-tenths of the food collected by hunter-gatherers were provided by women.”

*At the moment, it’s believed that the best way to get a baby girl is to have a low-calorie diet. A study was done and out of 100 people who had had a high-calorie diet, 56 gave birth to a boy. Women who had at least one bowl of breakfast cereal a day were 87% more likely to have a boy than women who ate no more than one bowl a week. On average, women who had boys had roughly 400 more calories daily than those who had girls. Women who were infected with Hepatitis B were 1½ times more likely to have a boy. The only known certain way is by embryo selection, which is popular in America and Thailand. It costs around US$18,000. Aristotle believed that the diet of the mother and the sex position at conception made the difference. Anaxagoras thought that boys and girls came from different testicles, so if you tied up one testicle, it would guarantee you the other one. The Talmud suggest lining up the bed north-south before sex, if you want a boy. The French suggest wearing boots to bed would get you a boy.

:”Tangent: Alan tells the story of an English couple who went to Thailand to have their baby. A Thai woman told them, “if you look lovely when you’re pregnant, you have girl, if you look tired and ugly, dress badly, you have baby boy.” She then asked what she thought she’d have and the Thai woman replied, “Boy”, and she had a baby boy.”

:”Tangent: Sandi tells of the time when her son brought a friend round and he asked “What’s it like having two mummies?”, he replied, “It’s marvellous, if one of them’s poorly, you’ve still got one to do for you”.”

*The reason that there are less female guests on ”QI” is because women laugh less at other women, despite the fact that they laugh more than men, although audiences in general laugh more at men. It is believed that men make prats of themselves more often than women, although Lucille Ball and Goldie Hawn are two examples of women who can do that. Interestingly, as stand-up comedy was getting more popular during the 1980s, women portray women, but men didn’t portray men, so in other words, women treated themselves as a minority, even though they are 51% of the population. Germaine Greer famously said, “there are only two things that women don’t do as well as men, and that’s design dresses and cook”, which is slightly amusing considering that nearly all the great chefs and couturiers are men, whereas it was always believed that women were the better cooks and couturiers.

*In China, Nü Shu is a form of writing devised in Jiangyong County, Hunan Province. It was a writing form that only women could understand. Since, women in China were not taught properly at all, they needed a secret code of writing. Nü Shu is a phonetic type of writing. When a woman in one of these secret friendship groups got married, they were given a book in which they would leave some blank pages, so they could write their secret thoughts down, which only women could read. They would send them, because they could never meet in their groups often, because they had bound feet. Foot binding involved 5 year olds breaking all the bones in their feet, so they could wrap their feet round themselves and then be wrapped up to be around 3& inches. Many of them would rot and many died of gangrene. This went on for around 1,000 years. They would also write using tapestries.

:”Tangent: In the Bantu language, there is a rule that states that is someone got married, the female would no longer be allowed to use any syllable that was in the male’s name, because it is a language of respect that women have to use. Another secret language is Pig Latin, where the first syllable is put to the end of the word with the sound ”ay’, so “Quite Interesting” becomes “Itequay Interestingay”. In Germany, they have “Löffelsprache”, which means “spoon speak”, the French have “Louchébem”, the Bulgarians have “Pileshki” and the Japanese is “Ba-bi-bu-be-bo”. There’s also a camp High church nonsense language where the Holy Communion are referred to as “haggers commagers” and also say “Oooh, Jessica Christ”.”

:”Tangent: A discussion about teenagers sounding the same in just about every language. Also, the fact that teenagers never look at you, when you ask them to look at you.”

*The panellists are shown a picture of an animal. The animal is half hen, half cockerel. It was a result of a freak accident known as bilateral gynandromorphic hermaphroditism. All the cells on one side are male, the other side are female, which has never happened in humans.

:”Tangent: Clownfish (made popular in the film, Finding Nemo) are known to be very fierce, but they’re also immune to sea anemones. They actually form a bond with the sea anemones and have their babies there. They also have gender assignation, which means they can change their gender in later life. If there’s a group of fish consisting of a strong female and male, along with several weak males, when the female dies, the strong male becomes female and one of the weaklings becomes the “alpha male”.”

;General Ignorance:

*It’s impossible to tell a woman from a man just by looking at them. It was believed that the easiest way to tell them apart was by the fact that women don’t have Adam’s apples, but they do. Even so, a good ladyboy can just about imitate anything female.

*Men are better at map reading than women because of grey matter and white matter (forfeit: they’re not). Using MRI scans on men and women with equal IQ, they found that men use 6½ more grey matter than women, whereas women used 9 times more white matter than men. Grey matter is central to processing information for intellectual thought, such as map reading and mathematics. White matter connects the processing information to emotional thought such as language speaking and multitasking.

:”Tangent: People being annoying when asking for directions.”

*The prize money given out at Wimbledon is unfair to male competitors (forfeit: nothing (is unfair about it)). When it began in 1884, the ladies’ winner got a 20 guinea silver flower basket and the men’s champion got a 30 guinea gold trophy. In 2006, Amélie Mauresmo won £625,000 for playing 142 games, whereas Roger Federer got £655,000 for playing 202 games. The women therefore got more money, because the short matches allowed them to play in doubles tournaments as well. The rate per game in 2005 was £1,432 per game for the top 8 women, whereas the top 8 men got £993 per game. The prize money is equal in terms of money, but not equal as the men have to play more tennis.

;QI XL Extras:

:”Tangent: Sandi tells of her love for the colour pink.”

:”Tangent: Sandi’s theory about stamina and the speed of sperm, followed by a discussion about the fact that girls have no sperm at all.”

:”Tangent: Alan’s suggestion that if you’re watching football on TV, you’ll more likely have a boy. This also leads to a discussion about using remote controls and reading magazines during sex.”

*The most violent women in history are the Amazons of Dahomey, now known as Benin. They were a group of female warriors whose job was to protect the king. They were nominal wives of the king, but they were celibate. They were chosen for being aggressive, but their husbands could nominate their wife, if he thought she was a nag. They carried a switchblade that was capable of cutting a man in two. Some sources say that they were turned into men and made to despise women, whereas others say that venerated, they had slave girls with them carrying a bell, while men had to avert their eyes.

:”Tangent: Marco Polo suggested that Khutulun, the niece of Kublai Khan, was the most fiercest of all warriors, and she suggested that anyone who wanted to marry her had to wrestle her. If he won, he’d marry her, but if he lost, he’d have to give 100 horses to her. She eventually gained 10,000 horses this way and never married.”

:”Tangent: In the United Kingdom, crime committed by women has gone up 25% over the last 3 years, whereas there was a 2% drop for men. It’s believed that alcohol is a main component of this, because 50% of their testosterone get sourced through their blood while they’re drunk.”

:”Tangent: Discussion about girl bullying by text messaging. Sandi then tells of the first time she came to the UK, after being thrown out of an American school at age 14. She went to boarding school for 6 weeks, and no-one talked to her because of her New York accent. She managed to make it more British by watching the film, Brief Encounter. This leads to Stephen saying that if he was getting bullied at school, he’d tell them not to, because it would give him an erection.”

*The connection between grannies and Killer Whales is the menopause. Killer Whales are the only other animals apart from human that have a massive gap between menopause and death, hence the happy and active lives they live. Killer Whales are also matrilineal, so the females keep the life cycle going, as they provide most of the nutrition.

:”Tangent: Killer Whales can kill their own handlers. Sandi’s granny got taken out of three care homes for bad behaviour.”

:”Tangent: Sandi’s mum grew up in Maidstone, Kent during the Battle of Britain, and all the terraced houses on her street were bombed apart from hers, she asked her mother why it wasn’t and she replied “Granny wouldn’t have allowed it”. This leads to Sandi’s suggestion that the army should be just grannies.”

*There was an urban myth during the 1940s that the Nazis disguised themselves as nuns with hairy hands during World War II. It was believed that they would parachute in and people in Britain were told to watch out for nuns from the South coast coming up on buses, trains or the London Underground on their way up to the Scottish Highlands. Their cover would be blown when paying fares, because it revealed the hairiness of their hands and forearms and in some cases, a tattoo of Adolf Hitler on their arm. Other ways to test if soldiers were German was to make them speak English, especially some very odd surnames, such as Featherstonehaugh (pronounced “Fanshawe”), Cholmondeley (pronounced “Chumley”), Berekely (pronounced “Barkly”), Mainwaring (pronounced “Mannering”) and Belvoir (pronounced “Beaver”).

:”Tangent: Female moustaches and Alan’s grey pubic hair.”

:”Tangent: The Tollemache family. They were a double-barrelled family, so they were the Tollemache-Tollemaches, but it was pronounced “Toolmake-Tollmash”. One of their family had the longest name of any person in the British Army, Leone Sextus Denys Oswolf Fraudatifilius Tollemache-Tollemache de Orellana Plantagenet Tollemache-Tollemache. His elder brither was Lyulph Ydwallo Odin Nestor Egbert Lyonel Toedmag Hugh Erchenwyne Saxon Esa Cromwell Orma Neville Dysart Plantagenet Tollemache-Tollemache. Interestingly, his initials spelt out LYONEL THE SECOND.

Episode 8 “Germany”

;Broadcast date:

*15 January 2010

*16 January 2010 (XL edition)

*12 May 2010 (ABC1 airing/iView upload)

;Recording date:

*5 June 2009

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (−36 points)

*Jo Brand (Winner with −6 points)

*Rob Brydon (−7 points)

*Sean Lock (−76 points)

;Buzzers:

*Rob – ”Deutschlandlied”

*Sean – Oom-pah music

*Jo – Richard Wagner’s ”Ride of the Valkyries”

*Alan – ”Don’t Let’s Be Beastly to the Germans”

;Theme:

*A general forfeit existed to penalise anyone who “mentioned the War”.

*The QI symbol behind Stephen was replaced with the Coat of arms of Germany.

;Topics:

*The German people don’t care about the 1966 FIFA World Cup loss to England. If you ask an average German, they don’t even know who won it that year. They care more about their matches against the Dutch, such as the 1974 FIFA World Cup final, rather than the rivalry against England. (Forfeit: Very) (Forfeit: Don’t Mention the War (Sean))

:”Tangent: The whole notion about Germans “hogging the sunloungers” is supposedly a myth according to a the German writer Ralf Höcker who did a study, which said that the Germans weren’t even aware that this thing was associated with them, but a survey done by Halifax Travel Insurance in 2009 showed that the Germans followed by the British, French, Italian and Portuguese were the most likely to reserve sunloungers. This leads to Jo telling a story about crashing into a sunlounger after a confrontation with some fat Germans.”

:”Tangent: The other German stereotype is the fact that they are so efficient, which they themselves believe, but they think that the British think they are lederhosen wearing beer drinkers. The 6 major thoughts that the Germans think that the British are untidy, split into mobs, obsessed with royalty, drink tea all the time, are rather reserved and can’t cook.”

*During the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany, the German authorities confiscated all the Dutch fans’ orange Leeuwenhosen because they were sponsored by Bavaria Brewery, which wasn’t the official beer sponsor of the World Cup, that was Budweiser. These Leeuwenhosen had big pockets for beer, and had a lion’s tail, “Leeuwenhosen” means “lion-pants”, just as “Lederhosen” means “leather trousers”. They were coloured orange, because of their official royal house, the House of Nassau. So, since they were confiscated before their first match against the Ivory Coast many fans watched the game in their underpants. Other examples of this include at Wimbledon, when a woman had her yoghurt confiscated because it wasn’t the official yoghurt of Wimbledon.

:”Tangent: Sean claims that the reason why Premier League footballers get booked for taking their shirt off is because that’s when the sponsors are in full view, so by taking them off the sponsors get less coverage.”

:”Tangent: Lederhosen originated in the 18th century when it was decided that the upper classes would ape the peasantry and have expensive wedding and country feasts where they pretended to be extravagant, like Marie Antoinette pretended to be a milkmaid with her silver curls.”

:”Tangent: Rob shows off his “half-hose” socks, which Jo says make him look like a “knobhead”. Rob then asks the audience if they think it’s cool, with the majority disagreeing.”

:”Tangent: In America, there are a group of people known as the Pennsylvania Dutch, who are descended from the Rhineland and Switzerland. The reason they are referred to as “Dutch”, is because the word “Deutsch” which is German for “German” is correctly used as the word “Dutch”, so “Dutch” is “Deutsch”. The other reason is the “Dutch Dutch” (or the Hollanders) fought Britain many times and eventually invaded England.” (Forfeit: don’t mention the war)

*The most repeated television show of all time is the British film, ”Dinner for One”. The show is shown on every German television channel on 31 December, since 1972. It stars Freddie Frinton as a butler who has to serve a Christmas dinner for his mistress, played by May Warden. He pretends there are others there and actually gets drunk while pouring out drinks for these “guests”. It’s a massive tradition in Germany. It was originally done as a sketch in 1920, which toured round the halls. A German television presenter saw it in 1963, and asked if it could be done in Germany, which it was. The next year it was recorded, and since 1972, it’s been shown all time on 31 December. It also spread to Austria and Denmark and other surrounding areas. It’s dialogue included the now-popular catchphrase, “Same procedure as every year”.

*According to Godwin’s Rule of Nazi analogies (named after Mike Godwin, the general counsel of the Wikimedia Foundation), “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.” In other words, if Hitler is involved in an argument on a message thread, then that thread is at an end, and the person who uses the analogy has lost the argument. An example of this is that Hitler hated fox hunting, so he banned it, which means it must be good, etc.

:”Tangent: During the discussion, a picture is shown of Hitler wearing socks similar to what Rob is wearing.”

*Monopoly board games were used to escape from prison. A man called “Clutty” Hutton bought some Monopoly boards and through the help of MI9 had help turn them into escape kits, which were sold through bogus charities. Amongst the items were real money mixed with the fake Monopoly money, maps on silk, because paper was too bulky and rustly, whereas you could get much more detail on silk. His earlier work involved putting compasses into military tunic buttons. The Germans got wind of it, and worked out that the button could be unscrewed, so then the thread was reversed, so it became tighter as they tried to unscrew it, but then they got wind of that, so razor blades were put in that were magnetized at one end, so when they were attached to something metal, the “G” of Gillette would always point north. They were also given wettened blankets that could be made into greatcoats using it like a tailor’s template, as well as pens with sacks of dye in them to make many different colours and playing cards that when dipped in water, could be peeled to reveal money. (Forfeit: Get out of jail free)

:”Tangent: Rob’s idea to use giant Jengas to get prisoners out of prison, followed by Alan’s idea of using snakes and ladders.”

;General Ignorance:

*Trick question: Who wrote Brideshead Revisited? (Forfeit: Evelyn War, taken as mentioning the war (Sean))

*The panellists are shown a picture of a German Shepherd Dog. They were known as Alsatians up until 1977, mainly because at the time people resented anything with the word “German” in it, so they were called Schäferhund or Alsatian Wolfhounds, then just Alsatians, which was coined in 1918. Alan then reveals that he had a German Shepherd, which killed his next door neighbour’s dog.

*The Munich Oktoberfest is held mainly in September, although it is occasionally partly in October, depending on how the months are arranged. It’s believed the world’s biggest continuous festival. Over 6 million people cram into it every year. They drink 6,940,600 litres of beer during the festival.

:”Tangent: Alan tells of the time that he went to the 1998 FIFA World Cup in Bordeaux, France, where some temporary bars were built up in the city, and when Scotland played Norway, the Scots drank more beer that weekend then the entire population of Bordeaux drink in a year. Each of the bars only sold lager, and there were no food stalls and no toilets. One of the drunk Scots then mistook Alan for Alan Partridge.”

*The panellists are asked to name what’s wrong with this extract from the song ”My Favourite Things”:

:”Cream-coloured ponies and crisp apple strudels, doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles”.

*The answer is “schnitzel with noodles”, as they are never eaten together. There is a possibility that the popularity of the song has meant that some people eat it, but it’s just because of the song. The lyrics of the song were done by Rodgers and Hammerstein. The film ends with the family crossing the border, not into Switzerland, but into Bavaria, near Hitler’s private house, but then they walked the 100 kilometres down to Innsbruck and got to the border with Italy the day before it was shut.

;QI XL Extras:

*There are some words for which there is no literal translation in the English language, so words are borrowed from other languages.

**Schadenfreude means “pleasure in the misfortune of others”.

**Gemütlichkeit means “cosiness”. It’s mainly used in Austria and Bavaria. “Gemütlich” people are also said to be very kind to their neighbours. In 1973, a British man sued a holiday firm because he didn’t receive any “gemülichkeit”, as promised and he won. It actually set a precedent in English contract law.

**Zugzwang is a chess term, which means that you are forced to move, even though it might weaken your position, because in chess, you can’t skip your turn after your opponent makes one, you have to move, even though your position might be worse than when you started.

**Zeitgeist means “spirit of the age”, or “time spirit/ghost”.

:”Tangent: Another of these loanwords id Gesundheit, which means “soundness” or “health”.”

*The panellists are shown a ghost-like object, a SPUK, which is a device that is put on the underside of the toilet seat, and when it’s raised it give off a voice message which tries to force German people to sit down on the toilet seat to urinate, rather than stand up. SPUK is an acronym for StehPinkler Unter Kontrolle. “Stehpinkeln” in German means to stand urinating, whereas “Sitzpinkeln” means to “sit urinating”.

:”Tangent: Rob tells of how when he sits down on the toilet, his half-hose falls down to his ankles, if he’s wearing something like a jumbo cord. Sean then says that when he’s on the toilet, he takes his glasses off and puts them on his pants as a sort of hammock, but then he sometimes forgets they’re there and they get “rammed into his under-regions”.”

*In Germany, they have a thing called the “Nacktputzservice”, in which naked German students are hired to do hoovering and housework. It originated from the Freikörperkultur (or FKK), which meant “free body culture”. It was widespread in Germany until Hermann Göring put a stop to it during the 1930s, when he trained the police to stop people from going round naked. But, since then German hikers near open areas in Switzerland and Poland just like to go round naked. The Swiss and Poles both find it disgusting. There are designated nude beaches in Germany, and the Englischer Garten in Munich has a designated nudist area, as well as Berlin’s biggest park, the Tiergarten. (Forfeit: don’t mention the war (Sean))

:”Tangent: Sean says that is he were a nudist, he’d put a bit of toilet paper up his bottom and see if anyone noticed.”

*Uncle Wiggly Wings was a pilot who helped children during the Berlin Airlift in the Cold War. The Russians had sealed off all transport routes to West Berlin in 1948, when it was under Allied control in the centre of the Russian Sector. The whole city was cut off from the rest of the world for a year, so the British & Americans dropped food from planes to help the people below. One pilot gave 2 kids some chewing gum and promised he’d return and give them some more candy. The next day he wiggled his wings and dropped chocolate and more and more children kept coming, and it became a mass propaganda coup, which became known as “Operation Little Vittles”. The sweets came down in little handkerchief-style parachutes. 2,223,000 tons of supplies were dropped during the airlift. (Forfeit: don’t mention the war (Sean × 2))

;General Ignorance:

*In Germany, at 11:11 on 11 November every year, the Germans celebrate the start of their Carnival, which lasts all the way up to Ash Wednesday. It starts off quietly through November and December, partially due to Christmas, but by the time the Mardi Gras arrives, everything is in full flow. The word “carnival” doesn’t mean “goodbye to meat”, as believed, but actually means “to remove meat from your diet”, from the words “carne levare”. (Forfeit: don’t mention the war (Alan))

Episode 9 “Gallimaufrey”

The full episode title “A Gallimaufrey of Gingambobs”, means “an absurd medley of testicles”.

;Broadcast date:

*22 January 2010

*23 January 2010 (XL edition)

*19 May 2010 (ABC1 airing/iView upload)

;Recording date:

*4 June 2009

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (−56 points)

*Hugh Dennis (Winner with 4 points)

*Andy Hamilton (2 points)

*Phill Jupitus (−15 points)

;Buzzers:

*Hugh – Oboe playing stately tune

*Andy – Bassoon playing jaunty tune

*Phill – Strings and flute playing jolly melody

*Alan – ”When I’m Cleaning Windows” by George Formby

;Topics:

*Captain Schlitt of German submarine U-1206 caused his U-boat to sink because of a problem he had involving the toilet in the submarine. The problem with toilet in submersible vehicles is that they can’t work like toilets on aeroplanes and trains, because of the obvious dangers with being underwater. Special training is actually needed to operate it properly. On 14 April 1945, Schlitt went to the toilet to do a poo, and he claimed that the toilet flush wasn’t working properly, but there is a theory that he just did a rather unpleasant poo and didn’t want to ask the person who did the flushing to come in, so he did it himself and got it wrong and filled the submarine with sewage and water, which then lead to the power source, a huge acid battery, which therefore created toxic chlorine gas, so they had to surface to vent the gas, but they spotted and blown out of the water.

*The handwriting of each panellist is shown.

**A graphologist would say of Andy’s that because it’s mostly joined up, it’s of a “logical, systematic thinker”, since some words are spaced out, he is “open, honest, but deep in thought”, and “sociable”, because of the slightly forward slant to the right.

**Alan’s would be described as “unstable”, because of the close lettering, “does things without thinking”, because the letters aren’t mostly joined up.

**Hugh’s would be described as “artistic and intuitive”, because most, but not all of the letters are joined up, but because it’s upright, it also shows “self-control, egoism and coldness”.

**Phill’s would be described as also having “self-control, egoism and coldness”, “unstable” and “does things without thinking”.

Stephen then explains that there wasn’t much point in doing this because the British Psychological Society says that graphology as a way of interpreting character has zero validity. It’s also not allowed in American courts either. Although, forensic graphology is allowable. Amazingly, 3,000 British businesses use graphologists for recruitment.

:”Tangent: Andy once took a handwriting test to try and become a French train driver. He reveals that his friend’s dad was a psychologist for SNCF, and they did test to work out if drivers were maniacs or not, so they made people write with their wrong hand, and put a rubber ring around the middle of the pen and you had to try and trace over what was written there. If you drifted up the page, you were either assertive or slightly aggressive, but if it went down the page, you were deemed as too passive. There was also another test where the applicants were told to press the coloured button they were told to press for 15 seconds and there would be a hooter sounded, if they got it wrong. It would also be heard after the 15 seconds, to make sure they didn’t go to pieces.”

*In Ireland, the police, known as the Garda were duped by a Polish driver called Prawo Jazdy. This driver had done 50 speeding offences across Ireland, and was fast becoming Ireland’s most wanted motorist. He managed to make different driving licences with different addresses, so it would be hard to catch him. Then one of the Garda realised that Prawo Jazdy was the Polish for driving licence. Even more weird was the fact that above Prawo Jazdy on the licence was “Permis de conduire”, which is of course French. The Queen is the only person in Britain, who can legally drive without a driving licence. The first person to have a driving licence was Karl Benz of Mercedes-Benz. The people who authorised the tests were the Dampfkesselüberwachungsverein (Steam Boiler Supervision Association), who authorised the first mandatory licences in Prussia.

:”Tangent: Up until 14 May 2002, women in Lithuania were made to undergo smear tests, or to be more accurate, a gynaecological examination. In China, they have a driving test that consists of 100 multiple choice questions. One of them is “If you come across a road accident victim whose intestines are lying on the road, should you pick them up and push them back in?” Yes or No? The answer is No. It was believed that in China that some traffic lights had the colour sequence altered, so red meant go and green meant stop, but they didn’t change all the lights, so some still remained at red for stop and green for go, although in some cases, blue is used instead of green, because red-green is a common form of colour blindness.”

*Spring travels from Land’s End to John o’ Groats every year at about ⅓ of a mile per hour, although when going over hills, it takes an extra couple of days per 100 feet of elevation. It officially takes 8 weeks to get from the south of the UK, to the north of the UK. Spring is officially a phenotype of when common plants associated with Spring start to bloom. Birds fly south in the Winter, mainly because they need a source of food.

*The panellists are shown diagrams of perpetual motion machines. A perpetual motion machine never stops, so it carries on forever, but it also must not have any energy input, although it must carry on having energy output. Interestingly, perpetual motion transgresses both the first and second law of thermodynamics. In an episode of The Simpsons, Lisa makes a perpetual motion machine, although it’s impossible for it to happen in reality. Leonardo da Vinci did some drawings of possible perpetual motion machines, but he realised early on that it was going to be impossible for them to work.

;General Ignorance:

*If you give a child a really sugary drink, they do not go hyperactive, according to a medical study. The interesting thing about it is that parents actually perceive that sugary drinks make children go hyperactive. A trial on the QI website showed that 0% of people believed this statement.

*If you leave teeth in a glass of cola overnight, nothing much happens (forfeit: they dissolve). In 1951, Clive McCay of Cornell University made an appearance before a select committee at the United States House of Representatives claimed that if a tooth was left in cola, it would start to dissolve after 2 days, but the point is that it’s irrelevant, because cola goes down your mouth quickly when you drink it, it doesn’t soak into your teeth. Cola does cause tooth decay, but not as much as crisps, as mentioned in a previous episode of QI.

:”Tangent: Cola, as well as HP Sauce and vinegar are very good at cleaning coins.”

:”Tangent: Andy’s mum used to tell him not to drink cola, because it stains the inside of your stomach.”

*The only ape that walks just on its 2 feet, but isn’t a human is the gibbon (forfeits: orangutan; baboon). This way of walking is considered to be more primitive according to evolutionists.

*The panellists are asked to put these 4 things in age order from oldest to youngest: The Himalayas, a triceratops, a spider and a cockroach. The answer is the spider at 300 million years old, then the cockroach, which was just afterwards, then the triceratops which lived between 65 and 230 million years ago and lastly, the Himalayas, which are only 40 million years old. Interestingly, ants are contemporaneous with dinosaurs, but cockroaches pre-date them by 55 million years.

;QI XL Extras:

*Stephen introduced the panellists using Georgian slang. “Gravy-eyed” means runny eyes, “Glimflashy” means an angry person, “Whiddle my scrap” means knowing someone’s game or to see what people are up to. This leads to a game of Call My Bluff.

**A “gentleman of three outs” is either a) a person without wit, money or manners, b) a person who owned three outhouses, which would be a mark of status in the 18th century, or c) a genteel description by Punch of the highwayman Jonny Tripplearse. The answer, correctly guessed by Alan was a).

**”Grog Blossom” is either a) the mould inside a barrel of beer that you have to clean out before you can use it again, or b) pimples that were grown on peoples’ faces after drinking too much. The answer, incorrectly guessed by Andy & Hugh was b).

*It’s believed that 20% of people have difficulty getting up in the morning, because they are either larks or owls. If they were a lark, they’d sleep at dinner parties and if they were an owl, they just can’t get up. It’s believed that young children and old people are larks, whereas teenagers are owls. There are many other methods of getting up, the MIT invented an alarm clock that when you pressed the Snooze button, it runs away and hides, and it’s programmed to go to a different place every day, so it always changes. There is also an alarm clock in the shape of a dumbbell, and it doesn’t shut up until you’ve done 30 reps with it. There is also one that has an online connection, and every time you press Snooze, money is donated to a political cause that you hate.

:”Tangent: Phill tells of how he used to sleep listening to BBC World Service, and then waking up listening to BBC Radio 4 and thinking he’d dreamt the news that he heard during his sleep, so thought he was psychic. This leads to Stephen telling a story of how he raided the kitchen at boarding school at 3am, just to get blocks of jelly.”

:”Tangent: Andy tells the story of a binman who worked near his house at Hernhill, who always sung the last note of ”Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” wrongly.”

:”Tangent: When the American Indians went on dawn raids they used to drink lots of water to make sure they got up early.”

:”Tangent: Andy has a cuckoo clock, which has a monkey, instead of a cuckoo in it, and it only comes out whenever he says something interesting.”

*The Goldilocks effect works on the theory that Goldilocks liked everything “just right”. It’s used in business, you have 3 items, the first one is unbelievable expensive, the second is a quarter of the price, but just as nice, and the third is very cheap, which makes people go for the second one. The best use of the Goldilocks effect is with airfares. A standard Transatlantic economy seat is £500, business class is £3,500 and first class, where you get a full-size bed and have food whenever you want would cost £8,000. So, people would think that the perks of business class would be reasonable compared to first class, even though it costs 7 times as much as economy.

:”Tangent: Alan was once told by Steve Cram that some trainers have to expensively made so people will buy them, an example of “prestige pricing”.”

:”Tangent: The Goldilocks Zone is the distance from the Sun that another planet has to be in another solar system which would support water where it wasn’t too hot or cold.”

*The snail telegraph was a form of communication. A Frenchman called Benoit had an idea that when 2 snails mated, they had a telepathic power, which meant that no matter how far away they were, they could always make thoughts to each other. So, he raised money and then glued 24 snails in a dish and labelled them all with letters of the alphabet and then he labelled the mates of the snails on another dish and sent it to New York City, so the mate of the one in New York City would wibble to receive the message from the other one in Benoit’s lab. Unfortunately, this pasilalinic-sympathetic compass with “escargotic” vibration was proven not to work at all.

Episode 10 “Greats”

;Broadcast date:

*29 January 2010

*30 January 2010 (XL edition)

*26 May 2010 (ABC1 airing/iView upload)

;Recording date:

*12 June 2009

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (2 points)

*Jo Brand (−46 points)

*Sean Lock (−6 points)

*David Mitchell (Winner with 4 points)

*”Barack Obama (−10 points)”

;Buzzers:

*Sean — ”Great Balls of Fire” by Jerry Lee Lewis

*Jo — ”The Great Pretender” by The Platters

*David — ”The Great Escape” theme

*Alan — A recorded call centre message from First Great Eastern

;Topics:

*Despite all the claims, many of the world’s greatest dictators weren’t short, and there is no proof that shorter people are more power-hungry than taller people, otherwise known as the Napoleon complex. Napoleon was above the average height at 5’7″. The reason many think he was short was because the British cartoonist James Gillray. His most famous depiction of Napoleon was a picture of him standing on George III’s hand in a sort of Gulliver’s Travels sort of way. He was actually 3 inches taller than Nelson. Stalin was 5’5″, Mussolini was 5’6″, Franco was 5’4″, Hitler was 5’8″. Some exceptions include Idi Amin who was 6’4″, the same height as Stephen, Fidel Castro was 6’1″ and Mao was 5’9″, which exceptionally tall for a Chinese person.

:”Tangent: There does seem to be cases of heightism in the workplace, short people are paid less than taller people and is comparable in magnitude to race and gender. A study of Fortune 500 companies shows 90% of the chief executives of those companies are above average height, and 30% of those are above 6’2″.”

*Everyone who was born in Europe is descended from the 8th century king Charlemagne. The reason being is that since every person has 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great-grandparents, etc., by the time you get back to the 13th century, you’ll have had more ancestors than people who have lived on the planet. This was discovered in 1995, by a man called Mark Humphreys at Dublin University. He discovered that his wife was the great-granddaughter of King Edward III, 20 generations down the line. He also discovered that Hermann Göring and the American explorer Daniel Boone had the same ancestry and then realised that the mathematics meant that everyone had the same ancestry as well.

*The greatest good that the Great Fire of London did was to clear buildings so that new ones could be made by Christopher Wren, such as St Paul’s Cathedral (forfeit: cleared the city of plague). By the time of the fire, most of the plague had already gone, but it wouldn’t have made much difference to the city, because the plague mainly took hold in the suburbs. By the time of the fire in September 1666, there were very few deaths and it just died, not because of the fire, but by an unknown source.

*The Great Train Robbers weren’t really great because of the very easy methods in which they were caught. The went to a farm and played Monopoly using the stolen money and they left their fingerprints all over the set. 12 of the 15 were rounded up, 1 was acquitted and 2 of them were never caught. The most famous member was Ronnie Biggs, who was asked by the mastermind, Bruce Reynolds to find a diesel train driver for the robbery. The man he found was known either as Old Pete or Stan Agate (it’s not known because he was one of the 2 who were never caught), and so Biggs received £147,000 (£1.6 million today) just for finding this driver and bringing him to the scene, who it turned out, couldn’t drive a train, yet Biggs still received his money.

*Despite being discovered in 1535, the reason it took 300 years to give the Giant tortoise a scientific name was because they were so edible. While they were being brought back to London and eventually Europe, they were all eaten, so no scientific study on them could be done. The only comparisons of them were that they tasted like chicken, beef, mutton and butter and saying how much better they are than all of those things. No-one who had ate tortoise had eaten anything better. All 12 species of giant tortoise are now protected. Adwaita was Clive of India’s pet tortoise. He died in 2006, at the age of 255, meaning he was born before Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, before the French Revolution and had his death announced on CNN. He is believed to be the oldest living creature ever, because most creatures don’t survive long out of captivity. They were also used as water stores, because they have a special internal bladder that stores water so perfectly that it’s drinkable, so when you slit them open you get an extra gallon of fresh water. It was pretty useful, as they could be stacked on boats, because they couldn’t move and they didn’t need to be fed for a long time. They also contributed to whaling, as they could be used as a foodstuff and a water supply. They had no predators until they were discovered by man, they were evolutionarily complacent, like many island species, because only humans travel across islands in that way.

;General Ignorance:

*Catherine the Great died in bed after suffering a stroke while on the toilet. People who it is believed did die on the toilet were Elvis Presley and George II, who was declared dead “at stool”. It’s also not true that Catherine had sexual intercourse with a horse, also she did have plenty of sex with some of her courtiers. Her son, Tsar Paul I hated her and spread the rumour about the sex with horses, as did the French. (Forfeit: on the loo )

:”Tangent: Discussion about 18th century paintings depicting horses with small heads.”

*In cold weather, most of your heat escapes from your arm or leg (forfeit: your head), if exposed. Only 10% of heat escapes from your head.

:”Tangent: Sean tells of how he once sat next to Lionel Blair, and that he never got the chance to tell his grandmother that fact.”

*The lingua franca (or everybody’s second language) of Ancient Rome was Greek (forfeit: Latin).

*43 different men have been President of the United States. The panellists are shown a clip from the inauguration of Barack Obama, which shows him saying he’s the 44th President, which is true in the case of terms, but not in the terms of people. Grover Cleveland was both the 22nd and 24th President, so he took the Presidential Oath twice. The reason he is counted twice is because he had two non-consecutive terms, since Benjamin Harrison was President between his two terms, so Obama is the 43rd different American president. (Forfeit: 44 — since the forfeit was taken from Obama’s speech, Obama himself was given the forfeit of −10 points.)

;QI XL Extras:

*The Great Disappointment was the name given to the supposed Second Coming of Jesus. The American William Miller carefully scrutinised the Bible and it suggested that Jesus would return in 1844 and scourge the world and clean the sanctuary, that was according to Daniel 8:4. Over a million Millerites believed him and sold everything they had to prove this belief. One man even threw himself off a barn believing he would be scooped up and saved. Unfortunately, Jesus didn’t return and it became known as “The Great Disappointment”. Interestingly, many more well-known religions have branched off from Millerism, including the Seventh-day Adventist Church, which was founded by a former female Millerite, and currently has 15 million adherents in America. Another man, Charles Russell founded the Jehovah’s Witnesses, which held the belief of the Apocalypse, as depicted in the Book of Revelations. Nowadays, there is a new movement, known as the Rapture, that believes that when Jesus returns, everyone will escape from their bodies and leave their clothes behind them. A book by Edgar Whisenant that was released in 1988 and called ”88 Reasons why the Rapture is in 1988”, sold 4 million copies, although it of course, didn’t happen, but there is now a website called www.raptureready.com, which has millions of hits, tells of ways to prepare for the Rapture and to protect loved ones who don’t make it, such as being stung by enormous wasps. (Forfeit: Have you been talking to my husband? (Jo))

:”Tangent: In the Nazi concentration camps, the Jehovah’s Witnesses had purple triangles on their uniforms, the Jews had yellow stars, the gays had pink triangles.”

:”Tangent: As mentioned in Series C, Samuel Pepys famously buried some Parmesan cheese in his garden to protect it from the Great Fire.”

*Cheese tastes better when it’s grated because it has a wider area that connects with the tongue and the cheese has a more intense flavour. When Parmesan is grated, it smells of vomit, mainly due to it having butyric acid and isovaleric acid in it, which are also to found in body odour.

:”Tangent: Discussion of why cheese has a sell-by date on it.”

:”Tangent: Sean mixing up the Great Train Robbery with the plot of the film Herbie Rides Again. The Great Train Robbery took place on 8 August 1963 and the amount of money stolen was the equivalent of £40 million in today’s money. The train was a post office train that was being sent to burn used £1, £5 and £10 notes.”

:”Tangent: The main reason why the Great Train Robbery was referred to as “Great”, was because it was simply a train robbery. In 1903, the first ever film that was based on a story, rather than just looking at nature was release and it was called The Great Train Robbery.”

:”Tangent: Alan tells of a café near him that does “good ol’ English grub” and on the table there are 3 different menus, one has Sid James and Barbara Windsor in a Carry On film, one has Peter Cook and Dudley Moore in their overcoats and the other has the Kray twins.”

*If a Giant Panda does a handstand in front of you, it’s trying to tell you that you’re on its land. Because they eat for 12 hours a day, they don’t have much time for rutting or fighting, so they urinate to mark out their territory, and they prefer to urinate while in the handstand position, and the higher up a tree that the urine lands on, the more dominant it is.

:”Tangent: A recent discovery in San Diego Zoo has revealed that pandas don’t need Viagra or panda pornography to get sexually excited. It’s believed that if they swap cages and smell the secretions in each other’s cage, then they’re up for it.”

Episode 11 “Gifts”

;Broadcast date:

*5 February 2010

*6 February 2010 (XL edition)

*1 June 2010 (ABC1 airing/iView upload)

;Recording date:

*19 May 2009

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (−18 points)

*Clive Anderson (−14 points)

*Jimmy Carr (−7 points)

*Jan Ravens (Winner with 6 points)

;Buzzers:

*Jimmy — ”Gimme All Your Lovin”’ by ZZ Top

*Jan — ”Give Me Just a Little More Time” by Chairmen of the Board

*Clive — ”Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!” by ABBA

*Alan — ”(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?” by Patti Page

;Topics:

*The panellists are given bags of items that are seized by American customs. Items include counterfeit money, a handkerchief covered in any amount of human fluids, Spam, seeds, a lottery ticket, a Cuban cigar, shoes that have been to a farm in the last month, a hessian bag and a Kinder egg. You could go to prison for 2 years for bringing in a lottery ticket. The hessian bag isn’t allowed, because it’s made of hemp. The most confiscated item is a Kinder egg as children may choke on it. Alan notes that the panellists were actually supplied with Creme Eggs, and not Kinder Eggs. Only people with one arm can carry a switchblade.

:”Tangent: Since 1992, there has been a ban on all imports from Cuba to the United States, but most United Nations countries have condemned this boycott, except for Israel and Palau.”

*The word for people who don’t laugh is agelastic. Examples given were Isaac Newton, who only laughed once in his whole life, Joseph Stalin, who never laughed according to Marshal Zhukov, Jonathan Swift and William Ewart Gladstone. Whereas Anthony Trollope couldn’t stop laughing, he actually died giggling. There are theories of laughter: the superiority theory, the sudden glory felt when someone else suffers; the incongruity theory, when the logical dissolves into the absurd, and the relief theory, which was Freud’s idea, relieving inhibition to forbidden thoughts and feelings, which leads to Jimmy talking about his book, ”The Naked Jape”, which was about theories like that from around the world. Interestingly, animals can’t laugh.

:”Tangent: Jan explains that performing impressions of other people’s physical movements and mannerisms is called echopraxia. An impression of the way they speak is called echolalia.”

:”Tangent: Trollope also invented the post box, but he regretted doing so. The problem was that women were now able to communicate freely at post offices, because before the post box, every woman had to go to their father or servant to put the stamp on, but now they could do send the letters themselves, so could have relationships without their parents’ consent.”

*The oldest joke in the world was “There was an absent-minded professor who was on a sea voyage when a storm blows up and his slaves are weeping in terror. He said, “Don’t cry, I have freed you all in my will”". That joke depicted the Abderites as being rather stupid. The Greek joke book, the Philogelos has this joke inside it: “An Abderite asks a eunuch how many children he has, the eunuch replies “None, Duh! I’m a eunuch!”, then the Abderite says…” The punch line of that joke is actually missing. Another old joke is a Sumerian one from 1900BC, which goes “something that has never occurred since time immemorial – a young woman did not fart in her husband’s lap.” An old English one is “What is the most cleanliest leaf amongst all others? – Holly leaves, because no-one will wipe their arse with them.”

:”Tangent: The subject of the first impression recorded was Socrates in The Clouds, a play by Aristophanes. Socrates was put to death for corrupting youths.”

:”Tangent: An old Greek joke provided by Jimmy that still works today, “A barber asks “How do you want your hair cut?”, and the person says “In silence”.””

*A scold’s bridle was a torture device for women who gossip or were malicious and spiteful. A more common punishment is the cucking stool, wrongly known as the ducking stool. The male equivalent was barratry. Interestingly, there are hardly any records of them being used, 50 of them still exist today. The studio has the one that currently resides in Walton-on-Thames.

*”What do you get if you cross a caterpillar and a butterfly?” There is a theory put forward by Donald Williamson called hybridogenesis stating the butterfly and the caterpillar are of different species. Normal starfish start life as a small larva with a tiny starfish inside. They grow and separate and the larva degenerates. Williamson found the Luidia sarsi differs with the larva living for months as an independent animal. He reasons there is a chance of creating a double species, since “sperm and seed” have been mixing in the sea for millions of years, so these new species could be created once every million years. (Forfeits: butterpillar, caterfly)

*1% of American adults are in jail, roughly 2.3 million, or 1 in every 99.1 adults. More than twice as many as South Africans, more than three times as the Iranians, more than six times as the Chinese. No society in history has imprisoned more of its citizens than the United States. The United Kingdom is ahead of China, Turkey and India, with 148 prisoners per 100,000. In the USA, they have the three strikes law, which gives a life sentence for anyone’s third crime, no matter how trivial, providing they have 2 serious crimes against them already. So, a man called Leandro Andrade is serving 2 consecutive 25-year terms for shoplifting 9 videotapes. Another man, Kevin Weber, got given 26 years for stealing 4 chocolate chip cookies. One in 30 men aged between 20–34 are in jail, and for black males, it’s 1 in 9. There are more 17-year-old black people in jail, than in college. 5% of the world is American, and 25% of all prisoners are American.

:”Tangent: In reference to the first question, you’re not allowed to bring in anything into America that has been made in a prison, but interestingly, the prisoners are effectively slave labour. 100% of all military helmets, ammunition belts, bulletproof vests and ID tags and other military essentials are made in jail, along with 93% of domestically produced paints, 36% of home appliances and 21% of office furniture, which allows the USA to compete with Mexico. All prisoners are forced to work, failure to comply leads to solitary confinement.”

;General Ignorance:

*The Cornish Wreckers may have made a living salvaging shipwrecks (forfeit: lured ships onto the rocks). The closest thing to luring ships onto the rocks was a wreck in Anglesey, but that turned out to be a myth as well. It never happened, so no-one was ever hanged for it. The only evidence of it is in books such as Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier. Interestingly, Jan won an edition of ”Celebrity Mastermind” with Daphne du Maurier as her specialist subject. It’s believed that Methodist preachers wanted to give the idea that Cornish people were barbarians of sorts. It was then repeated by Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould, who wrote ”Onward, Christian Soldiers”.

:”Tangent: Baring-Gould is also believed to have been at a children’s party he asked a small girl, “And whose little girl are you?” whereon she burst into tears, and said: “I’m yours, Daddy.” He did however have 15 children, so could have been easily confused. Alan tells how a comedian was asked after an act who his agent was, and the comedian replied “You are”.”

:”Tangent: Art collector Edward James recalled in his autobiography, his mother shouting “Nanny! I’m going to church. I want one of my daughters to go with me.” The nanny then asked which one. Mrs. James replied “The one with the red hair, she’ll go with this coat.””

*It is virtually impossible for Archimedes to have moved the Earth in the way he suggested (forfeit: with a lever). He said, “Give me a place to stand and I will move the Earth.” Assuming he weighed 100 kilograms and placed his fulcrum a kilometre away from the bottom of the Earth, he would need a lever 6.5 billion light-years long to balance and move the planet. Assuming that he moved the lever by one metre, the Earth would move by less than the diameter of a single proton.

:”Tangent: If you tried to use Newtonian mechanics, by getting everyone to jump up at the same time, the Earth would a tiny bit, but it would be cancelled out by the Third Law of Motion.”

;QI XL Extras:

:”Tangent: Despite the United States-Cuba boycott, you can still get flights to Miami, and people on the flights wear massive coats to hide things that they’re not allowed to bring on board from security.

:”Tangent: In recent times, the Academy Awards goody bag have had to be declared against tax. The 2008 Academy Awards goody bags were worth £57,000. They included a £15,000 holiday, an espresso machine, a cashmere blanket worth £855 and a white gold pearl and diamond pendant worth £740. At the BAFTAs, you get given Tic Tacs and at the British Comedy Awards, they used to give out bowls of Minstrels, as well as plenty of alcohol.”

*The box of chocolates given by Gordon Brown to George W. Bush were immediately destroyed. Under the guidelines of the United States Secret Service, any food or drink is immediately destroyed, such as the £150 box of Charbonnel et Walker given by Brown to Bush. The Prime Minister of Qatar gave him a £650 box of chocolates, the President of Iraq gave him an assortment of nut pasties and 3& lb of live shamrocks from Bertie Ahern given to celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day were all destroyed. The QI office rang Downing Street to ask if they were aware of this, they didn’t reply. Brown gave Barack Obama an inedible ornamental penholder made from the Victorian anti-slaver HMS Gannet. In return, Brown was given 25 American classic DVDs, not including, as Jimmy hoped, Who’s Nailin’ Paylin? Interestingly, some believe that the discs were actually Region 1, which meant that Brown couldn’t watch them unless he had a hacked DVD player. It’s believed that the only reason these pointless presents are given out is because of protocol.

*The world’s cheapest cheapskate is the dance fly, which give gifts in the form of silk or a balloon wrapped in the male’s anal secretions. One of the species, the ”Rhamphomyia sulcata”, which captures an insect, sucks out its innards completely and then wraps the empty shell and gives it to the female, but by the time that the female unwraps it, he’s mated her, then scarpered. In the insect kingdom, some male insects pretend to be females, so they can receive a gift from a male and just have it for another female.

:”Tangent: Jan tells of the story about one of the first cheapskates, Diogenes the Cynic.”

:”Tangent: It was almost impossible to do an impression of Gladstone or Disraeli in the 19th century, as the population was so big, it would be hard to know if the impression was accurate at all. Harold Macmillan met Peter Cook at the Fortune Theatre, and Cook impersonated Macmillan, the first time a Prime Minister had been impersonated. In 1737, Robert Walpole created an act which forbade any person from doing political satire on him, it also gave the Lord Chamberlain the powers to approve any play before it was staged, with the exception of The Establishment Club.

*Luigi Galvani from Bologna discovered that electricity works through frogs, hence creating the term galvanization, which meant that humans worked with electricity. His Giovanni Aldinistar pupil toured England in 1803 and astounded the Royal College of Surgeons with what he discovered. He convulsed the body of the murderer George Forster, just after he’d been hanged. Electric rods were attached to Foster’s mouth and ear, which led to the jaw quivering and one eye opening, then when a rod was placed up his rectum, the whole body convulsed, so it looked like reanimation. The experiment proved that the nerves use electricity to make the body work, rather than pneumatic power as previously thought. Mary Shelley saw this to prove that electricity created life, but oddly, in her book Frankenstein, electricity isn’t used, only in all the film representations of Frankenstein is it used. Galvanized buckets are coated with zinc to avoid corrosion, it has nothing to do with this form of galvanization.

*The Emperor of China hated pigeons because they used to steal the rice from his rice granaries. Enemies of the Emperor would train pigeons to fly to the granaries and tell them to steal as much of the rice as they can and fly back, then they would be fed water and alum to disgorge the rice, which could then be washed. They could get 50& lbs of rice from 100 pigeons. It’s unknown if they were ever caught.

:”Tangent: Clive once got given some homing pigeons, which returned to their original owners after a couple of weeks.”

Episode 12 “Gravity”

;Broadcast date:

*12 February 2010

*13 February 2010 (XL edition)

*8 June 2010 (ABC1 airing/iView upload)

;Recording date:

*9 May 2009

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (Joint Winner with 3 points)

*Bill Bailey (−8 points)

*Rich Hall (Joint Winner with 3 points)

*Barry Humphries (−36 points)

*Note: This is the first time Alan has been a joint winner, and also the first time that Rich Hall has sat in a different seat to his usual one (on Stephen’s immediate left). Up until now, only Alan has sat in the same seat, apart from when he swapped places with Stephen in the series B Christmas Special.

;Buzzers:

*Rich — Falling object crashing on landing

*Barry — Soldiers marching followed by their commander shouting “Wait for it!”

*Bill — A speak-your-weight machine saying “12 stone, 2 pounds, 4 ounces”

*Alan — A person being sprung in the air yelling “Arrrrrrrggggghhhhh!!!”

;Topics:

*Theoretically, you can get to anywhere on Earth in exactly 42 minutes and 12 seconds, by burrowing through it. The speed would be the maximum velocity as determined by gravity. If you had a tube that went through the Earth, you’d accelerate to the middle, then decelerate on your way out. You could end up anywhere, because gravity works at every angle, not just north-south. The Antipodes are the exact opposite points on Earth, they don’t have to be north-south. There was a contest to make an Earth Sandwich to find the antipodal points of places on the Earth. The winners had New Zealand at one end and Spain at the other, but there was controversy because baguettes were used for the sandwich, and if they were put crossways, it strictly wouldn’t be a sandwich. Other antipodal points include Indonesia to Colombia, and an interesting one for religionists, Mecca to the Tematangi Atoll (also known as Captain Bligh’s Atoll) in the Pacific Ocean. Interestingly, there is a massive lagoon in the centre of the island, and because it’s the antipode, whichever direction you look at, you’re facing Mecca. The 42 minutes and 12 second theory was made in a series of letters in the 17th century between Isaac Newton and Robert Hooke.

:”Tangent: The idea of a gravity train isn’t feasible on Earth, but it’s possible on the Moon, because there is no molten core, but it would take 53 minutes to go through the Moon.”

*Aristotle believed that heavier objects fell faster than lighter objects, but this theory was disproved by Galileo Galilei who worked out in his head that objects with different masses fell at the same speed. He then did experiments involving ramps and other things (forfeit: dropping cannonballs from the Leaning Tower of Pisa). He then proved that half a ton of coal fell at the same speed as a ton of coal. He also proved that if people believed Aristotle’s theory, it wouldn’t work, since he said that the heavier object fell faster than the lighter one, so if they were attached together they would have to fall at the same speed, because one couldn’t hold the other one up. Then, the Apollo 15 astronaut David Scott did an experiment on the Moon with a hammer and a feather to prove Galileo right.

:”Tangent: Alan tried to answer which was heavier, a ton of gold or a ton of feathers, but since gold is measured in troy weight, rather than avoirdupois, a ton of gold is heavier than a ton of feathers.”

:”Tangent: Similarly, Isaac Newton’s law of gravitation were thought out before he published them in 1687, which was a whole 100 years before the Montgolfier brothers did their first flight in a hot air balloon.”

*George Biggin and Letitia Sage flew in a hydrogen balloon from Southwark and went “all the way”. Around 150,000 people came to see balloon ascents, as they were the spectacle of the age. Vincenzo Lunardi, an Italian who brought ballooning to Britain, was going to go up with Biggin & Sage, but he then thought that might be too many, so he escaped and so they became the first members of the mile high club. Whilst flying over Piccadilly, it was believed that Sage was spotted “on all fours”, although she later claimed that she was fastening up the opening of the balloon. The accurate answer is that they got to Harrow, so they travelled a distance of 14 miles, and spoke to below through a speaking trumpet. There was a scandal involving wager books and the gentlemen’s clubs, Brooks’s and White’s in the St James’s area of London. It mainly involved making bets involving having sexual intercourse in a balloon, or as they put it, “plays hospitals with…”, but they made bets on just about anything imaginable.

:”Tangent: The first people to cross the English Channel by air were Jean-Pierre Blanchard and his American backer. While on the flight, they had a massive argument involving their nations, who they were both very proud of. So, Blanchard put on lead weights to give the balloon more ballast, meaning that Jeffries would have to get out, so Blanchard would become the first man to cross, but then both their national flags fell out of the balloon as well. Then they dropped out of the sky too early, so they had to jettison all their food and instruments, as well as the sandbags, before taking all their clothing off and they then peed and pooed out of the basket, and they just made it over the cliffs and landed in a tree to get the record.

*A gossypiboma is something left inside you by a surgeon after he has done an operation, normally cotton, lint or sponge. “Gossypi” is actually the Latin for cotton. There are 1,500 cases of this every year in the United States. 54% of foreign objects are found in the abdomen or pelvis, 22% in the vagina, 7.5% in the chest and 17% in other places, like the spinal canal, brain or face. There have been cases of suing, such as a man who had a 6& inch metal surgical clamp, but then they realised that he’d already had an operation to take out a 6& inch surgical clamp, because it was then found out that he had 2 stuck in, and when they removed the first one, they didn’t bother checking around for the other one. The main reason for objects being left in people is either because of emergency work which hasn’t been properly planned, unplanned changes in procedure and patients with a higher body mass index. If the item stuck inside a person is a surgical instrument, it’s know as foreign-body granuloma, but interesting the surgeons refer to it as “retaining”, making out that it’s the fault of the patients. (Forfeit: mind your own business)

*When you shoot a gun in the air, the bullets land in a different place, so the shooter would never get hit, as even a small blast of wind, would move it away from the gun. A test was done on a floating platform, where 500 bullets were shot in the air and only 4 landed on the platform. A typical 7.62mm bullet fired vertically can reach a height of nearly 2.5km, meaning it would take 17 seconds to reach the top height, then take another 40 seconds to come down, if it was going at a speed of 70 metres a second, which would cause serious cranial injuries. Interestingly, if you had a bullet in one hand and a gun facing horizontally at the same level in another, both bullets would hit the ground at the same time, if fired at the same time. The reason being is that they both have the same force working on them, gravity. The only way this couldn’t happen is if the bullet was fired at 5 miles per second, which means it would leave the Earth and never return into the atmosphere, or if the bullet went far enough, because then the curvature of the Earth would mean it had further to fall. There are many practical applications to this in the laws of physics which say it must be the case.

*If someone is hiding at the Welcome Break motorway service station at Scratchwood Services, which is the first service station on the M1 motorway, north of London, the best way to stop them without getting out of London and with no telecommunications, is to shoot them using the guns on HMS Belfast, which is permanently moored in the River Thames in the centre of London. The forward turrets on HMS Belfast are directly aimed at Scratchwood Services.

:”Tangent: In World War II, the USS Phoenix managed to survive the attack on Pearl Harbor without even a scratch, it was known as the luckiest ship in the United States Navy. It was sunk in 1982, after it had been sold to Argentina and renamed General Belgrano, which still remains the only ship sunk by a nuclear submarine, with the loss of over 300 lives.”

;General Ignorance:

*The daily recommendation of wine could be dispensed by a cloud the size of a bus. The daily limit of wine is 250ml.

*A gunslinger’s revolver has 5 bullets (forfeit: six). Wyatt Earp said that despite the fact there are six chambers, the 6th chamber is for safety, the hammer can rest on it, so you couldn’t discharge by mistake, because the six-gun, as it was known, had no safety catch.

:”Tangent: Stephen met an armourer in America who worked on Westerns all his life and said that the only 2 people never to blink when firing a gun were Clint Eastwood and Yul Brynner.Alan Davies abrubtly said one of them was Kenneth Williams

*The red juice that comes out of a steak when you cook it is myoglobin (forfeit: blood), which is used to operate muscles. When you use muscles for short, sharp bursts of energy, glucose from the blood provides the fuel, but when you want to do sustained activity, myoglobin is used to oxidise the fat, which provides the energy.

:”Tangent: A joke from Stephen: “What do you get when you put “it” in gravy?” – Gravity.”

;QI XL Extras:

:”Tangent: A discussion about the film Brazil, change machines, tubes, the dangers of aeroplane toilets and sucking up prairie dogs with a grain elevator.”

:”Tangent: In those days, they used a barometer as an altimeter when flying.”

*An underwater weighing machine would be used for the most accurate form of body weighing. If you’re under 20% fat, then you’re not obese, but for women, it’s 30%. (Forfeit: whale weigh station)

:”Tangent: The body mass index is your weight divided by your height squared. Interestingly, though the BMI has flaws, because muscular people would be classed as overweight, because of all their toned muscles, but marathon runners would also be classified as malnourished and underweight.”

*Even though bicycles are ancient, by modern standards, the physics of bicycles wasn’t fully understood until 1970. The reason you’re more stable on a bicycle when you go faster is because of torque, not gyroscopic pull, as was believed. This was proven by a man called David Jones, who discovered the caster effect, which showed that the back wheel, self-rights itself as you go along. Also, when you want to turn left on a bicycle, you turn the handlebar slightly to the right, known as countersteering, so when you’re heading towards a kerb, you have to steer into it, before you can get away from it. A way to test this is to take your left hand off the handlebar and try and turn left, it makes you able only to go right.

:”Tangent: Bill reveals the time that he played Adolf Hitler in a play called “The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui”, and his mum said that Bill looked great looking like Hitler.”

:”Tangent: Stephen tells of a Utopian way of exchanging bicycles that happened in Cambridge, where people would just exchange bikes wherever they wanted and it lasted just 2 days.”

*The Fosbury Flop was created by Dick Fosbury as a better technique to do the high jump. The previous techniques were the straddle, the Western roll, the Scissors and the Eastern cut-off. In the 1968 Summer Olympics, he performed this new technique and won the gold medal. The reason why every high jumper now uses the Fosbury Flop is because of how the centre of gravity works. When doing the Flop, your centre of gravity is under the bar, whereas if you did the Scissors, your centre of gravity would be 30cm over the bar. The other thing the Flop did was change the landing from a sandpit to a cushion type landing. So, by having a lower centre of gravity, you have more height, in exchange for no extra effort. The records have also stood for a long time. The male record was set in 1993, while the female one was set in 1987. The male long jump record between 1935 and 1960 was held by Jesse Owens.

:”Tangent: Bill tells of the time he lost a charity limbo dancing match to Sinitta and Lionel Blair. He came 3rd, and Lionel Blair won.”

;General Ignorance:

:”Tangent: The recommended daily allowance of wine in the United Kingdom is 21 units per week. In Poland, it’s 12.5, in Canada, it’s 23.75 and in America, it’s 24.5, in South Africa and Denmark, it’s 31.5 and in Australia, it’s 35. In the UK, if you drank between 21 and 30 units, you’d be in the group of people in the lowest mortality rate in the country. To be on the same level as a teetotaller, you’d have to drink 63 units a week, the equivalent of a whole bottle of wine a day. Although, it was later admitted by the person who made the claim, that he made the number up, and was just asked to think of a number.”

Episode 13 “Gothic”

;Broadcast date:

*19 February 2010

*20 February 2010 (XL edition)

*15 June 2010 (ABC1 airing/iView upload)

;Recording date:

*14 May 2009

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (Joint Winner with −17 points)

*Jimmy Carr (−28 points)

*Jack Dee (Joint Winner with −17 points)

*Sue Perkins (−26 points)

;Buzzers:

*Jack — ”Psycho”-esque music

*Jimmy — A man breaking down a door, saying “Here’s Jimmy!”, followed by a woman screaming (a reference to ”The Shining”)

*Sue — The Wilhelm scream

*Alan — The reading of a classified football result; “Arsenal 0, Norwich City 4.” (Famously, Davies is an Arsenal fan, while Fry is a Norwich fan.)

;Theme:

*The set is darkened and everyone is wearing black. Stephen is sat in between some grotesques and gnomes. There’s also a cobweb-laden candlestick.

;Topics:

*The panellists are shown a picture of a grotesque (forfeit: gargoyle). The difference between a grotesque and a gargoyle is that gargoyles are used for draining and guttering in Gothic buildings. The word gargoyle comes from the French ”gargouille”, meaning throat, also coming from the English word “gargle”.

*The Goths were originally from Scandinavia, who defeated the Vandals, a German tribe, where we get the word “vandal” from. Goth has tended to mean other things though, such as the cathedrals, which were called “barbaric” during the Italian Renaissance, as it was used as an insult for anything that wasn’t classic, because they were perceived to be the people who destroyed Rome and therefore civilisation. Gothic literature has tended to be referred to as “macabre”. Carpenter Gothic is a form of craftsmanship famously depicted in the Grant Wood painting ”American Gothic”, which showed a house, now known as the American Gothic House in the town of Eldon, Iowa. The main feature of Carpenter Gothic is the pointed Ecclesiastical star on the top, which resembles a Gothic arch. If a Goth is “emotional”, they’re referred to as Emos. Emos want to kill themselves, whereas Goths want to kill everyone else.

:”Tangent: The man in ”American Gothic” was Grant Wood’s dentist.”

:”Tangent: Discussion about why everyone wanted to paint their bedrooms black, like Goths.”

:”Tangent: Jimmy points out how the woman in ”American Gothic” looks like Gail Platt from ”Coronation Street”.”

*The painter who painted ”Sunflowers” was Vincent van Gogh. The Dutch pronounciation was given by Arthur Japin, a famous novelist, who is also the presenter of the Dutch version of QI, who was also in the audience. Stephen and Arthur talk about the Dutch version, as well as Thomas van Luyn, who is the Dutch equivalent to Alan in the show. (Forfeits: Van Goff, Van Goth, Van Go)

:”Tangent: Discussion about van Gogh giving his ear to a prostitute, and the “possibility” of it being a primitive bugging device, which leads to Alan telling of the similarity between that and the alien in the John Sayles film ”The Brother from Another Planet”.”

*The whole planet’s population of 6.8 billion could turn into zombies, otherwise known as a zombie apocalypse, within 38 days, using geometric progression and exponential growth to work it out. The word “zombie” comes from Haiti, where they got the venom from a pufferfish to make them appear sort of “dead”. It was first discovered by Wade Davis, an ethnobotanist in the 1980s, but his theory that it put people into a sort of “zombie trance” isn’t universally accepted.

*In Accra, the capital city of Ghana, people are buried in elaborate coffins made into whatever shape you wanted, like a fish, an aeroplane, a mobile phone, a Bible or even a car. They cost up to US$400, which is nearly a year’s wages to some Ghanaians. It’s only been a tradition in Ghana for the last 50 years or so.

*The best way to make sure your family never forget you after you die is to make a lifesize replica of yourself. The Japanese artist Hananuma Masakichi was diagnosed with tuberculosis in the 1880s, so he knew he was going to die, so he made a life-size replica of himself that matched him exactly, with every hair from every pore on his body included, as well as his fingernails, toenails, teeth and having glass eyes made in place of real ones. It was so life-like, that people couldn’t tell which was the real one and which was the fake. It eventually went into Robert Ripley’s Odditorium in Los Angeles, but it got injured in an earthquake in 1996, and is awaiting restoration.

:”Tangent: In Seattle, there is a company called SeeMeRot.com, where you can have cameras put into coffins, so you can the person inside disintegrate. Their slogan is “Being dead and buried doesn’t mean you can’t have friends over!”. This leads to a discussion about being buried alive.”

*In the 1960s, ⅔ of all Americans who accidentally lost a limb came from the same town in Florida. The reason was insurance. There were 50 occurrences in the town which had a population of just 500. Most claimed they were shot off by hunting rifles. Other claims included accidentally firing someone climbing a fence.

;General Ignorance:

*After the Vietnam War, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was occupied by a soldier who had died in Vietnam. His family had heard that “the Unknown Soldier” had died in a helicopter crash, and their son had also died in the same helicopter crash, but through DNA testing, it was proved that he was “the Unknown Soldier”, so his remains were exhumed. It’s believed that there never will be another “Unknown Soldier”, because all British & American soldiers are DNA profiled. The original “Unknown Soldier” was first done simultaneously in Britain & France after World War I in 1920. In Britain, there were 4 bodies and the general pointed at one and he became “the Unknown Soldier”. That particular soldier was given a state funeral at Westminster Abbey with full military honours and was entombed with a Medieval crusader’s sword from the Royal Collection in the presence of a guard made up of 100 VC’s. The guests of honour were 100 women who had lost their husbands and their sons during the war. The Cenotaph, made by Lutyens is dedicated to the soldier as well. (Forfeit: Nobody Knows)

*The phrase “Saved by the bell” is a boxing term. There is no proof of the myths about people who tied a bell to their toe, but they have found to not be true, although many people do fear premature burials, such as in the Edgar Allan Poe book, ”The Premature Burial”. (Forfeit: Buried Alive)

*Mozart’s burial wasn’t a pauper’s funeral in Vienna as many believe, although only members of the aristocracy were buried in tombs or vaults. His funeral cost 8 guilder and 56 kreuzer. Mozart had a pet starling who he buried in 1784, and its whistling inspired the principal theme of the last movement of Piano Concerto K453.

:”Tangent: On the top 10 list of play-off tunes for people who die is the theme tune to Countdown.”

;QI XL Extras:

:”Tangent: Discussion about The Da Vinci Code being a book about “bad monks” and about the fact that Grant Wood sounds like the name of a porn star.”

:”Tangent: Discussion about early Goths, such as Alice Cooper, Robert Smith of ”The Cure” and Siouxsie Sioux.”

:”Tangent: Discussion of the new theory that van Gogh lost his ear in a fight with Paul Gauguin. van Gogh was never good with girls either, the parents of a girl he liked refused him access, so he stood with his hand being burnt by a flame of a candle until he could see her, but her father just blew it out and told him to go away.”

:”Tangent: The exponential growth originated with the rice and chessboard problem, in which a guy puts one piece of rice on the first chessboard piece, then 2 on the next, 4 on the next, etc. The total number of grains needed to fill the board is 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 (2^64 – 1), which is the amount of rice that would be made in 80 years, if all the arable land was converted.

:”Tangent: Even though zombies and voodoo are associated with Haiti, it originated in West Africa. “Zombie” comes from the West African word, “nzambi”.”

:”Tangent: Jimmy once took his brother through a graveyard and he thought that people who were buried under gravestones with curly bits on the top were chefs.”

*In a graveyard, a person buried under a broken column means that they died young. Other symbols include a broken chain which symbolises a loss in the family and apples represent sin. The lichen that grows on graveyards is looked at by scientists as an indicator for pollution. The main reasons they do it is because you can roughly tell the age of the lichen on the gravestone because of the date and graveyards are not normally sprayed with chemicals, so they remain unaltered, and because it’s considered bad to spray them with pesticides.

:”Tangent: Other odd methods of burials include being turned into compost by being dissolved in liquid nitrogen then being vibrated, then a magnet is used to remove mercury and other metals that could harm the making of it. Then 25–30 kilograms are left over which then gets made into a coffin made out of maize or potato starch, and then you’re buried and rot into the earth and biodegrade within 6–12 months.”

*The Vampire Squid from Hell, Latin name, ”Vampyroteuthis infernalis”, has the biggest eyes of any animal in comparison to the size of its head, if it were put into a human, the eyes of a human would be a foot wide. Because it lives so deep in the sea, its defence is not ink, but a stream of blue bioluminescent orbs, which dazzle its enemies.

*The toughest way to become a mummy is by self-mummification. In the old days, they used to remove the brain through the nose by turning it into a liquid mush. A Buddhist sect called Sokushinbutsu use self-mummification. To do this, for 1,000 days, a priest would eat nuts and seeds, while taking part in vigorous physical activity, so he’d have no body fat. Then for another 1,000 days, he’s eat just bark and tree roots and then drink a poisonous tea made from the sap of the Urushi tree, which would cause him to vomit and lose bodily fluids. Then he’d be locked inside a small stone tomb with just an air tube and a bell while doing the lotus position. He’d ring the bell every day to prove he was alive. When the bell stopped ringing, the tube was removed and the tomb was sealed. Then after another 1,000 days, the tomb was checked and if it was successful, he was deemed to have reached enlightenment. Since the 19th century, it’s not done any more, as it is now an illegal form of suicide.

:”Tangent: The panellists try to explain to Stephen what the reverse cowgirl is.”

;General Ignorance:

*If the beat on a electrocardiogram has flat-lined, it means that the cable has been pulled out. Fibrillators are used for arrythmia, not to start up the heart again, as depicted in many movies. (Forfeit: You’re Dead)

:”Tangent: Another popular play-off tune is ”Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen. The next track on their album after ”Bohemian Rhapsody” is ”Another One Bites the Dust”.”

Episode 14 “Greeks”

;Broadcast date:

*5 March 2010

*6 March 2010 (XL edition)

;Recording date:

*26 May 2009

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (−47 points)

*Clive Anderson (Winner with 3 points)

*Rich Hall (2 points)

*Phill Jupitus (−5 points)

*”The Audience (Winner with 10 points – See Notes below)”

;Buzzers:

*Clive — ”Hymn to Liberty”

*Rich — Theme from ”Zorba”

*Phill — Traditional Greek folk tune

*Alan — ”Greased Lightning” from ”Grease”

;Notes:

*This is the third instance of a complete panel appearing twice. Anderson, Hall and Jupitus all appeared together in episode 3 of series B.

*The Audience were only announced as winners in the XL version, as the fact that won them their 10 points was cut from the initial broadcast.

;Theme:

*The set is decorated in Ancient Greek architecture.

;Topics:

*If you were a rich Athenian, you had to sponsor a Greek battleship. The only way to get out of it was by finding someone richer than yourself. The interesting thing is if your property was worth 70 times more than the average wage of a skilled worker, you had to pay for the Greek Navy. To challenge paying, you had to find someone richer than you and appear together in court and offer to swap everything you had to the person you thought was richer than you.

*According to Herodotus, before a Spartan went into battle, they had a new haircut. Before the Battle of Thermopylae, a Persian spy went into the Spartan camp and saw them getting new hairdos, which meant that they were prepared to die, in a way, it was their preparation for mortal combat, but it was reported that they were hardly worth fighting. Interestingly, the depiciton of the Spartans in the film 300 could have been even camper than it was, because during the battle depicted in the film, the 300 Spartans were accompanied by 700 Thespians. All the city states did run on different lines, but the sad thing is that eventually the Spartans and Athenians went into battle later on, and the Spartans won, and they didn’t like the classical civilisation such as art, harmony, music, mathematics, logic and politics. Stephen says that the Athenians loss would have been as if the Klingons had beaten the Vulcans in Star Trek.

:”Tangent: The word “laconic” means taking your time before you answer. An example of this was during the Peloponnesian War, when the Athenians sent a messenger to Sparta, which said “If we beat you, we will not spare your children. We will destroy your civilisation. We will kill everybody. We will spare no-one.” The Spartans reply just said, “If”, which was the original laconic phrase.” QI Error Watch – this was not during the Peloponnesian War but was a response to Philip II of Macedon

*At a gymnasium, you shouldn’t wear any clothing, because “Gymnos” is the Greek for naked, hence “gymnasium” meant “a naked place”. During the Ancient Olympic Games, the competitors performed naked, so to restrain the penis, they put it in a sort of pouch called a kynodesme. It kept the penis in an upright position by being tied close to the stomach and the ends of the tie being in a bow. If your trainer, wanted to get your attention, he’d just pull on the bow to get your attention.

:”Tangent: Other things involving the word “gymnos”, were “gymnopaedia”, where young naked boys went out dancing in public festivals and “gymnologise” means “to debate while naked”.”

*Baron de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic Games won his own Olympic gold medal in poetry, although he actually entered it anonymously. In the early years of the modern Olympics, there were non-physical events, such as town planning, which was an event up until the 1948 Games. Other artistic events included sculpture, music, painting and literature. The oldest person to win an Olympic medal was a Briton called John Copley, who won a silver medal in the engravings and etchings event in 1948. In the 1900 Summer Olympics, there was a gold medal for the poodle clipping event, where the winner, a farmer’s wife who clipped 17 poodles in 2 hours. Correction: This was an April’s Fool joke created by ”The Daily Telegraph” in the run up to the Beijing Olympics. QI are now aware of this. The reason that all the artistic events were stopped was because they believed that it defeated the point of amateurism, because all the athletes had other jobs, whereas the artists, poets, etc., would carrying on doing those jobs after the Games.

*Olympic gold medals are made of at least 92.5% silver (forfeits: gold, chocolate), but they do have 6 grams of gold in them. The medals are gold plated, but they haven’t been made entirely of gold since 1912. If the medals today were made out of 18 carat gold, they’d be worth £3,000, or £1.5 million for the whole competition.

*If you bite a gold coin, and a toothmark is left, then it’s a fake coin, because other metals were used in making gold coins, but for counterfeits lead was used, and that did leave an impression, so those ones would be fake, and you’d be ill if you had some lead, but as Alan points out, there is no lead in pencils, as mentioned in series A. Only 161,000 tonnes of gold has ever been mined in human history, most of it being in the last 50 years, and Rich claims that if it was all compressed, it could be put into the QI studio, but it wouldn’t fill 2 Olympic size swimming pools.

:”Tangent: The island of Yap in Micronesia, used hole shaped stones as its currency, and it makes it a fixed money supply, unlike the gold standard that Richard Nixon got rid of while he was President of the United States.”

*Sewage could be used to create alien life, because most faeces produced in space is simply jettisoned, rather than taken back to Earth. Arthur C. Clarke had a theory, known as “Toilet of the Gods”, which suggested that humans might even be descended from the poo of another civilisation. It came about because scientists discovered that a lot of the junk in Earth’s orbit was covered in faecal matter. There are now space debris lawyers, because if any junk hits a satellite that orbits Earth, it could destroy it.

;General Ignorance:

*You shouldn’t touch a meteorite after it crashes on Earth, because it would be too cold (forfeit: it’s hot). In space, they are between −240°C and −270°C, inside and outside, so you could have frostbite. Around 50,000 meteorites above 20& grams fall into Earth every year, but most of them are lost at sea, but most of the ones that land on land are found in Antarctica. No human has ever died from a meteorite, a dog was killed by one in Egypt in 1911 and a boy from Uganda was hit, but not seriously hurt by one in 1992.

*The instant you get sucked into a vacuum you have only the amount of air left that you exhale to survive, so normally that’s only a few minutes at the most (forfeit: instant death). Gases escaping from your body would make you instantly defecate, projectile vomit and urinate. You could survive with no long-term problems, but only if you stay in for only a couple of minutes. The first sensation would be the moisture on your tongue boiling, which would make you lose taste for days. This information is known because of accidents with humans.

*The country that has weekly news broadcasts in Latin is Finland (forfeit: Vatican City). The show, called ”Nuntii Latini” has a 5-minute broadcast every Friday at 1:55pm, then again on the local radio in Helsinki. Radio Bremen in Germany also do 4½ minutes of Latin news a month. Interestingly, more people outside Finland understand Latin than Finnish, which is the reason of why they do the broadcast.

:”Tangent: There is a Finnish singer called Jukka Ammondt who has done covers of Elvis Presley songs in Latin, including “Nunc Hic Aut Nunquam”, also known as “It’s Now or Never”, “Cor Ligneum”, also known as “Wooden Heart” and “Tenere Me Ama”, also known as “Love Me Tender”.

*Because of health and safety, plates are not thrown at the end of a Greek meal any more. Instead, flowers are now used, as they’re much safer, although Greek restaurants can obtain a licence to throw the plates. (Forfeit: Plates)

;QI XL Extras:

:”Tangent: The suffix “ship”, as in “battleship” or “championship” is of Germanic origin. Interestingly, all the f’s in German, became p’s, such as “ffennig” became “pfennig” and “feffer” became “pepper”, but even more weirdly the Arabic language removed all its p’s because of this, hence “sharip”, became “sharif”. This thing is known as the fricative shift and was discussed by the Brothers Grimm.”

*A Roman orgy is not as debauched as a Greek symposium. A Greek symposium was a place mainly for drinking, although nowadays, the word “symposium” means seminar or an intellectual/academic gathering. A Roman orgy wasn’t really a wild place where sexual intercourse took place, it was more a place where you liked food, and they were not exclusively for adults either. Caligula himself preferred to have solid gold food and fish that looked like they had just come out of the ocean and were still blue. There is also no truth that they had a vomitorium to throw up food, after all a vomitorium is actually an exit from a theatre, although Alan claims that as he was growing up people in pubs used to go outside to throw up, so they could drink more alcohol, otherwise known as a tactical chunder.

:”Tangent: Gymnasiums were originally designed to be places where the middle classes trained for battle. They then became places of education, the two most famous ones being the Academy and the Lyceum. The Academy was where Plato taught and was named after Akademos.”

:”Tangent: The word Odeon as used to describe a movie theatre was named by Oscar Deutsch, who used his initials “OD”, to name the cinema chain he created. The answer was given by an audience member, who earned 10 points for the audience.

:”Tangent: An Irishman created counterfeit Rai stones on Yap and ruined its economy.”

*A Greek ideal was a person who seemed to symbolise the “perfect” Greek person. It seemed to be determined by a few factors, one of them being the wrist measurement. Each of the panellists gave their wrist measurement, of which Phill’s was 8″, but his thigh measurement needed to be 28″, but his were only 23″. His neck is 19″ which is near perfect, as it should be twice the size of the wrist. All the other panellists have 7″ wrists. The perfect bicep should be 17″, Alan’s is only 12½”. The panellist closest to the Greek ideal is Clive, even though Phill has a near perfect Greek neck. 2 men called Eugen Sandow and Monsieur Attila created the bodybuilding craze, later made more famous by Charles Atlas and Arnold Schwarzenegger. They made their fame by doing shows in London, and their fans were allowed to touch them only with smelling salts nearby, in case they fainted.

:”Tangent: Phill has a tattoo of a Greek helmet on his wrist.”

*The panellists are shown a theory which tries to prove the existence of God.

::

begin{array}{rl}

mbox{Ax. 1.} & P(varphi) land Box; forall x [varphi(x) rightarrow psi(x)] rightarrow P(psi)\

mbox{Ax. 2.} & P(neg varphi) leftrightarrow neg P(varphi)\

mbox{Th. 1.} & P(varphi) rightarrow Diamond; exists x; [varphi(x)]\

mbox{Df. 1.} & G(x) iff forall varphi[P(varphi) rightarrow varphi(x)]\

mbox{Ax. 3.} & P(G)\

mbox{Th. 2.} & Diamond; exists x; G(x)\

mbox{Df. 2.} & varphi;operatorname{ess};x iff varphi(x) land forallpsilbracepsi(x) rightarrow Box; forall x[varphi(x) rightarrow psi(x)]rbrace\

mbox{Ax. 4.} & P(varphi) rightarrow Box; P(varphi)\

mbox{Th. 3.} & G(x) rightarrow G;operatorname{ess};x\

mbox{Df. 3.} & E(x) iff forall varphi[varphi;operatorname{ess};x rightarrow Box; exists x; varphi(x)]\

mbox{Ax. 5.} & P(E)\

mbox{Th. 4.} & Box; exists x; G(x)

end{array}

*This theory was created by Kurt Gödel, widely regarded as the best logician in the 20th century. He never published it, because he didn’t want people to think that he believed in God, he was just demonstrating how symbolic logic could be used. He was also a personal friend of Albert Einstein. Gödel starved himself to death because he kept having paranoid fantasies of being poisoned. The only person he trusted to taste his food was his wife, but she was in hospital for a time.

:”Tangent: Stephen was in the film I.Q., where Lou Jacobi played Gödel and Walter Matthau played Einstein. Matthau taught Stephen how to gamble.”

;General Ignorance:

:”Tangent: When Greece won UEFA Euro 2004, a pub near where Alan lived made a homemade blue plaque, which said that a Greek person ran naked down the New North Road to celebrate Greece’s victory.”

:Bonus: Because Alan was in last place, Stephen gave him the chance to switch his points with that of the audience (in a reference to the first question), if he could say what the audience got their 10 points for. Unfortunately, he forgot that it was the Oscar Deutsch/Odeon question.

Episode 15 “Green”

;Broadcast date:

*26 March 2010

;Recording date:

*22 May 2009

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (−7 points)

*Bill Bailey (Winner with −5 points)

*Danny Baker (−13 points)

*Jeremy Clarkson (−27 points)

;Notes:

*The projection screen behind Davies was switched off during recording “to save electricity”, so he and Bailey moved to the other side of the studio for the rest of the recording. This was done because the screen began to lose colour and flicker during the recording and couldn’t be fixed. The decision was made by Clarkson, as an off the cuff comment to move to one screen. This was then re-filmed for broadcast.

;Buzzers:

*As part of the episode’s theme of going green, the buzzers were disconnected and the contestants had a selection of small wind instruments.

* Bill – Plays a scale on a swanee whistle

* Danny – Imitates a cuckoo call

* Jeremy – Blows hard, causing it to emit a piercing, high-pitched sound

* Alan – A duck call

;Topics:

*The colour of Frankenstein was normal human colour, because Frankenstein was the baron, not the monster in the novel, Frankenstein. (Forfeit: Green)

*The colour of Frankenstein’s monster was yellow according to the description in the novel by Mary Shelley. In the book, he is actually given the name, Adam, as in the first man of the same name. (Forfeit: Green)

*The best place to mine for gold in the United Kingdom is in discarded mobile phones. Out of every ton of ore that is mined, only 5 grams of it is gold, whereas a ton of mobile phones contains 150& grams of gold, 300 kilograms of copper and 3 kilograms of silver. 1.5 million mobile phones are chucked away in the UK every year. Japan has cornered the market in eco-recycling, and even manages to get gold out of sewage.

:”Tangent: All the gold ever mined in human history would form a cube square.”

:”Tangent: Platinum might also be recovered from roads using E. coli (not this E. coli), as it is given off by catalytic converters. They’re 100 times more platinum enriched, than before catalytic converters existed.”

*From 1836 to 1940, the Belville family of London sold time. Taking a Arnold chronometer set to the correct time at Royal Observatory, Greenwich they went around London resetting clocks in offices and homes for a fee.

:”Tangent: A discussion of the 24-hour clock. Bill suggests that decimal time would be more logical. Alan counters that it would mean no more elevenses.”

:”Tangent: Originally, the Babylonians devised a 12-hour clock, because they had a base-12 counting system.”

*It is all time and no time at the South Pole, as the time zones converge there, though for practical purposes the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station uses New Zealand Standard Time (not GMT as stated by Stephen).

:”Tangent: Jeremy regrets that at the North Magnetic Pole the compass doesn’t spin round.”

*According to the Vegetarian Society, vegetarians gain their name from the Latin word “vegetus”, meaning “whole”, “sound”, “fresh” or “lively”. (Forfeit: They Only Eat Vegetables)

*Name a famous vegetarian? (Forfeit: Hitler)

:”Tangent: The possibility of replacing a tortoise’s legs with wheels and motorizing it.”

*A cow magnet collects stray metal objects that the animal has swallowed, allowing them to be digested.

:”Tangent: Attacks on people by cows.”

*Lord Hardwicke’s Marriage Act of 1753 was good for Scotland, as it did not apply there, leading to a rash of elopements to Gretna Green. Up until 1753, you didn’t need permission from your parents to marry, you only had to not be married, the girl must be over 12 years old, the boy over 14 years old, and you must not be brother and sister. You didn’t even need a witness. The reason everyone went to Gretna Green, was because it was the nearest place on the main road to Edinburgh to have one of these “anvil marriages”, which were so called because you didn’t need a priest or mayor to do it, so they were mainly done by blacksmiths. 5,000 weddings a year are still performed in Gretna Green.

:At this point, Jeremy asks Stephen to turn off the screen behind Alan & Bill, so Alan & Bill move over to the other side of the set, next to Danny & Jeremy.

*Colonel Bogey went one over par in 1925 when the British adopted the American meaning of the term, as previously “bogey” meant “par” in the UK. In America, the word “bogey” referred to “Mr. Bogey”, which was the score he got doing a round of golf, so if you did worse than that you were “one over bogey”. But the Americans didn’t like the idea of a “Mr. Bogey”, so they changed it to “Colonel Bogey”. Then, when they went over to British golf courses, they found them much easier, so the British altered the system to match the Americans.

;General Ignorance:

*If you’re on a beach with a screwdriver in one hand, and a Rusty Nail in the other, a mosquito will want to avoid the person holding the drinks and go for the drinks. Male mosquitos do not drink blood, but feed on nectar and fruit juice. Females also feed on nectar, but require blood for the development of eggs. Female mosquitoes are attracted by moisture, lactic acid, carbon dioxide, body heat and movement.

:”Tangent: Other well-known cocktails include the Manhattan, which is made of whisky, vermouth and bitters. A Cuba Libre is rum and coke. A Daiquiri (invented in the is Floridita bar in Havana, Cuba) is rum, lime juice and sugar. A Margarita has salt on the edge of the glass, and is mainly gin. Sex on the Beach is vodka, peach schnapps, orange juice and cranberry juice.”

*Wind turbines kill bats because the change of pressure damages their lungs if they fly too close, because like humans and other mammals, their lungs are soft, unlike birds, so their capillaries burst and they die. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds recently put out a report that showed that turbines can’t kill birds. Jeremy also claims that it could do harm to goats, because a man in Taiwan lost 400 of them, because they couldn’t sleep next to the turbine. (Forfeit: Kill Birds)

Episode 16 “Geometry”

;Broadcast date:

*2 April 2010

;Recording date:

*2 June 2009

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (Winner with 21 points)

*Rob Brydon (2 points)

*David Mitchell (4 points)

*Johnny Vegas (2 points)

;Notes:

*This is the first regular edition of QI to not have the klaxon forfeit being set off.

;Buzzers:

*Rob — ”Bermuda Triangle” by Barry Manilow

*Johnny — ”(You’re So Square) Baby I Don’t Care” by Elvis Presley

*David — ”The Windmills of Your Mind” by Sting

*Alan — The Wheels on the Bus

;Topics:

*People who wear striped clothing look slimmer if the stripes are horizontal, not vertical, as many people think. It was even said that a female prisoner asked to have vertical stripes on her uniform to make her look slimmer. It was discovered after research by Dr. Peter Thompson of the University of York.

:”Tangent: David’s rant about people going on about wearing striped clothing.”

*The columns around the Parthenon look straight because they are actually straight. It was originally believed to be an optical illusion due to a thing called entasis, which is where if a column is exactly straight, it looks big from a distance, but it looks spindly if it bows inwards. So, if you make it bow outwards, it looks straight. But, that’s what they didn’t do. It is also believed that entasis is used on some buildings nowadays to give them more support, but it certainly doesn’t exist in the Parthenon.

:”Tangent: Johnny’s rant at Stephen giving ridiculously easy questions.”

:”Tangent: This research was also done by Dr. Peter Thompson, who happens to be in the audience at this recording, and “upsets” Johnny by saying that despite the fact that Johnny is wearing horizontal stripes, he doesn’t look too thin.

*The panelists are shown 2 shapes; a splodgy shape and a spiky shape. One is called “kiki” and the other is called “bouba”. Neither of the shapes are associated with the names, but the psychologist Wolfgang Köhler devised this test to see what people who spoke different languages thought when they heard the words “kiki” and “bouba”, and everyone said that “kiki” sounded like the spiky one and “bouba” sounded like the splodgy one, a sort of onomatopoeia, as it were.

:”Tangent: In the Huambisa language of South America, 98% of people who didn’t speak it, when hearing the words “chunchuikit” and “mauts”, and asked which was a bird, and which was a fish, thought that “chunchuikit” was a bird and “mauts” was a fish.”

:”Tangent: Rob claims that the Welsh for carrot is “moron” (which, in fact, it is), which he thinks is wrong, but then Stephen informs him that “moron” comes from the Greek for “blunt”, hence “oxymoron” means “sharp blunt”.”

*The most successful textbook of all time is Euclid’s Elements. Euclid’s teachings in the book are mostly about planes and conic sections and all the forms of circles and squares, which basically showed how geometry works, which came in very handy for physics and engineering. Many mathematicians believe it to be the most beautiful of all mathematics textbooks. John Dee, the court magician to Queen Elizabeth I, was responsible for bringing Euclid to the attention of the world. He was also a spy and used 007 as a cipher. Alan got 7 points for knowing that piece of information.

*The best place to go to look into the future is on the International Date Line. If you’re to the left of the line, you’re ahead in time compared to when you’re on the right of the line. Stephen lost a day when he flew from Los Angeles to Sydney recently. David then claims that if you did that every day, you’d theoretically live twice as long as everyone else, because the trip lasted one day, but in terms of actual time, it took 2 days. The literal best place to go is the Diomede Islands in the Bering Strait. Big Diomede Island is on the left of the line and Little Diomede Island is to the right of the line, so if you look at Big Diomede from Little Diomede, you are looking into the future.

:”Tangent: The main reason why the International Date Line is squiggly and the Greenwich Meridian is straight, is because that the Date Line tries not to got through land, so it goes round island territories.”

*The panellists are shown this puzzle and are asked where the missing square is. The answer is that the missing piece was created because the hypotenuse of the triangles are curved, not straight. The small triangle has a ratio of 5:2 and the big triangle has a ratio of 8:3, so neither triangle is similar. One has a slightly dipped line, the other has a slightly “up” line. The eye assumes they’re straight, but they aren’t. It’s known as Curry’s paradox.

;General Ignorance:

*The best place to punch a shark is in the eye or the gill, not the nose, as many people think, although it is true of dogs though. Interestingly, more people in the world are bitten by New Yorkers than by sharks. 81% of people who are bitten by sharks suffered minor injuries, although people bitten by humans could get rabies or other diseases. As mentioned in QI’s A series, more people are killed by toilets than by sharks every year. 120 million sharks are killed by humans every year, mainly just for their fins, so shark fin soup can be produced, which according to Stephen is very tasteless, and chicken stock is used to give it flavour.

:”Tangent: Despite looking evil and hideous to us, sharks have more reason to fear humans, than the other way round. Their teeth structure is also amazing, considering that they point backwards and every time one falls out, one from the row behind moves forward.”

*An octopus has 2 legs, or to be more specific, they use 2 arms while moving underwater, as sort of ambulatory gait, and the other 4 are used for holding food, so it could be said that they have 6 arms and 2 legs.

*Because of libration, you can see 59% of the Moon from the Earth. Libration is the sort of ”jiggling effect” you get when you see the Moon. Obviously, when there are different phases of the Moon, you see less.

Episode 17 “Compilation Part 1″

;Broadcast Date:

*5 April 2010

;Theme:

*A clip show using unbroadcast material from Series G.

Episode 18 “Compilation Part 2″

;Broadcast Date:

*16 April 2010

;Theme:

*A clip show using unbroadcast material from Series G.

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

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Player creation and character classes

Although most of the game’s screen shots and concept art show the same “default” male Commander Shepard, it is possible for the player to fully customize his or her character’s appearance, sex, abilities and even military background.

The game includes six character classes. Each class contains several “talents”; as each talent is leveled, the character either gains stats (extra health, stamina, etc), unlocks new abilities (for example leveling the Shotgun talent unlocks the “Carnage” ability, which allows the character to fire a concentrated explosive blast from the shotgun), or unlocks other talents. Each class also possesses a unique talent with the same name as its respective class; the characters may also have talents tied to their background. Characters who have reached level 20 will unlock a “Rogue VI” side-mission on Luna (Earth’s moon) in the Sol System, upon the completion of which the player is allowed to choose a new specialist class, which in turn unlocks a new talent bar. The specialist class the character is offered depends on the base class.

When characters are first created, six classes are available: Soldier, Engineer, Adept, Infiltrator, Sentinel, and Vanguard. Soldiers are the most skilled with weaponry, Engineers make the most use of the omni-tool and tech-abilities, and Adepts are the best at using biotic powers. The other three classes are combinations of the first three: Infiltrators are a combination of Soldiers and Engineers, Sentinels are a combination of Engineers and Adepts, and Vanguards are a combination of Soldiers and Adepts. While the combination classes don’t have the focus of the main classes, they are versatile and offer unique gameplay opportunities. (Vanguards, for example, have access to half of the soldier skills and half of the Adept skills).

Players also have some control over their character’s backstory. They are able to choose to have been either a “spacer” (born and bred in space), a “colonist” (born on one of Earth’s extrasolar colonies), or “Earthborn” (hailing from the streets of one of Earth’s cities). They also choose whether they have been the sole survivor of a terrible battle, a war hero, or a ruthless soldier. These backgrounds have only a small effect in the game, although many characters will reference the player’s chosen background when talking to Commander Shepard. The character’s background can also affect whether some sidequests are available or not. With only a few exceptions, the character’s background does not directly affect the player’s dialogue choices.

Dialogue and morality

Previous BioWare titles such as ”Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic” and ”Jade Empire” employed a conversation system where the player chose from several responses after non-player characters (NPCs) had finished speaking. ”Mass Effect” has a system in which responses to NPCs are displayed as the general tone of the message, rather than a word-for-word transcription of the message (e.g., if the player chooses “You’re worrying too much,” Shepard might actually say, “You always expect the worst”).

A radial command menu, divided into six equal sections like a pie chart, is shown at the bottom of the screen when a conversation is initiated. Each section is assigned a brief description of the response’s intent, usually a short phrase such as “What’s going on?” The response is selected by moving the analog stick (or the mouse in the Windows version) in the direction of the desired response on the circle and pressing a button. The command menu is organized such that each section is assigned a particular inclination (being nice, aggressive, etc.), so that after players have become comfortable with the system they no longer have to read the menu, and are able to respond appropriately, immediately, if desired. BioWare intended the system to allow the game to be more cinematic and free players from reading large amounts of dialogue, as would be required with the commonly used system of simply having the player choose from complete, sometimes long, written statements.

Dialogue is central to the game’s morality system. The side story and the number of character interaction choices in ”Mass Effect” are affected by the player’s chosen morality. Unlike in BioWare’s previous titles, emphasis on becoming a pure “good” or pure “evil” character is lessened. The overall story is also affected by the player’s personal choices. Project Director Casey Hudson of BioWare has said “[the player's] style of play throughout the game will result in diverging endings that determine the fate of humanity itself,” affecting not only the first installment, but also the planned sequels. Morality is mostly determined by the player’s choices during conversations.

Hudson has further stated that instead of the “good” and “evil” approach that past BioWare games have taken, ”Mass Effect” morality is based on giving points as a “Paragon” for choosing more polite and professional military actions, or as a “Renegade” for taking a more ruthless and take-no-prisoners approach. “Paragon” and “Renegade” points are scored on two separate scales (i.e. taking a “Paragon” option does not negate a past “Renegade” option), as opposed to other BioWare titles such as ”Knights of the Old Republic” in which morality points were scored on a single scale so that making a “Light Side” choice negated the morality change characters underwent for making a “Dark Side” choice. NPCs react differently to a character depending on their past morality choices.

Combat and abilities

Combat in ”Mass Effect” takes place in real time, but the player can pause at any time to change the squad’s weapons, select different abilities for the squad members to use, or to give general squad orders. The player and his allies use firearms (modifiable with various upgrades throughout the game), Tech abilities (to interfere with enemy equipment and abilities), and biotics (similar to magical attacks or Force powers in other games) to fight their enemies. Players directly control their character’s actions as well as their squadmates’ attacks, but cannot take direct command of their squadmates. They can, however, issue commands using the directional pad, allowing the player to tell other characters to get behind cover, regroup, attack a specific target, or to scout ahead. Weapons and abilities of the squad members are selected via the use of two “wheel” interfaces: one for the weapons at the squad’s disposal, and the other listing the available powers of each squad member and their respective recharge times. The command interface was reworked for the Windows version into displays on either side of the HUD for each squad member.

The abilities and special powers that characters have at their disposal are determined by the skill sets assigned to them at the beginning of the game and how further earned experience points have been allotted since then. Some special abilities include a biotic lift that can be used to pick up objects and enemies, and a tech ability that reduces the shields of enemies. Two other abilities, Charm and Intimidate, are dependent on points, storyline progression, and the amount of Paragon or Renegade points the player attains; raising the levels of these will not unlock any attacks, but instead open new dialogue options within the game.

Special abilities that the player can use in the game are tech abilities and biotics. Tech abilities are support powers used against enemy weapons and technology, as well as biotics. They are activated through the omni-tool, which three of the main classes can use: Engineers, Infiltrators, and Sentinels. These abilities include destroying enemy shields, sabotaging enemy weaponry, and hacking robotic enemies to fire on their own squad. Tech abilities also have passive uses, such as the Electronics talent, which allows the party to open locked crates or salvage components from wrecks. Biotics are powers accessed by the characters using implants that enhance natural abilities to manipulate dark energy, with mass effect fields. These abilities include hurling enemies around with the mind, raising shields that are resistant to enemy fire but still allow the player to fire through them, and creating small singularities that cause enemies and destructible parts of the environment to swirl about. Three of the main character classes are able to use these powers: Adepts (the main biotics class), Vanguards, and Sentinels.

Weapons and equipment

”Mass Effect” features four classes of conventional firearms (pistols, shotguns, assault rifles, and sniper rifles) and grenades, along with a variety of weapon and armor upgrades. The player can pause the game at any time and change the equipment used by the members of the party. This is a major strategic aspect of the gameplay, as choosing the correct equipment can mean the difference between a quick victory and defeat. Equipped items are visible on the characters; the armors have different appearances and all weapons fold up into compact versions that are stored on the character’s back. Weapons can be retrieved by using a weapon wheel similar to the talent wheel.

Ammunition is unlimited; instead of needing to reload, a weapon will build up heat until it overheats, and cannot fire until it has sufficiently cooled down. In-game, the reasoning for this is that weapons are loaded with “blocks” of ammunition material, and each round fired is sheared off from this central supply of ammunition. The rounds themselves are described as being the size of a “grain of sand” and are launched through mass accelerator technology at extremely high speeds. Firing a weapon continuously or using a weapon that one is untrained with will result in decreased accuracy, represented by an expanding targeting reticle. The more Talent points that are spent on a weapon type, the greater the weapon type’s accuracy and damage.

The characters wear dual layer hardsuits which serve as combat and EVA suits. There are three classifications of hardsuits: light, medium, and heavy armor. These suits provide a limitless supply of oxygen, as well as temporary protection from many planetary hazards like heat and radiation. Heavier suits are vulnerable to fewer hazards, but cause characters to move slower. The suits also come equipped with kinetic barriers, which act as shields against incoming fire. Aside from Liara, who is able to wear human armor, each non-human character requires a different type of armor corresponding to their race. Biotic- or tech-wielding characters can also upgrade their biotic amps or omni-tools to give bonuses to their attacks or reduce their cooldown periods.

The equipment found by the player generally increases in both stats and cost as the player levels up, denoted by a class marking from I to X. Higher class weapons and armor also have more upgrade slots than their lower-class counterparts. Upgrades found in the game fall into one of four categories: weapon upgrades, armor upgrades, ammo upgrades, and grenade upgrades. Weapon and armor upgrades add to certain stats of the item they are put in, such as accuracy or shields, while ammo and grenade upgrades grant such things as fire damage or reduced speed when shot or thrown at enemies.

Travel

The SSV ”Normandy”, the player character’s ship, and a technological marvel in the setting of the game, serves as the primary mode of transportation.

Since the game spans the galaxy, many trips have to be made from planet to planet. Players choose destinations by selecting them through a galactic map of the Milky Way. The galaxy is divided into numerous levels of organization, shrinking in scale from star clusters, to star systems, and finally down to planets.

Travel through the ”Mass Effect” universe is aided through the use of Mass Relays, which are technological artifacts that are capable of transporting vessels nearly instantaneously between star clusters and systems, and resemble a gimbal lock having two gimbals. There are two types of Mass Relays: primary and secondary. Primary relays are linked with a twin, and so have a single line of travel, but can span as many as a hundred thousand light years, according to the game’s Codex. Secondary relays are omnidirectional and can send ships to any relay within its limited range of about a hundred light years.

Once the player decides on a system to visit, several options are available. Some planets are simply there to complete the system. Others can only be surveyed for valuable materials. Some astral bodies such as asteroids, moons, and small space freighters are also available for survey. Finally, some planets can be landed on and explored. The player can move about on foot or using an all-terrain armored personnel carrier called the M35 Mako. Some segments of the game feature combat requiring the use of this vehicle. Most main story segments (and many side missions) are geared toward on-foot shooter action.

Although the game follows a main story, ”Mass Effect” includes a large number of side missions and free-roam “uncharted worlds” that can be reached by selecting them through the galactic map. Virtually every world is part of a side mission, whether the player has uncovered the mission or not. Normally, Shepard will be contacted as a solar system is selected to be briefed on the side mission by Admiral Hackett, of the Alliance Fifth Fleet, if the system contains a side mission that’s of direct interest to the Alliance military.

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

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The first series consists of 12 episodes. Except for the Christmas special, all of them are composed mainly of questions on topics beginning with A. No episode pays specific attention to one theme (again, save for the Christmas special). The titles presented below have been retrospectively applied. Besides the two regulars, Stephen Fry and Alan Davies, series A saw the ”QI” debuts of Clive Anderson, Bill Bailey, Danny Baker, Jo Brand, Gyles Brandreth, Rob Brydon, Jimmy Carr, Rich Hall, Jeremy Hardy, Phill Jupitus, Sean Lock, John Sessions and Linda Smith, as well as the only appearances (as of the series H recordings) of Jackie Clune, Howard Goodall, Dave Gorman, Richard E. Grant, Hugh Laurie, Julia Morris, Peter Serafinowicz and Meera Syal.

Episode 1 “Adam”

;Broadcast date:

*11 September 2003 (BBC Two)

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (-5 points)

*Danny Baker (winner with 18 points)

*Hugh Laurie (11 points)

*John Sessions (10 points)

;Buzzers:

* Danny& — A klaxon horn

* John& — A repeating-style electric doorbell

* Hugh& — A typical buzzer noise

* Alan& — A baaing sheep

;Topics:

:”Tangent: Woody Allen famously said, “How can I believe in God when, just last week, I got my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter?” and Carrie Snow said “If God was a woman, sperm would taste of chocolate.””

:”Tangent: Geneticists believe that every woman has a single common ancestor born 150,000 years ago. Scientists call her “Eve” and every man has a common ancestor called “Adam”, but it’s also revealed that Adam was born 80,000 years after Eve.”

*Adam’s navel and the Archbishop of Canterbury’s left ear are both purely decorative. Adam couldn’t have had a navel, because he was created, not born, so there would be no umbilical cord. The Archbishop of Canterbury was born deaf in the left ear, so it has no function. The Creation of Adam was painted by Michelangelo, who John informed the panellists was born in 1475 and died in 1564.

:”Tangent: John then reveals the birth and death dates of Bruckner and Mahler.”

:”Tangent: According to Rita Mae Brown, if Michelangelo was heterosexual, the Sistine Chapel would have been painted basic white and with a roller.”

*God allowed Noah to eat animals, a right he had previously denied to Adam. Previously, they were vegetarians and told by God to just eat fruit and vegetables only. Some theological authorities believe that the “forbidden fruit” that was eaten in the Garden of Eden, which isn’t specified in the Bible, is now believed, contrary to popular belief, to be a banana, not an apple.

*Christopher Plummer once said of Julie Andrews that working with her was like being hit on the head with a Valentine card.

*Andrew Graham-Dixon discovered that Caravaggio, who died in 1610, accidentally killed Ranuccio Tomassoni on a tennis court… he was merely attempting to cut off his testicles. (Forfeit: New balls, please)

:”Tangent: Sheep are castrated without breaking the skin of the scrotum.”

:”Tangent: Discussion of Prince Albert’s libido and the Prince Albert piercing. Stephen had to tell Prince Charles what a “Prince Albert” was.”

*”Finocchio” (fennel) is Italian street slang for a homosexual.

*If a Burmese man said that “your department store is open, even on weekends”, it means that your flies are open. This was revealed in Andrew Marshall’s writings on Burma in ”The Trouser People” which describe Burmese idioms and quote from the diary of Victorian adventurer Sir George Scott.

:”Tangent: Burma also means “Be Upstairs Ready My Angel”. John gets confused between the acronyms “NOTLOB” & “NORWICH” (Nickers Off Ready When I Come Home).”

:”Tangent: After weeks of being ignored on tour, Clive Morton plucked up the courage to knock on John Gielgud’s door. After Gielgud opened it he said “Thank God it’s you!, for one dreadful moment, I thought it was going to be that ghastly bore Clive Morton.””

*Edward Woodward has four ‘d’s in his name to prevent it becoming ‘Ewar Woowar’.

:”Tangent: Kiwifruit use up more than their own weight in aviation fuel getting from New Zealand to Europe.”

:”Tangent: When Sir John Gielgud first heard of the name “Edward Woodward”, he thought it sounded like a fart in a bath.”

*Actor John Barrymore regretted not being able to see himself perform on stage. He also famously said “Love is the delightful interval between meeting a beautiful girl and discovering that she looks like a haddock.”

:”Tangent: A drunken Peter O’Toole once went to see a play, having forgotten that he was supposed to be in it.”

*Young Giant Anteaters indulge in ‘bluff charging’, when they jump up and down like a cat and raise one front foot and hop menacingly side-to-side with all the fury of a clogged drain.

*Anteaters have sixteen-inch (406& mm) tongues, but have mouths as narrow as a pencil.

:”Tangent: The average graphite pencil can write for thirty-five miles.”

:”Tangent: Alan’s friend at a pub who said to any girl he liked the look of “I’ve got a nine inch (229 mm) tongue and I can breathe through my ears.””

*A Giant Anteater’s claws are sharp enough to eviscerate a human.

*Dwarf anteaters are the size of squirrels and are a delicacy in parts of South America.

:”Tangent: In a letter to “The Daily Telegraph”, someone suggested that grilled squirrels should have a warning: “May Contain Nuts”.”

;General Ignorance:

*The country with the highest suicide rate is Lithuania (forfeit: Sweden). It has 52 suicides per 100,000, which is more than 13 times higher than the United States and 6½ times higher than Britain.

:”Tangent: That a ship’s captain can marry people and that lemmings jump over cliffs, are both urban myths concocted by the film industry.

*Caravaggio’s real name was Michelangelo. He took the name Caravaggio, because his father, Fermo Merisi, was the chief architect to the Marchese of Caravaggio. Derek Jarman famously made a film about Caravaggio.

*The steam engine was invented by Hero of Alexandria, (”this is debatable”) and was named the aeolipile. The railway was invented seven hundred years earlier by Periander of Corinth. The modern steam engine was invented by Richard Trevithick. When Stephenson’s Rocket was introduced, people were concerned that travelling at such high speeds could cause irreparable brain damage, so fences were erected so people wouldn’t hallucinate at the “terrible sight”.

:”Tangent: The Romans believed that buggery caused earthquakes.”

*The twenty-third tallest tree in the world is a Giant sequoia called ‘Adam’. It’s one of the 30 tallest trees found in the Giant Forest in California.

Episode 2 “Astronomy”

;Broadcast date:

*18 September 2003 (BBC Two)

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (-30 points)

*Bill Bailey (5 points)

*Rich Hall (Joint Winner with 20 points)

*Jeremy Hardy (Joint Winner with 20 points)

;Buzzers:

*Rich& — A clock bonging

*Jeremy& — A cannon firing

*Bill& — A lion growling

*Alan& — A mouse squeaking

;Topics:

:”Tangent: The number of people killed by sharks since records began (roughly 2,200) is equal to just five per cent of the number of toilet-related injuries in the USA in 1996. The total number of people injured by toilets was 43,687.”

*Both tigers and weasels make a ‘fuff’ sound when they attack. Contrary to popular belief, tigers never roar when they attack, they only roar to tell other tigers where they are. They are mainly solitary animals, who only come together when mating.

:”Tangent: The national animal of Croatia is the weasel.”

*The best way to escape from a polar bear is to remove one’s clothing, leaving items of clothing on the ground while backing away. Polar bears can run at 30 mph and have clear fur, but look white, because the fur reflects all light, and thus appears white, not because it reflects the snow, as Alan incorrectly stated.

:”Tangent: Animals don’t follow the line of a finger like humans do. If you point at something, the animal will just look at the end of your finger.”

*Rather than using a paper clip, a crocodile clip, a paper bag or a handbag, an alligator can be rendered helpless by placing a rubber band over its jaws. The muscles that are used to close the jaws add to a force of several tonnes per square inch, but the ones that open them are so weak, it can be stopped just by putting a rubber band over its mouth. Bill mistakenly claims that alligators have nipples, which is false, because they aren’t mammals.

:”Tangent: Discussion about how most vicious beasts can be subdued by stupid things.”

:”Tangent: Story from The Daily Telegraph about a passing motorist in Dorking, Surrey seeing a horse tied to a post. The horse was tied so close to the post that it couldn’t eat the grass below. It was also missing an ear and a back leg. It was also made of wood, because it was an advertisement for a local riding school.”

:”Tangent: According to Douglas Adams’ book, ”The Restaurant at the End of the Universe”, there is a theory that if anyone discovers what the universe is here for, it will be instantly replaced with something more bizarre and inexplicable. Another theory suggests this has already happened.”

*The Earth has two moons (forfeit: one). Cruithne, discovered in 1997, is a asteroid sometimes described as Earth’s second moon. Cruithne orbits the Earth every 770 years. The name “Cruithne” has a Celtic derivation.

*Ninety per cent of the Universe is unaccounted for; it is believed to be made of dark matter, which is invisible. Even the Astronomer Royal, Sir Martin Rees said it was embarrassing that 90% was unaccounted for.

:”Tangent: Claims that Ikea stores have no windows to decrease customers’ awareness of the passage of time.”

:”Tangent: Stephen Hawking’s theory that the universe is saddle-shaped.”

*The colour of the Universe is beige. In 2002, after observing the light from over 200,000 galaxies, American scientists described the colour as pale green, rather than black with white bits, as we’d see it. Using the Dulux paint range, the colour was a mixture of Mexican Mint, Jade Cluster and Shangri-La Silk. They then had to admit that they got it wrong and the colour was a taupe-beige colour.

:”Tangent: Stephen’s skin shade is actually called “Gay Whisper”.”

*There are eight planets in the Solar System (forfeit: nine). Pluto, discovered by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930, does not meet the usual criteria for classification as a planet (although, at the time of broadcast, the International Astronomical Union still considered Pluto to be a planet). If Pluto were defined as a planet by any consistent definition, then all of the asteroids could be counted as planets as well. As of the year 2000, 71,788 were discovered with more discovered every year. Pluto is only twice as big as the biggest asteroid, Ceres, and it’s also smaller than seven of the eight planets’ moons.

:”Tangent: William James’ exchange with a woman who believed the Earth was balanced on top of a giant turtle.”

;General Ignorance:

*Krung Thep (forfeit: Bangkok) is the proper name for the capital of Thailand. Krung Thep roughly translates as ‘City of Angels’, like Los Angeles. The ceremonial full name for Krung Thep is the longest place name in the world. Los Angeles is also an abbreviation. Only ignorant foreigners call Krung Thep, “Bangkok”.

*Brides do not walk down the aisle of a church; they walk down the central passageway. The aisle is down the side of the church.

*The earliest known soup is made from hippopotamus.

*No man-made objects (forfeit: Great Wall of China) can be seen from the Moon with the naked eye. Even the continents are hard to make out as well. (Rich asked “Which moon are we talking about?)

Episode 3 “Aquatic Animals”

;Broadcast date:

*25 September 2003 (BBC Two)

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (-20 points)

*Clive Anderson (winner with 26 points)

*Bill Bailey (10 points)

*Meera Syal (19 points)

;Buzzers:

* Meera, Clive, Bill& — Three progressively lower-pitched sets of judges’ gavels

* Alan& — A bouncing ping-pong ball

;Topics:

*The longest animal in the world is the Lion’s mane jellyfish (forfeit: blue whale), as described in the Sherlock Holmes story, ”The Adventure of the Lion’s Mane.” Its main body or “bell” is only long, but its tentacles can stretch for . Its sting is only occasionally fatal.

(This was later corrected in Episode 10 of series C; the actual longest animal in the world is the Bootlace worm.)

:”Tangent: John Major’s Lord Chancellor, Lord Mackay of Clashfern and his apparent meanness with honey.”

*Blue Whales have small throats and can swallow nothing larger than a grapefruit. Their diet consists of eating 3 tonnes of krill every day. Their penis is long and their testicles contain 7 gallons each, but they only weigh 22 lbs, which in equivalent terms, would make human’s testicles weigh the same as a broad bean.

*An octopus can be taught to unscrew the lids of jars and bottles. Depending on how tough it is to open, it can take between a few seconds to an hour, but they have poor memories, so they have to be taught every day. Octopus’s ink is used to make risotto, they mate with their 3rd right arm and have 3 hearts.

*The continent of Antarctica has six seas and no bees. The seas that border it are the Ross Sea, the Davis Sea, the Weddell Sea, the Bellingshausen Sea, the Lazarev Sea and the Amundsen Sea.

:”Tangent: The origin of the word for the “order of bees” (Hymenoptera) means wedding in Ancient Greek.”

*AmIAnnoying.com ranks Clive Anderson as seventeen percent less annoying than Antarctica. Anderson is the 13th commonest surname in the English-speaking world. Unlike Hans Christian Andersen, Pamela Anderson and Gillian Anderson, he is not a vegetarian.

*John Henry Anderson, the Great Wizard of the North, was the first magician to pull a rabbit out of a hat. His other tricks include the “Inexhaustible Bottle”, where he was able to produce any drink requested by an audience member and the “Great Gun Trick”, where he seemingly caught a bullet being fired by a musket. Anderson left pats of butter with a stamp saying “Anderson Is Here” in hotels.

*Both Hans Christian Andersen and Joseph Stalin were the sons of a cobbler and a washerwoman. Andersen suffered from dyslexia, agoraphobia, was a vegetarian (as mentioned earlier), was gay (mainly based on the gay parable in “The Ugly Duckling”). Charles Dickens hated being around him and at one time Andersen refused to leave. He was buried next to a friend he fell in love with and the friend’s wife, before it was removed. He also feared being burned or buried alive.

:”Tangent: Hans Christian Andersen is ranked less annoying than Clive Anderson on AmIAnnoying.com.”

;General Ignorance:

*In Greek mythology, Atlas was punished by Zeus and was forced to carry the sky (forfeit: the world). He is often pictured carrying the globe in atlases made by the Flemish cartographer Mercator, that became known as “Mercator’s Atlas” and the name stuck along with the image.

*Over fifty percent of the world’s oxygen is provided by algae (forfeit: trees). It’s believed that up to ninety percent might be supplied by it. Mature trees actually give off less oxygen than they consume.

*The driest place on Earth is the Dry Valleys Region of Antarctica (forfeit: Sahara Desert). Even though Antarctica is virtually all ice and snow, the Dry Valleys Region has no ice or snow and hasn’t seen any rain for 2 million years. The second driest place is the Atacama Desert in Chile, which hasn’t seen rain in 400 years.

*The length of a day is not exactly 24 hours. The International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service is responsible for adding on occasional leap seconds.

Episode 4 “Atoms”

;Broadcast date:

*2 October 2003 (BBC Two)

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (-24 points)

*Jo Brand (Winner with 36 points)

*Howard Goodall (13 points)

*Jeremy Hardy (7 points)

;Buzzers:

* Jeremy& — A cannon firing, with a duck quacking

* Howard& — A mandolin being strummed

* Jo& — A cheesy buzzer noise

* Alan& — Call for “Cashier No.4, please”

;Topics:

*The main component of air is nitrogen, which accounts for 78% of air. Only just under 21% is oxygen and 3/100ths of 1% is carbon dioxide. (Forfeit: oxygen, Davies said this and lost 10 points. Anyone who said carbon dioxide would have got a forfeit of -3,000 points, although nobody did.)

:”Tangent: Discussion about nitrogen narcosis, the bends and Alan’s scuba diving.”

*The most boring place in Great Britain is a field outside Ousefleet, near Scunthorpe, according to the 1:50,000 Ordnance Survey map. It is the blankest square kilometre in the country, with only part of an electricity pylon in it. Alan suggested Salisbury Plain, forgetting that Stonehenge is on Salisbury Plain. Alan’s uncle stood on a land mine on Salisbury Plain during his national service.

:”Tangent: Stephen reveals he was touched that one of the Big Brother housemates requested one of his books. Alan suggested that they wanted it because the table was a bit wonky. Stephen also reveals he likes the sound of the narrator when he says “Day Eight”, because of his Geordie accent.”

:”Tangent: Charles Dickens despised Chelmsford, describing it as “the dullest and most stupid spot on the face of the Earth.” He also invented the word ‘boredom’.”

*In 1983, with the aid of a sofa and a hot water bottle, Barbara Cartland wrote 23 novels, which broke the record for the most novels written in one year. She was buried in a cardboard coffin beneath an oak tree planted by Queen Elizabeth I. At her funeral, all the funeral-goers were given a leaf of the tree as an amendment. She also said, “I’ll keep writing until my face falls off”. Clive James once compared Barbara Cartland’s face to two crows that had crashed into the White cliffs of Dover.

*The ozone layer is fifteen miles (24& km) above the Earth’s surface. Ozone smells faintly of geraniums.

*Film critic John Simon described Walter Matthau as resembling “a half-melted rubber bulldog”.

*Atoms contain mostly empty space. Ernest Rutherford described the centre of an atom as “like a few flies in a cathedral”. The simplest atom is hydrogen, which has a nucleus of one proton, surrounded by one electron. If the proton was the size of a drawing pin, the electron would be the size of a pinhead and would be one kilometre away.

:”Tangent: Tmesis, the art of splitting a word in half and inserting another word inside. Examples given were “abso-blooming-lutely”, “sen-fucking-sational” and Jo’s suggestion, “S-cunt-horpe”.”

*A hydrogen atom has more frequencies than a piano has notes. The discoverer of the hydrogen atom and the inventor of the grand piano lived just 3 minutes away from each other in Soho.

;General Ignorance:

*King Henry VIII technically had either three or four wives (forfeit: six), depending on the source. His marriage to Anne of Cleves was annulled, the Pope declared his marriage with Anne Boleyn to be void as he was still married to Catherine of Aragon, and the marriage to Catherine of Aragon was declared void by Henry himself (as the new head of the Church of England) as it was illegal to marry the widow of one’s brother (Catherine had previously been married to Henry’s older brother Arthur). After his death, while being moved to Westminster Abbey, the king’s body swelled in the heat and exploded.

:”Tangent: Hans Holbein the Younger painted various royal portraits. His painting ‘The Ambassadors’ contains the image of a human skull, which can only be seen properly when viewed from an angle.”

*The word silver rhymes with the English word ‘chilver’, which is an ewe lamb. (Forfeit: nothing)

*All diamonds are created beneath the Earth’s surface, and brought to the surface in volcanoes. Only 20 countries in the world make diamonds. South Africa is the fifth biggest behind Australia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Botswana and Russia. Diamonds and graphite are both made of pure carbon, but appear at opposite ends of the Mohs scale of mineral hardness. Diamond has a score of ten, while graphite’s score is around 1.2. (Forfeit: South Africa)

*When travelling through sodium at -270 degrees, light slows to 38 miles per hour. The speed of light is only constant in a vacuum at 186,000 miles per second. Going through diamonds, the speed of light is only 80,000 miles per second.

*A chameleon changes colour depending on its mood, temperature and emotions like fear (forfeit: background). Their eyes can swivel independently, and it was once believed that they lived on air.

Episode 5 “Advertising”

;Broadcast date:

*9 October 2003 (BBC Two)

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (15 points)

*Gyles Brandreth (Winner with 54 points)

*Rob Brydon (17 points)

*Rich Hall (35 points)

;Buzzers:

*Rich& — A ship’s foghorn

*Gyles& — A party popper

*Rob& — The melody of ”Men Of Harlech”, a Welsh anthemic tune

*Alan& — The Forfeit alarm (meaning he lost 10 points before the show had even begun!) Changes to quacking

;Topics:

*Gerber baby food was poorly marketed in Africa, leading customers to believe that it contained babies. (”This is actually untrue”) The tins bore a picture of the baby Ann Turner Cook, later a famous mystery author.

:”Tangent: Strand cigarettes’ “You’re never alone with a Strand” advertising campaign was a spectacular failure. Rich thought that Hitler smoked, which wasn’t true, but he was a vegetarian. ”(That was proved to be false in Series “E”, Episode 7′s vodcast.)” Queen Victoria smoked when in Scotland, in order to keep the midges away from picnics.”

:”Tangent: The chief architect of the London Eye shares a birthday with Gustave Eiffel” (though given the number of iconic landmarks in the world this is scarcely surprising).

*The Toyota MR2 provoked much amusement in France, as “MR2″ in French sounds like ”emmerdeur”, which is French slang for “shit”. The Ford Pinto is equally amusing to Brazilians, as “pinto” is Brazilian slang for a small penis.

*Irish playwright Brendan Behan was asked to devise an advertising slogan for Guinness. He came up with “Guinness makes you drunk.” (Forfeit: “Guinness is good for you”) He is credited with creating “Guinness is good for you”, that was actually written by Dorothy L. Sayers.

:”Tangent: Rich attempts to get points by many methods, such as saying “Venus is made completely out of felt” and “Radish is a meat.”

:”Tangent: Alec Guinness allegedly predicted James Dean’s death.”

*The Ancient Greeks believed that otters killed crocodiles by running into their open mouths and eating their entrails. Like many things said by the Greeks, it isn’t true. ”Raphanizein” was an Ancient Greek punishment for adultery that involved inserting a radish into the anus. In those days, radishes were wider, longer and pointier and were hammered in with a mallet.

*Plato’s real name was Aristocles. Plato is the Greek word for “wide,” and was given to him because of his broad shoulders. He taught Aristotle.

*Aristotle believed that buzzards had three testicles. The taxonomical name for a buzzard is “Buteo buteo”. There is a sub species called a hobby, which is “Sub buteo”. The man who created Subbuteo wanted to call it “The Hobby”, but it was refused, so he named it after the Latin word for “hobby”.”

:”Tangent: Discussion of the (legendary) Pope Joan.”

*The Ancient Greeks used blackberries as a cure for piles.

*Ancient Greeks voted for their leaders until they were invaded by Macedonia in 322 BC. Women didn’t get the vote in Greece until 1952.

:”Tangent: Michael Portillo’s exploits as a young Conservative candidate.

;General Ignorance:

*A centipede has between 30 and 382 legs. None has ever been found with 100 legs. It always has an odd number of pairs of legs. The only exception to this is one found in 1999, which has 48 pairs of legs, the nearest to 100 that has been discovered so far.

*In 1994, 35,000 Americans insured themselves against alien abduction.

*Purple rhymes with ‘hirple’ and ‘curple’ (forfeit: nothing). Hirple means to hobble along, a sort of mix between a walk and a crawl. A curple is the strap that goes under the tail of a horse, which is then attached to the saddle to stop riders slipping forwards.

Episode 6 “Antidotes”

;Broadcast date:

*16 October 2003 (BBC Two)

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (8 points)

*Danny Baker (Winner with 19 points)

*Jo Brand (13 points)

*Howard Goodall (17 points)

;Buzzers:

* Howard& — A typical buzzer noise

* Danny& — A klaxon horn

* Jo& — A repeating-style electric doorbell

* Alan& — A howling wolf

;Topics:

*Danish physicist Niels Bohr hung a horseshoe on his wall as “I understand it brings you luck whether you believe in it or not.” Bohr also said of quantum physics, “If you’re not shocked by it, then you haven’t understood it.”

:”Tangent: Edith Evans purchased a painting by Renoir, and hung it low down behind a curtain simply because “there was a hook” there.”

:”Tangent: Howard reveals the information about a Bronze Age instrument found in a bog in Denmark. (The instrument in question is a lur.)”

:”Tangent: Discussion of the Schrödinger’s cat problem, which Bohr was intricately associated with.”

*Barbara Cartland, when asked whether British class barriers had broken down, replied “Of course they have, or I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to someone like you”. She also invented the aeroplane-towed glider. She also claimed to be haunted by a ghost of a young girl. Then weirdly, excavators came into her house and found a skeleton of a young woman in the walls of the house.

*When asked by a priest if he forgave his enemies, the dying Spanish Captain-General Ramón Blanco y Erenas said “I have no enemies, I’ve had them all shot”.

:”Tangent: Stephen tells about the time he was in a room with Paul Merton & Nicholas Parsons, in which Paul was writing on a piece of paper, in which he revealed he was writing a suicide note and then asked Nicholas to sign it.”

*Pliny the Elder:

**believed that epilepsy could be cured by eating the heart of a black jackass, outside on the second day of the moon. Alternatively you could use lightly poached bear testes, a dried camel brain with honey, or fresh gladiator’s blood. Tegretol is the common cure for epilepsy nowadays.

*:”Tangent: The belief that if you could consume your own elbow, then you will live forever.”

**suggested incontinence could be cured by touching the tips of the genitals with linen or papyrus. Alternatively, drinking a glass of sweet wine mixed with the ash of a pig’s penis, then urinating in your (or your neighbour’s) dog’s bed.

**also suggested haemorrhoids could be cured with a cream made with pig lard and the rust from chariot wheels. Alternatively, swan’s fat or the urine of a female goat.

**thought that headaches were supposedly cured by a fox’s genitals tied to the forehead.

*:”Tangent: New methods for curing people of illnesses include maggots and New Zealand honey.”

*:”Tangent: British bees died out after World War I& – new bees were introduced from Mexico.”

**claimed that choking on a piece of bread could be cured by placing pieces of the same loaf in the ears.

**died investigating the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79. He returned to Pompeii by boat with a pillow tied to his head with a napkin, creating a crash helmet-cum-gas mask combo, but he was suffocated in the fumes.

*Twenty four people every year are murdered by the Swiss Army, due to the relatively free availability of handguns.

:”Tangent: The Swiss have their own navy despite being a landlocked country. Disney has the 4th largest navy in the world, if you go by boats alone.”

:”Tangent: Switzerland has 4 official languages, but they use ”Confoederatio Helvetica” on their stamps.”

*During the Vietnam War, the US Military prevented wounded soldiers from swallowing their tongues by pinning the tongue to their cheeks. More soldiers committed suicide after Vietnam than died in combat.

*Costa Rica has no army, it was disbanded in 1949. The constitution now specifically forbids the country from having an army.

:”Tangent: The French statesman Talleyrand famously said “I’m more afraid of an army of 100 sheep, led by a lion, than of an army of 100 lions led by a sheep.””

*Alsatians are forbidden from serving in the Spanish Army, as they have an IQ of 60: an IQ of 70 is the minimum required.

;General Ignorance:

*The Goliath frog of Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea (the largest frog in the world) is mute (forfeit: “ribbit”). Out of the 4,360 known species of frog, the only frog to go “ribbit” is the Pacific Tree Frog, the species native to Hollywood and thus sampled for use on hundreds of movie soundtracks.

*An acre (forfeit: the Polish Army) is 40 poles long and 4 poles wide.

*The Chicago World’s Fair in 1933 was opened by light from Arcturus, the brightest star in the Northern Hemisphere.

Episode 7 “Arthropods”

;Broadcast date:

*23 October 2003 (BBC Two)

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (0 points)

*Jo Brand (-38 points)

*Jimmy Carr (-1 point)

*Jackie Clune (Winner with 5 points)

;Buzzers:

* Jo, Jimmy, Jackie& — Call for “Cashier No. 1, 2, 3″ respectively

* Alan& — Call about a train delay

;Topics:

*Australia was discovered by the Chinese (forfeit: James Cook). When Cook arrived in 1770, he wasn’t a captain, he was Lieutenant Cook. He wasn’t the first European, as the Dutch had reached it 150 years earlier; he wasn’t even the first Englishman, that was William Dampier in 1688.

*The term Aborigines comes from the Latin meaning “from the origin” and was first used to describe the pre-Roman people. For some unknown reason, the term “Aborigine” has stuck with the Aboriginal Australians, but there are Aboriginal Canadians and you could even call the Native Americans “Aborigines”.

:”Tangent: The scrotum and sperm.”

*The word Kangaroo means horse (forfeit: “I don’t know”) in the Baagandji language of New South Wales. When Cook’s expedition arrived in 1770, the Aboriginal settlers there saw a horse, which they believed was what the English called a kangaroo. There is a story that when the first English settlers arrived, they pointed to a kangaroo and asked “What’s that?” The reply was “kanagaroo” (sic), which means “I don’t know”. That comes from the Guugu Yimithirr language, spoken around Botany Bay and was first heard on Cook’s expedition in 1770.

*Homo sapiens evolved from a common ancestor that hasn’t yet been discovered, otherwise known as the “missing link” (forfeit: apes). Before that, they evolved from squirrel-like tree shrews, before that hedgehogs and before that starfish. Apes also evolved from this same ancestor.

:”Tangent: Jo, Jimmy & Stephen recite bad jungle-related jokes.”

*Tanzania’s Hehe tribe got their name, because it was their war cry. They were also the best tribe to resist colonisation from the Germans.

:”Tangent: Stupid answers given in trivia games.”

*In Swaziland, there is only one museum and it is bad manners to shield your eyes with one hand and it’s forbidden to point at the king’s hut. National service consists of weeding the king’s millet fields for 2 weeks of the year. The penalty for not showing up is a fine of one cow.

*The Speaker of the Swazi Parliament was sacked in June 2000, after he stole a cowpat belonging to the king, Mswati III. He took the item from the Royal Kraal, to make a magic spell to aid the people and the king personally, so he claimed in his defence. The King of Swaziland rules jointly with his mother, the Great She-Elephant and he must be greeted with rapturous admiration whenever he appears.

*Henry VIII wiped his bottom using the hand of the Groom of the Stool. The job was sought after by just about everyone in the Court, mainly for the amount of time spent with the King. Another slightly cushier job was warming his shirt in the morning.

*Arthropods means a creature with jointed legs. There are over 1,000,000 species of arthropod including butterflies, lobsters, woodlice, cicadas, bees, cockroaches, spiders, scorpions, prawns, praying mantises, crabs, beetles, centipedes, millipedes, crayfish, mayflies, mites, ticks, fleas, earwigs and ants.

:”Tangent: The word that takes up the most pages to define in the Oxford English Dictionary is set.”

*The male European earwig has a spare penis. It was discovered by scientists in Tokyo who were looking at two earwigs copulating and they noticed that the male’s penis was left in the female, but they then saw the male grow an instant replacement. The male’s penis is longer than its body.

:”Tangent: Alan’s story from the Internet about a man with two penises, which leads to Jackie’s story about her Australian girlfriend, who when she had a smear test, was told she had two vaginas.”

*The name given to insects with piercing and sucking mouth parts is a bug.

*The highest number of legs seen on a millipede is 710 (forfeit: 1000) on the South African millipede.

;General Ignorance:

*The colour of water is blue (forfeit: colourless).

*More people have been killed by ducks than by atomic bombs, as they were responsible for the 1918 outbreak of the Spanish flu.

*No animals (forfeit: ostrich) bury their head in the sand. If ostriches buried their heads in the sand, they would suffocate like anyone else. This myth was created by Pliny the Elder.

*Rubber boots were invented by Amazonian Indians (forfeit: the Duke of Wellington), who stand knee-deep in liquid latex until it dries up.

:”Tangent: Charles Goodyear with his invention of vulcanised rubber.”

:”Tangent: Stephen’s father’s pronunciation of Volvic and Volvo.”

Episode 8 “Albania”

;Broadcast date:

*30 October 2003 (BBC Two)

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (-30 points)

*Clive Anderson (Winner with 37 points)

*Sean Lock (25 points)

*Linda Smith (30 points)

;Buzzers:

* Clive& — A trumpet fanfare

* Sean& — A ship’s bell

* Linda& — A bicycle bell

* Alan& — A creeking door followed by someone saying “Hello?”

;Topics:

*Elephants can become drunk by eating fruit which ferments in their stomachs.

*James Bond’s Bradford is a cocktail that is shaken, not stirred. A cocktail with two olives in it is called a “Franklin” after Franklin D. Roosevelt. A cocktail with a cocktail onion on a stick is called the “Gibson”. The vesper was invented in ”Casino Royale”, because Bond had to give it a new name, because he put vodka in it, making it strictly not a martini. One of Bond’s best sayings from ”Casino Royale” was “To Bond, the best drink of the day, was the drink he had in his head before the first drink of the day.” The opening line of the book was “Bond lit his eightieth cigarette of the day.”

:”Tangent: A “blowjob” is a type of cocktail, made with either Drambuie or Bailey’s, whipped cream on the top and is served in a shot glass. You are not allowed to use your hands to drink it.”

*C. B. Fry held the world long jump record in 1913, could jump backwards on to a mantelpiece from a standing position without losing his balance, and after the First World War, was offered the throne of Albania, but turned it down.

:”Tangent: Jumping backwards and the legend of the Black Country’s Jack Darby.”

*In Albanian, “”Vetullushe”” means “A goat with brown eyebrows”. That is one of 30 different words for eyebrows in the Albanian language, which didn’t impress Linda, because Albanian had one word for “very bushy eyebrow”, but English has three. The language also has 27 words for moustaches.

:”Tangent: The philtrum, the groove above the lip.”

*The pink fairy is a type of armadillo, whereas the green fairy is Absinthe. Armadillos are the only mammals apart from humans that can get leprosy. The male armadillo’s penis is two-thirds the length of its body.

*Benjamin Franklin thought it would be a great idea to find a way to stop flatulence from smelling so bad. Amongst his other inventions were bifocals and the fire brigade.

:”Tangent: Franklin was not allowed to draft the American constitution, because people thought he might have put jokes in it.”

*The first processed food produced by H. J. Heinz in 1869 was horseradish (forfeits: tomato ketchup, baked beans). Ketchup didn’t arrive until 1875 and baked beans didn’t arrive until 1895. Supposedly, only 4 people know the secret baked bean recipe. Heinz never had “57 Varieties”, they now have over 6,000 varieties. They are obsessed with the number 57 at Heinz, their telephone number ends with 57 57 57 and their address is PO Box 57, Pittsburgh.

;General Ignorance:

*Fingernails and hair do not grow after you die. The skin tightens causing an illusion of growth.

*Bananas come from a herb (forfeit: trees), which unlike a tree doesn’t have a woody stem. The banana fruit is technically a berry.

:”Tangent: Banana plants walk up to 40 centimetres in a lifetime.”

*A lili is the offspring of a liger and lion, and a titi is the offspring of a tiglon and a tiger. They of course have only been bred in captivity because lions are from Africa and tigers are from Asia, so they won’t have encountered each other in the wild.

*The phrase “Survival of the fittest” was coined by Herbert Spencer (forfeit: Charles Darwin), inventor of the paper clip. Darwin adapted it for the “On the Origin of Species”. Norwegians believe that the paper clip is a Norwegian invention by Johan Vaaler in 1899. Spencer had patented his design for paper clips almost 30 years before Vaaler in the 1860s, but his supplier went bankrupt and he became ill for 20 years of his life and never followed it up. Today more than 11 billion paperclips are sold annually, but a recent survey claimed that out of every 100,000 sold, only one in five are actually used to hold papers together. The rest are used as poker chips, pipe cleaners, safety pins and toothpicks.

Episode 9 “Africa”

;Broadcast date:

*6 November 2003 (BBC Two)

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (10 points)

*Jo Brand (15 points)

*Dave Gorman (Winner with 20 points)

*Jeremy Hardy (15 points)

;Buzzers:

* Dave, Jeremy & Jo& — Increasingly louder bell noises

* Alan& — A power drill noise

;Topics:

*A bongo is a rare type of antelope. They are prized by poachers and there only believed 100 left in the world.

:”Tangent: Syllogisms, Queen Elizabeth and Kylie Minogue and J.Lo.”

*The bongo-player of T. Rex was Steve Peregrin Took. He was a hippie named after a character in ”The Lord of the Rings”. Marc Bolan was obsessed with the novels, but he was dyslexic, so his wife had to read them to him.

*In South Africa, there is a pastime called ”Bokdrol spoeg”, which is Kudu dung spitting. A kudu is a type of antelope.

:”Tangent: Before becoming famous Clive James and Sylvester Stallone cleaned out lion cages for a living. Before discovering Uranus from his home in Bath, William Herschel was an oboe player in the Hanoverian Army. Before unifying Italy, Giuseppe Garibaldi was a spaghetti salesman in Uruguay.”

*Alexander the Great:

**was a “short, left-handed, epileptic, Albanian bisexual with a very high-pitched voice”. His father was Philip of Macedon, a Macedonian.

**introduced to Europe the banana, crucifixion, sugar, cotton and the Ring-necked parakeet.

**washed his hair in saffron.

**was embalmed in honey.

**was taught by Aristotle.

*Aristotle thought that flies have four legs and that mucus was brain-matter.

:”Tangent: There are over 200 types of Common cold, but contrary to popular belief, they aren’t caught by standing in the rain, but if your nose is cold, they can develop faster.”

*Auricle is another name for the outer part of the ear.

*Vincent van Gogh, after cutting off half of his own ear, presented it to the prostitute that had spurned his affection.

*Snakes do not have ears.

*The okapi can clean its own ears with its tongue.

*In 1672, Galileo discovered “ear-like growths”& – the rings of Saturn.

:”Note: It’d be quite interesting if Galileo did discover them in 1672, as he died in 1642!”

;General Ignorance:

*The first King of England was Athelstan from 924 to 939 (forfeit: Alfred the Great). Athelstan was Alfred the Great’s grandson. Alfred the Great was only King of Wessex.

*Aristotle claimed that hedgehogs had sexual intercourse face-to-face, with the female lying on her back. (Forfeit: very carefully)

*The most dangerous creature in history is the mosquito, having killed half the humans who have ever died (45 billion out of 90 billion).

*The Lords of Shouting are a group of 10,500,000 (in fact, it is 15,500,000) angels that sing to God every morning, according to the Jewish faith. They are led by Jeduthun, the “Master of Howling”.

*Samson’s hair was cut off by a servant of Delilah. (Forfeit: Delilah)

Episode 10 “Alan”

;Broadcast date:

*13 November 2003 (BBC Two)

;Panelists:

*Alan Davies (Winner with 23 points!)

*Rich Hall (3 points)

*Julia Morris (9 points)

*Peter Serafinowicz (-5 points)

;Buzzers:

* Rich& — A doorbell

* Julia& — A steamboat horn

* Peter& — A train horn

* Alan& — An elephant trumpeting

;Topics:

*The aeroplane was invented by John Stringfellow of Chard, Somerset (forfeit: the Wright brothers). It was a model aeroplane, but it had an engine in it. The Wright Brothers’ flight covered less than half the wingspan of a Boeing Jumbo Jet.

*A person would have, “Mad, bad, fat, sad old git,” on their luggage, because they are airport luggage codes.

**MAD is Madrid Barajas International Airport.

**BAD is Barksdale Air Force Base, Bossier City, Louisiana.

**FAT is Fresno Yosemite International Airport, California.

**SAD is Safford Regional Airport, Arizona.

**OLD is Old Town Municipal Airport, Old Town, Maine.

**GIT is Geita Airport, Geita, Tanzania.

*Madonna plans to buy the prettiest airport in the world, Compton Abbas Airfield in Dorset and shut it down, because it’s ruining her weekend place at Cranborne Chase, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

*The smallest aircraft carrier in the world is a Mitsubishi Shogun (Everywhere else in the world it’s known as the Pajero, except in Spain, where ‘pajero’ means ‘one who fiddles with himself for sexual pleasure’).

:”Tangent: Julia’s time working in Hokkaidō, Japan’s northern island. The island is known for having good milk due to the grass.”

*It was a bad idea to ban smoking on aeroplanes, due to companies saving money by using both fresh and recycled air, which increases the threat from viruses.

*The Alans are a tribe of people who live on the Russian border, since the Huns drove them there in the 4th century. “Alan” means “Rock” or “Pebble”, as does “Peter”. Alan and Stephen argue as to whether his “Alan” is either a rock or a pebble. Calculus and pessary also mean “rock” or “pebble”.

:”Tangent: Stephen’s father is called Alan.”

*Edgar Allan Poe predicted the Big Bang, the theory of relativity, parallel universes and the structure of the atom in a prose poem called ”Eureka”. Interestingly, the poem doesn’t even rhyme.

:”Tangent: Peter tries to prove that nothing rhymes with “rhyme”, but he missed out on lime, time and slime. Dorange is Cajun rhyming slang for door hinge.”

*Alan Smithee is the Alan with the worst reputation in Hollywood. It is the name used when directors dissociate themselves from a film. His oeuvre includes Hobgoblins 2, Boggy Creek 3, Hellraiser 4 and Dune, where he co-directed with David Lynch. Tony Kaye is alleged to have tried to use Smithee’s name for ”American History X”.

*In ”Boy on a Dolphin”, Sophia Loren had to stand and walk in a trench due to the shortness of Alan Ladd.

*Alan Whicker’s is Cockney rhyming slang for knickers.

:”Tangent: The Australian version is Reg Grundy’s, undies. Listerine was an example of rhyming slang that has moved on one. If you are “Listerine”, then you are an antiseptic, and septic is rhyming slang for American (Septic tank, yank).”

;General Ignorance:

*The first man to circumnavigate the globe was Juan Sebastián Elcano (Forfeit: Magellan). Magellan was killed in the Philippines halfway round. His ship was the first to.

*The helicopter was invented by the Chinese (forfeit: Italian) in the 4th century, more than a 1,000 years before Leonardo da Vinci. It was called the “Bamboo Dragonfly” and could fly up and down. The first modern helicopter was invented by the French.

*Nothing happens if you suck your pencil, as it is made out of graphite, which is the crystallised form of carbon. (Forfeit: lead poisoning)

Episode 11 “Arts”

;Broadcast date:

*20 November 2003 (BBC Two)

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (-18 points)

*Bill Bailey (-2 points)

*Richard E. Grant (Winner with 12 points)

*Linda Smith (5 points)

;Buzzers:

* Richard& — A trumpet fanfare

* Linda& — A harp noise

* Bill& — Bagpipes ending in dischord

* Alan& — A donkey’s “heehaw”

;Topics:

*Pigeons do not like going to the movies, because they see the world ten times faster than humans. To them, a film is a slow slide show.

:”Tangent: It cost £105,000 to clean the pigeon crap from Trafalgar Square.”

*It was once believed that a pigeon’s arse could be used to suck out the poison from an adder’s bite. Pigeons are the only birds that can suck.

*The ant (forfeit: human) has the largest brain in comparison to its body size. There are 8,000 species of ant.

:”Tangent: Alan’s problem with an ant infestation in his house.”

*Soldier ants were used in Ancient India as stitches after operations.

*In Thailand, red ants are poured into open wounds, and they secrete an acid which acts as a pain killer and an antiseptic.

*A greasy butcher, a hog snout and Gene Pitney are all kinds of apple.

*Apples and a game played with headless goats both originated from Kazakhstan. It never says in the Bible, what the fruit eaten in the Garden of Eden was, but it is just assumed to be an apple.

*Both Ulysses S. Grant and John Prescott were charged for speeding. “Two Jags” Prescott was banned from driving for 21 days in 2001 after being caught doing more than 100mph on the M1, where he was fined £200. He had previously acquired nine penalty points on his driver’s license. His best excuse that he came up with was that he didn’t want his constituents to catch cold waiting for him. “Three Buggy” Grant received a speeding ticket on his horse and buggy in Washington, D.C. in 1869 and was fined £20. He had to persuade the officer that he was guilty. They both also won unusual prizes. Grant won a prize for taming a pony in a circus. The Prescott family came second a competition searching for, “The most typical family in Britain,” in Brighton in 1951, but he should have won because the winning family was discovered to be distantly related to the organiser of the competition.

;General Ignorance:

*The largest living thing on the Earth is the honey mushroom. (Forfeits: Blue Whale, Giant Redwood)

*The first man to claim that the Earth revolves around the Sun was Aristarchus. (Forfeit: Copernicus)

*The African animal which kills more humans than any other is the hippopotamus, other than other humans. A hippo’s skin weighs a ton, is an inch-and-a-half thick and is bulletproof. The whole hippo weighs 4 tons. A hippopotamus breath is so bad, they use it as part of their weaponry. George Washington had hippopotamus false teeth.

*The telephone was invented by Antonio Meucci.

:”Tangent: Louis Daguerre asked a woman to take her top off to demonstrate his prototype camera.”

:”Tangent: Alexander Graham Bell believed that one day every town in America would have a telephone.”

:”Tangent: Bill’s dad was taken around a computer in the West Country and the owner claimed that in the future, there would be eight of them.”

Episode 12 “Advent” (Christmas Special)

;Broadcast date:

*23 December 2003 (BBC Two)

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (-6 points)

*Phill Jupitus (5 points)

*Sean Lock (7 points)

*John Sessions (Winner with 28 points)

;Buzzers:

* Phill& — A typical Christmas jingly bell

* John& — A collection of large bells rung in a festive manner

* Sean& — A noise to indicate festive starlight

* Alan& — Car horns in traffic

;Theme:

*The general theme of all the questions was Christmas, with the panellists asked to draw a Christmas tree. Alan Davies drew a traditional childlike portrayal of a Christmas tree& – a triangular style tree showing (incorrectly) that the branches point downwards.

;Topics:

*A Gripple is a gripping device made in Sheffield. Thousands of gripples hold together the Great Dingo Fence in Australia, the world’s longest fence.

*The first domesticated animal after the dog, was the reindeer. Another common name for a reindeer (in North America) is caribou.

:”Tangent: Sami (the people who originally herded the reindeer) means “plebs” in Ancient Swedish.”

*Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and all of Santa’s other reindeer must be either female or castrated, because male reindeer lose their antlers during winter.

*In “days of yore” Yorkshiremen would gather around their beehives during Christmas because they believed that the bees would start humming at midnight (the time of Christ’s birth), even when the calendars changed.

*In 1657, mince pies were banned by Oliver Cromwell because they symbolised Catholicism.

*From 1840 to the end of World War II, the German village of Lauscha in Thuringia provided the world with baubles, with 95% of US houses.

*In 1908, US insurance companies tried to ban the placing of live candles on Christmas trees, mainly because a fire from a Christmas tree that caught fire on a Santa’s beard destroyed a Chicago hospital in 1895.

:”Tangent: Insurance companies and their avoidance of paying out.”

*During the 1870 siege of Paris by the Prussians, the Parisians ran out of food and so one restaurant used rats in their cooking. As well as raiding the sewers, they raided the zoos for other animals, such as elephant and kangaroo.

:”Tangent: The Chinese dish “Three Squeak”.”

:”Tangent: John Gielgud once advised a young West End actor not to pause during a performance, because when he paused he heard someone in the audience say “Oh, you hideous beast, you’ve just come all over my umbrella!.”

;General Ignorance:

*Christmas Island includes places called Paris, London, Poland and Banana.

*The youngest age that a child can drink alcohol in a pub, restaurant or beer garden in the UK is 5 years old (forfeit: 18), as long as an adult buys the drink.

*Santa Claus comes from Turkey. (Forfeit: Lapland)

*The image of Santa Claus was originally noted in the 1823 poem ”Twas The Night Before Christmas”.

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

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Origin

After Superman’s death at the hands of Doomsday, Executive Director Paul Westfield of Project Cadmus wanted to create a clone replacement of Superman that would follow the agendas of Project Cadmus as well as his own personal agenda. Failing to acquire the bodies of Superman and Doomsday by federal authority when Lex Luthor (in a clone body posing as his own son) and his security force Team Luthor puts a halt to their plans, a Cadmus team secretly steals Superman’s body from the tomb with Westfield overseeing the entire operation. Superman’s body was sent to the Project Cadmus genetic research facility to begin the planning stages of creating the clone in secret via a DNA sample from Superman and implanted brain pattern scans taken when Superman was alive by the genetically engineered “DNAlien” Dubbilex. After the Guardian discovered what Westfield had done, Westfield was able to convince him that it was for a noble purpose. Unable to create a clone because it was impossible to obtain a direct DNA sample from Superman’s indestructible body, and because the usual cloning techniques were useless on his alien physiology, Superman’s body was given an electron capillary scan by the other directors of Cadmus formerly known as the Newsboy Legion. They were able to use the results of the scan along with educated guesswork to create data stored on a disc that contained a close approximation of Superman’s actual genetic code data. While the scanning team wanted to test the experimental “digital DNA” and thought about a suggestion made by the Guardian to make clones of the Guardian to fill the void during the DNA testing, Westfield wanted to create the clone of Superman immediately. He sends Auron, a cybernetic super-soldier cloned from the Guardian and created by Westfield’s secret genetic engineering team, to retrieve the disk by force via the code word “Sanction Blue”. Before Westfield could obtain the disk, the clones of the original Newsboy Legion convinced Auron that he was just like the original Guardian based on having a link with him via his DNA. He rebels against Cadmus and departs with the digital DNA disk to protect Superman’s legacy.

After the Auron situation and the retrieval of Superman’s body by Lois Lane, Supergirl, and Lex Luthor, Westfield and his secret genetic engineering team went by other means to create a Superman clone that they could immediately rush into production. Instead of a direct clone of Superman, they decided to genetically alter a human clone to look like Superman and made the clone to be the closest human equivalent to a Kryptonian as they could based on their research. Carl Packard, the project head of Auron’s creation, was the project head for the clone’s creation and was given full authority to explore whatever methods to create the clone while Westfield provided him with the sole DNA cellstock that he felt would make the clone easier to control. During their research when they had Superman’s body, Westfield’s scientists discovered an “aura” surrounding Superman’s body that provided some of Superman’s powers. The aura was translated into a telekinetic field for a human that would give the clone the ability to simulate Superman’s powers such as flight, invulnerability, and strength. This was later known as “tactile telekinesis” by the scientists. After twelve failed attempts, the clone known as Experiment 13 was grown from a single cell to a teenage boy in less than a week and was a complete success. The clone was given implanted memories and underwent an artificial maturation process to match the age of the original Superman. This clone would later be known as Superboy.

Reign of the Supermen!

The Newsboy Legion clones break Experiment 13 out of the tube that he was kept in at Project Cadmus facility’s Lab 13. He immediately attacks Carl Packard and escaped with the Newsboys into the Cadmus facility’s air ducts. Unlike Auron, Experiment 13′s brain refused any attempts made by Cadmus to program the clone with any implanted command words. His artificial aging process halted, he leaves Cadmus at the approximate age of a teenage boy of sixteen years old with implanted knowledge corresponding to that of any boy his age.

Refusing to be called “Superboy” by the Newsboy clones, the clone believed himself to be a clone of Superman and wanted to be addressed by that name. Arriving in Metropolis for the first time and navigating the streets via the implanted memories given to him by Cadmus, Superboy faced his first battle and stopped the criminal Sidearm from robbing a bank by using his powers. After saving a woman from a group of thugs that tried to deface the memorial statue of Superman, Superboy gave Lois Lane a surprise visit to the Daily Planet. There he sees Tana Moon, a young half Hawaiian reporter formerly of WGBS who worked at the Daily Planet but faced frustration at working fluff pieces. Flying her to the top of the Daily Planet building, Superboy tells Moon that he is a clone of Superman and she used his story to return to WGBS as a television reporter with an exclusive interview with Superboy. After seeing the broadcast, Lex Luthor was enraged to the point of smashing his television. Under the impression that Superman couldn’t be directly cloned by Project Cadmus when they acquired Superman’s body, Luthor confronted Carl Packard of Project Cadmus, the man who he had an arrangement with, about Superboy. Packard revealed Superboy’s rushed creation and true origins to Luthor.

“The Man of Tomorrow” (the Cyborg Superman), “The Last Son of Krypton” (the Eradicator), and “The Man of Steel” (Henry Johnson a.k.a. John Henry Irons) make their first appearances at this time as well, the first two claiming themselves to be the true resurrected Superman. WGBS head Vincent Edge conspired to focus all their television coverage on Superboy; making him their official “Superman” with Tana Moon reporting his exploits. Fighting against villains such as Steel Hand, Superboy received a lot of attention and ratings for WGBS while Lois Lane and Martha Kent disapproved of his actions. During a battle between the Man of Steel and two gangs in which Superboy’s carelessness led to Lois Lane’s helicopter pilot being killed, Superboy showed remorse after a lecture by the Man of Steel on the importance of being a hero and later helped him escape a fire caused when the Man of Steel was attacked by “The White Rabbit” Dr. Angora Lapin and landed on an exploding tanker. After failing to recruit the Man of Steel to Lexcorp, Luthor attempts to sway Superboy to his side by using Supergirl to lure him to Team Luthor. After meeting agent Rex Leech and his daughter Roxy Leech, Superboy signs with WGBS an exclusive contract with Rex Leech acting as his manager and Edge arranging to have Superboy live at Clark Kent’s former apartment. Edge continued to use Superboy for ratings and Leech secretly set up a fight between Superboy and the criminal Stinger that destroyed the Hobsneck Bridge in Metropolis.

After being informed by Tana Moon of the destruction of Coast City, Superboy arrived to investigate with “The Man of Tomorrow”, the Cyborg Superman. The Cyborg Superman destroys their military escort with his heat vision and is later revealed to be Hank Henshaw, the true mastermind behind the destroyed city with Mongul acting on his orders and the one who attacked the Eradicator before Coast City’s destruction. Superboy was attacked by the Cyborg Superman and was imprisoned at “Engine City”, a giant kryptonite powered engine built on the ruins of Coast City and part of a plan to turn Earth into a new Warworld. The Cyborg Superman used Superboy’s image to trick the Justice League into going off-world and leaving Earth vulnerable. Unknowingly using his tactile telekinetic ability to break his restraints, Superboy escapes Engine City and meets with the Man of Steel, Luthor, Lois Lane, and Supergirl in Metropolis. Shortly after, the real Superman arrives via a Kryptonian Warsuit and not at full strength.

When Superman learns of the Cyborg and Mongol’s plan to destroy Metropolis next, Superboy joins Superman and Irons (who later assumes the name “Steel” shortened by Superman) in an assault on Engine City (later joined by an invisible Supergirl and Green Lantern). During the battle, an “engine bomb” missile was launched at Metropolis with the intent of destroying the city and creating a second Engine City in its place. Superboy leaves the battle to intercept the missile and uses his tactile telekinesis in an attempt to disarm it. He was able to save Metropolis, but the missile detonated when it reached open sea. Superboy was feared dead by Tana Moon, who covered the story live, but Superboy released the missile before it exploded and crash landed in a public landfill. Superboy later arrives with the Eradicator to take part in Superman’s battle against Cyborg Superman. Following the Cyborg Superman’s defeat by Superman and Mongol’s failed plan to destroy Earth, Superboy is convinced that the returning Kal-El is the real Superman. After his return to Metropolis, Tana Moon informs Superboy that she quit WGBS and was leaving Metropolis without telling him where she was headed to.

After Superboy reveals on television that he was a result of Cadmus’ DNA experiments and that Cadmus was after him, Executive Director Westfield sends the Guardian to bring in Superboy after failing to capture him with “Payback DNAliens” that he sent without Cadmus personnel knowing. Convinced by Superman that no harm will come to him, Superboy returned to Cadmus with Superman & the Guardian and learns the truth of his origin. Superboy is informed by the scientists of Project Cadmus that he was created from human DNA only and was genetically engineered to both look like Superman and mimic his major powers by way of a telekinetic field. After learning the truth, Superboy reveals that he has agreed to let Superman have the rights to the name “Superman”, trademark and symbol that was registered after his death to Superboy by Superboy’s manager Rex Leech. Leech refused to give the rights back to Superman claiming that Rex Leech Enterprises owned the name. Roxy Leech, acting as C.E.O. of Rex Leech Enterprises, sided with Superboy and sold Superman the rights to the name for a dollar. Superman in turn told Superboy and Rex Leech that if half of the proceeds goes to charity, he would agree to let Superboy and his manager use the symbol in merchandising and the kid can call himself “Superboy” feeling that he earned the name. At first reluctant to use the name, Superboy accepts it and decides to go on a world tour that Rex Leech planned to establish his new name. Dubbilex, assigned by Project Cadmus to chaperone Superboy, assisted in the planning of the tour and accompanies Superboy and the Leeches.

”Superboy” (1993-2002)

A ”Superboy” series debuted in 1994 and lasted for 100 issues, ending in 2002. Karl Kesel and Tom Grummett were the creative team for the majority of the first 30 issues. Ron Marz took over as writer of the series from issues #31 through #41 with a few other issues penned by him after his run on the series. Eddie Berganza wrote issue #44 and Barbara Kesel took over writing duties from issues #42 to #49. Kesel and Grummett returned to the book in issue #50.

Hero of Hawaii

Superboy gained publicity during Rex Leech’s “Supertour” including media coverage and appearances on talk shows. With Honolulu, Hawaii being the last stop of the American leg of the tour, Rex Leech profited from the tour and sold Superboy memorabilia while setting up publicity stunts such as having Roxy fall out of a plane so that Superboy could rescue her. Sidearm, who relocated to Hawaii, kidnaps Roxy after the end of the publicity stunt, but Superboy defeats him with help from Dubbilex. Superboy encounters Sam Makoa, a Hawaiian federal agent, who wanted to make sure that Superboy was just visiting Hawaii and not permanently staying. Superboy’s presence on the island increased the activities of the Silicon Dragons, the largest crime cartel in the Pacific Rim led by Lady Dragon with an honor code of using equal force against opponents. Superboy later encounters Tana Moon, who relocated back to her home of Hawaii to work for the television station KONA-TV as a reporter. After defeating some of the Silicon Dragons’ smugglers at Mamala Bay, Superboy eventually decides on an extended stay in Hawaii.

Superboy caught the attention of Knockout, a thrill-seeking former member of the Female Furies from the planet Apokolips whose secret identity was an exotic dancer named Kay working at The Boom Boom Room. After Superboy agreed to guard the ancient Hawaiian artifact known as the Spear of Lono at the Hawaiian Historical Museum, the spear is stolen by Knockout which leads to a fight between the two. Knockout admitted that she stole the spear to get Superboy’s attention and kissed him after she delivered a knock out punch to him. The Spear of Lono was stolen by the Scavenger, who wanted to use the spear’s mystical powers but needed the missing gemstone that was hidden in Maui. After defeating Scavenger, Superboy fell ill when he contracted a virus that affected the majority of Cadmus’ clones. Before Superboy and Dubbilex enter the base at Pearl Harbor to get transport to Cadmus, Tana Moon reveals her feelings for Superboy much to the chagrin of Roxy Leech, who was in love with Superboy and disliked Moon. Dr. Arnold Kaua, curator of the Hawaiian Historical Museum, wanted the spear to become Hawaii’s first native-born superhero and instead became Silversword when he was infused with “antimetal” and gained superpowers. Ignoring his sickness, Superboy stops Silversword from attacking the U.S. Navy at Kaho’olawe Island but at the cost of his condition becoming worse.

Lex Luthor contracts the clone virus as well and accuses Project Cadmus of infecting him. This led to a full scale war between Lexcorp and Cadmus in Metropolis while the Underworlders took advantage of the conflict to attack Cadmus troops and innocent civilians. When Paul Westfield attempts to exterminate the Underworlders with a missile aimed at the heart of Metropolis, he is murdered by mad scientist Dabney Donovan, the creator of the Underworlders and the true mastermind behind the clone virus. Cadmus discovers a cure to the virus via the Guardian’s blood and Superboy is the first to be cured. Luthor sends a team of his armored Team Luthor “Lex-Men” soldiers to obtain the cure at all costs, but failed when they encountered Superman and a healthy Superboy. During the battle with Superboy and Superman, the Lex-Men succeed in in their second objective of destroying the Project Cadmus facility by overloading the facility’s gravitron reactor core. After the battles between Cadmus and Lexcorp and the defeat of Lex Luthor, Superboy helps with the rescue efforts in downtown Metropolis where one third of the area was severely damaged by Luthor. He later battles the Parasite, who is after a postal worker named Fred Bentson. Superboy and Bentson are transported to the city of Dakota in the Milestone universe and encounters Rocket, the sidekick of the superhero Icon. Superboy joins forces with Superman, Steel, Icon, Rocket, Static, Hardware, and the Blood Syndicate to stop the reality-manipulating villain Rift, the transformed Fred Bentson who thought of Metropolis and Dakota as creations of his own imagination. Before leaving Metropolis, Dubbilex accepted Bibbo Bibbowski’s request for him to take Bibbowski’s white puppy Krypto and give him a new home away from the devastation in Metropolis. Flying over Kansas on the way back to Hawaii, Superboy encounters the Kal-El Superboy in a Smallville that was affected as a result of timestream anomalies.

On vacation, Professor Emil Hamilton invites Superboy to the S.T.A.R. Labs facility on Hawai’i Island for an examination. Taking up Hamilton’s offer while vacationing with Tana Moon on Hilo, Superboy underwent a cellular diagnostic. The results of his examination was that while Superboy’s DNA was completely human, it was made by Cadmus to be very similar to that of a Kryptonian even to the extent of his body being a living solar battery that fueled his tactile telekinetic powers and a possible vulnerability to kryptonite. After the examination, Hamilton gives Superboy a choice of his inventions at S.T.A.R. Labs with Superboy selecting the “x-ray vision-goggles” that he later learned had heat vision and infrared vision as well. After defeating the threats of King Shark and B.E.M. on Hilo, Superboy and Tana Moon began a romantic relationship. He decided to cancel the Supertour and stay as Hawaii’s superhero along with the Leeches and Dubbilex. He later takes up residence at a beachfront home near Kehe Point that he called “The Compound”. The Silicon Dragons, displeased with Superboy remaining on the island, attempts a drive-by shooting on Superboy at the Honolulu Mall’s grand opening but kills a young Superboy impersonator while the real Superboy was on the show “Hollywood Tonight”. After defeating the criminal Techno, he attends the funeral of Superboy’s impersonator and decided to become more serious about being a superhero and stopping the Dragons. He convinced Sam Makoa to let him be a part of the operation to take on the Silicon Dragons. Superboy, Amanda Waller’s Suicide Squad, Knockout (working with the Suicide Squad to get amnesty for stealing the Spear of Lono), and King Shark under the command of Makoa team up to take out the Silicon Dragons’ central base of operations at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

Superboy’s choice to make Hawaii his legal residence meant that Superboy was legally required to attend school because he is a minor. After taking a placement exam, he attends Ilupani High School as a freshman under the watchful eye of truant officer Mack Harlin. At Ilupani High, he meets Hillary Chang, who becomes one of Superboy’s trusted friends as well as dogsitter for Krypto.

Lar Gand, the Daxamite Legion of Super-Heroes member known as Valor, arrived in Superboy’s time period suffering from lead poisoning. Valor loses his memory and is manipulated into fighting for entertainment by corrupt businessman Mr. Gambolli, Rex Leech’s creditor in California. Owing a huge amount of money to Gambolli, Rex Leech arranged to draw Superboy into a fight with Valor (going by Gambolli’s name of “Champion”) at Diamond Head to clear his debts while Gambolli profited via gambling. The fight is interrupted by Knockout, revealed to be alive after the mission with the Suicide Squad and attacking both Superboy and Valor in a three way fight. Valor’s ship Pilgrim One arrived on the scene and after telling Superboy that Valor is dying, Superboy avoided military arrest by the soldiers at Diamond Head and brings Valor to S.T.A.R. Labs for treatment while dropping Knockout off at Gambolli’s ship “Lady Luck”. With Valor close to death, Superboy puts Valor in the Stasis Zone using a projector that was taken from the criminal Loophole in an earlier adventure with the hero Loose Cannon. The machine explodes with Valor trapped inside despite Superboy’s efforts to hold the machine together with his tactile telekinetic powers. The Legion of Super-Heroes arrive in Superboy’s time period to save Valor and after a brief misunderstanding at the Compound, Saturn Girl was able to get the blueprints to the Stasis Zone projector from Superboy’s subconscious. Brainiac 5 teleports The Legion and Superboy to the 30th century to repair the machine and release Valor in their time period. Superboy doesn’t get along with Brainiac 5, but makes friends with other members of the Legion with one of Triad’s selves having a crush on him. The necessary component for the generator was stolen by the Scavenger, who is still alive in the Legion’s time period, but the Legion and Superboy were able to defeat him. The mission is considered top-secret since Valor is considered an important figure to many people across the United Planets, but Superboy accidentally spoke about the mission causing pandemonium. After defeating Scavenger, Valor is secretly released from the Stasis Zone in Qurac and is given an anti-lead serum. While grateful for Superboy and the Legion releasing him, Valor was upset at Cosmic Boy for telling him that he has to lay low because of his legendary status and treatment by worshipers such as Triad and others. Superboy consoled Triad about Valor’s frustration at her and she kissed him before he departed. In gratitude for saving Valor’s life, the Legion makes Superboy an honorary member and give him a Legion flight ring.

Becoming his full time partner, Knockout taught Superboy new ways to use his tactile telekinesis as well as teamed up with several times to face Killer Frost, the criminal inventor known as the Technician, and Silversword, who changed after Superboy and Knockout helped him escape the military’s attempt to recapture him for experimentation. The Female Furies, led by Lashina, would later arrive to capture Knockout. As a result, a huge battle breaks out in Honolulu with the local police involved and Ilupani High severely damaged. After the battle and evaluation by Dan Turpin, Sam Makoa is appointed as an inspector of Hawaii’s newly established Special Crimes Unit. Due to the damage at Ilupani High, the Hawaii school board decides that Superboy shouldn’t attend public school anymore and should be home tutored. A police officer is killed in the fight with the Furies and an investigation via Dubbilex’s mental abilities concludes that Knockout herself had struck down the officer. Superboy refuses to believe that Knockout is guilty and is branded a fugitive by the Hawaii S.C.U.. He goes on the run with Knockout to Moloka’i. After Supergirl and Knockout battle, Supergirl telekinetically removes Superboy’s s-shields after she failed to convince him not to be an outlaw while wearing Superman’s shield. Superboy and Knockout land on Loihi island where Dr. Victor Volcanum has risen the island to serve as his new kingdom. Knockout seduces Volcanum and Superboy fights him thinking that he was taking advantage of Knockout. Knockout attempts to get Superboy to kill Volcanum and when he refuses, Knockout kills Volcanum in front of him and admits to killing the policeman during the Furies attack. Knockout wanted Superboy to obey every command of hers, but Superboy refused leading to a battle between the two. Superboy is given his S-shields by Roxy Leech and defeats Knockout by using the entire island of Loihi for his tactile telekinetic attack. This left Superboy distraught about giving Knockout a chance to do the right thing, but he was consoled by Roxy Leech.

After making an appearance at a birthday party on behalf of the “Dream A Dream” foundation, Superboy was summoned back to the ruins of Project Cadmus where he and the remaining directors saw the twelve failed attempts by Packard and his team to create Superboy that was found by a work crew in sublevel six of the facility. Packard’s first attempt, a clone using the flawed Lexcorp process created by Dr. Teng that mimicked Kryptonian DNA and created Bizarro, created a Bizarro version of Superboy despite Packard’s view that human DNA would stabilize the process. The clone was accidentally released from his tube by the Newsboy Legion clones and fought Superboy, but the unstable clone was dying from the process that created him. During this battle, the directors analyzed Superboy’s DNA cellstock secretly preserved by Packard and ran the analysis through Cadmus’ database. They found that Superboy’s DNA was a cellular match with one of the directors on file with only the head of security or the directors having full access to their cellblocks. It is later revealed to Superboy, Carl Packard, the dying Bizarro Superboy, and the directors of Cadmus that Superboy was created from the donated DNA cellstock of Executive Director Paul Westfield. Westfield revealed via a recorded message to his superiors that he secretly provided his own DNA to an unsuspecting Packard and Cadmus as a result of Auron defying Westfield. After the revelation, Superman talked with Superboy about it and later he is given a surprise first birthday party by Tana Moon and Roxy Leech with Dubbilex, Rex Leech, and Inspector Makoa in attendance.

A secret organization called the Agenda used an operative named Amanda Spence, undercover as a magazine reporter, to gather intelligence on Superboy from an unsuspecting Tana Moon. Superboy was captured and the Agenda subsequently created Match, an upgraded clone of Superboy who has vastly upgraded knowledge, a greater understanding of the abilities Superboy had such as using his tactile telekinesis as a vision power, and no free will as he was created to serve. The Agenda’s plan was to use Superboy’s DNA to create multipurpose clones for sale with Match as the first of many. After a battle in the Agenda’s headquarters, Superboy defeats the inexperienced Match and destroys the Agenda’s clone duplicates. Soon after, Superboy’s powers begin to fluctuate and he soon becomes ill. His cellular structure breaking down, Superboy is rushed back to Cadmus when S.T.A.R Labs couldn’t help him. Superman, Supergirl, and Steel come to his aid and search for the cause as well a cure. Superman and Steel discovered the Agenda’s cloning capsules at the ruins of their base and failed to bring Match to Cadmus in order to find a cure. Supergirl interrogates the directors of the Agenda and discovers that the process used to clone Superboy and create Match actually “unzipped” his DNA, causing his body to deteriorate. An imprisoned Amanda Spence, as repayment for Superboy saving her life, suggests that Superboy’s DNA needed a pattern to follow in order to rebuild itself. Using that information, Cadmus’ plan was to speed up Superboy’s cellular degeneration and build his cells up again using donor DNA as a template to follow. With Superboy’s DNA being indecipherable and the scientists unable to use the preserved Westfield DNA used to create Superboy, Cadmus scientists needed active human DNA closest to Superboy’s age to be a template for Superboy’s DNA to pattern itself after. Roxy Leech volunteered to be Superboy’s genetic template and both Superboy and Roxy Leech are placed in the clone capsules to go through the same genetic reconstruction process. Using Roxy’s DNA, their DNA is broken down and reconfigured to be identical and Superboy is cured. Unfortunately, as a side effect, the process halted his aging process at the biological age of 16. The news devastates Superboy since he had always dreamed of growing up to replace Superman when the latter retired, but he coped with it after a talk with Superman.

When Tana Moon felt that Superboy was becoming more immature despite the age lock, she breaks off her relationship with him. After a failed business venture set up by Rex Leech, Superboy disappears along the Pacific Ocean in a blast of energy. Unable to find Superboy for the months, his surrogate family went their separate ways: Dubbilex is summoned back to Project Cadmus, and Roxy Leech leaves Hawaii in search of her fugitive father Rex after failing to find Superboy.

Agent of Cadmus

Superboy found himself transported to the “Wild Lands”, an uncharted island populated by anamorphic animal beings known as “Furries”. Robbed of his memories, speech, and powers, he was enslaved by the snake-man and trader Sacker but escaped and was later captured by the tiger-man Prince Tuftan and his royal bodyguards “The Wild Men”. He was sent to the their capital city of Roam and while Sacker wanted Superboy returned to him, Tuftan wanted to keep Superboy as a possible pet to his betrothed Lady Tawna. Superboy regained his speech and saves the life of Great Caesar, the leader of the Furries and Tuftan’s father, by stopping an assassination attempt by General Killa, commander of a mercenary gorilla army loyal to the bat-woman Nosferata, who plotted to take Great Caesar’s throne. Caesar and other Furries believed that Superboy was the “Mighty One” prophesied in their “Articles of Faith”, old news reports from the Daily Planet on Superman, and put Superboy through tests that he passed. Regaining his memory and powers and believing that he might be in a post apocalyptic future, Superboy and Tuftan learn that Superboy was fired upon by Killa’s gorilla-men using a weapon made operational by Sacker. After the gorilla-men traded Superboy in exchange for weapons, Superboy was given a serum that impaired his speech, memory, and powers. Liberating Sacker’s human slaves, Superboy and the Wild Men sail to explore past the Wild Lands and wind up back on Hawaii. Superboy learns from the news crew covering the arrival of their ship that Tana Moon left Hawaii months ago for a business opportunity. He finds the Compound deserted and is crushed to find that his friends have all left Hawaii. Cadmus sends the Guardian and Dubbilex to Hawaii and learns that the Wild Lands was an abandoned genetic experiment with animals done in the 1940s by Dr. Grant of Project Moreau, a precursor to Project Cadmus two generations prior. At the Wild Lands, Great Caesar is killed by his advisor Ratsputin, who was secretly working for Nosferata. Nosferata sends the gorilla army and her army of bat-men to attack Pearl Harbor, but Superboy stops the attack with the aid of the Wild Men and the Guardian. Tuftan is blackmailed into marrying Nosferata, becoming queen of the Wild Lands while the Wild Men are exiled by Nosferata.

Discovering the true origins of the Wild Lands and attending Tuftan’s wedding after a failed attempt to make Tuftan reconsider his arrangement, Superboy returns to the Compound to decide what to do about the Wild Men now that they are exiled. After the Wild Men agree to find Tana Moon for him, Superboy undertakes a mission in Paris with the Guardian and Dubbilex where he encounters Grokk, a living stone dragon gargoyle made by Director Alpha of the Agenda. After Grokk’s capture, the Guardian tells Superboy that the mission was a test case for Superboy to become a field agent for Project Cadmus tasked with dealing with genetic anomalies. The government later reached a decision that Project Cadmus didn’t justify their funding and needed a change. Cadmus is placed under the management of one director in chief, Mickey “The Mechanic” Cannon, who takes Cadmus public. Cannon’s military liaison and secondary director is Colonel Adam Winterbourne, one of Sacker’s human slaves from the Wild Lands that Superboy freed. With the former directors laid off, the Newsboy Legion clones leave Cadmus with them and relocate to Metropolis. Superboy teams up once again with Dubbilex and the Guardian, who trains Superboy in combat and feels that Superboy needs him just like the Newsboy Legion did. He later befriends Dr. Serling Roquette, a child prodigy and genetics genius who later becomes one of Superboy’s closest friends at Cadmus.

After visiting Cadmus and meeting the new management, Superman takes Superboy to the Fortress of Solitude and sends him to visit a virtual reality Krypton through the technology of a mnemonic chair linked to the data banks of the fortress. Superboy experienced the perspective of a Kryptonian soldier who saved the life of Superman’s descendant Captain Van-L during a battle at the clone banks of Krypton with the terrorist group Black Zero and was later adopted into the House of El. He later experiences the life of Kon-El, a descendant of the same Kryptonian soldier and a member of the second House of El established by his predecessor as well as Superman’s cousin in spirit. After the simulation and Superman asking Superboy to look out of questionable cloning practices by Cadmus, Superman tells Superboy that he considered Superboy family and bestows upon him the Kryptonian name of Kon-El in honor of the original.

A fatally injured Superboy from an alternate reality falls from the sky wearing a device known as a “hyperjacket” that was encoded to his DNA and allowed travel through Hypertime. Dying from second and third degree laser burns, this Superboy is transported to the Justice League Watchtower by Big Barda. With his last breath, the alternate Superboy tells the Justice League that darkness was coming to take over their reality. After learning that the deceased Superboy is a genetic match, Kon-El takes it upon himself to investigate the other Superboy’s claims with the approval of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. By using the hyperjacket repaired by the Gadget Guru of the “Hairies” and strapped to a nuclear bomb to power the jacket, Superboy is thrown into various different worlds in which he met different versions of himself such as a Superboy as Batman’s sidekick, a blonde Supergirl that was created by her world’s Lex Luthor, a Superboy that was a member of the Challengers of The Unknown alongside Dubbilex and the Guardian, a Superboy as “Karkan, Lord of The Jungle”, a medieval Superboy, and the cowboy “Kid Kon-El” with his horse Comet. He learns from the first two worlds of “Black Zero” and his plans to aggressively take over worlds while claiming to be a protector of clones. When he visits the homeworld of the deceased Superboy, he learns from a reformed alternate version of Knockout that her world’s Superboy is her lover and stole the hyperjacket from Black Zero’s Fortress Cadmus to travel to other worlds and warn others. Before his hyperjacket destroys itself due to lack of a proper power source to fuel it, Superboy ends up on the pre-Crisis Earth One and reunites with the Kal-El version of Superboy whom he had met previously along with his dog Krypto. During Kon-El’s stay with Kal-El, Krypto, and Ma and Pa Kent, Kon-El learns that Superman is Clark Kent while Kal-El learns that Kon-El isn’t Kal-El from another reality.

Black Zero followed Superboy to Kal-El’s world and reveals himself by capturing Krypto and defeating both Superboys with his Stormguard soldiers (clones of the Guardian) and his own powers. After Superboy himself is taken to Fortress Cadmus, Black Zero was revealed to be an alternate version of Kon-El that was grown to full adulthood and became Superman. After a battle in his reality in which three hundred and eighteen civilians were killed resulting in a public outcry against cloning that lead to the death of his reality’s Guardian by an anti-cloning mob, this Kon-El renamed himself Black Zero after the terrorist group on Krypton that fought for clone rights. Unlike Superboy, Black Zero possessed a highly skilled mastery of telekinesis as well as powers that mirrored Superman (such as heat vision and super hearing) due to his human DNA being similar to a Kryptonian like Kon-El’s DNA as well as his advanced age. With the help of his Stormguards, the Paul Westfield from the home reality of the deceased Superboy, and the New God Metron, Black Zero managed to travel through Hypertime using a reactor powered by an element called “hyperium” to take over worlds and imprison dozens of Superboys across Hypertime in stasis pods, including all the Superboys that Kon-El met, while leaving the Paul Westfields from their realities in charge of the clones of their worlds. He planned on taking over Kon-El’s world and as a contingency plan against Superman, he kept multiple versions of Doomsday from different realities. With the help of the Challengers of the Unknown, the alternate Knockout, the Kal-El Superboy, and the other alternate Superboys, Kon-El manages to stop Black Zero. At the end of the story it is unclear if Black Zero is dead or lost in Hypertime while every Paul Westfield was deleted from existence when the Westfield of the deceased Superboy’s world jumped into the hyperium reactor. Superboy and the Challengers of the Unknown use a ship given to them by Metron to travel home out of Hypertime. After this adventure, Superboy harbored some slight resentment that Superman had kept his secret identity from him, but Lois Lane has a talk with him that leads to understanding on his part.

When the Agenda takes over Cadmus, they use the villains Simyan and Mokkari to create a clone army and turned the lab into the “Evil Factory.” With the help of some allies, Superboy manages to regain control of Cadmus, battling Match disguised as Superboy along the way. When Tana Moon returns, she is brutally murdered by Amanda Spence, revealed to be Paul Westfield’s daughter, who instead of being grateful for Superboy saving her life, holds him responsible for Westfield’s death.

During the ”Sins of Youth” storyline, the members of Young Justice are aged to adults by Klarion the Witch Boy while the Justice League is turned into kids. At first, Superboy is the only one who did not have his age altered, and he became ill. Since he cannot age, his body fought with the magic manipulation trying to age him. Due to a procedure by Serling Roquette, Superboy’s aging process is reactivated, enabling the magic to turn him into an adult as well. During this time, Superboy confronts Amanda Spence, nearly killing her. It is Wonder Girl who seemingly talks him down from his nearly murderous rage. Then abruptly, he slams Spence towards the ground at a high rate of speed. Yet at the last moment, he prevents her impact, declaring that Spence should live with the memory of how she could have lost her life.

The adult Superboy tells a rejuvenated Superman (now about Kon-El’s normal age) that he knows his secret identity of Clark Kent. After Klarion is blackmailed into reversing the effects, Superboy is restored back to his teens, but he is rendered powerless. Director Cannon calls in Dr. Helen “Doc Angel” Angelico, the world’s foremost expert in metahuman medicine, to help with Superboy’s condition. Reflecting on the loss of his powers and Tana Moon, whose family blames Superboy for her death, Superboy became more focused on being Superboy without his powers. He underwent more training from the Guardian in combat and used a wristguard that gave him flight as well as use of a s-shield made of an expandable alloy. When the alien slaver Kossak arrives, Superboy is forced to rely on his wits and his new gadgets to succeed against the enemy before his powers are restored at the last minute. During the ”Our Worlds at War” crossover, Superboy fights Amanda Spence, now an insane cyborg, for the last time, and Cadmus is destroyed. It is also during this period that it is suggested Superboy’s tactile telekinesis will develop into full telekinesis, when in a rage-induced power spike, he accidentally disassembles every gun in Metropolis.

At the end of his series, Superboy gets an apartment in Metropolis, working as the building superintendent to make an income for himself. Superboy later leaves Metropolis and taken in by Superman’s parents.

Young Justice (1998-2003)

Superboy is a founding member of Young Justice, a group of teenage heroes who intended to one day be the next Justice League.

Superboy first encountered his future teammate Robin after the latter called Rex Leech requesting Superboy’s help in defeating Metallo in Gotham City while Superboy was judging the first “Miss Kryptonite” pageant in Hawaii. While Superboy and Robin seemingly defeated Metallo, Poison Ivy takes control of Superboy. Robin follows Superboy and Poison Ivy to Kauai, where Poison Ivy released vines all over the island. Metallo shows up in Kauai as well and the team of Superboy and Robin defeated them. It was during this that Superboy discovered that he had a weakness to Kryptonite radiation that made him sick in the presence of it as guessed by Professor Hamilton. He also teamed up with future Young Justice member Captain Marvel Jr. against mental projections of Knockout, Chain Lightning, Captain Nazi, Silversword, Superman, and Captain Marvel.

Although Young Justice’s first mission was technically the rescuing of the metahuman ghost-girl, Secret, the group didn’t officially form until an incident in which the world’s adult population was kidnapped and transfers them to a copy Earth, by a pre-teen with godlike powers. Teaming up with Robin and Impulse, the three teen heroes manage to defeat Bedlam and return everything to normal. Soon after, they agreed to form an official team, dubbed “Young Justice” by the media. Soon after they are joined by Secret, Arrowette, Wonder Girl, and others. Although Superboy and Robin begin with an argumentative relationship similar to the one shared by Superman & Batman as well as leadership struggles, they became allies and friends. Superboy and Wonder Girl’s relationship is developed throughout ”Young Justice”. At first, Wonder Girl’s infatuation with Superboy is unnoticed. In the final issue of Young Justice, both Wonder Girl and Superboy reveal they have feelings for each other. After the events of ”Titans/Young Justice: Graduation Day” and the apparent death of Donna Troy, Young Justice disbands with Superboy, Robin, Impulse, and Wonder Girl going their own separate ways.

Teen Titans (2003-2006)

Now based in Smallville with a new civilian identity as Clark Kent’s cousin “Conner Kent”, Superboy is asked by Superman to accept Cyborg’s invitation to join a new incarnation of the Teen Titans with his former Young Justice teammates Robin, Impulse, and Wonder Girl. Also on the team are Teen Titans veterans Cyborg, Starfire, and Beast Boy. Superboy is retconned from the original premise of a human clone of Paul Westfield with restructured DNA based on his new genetic template Roxy Leech to a hybrid of Superman’s Kryptonian DNA and Paul Westfield’s human DNA. After the new team gathers at Titans Tower in San Francisco Bay, it is revealed via a random email sent to Robin that Superboy’s human DNA is not from Paul Westfield but from the criminal mastermind Lex Luthor.

During Superboy’s first adventures with the Teen Titans, his Kryptonian powers start to manifest. In a battle with Jericho, Superboy’s body gets possessed by him and Jericho was able to exhibit heat vision and other Superman-like powers. At first Superboy seems to have a hard time controlling his powers but he soon adjusts. Later, during Wonder Girl and Conner’s first date, Superboy is forcibly sucked through a time portal to the 31st century.

When Superboy reappears, he is wearing the classic Superboy outfit (with a Legion belt buckle). This was the result of 31st century minions of Darkseid stealing Earth’s mightiest heroes from the past and turning them into warriors of the future Apokolips. Because Conner is a clone of Superman, he is mistakenly taken, because they thought he was actually Kal-El. When their error is realized, Conner is left drifting in 31st century space. Conner is found by Phantom Girl’s mother and the United Planets and is soon formally inducted into the Legion of Super-Heroes. When Conner is seen by the people of the 31st century, he is revered as a great legend of the Superman mythos. He then helps the Legion defeat Darkseid and his corrupted heroes, which consist of Superman, Green Lantern, Orion, Wonder Woman, Lobo, Big Barda, Firestorm, White Martian, and Hawkwoman, who were abducted and manipulated into his service. After Darkseid and his minions are defeated, the Legion returns the past heroes to their proper places in time (as seen in the “Foundations” storyline in ”The Legion” #25-30). Conner suffers from short term memory loss after his time jump and can’t remember exactly when he vanished from the past. Because of this, Brainiac 5 refuses to send him back until they discover his point of departure. After months of probing Conner’s mind, Saturn Girl finally discovers the point at which he left the past. With this newfound information, Superboy is sent back to the 21st century a second or two after he left.

It appears to Cassie as though he was only away for a couple seconds, but Superboy has spent five months in the 31st century with the Legion of Super-Heroes fighting the Fatal Five-Hundred. He returns to enlist the help of the Titans, bringing them to the future where they help the Legion to victory.

On the return trip home, they accidentally arrive ten years in the future instead of the present. The Teen Titans meet adult versions of themselves. Superboy finds that he is now Superman, Tim is Batman, Cassie is Wonder Woman, and Bart is the Flash. In this alternate future, Conner has greater control of his powers, Cassie chooses him over Captain Marvel Jr., Lex Luthor is his mentor/father figure, and the Titans are “freakin’ bad guys”.

They discuss the possibility of breaking up the team when they get back to the present, but Cyborg 2.0 tells them that the future developed the way it did because the team was not together during the “Crisis”.

Brainiac and Luthor lead an attack against the young heroes of the Teen Titans and the Outsiders using a brainwashed Superboy and Indigo. Luthor reveals that the reason he had donated his DNA to help create Superboy was to create a sleeper agent that he could use to destroy Superman. He revealed that he was involved with “Project: Superman” (a.k.a. “Project: Lionel”), and he had implanted verbal commands into Superboy under Cadmus director Paul Westfield’s nose.

Under Luthor’s influence, Superboy’s power magnitude was at a level he rarely displayed on his own. Conner defeats his team, including tearing Cyborg apart at his mechanical pieces, breaking Robin’s arm, and savagely beating his own girlfriend. He then shakes off the brainwashing.

Afterwards, Conner takes a leave of absence from the Titans and secludes himself in the Kents’ home. He is unsure as to whether or not, being a clone, he even has a soul. There, Raven shows him that he had a young soul that was stronger than his inner demons and steadily growing.

”Infinite Crisis”: The Death of Superboy (2005-2006)

In the DC Comics’ limited series ”Infinite Crisis”, the other-dimensional Superboy-Prime watches Conner during his seclusion in Smallville. Resentful of Conner, who he claims has lower standards than his own despite a seemingly perfect life, Superboy-Prime attacks him, telling him that he should be his replacement.

Possessing an apparent strength advantage, Superboy-Prime pulverizes Conner, badly injuring him, until the Teen Titans, Doom Patrol, and Justice Society of America join the fray, leading to a climactic battle where various Flashes pull Superboy-Prime into the Speed Force.

The battle against Superboy-Prime overtaxes Conner’s body. His body begins to fall apart to the point that even JSA physician Doctor Mid-Nite cannot aid him. Knowing that Lex Luthor wants to keep Superboy alive as much as the Titans do, Robin leads Speedy, Wonder Girl, and Beast Boy to find a cure, while Raven keeps watch over him.

The Titans succeed, and they immediately administer the cure to Conner, who makes a complete recovery; however, Luthor informs Robin it will only work that one time.

In the ”Teen Titans Annual”, Wonder Girl volunteers to look after Conner as he recovers while the other Titans are called away to organize the relief effort in a decimated Blüdhaven, since her powers are slowly vanishing due to events in ”Wonder Woman” and ”Infinite Crisis”. Conner awakens, and he and Wonder Girl spend time alone, reminiscing and longing for “simpler times”.

Thinking this may be their last night together, the two consummate their relationship in the Kent barn. The two of them are later discovered by Jonathan and Martha Kent.

Luthor gives Conner the means to find Alexander Luthor, a sliver of the crystalline construct that Alexander is using to monitor reality. Superboy leaves a powerless Cassie in the care of the Kents in order to respond to a distress call from Titan’s Tower in San Francisco. There he meets up with Nightwing, who sent the call. Being the only two heroes available to deal with the situation, Conner and Nightwing bond as they make their way north to Alexander’s fortress. Conner and Nightwing are later rejoined by a now repowered Wonder Girl and together they infiltrate Alexander Luthor’s base and foil his plans. They free Martian Manhunter, Power Girl, Black Adam, Lady Quark, Nightshade, Breach, and The Ray, but the tide of the battle turns with the return of Superboy-Prime.

Superboy-Prime makes short work of many of the heroes and then turns his sights on Nightwing. Before Prime can touch Nightwing, an enraged Conner attacks him. Conner and Superboy-Prime battle intensely, until Prime catches one of his punches, crushing Conner’s right hand in the process. Despite being vastly overpowered, Conner fights bravely and defiantly manages to hold his own for a time. In a last-ditch effort Conner rushes into Superboy-Prime, sending both of them headlong into Alexander Luthor’s multiverse tower.

The machine explodes, re-merging the worlds and apparently foiling Alexander Luthor’s plans for good. Conner, fatally injured from the explosion, lies dying in the arms of Wonder Girl. When Cassie tells him that he had saved the Earth, Conner replies, “I know, Cass. Isn’t it cool?” Moments later, he dies. Batman, Wonder Woman, Kal-El, and Kal-L arrive, too late to save Conner’s life. Later, Superman mourns Conner’s death while cradling his body.

Conner was buried under his civilian name in Metropolis, alongside the bodies of Kal-L (the Earth-Two Superman) and his wife Lois Lane Kent, for over a year.

Crisis aftermath (2006-2009)

In ”52”, although Conner is dead, he is not forgotten. Wonder Girl leads a memorial broadcast over the Internet, and she and hundreds of others pay their final respects to Conner in a traditional Kryptonian way. It is revealed that the mourners are part of a resurrection cult supposedly based on Kryptonian theology, which Wonder Girl and Ralph Dibny refer to as the “Cult of Conner”. Dibny hypothesizes that the cult and Wonder Girl are responsible for defacing the tombstone of his wife Sue Dibny with an inverted Superman insignia (the insignia is the Kryptonian symbol for hope; when inverted, it is the symbol for resurrection). Wonder Girl later encounters the strange, enigmatic hero called Supernova. Cassie introduces herself but is confused that he doesn’t recognize her. When Supernova flies away, she calls him “Kon-El.”

Three weeks later, surveillance footage is shown to Lex Luthor by an enthusiastic scientist who assumes that Kon-El is still alive. Luthor dismisses this belief, convinced that Supernova is not Kon-El but Superman. In week 37, it is revealed that Supernova is not Conner but in fact Booster Gold.

In Week 51, Batman and Robin return from their journey across the globe. When the heroes appear at Superboy’s memorial on the first anniversary of his death, Robin is wearing a new costume using colors of black and red from Superboy’s last uniform. Wonder Girl also changes her costume to honor Superboy as well, wearing a Golden Age Wonder Woman-themed T-shirt and denim jeans.

Superboy memorial statues are erected in Metropolis next to Superman’s statue and in San Francisco outside of Titans Tower. One year later, Lex Luthor still mourns Conner’s death as he considers him his own son. Meanwhile, unknown to his teammates or even Superman, Robin is attempting secretly to recreate Superboy using DNA from Superman and Luthor. Robin has a glass case memorial to Conner, which contains Conner’s last costume, the jeans and S-shield T-shirt, similar to the memorial Batman keeps for the second Robin, Jason Todd. Supergirl took another one of his other T-shirts from the Kent farm and gave it to Wonder Girl.

Robin immediately wonders if Raven may be able to resurrect Superboy, as she has done recently for Jericho. However, Raven explains that she cannot since Superboy’s soul has transcended into another plane of existence.

”Legion of 3 Worlds”: Return

As with his namesake, physical death is not the end of his story. In a gamble to stop a rampaging Superboy-Prime by recalling to life his greatest foes in the 21st century, the Legionnaire Brainiac 5 sends Starman to the past, to unearth Kon-El’s corpse and put it in the same regeneration chamber the Eradicator used once on Superman to save him from his death. Because of the severity of the damage suffered at the hands of Superboy-Prime, Kon-El’s body’s healing process takes one thousand years to complete, ending in the thirty-first century when Brainiac 5 has Polar Boy retrieve Lex Luthor’s hair in the past. With the timely intervention of Dawnstar and Wildfire, the half-human physiology of Conner is reset to full health, granting him a new lease at life and a “third round” against Superboy-Prime.

While battling Prime at the end of time, Superman, Lightning Lad, Cosmic Boy, and Saturn Girl battle against the Time Trapper who is revealed to be an adult Superboy-Prime. After Superboy wounds Prime in the past, the Time Trapper develops an identical injury in the future. Realizing that Prime has created a time paradox, the Legion transports Time Trapper to Superboy-Prime. The Trapper wants them to unite but Superboy-Prime refuses to believe the Trapper is his future self and punches him, setting off a massive blast that seems to erase Prime from sight.

After Prime’s defeat, Superman, Conner, and Bart return back to the 21st Century, where Superman assembles both the Teen Titans and the adult Titans in San Francisco. There Superman reintroduces them to the resurrected Kid Flash and Superboy.

According to Geoff Johns, Kon-El and the Legion of Super-Heroes will be the main characters of the ongoing series of ”Adventure Comics”.

”Adventure Comics”: Superboy: The Boy of Steel

The revived ongoing title ”Adventure Comics” features Conner as the headlining character for the first six issues in the story arc entitled, “Superboy: The Boy of Steel.” The arc begins as Conner settles back into his life in Smallville, Kansas. Returning to live with Martha Kent, who is thrilled to take the young boy in after her husband’s death, Conner returns to Smallville High School and begins keeping a journal of everything Superman has done as a costumed hero, going down a checklist titled, “What Did Superman Do?” He and the also recently-returned Bart Allen supposedly rejoin the Teen Titans, and Conner symbolizes the team being “stacked” again by destroying his memorial statue outside of Titans Tower West.

After visiting Lex Luthor’s childhood home in Smallville, Superman arrives and talks to Conner about his desire to understand his “other father.” Superman tells Conner not to worry about Luthor, saying that the madman is a problem for the Man of Steel. Conner remarks that the next time he sees Lex Luthor will be, “too soon.” Soon after, Conner returns home and under a similar checklist in his notebook entitled, “What Does Lex Luthor Do?,” Conner checks off, “Lies to Superman.”

In his attempt to confront his shared legacy, he accepts a date with Wonder Girl. Conflicted between opening his heart to his girlfriend (thus “Telling the truth” as Superman always did in his life), and deliberately lying to avoid touching delicate subjects with Cassie (thus “Lying” as Luthor would do), ultimately Conner chooses to share with Cassie his fears and desires, and his desire to find himself by exploring both his legacies, but only to find his ”real” self. Cassie is obviously touched, and despite her initial doubts, mostly out fear that in his desire to be more like the Man of Steel eventually Conner could discard her as Clark Kent did with Lana Lang, feels compelled to admit her brief bond with Tim Drake. Conner quickly forgives her, arguing that, since he was dead and Cassie had no means to know about his future resurrection, her liaison with Robin can’t be considered a true ”affair”. As they share a reconciliation kiss, Martha Kent stares at them, remembering about her past with Jonathan and Clark.

Soon after his date, Conner returns to his search for Lex Luthor, with the aid of Krypto. Unfortunately, neither Conner nor Krypto can find Luthor on their own, so they instead track down a detective to help him: Tim Drake. Now going by the identity of ”Red Robin” (the Robin identity was taken away from Tim by Dick Grayson and turned over to Damian Wayne), Superboy finds him in Paris, where Tim is continuing his search for Bruce Wayne, who is believed to be dead following the events of the Final Crisis. Agreeing to help, Tim and Conner rekindle their friendship, as Tim admits to all the pain he has suffered over the last two years, and both boys discuss their private mission. Conner offers Tim the first bit of true support, by replying “I believe you,” when Tim states firmly that Bruce is still alive.

On his way back from France, Conner encounters a girl named Lori, whom he earlier saved, in the middle of vandalising a local Doctor’s practice. Conner takes her home, learning that the doctor had refused to help her ailing mother due to her lack of medical insurance. Someone then knocks at the door. Conner answers it, revealing the caller to be Lex Luthor, whom Lori calls “uncle”, who incapacitates Conner with Kryptonite.

Lori’s mother Lena, Luthor’s sister, comes down the stairs, revealed to be mentally and physically unwell. Conner reminds Luthor of his boast that he could cure all diseases if Superman wasn’t in his way. Telling him that Superman is now on New Krypton, Conner challenges Luthor to cure Lena. Luthor agrees, but demands Conner’s help, threatening Lori’s life. Conner collects the ingredient Luthor needs to make a cure for Lena’s condition, which is then administered to her, restoring her to full health. Lex then undoes his cure, vowing that it will stay with him until “Superman is dead”. In a rage, Conner attacks Luthor, but is staved off by Brainiac, who teleports Luthor back to his ship. Conner realizes that there is no good in Luthor after all, and decides to not be like Luthor or Clark but pursues his own path in life, burning his checklists in a fire.

Blackest Night

In the ”Origins and Omens” back-up story in ”Adventure Comics” #0, the former Guardian of the Universe, Scar, who now works for Nekron, discusses Lex Luthor and his place in the forthcoming ”Blackest Night” crossover. The Guardian also makes mention of “another” that Luthor will have control over. The character to which she is referring is revealed using a picture of Conner flying over Smallville. The only elaboration following the image of Conner is, “…But he is dead. And we control the dead. For once I bear witness to the book of the black, and I question what it shows me, the dead will save you, Luthor. From Brainiac. From Superman. And from yourself.”

In the ”Blackest Night” storylines, Conner Kent has returned to the present. He is dressed in a red Smallville high sweater and is standing behind Clark Kent and Martha Kent at the tomb of her husband, the late Jonathan “Pa” Kent. Clutching his fist, Conner declares, “I … I should’ve ”been” here. It should’ve been ”me” instead of …” Martha Kent consoles him and advises Conner that Jonathan would have wanted him and Clark to “stand up straight.” Unbeknownst to the Kents, the Black Lantern Corps is targeting Conner and Clark along with other resurrected characters.

The Corps sends the Kal-L and Lois Lane of Earth-Two to attack the Kent family after they’ve reanimated them, and stated to the modern version of the Man of Steel, Conner, and Martha, that they wish for the family to be reunited with Jonathan Kent in death. While Superman battles Kal-L, Conner encounters the Black Lantern Psycho-Pirate, who manipulates him into attacking Superman. However, Conner manages to come to his senses when Kal-L is on the verge of ripping out Superman’s heart. Using his tactile telekinesis for the second time since he was reanimated (the first being when he helped Tim break into one of Lex Luthor’s old, abandoned labs), Conner pushes Kal-L away from Superman. It is revealed that Conner has been holding back and chose not to use his tactile telekinetic powers since his Kryptonian powers manifested, in an attempt to be more like Superman. Conner then goes after Psycho-Pirate, stealing the medusa mask and using it’s emotional powers to attract the black rings, causing them to leave their hosts, reducing them to lifeless corpses once more.

Superboy, along with the few available members of the Teen Titans and Justice League, arrive at Coast City to battle Nekron, the personification of Death and the being responsible for the Black Lanterns. Despite being resurrected, Conner’s previous status as a deceased still allows one of Nekron’s black rings to transform him into a Black Lantern. He is later shown battling Lex Luthor, who becomes a deputy Agent Orange, with a Black Lantern version of Superman.

Black Lantern Conner attacks his girlfriend, after Agent Orange Larfleeze diverts Luthor’s attentions, all the while attempting to break free from the Black Ring’s control. Conner manages to break the control in temporary, short lapses, which he uses to summon Krypto and alert Cassie that the solution to his Black Ring problem. While under the influence of the ring Conner displays a new power, arctic breath, while also trying to hurt Wonder Girl on an emotional level. The battle moves to the fortress, where Krypto realizes what Conner was referring to when he told them to move to the Fortress of Solitude: Conner’s corpse, placed in the rebirth matrix where he awaits his resurrection in ”Legion of Three Worlds”. The Black Ring, confused and confronted with unexpected resistance from Conner, leaves the living Conner and tries to attach itself to his corpse, but Conner awakens his arctic breath ability, which freezes the ring, and Cassie throws it into orbit. After reconciling, the trio heads back to Coast City for the final battle. Conner is briefly seen in Blackest Night #8 as a member of Hal Jordan’s short lived White Lantern Corps, composed of heroes who had died and come back to life.

New Krypton and return to the Titans (2009-2010)

Superman writer James Robinson stated in an interview that Superboy was originally going to star in ”Action Comics”, following the departure of Superman to New Krypton.

Since his return, Conner has been seen playing a supporting role in the Superman story arc ”Man of Valor” starring Mon-El, who has been filling in for Superman as the Man of Steel is on New Krypton. Mon-El asks Conner to enter the Fortress of Solitude using his DNA from Superman and retrieve his rocket from Daxam. Conner and Mon-El join a secret team of Legion of Super-Heroes in the present. They go to New Krypton to help defeat Brainiac without destroying the bottle cities that will one day join the United Planets and are the future home of the members of the Legion of Super-Heroes.

In Superman: Last Stand of New Krypton, Superboy teams with the Legion of Super-Heroes, assisting them with their mission. However, Zod orders for the arrest of the team, branding them “terrorists.” However, Superboy and the Legion quickly subdue the Kryptonian soldiers, only to be attacked by Supergirl’s mother Alura, who mistakes him as a terrorist, based on her previous experience with Superwoman. After this controversy is cleared up, Superboy joins Supergirl and the Legion to enter Brainiac’s ship. In the ship, Superboy encounters Lex, who shrinks him, placing him in the bottle of the re-shrunk Kandor. There, he would find himself at odds with Zod, who subdues Conner, and leads his army out of the bottle with sun crystals. Superboy is eventually freed from the regrown bottle by Supergirl, just in time to transplant blood to an injured Superman.

Following the events of Last Stand of New Krypton, Superboy is rounded up with Guardian, Steel, Nightwing, Flamebird, and Krypto in War of the Supermen who join together to expose and stop General Lane’s plans to wipe out the Kryptonians.

After Static, now a part of the DC Universe, is kidnapped while visiting his hometown of Dakota, the Teen Titans head there to rescue him. Frustrated by the lack of progress the team is having, Beast Boy phones Cyborg (now a member of the Justice League) for help. Cyborg angrily tells Beast Boy to handle his own problems, but later rethinks his position and calls Bart and Conner to S.T.A.R. Labs to talk about returning to the Titans. The rest of the Titans try to rescue Static from a massively powerful metahuman known as Holocaust, but they are easily defeated. As Holocaust prepares to finish off the heroes, Conner, Bart, and Cyborg burst through the walls, preparing to face the villain. Conner remarks that it’s time for him to come out of his retirement from the Titans.

Conner desperately tries to defeat the villain, but Holocaust proves powerful enough to not only absorb almost all of Conner’s attacks, but also injure the Kryptonian with his own. Conner and Bart are able to distract Holocaust long enough for the other Titans to escape, and eventually the combined might of the entire team is able to stop him. On the trip back to San Francisco, Conner asks Cassie if she is ignoring him, and she simply replies by saying that she is.

Superboy (2010-Present)

Following the conclusion of War of the Supermen, writer Jeff Lemire and Italian artist Pier Gallo will launch a new Superboy series. In an interview with Newsarama, Lemire has likened the upcoming series as akin to Spider-Man. “For Conner, his life as Superboy keeps messing up his personal life, and he’s trying to find a balance.”

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Superboy (Kon-El), under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Whereas the previous series had seen only two new guests, series F featured new guests in most of the episodes. They were; Pam Ayres, Marcus Brigstocke, Hugh Dennis, Reginald D. Hunter, Dom Joly, Ben Miller, John Sergeant, Emma Thompson and Sir Terry Wogan. Wogan was the first guest in the show’s history to have previously received a knighthood.

Originally, the main bonus of the series, following on from the “E” Series’ “Elephant in the Room” was to be the “Fanfare”, where if any of the panellists said something particularly interesting a fanfare would sound. In the end, this only appeared in the final episode when David Mitchell was talking about French and Russian dinner service. It was styled as the “Teacher’s Pet” prize. The only other time it was mentioned was in the extended version of “the Future” episode, when Stephen says that if any of the panellists knew the answer “I’ll reward you with 2 fanfares”.

The Children in Need special was the last edition of ”QI” to be originally transmitted on BBC Two. All the others were shown on BBC One, starting with the Christmas special on 22 December 2008, with the series proper commencing on 9 January 2009. This transfer of networks also brought about the broadcasting of extended versions – called ‘QI XL’ – on BBC Two the following day (as per ”Have I Got News for You” since 2007). This was the first series of ”QI” not to be produced by John Lloyd. The role was taken by Piers Fletcher.

This series was the first to be broadcast in Australia, with the “Flotsam and Jetsam” episode being broadcast on 20 October 2009 on ABC1.

Episode 1 “Families” (Children in Need special)

;Broadcast date:

*14 November 2008

;Recording date:

*5 June 2008

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (−6 points)

*Ronni Ancona (Winner with 5 points)

*David Mitchell (3 points)

*Sir Terry Wogan (−9 points)

;Buzzers:

* Ronni – ”Sisters” from ”White Christmas”

* David – ”Daddy Cool” by Boney M.

* Terry – ”Grandad” by Clive Dunn

* Alan – ”My Old Man’s a Dustman” by Lonnie Donegan

;Theme:

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

;Topics:

*The panellists are asked to tell some old wives’ tales. Terry’s grandmother used to say that “Love flies out the window when poverty walks in the door”, and “It doesn’t matter whether you rich or whether you are poor, as long as you have money”. Other ones included “cheese gives you bad dreams”, “a crow follows a busy squirrel” and “eating your crusts puts hairs on your chest”. The most common ones seem to be about either catching a cold or going blind.

*The Foundling Hospital which cared for children, founded by Thomas Coram, got much of its money from composer George Frideric Handel and artist William Hogarth. The hospital was so successful that the only way you could get your child in was by a lottery. In 1756, the government arranged it, so that all children were allowed in. Most of the human race lived with unspeakable suffering, especially for children.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*Stephen ask the panellists to work out what he’s describing. His description is “sustain, ululation, sustain at a higher frequency, ululation and sustain at the starting frequency.” It’s the call of Tarzan, which is an aural palindrome. It was created by the MGM sound effects team using Johnny Weissmuller’s real voice. The line, “Me Tarzan, you Jane”, never appears in any of the Tarzan films. Other famous lines that never happened include “Play it again, Sam” and “You dirty rat!”

*In the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest in Brighton, the Portuguese revolution, also known as the Carnation Revolution, was signalled to start when the Portuguese entry, “E Depois do Adeus (After the Goodbye)” by Paulo de Carvalho, was played. Their band had carnations in the barrels of their guns, to denote the Carnation Revolution. The song itself only scored three points and the entry was second last overall. The winning song was Waterloo by ABBA. The political party, Estado Novo had been running Portugal for many years under their leader, Salazar, who declared three days of national mourning when Adolf Hitler died. He suffered a stroke in 1968, a new Prime Minister, Marcelo Caetano, was made to replace him, but Salazar did not know anything about it and was tricked into thinking he was still ruling the country, when he went to the grave. Terry keeps arguing, incorrectly, that the song was actually entered in the 1975 contest.

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

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

;General Ignorance:

*The family in The Swiss Family Robinson, by Johann David Wyss, have no surname. The title comes from the fact that it is a Swiss family who were having a Robinson Crusoe experience. The original translation by William Godwin depicted the title as “The Family Robinson Crusoe”. A third of all film and television adaptations based on the book give the family surname as “Robinson”. (Forfeit: Robinson)

*A boomerang that won’t come back is a “Kylie”. Boomerangs that come back and do not come back are both used by Aborigines in order to trap birds, but they are not used to kill the birds. Instead they drive them towards nets. (Forfeit: A Stick)

*As discussed in Series A, the word “Kangaroo” comes from the Guugu Yimithirr language. English explorers then used the word to people who spoke other languages who did not know what they were talking about. The myth was brought up again deliberately to catch Terry out, which it did. (Forfeit: Aboriginal For “I Don’t Know”)

*Bertrand Russell proved that 1 + 1 = 2 using symbolic logic. Russell wrote about this in his book ”Principia Mathematica” after set theory gave rise to several paradoxes, causing fears that nothing could be proved and that some of the great questions could never be answered. He is said to have had very bad breath and to have been bad at mental arithmetic.

;Other:

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

Episode 2 “Fire & Freezing” (Christmas special)

;Broadcast date:

*22 December 2008

;Recording date:

*29 May 2008

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (−6 points)

*Clive Anderson (Winner with 8 points)

*Rob Brydon (−8 points)

*Dom Joly (−16 points)

;Buzzers:

*Dom – ”The Christmas Song” by Nat King Cole

*Clive – ”Light My Fire” by The Doors.

*Rob – ”Fire” by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown.

*Alan – Being fired in the manner of ”The Apprentice”.

;Theme:

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

;Topics:

*In Native American smoke signals, one puff usually meant “Hello” and two puffs usually meant “All’s well”. However, the meaning of signals did differ from place to place.

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

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

*Communicating with paper fans came about in the 19th century in France. A booklet was made of signals that users could make to each other – this was probably designed to increase fan sales. To swing the fan around means, “I love another”, and closing the fan slowly means, “I promise to marry you”. Fans were invented in China, and were brought into Europe via Italy by Marco Polo.

*Nothing has happened to the fireman’s pole. There are many stories printed in the newspapers about poles being removed for health and safety reasons, but it is completely wrong. The main reason why there are fewer poles nowadays is because most modern fire stations are built with just one floor, so no pole is needed. The longest fireman’s pole in Europe is in Birmingham, measuring long. (Forfeit: Health & Safety Gone Mad)

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

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

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

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

*The worst thing you can do if you are a fire eater is to inhale, as this causes ‘Fire eaters lung’. Fire-eating is as bad as it looks and it causes terrible damage to the mouth. It is more akin to fire spitting than eating because the mouth is filled with (which is toxic) and then spat into the fire.

*During the Second World War, there was a plan to make an aircraft carrier from substance made from ice and sawdust called “Pykrete”. Pykrete is stronger than steel and does not melt. Lord Louis Mountbatten convinced Winston Churchill to make a pykrete aircraft carrier after he threw some in Churchill’s bath and showed him that it did not melt in his hot bath water. The proposed ship would have had guns on it that would fire super-cooled water to immobilise the enemy, and could be repaired using seawater. However, the ship was never made because of the Normandy Landings.

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

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

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

;General Ignorance:

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

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

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

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

Episode 3 “Flotsam & Jetsam”

;Broadcast date:

*9 January 2009

;Recording date:

*12 June 2008

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (−19 points)

*Rob Brydon (−8 points)

*Andy Hamilton (−15 points)

*Charlie Higson (Winner with 8 points)

;Buzzers:

*Charlie – Theme from ”Blue Peter”

*Andy – Theme from ”Captain Pugwash”

*Rob – ”I Do Like To be Beside the Seaside”

*Alan – Little Jim from ”The Goon Show”; “He’s fallen in the wa-ater!”

;Topics:

*Each of the team is given a nautical flag.

**Charlie: R for Romeo – “The way is off my ship”.

**Andy: Z for Zulu – “I require a tug”.

**Rob: J for Juliet – “I am on fire” or “I am leaking”.

**Alan: D for Delta – “Keep clear of me; I am manoeuvring with difficulty”.

**Stephen: U for Uniform – “You are running into danger”.

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

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

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

*There are 4 classes of maritime wreckage according to the act created in 1995. The difference between Flotsam and jetsam is that flotsam is wreckage from a shipwreck and jetsam is purposely ed thrown off a boat. Lagan is cargo at the bottom of the sea often marked by a buoy that can be retrieved later, but derelict can’t be retrieved.

*According to his autobiography, “Boy Wonder: My Life In Tights”, Burt Ward (who played Robin in the Batman TV series) claimed he had sex with his fan girls which he called “the Ultimate Autograph, signed with Bat-Sperm”. It was also claimed in the book that Batman watched. Stephen mistakes this and at first believes he actually signed autographs in his own sperm.

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

*The world’s biggest flasher in terms of an animal is the Dana Octopus Squid, found in the North Pacific Ocean, which flashes light all over its body. The biggest natural flasher is found in the mouth of the Catatumbo River in Venezuela. For 10 hours a night, up to 280 times an hour for 180 days of the year, a lightning storm is seen, which is also the biggest contributor of ozone in the world.

*The Borgia pope, Pope Alexander VI had naked prostitutes grovelling on the floor for chestnuts during the Feast of the Chestnuts. Another pope in trouble was Pope Formosus, who was succeeded by Pope Stephen VI had his body dug up and put on trial with people moving his arms around during the proceedings, while Stephen yelled at the corpse. Even a ventriloquist was used to make him speak to deny his charges. He then had his 3 fingers that he used for papal blessings cut off from his skeleton and was to be reburied in a common grave. But after Stephen was deposed, imprisoned and strangled, his successor Pope John IX rescued Formosus’ body from the common grave and reburied it in a papal grave again.

;General Ignorance:

*It is officially unknown who invented rugby football, but a memorial to William Webb Ellis states that “with a fine disregard to the rules of the game, he first picked up the ball and ran”, which implies that he was playing football; however football wasn’t codified until after rugby had been invented. William Webb Ellis died three years after the story was first told. In the original football rules, outfield players as well as the goalkeepers were allowed to catch the ball. (Forfeit: William Webb Ellis)

*James Bond’s job was an intelligence officer, because in the British Secret Service, an agent was an informant to other intelligence officers and aren’t officially staff. (Forfeit: Secret Agent)

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

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

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

::

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

::

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

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

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

(Forfeit: The Queen Is At Home)

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

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

;QI XL Extras:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

;General Ignorance:

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

Episode 4 “Fight or Flight”

;Broadcast date:

*16 January 2009

;Recording date:

*19 May 2008

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (−11 points)

*Pam Ayres (Winner with 8 points, but her score was not revealed – see “Other”)

*Sean Lock (−12 points)

*Johnny Vegas (1 point)

;Buzzers:

*Pam, Johnny & Sean – War plane machine guns

*Alan – Plane crash landing

;Theme:

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

;Topics:

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

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

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

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

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

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

*The opposite of the flying fish is a swimming bird, which in other words, is the penguin. To a scientist, swimming and flying are the same, because it uses the same muscles and principles, with the only difference being that one is in water and the other is in the air.

*Women are the best fly fishers as women hold the British records for the largest fish caught. There is a myth that was generated by a man in a fishing magazine that female pubic hair will attract fish because they give off pheromones, but humans don’t give off any pheromones at all. The reason that the myth has become so widespread is that if a man had held the record, no-one would care as much.

*A bear would always win a fight against a lion as the lion’s skull is very thin and although it is very muscular, has very little strength, so before the lion could attack the bear’s neck, the bear would crush the skull first. This was proven by a man who brought a lion and a bear to California during the Gold Rush as a means of entertaining the prospectors and miners. They had bears fighting against various other animals such as s, for example, but because the bear always won, they shipped in an African lion, but the bear still won. (Forfeit: Lions)

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

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

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

*Vikings, including Flóki Vilgerðarson, used ravens to find nearby land while at sea. If there was land nearby, it would fly straight toward it. If there was no land to be seen, it would land back on the boat, but because they can’t land on water. The bird had to be non-migratory and couldn’t land on the water. The raven was also the first bird to be used by Noah, before the dove. Vilgerðarson, who is also known as “Raven Flóki”, because by using this method, he discovered Iceland.

*Rockets accelerate best horizontally, as their weight is not over the thruster, so they generate lift. (Forfeit: Downwards)

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

;General Ignorance:

*All British armed forces refer to the sides of their planes as “port” and “starboard” except for the Royal Navy and the Fleet Air Arm, who call the sides of their BAE Sea Harriers left and right. This is because they have to call the sides of their aircraft carriers “port” and “starboard” so they know which way to take off. (Forfeit: The Navy)

*The panel are shown a photo of a Coldstream Guardsman and are asked what he is wearing on top of his head – the answer to which is a bearskin. They are the longer helmets covered in black fur, which are made out of real bearskin. Attempts have been made to make them out of other materials such as nylon and acrylics, but they end up bedraggled in the wet or hairs stand up on end due to static electricity. Busbies are worn by the Hussars and the Royal Horse Artillery. (Forfeit: Busby)

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

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

;QI XL Extras:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

;General Ignorance

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

;Other

Pam’s score was not read out on the show. However, according to comments made by the show’s producer [http://www.qi.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=14460&start=0 Piers "Flash" Fletcher] on ”QI’s” web forum, she scored 8 points.

Episode 5 “France”

;Broadcast date:

*23 January 2009

;Recording date:

*13 May 2008

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (−39 points)

*Jo Brand (5 points)

*Hugh Dennis (Winner with 15 points)

*Phill Jupitus (−2 points)

;Buzzers:

*Phill – ”La Marseillaise”

*Hugh – ”Boum!” by Charles Trenet

*Jo – ”Non, je ne regrette rien” by Edith Piaf

*Alan – ”Je t’aime… moi non plus” by Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin

;Theme:

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

;Topics:

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

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

*Stephen begins by awarding bonus points to anyone who can answer him in French. Hugh responds by saying “Oui” and Jo by saying “Non”.

*Alan fails to answer the following question correctly: “Donne-moi un mot, s’il vous plait, un mot pour un mammifère marin qui ne peut avaler aucun plus grand qu’un pamplemousse?” The question translates as, “Name a marine animal that couldn’t swallow anything bigger than a grapefruit?” The answer is the Blue Whale. As with the rest of Stephen’s attempt at French, this is pretty awful. For one thing, saying “donne” to someone and then saying “s’il vous plaît” is a ludicrous mixing of informal and formal usage, but the actual question should have been (assuming Stephen and Alan call each other “tu”) “Donne-moi un mot, s’il te plaît, d’un mammifère marin qui ne peut rien avaler de plus grand qu’un pamplemousse.”

*The panel are shown a picture of some Frenchmen on stilts in the middle of a swamp and are asked what they are doing. They are looking for sheep – the people in the picture are shepherds and stand on stilts to see further on ground that is not solid. The picture was taken in Les Landes, found in the area of Gascony, south of Bordeaux. This was used right up to the 20th century. Today, the people of Les Landes dance on their stilts.

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

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

:”Tangent: Jo asked a man in the Aran Islands, near Galway, what he did during the winter. He said, “Fishing and fisting”.”

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

:”Tangent: Hugh jokes that the difference between the French kiss and a Belgian kiss is that the Belgian kiss has more phlegm (a play on the Belgian-Dutch language Flemish).”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

;General Ignorance:

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

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

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

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

*Most Spaniards do not lisp when they speak, in the sense of having a speech impediment that causes them to substitute /θ/ for /s/. It is actually a feature of pronunciation in the Castilian dialect to distinguish the two phonemes /θ/ and /s/. However some dialects only have the /θ/ sound and not the /s/, (ceceo) and this is considered bumpkinish by other Spaniards. It is no different to the way that Northern English people speak differently from Southern English people. (Forfeit: To Avoid Embarrassing The King)

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

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

;QI XL Extras:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

;General Ignorance:

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

Episode 6 “Fakes & Frauds”

;Broadcast date:

*30 January 2009

;Recording date:

*12 May 2008

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (−21 points)

*Marcus Brigstocke (−26 points)

*Jimmy Carr (−18 points)

*Sean Lock (Winner with −16 points)

;Buzzers:

The panel’s first task of the show is to identify what is making their buzzer noise:

*Sean – The Superb Lyrebird mimicking a chainsaw

*Jimmy – The Superb Lyrebird mimicking a camera shutter

*Marcus – The Superb Lyrebird mimicking a car alarm

*Alan – A telephone ringing

;Theme:

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

;Topics:

*Jimmy, Marcus and Sean’s buzzers are all vocalisations made by the Australian Superb Lyrebird, an animal which can mimic almost any noise. (Forfeits: Camera, Car Alarm)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

;General Ignorance:

*New London Bridge is in Arizona because it was brought by Robert P. McCulloch as a tourist attraction for his new settlement at Lake Havasu. It is the third biggest tourist attraction in America. Old London Bridge had been crossing the River Thames for 600 years by the time McCulloch brought New London Bridge. Because there were so many buildings and shops on Old London Bridge, it was quicker to cross the river by ferry than crossing the bridge. (Forfeit: He Thought He Was Buying Tower Bridge)

*If you went to the shops to buy butter but could not find any, you cannot buy margarine to replace it, because it is not sold in Britain. The UK Spreads Association, formerly the Margarine and Spreads Association claim that there is currently no margarine on sale in Britain. Margarine is white in colour and is between 80 and 90% fat. In the United States, dairy lobbies tried to prevent margarine going on sale. In some states like New Hampshire where the lobby was very powerful, they insisted that margarine should be coloured red to stop people from buying it. (Forfeit: Margarine)

*There are 613 commandments in the Bible. In the list of what is commonly referred to as the Ten Commandments, there are in fact 14 different commandments mentioned in Exodus and Deuteronomy. But, if you were to include all of the other commandments listed in the Bible, there would be 613. Less well known commandments include: “You shall not suffer a witch to live”, “You shall never vex a stranger” and “Whosoever lies with a beast shall be surely put to death”. The main reason why it’s believed that there are 10 is because that some of the commandments are divided. (Forfeits: 10, 9,

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

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

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

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

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

;QI XL Extras:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*If the King of Syracuse calls you in the bathtub and claims that he has problems with his tiara, the thing to shout is “Eureka!” This was shouted by Archimedes when he discovered that you can tell the volume of an object by putting it in water and seeing how much water flows out of bath. A tainted tiara is less dense than one made solely of gold, so Archimedes could see that the tiara had been tainted with.

*Stephen uses a series of statements to describe one of the members of the panel. However, he instead uses Barnum statements (or personal validation fallacy) to describe everyone. Barnum statements are general statements used by psychics and mediums. They include “rainbow statements”, “vanishing negative” and the “escape hatch”. They are also known as Forer questions, named after psychologist Bertram R. Forer, who died in 2000, who gave his students a questionnaire of such questions. All the responses were the same.

*The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary was a mythical half-sheep half-plant creature created in the 16th century to describe how cotton spread.

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

Episode 7 “Fingers & Fumbs”

;Broadcast date:

*6 February 2009

;Recording date:

*5 May 2008

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (−42 points)

*Jo Brand (−26 points)

*Phill Jupitus (Winner with −24 points)

*Dara Ó Briain (−28 points)

;Buzzers:

*Phill – ”Twenty Tiny Fingers” by Alma Cogan

*Dara – ”Dem Bones”

*Jo – ”Shaddap You Face” by Joe Dolce Music Group

*Alan – ”This Little Piggy”

;Theme:

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

;Topics:

*Fargling is the American version of Rock, Paper, Scissors. According to the New Scientist, the best opening move in Rock, Paper, Scissors is scissors, because many believe that rock is a good opener, so they pick paper. Jo suggests you should play with a Saudi shoplifter as they will always pick rock. Phill then suggests not playing with Abu Hamza, as he will always do “question mark”, because of his hook.

*The panellists are asked to put their pencils in their mouths. Phill and Dara are asked to put them between their teeth and Jo and Alan are asked to put them between their lips. They are then asked if “Quack” or “Moo” is funnier. The answer is “quack”, this is because when you say a word with a letter “k” in it, it forces you to smile. According to psychologists, this is due to facial feedback.

*A duck’s quack can echo. This was proven by a man at Salford University, who put a duck in a reverberation chamber. (Forfeit: It Doesn’t Echo)

*The ideal way to kiss a Frenchman depends on which area of France you are in. If you are in the central or southern France, it is 2 kisses and in the north, it is 4 kisses. In Belgium and Holland, it’s 3 kisses. It’s 5 kisses, if you are kissing the person in Corsica, which leads to Stephen telling the joke, “Can you tell me what person kisses 5 times?”, the answer being “Course, I can (Corsican)”. In America, it’s strictly 1 cheek, because they’re baffled by the Europeans doing any more than one. In Spain, you have to the kiss the person on the right cheek first.

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

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

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

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

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

*You can tell if people are criminals by looking at them. It’s achieved by using physiognomy, which was dictated by Aristotle. There is also the famous phrenology head of Lorenzo Niles Fowler, which points out emotional and cognitive parts of the head.

*Each of the panellists are then given their phrenological descriptions:

**Alan – Curly hair signifies someone who is “dull of apprehension”, soon angry and given to lying and mischief. The distance between the eyebrows signifies hard-hearted, envious, close and cunning, addicted to cruelty more than love.

**Dara – He who has a large full forehead and a little round with all, destitute of hair, or at least that has little on it is bold, malicious, high-spirited, full of choler, apt to transgress beyond bounds, yet of good wit and apprehensive.

**Phill – He whose hair grows thick on his temples and his brow is by nature, simple, vain, luxurious, lustful, credulous, clownish in his speech and conversation, double chin shows appeaseable disposition, a great supplanter and secret in all your actions.

**Jo – One whose hair is of reddish complexion is for the most part proud, deceitful, detracting, venerous and full of envy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

;General Ignorance:

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

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

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

*It’s easier to frown than smile, because it takes 12 muscles to smile and only 11 to frown.

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

:”Tangent: Alan complains about people who say “Cheer up!” to him when he’s pensive.”

;QI XL Extras:

:”Phill’s fuck Forfeit: By saying fuck, Phill and Stephen played Rock, Paper, Scissors, in which they both picked scissors, so it was a draw.”

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

:”Dara’s fuck Forfeit: By saying fuck, Dara and Stephen played Rock, Paper, Scissors, in which they both picked scissors, so again, it was a draw.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

;General Ignorance:

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

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

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

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

Episode 8 “Fashion”

;Broadcast date:

*13 February 2009

;Recording date:

*4 June 2008

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (−35 points)

*Clive Anderson (−5 points)

*Rich Hall (Winner with 4 points)

*Reginald D. Hunter (−6 points)

;Buzzers:

*Clive – ”Always True To You (In My Fashion)” from ”Kiss Me, Kate”

*Rich – ”Dedicated Follower of Fashion” by The Kinks

*Reginald – ”I’m Too Sexy” by Right Said Fred

*Alan – ”My Old Man’s a Dustman” by Lonnie Donegan

;Theme:

*The panellists are challenged to create a catchphrase using 19th century catchphrases or catchphrases that they know of.

**Alan – “Has your mother sold her mangle?”

**Clive – “Who are you?”

**Rich – “You’re dumber than a bag of wet mice!”

**Reginald – “Do what you do best.”

**Stephen – “I can come in any trousers I like!”

;Topics:

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

:”Tangent: Rich jokes about the origins of the Phillips Head Screw.”

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

:”Tangent: The Simpsons refer to the Hundred Years’ War as “Operation Speedy Resolution”.”

*The Duke of Wellington was thrown out of a club for wearing trousers. He was a member of Almack’s, a society club that you could only join if you got given a voucher, but as part of the etiquette, you had to wear breeches, but he wore trousers, so he was thrown out. (Forfeit: Wellington Boots)

*During World War II, a wartime shortage of trousers was coped with by banning turn-ups. Tailors were even told that they would go to prison if they intentionally sold long trousers, from which turn-ups could be made. Boys under 12 had to wear shorts. Women couldn’t wear stockings, so they drew seams on the backs of their legs, by first staining their legs with gravy browning to make them look tanned. They would then draw a line on the seam, to make it look like nylon.

*The Gömböc is the first manmade mono-monostatic object. That means it can self-right from whatever position it’s in. It was invented by Péter Várkonyi and Gábor Domokos. Domokos was in the studio audience and explained that he got the idea from the Weeble and that if any of the edges were 1/100th of a millimetre out, it couldn’t self-right itself. The idea of the mono-monostatic shape was first found in the shell of turtles. Other Hungarian inventions include the Rubik’s Cube and the ballpoint pen, made by László Bíró.

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

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

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

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

;General Ignorance:

*The only word that rhymes with month is Granth or the Guru Granth Sahib, which is the holy text used in Sikhism.

*The city with the most Michelin Stars is Tokyo. It has 150 stars, which is 2 more than London and Paris put together and 3 times more than New York. (Forfeits: Paris, New York, London)

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

*A nicotine stain is colourless, odourless, invisible and untracable. It’s named after Jean Nicot, who was France’s version of Walter Raleigh. There was an Irish “Cigarette Devil”, which Stephen and Alan remember from school called Nic O’Tine. (Forfeits: Yellow, Brown)

*The only dictator who definitely only had one ball was Chairman Mao. It’s referred to as monorchism. The word “orchid” derives from the Greek for testicle. In the memoirs of his doctor, he was infertile, had venereal disease in the 1950s and contracted herpes in the 1960s. He never brushed his teeth, and he rinsed them with tea, meaning his teeth turned green. He also slept on a wooden bed and used a bedpan. There is no justification that Adolf Hitler had only one testicle. (Forfeits: Pol Pot, Stalin)

*Correction: Following the recording of this episode, it was discovered that Adolf Hitler really did have one ball. It was also discovered that Francisco Franco only had one ball as well.

;QI XL Extras:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

;General Ignorance:

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

Episode 9 “The Future”

;Broadcast date:

*20 February 2009

;Recording date:

*6 May 2008

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (−60 points)

*Rob Brydon (−31 points)

*Sean Lock (7 points)

*Ben Miller (Winner with 14 points)

;Buzzers:

*Sean – Theme from ”The Twilight Zone”

*Rob – Theme from ”Star Trek”

*Ben – Theme from ”Doctor Who”

*Alan – ”Let’s Face the Music and Dance” by Fred Astaire (which descends into chaos, including things being smashed and a cat shrieking included)

;Theme:

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

;Topics:

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

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

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

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

:”Tangent: Sean argues that physics can’t be explained to ordinary people without seeming like fabricated guesswork. Stephen adds that this is the case until a machine is able to prove a theory, like Michael Faraday with electricity.”

*Questions about people who tried to predict the future, but were “hopelessly wrong”:

**In 1955, ”Variety” predicted that rock and roll would be “gone before June”. (Forfeit: May)

**In 1977, Ken Olsen, chairman of the Digital Equipment Corporation said “there is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home”.

**In 1955, Alex Lewitt incorrectly predicted that a nuclear powered vacuum cleaner would be “a reality within 10 years”. Alan then talks about original vacuum cleaners being dragged by horses, which Stephen saw on a show called “QI”. (to be exact the Domesticity episode). Correction: As around 19% of Britain’s power comes from nuclear power stations, it can be argued that the country’s vacuum cleaners are in a way nuclear powered.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

;General Ignorance:

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

:: d = sqrt{1.5h}

: This normally means, when standing at sea level, the horizon is roughly away from you.

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

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

;QI XL Extras:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

;General Ignorance:

*Between 2000 and 2005, 0% of Guyana’s rainforest was cut down, because every tree pulled down is immediately replaced with a new one. It’s also the only South American country with a cricket team, mainly because they speak English. Correction: The South American country Suriname also plays cricket, after it was introduced to them by the Indians.

*The Forth Railway Bridge will have its paintwork completed in 2012, thanks to a new mixture of paint and epoxy resin, which will last for between 25 and 40 years. (Forfeit: Never)

Episode 10 “Flora & Fauna”

;Broadcast date:

*27 February 2009

;Recording date:

*20 May 2008

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (−18 points)

*Jo Brand (−27 points)

*Jimmy Carr (Technical winner with −1 point)

*John Sergeant (−4 points)

*The Audience (Winners with 10 points)

;Buzzers:

*John – A lion

*Jimmy – A wolf

*Jo – An elephant

*Alan – A cat and dog fighting each other

;Theme:

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

;Topics:

*Stephen is wearing a camellia in his buttonhole. The camellia is made famous in the novel, La Dame aux camélias by Alexandre Dumas, fils, the bastard son of Alexandre Dumas, père, the author of The Three Musketeers. In the book, the heroine, Marguerite Gautier, wore a white camellia for 25 days of the month and a red one for 5 days of the month. When she wore the red one, she was proclaiming that she was “not available”. The book caused a huge uproar in 19th century France and made the camellia an overnight garden sensation. The novel later became a play that starred Sarah Bernhardt for 1,000 showings. In 1854, Verdi saw the play and turned it into the opera, La traviata, which is about a famous courtesan who is in love. The original version was about 7 men who couldn’t afford her price, so they clubbed together and bought a chest of drawers, which had 7 draws, so they could each keep their clothes in. It was later turned into the film, . ”The audience were awarded 10 points for knowing the “La traviata” part.”

*Flea circuses do exist and are not a myth. They were mainly popular during the 1920s and 1930s, dying out in the 1960s. The fleas were tortured and were placed on the ringmaster’s arm, because they fed on his blood. Correction: human fleas were not the preferred kind for flea circuses, and the ringmasters only pretended to feed their performers on their own blood. Jimmy claimed it was like Britain’s Got Talent. Among the acts were the fleas being glued to musical instruments, with the floor being heated, so it seemed like they were playing them. Michael Bentine did a mechanical version, which was what Jimmy thought it was originally.

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

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

*The only fish that lives in a tree is the killifish, found in the mangrove swamps of Florida and Belize. When the swamps shrink, they go up the grooves in the tree and live there. It’s also the only vertebrate that is hermaphrodite and can self-fertilise, but not quite in the asexual reproduction way. There are 1,270 species of killifish.

*Flamingos stand on one leg, so they can go to sleep. Whichever leg is raised, that half of the flamingo goes to sleep in a torpid state, which lowers the blood flow and couldn’t sustain itself while asleep. When they’ve had enough sleep, they swap the legs over.

*As mentioned in the “B” series, the reason that flamingos are pink is because they eat blue-green algae, which is full of keratinoids. In zoos they give the flamingos supplements to make them pink. They can drink boiling water, because they live near to geysers, which leads Alan to claim that they’re the only living thing that can eat a McDonald’s apple pie. (Forfeit: Because They Eat Prawns)

*The panellists hear a noise made by Natterjack Toads. When the toads get sexually excited, they leap on anything if it’s male or female, but if it’s a male, the toad that it’s leapt on will make a noise, meaning that it wants the toad to get off. 20 tonnes of toad lose their lives in road accidents each year. They are being limited by the construction of toad tunnels. The reason why so many are killed is because their mating ponds are at the other side of the road and since they have travelled there many times before, they just follow the same route.

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

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

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

*Between 1930 and 1960, female African clawed frogs were used as pregnancy tests by injection urine from a woman via a hypodermic needle and if they ovulated within 8 to 12 hours, they were pregnant. Until the 1950s, it was the only pregnancy test available. The National Health Service kept some of these frogs, but some managed to escape, but they have a disease called Chytridiomycosis, which is threatening ⅓ of all amphibians around the world.

*A ferret builds an airliner by going through small gaps in Boeing aeroplanes to help fit wires. It was used up until the 1960s. They were also used at the wedding of Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales, at the Millennium Party in the Park. They’re the third most popular pet in United States after cats and dogs. Like puppies, they welcome you home after you’ve been at work. (Forfeit: Weasily)

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

;General Ignorance:

*The fastest thing in the natural world is the White Mulberry. It pushes out its pollen at half the speed of sound (Mach 0.5). In biology, nothing is faster. Ties are made out of the silk that comes from the White Mulberry, thanks to the silkworms that live on its leaves in China, where they’re grown. (Forfeits: Blue Whale, Cheetah)

*A slug with a shell on its back is called a slug, or to be official, a Urocyclidae. Snails that have shells on their back are snails. The trail of slime that slugs leave behind gets eaten up and is used as an act of foreplay. There are 37,000 species of gastropod, which is the largest after insects. (Forfeit: A Snail)

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

*A mushroom is neither a plant or an animal, but it’s more closely related to an animal. (Forfeits: Plant, Animal)

;QI XL Extras:

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

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

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

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

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

*A fairy ring is a ring of mushrooms. They grow round trees and when they retreat, they leave a ring of discoloured grass. They are claimed to be magic, because if a young lady goes into a fairy ring on a May Day morning and washes her face with the dew of the grass, she will turn into a hag. They’re also claimed to create es, but they aren’t created by dancing fairies.

*The pygmy hog-sucking louse, which lives off the Pygmy Hog is being threatened, because the Pygmy Hog is dying out and since there are only 150 of them left, there will be fewer lice left, as they need the hog so that they can live off them. It’s the only species of louse that is critically endangered.

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

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

;General Ignorance:

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

*Peacocks impress their partners by their personality. It was discovered by Japanese scientists at the University of Tokyo. The study took 7 years and studying 258 matings. It involved looking at the tail quality by length of tail and photographing the male during the tail ritual and counting its eyespots. They then saw if the peahen chose the male with the best quality tails.

*Captain Cook ate an albatross after he shot it. The botanist Joseph Banks, after who Botany Bay is named, described in his diary that “everybody commended them (the albatross steaks) and everyone ate heartily of them, though there was fresh pork on the table.” The idea that it was bad luck to eat an albatross seems to have come after this incident involving Captain Cook, probably coming from the poem, “The Ancient Mariner”, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

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

Episode 11 “Film”

;Broadcast date:

*6 March 2009

;Recording date:

*11 June 2008

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (Winner with 4 points!)

*David Mitchell (−15 points)

*John Sessions (1 point)

*Emma Thompson (−10 points)

;Buzzers:

*David – Pearl and Dean fanfare

*Emma – Theme from Indiana Jones

*John – ”There’s No Business Like Show Business” from ”Annie Get Your Gun”

*Alan – Porky Pig saying “Th-Th-Th-Th-That’s all folks!” with the Warner Bros. Animation theme

;Theme:

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

;Topics:

*The panellists are shown a picture of a painting by Man Ray, called “Violon d’Ingres, meant as a sort of pun in the name of Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, who was a talented painter and violinist. It’s an example of “Ingres’ Violin”, which is someone doing something they’re not famous as well as someone who does do it well, so in Ingres’ case, he was a good violinist as well as a great painter.

*The Oscar statue was created by Cedric Gibbons. In 1928, he was asked to design the statue for the new Academy Awards and he won 11 of them as art director, as well as being nominated for 36 in total. Walt Disney won the most with 26. Stephen then reveals that he made one at the factory in Chicago. They’re made of britannium and you have to buff it out, then they’re dipped in nickel, then in gold.

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

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

*The panellists are asked to listen to some sound effects. The first one is some wet hands being squidged together to create the sound of a lamb being born. It’s an example of foley. Other examples heard are a knife sliding along a scaffolding pole, then chopping a cabbage, then being dropped into a bucket, representing a guillotine. Then there is the noise of 2 halves of a coconut shell being clapped together to mimic the sound of a horse. Cellophane being crushed represents fire. Then, a piece of paper being removed from its envelope was the sound used by Star Wars for the noise made by the sliding doors. The sounds were created by QI’s own sounds guru, Lizzie Calfe, who used to do the sounds for The Archers.

*An English accent would probably help you get the role of a villain in a Hollywood movie. This leads to a discussion about Alan Rickman, who mixed English and German for his role in Die Hard. He also played the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.

**Villains played by English actors in Hollywood films include Peter Cushing playing Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, Steven Berkoff played villains in Beverley Hills Cop and Rambo: First Blood Part II, Christopher Lee played Saruman in The Lord of the Rings and Count Dooku in Star Wars.

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

*The Ancient Greeks never covered up the “naughty bits” on their statues. They were chipped off by people in the 16th century, mainly started by the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation. There is even a room in the Vatican which contains some chipped off “naughty bits”. It was people like Calvin and Savonarola, who hated all things pure.

*The panellists are shown a 1903 film about cheese mites, which caused an outrage to the cheese producers in the world, but it boosted the sales of cheap microscopes, as people became fascinated with what was inside their food.

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

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

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

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

;General Ignorance:

*A hedgehog doesn’t die if its fleas are removed. It could die if you cover it in anti-flea powder, but they like their fleas. You shouldn’t give a hedgehog bread or milk, because they get diarrhoea and dry out. On David Mitchell’s BBC Radio 4 show, “The Unbelievable Truth”, they revealed the opposite to what Stephen just said. (Forfeit: It Dies)

*William Shakespeare mentions cricket 3 times during the 1550s, although it’s the insect cricket, rather than the sport, although it did exist. This fact was also dispelled on David’s show, “The Unbelievable Truth”. (Forfeit: Never)

*Head lice don’t mind what type of hair they’re on as long as there is an adequate blood supply. Originally, it was thought that lice fed on dirty hair, before it was changed to clean. Nits are the egg-cases of the louse, which take weeks to get rid of them. (Forfeit: Clean)

*A flu jab works by giving you an inactive virus that helps the antibodies beat off flu. People think it actually gives you flu, so that the flu spreading around doesn’t go into you. (Forfeit: By Giving You ‘Flu)

;QI XL Extras:

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

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

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

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

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

*Englishmen whose surname begins with a double-”f” at the front is probably accidental, because in the 18th century, the way a capital “f” was handwritten, meant it looked like it began with a double-”f”, or as Stephen puts it, “you’re either Welsh or semi-literate thickos”.

*The panellists listen to a piece of music from Florence Foster Jenkins, who rented out Carnegie Hall for recitals, because she was so rich and could have sold out 10 times over. Cole Porter became so enamoured of her, that he wrote a song for her. She even said “Some say I couldn’t sing, but no-one can say that I didn’t sing”. She was left a lot of money when her father died and sang at Carnegie Hall at the age of 76, which sold out weeks in advance and 2,000 people were turned away at the door. Tickets cost $20, which is $400 in today’s money. She made her own costumes and changed them regularly, so she asked the audience not to go away while she changed.

:”Tangent: Emma tells about how she’d lock the doors at the bottom of the stairs when Stephen was around so he couldn’t escape when she would subsequently walk down the stairs naked, causing the normally collected Fry scream as he struggled to get away.”

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

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

;General Ignorance:

*The most depressing day of the week is Wednesday. According to research, people would say Monday, but if you asked the same people over a long period of time on each separate day, it becomes Wednesday. There is a French joke which says that if you had a meeting with an Englishman on a Wednesday, it would screw up 2 weekends of his, because the French think the British are lazy. (Forfeit: Monday)

*The most popular British film made by Innovia Films Ltd is cellophane, which made more than £360 million in 2008 and around the same in 2007.

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

Episode 12 “Food”

;Broadcast date:

*20 March 2009

;Recording date:

*28 May 2008

;Panellists:

*Alan Davies (−12 points)

*Jimmy Carr (−46 points)

*Rich Hall (−2 points)

*David Mitchell (Winner with 10 points)

;Buzzers

*David – A tea bell

*Jimmy – A gong

*Rich – A church bell

*Alan – A countdown timer, a kitchen alarm and an explosion

;Theme:

*During the first part of the episode, the panellists are asked to put which areas of taste go where on a mini tongue map that they’ve each been given. Officially there is no such thing as a tongue map, but the official given map from back to front is bitter, sour, salty and sweet, but since then umami, the savouriness has been discovered.

;Topics:

*The only known animal that can be eaten without killing it is the stone crab, a local delicacy in Florida. Its claws can be snapped off by the fisherman, then they can regenerate them within a year. They are normally served with a butter and mustard sauce in restaurants. It’s also believed that certain tribesmen in the Masai Mara area of Kenya and northern Tanzania use the blood of cattle, without killing them and even mix the blood with milk, so the cattle create two drinks.

:”Tangent: Discussion about bloating, constipation and farting on television.”

*An oyster can be taught how to keep closed for long periods of time. When oysters are out of water, they stay fresh, as long as they stay shut, but because of their castanet-like action, they need to filter through the nutrients that they need. The French managed to achieve this by hitting them with a metal rod, which made them close for long periods of time.

:”Tangent: When the colonists first arrived in the area around where New York City is now, they found huge oysters, but since they had no ice and they kept opening and closing all the time, they went off easily and could not be shipped anywhere. So, they moved them a little farther up the bank at each tide, which trained them by exposure to the air, so they would then stay closed for longer periods of time.”

*The Mounties used fruit machines to determine whether candidates were homosexual or not. During the Cold War, it was believed that civil servants were being blackmailed for being gay. The Mounties tried to find all the civil servants in the Canadian Civil Service, so they weren’t honeytrapped by Soviet Union spies. So, they used the device to show candidates pornography of men and women to test their homosexuality. It measured the pupil dilation and perspiration. If they failed, they were sacked. In other words, it was the first gaydar. The inventor of the fruit machine, Kurt Freund, a German living in Czechoslovakia, invented it in order for people who used the fact they were gay to stop them from being in the Czechoslovakian Army.

:”Tangent: The Mounties, or the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, as they are officially known are officially the actual police force in Canada, which leads to a discussion about whether they have any unmounted police in Canada. It then leads to Jimmy believing that disabled access is a conspiracy set up by the Daleks.”

:”Tangent: The fruit machine was eventually replaced with the plethysmograph. The male version was a sort of cock ring, while the female version is a sort of dildo used to measure lubrication. It was used up until the 1980s.”

*Teacher’s Pet Fanfare: The difference between French service and Russian service is the way that dinners are served out. The French service involves bringing all the dishes out in one go, whereas the Russian service is where the dishes are brought out in courses. Until the 19th century, all French meals were brought out in one go, until Prince Kurakin, who was an ambassador at Napoleon’s court suggested bringing alternative courses. Rich then says that the Americans improved it with the drive-through.

:”Teacher’s Pet Fanfare Tangent: The man who brought the Russian service idea into restaurants was Auguste Escoffier, who invented frog legs, which Alan found out on David’s radio show, The Unbelievable Truth. David also wrote a page about Escoffier for the QI Annual. Escoffier died in 1935, at the age of 62. He also founded the Ritz Hotel in Paris and the Carlton Hotel in London, as well as being the chef at The Savoy. He also invented the Peach Melba for the opera singer Dame Nellie Melba, as well as the Melba toast. Her real name was Mitchell, and her father was called David Mitchell.”

;General Ignorance:

*Officially there are only two poisonous snakes, the Japanese Grass Snake, which becomes poisonous by eating toxic toads and the Common Garter Snake, which eats a poisonous rough-skinned newt. A venomous snake is a snake whose venom is injected in your blood, but a poisonous snake is a snake that can kill only by being eaten. (Forfeit: Piers Morgan)

*There is no food that you shouldn’t eat before bedtime. It was believed that cheese gives you bad dreams, but this was debunked in 2005, by a study by the British Cheese Board. The main reason is that there is an amino acid in cheese and all other dairy products called Tryptophan, which gives you peace, joy and tranquillity and helps you sleep. (Forfeit: Cheese)

*The phrase “Let them eat cake” has an unknown origin, but Marie Antoinette, who is claimed to have said it, was only quoting it, rather than coined the phrase. She was born in 1755 and was first seen in print by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in 1740. (Forfeits: Mr Kipling, Marie Antoinette)

*According to a survey by the American Civil Liberties Union, 70% of the Internet is spam. Less than 1% is porn. Up to 89% of e-mail traffic is spam. (Forfeit: Porn)

;QI XL Extras:

:”Tangent: Tapeworm pills were a popular dieting method in the early 20th century, which then leads to a discussion about which end the tapeworm would be removed from, when it’s fully grown. David mistakenly confuses the idea that you could roll out the tapeworm using the end of a Biro, with removing a Guinea worm by the same method.”

:”Tangent: David believes that the stone crab could be like an apple tree, since when apples fall off the tree, new ones are created, so he believes that the crab might be a tree.”

:”Tangent: Alan reveals that his great-uncle was in the Mounties. He only found that out after research into his family tree on ”You Don’t Know You’re Born”. He had his leg blown off in World War I, then lived in Canada, before becoming Chief Constable of the Vancouver section of the force, proving that because you’re part of the Mounties, you don’t need two legs, since the horses already have four each.”

:”Tangent: Before going on stage, Nellie Melba believed it was good to have oral sex to improve your voice.”

*Greco-Roman wrestling was invented by the French, who decided to give it a sort of classical name. It was invented as an alternative to freestyle wrestling, which itself began as catch-as-catch-can wrestling, with the main difference being that you couldn’t go below the waist in catch wrestling. Muscle can’t be turned into fat or vice-versa, because they are different things. (Forfeit: Greeks, Romans)

:”Tangent: Mae West famously said of all-in wrestling that “if it’s all-in, why wrestle?””

*The worst thing to eat for tooth decay is potato starch. It hangs around in the teeth, unlike sugar, which dissolves quickly in saliva, so it misses the teeth. Having doubles your chance of having coronary artery disease. A lot of diseases in the heart are actually infections, so flossing is good for you heart, which leads to Stephen revealing that he saw something advertising “Anal Floss” in America.

:”Tangent: Rich reveals the astonishing way of how a man escaped jail in Mexico, as seen on MythBusters. He wiped salsa on the bars for 6 years, which made the acid corrode the steel and a current was run through it, so he escaped.”

*The “Miracle of the Herrings” is to do with the sainthood of Thomas Aquinas. When the Roman Catholic Church wants to appoint holy people who have died, they make them a saint, but the Dominican Aquinas didn’t mortify his flesh as you’re supposed to do and he did nothing spectacular while he was alive apart from being a great philosopher. They tried to find him a miracle, but there weren’t any, until on his , he was claimed to say “I fancy a herring.”, but since he was by the Mediterranean Sea, there weren’t any, so some pilchards were brought instead, and he said they were the best he’d ever had, so the Catholic Church interpreted it as “The Miracle of the Herrings”, by saying that the pilchards had turned to herrings in his mouth, so he qualified for a sainthood. Currently, they are trying to fast track the sainthoods to Padre Pio and Mother Teresa. Correction: Padre Pio became a saint in 2002.

:”Tangent: Discussion about the Feeding of the 5,000.”

;General Ignorance:

:”Tangent: David’s rant about headlines incorporating crap jokes involving their company, such as a headline about British Airways’ rising profits being described as “BA’s Profits Soar”.”

:”Tangent: It was believed that the Romantics used to eat off meat to give themselves crazy dreams. Byron once wrote a poem on a toilet wall, about having a “good stool”, which included an example of a pathetic fallacy.”

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

No related posts.

Comparison with Theosophy

Theosophists are divided on their assessment of Alice Bailey’s writings. For instance, the noted contemporary Theosophical writer Geoffrey Hodson wrote a highly favorable review of one her books, saying, “Once more Alice Bailey has placed occult students in her debt.” Olav Hammer writes, “Her first book, ”Initiation Human and Solar,” was at first favorably received by her fellow theosophists. Soon, however, her claims to be recipient of ageless wisdom from the Masters met with opposition.” The conflict is understandable since her works contain some criticisms of Theosophy, and at the time of the break she voiced her criticism of what she saw as dogmatic structures within the society, while questioning the pledges of loyalty to Theosophical leaders that were required. “During the annual convention of 1920 in Chicago, there was a power struggle between forces loyal to Besant and the Esoteric Section and others who believed that the ES had become too powerful. Below the surface was a hidden controversy regarding Alice’s work with the Tibetan.” For a more recent example of Bailey/Theosophy division, see Theosophy in Scandinavia.

Campbell writes that Bailey’s books are a reworking of major Theosophical themes, with some distinctive emphases, and that they present a comprehensive system of esoteric science and occult philosophy, cognizant of contemporary social and political developments. Steven J. Sutcliffe points out that both Bailey and Blavatsky’s work evoke a picture of Tibet as the spiritual home of the Masters and that Bailey claimed a more-or-less direct lineage to Blavatsky. He describes Bailey as a ‘post-Theosophical’ theorist, reporting that Bailey received instruction from “former personal pupils of Blavatsky”, and notes that her third book (”A Treatise on Cosmic Fire”) not only reproduces Blavatsky’s apocryphal Stanzas of Dzyan, but is dedicated to Blavatsky, as well.

Jon Klimo, in ”Investigations on Receiving Information from Paranormal Sources,” writes, “As with Blavatsky/Theosophical material, and more recent contemporary channeled material from other sources, we find in the Bailey work the same occult cosmological hierarchy: physical, etheric, astral, mental, causal, and higher inhabited levels of existence.” Olav Hammer, in the book ”Claiming Knowledge: Strategies of Epistemology from Theosophy to the New Age,” highlights Bailey’s Theosophical similarities as well as noting what he thinks are some differences between them: “To a large extent, Bailey’s teachings are a restatement and amplification of theosophy of the ”Secret Doctrine.” Bailey inherited from Blavatsky and Leadbeater a predilection for profuse details and complex classificatory schemes. … Her books have also introduced shifts in emphasis as well as new doctrinal elements.”

In contrast to the above, some Theosophical critics have contended that there are major differences between Bailey’s ideas and the Theosophy of Blavatsky, such as Bailey’s embrace of some mystical Christian terms and concepts and her acceptance of C.W. Leadbeater.

Nicholas Weeks, writing for the Theosophical magazine ”Fohat” in 1997, felt Bailey’s assertion that “… her teachings are grounded in and do not oppose in any fundamental way Theosophy as lived and taught by HPB and her Gurus” was false, claiming her books are in fact “rooted in the pseudo-theosophy pioneered by C. W. Leadbeater.” He claimed Bailey accepted Leadbeater’s “fantasy” of the return of Maitreya, and disparaged Bailey’s ”Great Invocation”, a prayer supposed to “induce Christ and his Masters to leave their hidden ashrams [and] enter into major cities” to lead the Aquarian Age. This contrasts with the Theosophy of Blavatsky, he says, which emphasizes reliance on “the Christos principle within each person”.

The Blavatskian theosophists.

Some critics and often followers of the so-called Blavatskian theosophy on Atma-Vidya refer to the following quotes. The theosophical Master K.H. was given by H. P. Blavatsky to say: “the Salvation Army by hypnotizing people and making them psychically drunk with excitement, is Black Magic”. And H. P. Blavatsky stated in contrast with Alice A. Bailey’s promotion of a Great Invocation arrival of a Maitreya Saviour in the flesh that: “(a) “the coming of Christ,” means the presence of CHRISTOS in a regenerated world, and not at all the actual coming in body of “Christ” Jesus; (b) this Christ is to be sought neither in the wilderness nor “in the inner chambers,” nor in the sanctuary of any temple or church built by man; for Christ—the true esoteric SAVIOUR—is no man, but the DIVINE PRINCIPLE in every human being. ” This can be compared with Alice A. Bailey.s “The Externalization of the Hierarchy”, p.& 590.

H. P. Blavatsky also said in a letter to the honourable Abbé Roca: ””In carnalizing the central figure of the New Testament, in imposing the dogma of the Word made flesh, the Latin Church sets up a doctrine diametrically opposed to the tenets of Buddhist and Hindu Esotericism and the Greek Gnosis. Therefore, there will always be an abyss between the East and the West, as long as neither of these dogmas yields.”” And further on she said, that a ””true Theosophists will never accept either a Christ made Flesh, according to the Roman dogma, or an anthropomorphic God, still less a “Shepherd” in the person of a Pope””. Alice A. Bailey wrote: ””We have fought over the historical Christ, and thus fighting, have lost sight of His message of love to all beings. Fanatics quarrel over His words, and fail to remember that He was ‘the Word made flesh.’”” Alice A. Bailey wrote: “They will prepare and work for conditions in the world in which Christ can move freely among men, in bodily Presence; He need not then remain in His present retreat in Central Asia. “

Another principle of Theosophy, the Law of Attraction was discussed in esoteric writings by Blavatsky, Annie Besant, William Quan Judge, and others; and was also discussed in the writings of Alice Bailey, including a whole chapter in one of her books. The term has been embraced, in a simplified form, by the contemporary New Age movement and was recently popularized in the film ”The Secret”.

The Seven Rays of energy

Underlying her writings is the idea that all is energy and that spirit, matter, and the psychic forces intermediate between them are forms of energy. This energy is life itself. From one essential energy, divinity, proceed seven rays that underlie and shape the evolution of human life and the entire phenomenal world. On a cosmic level these seven rays of energy are the creative forces of planets and stars. On a microcosmic level they are the creative forces conditioning the physical, psychic, and spiritual constitution of man. (Jurriaance, p.& 73-152)

In ”Esoteric Psychology I”, the first book of ”A Treatise on the Seven Rays”, Bailey writes that the “one Life sought expansion” resulting in seven aeons, or emanations, manifesting in the expression of life, becoming the “seven Rishis of all the ancient scriptures.”

She enumerates these seven as:

# The Lord of Power or Will

# The Lord of Love-Wisdom

# The Lord of Active Intelligence

# The Lord of Harmony, Beauty and Art

# The Lord of Concrete Knowledge and Science

# The Lord of Devotion and Idealism

# The Lord of Ceremonial Order or Magic

Although described as “Lords” and “persons”, Bailey states that these “great forces” are not to be understood in terms of human personality. She also cautions that any description of such things must be couched in terms of our particular planet, such that humanity can understand it, but that these “pure Being[s] … have purposes and activities in which our Earth plays only a minor part.”

In Bailey’s concept the rays and all things manifest in centers of energy and their relationships. All rays and centers are focuses of some type of evolving life or consciousness. (Jurriaance, p.& 35-52) This includes everything from atoms to centers or chakras in the human constitution, and upwards through the human aura to groups of humans as centers, and cities and nations as centers. (Jurriaance, p.& 79- 90 ) Humanity as a whole is conceived as a center of energy as are the masters of wisdom of which she writes. Likewise, planet Earth as a whole, with all its subsidiary centers of life, is viewed as a center of life within the large life or divinity of our solar system.

The concept of the seven rays can also be found in Theosophical works. Campbell writes that Bailey, “…was the first to develop the idea of the seven rays, although it can be found in germ in earlier Theosophical writings.” The seven rays also appear in Hindu religious philosophy.

The constitution of man

In line with previous Theosophical teachings, Bailey taught that man consists of a ”soul” of abstract mental material, working through a ”personality”—a technical term used to describe the physical, emotional, and less-abstract mental ”bodies” considered holistically. She uses traditional terms for these lower three “vehicles” or “sheaths”: ”etheric” body, ”astral” body and ”mental” body. These auric aspects of the human being are defined as partial emanations or expressions of the soul, which is itself synonymous with the evolving human consciousness. The mind is not conceived to be simply an ephemeral brain effect, but as the motivating energy responsible for the inner constitution of individuals, and which also manifest as the aura.

In Bailey’s writings, ”evolution” is defined as the process of bringing the “lower sheaths” into integration and alignment with the ”will” of the soul—the “at-one-ment” of the personality. It is this transformation that leads to “right human relations” and spiritual revelation or awakening. Discrete steps on the spiritual path are called ”initiations”, which is to say that the evolving consciousness is entering into new and wider fields of awareness, relationships, responsibilities, and power. In terms of her ray concept, the note of the soul is imposed (or superimposed) on the note of the personality.

The spiritual Hierarchy, Sirius, Venus, and Shamballa

Bailey wrote that behind all human evolution stands a brotherhood of enlightened souls who have guided and aided humanity throughout history. For Bailey, the evolution of humanity was intimately bound up with its relationship to this Spiritual Hierarchy. She believed that the stimulating and uplifting influences of religions, philosophies, sciences, educational movements, and human culture in general are the result of this relationship, and though in time humanity debases all these developments, they are all in their original impetus conceived as the result of the Spiritual Hierarchy working in concert with evolving human potentials.

Bailey associated the spiritual hierarchy and its branches with the system of Sirius, the planet Venus, and the mythical land of Shambhala (which she spelled “Shamballa”), the residence of Sanat Kumara, “Lord of the World”. Bailey wrote, “The energy of Sirius by-passes (to use a modern word) Shamballa and is focused in the Hierarchy. [...] The entire work of the Great White Lodge is controlled from Sirius….” Monica Sjoo, in an essay about the New Age movement, explained her interpretation that “Bailey taught that the Hierarchy of Masters exists in Shambhala and that Venusians founded this fabled city some 18 million years ago on the sacred Gobi island, which is now in the Mongolian desert.” It may be noted here that, in Bailey’s concept, “city” is figurative since she states that Shamballa is not physical in the common usage of that word but is rather located in “higher ethers.”

The Great Invocation

The ”Great Invocation” is a mantra given in 1937 to Bailey by Djwhal Khul. The mantra begins with “From the point of Light within the Mind of God, let light stream forth into the minds of men.” with the rest of the passage reinforcing this idea of men acting in accordance with the plan of God. It is well known by some followers of the New Age movement, where it is used as part of meditation, particularly in groups.

The invocation has been used in the Findhorn Foundation community since the 1970s. In response to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the Great Invocation was used as a central element of a new daily program at Findhorn known as the “Network of Light meditations for peace”. Findhorn’s use of the Great Invocation later spun off to various other groups they had influenced, including groups interested in new age UFO philosophies.

Rosemary Keller described the Great Invocation as a call for “the Christ to return to Earth” and wrote that Bailey-related groups purchased radio and television time to broadcast the invocation as part of their mission, and that often the invocation was recited in what Keller called “light groups”, to accomplish what Bailey’s disciples considered to be attracting and focusing “spiritual energies to benefit the planet”. Researcher Hannah Newman described what she found to be an antisemitic element in the Great Invocation. According to Newman, “the Plan” named in the invocation refers to the plan authored by “the Hierarchy”, that Newman states places “high priority on removing all Jewish presence and influence from human consciousness, a goal to be achieved by eliminating Judaism.”

Discipleship and service

Bailey elaborated the relation of humanity to the Hierarchy in her teaching on ”Discipleship in the New Age”. A ”disciple” is an accepted student, or chela, in the spiritual ashram of a Master. In this scheme, all awakening souls stand in some relationship—for a long time unconsciously, but eventually in full conscious awareness—to some particular Master. The integrated personality, coming under the influence of the soul, is simultaneously coming under the influence of this Master. This relationship is determined by karma, by evolutionary status, and (most importantly) by the aspirant’s capacity for work to be done on behalf of humanity. This ”service” aspect is strongly emphasized throughout Bailey’s writings. In her concept, the greatly increased (“stepped-up”) evolution of consciousness that results from this Master–pupil relationship is made possible ”only” in and through service to humanity.

Bailey’s writing downplayed the traditional devotional and aspirational aspects of the spiritual life, in favor of serving “the Plan of the Hierarchy” by serving humanity. According to her, this is primary, and everything hinges upon it. For Bailey, ”discipleship” means work—”service”—and the evolution of those sensitivities and powers that enhance that labor. Disciples will never gain such powers or awareness unless and until they will be used solely for unselfish service. (Bailey, p.& 38)

Unity and divinity of nations and groups

Underlying Alice Bailey’s writing is the central concepts of unity and divinity.

Although she often identified groups of people by their race, nationality, or religion, she said the key matter was not race or religion per se, but the evolution of consciousness that transcends these labels. In her writings about the races, she focused on the humanitarian concept of unity and stated that the source of human problems is the spirit of separation that causes individuals and groups to set themselves apart from the rest of humanity. (Bailey, p.& 375)

Ross describes Bailey’s teachings as emphasizing the “underlying unity of all forms of life”, and the “essential oneness of all religions, of all departments of science, and of all the philosophies.” Campbell notes that the New Group of World Servers was established for “… promotion of international understanding, economic sharing, and religious unity.”

On fanaticism and intolerance

Alice Bailey wrote strongly against all forms of fanaticism and intolerance. She saw this fanaticism in churches, in nationalism, and in competing esoteric schools. (Bailey pp.& 15 & 453) She associated this fanaticism with unintelligent devotion and holding on to old ways and ancient theologies. Bailey indicated that these problems were found mostly in the older generations, that their fanaticism would limit their personal growth and that they would mostly find a solution for that limitation through devotion, and the forward movement of spiritual evolution.

Racial theories

Bailey upheld theories of racial differentiation that posited a division of humanity into races that are on different levels in a “ladder of evolution”. These ‘races’ do not represent a national or physical type, but a state of evolution. For example, she states that the Aryans (or ’5th race’), as an “emerging new race”, are the most recently evolved people on Earth, although the term ‘Aryan’ as used by her has a quite distinct meaning from the separative and racist use of the word. It refers not only to Caucasian peoples, but to origins in Indo-Persia, and indicates a culture where thought and intellect is dominant. In her book ”Education in the New Age”, Bailey made predictions about the use of occult racial theories in the schools of the future, which she said would be based on the idea of ‘root races’ (originally vast prehistoric spans of time covering thousands of years when a particular human facet was being developed) such as ”Lemurians” (physically adept), ”Atlanteans” (emotionally adept), Aryans (mentally adept), and the ”New Race” with “group qualities and consciousness and idealistic vision.”. However, she holds that the forthcoming ‘sixth sub-race’ (evolving from various facets of current ‘fifth race’ intellectual culture) cannot reach its peak until the ‘sixth race’ proper (due many thousands of years hence), and may therefore not be the advance some of her New Age followers wish for. In her ”The Destiny of the Nations”, Bailey described a process by which this “new race” will evolve from Caucasians, after which “low grade human bodies will disappear, causing a general shift in the racial types toward a higher standard.”

Her writings in this area were criticized by Victor Shnirelman, a cultural anthropologist and ethnographer, who in a survey of modern Neopaganism in Russia, drew particular attention to “… groups [that] take an extremely negative view of multi-culturalism, object to the ‘mixture’ of kinds, [and] support isolationism and the prohibition of immigration.” He noted that a number of Bailey’s books, as well as those of her contemporary Julius Evola, had been recently translated into Russian, and said that “… racist and antisemitic trends are explicit, for example, in the occult teachings of Alice Bailey and her followers, who wish to cleanse Christianity of its ‘Jewish inheritance’ and reject the ‘Jewish Bible’ as a prerequisite for entering the Age of Aquarius.”.

Monica Sjöö, a Swedish-born British artist, writer, and supporter of the Goddess movement, wrote that Bailey, through her published teachings, had a “reactionary and racist influence on the whole New Age movement.” She also noted what she called Bailey’s (and Theosophy’s) “pro-fascist religious views”, such as the belief in a secret elite of “Masters” who control world events and human minds through occult means and attempt to bring about the evolution of an Aryan super-race (although this is an understandably modern misunderstanding of her teaching – ‘Aryan’ as used by Bailey is easily confused with the modern terminology, and the “Masters” are not an elite, but instead are ‘enlightened’ individuals originally introduced in Theosophy as having evolved beyond the human or “4th kingdom” into the 5th or “Kingdom of souls”, and who – in her view – guide the human race as a whole).

On the Negro race

Bailey stated that the Negro race contains a large number of “child souls”, leading lives of “physical activity motivated by the desire for satisfaction of some kind, and by a shallow “wish-life” or desire nature, and almost entirely oriented towards the physical life.” She also wrote of the need for the white races to train the Negroes of Africa so that they will be fitted for true self-government.

She described Negro people as “creative, artistic and capable of the highest mental development when taught and trained — as capable as is the white man;” and she emphasized the need for the white races to accord the Negro “the respect and the opportunity which is due him”, stating that “The future peace of the world depends today upon enlightened, farseeing statesmanship and an appreciation of the fact that God has made all men free.”

She wrote that what she described as “the Negro Problem” is divided into two areas: “the problem of the future of the African Negro and the problem of the future of the Negro in the western hemisphere.”

On “the Negro problem” in Africa

Bailey considered the indigenous people of Africa to be in the “embryonic stage” of evolutionary development, and wrote that, “Behind the many separative religious cults of that dark land, there emerges a fundamental and pure mysticism, ranging all the way from nature worship and a primitive animism to a deep occult knowledge and an esoteric understanding which may some day make Africa the seat of the purest form of occult teaching and living.” She said that “Right human relations must be firmly established between the emerging Negro empire and the rest of the world; the new ideals and the new world trends must be fostered in the receptive Negro consciousness and in this way darkest Africa will become a radiant center of light, ready for self-government and expressing true freedom.”

On “the Negro problem” in the Americas

Regarding the relations between the Negro race and other races in the Western Hemisphere, Bailey wrote that it “constitutes a very ugly story, seriously implicates the white man and provides an outstanding disgrace”, and that “The white people face a grave responsibility and it lies in their hands to change conditions.” She was a vocal advocate of humane treatment and equal rights for the Negro race, acknowledged that they had been subject to much cruelty and exploitation by the white race, but also said that good had come of this for Negroes, and described reason for optimism regarding their future prospects. She advocated improvement in the situation of the Negro in the United States, calling for the people of America to end discrimination, to accept the Negro population as brothers and friends and thereby bring about positive change. She also wrote that in the black peoples attempt to resolve their problem of separation in society, “the spiritual forces of the world are on the side of the Negro.”

On the Jewish people

Bailey wrote much about the Jewish people, referring to them collectively as a race, with group karma, characteristics, and behaviors. Specifically, she was of the opinion that Jews embody the characteristics of “materialism, cruelty and a spiritual conservatism” and the “separative, selfish, lower concrete mind.”

On the social characteristics of the Jews

Bailey described Jews as “the most reactionary and conservative race in the world”, explaining this as a result of their need to preserve their cultural identity as a wandering people under persecution. She wrote that, “People complain (and it is frequently true) the Jews lower the atmosphere of any district in which they reside. They hang their bedding and their clothing out of the windows. They live on the streets, sitting in groups on the sidewalks.”

She wrote that Jews “take what they want, to see to it that their children get the best of everything available, no matter what the cost to others”; they “blame the non-Jewish nations for their miseries”; and, “The Jew needs to recognize his share in bringing about the dislike which hounds him everywhere.”

She stated that even though the Jews are “possessed of great wealth and influence”, they create “dissension among the nations” and “almost abusive, demands for the Gentile to shoulder the entire blame and end the difficulty.”

On “the Jewish Problem”

Bailey said that what she called the “Jewish problem” was the result of negative karma accumulated by the Jews due to “acts and deeds there claimed by him as his racial acts and deeds (conquest, terrorism and cruelty)…” and wrote that the solution to this “problem” will come “…when the races regard the Jewish problem as a humanitarian problem but also when the Jew does his share of understanding, love and right action. This he [the Jew] does not yet do, speaking racially.”

Before World War II, she wrote: “The major racial problem has, for many centuries, been the Jewish, which has been brought to a critical point by Germany…”; that the Jews “constitute an international minority of great aggressiveness, exceedingly vocal”; and that while they are an ancient, civilized and cultured people, their problems as a “struggling minority” are the result of “certain inherent characteristics”, and the “untidy effect they have on any community”.

In 1939, as World War II began, Bailey wrote that “the Jewish problem, is definitely producing cleavage as a part of the divine plan… to bring humanity to certain realizations and decisions.”

In 1948, after the war and the Holocaust, she wrote that “there are eighty percent of other people in the concentration camps, only twenty percent Jews”, and that Jews have not only repudiated the Messiah, but they have forgotten their unique relation to humanity.

Bailey also wrote critically about hatred of the Jews and predicted a future in which Jews would “fuse and blend with the rest of mankind.” In her autobiography, she stated that she had been on Hitler’s “blacklist”, and she believed this had been because of her defense of the Jews during her lectures throughout Europe. She criticized the cruelty of “the Gentile” (non-Jewish people) for their treatment of the Jews, stating “great is his responsibility for wrong doing and cruel action.”

Bailey further stated that the Jews were themselves responsible for the bad treatment they received, “Changed inner attitudes are needed on both sides, but very largely on the side of the Jews.” She was aware of and accepted the controversial nature of her comments in this regard.

On interracial marriage

Bailey wrote regarding interracial marriage that “the best and soundest thinkers in both the white and black races at this time deplore mixed marriages. They mean no happiness for either party.” She also advised against intermarriage between Caucasians and Asians but said that children of interracial unions would be unavoidable following World War II due to the actions of what she called the “inevitable promiscuity” of the armies during that period. She wrote that “children of mixed race, as well as the half-castes and the Eurasians may be the answer to a large part of the problem. There will be hundreds of thousands of these children of mixed parentage, forming part of the world population in the next generation and immediate cycle and they are a group with which we will have to reckon.”

While she believed that intermarriage would not solve what she called “the Negro problem,” she implied this might change and on this issue, “I make no prophecy about the future.”

Her comments on the topic of interracial marriage are conflicting: On the one hand she suggested that mixed marriages have unhappy effects, on the other hand she seemed to view them as positive and contributing to the solution of racial tensions. Elsewhere she wrote that marriages are rooted in soul relationships, and that intermarriage in general is not a solution to racial problems, but that the solution lies in appreciation of the good qualites found groups other than one’s own and the killing out of the sense of racial superiority. Her contrary statements thus reflect the mixed and emerging views of the time in which she was writing.

On nationalism and nations

Bailey criticized national groups, based on what she believed were their violations of the spirit of unity and brotherhood. She believed that an individual’s primary allegiance is to humanity and not to any subgroup within it: “I call you to no organizational loyalties, but only to love your fellowmen, be they German, American, Jewish, British, French, Negro or Asiatic.”

On the United States and France

While praising the United States and France in some respects, Bailey saw in them political corruption. She regarded the talk about a free press as largely an illusory ideal and stated, “… particularly is it absent in the United States, where parties and publishers dictate newspaper policies.”

On Israel, Zionism, and the U.S.S.R.

Regarding the foundation of the modern nation of Israel after World War II, Bailey said that “The Jews, by their illegal and terrorist activities, have laid a foundation of great difficulty for those who are seeking to promote world peace.”

Bailey criticized Zionism, comparing it with the then-current Stalinist regime in the Russian-dominated Soviet Union, writing, “Zionism today stands for aggression and for the use of force, and the keynote is permission to take what you want irrespective of other people or of their inalienable rights. These points of view are against the position of the spiritual leaders of humanity, and therefore the leaders of the Zionist movement, and the group of men who direct and control the policies of Russia, are against the policies of the spiritual Hierarchy and are contrary to the lasting good of mankind. … The menace to world freedom today lies in the known policies of the rulers of the U.S.S.R. and in the devious and lying machinations of the Zionists.”

On the “present world crisis”

Bailey said, “We could take the nations, one by one, and observe how this nationalistic, separative or isolationist spirit, emerging out of an historical past, out of racial complexes, out of territorial position, out of revolt and out of possession of material resources, has brought about the present world crisis and cleavage and this global clash of interests and ideals.” In 1947, in listing the causes of world conflict, she citied the fight for oil, and the fight over Palestine, “[...] a fight which has greed and not any love of Palestine behind it, and which is governed by financial interests and not by the humanitarian spirit which the Zionists claim [...]“.

On organized religions

Bailey taught a form of universal spirituality that transcended denominational identification, believing that, “Every class of human beings is a group of brothers. Catholics, Jews, Gentiles, occidentals and orientals are all the sons of God.” She stated that all religions originate from the same spiritual source, and that humanity will eventually come to realize this, and as they do so, the result will be the emergence of a universal world religion and a “new world order.” Bailey described a world where there would be no separate religions but rather “one great body of believers.” She predicted that these believers would accept unified truths based on brotherhood and “divine sonship”, and would “cooperate with the divine Plan, revealed to them by the spiritual leaders of the race.” She wrote that this was not a distant dream but a change that was actually occurring during the time of her writing. (Bailey, p 140)

Despite her focus on unity of religion, Bromley and Hammond point out that Bailey and other “occultists” “…hammered home the central idea, ‘The East is the true home of spiritual knowledge and occult wisdom.’”

Author Steven Sutcliffe wrote that Bailey’s “World Goodwill” organization was promoting groups of “world servers” to, as he quotes Bailey, “serve the Plan, Humanity, the Hierarchy and the Christ.”

On Judaism

Bailey was highly critical of the religion of the Jews. She wrote: “The word ‘love’ as it concerns relation to other people is lacking in their religious presentation, though love of Jehovah is taught with due threats; the concept of a future life, dependent upon conduct and behavior to others and on right action in the world of men, is almost entirely lacking in The Old Testament and teaching on immortality is nowhere emphasized; salvation is apparently dependent upon the keeping of numerous physical laws and rules related to physical cleanliness; they go so far as to establish retail shops where these rules are kept – in a modern world where scientific methods are applied to purity in food. All these and other factors of less importance set the Jew apart, and these he enforces no matter how obsolete they are or inconvenient to others.”

Because of writings like these, the American Chassidic author Rabbi Yonassan Gershom wrote that Bailey’s plan for a New World Order and her call for “the gradual dissolution—again if in any way possible—of the Orthodox Jewish faith” revealed that “her goal is nothing less than the destruction of Judaism itself.” Gershom also wrote that “This stereotyped portrayal of Jews is followed by a hackneyed diatribe against the Biblical Hebrews, based upon the “angry Jehovah” theology of nineteenth-century Protestantism. Jews do not, and never have, worshipped an angry vengeful god, and we Jews never, ever call God “Jehovah.”

On Christianity

Bailey wrote of “the return of the Christ”, but her concept had little in common with that of mainstream Christian churches. Bailey almost always used the phrase “”the” Christ” when not referring specifically to the Christian idea. For her, the leadership of the Hierarchy is an “office” (so to speak), to be occupied by various Masters, including the Master Jesus, in the course of Their unfolding evolution. She saw the Christ as a great “Person”, embodying the energy of love, and His return as the awakening of that energy in human consciousness. She also introduced the ideas that the new Christ might be “of no particular faith at all”, that he may be from any nation, race, or religion, and wrote that his purpose of returning will be to “restore man’s faith in the Father’s love” in a close personal relationship with “all men everywhere”.

She stated that no one particular group can claim Him—that the New Age Christ belongs to whole world, and not to Christians alone, or to any nation or group. (Bailey, p 109) Bailey was highly critical of mainstream Christianity; she wrote that much of the Church’s teaching about Christ’s return is directly opposed to His own intentions and that “The history of the Christian nations and of the Christian church has been one of an aggressive militancy” (Bailey, p 110)

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

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There are different ways of outlining the basic method used for scientific inquiry. The scientific community and philosophers of science generally agree on the following classification of method components. These methodological elements and organization of procedures tend to be more characteristic of natural sciences than social sciences. Nonetheless, the cycle of formulating hypotheses, testing and analyzing the results, and formulating new hypotheses, will resemble the cycle described below.

:Four essential elements of a scientific method are iterations, recursions, interleavings, and orderings of the following:

:* Characterizations (observations, definitions, and measurements of the subject of inquiry)

:* Hypotheses (theoretical, hypothetical explanations of observations and measurements of the subject)

:* Predictions (reasoning including logical deduction from the hypothesis or theory)

:* Experiments (tests of all of the above)

Each element of a scientific method is subject to peer review for possible mistakes. These activities do not describe all that scientists do (see below) but apply mostly to experimental sciences (e.g., physics, chemistry, and biology). The elements above are often taught in the educational system.

Scientific method is not a recipe: it requires intelligence, imagination, and creativity. In this sense, it is not a mindless set of standards and procedures to follow,

but is rather an ongoing cycle, constantly developing more useful, accurate and comprehensive models and methods. For example, when Einstein developed the Special and General Theories of Relativity, he did not in any way refute or discount Newton’s ”Principia”. On the contrary, if the astronomically large, the vanishingly small, and the extremely fast are reduced out from Einstein’s theories — all phenomena that Newton could not have observed — Newton’s equations remain. Einstein’s theories are expansions and refinements of Newton’s theories and, thus, increase our confidence in Newton’s work.

A linearized, pragmatic scheme of the four points above is sometimes offered as a guideline for proceeding:

# Define the question

# Gather information and resources (observe)

# Form hypothesis

# Perform experiment and collect data

# Analyze data

# Interpret data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypothesis

# Publish results

# Retest (frequently done by other scientists)

The iterative cycle inherent in this step-by-step methodology goes from point 3 to 6 back to 3 again.

While this schema outlines a typical hypothesis/testing method, it should also be noted that a number of philosophers, historians and sociologists of science (perhaps most notably Paul Feyerabend) claim that such descriptions of scientific method have little relation to the ways science is actually practiced.

The “operational” paradigm combines the concepts of operational definition, instrumentalism, and utility:

The essential elements of a scientific method are operations, observations, models, and a utility function for evaluating models.

* Operation – Some action done to the system being investigated

* Observation – What happens when the operation is done to the system

* Model – A fact, hypothesis, theory, or the phenomenon itself at a certain moment

* Utility Function – A measure of the usefulness of the model to explain, predict, and control, and of the cost of use of it. One of the elements of any scientific utility function is the refutability of the model. Another is its simplicity, on the Principle of Parsimony also known as Occam’s Razor.

Characterizations

Scientific method depends upon increasingly sophisticated characterizations of the subjects of investigation. (The ”subjects” can also be called ”unsolved problems” or the ”unknowns”.) For example, Benjamin Franklin correctly characterized St. Elmo’s fire as electrical in nature, but it has taken a long series of experiments and theory to establish this. While seeking the pertinent properties of the subjects, this careful thought may also entail some definitions and observations; the observations often demand careful measurements and/or counting.

The systematic, careful collection of measurements or counts of relevant quantities is often the critical difference between pseudo-sciences, such as alchemy, and a science, such as chemistry or biology. Scientific measurements taken are usually tabulated, graphed, or mapped, and statistical manipulations, such as correlation and regression, performed on them. The measurements might be made in a controlled setting, such as a laboratory, or made on more or less inaccessible or unmanipulatable objects such as stars or human populations. The measurements often require specialized scientific instruments such as thermometers, spectroscopes, or voltmeters, and the progress of a scientific field is usually intimately tied to their invention and development.

Uncertainty

Measurements in scientific work are also usually accompanied by estimates of their uncertainty. The uncertainty is often estimated by making repeated measurements of the desired quantity. Uncertainties may also be calculated by consideration of the uncertainties of the individual underlying quantities that are used. Counts of things, such as the number of people in a nation at a particular time, may also have an uncertainty due to limitations of the method used. Counts may only represent a sample of desired quantities, with an uncertainty that depends upon the sampling method used and the number of samples taken.

Definition

Measurements demand the use of ”operational definitions” of relevant quantities. That is, a scientific quantity is described or defined by how it is measured, as opposed to some more vague, inexact or “idealized” definition. For example, electrical current, measured in amperes, may be operationally defined in terms of the mass of silver deposited in a certain time on an electrode in an electrochemical device that is described in some detail. The operational definition of a thing often relies on comparisons with standards: the operational definition of “mass” ultimately relies on the use of an artifact, such as a certain kilogram of platinum-iridium kept in a laboratory in France.

The scientific definition of a term sometimes differs substantially from its natural language usage. For example, mass and weight overlap in meaning in common discourse, but have distinct meanings in mechanics. Scientific quantities are often characterized by their units of measure which can later be described in terms of conventional physical units when communicating the work.

New theories sometimes arise upon realizing that certain terms had not previously been sufficiently clearly defined. For example, Albert Einstein’s first paper on relativity begins by defining simultaneity and the means for determining length. These ideas were skipped over by Isaac Newton with, “”I do not define time, space, place and motion, as being well known to all.”” Einstein’s paper then demonstrates that they (viz., absolute time and length independent of motion) were approximations. Francis Crick cautions us that when characterizing a subject, however, it can be premature to define something when it remains ill-understood. In Crick’s study of consciousness, he actually found it easier to study awareness in the visual system, rather than to study free will, for example. His cautionary example was the gene; the gene was much more poorly understood before Watson and Crick’s pioneering discovery of the structure of DNA; it would have been counterproductive to spend much time on the definition of the gene, before them.

Example of characterizations==

DNA-characterizations

The history of the discovery of the structure of DNA is a classic example of the elements of scientific method: in 1950 it was known that genetic inheritance had a mathematical description, starting with the studies of Gregor Mendel. But the mechanism of the gene was unclear. Researchers in Bragg’s laboratory at Cambridge University made X-ray diffraction pictures of various molecules, starting with crystals of salt, and proceeding to more complicated substances. Using clues which were painstakingly assembled over the course of decades, beginning with its chemical composition, it was determined that it should be possible to characterize the physical structure of DNA, and the X-ray images would be the vehicle. ..”2. DNA-hypotheses”

Precession of Mercury

The characterization element can require extended and extensive study, even centuries. It took thousands of years of measurements, from the Chaldean, Indian, Persian, Greek, Arabic and European astronomers, to record the motion of planet Earth. Newton was able to condense these measurements into consequences of his laws of motion. But the perihelion of the planet Mercury’s orbit exhibits a precession that is not fully explained by Newton’s laws of motion. The observed difference for Mercury’s precession between Newtonian theory and relativistic theory (approximately 43 arc-seconds per century), was one of the things that occurred to Einstein as a possible early test of his theory of General Relativity.

Hypothesis development

A hypothesis is a suggested explanation of a phenomenon, or alternately a reasoned proposal suggesting a possible correlation between or among a set of phenomena.

Normally hypotheses have the form of a mathematical model. Sometimes, but not always, they can also be formulated as existential statements, stating that some particular instance of the phenomenon being studied has some characteristic and causal explanations, which have the general form of universal statements, stating that every instance of the phenomenon has a particular characteristic.

Scientists are free to use whatever resources they have — their own creativity, ideas from other fields, induction, Bayesian inference, and so on — to imagine possible explanations for a phenomenon under study. Charles Sanders Peirce, borrowing a page from Aristotle (”Prior Analytics”, 2.25) described the incipient stages of inquiry, instigated by the “irritation of doubt” to venture a plausible guess, as ”abductive reasoning”. The history of science is filled with stories of scientists claiming a “flash of inspiration”, or a hunch, which then motivated them to look for evidence to support or refute their idea. Michael Polanyi made such creativity the centerpiece of his discussion of methodology.

William Glen observes that

: the success of a hypothesis, or its service to science, lies not simply in its perceived “truth”, or power to displace, subsume or reduce a predecessor idea, but perhaps more in its ability to stimulate the research that will illuminate … bald suppositions and areas of vagueness.

In general scientists tend to look for theories that are “elegant” or “beautiful”. In contrast to the usual English use of these terms, they here refer to a theory in accordance with the known facts, which is nevertheless relatively simple and easy to handle. Occam’s Razor serves as a rule of thumb for making these determinations.

DNA-hypotheses

Linus Pauling proposed that DNA might be a triple helix. This hypothesis was also considered by Francis Crick and James D. Watson but discarded. When Watson and Crick learned of Pauling’s hypothesis, they understood from existing data that Pauling was wrong and that Pauling would soon admit his difficulties with that structure. So, the race was on to figure out the correct structure (except that Pauling did not realize at the time that he was in a race—see section on “DNA-predictions” below)

Predictions from the hypothesis

Any useful hypothesis will enable predictions, by reasoning including deductive reasoning. It might predict the outcome of an experiment in a laboratory setting or the observation of a phenomenon in nature. The prediction can also be statistical and only talk about probabilities.

It is essential that the outcome be currently unknown. Only in this case does the eventuation increase the probability that the hypothesis be true. If the outcome is already known, it’s called a consequence and should have already been considered while formulating the hypothesis.

If the predictions are not accessible by observation or experience, the hypothesis is not yet useful for the method, and must wait for others who might come afterward, and perhaps rekindle its line of reasoning. For example, a new technology or theory might make the necessary experiments feasible.

DNA-predictions

James D. Watson, Francis Crick, and others hypothesized that DNA had a helical structure. This implied that DNA’s X-ray diffraction pattern would be ‘x shaped’. This prediction followed from the work of Cochran, Crick and Vand (and independently by Stokes). The Cochran-Crick-Vand-Stokes theorem provided a mathematical explanation for the empirical observation that diffraction from helical structures produces x shaped patterns.

Also in their first paper, Watson and Crick predicted that the double helix structure provided a simple mechanism for DNA replication, writing “It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material”. ” ..4. DNA-experiments”

General relativity

Watson and Crick showed an initial (and incorrect) proposal for the structure of DNA to a team from Kings College – Rosalind Franklin, Maurice Wilkins, and Raymond Gosling. Franklin immediately spotted the flaws which concerned the water content. Later Watson saw Franklin’s detailed X-ray diffraction images which showed an [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/photo51/ X-shape] and confirmed that the structure was helical. This rekindled Watson and Crick’s model building and led to the correct structure. ”..1. DNA-characterizations”

Evaluation and improvement

The scientific process is iterative. At any stage it is possible that some consideration will lead the scientist to repeat an earlier part of the process. Failure to develop an interesting hypothesis may lead a scientist to re-define the subject they are considering. Failure of a hypothesis to produce interesting and testable predictions may lead to reconsideration of the hypothesis or of the definition of the subject. Failure of the experiment to produce interesting results may lead the scientist to reconsidering the experimental method, the hypothesis or the definition of the subject.

Other scientists may start their own research and enter the process at any stage. They might adopt the characterization and formulate their own hypothesis, or they might adopt the hypothesis and deduce their own predictions. Often the experiment is not done by the person who made the prediction and the characterization is based on experiments done by someone else. Published results of experiments can also serve as a hypothesis predicting their own reproducibility.

DNA-iterations

After considerable fruitless experimentation, being discouraged by their superior from continuing, and numerous false starts, Watson and Crick were able to infer the essential structure of DNA by concrete modeling of the physical shapes of the nucleotides which comprise it. They were guided by the bond lengths which had been deduced by Linus Pauling and by Rosalind Franklin’s X-ray diffraction images. ..”DNA Example”

Confirmation

Science is a social enterprise, and scientific work tends to be accepted by the community when it has been confirmed. Crucially, experimental and theoretical results must be reproduced by others within the science community. Researchers have given their lives for this vision; Georg Wilhelm Richmann was killed by ball lightning (1753) when attempting to replicate the 1752 kite-flying experiment of Benjamin Franklin.

To protect against bad science and fraudulent data, government research granting agencies like NSF and science journals like ”Nature” and ”Science” have a policy that researchers must archive their data and methods so other researchers can access it, test the data and methods and build on the research that has gone before. Scientific data archiving can be done at a number of national archives in the U.S. or in the World Data Center.

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

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Six million years after the first human is born on the plains of Africa, Dave Lister – the last surviving human in the universe – wakes in a transport ship taking him to prison colony Cyberia, the worst place in the universe, having been found guilty of serious crimes against the GELF state and sentenced to the worst imprisonment imaginable, having been hindered by his inability to comprehend the over-complicated legal system of the GELF – and his choice of clothing, including a tie depicting a naked woman in birthing stirrups. After his welcome by the foul and grotesque Snugiraffe, the prison commandant, he is implanted and introduced into the cyber network of Cyberia where he will be forced to live out his life in a hellish dream world of his own creation. Naturally he spends a great deal of time considering where it all went wrong…

Time Fork

Dave Lister awakes out of Deep Sleep on the transport ship ”Starbug”, disoriented and confused. The mechanoid Kryten welcomes him back; he has been in stasis for twenty years and, not unnaturally, is suffering a spot of amnesia. Lister is appalled at the slobby, uncouth ‘space bum’ he is revealed to be – one who drinks vindaloo sauce for breakfast, drinks, smokes and cannot play guitar to save his life. As Kryten goes to make him a synaptic enhancer to improve his memory, his superior officer, a beautiful red-haired woman, enters the cabin wearing only a dressing gown – and much to his surprise, promptly proceeds to remove it, standing stark naked in front of him to show him her appendectomy scar. Even more to his surprise, she then proceeds to have sex with him – completely unaware that he is amnesiac and has no idea that she is his girlfriend, Kristine Kochanski. Following this, he is introduced to the rest of the crew – the hyper-elegant, superficial Cat and the hologram (now ‘hardlight’ and tangible), Arnold Rimmer, whose unbelievably unpleasant personality is, unfortunately, the trigger that revives Lister’s memories.

On their way through the ‘Omni-Zone’ – the pathway between the seven parallel realities – back to their home ship ”Red Dwarf”, the crew are surprised to come across a derelict space craft that is the exact duplicate of ”Starbug”, with no sign of the crew. Exploring the deserted, derelict parallel ”Starbug”, the Cat is most distressed to discover his own severed head. Rimmer, naturally, is keen to make a quick exit, but reluctantly follows the orders of Kochanski – his superior officer as well – to remain on guard whilst the others fetch the lamps.

Exploring the ship, the other alternate crew members are soon accounted for – the Cat’s body (sans head), Rimmer’s smashed light bee, Kryten’s destroyed and mutilated body, and finally, Kochanski, barely alive in a deep stasis pod. Despite their best efforts, the alternative Kochanski succumbs to her terrible injuries, but not before she – and Lister’s Kochanski – make him promise to find his alternative self, who is the only member of the crew not accounted for. Lister, examining the alternate Lister’s belongings, is uncomfortable with the idea of finding his other self, but relents when he discovers a photo of the alternate Lister (who is obscured) and Kochanski frollicking in foam.

Thus decided, the ”Starbug” crew begin their search at Blerios 15, a nearby occupied asteroid where, they are dragged down to the surface by the GELF security system and ordered to disembark. Under arrest for infiltrating GELF space, they are herded through the nearby port, and are extremely surprised to witness the daily copulation ritual performed by the mostly sterile population. Taken to the local leader, they are ordered to pay a fine for their crime; either 200 barrels of oil, five bars of something called Gatoo, or four millilitres of sperm.

Much to the locals’ surprise, the Starbug crew – particularly Lister and Cat – have sperm in abundance, and after paying the fine, they prove immensely popular with local merchants. Whilst exploring the markets, the crew come across a GELF smuggler who recognises Lister – and is terrified of him. Cornering the GELF, the crew persuade him to reveal that the alternative Lister, betrayed by the GELF, has been sent to the Forum of Justice to answer for his crimes. To bargain his release, they must see the Regulator of the Forum of Justice.

Kryten, being the crewmember most likely to be shown lenience by the Regulator due to being a mechanoid, arranges an audience with him, where he learns of the alternative Lister’s crimes – including the destruction of an entire asteroid and numerous acts of looting and plundering, and numerous murders, including that of the Regulator himself. Which is somewhat unusual, as the Regulator is still very much alive. However, the GELF justice system acts preemptively, on the word of psychics and fortune-tellers, and the innocent are arrested and punished for future crimes before they ever have a chance to occur. Kryten, now convinced of the alternate Lister’s innocence, begins to formulate an escape plan…

”In what appears to be a flashback (but is in fact a flash-forward), Lister awakes in his own private hell – which turns out to be a palatial Spanish villa by the Mediterranean Sea. Unfortunately, he has no time to enjoy it; a mistake has been made, and he is trapped in the private hell of Capote, a hologram who detests Spanish architecture and luxurious champagne. Once the mistake has been rectified, he finds himself in own hell, complete with a pleasant letter hoping he detests his stay in Cyberia.”

In order to spring the alternative Lister, the ”Starbug” crew attempts negotiations with a tribe of Kinitawowis, a nomadic GELF clan, to purchase droids and the Oblivion Virus, an electricity-killing computer virus, for their plan. Unfortunately, sperm is not treasured amongst the Kinitawowis, and thus has no value – as Lister learns to his cost when he attempts to buy rogue, broken-down androids with sperm. Naturally, the Kinitawowi leader is greatly offended, and in order to compensate for the insult, Lister must marry his daughter – his extremely hairy, unpleasant-on-the-eyes daughter. Lister is naturally reluctant, but for the good of the crew, goes along – but draws the line when his new bride begins to consummate the marriage.

Thus prepared, the break-out from Cyberia begins. As Kochanski, Kryten and Rimmer upload the Oblivion Virus into Cyberia’s network, Lister parachutes into Cyberia with the rogue droids to effect the rescue. Unfortunately, an unforeseen effect of the Oblivion Virus killing the network is the loss of artificial gravity – and part of Cyberia, which Lister is currently diving into, is a massive lake full of pink fluid. The liquid floats up to meet Lister and, trapped, in the substance, he drowns.

A few moments later, Lister finds himself being resuscitated by himself. Although back to life, Lister’s problems continue when the antidote disk to the Oblivion Virus is booted up – thus turning the power, and the gravity, back on. Both Listers plummet, watching many of the inmates fall to their deaths, hoping that enough of the liquid will have filled the lake before they drop.

Fortunately, the two Listers survive – but the ”Starbug” Lister has suffered a sprained leg, thus forcing himself to rely on his more violent, ruthless, unstable alternate self, who is desperate to locate a box containing his belongings. Questioning whether the whole escape was not misguided, Lister is forced to knock his alternate self unconscious and bind him when the alternative Lister attempts a suicidal attack on the guards. Now securely bound Lister, trying to find out what really happened on the alternative ”Starbug”, opens the box containing alternative Lister’s belongings – discovering the alternative Kryten’s severed arm, with a piece of paper containing a series of co-ordinates to an unknown location. The alternate Lister was responsible for butchering his crewmates (It is later revealed this Lister was adopted by another set of parents and it was Rimmer, not Lister, in the photo with Kochanski). Alternate Lister leaps into the fire, burning his bonds (and his hands), advancing on the good Lister as ”Starbug” arrives to rescue them…

Unfortunately, when ”Starbug” leaves, it is the unstable, violent alternative Lister who is on board, mistaken for the good Lister. As Kochanski nurses him back to health, regretting the foolish mission to rescue the ‘evil’ Lister, whom they are convinced is dead, the alternative Lister decides that he’s going to get a taste of Kochanski later, when he’s feeling stronger. The co-ordinates, on the other hand, point to the lost location of the ”Mayflower”, a spaceship conducting a terraforming mission on another world millions of year ago – and it contains the genome of all known life forms’ DNA or “G.O.D.” – access to which could allow the subject to rewrite their own D.N.A and make themselves literally a god. ‘Lister’ suggests they acquire the genome for themselves – and after a long pause, Kryten agrees…

The Rage

”An Earth long ago, in a universe far away. The Earth World President, John Milhous Nixon has learned that thermonuclear tests conducted too close to the surface of the sun have fatally weakened the star’s structure, thus causing an eventual decay that will see the entire solar system die in four hundred thousand years – which will be very bad for the economy, and Nixon’s re-election prospects. The only hope is to move the human race to another world in another galaxy; and to that end, a genome has been created that will rewrite DNA and thus turn an inhospitable, barren world into a world where the human race can live. A mission has been organised by Dr. Michael Longman (and his clones, Dr. Longman and Dr. Longman), including numerous GELFs to assist in the process and Michael McGruder, a heroic star soldier who has accepted this mission in the hopes that he may be able to find and contact his father, the long-lost hero of an ill-fated mining ship, revived to be that ship’s hologram… Arnold J. Rimmer.”

The real Lister, meanwhile, is trapped in Cyberia, charged with orchestrating the break-out (it is made clear that it was in fact he, and not the alternate Lister, who was the subject of the “Cyberia” section and the flash-forward in “Time Fork”). Having survived his alternate self’s assault and attempted murder, he is now trapped in a soul-destroying hell of his own creation, where all the places and people remind him not only of the worst places in his life, but of everything he’s lost, stolen by his alternative self – his girlfriend, his ship, his life. After five months of this hell, trapped in a grungy dystopian city surrounded by prostitutes that look like Kochanski, soul-sapping advertisements about his parentless upbringing, and – perhaps worst of all – encyclopedia salesmen, he is brought out of Cyberia and given an offer; to be part of an experimental terraforming and recolonisation program.

The system the GELFs live in is unstable, being dragged into the Omni-Zone, and all planets are being crushed and destroyed by the awesome forces present. To that end, the GELFs have been trying to terraform a world capable of passing through the Omni-Zone unscathed, and have been using gestalt entities – beings made up of the individual bodies and minds of the inmates of Cyberia. The first gestalt (created from the criminals of the GELF state) having proved malicious and evil, the second gestalt has comprised the innocent, sentenced to Cyberia under false pretences and coerced into the program. The inmates of Cyberia are all innocent – and now the authorities want Lister to be part of a recolonisation program. Keen for an opportunity to escape from Cyberia – and the authorities – Lister agrees.

As part of the deal, Lister is entitled to spend his last night with a symbi-morph, a GELF prostitute capable of reading his mind and transforming itself into the object of Lister’s desire. Unfortunately, all of the ‘broken’ symbi-morphs are out, and the only one who remains is Reketrebn, an ‘unbroken’ symbi-morph who intends to save itself for its boyfriend. Forced to participate by giving Lister one of its five ‘hooks’, which connects it with his innermost desires, it nevertheless resists by becoming first a sofa, and then a giant mound of yak dung.

Assuring Reketrebn that he is not interested in anything sexual (despite it morphing into Kochanski wearing only a G-string), Lister gains the friendship and trust of the symbi-morph. Despite the fact that it is bound to its master, Reketrebn relents to Lister’s pleas and momentarily becomes Kryten, who reveals the reason for Lister’s distrust of his alternative self – he sensed that it was not Lister under the foam in the photograph he found earlier, but Rimmer, who was the alternative Kochanski’s lover. Computing everything he has (subconsciously) learnt about symbi-morphs, he determines the plan of escape – he asks Reketrebn to take his form, thus allowing it to learn the pain he is in.

”On his way to another system in ” The Mayflower ”, Michael McGruder – now immortal thanks to having the gene that causes aging removed – busies himself by supervising the GELFS. Unfortunately, as he is investigating how the GELFs and simulants have been reactivated, a team of shape-shifters manages to get the drop on him, and lock him in a cell. As the GELFs mutiny, butchering their human masters, McGruder is powerless to intervene, and the ship is pulled into the Omni-Zone during the mutiny. As he becomes a slave to the GELFs, he bitterly and shamefully compares himself to his father, determining that he is not even a tenth of the man Arnold Rimmer was.”

Having convinced Rebektrebn to ally itself with him, Lister makes his escape, managing to use Rebektrebn’s shape-shifting abilities to confuse and destroy the guards. Fighting their way out, they manage to make their way onto a ship they assume to be a transporter. Unfortunately for them, it’s not – it’s actually the ship for the gestalt volunteer crew. The ship Lister was supposed to be on. And as if that wasn’t enough, it’s on auto-pilot to a set location.

Meanwhile, Starbug is en route to the last known location of the ”Mayflower”, the crew in stasis for the long journey. Kryten awakes early, in order to prepare the crew, and notices several disconcerting differences in Lister’s medical records. They’ve got the wrong Lister. And to make matters worse, in his checking of the alternate Starbug’s crew records, a cursory examination of the alternative Lister’s file reveals that, following a traumatic and abusive upbringing at the hands of his manic-depressive foster mother (as opposed to the kinder, but poorer, foster parents of the proper Lister) had developed into a ruthless, sociopathic criminal.

As Kryten makes this discovery, he is surprised by the alternate Lister, who has also awoken early from stasis. Getting the jump on Kryten, the alternate Lister is interrupted by a signal from an attacking ship; the Kinitawowis have caught up with Starbug, and they want what belongs to them. Kryten is only too happy to give them what they want, and the alternative Lister is unpleasantly surprised to realise that this means him.

Kryten’s happy musings on the pleasantness of justice actually being achieved are quickly interrupted, however, by the realisation that ”Starbug” is critically damaged, on fire, and crashing towards a planet surface comprised entirely of molten lava. Awaking the crew in typical calm, pleasant fashion with the reassuring news that they’re in the middle of a fiery plummet to almost certain death, the advice that morning tea is skipped is enthusiastically adopted. Despite their best efforts, ”Starbug” crashes into the lava – before they are broiled to death, however, they crash into the cool ocean underneath the lava surface. They can’t get back out, but at least Kryten now has time to finish the ironing.

As supplies run low, ”Starbug” eventually comes across another ship – The ”Mayflower”. Apparently deserted. As Kryten and Kochanski come across a room full of designer viruses, searching slowly for the terraforming virus that will enable them to escape, the Cat and Rimmer encounter a jacket belonging to a marine named McGruder – the same last name as a girl Rimmer had once had an affair with, until a misunderstanding prompted both by his innate insecurity and a head injury she’d received resulted in it ending. They also locate a transmogrifier – and they realise what it is when Cat’s fiddling turns Rimmer into a chicken. Four hours later, when Rimmer has been transmogrified into three hundred versions of pretty much every animal known to humanity, they manage to restore him to humanity – giving Kryten an idea.

Meanwhile, the ship bearing Lister and Reketrebn crash-lands on the GELF terraforming world – a barren, hostile world dominated by a massive, violent, constant tornado. Separating from the other volunteers, Lister and Reketrebn make camp (where a misunderstanding involving Lister’s libido sees Reketrebn momentarily become Kochanski); by morning, the ship has been irreparably destroyed, and many of the volunteers are dead – not, however, from conditions on the planet. It’s almost as if most have killed each other. A bigger surprise awaits Lister, however; captured by a group of survivors, Lister finds himself face-to-face with another human being – a human who knows him. It is Michael McGruder, who is still looking for the greatest soldier ever – Arnold J. Rimmer. Lister is utterly speechless.

Back on the ”Mayflower”, Kryten and Kochanski, in their study of the many viruses, come across both negative viral strains and positive ones (which, unlike viruses such as flu and rabies, are beneficial to their hosts). In particular, they find the Luck virus, which bestows the infected person with a brief dose of good fortune – which enables Kochanski to pick out not only the terraforming virus, but more of the Luck virus, and – for reasons unknown – a virus that develops faster-growing broccoli. In the time remaining before the lava is dissolved, the ”Starbug” crew search for useful salvage – and Kryten returns to the transmogrification chamber – and moments later, a naked human being exits.

Meanwhile, Lister and McGruder are getting to know each other, an Lister discovers that, having survived and given birth before the Red Dwarf was lost, McGruder’s mother – Rimmer’s long-lost brief girlfriend – had taken the opportunity to tell her son that, far from getting pregnant from a half-concussed fling, his father was a glorious space adventurer and hero. As it’s unlikely they’ll ever come across each other again, Lister decides to play along with the façade. And besides which, they have the problem of the Rage – the dominant gestalt on the planet – to contend with. Made up of the falsely accused and unfairly imprisoned, the Rage is the ultimate expression of the anger of millions of innocent people at the injustice of their condition – and it’s infectious, filling all who come into contact with it with pure, murderous rage. The only way to survive is to form the Circle of Sacer Facere – which will result in the certain death of one of the members in order to save the life of everyone else. When the Rage hits, Lister is filled with its righteous, pure venom – and desires it more than anything. By the time it has passed, one of the GELF is dead. And the Rage will return soon.

Kryten and the rest of the ”Starbug” crew, meanwhile, must content with Kryten’s new human state. He doesn’t settle in easily; he’s bewildered by his unpredictable and unreliable human body, with its lack of special features, and his penis, which both looks horrible and gets extremely excited when viewing electrical equipment. Although he’s a human on the outside, he still thinks like a mechanoid, and a fight with Cat that marks his introduction to the concept of complete and total physical agony only strengthens his doubt.

Soon, however, they have other things to worry about. Kochanski, happening upon the stasis pods, discovered that they are all occupied – by Dr. Michael Longman. The Starbug crew have located Longman and his clones, and when they open up the pods they see for the first time what the Longmans have done to themselves. Desperate to survive, they have repeatedly transmogrified themselves until their DNA simply gave up, locking them into twisted, horrific combinations of various animals. And they’re hungry for new DNA.

Managing to escape, Kryten decides that he wants his android body back – he can’t cope as a human. Nervously, the crew return to the transmogrifying chamber, only to discover that the mechanoid template has been used – by one of the Longman clones. Kryten manages to trap two, but the third – in the shape of a leopard – corners Kochanski. Thankfully, the Luck virus helps, and an elastic band to the testicle manages to incapacitate the creature. Kryten retrieves his mechanoid form, and the ”Starbug” crew flees the ”Mayflower” to find and rescue Lister. Learning of Lister’s escape from Cyberia, the crew are lost on how to find him – until they use the Luck virus to discover the exact planet he is on. Unfortunately, the planet will enter the Omni-Zone any day – and it will take thirty three days to find them without any kind of hyperdrive – which Cat, in a burst of extremely good luck, discovers the equation to.

On the terraform planet, a desultory, hopeless meal around the campfire is interrupted by the sudden, completely unexpected arrival of ”Starbug”. Lister and Kochanski are joyously reunited – and McGruder is introduced to his father, Rimmer. McGruder faints. When Rimmer learns of McGruder’s identity, he faints as well. Unfortunately, this spells doom for Michael’s impression of his father; he will soon discover the truth and Rimmer, reluctantly but bravely, confesses to Michael that he is no hero, but is a chicken soup machine maintainer. Betrayed, Michael storms away.

Unfortunately, matters are getting worse. Sensing the arrival of ”Starbug”, the Rage will return in an hour, and the ship has been completely disabled. Kryten decides to sacrifice himself for the good of everyone else by feeding himself the Oblivion Virus and infecting the Rage with it, thus killing it. His plans are hindered, however, by the inexplicable discovery of four dead, unaccounted-for bodies – and someone locking him into the storage hold.

Michael, bitterly considering the betrayal of the revelation of what a complete zero his father is, is attacked by the alternate Lister – who was never taken off the ship, having murdered his Kinitawowi guards before they could leave and hidden away from everyone. Rimmer, able to help his son, hesitates for too long and is cornered, only strengthening his son’s contempt for him. Locked in the storage hold with Kryten, the two hit upon an escape idea; sending Rimmer’s ‘light bee’ (the device controlling the projection of his image) down the oxy-generation unit to free him, thus enabling him to help Michael. The element of risk present causes Rimmer to first reject the plan entirely, only for Kryten to eventually guilt him into doing it.

Lister and Kochanski’s reunion is interrupted by the alternate Lister, who wants ”Starbug”’s only escape pod. Kochanski’s refusal to accompany him only provokes the alternate Lister into shooting the proper Lister in the groin with a radiation gun, thus turning him sterile. The luck virus temporarily extends Kochanski’s life – but it won’t last forever, and the alternate Lister is just about to finish her off when they are interrupted – by Rimmer, utterly terrified but nevertheless determined, attacking the alternative Lister with a jet-powered paint-stripper, thus earning his son’s gratitude and respect. Suddenly freed from the years of neurosis, self-loathing and doubt that have plagued him, he unleashes the hero within – and is beginning to enjoy himself when a lucky shot from the alternative Lister hits the light bee, fatally injuring him.

By now, however, the Rage is upon them – and the only way to stop it killing them all is the Circle of Sacer Facere. The alternative Lister, panicking, is dragged into the circle, but manages to grab the vial of the luck virus from Kochanski in order to ensure his survival. But when the Rage hits, he – like everyone else – wants it more than anything in the world. And since he has the luck virus, the alternate Lister will receive anything he wants. His ‘wish’ is granted, and he receives the full force of the Rage, which kills him.

The ordeal is not yet over, however; the planet will enter the Omni-Zone any minute now, and the Rage, in a final act of spite, is blocking the entrances to the caves that will allow those still alive on the planet to further survive the journey through the Omni-Zone. Rimmer, however, is not quite dead – and in a final act of heroism, demands that Kryten infect him with the Oblivion Virus; once done, he charges towards the Rage, allowing it to infect him; and as soon as it does, the virus is transferred to the Rage, killing it and allowing the victims of that injustice to gain peace. As the planet is pulled into the Omni-Zone, Lister, Kochanski and the others take shelter in the caves, surviving for three weeks as tremendous forces tear across the planet. When it ends, they are in a new, unknown universe.

They emerge to find a pleasant, hospitable world growing, waiting for them. As Kryten, Cat, McGruder and Reketrebn search for Rimmer’s light bee, as to give it the antidote for the virus, Lister and Kochanski stare over the world, the now-sterile Lister commenting sadly on how beautiful a place it would be to raise a family, to restart the human race – a dream now impossible thanks to his alternate self. But Kochanski, however, still has a vial of the Luck virus – and if it works, they’re going to celebrate immediately by making the first of their many future children together. By a stroke of luck, it does – and Lister and Kochanski get to work.

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

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