List of QI episodes (A series)

QI Series A
The front cover of the QI Series A DVD, featuring Stephen Fry (right) and Alan Davies (left).
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Network	BBC
Original run	11 September 2003 – 23 December 2003
No. of episodes	12 + unbroadcast pilot
DVD release date	6 November 2006
Next series	Series B

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

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

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

Disclaimer: Some facts stated during the series have since been found to be incorrect, in some cases due to a mistake and others by becoming outdated. Where possible these entries have been highlighted.

[edit] Pilot

Broadcast date

• Unbroadcast on television but released as an extra on the Series 1 DVD. This is also the only episode in which the scores are announced after each round. On the broadcast episodes, the scores are only revealed at the end of the game.

Panellists

• Alan Davies (118 points)
• Bill Bailey (Winner with 132 points)
• Eddie Izzard (131 points) 1st and only appearance
• Kit Hesketh-Harvey (125 points) 1st and only appearance

Topics

[edit] Names

Tangent: The Gibraltarian Minister of Tourism is called Joe Holliday, the Archbishop of Manila is called Cardinal Sin and the German name "Dick Brett" means "Thick Plank".

• Bobo Fing is a language spoken by 10,000 people in Mali. Not to be confused with Bobo (a language of Burkina Faso) or Gogo (spoken by 10 million in Tanzania).
• King Arthur's lance was called Ron, short for Rongomynad. His helmet was named Goosewhite, his armour was called Wygar and his war cry was "Clarence!" His sword "Excalibur" isn't actually called "Excalibur, the original name is "Caliburn".

Tangent: Paul Daniels performing a magic trick based on the legend of King Arthur.

• 'Butter hamlets' are small tropical fish which can be found in 10 different colours.
• Tim is the 6th most popular name for a baby boy in Germany. In 1992, the French Government relaxed the laws on what French children could be legally christened and the following year, the most popular name for a baby French boy was Kevin. (Forfeit: Adolph — because Stephen's card was spelt like that and Alan who said the answer was thinking "Adolf" as in Adolf Hitler, the penalty was reduced to -8 points)
• Richard Gere's middle name is Tiffany. (Forfeit: Gerbil)

Tangent: The name for the Director of Planning & Strategic Development at Aberdeen City Council is Peter Cockhead.

Scores

• Bill - 15
• Alan - 25
• Eddie - 31
• Kit - 35

[edit] History

Tangent: When Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837, there were no bathrooms in Buckingham Palace. King George IV had a magnificent marble bath at the Brighton Pavilion, but Victoria had it sawn up into mantlepieces.

• William Huskisson, the first person killed in a rail accident, had previously escaped death after a horse fell on his head during his honeymoon.
• The bones from penises of badgers were used by Victorian gentlemen as tie clips. Every primate except man has a penis bone known as the baculum. Badgers are nocturnal and their hair used to be used in the making of shaving brushes.

Tangent: A pig's penis is a spiral-shape.

• Rectal inflation was an old method of blowing tobacco smoke through the rectum as a means to resuscitate the drowned.
• Victorians who could not afford chimney sweeps would drop a goose down the chimney or make it fly up through the chimney to clean it instead.

Scores

• Alan - 45
• Eddie - 46
• Bill - 68
• Kit - 80

[edit] Lingo

Tangent: The Finnish word for "bad news" is "Jobinposti". The Dutch word "Nijlpaard" means hippopotamus and "Koksmuts" means a chef's hat.

• Guessing the meanings of Dutch words.
  • Pronk - Flaunt
  • Sloot - Ditch
  • Kloof - Gap
  • Lonk - To Ogle
  • Oog - Eyes
  • Wanklank - A discordant noise
• "Tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog moesten vele Nederlanders tulpenbollen eten," is Dutch for, "During the Second World War, many Dutch people had to eat tulip bulbs," which is a true fact.

Tangent: If dogs eat toothpaste, they hallucinate. Alan admits he heard this fact from someone from the pub. (Although on an episode in Series "B", it is revealed that this fact is true). Another kind of dog hunts deer by biting off the testicles.

Tangent: In Greece, the word for bread and lavatory seat is the same word, "Kolóura".

• The word "Thespian" means "Awful" in Greek, as in "Awe inspiring." It also means, "Divine".

Tangent: In Denmark, since the Danish word for "King" is "kong", "King Kong" is known as "Kong King".

Scores

• Alan - 77
• Kit - 95
• Eddie - 96
• Bill - 107

[edit] General Ignorance

• The largest mountain in the world is Mauna Loa. Mount Kilimanjaro is higher than Mount Everest because it raises straight out of the African plain, whereas Everest is just one mountain on top of lots in the Himalayas. Also, as Kilimanjaro is on the Equator, it is further away from the centre of the Earth as it is an oblate spheroid. (Forfeit: Mount Everest)
• Black boxes are orange. They were black until 1955, when people realised that they were never able to find them in a wreckage.
• Dolphins are eaten in Genoa.
• Scuba diving is illegal off of the coast of Greece, mainly because most of the country's antiquities are underwater.

Tangent: In Greece, the word for lifebelt is also "Kolóura".

[edit] A Series (2003)

[edit] Episode 1 "Adam"

Broadcast date

• 11 September 2003 (BBC Two)

Panellists

• Alan Davies (-5 points)
• Danny Baker (Winner with 18 points) 1st appearance
• Hugh Laurie (11 points) 1st and only appearance
• John Sessions (10 points) 1st appearance

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. It has 52 suicides per 100,000, which is more than 13 times higher than the United States and 6½ times higher than Britain. (Forfeit: Sweden)

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, 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.

[edit] Episode 2 "Astronomy"

Broadcast date

• 18 September 2003 (BBC Two)

Panellists

• Alan Davies (-30 points)
• Bill Bailey (5 points) 1st appearance
• Rich Hall (Joint Winner with 20 points) 1st appearance
• Jeremy Hardy (Joint Winner with 20 points) 1st appearance

Buzzers

• Rich — The sound of a clock bonging
• Jeremy — The sound of a cannon firing
• Bill — The sound of a lion growling
• Alan — The sound of 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 follicles, but they look white, because they reflect the snow.

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. Cruithne, discovered in 1997, is a 3-mile (4.8 km) asteroid sometimes described as Earth's second moon. Cruithne orbits the Earth every 770 years. The name "Cruithne" has a Celtic derivation. (Forfeit: One)
• 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. Pluto, discovered by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930, does not meet the usual criteria for classification as a planet. If Pluto was defined as a planet, 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 planet's moons. (Forfeit: Nine)

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

General Ignorance

• Krung Thep 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", a name that hasn't been used in Thailand for 200 years. (Forfeit: 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 can be seen from the Moon with the naked eye. Even the continents are hard to make out as well. (Forfeit: Great Wall of China)

[edit] Episode 3 "Aquatic Animals"

Broadcast date

• 25 September 2003 (BBC Two)

Panellists

• Alan Davies (-20 points)
• Clive Anderson (Winner with 26 points) 1st appearance
• Bill Bailey (10 points) 2nd appearance
• Meera Syal (19 points) 1st and only appearance

Buzzers

• Meera, Clive, Bill — Three progressively lower-pitched sets of industrial banging noises
• Alan — A bouncing ping-pong ball

Topics

• The longest animal in the world is the Lion's mane jellyfish, as described in the Sherlock Holmes story, The Adventure of the Lion's Mane. Its main body or "bell" is only 8 feet (2.4 m) long, but its tentacles can stretch for 200 feet (61 m). Its sting is only occasionally fatal. (Forfeit: Blue Whale)

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 16 feet (4.9 m) 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. 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. (Forfeit: The World)
• Over fifty percent of the world's oxygen is provided by algae. It's believed that up to ninety percent might be supplied by it. Mature trees actually give off less oxygen then they produce. (Forfeit: Trees)
• The driest place on Earth is the Dry Valleys Region of Antarctica. 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. (Forfeit: Sahara Desert)
• 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.

[edit] Episode 4 "Atoms"

Broadcast date

• 2 October 2003 (BBC Two)

Panellists

• Alan Davies (-24 points)
• Jo Brand (Winner with 36 points) 1st appearance
• Howard Goodall (13 points) 1st appearance
• Jeremy Hardy (7 points) 2nd appearance

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. Anyone who said carbon dioxide got a forfeit of -3,000 points. (Forfeit: Oxygen)

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, 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. (Forfeit: Six)

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. Their eyes can swivel independently, and it was once believed that they lived on air. (Forfeit: Background)

[edit] Episode 5 "Advertising"

Broadcast date

• 9 October 2003 (BBC Two)

Panellists

• Alan Davies (15 points)
• Gyles Brandreth (Winner with 54 points) 1st and only appearance
• Rob Brydon (17 points) 1st appearance
• Rich Hall (35 points) 2nd appearance

Buzzers

• Rich — The sound of a ship's foghorn
• Gyles — The sound of a party popper
• Rob — The sound of a Welsh Anthemic tune
• Alan — The Forfeit alarm (meaning he lost ten before the show had even begun!)

Topics

• Gerber baby food was poorly marketed in Africa, leading customers to believe that it contained babies. (This is actually untrue^[1]) 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.

• The Toyota MR2 provoked much amusement in France, as "MR2" in French sounds like merde, which is the French 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." He is credited with creating "Guinness Is Good For You", that was actually written by Dorothy L. Sayers (Forfeit: Guinness Is Good For You)

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)

[edit] Episode 6 "Antidotes"

Broadcast date

• 16 October 2003 (BBC Two)

Panellists

• Alan Davies (8 points)
• Danny Baker (Winner with 19 points) 2nd appearance
• Jo Brand (13 points) 2nd appearance
• Howard Goodall (17 points) 2nd appearance

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 land-locked 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. 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. (Forfeit: Ribbit)
• An acre is 40 poles long and 4 poles wide. (Forfeit: The Polish Army)
• The Chicago World's Fair in 1933 was opened by light from Arcturus, the brightest star in the Northern Hemisphere.

[edit] Episode 7 "Arthropods"

Broadcast date

• 23 October 2003 (BBC Two)

Panellists

• Alan Davies (0 points)
• Jo Brand (-38 points) 3rd appearance
• Jimmy Carr (-1 point) 1st appearance
• Jackie Clune (Winner with 5 points) 1st and only appearance

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. 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. (Forfeit: James Cook)
• 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 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. (Forfeit: "I Don't Know")
• Homo sapiens evolved from a common ancestor that hasn't yet been discovered, otherwise known as the "missing link". Before that, they evolved from squirrel-like tree shrews, before that hedgehogs and before that starfish. Apes also evolved from this same ancestor. (Forfeit: Apes)

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 amount of legs seen on a millipede is 710 on the South African millipede. No millipede has ever been spotted with 1,000. (Forfeit: 1000)

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 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. (Forfeit: Ostrich)
• Rubber boots were invented by Amazonian Indians, who stand knee-deep in liquid latex until it dries up. (Forfeit: The Duke of Wellington).

Tangent: Charles Goodyear with his invention of vulcanised rubber.

Tangent: Stephen's father's pronunciation of Volvic and Volvo.

[edit] Episode 8 "Albania"

Broadcast date

• 30 October 2003 (BBC Two)

Panellists

• Alan Davies (-30 points)
• Clive Anderson (Winner with 37 points) 2nd appearance
• Sean Lock (25 points) 1st appearance
• Linda Smith (30 points) 1st appearance

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 shooter 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 mantlepiece 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. 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. (Forfeit: Tomato Ketchup, Baked Beans)

General Ignorance

• Fingernails and hair do not grow after you die. The skin tightens causing an illusion of growth.
• Bananas come from a herb. The "tree" doesn't have a woody stem. The banana fruit is technically a berry. (Forfeit: Trees)

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 tigon 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, inventor of the paper clip. Darwin adapted it for 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. (Forfeit: Charles Darwin)

[edit] Episode 9 "Africa"

Broadcast date

• 6 November 2003 (BBC Two)

Panellists

• Alan Davies (10 points)
• Jo Brand (15 points) 4th appearance
• Dave Gorman (Winner with 20 points) 1st and only appearance
• Jeremy Hardy (15 points) 3rd appearance

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 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