QI. Image shows from L to R: Alan Davies, Sandi Toksvig. Copyright: TalkbackThames
QI

QI

  • TV panel show
  • BBC Two / BBC One / BBC Four
  • 2003 - 2024
  • 312 episodes (21 series)

Panel game that contains lots of difficult questions and a large amount of quite interesting facts. Stars Sandi Toksvig, Stephen Fry and Alan Davies.

Episode menu

Series B, Episode 4 - Bible

A copy of The Bible

Topics

- There are only 15 professional ventriloquists in Britain. The word "Ventriloquist" means "Stomach talker".

- Tangent: The Sugar Puffs bear was called "Jeremy". Hercules the Bear mauled a television presenter. Peter Brough, the ventriloquist from the radio series Educating Archie always moved his lips when the doll was talking. He asked Beryl Reid if she could see his lips moving. She said, "Only when the doll is talking."

- Tangent: In Britain, there are 280,000 heroin addicts, 75,000 people in prison, 50,000 practitioners of alternative medicine and 10,000 practising druids. The Archbishop of Glastonbury and Stonehenge is Rollo Maughfling.

- Tangent: The rulebook for Dutch prostitutes is an inch thick.

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

- Tangent: Jeremy Clarkson claims that all people from Birmingham are dull and whine all the time. Employees of British Leyland used to take car paint home and decorate their houses in it, like burnt orange.

- Tangent: One saying in Birmingham is, "He'd skin a turd for a farthing." The panel tell jokes about people from Birmingham, and Jeremy Hardy jokingly claims that Jimmy Savile invented hip hop.

- The people of Bhutan have the least use for Jeremy Clarkson, because they have little television and few roads. Television was introduced in 1999. Parking fees were recently introduced although there are no traffic lights in the whole of the Kingdom. Most people live a day away from a road. 0.01% of the country is on the internet. The domain initials are .bt. Telephones were introduced to Bhutan in 1980, and there are only 6,000 of them.

- Tangent: India has no speed limits and every car in the country within five years will be involved in a fatal road accident. The UK has the largest number of car thefts in the world. Alan's motorbike got stolen and he pleads for its return.

- Tangent: Stephen's cousin is an American doctor who refers to motorbike riders as "Donors".

- Tangent: Britain and Finland are the only two democracies to have declared war on each other. Correction: As was later revealed on Series M, Episode 2, "Military Matters", there have been other wars between democracies, such as the the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War of 1780-84 and the Football War of 1969 between El Salvador and Honduras.

- According to the book of Leviticus, Jews can eat grasshoppers but not cuckoos, ferrets or camels. They also cannot eat lobsters, crabs, frogs, chameleons, eels, hares, snails, lizards, moles, ravens, ospreys, vultures, swans, owls, storks, herons, bats, pelicans, lapwings, prawns, eagles, pigs and shellfish.

- Tangent: Leviticus is a Latinisation for the word "Levi" which is a type of priest. Jeremy Clarkson's third puppy is called Leviticus, his others being called Genesis, Exodus and Numbers.

- Tangent: At the Roadkill Cafe, they will cook anything you knock down with your car. Their poster says "From Your Grille To Ours!"

- Tangent: The Wedge-tailed Eagle in Australia hunts for roadkill. During the morning, the road train runs over them at windscreen height because they have eaten so much they can only take off into the wind. The result of which results in the birds contents splattering over the driver.

- Since Tsar Alexander III in 1881, the leaders of Russia have alternated between being hairy and bald. The current leader at the time of broadcast was Valdimir Putin, who was bald. Since this was broadcast the line has continued, with Dmitry Medvedev (hairy) and Putin (bald) again.

- Tangent: Vladimir Putin hit someone who thought he resembled Dobby the House Elf in the Harry Potter novels.

- Tangent: The brother of the Brontë sisters, Branwell Brontë died standing up.

General Ignorance

- The English Civil War resulted in the highest proportion of British soldiers dying, mainly because everyone in it was British. (85,000 on the battlefield, another 100,000 of wounds subsequently - 10% of the adult population) The Irish population was halved by Oliver Cromwell.

- Tangent: 90% of British people cannot name a battle in the English Civil War, 80% do not know which English king was executed by Parliament, and 67% of schoolchildren have never heard of Oliver Cromwell.

- Less than 0.02% of the Earth is water. Seven-tenths of the Earth's surface is covered in water. Earth can also go into the Red Spot on Jupiter. (Forfeit: Two-Thirds)

- Andy Warhol always wore green underwear. The only funeral he went to was his own and he never danced.

- Robert Burns never wore a kilt, since kilt-wearing was illegal in the 18th century, mainly because of the Jacobite Rebellion. He was never referred to as "Robbie" or "Rabby" Burns, but sometimes "Rab".

Scores

Jeremy Clarkson: 5 points
Jeremy Hardy: 3 points
Alan Davies and Barry Cryer: -6 points

Broadcast details

Date
Friday 22nd October 2004
Time
10:30pm
Channel
BBC Four
Length
30 minutes

Repeats

Show past repeats

Date Time Channel
Monday 14th June 2010 10:10pm Dave
Sunday 25th July 2010 7:40pm Dave
Wednesday 19th January 2011 7:50pm Dave
Wednesday 30th March 2011 7:40pm Dave
Sunday 10th July 2011 8:20pm Dave
Monday 11th July 2011 12:20am Dave
Wednesday 9th November 2011 7:20pm Dave
Wednesday 9th November 2011 11:00pm Dave
Tuesday 3rd January 2012 10:00pm Dave
Wednesday 4th January 2012 1:00am Dave
Friday 23rd March 2012 9:40pm Dave
Saturday 24th March 2012 12:20am Dave
Tuesday 29th May 2012 7:20pm Dave
Thursday 27th September 2012 5:20pm Dave
Thursday 27th September 2012 11:40pm Dave
Sunday 30th December 2012 2:00pm Dave
Thursday 2nd May 2013 11:30pm Dave
Friday 3rd May 2013 2:20am Dave
Sunday 13th October 2013 3:20pm Dave
Wednesday 18th December 2013 1:00pm Dave
Wednesday 18th December 2013 6:20pm Dave
Sunday 16th February 2014 11:00am Dave
Sunday 16th February 2014 6:00pm Dave
Monday 12th May 2014 12:40pm Dave
Monday 12th May 2014 5:40pm Dave
Monday 9th June 2014 11:00pm Dave
Sunday 31st August 2014 3:00pm Dave
Thursday 16th April 2015 11:40pm Dave
Wednesday 22nd July 2015 11:00pm Dave
Thursday 26th November 2015 9:00pm Dave
Friday 27th November 2015 2:20am Dave
Saturday 19th March 2016 12:20am Dave
Saturday 19th March 2016 8:00pm Dave
Wednesday 13th July 2016 9:20pm Dave
Saturday 13th August 2016 7:00pm Dave
Tuesday 24th January 2017 3:20pm Dave
Tuesday 24th January 2017 7:20pm Dave
Tuesday 29th August 2017 12:00am Dave
Tuesday 29th August 2017 2:00am Dave
Friday 6th October 2017 1:20am Dave
Wednesday 13th December 2017 1:20am Dave
Friday 19th January 2018 11:40pm Dave
Saturday 20th January 2018 1:40am Dave
Wednesday 4th April 2018 12:40am Dave
Wednesday 4th April 2018 2:40am Dave
Thursday 5th July 2018 12:20am Dave
Thursday 5th July 2018 2:20am Dave
Wednesday 12th September 2018 12:20am Dave
Friday 7th December 2018 7:20pm Dave
Friday 29th March 2019 1:40am Dave
Friday 29th March 2019 11:00pm Dave
Tuesday 4th February 2020 11:40pm Dave
Wednesday 5th February 2020 1:35am Dave
Wednesday 27th May 2020 3:20pm Dave
Wednesday 27th May 2020 8:20pm Dave
Thursday 9th July 2020 12:55am Dave

Cast & crew

Cast
Stephen Fry Host / Presenter
Alan Davies Regular Panellist
Guest cast
Jeremy Hardy Guest
Barry Cryer Guest
Jeremy Clarkson Guest
Writing team
Sophie Johnstone Researcher
Molly Oldfield Researcher
John Mitchinson Question Writer
Piers Fletcher Question Writer
Kate Staples Researcher
Garrick Alder Researcher
Dan Schreiber Researcher
Production team
Ian Lorimer Director
John Lloyd Producer
Phil Clarke Executive Producer
Mark Freeland Executive Producer
Nick King Editor
Jonathan Paul Green Production Designer
Howard Goodall Composer

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