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 A, Episode 11 - Arts

Ant

Topics

- Pigeons don't like going to the movies because they see the world ten times faster than humans. To them, a film is a slow slide show.

- 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 bird that can suck.

- The ant has the largest brain in comparison to its body size of any animal. (Forfeit: Human)

- There are 8,000 species of ant.

- Soldier ants were used by the ancient Indians as stitches in operations.

- In Thailand, red ants are poured into open wounds, because they secrete an acid that acts as an antiseptic and a painkiller.

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

- Apples and a game played with headless goats both originated from Kazakhstan.

- Both Ulysses S. Grant and John Prescott have both been arrested for speeding and have won interesting prizes. Grant won a prize for taming a pony in a circus. As a boy, the Prescott family won second prize for being "The most typical family in Britain" in 1951. However, they should have won first prize because the winning family was found to have been distantly related to the organiser of the competition.

General Ignorance

- The largest living thing on Earth is the honey mushroom. (Forfeit: Blue whale; Giant redwood)

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

- Apart from other humans, the animal that kills more human beings than any other is the hippopotamus.

- Tangent: A hippopotamus's breath is so bad that it is used as part of its weaponry. George Washington had hippopotamus false teeth.

- The telephone was invented by Antonio Meucci.

Deleted Scenes

- Turkey eats more apples than any other country in world, with Germany second. The UK is lowest consumer of apples in Europe, but eats more bananas than any other country in the world. The banana is the most traded object in supermarkets.

Scores

- Richard E. Grant: 12 points
- Linda Smith: 5 points
- Bill Bailey: -2 points
- Alan Davies: -18 points

Broadcast details

Date
Thursday 20th November 2003
Time
10pm
Channel
BBC Two
Length
30 minutes

Repeats

Show past repeats

Date Time Channel
Friday 16th July 2010 9:00pm Dave
Friday 22nd April 2011 7:20pm Dave
Wednesday 1st June 2011 10:40pm Dave
Saturday 11th June 2011 7:20pm Dave
Friday 9th September 2011 7:20pm Dave
Friday 9th September 2011 11:20pm Dave
Thursday 27th October 2011 10:20pm Dave
Friday 28th October 2011 1:20am Dave
Thursday 29th December 2011 11:20am Dave
Thursday 29th December 2011 4:20pm Dave
Saturday 7th January 2012 12:00pm Dave
Saturday 7th January 2012 5:40pm Dave
Saturday 24th March 2012 11:15pm Dave
Sunday 25th March 2012 3:50pm Dave
Wednesday 11th April 2012 7:20pm Dave
Sunday 10th June 2012 11:40am Dave
Friday 27th July 2012 11:20pm Dave
Saturday 28th July 2012 2:05am Dave
Wednesday 10th October 2012 7:40pm Dave
Wednesday 10th October 2012 11:30pm Dave
Wednesday 7th November 2012 7:40pm Dave
Wednesday 7th November 2012 11:00pm Dave
Saturday 22nd December 2012 2:00pm Dave
Tuesday 5th February 2013 11:20pm Dave
Wednesday 6th February 2013 2:20am Dave
Tuesday 7th May 2013 10:40pm Dave
Wednesday 8th May 2013 1:55am Dave
Sunday 28th July 2013 2:00pm Dave
Sunday 28th July 2013 6:00pm Dave
Saturday 16th November 2013 7:40pm Dave
Sunday 17th November 2013 3:20pm Dave
Tuesday 24th December 2013 4:00pm Dave
Tuesday 24th December 2013 11:40pm Dave
Monday 12th January 2015 11:40pm Dave
Friday 27th March 2015 11:00pm Dave
Friday 17th July 2015 12:20am Dave
Friday 17th July 2015 10:40pm Dave
Tuesday 7th June 2016 2:20am Dave
Tuesday 7th June 2016 11:20pm Dave
Wednesday 3rd August 2016 12:20am Dave
Wednesday 3rd August 2016 9:20pm Dave
Wednesday 16th November 2016 11:20pm Dave
Tuesday 17th January 2017 3:20pm Dave
Tuesday 21st March 2017 12:20am Dave
Wednesday 17th January 2018 11:00pm Dave
Thursday 18th January 2018 1:00am Dave
Wednesday 28th March 2018 1:00am Dave
Tuesday 22nd May 2018 12:00am Dave
Tuesday 22nd May 2018 2:00am Dave
Friday 21st September 2018 1:00am Dave
Monday 28th January 2019 11:40pm Dave
Tuesday 29th January 2019 1:35am Dave

Cast & crew

Cast
Stephen Fry Host / Presenter
Alan Davies Regular Panellist
Guest cast
Bill Bailey Guest
Linda Smith Guest
Richard E. Grant Guest
Writing team
Samantha Ball Researcher
Adam Jacot de Boinod Researcher
Sophie Johnstone Researcher
Molly Oldfield Researcher
Adam King Researcher
Production team
Ian Lorimer Director
John Lloyd Producer
Phil Clarke Executive Producer
Richard Everton Editor
Jonathan Paul Green Production Designer
Howard Goodall Composer

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