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.
- Continues on Tuesday on BBC2 at 9pm with Series U, Episode 14
- Catch-up on Series U, Episode 13
- Streaming rank this week: 509
Episode menu
Series E, Episode 3 - Eating
Topics
- In the Rhubarb Triangle, rhubarb grows so quickly that you can hear it grow. The triangle is made up of the cities Leeds, Bradford and Wakefield. The rhubarb is placed in 'forcing rooms', which are completely dark. As there is no sunlight, they do not make leaves and just grow.
- Tangent: Rhubarb leaves are poisonous. Rhubarb acts as a mild laxative. Britain used to get rhubarb exports from China. However, when the Opium War was declared between the two nations, the exports stopped. One man, Lin Zexu threatened that if the British did not stop Opium imports into China, they would cut of rhubarb supplies to Britain, killing everybody by mass constipation. Queen Victoria never had the message translated.
- Corn flakes were invented by accident. However, their original and quite interesting function was that they were designed to prevent masturbation, a practice that John Harvey Kellogg hated.
- If you eat nothing but rabbit, you die of malnutrition. Rabbit meat has very little oil, so if you ate only rabbit, you would run out of other nutrients.
- Tangent: Eating a rabbit affected with myxomatosis has no affect on a human. Louis XVIII of France claimed that he could tell from which part for France the rabbit came from by smelling rabbit stew. In theory, two rabbits could produce 33 million rabbits in 3 years; however 90% of baby rabbits are killed by predators. Although rabbits were introduced to Britain in the 12th century by the Normans, they only became wild in the 19th century.
- Elephant on the Menu: Mongongo nuts can be found in elephant droppings.
General Ignorance
- Snails were the first animals to be herded for food, in 10,700 B.C. (Forfeit: Chickens)
- Tangent: Snails are hermaphrodites. They have a 'love dart' which has a greater chance of pregnancy but can also hurt the partner.
- Stomach ulcers are caused by a bacterium called Helicobacter Pylori. It was discovered by two Australian doctors. One of them, Barry Marshall, proved that this was the case by deliberately giving himself the bacteria and suffering from an ulcer, which could then be cured by antibiotics. He won the Nobel Prize for his discovery.
- The green vegetable which contains 10 times more iron than any other is thyme. (Forfeit: Spinach; Broccoli)
Vodcast/Quickie
(Presenter: Stephen Fry impersonating Johnny Vegas)
- Tangent: There is a type of Vietnamese coffee that is made by monkeys eating green coffee, then excreting and grinding the faeces.
- Tangent: A discussion on the philtrum, which is the groove between the nose and upper lip.
- If you ate E941, E948, E938, E290 and E939 you would carry on living because they are the main ingredients of air. They are nitrogen, oxygen, argon, carbon dioxide and helium respectively. (Forfeit: Sends you mad)
- A tyrannosaurus rex would taste of chicken, because chickens are descended from them.
- Tangent: Stephen tells a story about Peter Cook. Apparently Cook read an article about Elizabeth Taylor putting on weight, in which a spokesman said was because of her glands. Cook joked that Taylor's glands must have been ordering eclairs and "stuffing them down her f**king throat!"
Scores
- Alan Davies: -2 points (Fourth victory)
- Johnny Vegas: -3 points
- Jimmy Carr: -6 points
- Phill Jupitus: -21 points
Broadcast details
- Date
- Friday 28th September 2007
- Time
- 10:30pm
- Channel
- BBC Four
- Length
- 30 minutes
Repeats
Show past repeats
Date | Time | Channel |
---|---|---|
Saturday 29th May 2010 | 10:20pm | Dave |
Tuesday 13th July 2010 | 9:40pm | Dave |
Wednesday 21st July 2010 | 10:00pm | BBC2 |
Tuesday 31st August 2010 | 10:00pm | Dave |
Thursday 11th November 2010 | 9:40pm | Dave |
Tuesday 14th December 2010 | 9:00pm | Dave |
Saturday 20th August 2011 | 10:20pm | Dave |
Saturday 29th October 2011 | 7:40pm | Dave |
Monday 2nd January 2012 | 10:00pm | Dave |
Tuesday 3rd January 2012 | 12:20am | Dave |
Friday 1st June 2012 | 11:00pm | Dave |
Saturday 2nd June 2012 | 1:35am | Dave |
Thursday 13th September 2012 | 9:40pm | Dave |
Friday 14th September 2012 | 12:20am | Dave |
Sunday 20th January 2013 | 1:00pm | Dave |
Sunday 20th January 2013 | 5:00pm | Dave |
Wednesday 23rd April 2014 | 10:40pm | Dave |
Thursday 24th April 2014 | 1:40am | Dave |
Thursday 5th June 2014 | 12:40pm | Dave |
Thursday 5th June 2014 | 5:40pm | Dave |
Wednesday 26th November 2014 | 11:40pm | Dave |
Friday 23rd January 2015 | 11:00pm | Dave |
Monday 27th April 2015 | 11:00pm | Dave |
Tuesday 28th April 2015 | 3:10am | Dave |
Tuesday 2nd February 2016 | 12:20am | Dave |
Tuesday 2nd February 2016 | 9:20pm | Dave |
Tuesday 24th May 2016 | 2:20am | Dave |
Tuesday 24th May 2016 | 11:20pm | Dave |
Saturday 9th July 2016 | 8:20pm | Dave |
Tuesday 9th August 2016 | 1:00am | Dave |
Tuesday 9th August 2016 | 8:00pm | Dave |
Wednesday 14th December 2016 | 11:20pm | Dave |
Friday 10th March 2017 | 2:40pm | Dave |
Monday 12th June 2017 | 1:50am | Dave |
Monday 21st August 2017 | 11:20pm | Dave |
Tuesday 22nd August 2017 | 1:20am | Dave |
Monday 30th October 2017 | 11:20pm | Dave |
Tuesday 31st October 2017 | 1:20am | Dave |
Thursday 9th November 2017 | 1:20am | Dave |
Thursday 7th December 2017 | 1:20am | Dave |
Thursday 1st February 2018 | 12:40am | Dave |
Thursday 1st February 2018 | 2:40am | Dave |
Wednesday 30th January 2019 | 11:00pm | Dave |
Thursday 31st January 2019 | 1:00am | Dave |
Wednesday 5th June 2019 | 11:40pm | Dave |
Thursday 6th June 2019 | 8:20pm | Dave |
Thursday 3rd October 2019 | 1:40am | Dave |
Thursday 3rd October 2019 | 8:20pm | Dave |
Monday 27th January 2020 | 11:00pm | Dave |
Tuesday 28th January 2020 | 1:00am | Dave |
Thursday 7th May 2020 | 8:20pm | Dave |
Wednesday 8th July 2020 | 7:40pm | Dave |
Thursday 9th July 2020 | 1:35am | Dave |
Saturday 18th February 2023 | 12:40am | Dave |
Saturday 18th February 2023 | 9:20pm | Dave |
Thursday 15th June 2023 | 10:00pm | Dave |
Monday 13th November 2023 | 11:20pm | Dave |
Cast & crew
Stephen Fry | Host / Presenter |
Alan Davies | Regular Panellist |
Jimmy Carr | Guest |
Phill Jupitus | Guest |
Johnny Vegas | Guest |
Molly Oldfield | Researcher |
Piers Fletcher | Question Writer |
Garrick Alder | Researcher |
Mat Coward | Researcher |
Christopher Gray | Researcher |
James Harkin | Researcher |
Justin Gayner | Researcher |
Vitali Vitaliev | Researcher |
Justin Pollard | Question Writer |
Ian Lorimer | Director |
John Lloyd | Producer |
Lorraine Heggessey | Executive Producer |
Katie Taylor | Executive Producer |
Nick King | Editor |
Jonathan Paul Green | Production Designer |
Howard Goodall | Composer |
Video
Vodcast - Series E, Episode 3 - Eating
Vodcast of the "Eating" episode.
Featuring: Alan Davies, Stephen Fry, Jimmy Carr, Phill Jupitus & Johnny Vegas.