QI (I series)

QI Series I
Starring	Alan Davies Guest panellists
No. of episodes	16
Release
Original network	BBC Two
Original release	9 September 2011 (2011-09-09)
Season chronology

This is a list of episodes of QI, the BBC comedy panel game television programme hosted by Stephen Fry. This series aired on BBC Two, rather than BBC One as it had in recent years. It is the ninth series of QI.

Episodes

A recurring element in this series was the "Nobody Knows" card. In each episode there was one question to which the actual answer is unknown; if a panellist correctly spotted it and played their card, they were awarded a sizeable amount of points. Most of the Nobody Knows bonuses were won by Alan Davies.

Guests who made their first appearance in this series were: John Bishop, Brian Blessed, Nina Conti, Prof. Brian Cox, Dr. Ben Goldacre, Sarah Millican, Al Murray, Frank Skinner and Henning Wehn.

Episode 1 "I-Spy"

Broadcast date

• 9 September 2011

Recording date

• 7 June 2011

Panellists

• Alan Davies (–11 points)
• Jimmy Carr (–4 points) 18th appearance
• Lee Mack (–5 points) 3rd appearance
• Sandi Toksvig (Winner with 12 points) 6th appearance

Buzzers

• Sandi: dreamy female voice saying, "aye, yaaai"
• Jimmy: Yobbo-sounding "oy-oi?"
• Lee: Mexican-sounding "aye-yai-yaaai!"
• Alan: "I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts"

Topics

• The ai is a sloth native to South America; it only comes down from trees to defecate, and needs to bask in the sun to start its metabolism. The aye-aye, on the other hand, is an endangered nocturnal lemur native to Madagascar with an elongated middle finger which it taps on trees to draw out and eat grubs. It is considered a curse by the native Malagasy people, and often killed on sight.
• In the Royal Navy, "aye" is an assent or agreement; "aye-aye" is an acknowledgement of orders.

Tangent: "Order hands to bathe" is an order given in calm waters for all crew to go overboard to swim and bathe.

• If the subject of a painting is depicted as having a gaze fixed on the viewer, the subject's eyes will always appear to "follow" the viewer—that is, the eyes will always appear to be looking at the viewer, even if the viewer is not in a position that would expected to catch the gaze. Well-known examples of paintings exhibiting this phenomenon include the Mona Lisa and Laughing Cavalier. Similarly, if the gaze is depicted as cast downward, it will always appear this way, even from below.

Tangent: A plastic mask of Einstein's face is rotated before the camera, resulting in a remarkable optical illusion [The Hollow-Face illusion] making it appear convex when it is concave. A five-pound note is also made to cause its image of Queen Elizabeth to appear happy or sad by creating a concave bend between her eyes.

Tangent: Gaze detection has been used to determine that when meeting a person, women will look at the face, whereas men will look at the face and groin—regardless of the gender of the person they're looking at. According to the American Kennel Club, the same is true when meeting a dog. Gaze detection has also been used to determine where are the most valuable locations for product promotion in stores.

• In addition to tying one's shoes and dealing with rabid dogs, the all-time best-selling Scouting for Boys by Lord Baden-Powell contains entries on dealing with the following remarkable subjects:
  • Suicide: "Where a man has gone so far as to attempt suicide, a Scout should know what to do with him. In a case where the would-be suicide has taken poison, give milk and make him vomit, which is done by tickling the inside of the throat with a finger or a feather. In the case of hanging, cut down the body at once, taking care to support it with one arm while cutting the cord. A Tenderfoot [novice] is sometimes inclined to be timid about handling an insensible man or dead man, or even of seeing blood. Well, he won't be much use till he gets over such nonsense."
  • Slaughtering cattle: "If you're a beginner in slaughtering with a knife, it's sometimes useful to first drop the animal insensible by a heavy blow with a big hammer or the back of a felling axe on top of the head."
  • Stopping a runaway horse: Rather than standing directly in front waving one's arms, as is often believed, one should stand to one side, easing the horse toward a wall.
  • Saving someone who's fallen in front of a train: "If the train is very close, lie flat between the rails. Make the man do the same till the train passes over, while everybody else would be running about screaming and excited and doing nothing."

General Ignorance

• Nobody Knows: It's not possible to determine the age of a lobster, whose DNA contain a protease enzyme called telomerase which replaces lost DNA during cell division so that cells remain young after each replication. It's not known how large or how old lobster get; the largest lobster ever recorded, caught off the coast of Nova Scotia in 1977, was 3½ feet long. The vast majority of lobster are dark in color, but they are occasionally blue or red. Lobsters detach themselves from their old shells 25 times during the first 5 years of their life in a dangerous procedure which involves pulling out the lining of its own throat, stomach, and anus each time. They also communicate by urinating.
• Despite its spelling differences, the typical novelty writing in the "Ye Olde Curiositye Shoppe" vein would not, at the time it was widespread, have been pronounced much differently than modern English. Most final e's were silent, and at the time printers simply chose to substitute the 'y' character for the Anglo-Saxon thorn (Þ, þ) character that was previously used in writing—both of which were equivalent in pronunciation to the modern 'th' that ended up being the standard convention. Thus printed 'ye', formerly written 'þe' by hand, was pronounced exactly as current 'the'. Another word incorporating the thorn was the abbreviation 'yt' = that.
• Crime increased by 57% in London during the Blitz. Looters would sometimes pose as wardens, conning bystanders into helping them move stolen goods. Benefit fraud increased as well; one man claimed for bombing benefits 19 times before he was found out. Ordinary people also participated in black market trading of rationed goods.

Tangent: Alan's grandfather was an ARP warden.

QI XL Extras

Tangent: A 17th-century book for young women carried advice on the marriage bed, by analogy to food. As paraphrased by Sandi: "Of the marriage bed we cannot speak of your husband's appetite, so we will describe it in terms of food. You must feed him whenever he's hungry, and feed him a variety of meals or you will soon find he's eating next door."

• A jackal will only be friendly if it is rabid. Docility is a symptom of rabies; animals don't always froth at the mouth.

Tangent: When Sandi canoed the Zambezi, her guides brought dogs with them—not as pets, but as a sacrifice in case the canoes were attacked by crocodiles.

• It is not entirely certain how Grigori Rasputin died. Prince Felix Yusupov claimed, and for a long time was believed, to have been Rasputin's murderer when he poisoned, stabbed, and shot Rasputin—after which, when Rasputin was still alive, Yusupov threw him in a river. (Later, his dead body was burned, at which time he appeared to sit up.) The original postmortem claimed Rasputin died of drowning; however, an [unpublished] autopsy revealed this not to be the case. Rasputin was notoriously promiscuous (due to his peculiar theological belief that the more he sinned, the more holy he became), and among his rumored lovers was Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna, over whom he held great political influence. Rasputin went to great lengths to influence Russia to withdraw from World War I, which there were many parties with a vested interest in preventing—including the British government, who needed the German army to remain occupied with the Russians on the eastern front. It is now known that the last bullet to enter Rasputin's head was from a gun which could only have come from an MI6 officer, suggesting a British plot played a part in ensuring Rasputin's death.
• "Durable" Mike Malloy was a remarkably tenacious murder victim in New York City during American Prohibition. He was befriended by some speakeasy owners who attempted to effect a life insurance scam using alcoholic clients, by coaxing them to take out policies benefiting the owners and then offering their marks free drinks to induce death by alcohol poisoning. They coerced Mike to take out three insurance policies totaling $2000, but after offering him free drinks for several weeks, seeing that he was in no danger, the conspirators became impatient. Initially they tried to poison him, adding antifreeze to his drinks; after this didn't kill him they tried turpentine, horse liniment, rat poison, rotten oysters in wood alcohol, and sardines mixed with carpet tacks. When none of this worked they got him drunk, stripped him naked, dumped him in a snowbank in bitter cold, and poured 5 gallons of cold water over him. He returned the next day, having been found by police and hospitalized. They then paid a cab driver to run him over; after two attempts and weeks of hospitalization, Malloy returned. At this point the speakeasy owners got him drunk again and actively gassed him to death. A few months later the conspirators began to fight amongst themselves and were found out, eventually being executed by electric chair at Sing Sing.
• There are a vast number of insects in the atmosphere. Using radar it was discovered that in a square kilometer of sky, at all times, there are billions of insects. The record height at which an insect has been found was a termite at 19,000 feet.
• In the US, there are laws determining the maximum acceptable amounts of unsavory materials and insect matter allowed to be contained in everyday food items. For example, peanut butter is allowed to contain up to 30 insect fragments, and one rodent hair, per 100 grams. Tomato juice is allowed to contain ten eggs or two maggots from the Drosophila (fruit fly) per 500 milliliters; ginger is allowed 3 milligrams of "mammalian excreta" (i.e., feces) per 100 grams; fig paste can contain 30 normal insect heads per 100 grams; ground marjoram can contain 1,175 insect fragments per 10 grams.

General Ignorance

• The American War of Independence was the only war in which both sides fought under the Union Jack (forfeit: English Civil War). The British flew the Union Flag; the Americans flew an early George Washington–designed flag which had the same stripes as the modern American flag, but which incorporated the Union Jack into the canton (quarter) where Betsy Ross later put stars. Hawaii is the only US state whose flag now incorporates the Union Jack.

Episode 2 "International"

Broadcast date

• 16 September 2011

Recording date

• 11 May 2011

Panellists

• Alan Davies (–10 points)
• Bill Bailey (Winner with 4 points) 23rd appearance
• Jack Dee (–27 points) 5th appearance
• David Mitchell (–44 points) 15th appearance

Buzzers

• Jack: "Icelandair to Inverness, gate B."
• Bill: "Iran Air to Istanbul, last call."
• David: "Air India to Islamabad, now closing."
• Alan: "Unexpected item in the bagging area."

Topics

Tangent: Bill gets three points for mentioning the fact that nobody knows how the QI scoring system works.

• If you were on an aeroplane in which both the pilot and the co-pilot had fallen ill, it would be incredibly difficult for anyone else to land the plane down safely. Simulations have been carried out in the USA with people with civil private pilot licences. In these cases one person could not move the seat that moved them towards the control, another turned the radio off, and another turned off the autopilot and crashed the plane immediately. One of the first problems is getting into the cockpit, which is much more secure these days following 9/11. If the plane was on autopilot you could continue to fly level, and once you began to land people would talk you through the procedure, but there are so many variables that it is really difficult. The chances of an intelligent person landing the aircraft in such a situation are 1 in 10 if it is in autopilot, and 1 in 100 if it is not in autopilot.

Tangent: Jack claims that in his uniform, Stephen looks more like a bursar, getting him confused with a purser.

Tangent: The pilot and co-pilot on a plane always have different meals from each other in case one of the meals makes one of them feel ill. In the case of extra long haul flights there are three pilots instead of two.

Tangent: Autopilot was invented in 1914, during the Paris Air Show. It was an American invention and used a gyroscope.

Tangent: The shortest commercial flight in the world is in the Orkney Islands, from Westray and Westray Papa. It usually takes two minutes, but the shortest it has ever taken is 58 seconds. The distance is shorter than the runaway of Edinburgh Airport.

• In the state of Madhya Pradesh policemen are paid 30 rupees more for growing a moustache. They believe that policeman with moustaches are less intimidating, get on better with the local community and are more respected by the public.

Tangent: In the British Army between 1860 and 1914 it was a regulation that every soldier had to have a moustache. If you shaved it off, you could be imprisoned. Stephen then puts on a fake General Melchett-style moustache to show what kinds of things people used to protect their moustaches. These included cups and spoons to prevent your moustache from getting wet when drinking or eating soup, as well as a cover to prevent your moustache from messing up while you slept. The world's longest moustache is 14 feet long. The man who has it has made a living from it, appearing in the film Octopussy.

• Mussolini wanted Italians to eat risotto to make them big and strong. He had a national propaganda day devoted to risotto, and wanted Italians to stop eating pasta. The Italians resisted this, but he did have the support of the Futurists, an art movement akin to the Dadaists. One, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, said pasta made Italians lethargic, pessimistic and sentimental.
• The international head of state who snubbed Jesse Owens after his triumph at the 1936 Berlin Olympics was the American President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Owens claimed in his autobiography: "When I passed the Chancellor, he arose, waved his hand at me and I waved back at him. Hitler didn't snub me; it was FDR who snubbed me. The President didn't even send me a telegram. When I came back to my native country, I couldn't ride at the front of the bus, I had to go to the back door, I wasn't invited to shake hands with Hitler, but I certainly wasn't invited the White House to shake hands with the President either. Owens won four gold medals at the Games. (Forfeit: Hitler)

Tangent: During the discussion about Hitler, a picture is shown of senior Nazi figures at the Berlin Olympics saluting to the crowd. Alan then notices that the figure on the far right of the picture looks like he is sticking his hand up to his nose as a sort of silly rude gesture. They then realise that the man doing it is Hermann Göring. David jokingly says that everyone in the picture is in the far right.

Tangent: Sammy Davis Jr. could not go through the front door of the hotels in Las Vegas where he was performing.

• Nobody Knows: Nobody knows where the water in the North Two Ocean Creek in Wyoming flows. Water on one side of it will flow into the Pacific Ocean and on the other side will flow into the Atlantic. However, no-one knows where the water goes when it lands in the creek itself. Alan gets the bonus.

General Ignorance

• The world's largest pyramid is Cholula, which is an Aztec pyramid. Although it is not as tall and has a flat top, it has a bigger cubic capacity of 4.3 cubic kilometres, as opposed to the Cheops' 3.36 cubic kilometres. (Forfeit: The one in the middle)
• The First World War was first named as such in 1918. Lt. Col. Charles à Court Repington wrote in his diary on 19th September 1918 that he met with a Major Johnstone of Harvard University to discuss what the war should be called. Rejected names included The War and The German War. Then Repington suggested The World War, and they mutually agreed to call it The First World War. It had also been known as "The Great War", but before that the other Great War was the Napoleonic War. (Forfeit: 1939; After the Second World War; During the Second World War)

QI XL Extras

Tangent: The man who does the scoring for QI is called Colin. He works for Lumina, a company which also works for Pointless and Eggheads.

Tangent: There are 400,000 people in the air at any given time.

Tangent: The only Action Man toy with a beard was the adventurer, which was in the Navy. The Navy is the only branch of the armed forces in which you can have a beard.

Tangent: No-one working at Disney is allowed to have facial hair. Some years ago, an angry email was sent by Disney's HR department to their employees saying that anyone who described Disney as Mousewitz would be fired. Within half an hour the employees started calling Disney Duckau.

• Out of a Vickers machine gun, a tomato and a jellyfish, the jellyfish is the odd one out because it is the only one not improved by adding urine. The idea that jellyfish stings can be cured with the use of urine is an urban myth. Human urine is a very good fertilizer for growing tomatoes. The Vickers machine gun would often overheat so it was cooled using a water-cooled jacket. The water is poured from the top and collected in a jerry can at the bottom so it can be used again. However, in places where there was very little water, urine was used to keep them cool. The International Brigade often used the phrase Pass the piss.
• In 1953, Italy's biggest export was accordions. They mostly came from the town of Castelfidardo, which still makes them. (Forfeit: Urine; Pasta)

Tangent: Stephen talks about a restaurant in Berlin which is completely dark and you are served by blind people. As you cannot see the food you use other senses to enhance your experience. Stephen says that he often likes to torture his mother when he goes to restaurants by refusing to tell his mother what he wants.

• The Italians have rules about what sort of sauce goes with what sort of pasta. A stronger sauce would go with shell-shaped pasta to contain it. Hollow pasta is usually given a tomato like sauce because it runs through the tube and fills it.

Tangent: Stephen admits that he loves spaghetti hoops on toast.

General Ignorance

• The country with the fattest people in the world is Nauru. Out of a population of around 10,000 97% of men and 93% of women are obese or overweight. The people are offended at being called obese and claim that they are a stocky people.
• The colonel-in-chiefs of the Royal Dragoons and the First King's Dragoons Guards failed to turn up for duty at the start of the First World War because they were leading the German forces. Kaiser Wilhelm was colonel-in-chief of the Royal Dragoons and Franz Joseph Habsburg was colonel-in-chief of the First King's Dragoons Guards.
• The stiff arm salute as used by the Nazis was originally used by the Olympic movement until 1936 and by American school children taking the Oath of Allegiance until it was dropped following the rise of Hitler. The idea that it was first used by the Romans has no evidence to support it. This idea was however used by French classical artists such as David who believed they did. (Forfeit: Romans)

Episode 3 "Imbroglio"

Broadcast date

• 23 September 2011

Recording date

• 17 May 2011

Panellists

• Alan Davies (–21 points)
• John Bishop (Joint winner with 4 points) 1st appearance
• Sean Lock (–14 points) 25th appearance
• Frank Skinner (Joint winner with 4 points) 1st appearance

Buzzers

• John: A buzzing fly
• Frank: A yapping dog
• Sean: A crying infant
• Alan: The forfeit alarm; "Wrong again!" shows on the screen

Episode 4 "Indecision"

Broadcast date

• 30 September 2011

Recording date

• 14 June 2011

Panellists

• Alan Davies (–14 points)
• Jimmy Carr (–1 point) 19th appearance
• Rich Hall (–2 points) 23rd appearance
• Phill Jupitus (Winner with 10 points) 25th appearance
• The Audience (4 points)

Buzzers

• Jimmy: A GPS voice saying, "Turn right. Turn right."
• Phill: A GPS voice saying, "Turn left. Turn left."
• Rich: A GPS voice saying, "Turn around. Turn around."
• Alan: A policeman saying, "Excuse me, sir, is this your vehicle? Are you sure? Would you blow into this bag, please?"

Episode 5 "Invertebrates"

Broadcast date

• 7 October 2011

Recording date

• 31 May 2011

Panelists

• Alan Davies (–1 point)
• Jimmy Carr (–24 points) 20th appearance
• Sarah Millican (2 points) 1st appearance
• Johnny Vegas (Winner with 4 points) 5th appearance

Buzzers

• Jimmy: A loud, low buzz
• Sarah: A cricket
• Johnny: A high-pitched buzz
• Alan: A fly buzzing, then getting swatted

Episode 6 "Inventive"

Broadcast date

• 14 October 2011

Recording date

• 25 May 2011

Panellists

• Alan Davies (1 point)
• Bill Bailey (-3 points) 24th appearance
• Nina Conti (Winner with 5 points) 1st appearance
  • Gran (4 points) 1st appearance
• Sean Lock (3 points) 26th appearance

Buzzers

• Bill, Sean, Nina/Gran: High-pitched bells, each higher than the last
• Alan: An electrical discharge

Episode 7 "Incomprehensible"

Broadcast date

• 21 October 2011

Recording date

• 18 May 2011

Panellists

• Alan Davies (2 points)
• Brian Cox (Winner with 5 points) 1st appearance
• Ross Noble (–6 points) 4th appearance
• Sue Perkins (–17 points) 3rd appearance

Buzzers

• Sue: A baby babbling
• Brian: A descending electronic sound
• Ross: A telephone "chatter" sound effect
• Alan: A series of Alan's voice samples overlapping each other, ending with "dirty old bag"

Episode 8 "Inequality and Injustice"

Broadcast date

• 28 October 2011

Recording date

• 1 June 2011

Panellists

• Alan Davies (–1 gazillion points)
• Clive Anderson (second place with 7 points) 15th appearance
• Sandi Toksvig (Winner with –54 points) 7th appearance
• Henning Wehn (–60 points) 1st appearance

In a twist on the "injustice" theme, the points were unfairly given out before the quiz began (as the buzzers were "tested" at the beginning of the show), and Toksvig was named as winner despite having a worse score than Anderson. The true scores were not revealed at the end.

Buzzers

• Sandi: An audience cheering
• Clive: "Objection, milord!"
• Henning: "Don't mention the war!"
• Alan: An audience booing

Episode 9 "Illness"

Broadcast date

• 4 November 2011

Recording date

• 10 June 2011

Panellists

• Alan Davies (-7 points)
• Jo Brand (-24 points) 26th appearance
• Dr. Ben Goldacre (5 points) 1st appearance
• Andy Hamilton (Winner with 8 points) 7th appearance

Buzzers

• Andy: A cough
• Ben: A sneeze
• Jo: An ambulance siren
• Alan: A funeral dirge

Episode 10 "The Inland Revenue"

Broadcast date

• 11 November 2011

Recording date

• 3 June 2011

Panellists

• Alan Davies (-22 points)
• Al Murray (-13 points) 1st appearance
• Dara Ó Briain (6 points) 12th appearance
• Sandi Toksvig (Winner with 11 points) 8th appearance

Buzzers

• Sandi: A call from an ibis
• Al: A groan from an ibex
• Dara: A roar from a SEAT Ibiza's engine
• Alan: I, Yi, Yi, Yi, Yi (I Like You Very Much) by Carmen Miranda

Episode 11 "Infantile"

Broadcast date

• 19 November 2011 (XL edition)

Recording date

• 8 June 2011

Panellists

• Alan Davies (6 points)
• Ronni Ancona (-7 points) 5th appearance
• Dave Gorman (Winner with 10 points) 2nd appearance
• Lee Mack (5 points) 4th appearance

Buzzers

• Dave: A connection tone
• Ronni: A dialing-out tone
• Lee: A disconnect tone
• Alan: An automated answering system for touch-tone phones, with several unusual options

No normal-length edition was broadcast in this week due to the Children in Need telethon on 18 November. The episode was eventually aired 29 December 2011 on BBC Two, in the much later timeslot of 11:30PM. It was thereby listed on iPlayer as the 18th episode of the series.

Episode 12 "Illumination and Invisibility"

Broadcast date

• 25 November 2011

Recording date

• 13 May 2011

Panellists

• Alan Davies (-45 points)
• Chris Addison (-9 points) 2nd appearance
• Jack Dee (-1 points) 6th appearance
• Rich Hall (Winner with 3 points) 24th appearance

Buzzers

• Jack: A lightsaber
• Chris: An exploding firework
• Rich: A lightning bolt
• Alan: A misfiring igniter, followed by an explosion

Episode 13 "Intelligence"

Broadcast date

• 2 December 2011

Recording date

• 15 June 2011

Panellists

• Alan Davies (-16 points)
• Jo Brand (-8 points) 27th appearance
• Phill Jupitus (-4 points) 26th appearance
• David Mitchell (Winner with 4 points) 16th appearance

Buzzers

• David, Jo and Phill: The Mastermind theme, in three parts
• Alan: "Uhhh... pass."

Episode 14 "Idleness"

Broadcast date

• 4 May 2012

Recording date

• 20 May 2011

Panellists

• Alan Davies (Winner with 12 points) 14th win
• Jeremy Clarkson (1 point) 9th appearance
• Ross Noble (4 points) 5th appearance
• Dara Ó Briain (-15 points) 13th appearance

Buzzers

• Ross, Dara, Jeremy: The exact same generic buzzing sound
• Alan: Several seconds of silence before the same buzzing sound

This episode premiere, scheduled for 9 December, was pulled following Jeremy Clarkson's comments on BBC's The One Show about the recent strike action earlier in the month. It was replaced by a repeat of Episode 1 of Series I. The XL edition was nonetheless available on iPlayer for a short period on the evening of 10 December.

Episode 15 "Ice (Christmas Special)"

Broadcast date

• 29 December 2011

Recording date

• 10 May 2011

Panellists

• Alan Davies (Winner with 9 points) 15th win
• Brian Blessed (-2 points) 1st appearance
• Sean Lock (-8 points) 27th appearance
• Ross Noble (-3 points) 6th appearance

Buzzers

• Sean: Sleigh bells
• Ross: Tiny musical bells
• Brian: Musical church bells
• Alan: A party horn

Episode 16 "The Immortal Bard (Shakespeare Special)"

Broadcast date

• 27 April 2012

Recording date

• 24 May 2011

Panellists

• Alan Davies (3 points)
• Bill Bailey (-14 points) 25th appearance
• David Mitchell (Winner with 6 points) 17th appearance
• Sue Perkins (-10 points) 4th appearance

Buzzers

• David, Sue, Bill: Orchestral trumpet fanfares
• Alan: A Latin-style trumpet tune