Finding out Stephen Fry has uttered a statement which isn't entirely true is a bit like discovering that not only is Santa not real but that, in fact, he was based on the man who gave The Twang a record deal. It's our sad duty to report that even QI, the receptacle of all things wise and witty, sometimes goes a bit wonky.
10. Welsh Blues
Imagine the disillusionment in the valleys when Stephen said, during Series 'B', there's no word in Welsh for 'blue'. There is, and it's 'Glas', Welsh language fans. The only way he can really make it up to us is if he and Alan appear in a Swansea-based remake of the Belushi classic, appropriately re-titled The Glas Brothers.
9. Parthenonandonandon
Not strictly an error this one, but one of the funniest moments in QI's glittering history. Stephen during Series 'E', trying to say 'The Parthenon where the Acropolis is', went all giddy and then corpsed, giggling like a schoolgirl at a McFly concert, much to the delight of all people everywhere. It was like watching God burp.
8. Dark side of the Moons
QI has said more than once, including in one of its delightful hard-back publications, that the Earth's Moon is not the only satellite spinning around us like some sort of galactic Kylie Minogue. The others don't orbit the Earth though, so they're not technically Moons. This doesn't necessarily mean NASA won't fake a landing on them.
7. Florence Pie
This one from Series 'F' sounded so good it had to be true: Florence Nightingale invented the pie chart. That's trivia gold, that is – it's like Daley Thompson patenting the Breville Toaster. It's not true, sadly. The honour actually fell to William Playfair about twenty years before Florence and her nursing machines.
6. Worm your way out of this
The 'A' series stated that the longest animal in this poor polluted world of ours is the lion's mane jellyfish – we believed it too, seeing as we'd never heard of it. The problem came in series 'C', when the bootlace worm suddenly held the title. Maybe it'd been working out, or perhaps a worm had a one night stand with Peter Crouch between episodes.
5. Flower power
This one from Series 'B' came straight from the horse's nonsensical mouth, sort of. Bill and Ben, flowerpot men by trade, spoke a language called 'Flobbadob' according to QI. Not so, said a letter from the son of their voice-over man, it was actually called 'Oddle poddle'. Presumably the letter was written in crayon.
4. Dilly Boys
We all know the statue in Piccadilly Circus is of Eros, right? No, apparently, so we're collectively thicker than Alan Davies' lead collection. No need to get too glum though, because it's not the Angel of Christian Charity either, as QI proclaimed in Series 'C', but Anteros – the Greek God of requited love. Wonder why the basement dwelling QI elves didn't recognise him…?
3. Hot water
It's not just Stephen and the elves who've lied to us like an estate agent with a personality disorder – the guests have been at it too. Dara O'Briain, supposedly a science nerd, dropped a clanger in Series 'C' when he said the triple point of water is zero degrees C. It's obviously 0.01 – dur Dara, you fick or summink? He didn't take the after-the-event points deduction well, either.
2. Fight, fight, fight
Unsurprisingly Stephen caused controversy in Series 'F' by claiming Muhammad Ali could have had Bruce Lee in a tear up, with fans of Lee inundating the show with complaints (written on ninja death stars, probably). After considered reflection the elves essentially retorted 'Ali was much bigger, so shut up'. Sadly there's no legal way of settling this one.
1. Berwick-Upon-War
We wanted this to be true, so much. QI claimed, in Series 'B', that Berwick-Upon-Tweed remained at war with Russia until 1966 due to not being part of Great Britain. Sadly, however, a Window Tax during the war had revised Berwick's lone-star status, meaning it was never really at risk of Russian invasion. Shame.
Comments
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Ah, no, holdaway8, that's not how it works. Imagine you had a jelly on a string, and you were whirling it round over your head. The whole jelly would stretch out. That's what happens to the earth under the influence of the moon’s gravity. But the sea is stretchier than the rock, so it bulges out at both ends – with the rocky bit rotating while the bulges stay relatively still. Which gives us two tides a day (roughly). So it's the gravitational difference from one side of the earth to the other that determines the tides – not the total gravitational force. That's why the moon affects our tides far more than the sun does – even though the sun pulls on the earth with a force roughly 200 times that exerted on us by the moon (despite being 400 times as far away).
In the B program it was stated that the tides were caused by the gravitational pull on the water on the earth by the moon. This may explain one of the high tides each day but not the other. I believe it has something to do with the earth and the moon both rotate around their center of gravity, throwing the water in the opposite direction to the moon.
I WAS TAUGHT THAT THE TOP SAIL ON A SHIP WAS THE MOONRAKER NOT JOLLY JUMPER, ALSO IT WAS CLAIMED THAT BOOTS WERE MADE NEITHER LEFT NOR RIGHT SO THEY COULD BE PUT ON IN THE DARK, I WAS ALWAYS TOLD THAT THIS WAS TO ENSURE EVEN WEAR, ESPESCIALLY IN THE BRITISH ARMY.
I'm not an expert on the Cymric tongue, so if native speaker could correct me, that'd be great, but I was under the impression that "glas" didn't *exactly* mean "blue". It literally means "green", and is used for "blue" *because* there isn't a word for "blue". You can see this in other Celtic tongues; "Glasgow" comes from "glas cau", which means "green hollow".
Alan is a ledgend.period.
Displaying 6 to 11 of 27
I love QI. Poor Alan -60! Dear Stephen Fry,Sorry to be picky but: The correct name for the rail bridge over the R.Forth is "The Forth Bridge". The other one, also at Queensferry, is " the Forth Road Bridge"
i love QI, it is awsome!!!!!!! Stephen Fry is amazing! Love him!
Or how about the urban myth that prudish Americans changed "titbit" to "tidbit?" It was actually originally tidbit (from "tyd") and morphed into the English variation of titbit, sometime around the late 1700s. Check the OED!
And another mistake just repeated on Dave: Jack Dee said that The Cenotaph is a monument to the Unknown Soldier and Stephen agreed. In fact “Cenotaph” means “empty tomb” and is intended particularly as a monument to the fallen of all services who lost their lives but who have no known grave. Of course we know The Cenotaph best as the focus for the official tribute, held each November, to all who have fallen in the service of the country.
Another mistake just repeated on Dave: Stephen asks "What eat clothes" and Alan answers "Moths" -- SF says this is wrong, it is their larvae. Just because it is not in its adult form it does mean the larva is not a moth, it is the same species from the moment the egg is laid to the moment is splats on someone's windscreen! In the same programme Alan says that in Jurassic Park 2 a T-Rex ate someone on the loo -- Wrong! it was in JP1.
Displaying 11 to 16 of 27
Further to the Corby part of the programme (we've got a very nice train station now) the picture used as the backdrop was of the Sondes arms in Rockingham , Leicestershire - it's only a mile or so outside of town but they get very upset if they get called 'Corby'.
The booboo that sticks in my mind is when Stephen was talking about Australian fauna and said "they're marsupials so they are not mamals" -- oops! That's a bit like saying 'they're mamals so they are not animals'.
Alan Davies was talking about Kiwi fruit and the cost of bringing it from New zealand. Kiwi Fruit comes from China.
today they got it wrong again,when after showing the picture of a grey dog,S, fry asked for the breed and then he went on to say it was a greyhound. But that it is not correct,cause the picture showed very clearly a whippet.
In the Book of General Ignorance, only the first sentence (“That depends.”) of the answer to the question “How long is a day?” is correct. In the “completely revised [and] corrected” Noticeably Stouter edition, the number of seconds in a day has been corrected. Everything else in the article, which is longer than a page, is still wrong.
Displaying 16 to 21 of 27
I can't remember which episode, think it was on electric, but Stephen Fry gave an explanation and mentioned a current with units of Volts. Of course it should have been Amperes, as Volts is potential difference and not current. Seems a fairly schoolboy error. Like saying the QI program is on for 30 degrees!?
also, WWII did not end in 1991 after a formal treaty signing or the fall of the Berlin wall. it ended in the invasion of Germany, the pulverisation of the Nazi's and the unconditional surrender by both main Axis forces.
Actually artificial satellites DO orbit the earth. Geostationary satellites orbit the earth (around the equator) in sync with the earths rotation, so as to stay above the same point on the ground. other satellites orbit from pole to pole, and may take aerial photographs of the earth above every possible ground location, this method provides the image data for Google earth. you are correct that these satellites are not moons however, because a moon is a natural satellite.
AHHH!!! There are many a time yound Qi has got it topsy turvy. I'll give yee a few; I remember one particualr time I'd been watching a repeat of Life the amazing natural history program, to tune over to hear Steve claiming that flying fish have no control over their flight with their fins- well, i had to tune right back to Life as there was some awesome slowmo footage of flying fish doing exactly that. shame:) Another?? Well.. how's bout the time someone or other got the klaxon for claiming that a rocket goes fastest when it's pointed down?? According to Qi it's when it's travelling horizontal. Wrong. Actually wrong for obvious reasons, and I can't be bothered explaining it further than that. MMMmm... let's see.. how about the claim that drinking beer (contrary to popular belief) does not dehydrate you??? Well here we have a little problem that QI often falls into. Science is a subjective thing, sortof. You can find a way to prove whatever the hell you like--except god. Now every so often QI jumps on one wee paper that is contrary to 12 million others. This does not make it true oh researchers. Indeed if any of you have ever drunk beer I think you'll know this too. Oh and just a wee extra; the moon landing did happen. If you check out the photos and footage, and have any engineering and photograhic knowledge, you'll see that a lot of the 'proof' that it is a hoax, is actually proof that it happened. Toodly Pip travellers!!! xo
leave this man alone if he wont to be julien and sandie that fine buy me
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I have a major crush on ALAN DAVIES he is so sexy
There was the one about Coconuts killing more people than Sharks, too. Also wrong.
My comments on Fry were not meant to be homophobic, but purely a description and I feel the comment it stirred was a trifle paranoid as are most people of that persuasion.
PhilW21781 - Thanks for adding that nasty, petty, homophobic comment (which incidentally adds nothing to the discussion). Why don't you have a guess at how people refer to you...
We refer to Stephen fry as 'PPP' - Pompous pretentious poof!
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Surely Bruce Lee would win against Ali any day. I mean if you,ve ever seen any martial arts film you'd know that it's pretty obivious that Ali is nothing compare to him. Still think the shows great.
I'd question their assertion that Corby is the largest town in Europe with out a train station. I reckon that would be Reykjavík. Even in the UK, Gosport (also lacking a train station) is larger than Corby. Still one of my favorite shows though...