QI

Sandi Toksvig talks about tails - and tales, with Rob Beckett, Daliso Chaponda, Sarah Millican and series regular Alan Davies.

Themes

- This is a general show covering various different topics, all beginning with "T".

Topics

- Alan's buzzer plays the William Tell Overture. In the 1960s, it was the theme tune to The Lone Ranger, and you can test people culturally by asking them where they recognise the tune from.

- The nationality of the first figure to shoot an apple from their son's head was Danish. William Tell was Swiss, but in a saga by Saxo Grammaticus, a Dane named Palnatoke was the first. After a few mugs of ale Palnatoke said that shooting an apple off a stick with a bow and arrow did not show much class. In response, King Harald Bluetooth ordered him to shoot an apple off his son's head. Palnatoke took out three arrows, successfully hit the apple first time. When Harald asked why he took out the other arrows, Palnatoke said: "The other two were to avenge my son against you in case I missed the apple on the head."

- Tangent: Some of the bows found in Danish swamps are over 8,000 years old, and Danish archers may have also used poison arrows by putting mistletoe on arrowheads. These could be used to an auroch, which is an early kind of cow, although Rob says these are called "calves". Auroch went extinct in 1627. At Daliso's school, they had houses called oryx, kudus and elands, but these are species of deer. Sandi gives him a point for the misunderstanding, to which Daliso replies he wish that worked with love, just generally. Daliso is having problems with love so puts an ad out on the show, asking for someone understanding and patient. Rob says he is married and is still on the lookout for that, and Alan says that combo doesn't exist.

- Tangent: Howard Hill of the USA is considered to be the greatest archer in history. He also worked as a stuntman, and could shoot a prune from a volunteer's head. The greatest female archer in British history is Alice Lee, who was the National Ladies' Champion 23 times, first winning in 1881. She lost however in 1882 to her own mother.

- There was a plan in the 1960s to use telepathic rabbits to allow submerged Soviet submarines to communicate in an emergency. When submerged, subs cannot send or receive radio signals, so they tried using rabbits instead. The hypothesis was that the mother-newborn bond existed as a sort of telepathic communication, so they took a mother rabbit from her offspring, put electrodes on her brain, and placed her in a sub. Then, on land, they killed the baby. The idea was that the mother would be able to sense the baby's distress, and that changes to her brain would signal to the submariners to surface, radio home and receive instructions. The experiment obviously failed.

- Tangent: Sarah asks why they need to kill the rabbit, and instead just make it do hard maths instead. Daliso argues that if the rabbit was claustrophobic, the sub would be constantly going up and down, but Rob points out that a burrowing animal like a rabbit would most likely not be claustrophobic.

- Tangent: Researchers at the University of Washington and Carnegie Mellon University in 2018 demonstrated actual telepathy using Tetris. They had two players wearing electroencephalography (EEG) caps, which can detect electrical activity produced by thoughts. They watched a game and thought about what moves should be played. Then a third player wearing a transcranial magnetic stimulation cap received the thoughts, and moved the pieces, despite not being able to see the screen. Experimenters reported an 81% accuracy in the moves made. If this experiment can point to a future of brain-to-brain interfaces, it may allow direct communication for people who are deaf or similarly impaired.

- Tangent: Rob asks if it is telepathy when you know you need a poo. Daliso says it would be if he knew Sarah needed a poo, and Sandi says it would depend how far Rob was from his own arse.

- Astronomers hate Alan, or rather A.L.A.N., which is Artificial Light At Night. Light pollution means that telescopes for astronomers have to be placed away from cities. One of the largest telescopes ever used in the UK is the Isaac Newton, about two and a half metres long, was moved to La Palma in the Canary Islands in 1979.

- Tangent: On her first holiday with her current husband pointed out things she thought he know about the stars, whereas she knew only a few things about them. He pointed out Orion, the North Star, the Plough, and then after standing for ages he went: "There's another plough." Sarah released he knew just as little as she did. Rob saw the Northern Lights in Iceland, and he says it is better on Google, because cameras are so advanced now, they can see more than his eyes can. Alan thought he saw the Northern Lights while driving through Northumberland, but it turned out to be lasers form a Newcastle nightclub.

- XL Tangent: Light pollution is problematic for animals. Bird which migrate at night normally use moonlight and starlight to navigate, but the pollution can put them off. Turtle hatchlings get confused if there is too much light beside the seashore, because they are guided by the reflection of the moon and stars in the water, and end up going the wrong way.

- XL Tangent: The Essex village of Theydon Bois has no street lighting at all. They were offered them in 1926, but rejected them, and every time attempts to bring them back have been put to referenda it has been rejected. Alan's uncle Pat lived in this village.

- The most interesting tails of the sea are humpback whales tails, which use them to talk to each other. Sometimes a single whale jumps clear out of the water and slams its body down when approaching a large group, and the large group tends to do smaller repetitive tail slaps before a new whale joins the group. They also slap more often when the wind picks up. They may be passing on information relating to migration, breeding and/or feeding. Humpbacks also slap their bodies on the water to dislodge public lice, which can grow alongside barnacles on their genital slit.

- XL Tangent: The whale tail was a 1990s fashion of showing the top of your knickers above your jeans.

- XL Tangent: Thresher sharks used their tails to hunt. The tail makes up half their body. They can accelerate towards a shoal of fish, lower their snout, and then flip their tail over their heads at speeds of up to 80mph. Not only does it try to hit the fish, but it can create shock waves to knock any fish they miss unconscious.

- XL Tangent: The dusky frillgoby is a fish that uses its tail to sweep away the sperm left by rivals. Found the coastal waters of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, when they mate the female layer her eggs in a nest and the male then spawns over the top of them. However, there are also sneaker males, who are smaller but with larger testicles, which lie in wait and then ejaculate their own sperm over the eggs afterwards. However, if the original males spots this, he will chase the sneaker away and use their tail to sweep away the sneaker's sperm.

- The most heroic thing ever to happen in Argos was when an army of women intimated the Spartans to stop them invading the city. Argos, in the Peloponnese, is the oldest continuously inhabited city in Europe. As the Spartans advanced on Argos, having already defeated the Argivian army, the ancient Greek poet Telesilla (c. 500 BC) created a makeshift Home Guard, dressing all the townswomen in men's clothes, giving them makeshift weapons, and she stood them on the city walls along with all the young boys and old men too old to fight. The Spartans arrived, thinking Argos was undefended, but they were forced to halt in front of this huge women's battalion. The Spartans tried making chilling battle cries to scared them, but the women stood firm. The Spartans realised they might lose, and even if they did win the disliked the idea of winning against a mass of women, and so they retreated. Argos celebrated this event with an annual festival where the women dressed in men's clothes.

- XL Tangent: The President of Gambia at time of broadcast used to work as a security guard at a branch of the shop Argos.

- XL Tangent: The store Argos is named after the city. Founder Richard Tompkins was holidaying there, and when he was trying to think of a name he realised that "Argos" would appear really high up in the alphabet. Argos stopped doing their catalogue in 2021. In 2018, when Alan Carr appeared on "Desert Island Discs", his choice of book was the Argos catalogue.

- A telephone company would ask their customers to not use the phone because they are short-staffed. During the Spanish flu outbreak in the 1910s. At the time, telephones became such a crutch for the isolating population that when operators started to get sick too, the whole system began to creak. Prior to this, lots of US phone companies had encouraged people to talk and to order from shops over the phone. Some children were educated via phone, and some range newspapers to learn the news. At the time the phone system was operated manually entirely by women, and when they started to get sick, no-one could connect the calls. Thus the phone companies sent out cards and newspaper ads asking people not to use the phone as the system could not cope with demand.

- Tangent: Daliso had to do a phone interview using his landline telephone, but because it was on the floor he had to do their interview lying down.

- Tangent: Sarah once went up to a phone box, held the phone up to her ear, and when she pulled it back she noticed that someone had squashed half a mince and gravy pie into the phone.

- When he was campaigning, Napoleon had a mobile device that could send text messages, which worked using a system of towers. As early at 1791, France used an optical telegraph system, which consisted of giant wooden towers with long arms. At the height of their popularity, there were 556 towers across France. On a clear day, a message could be sent at a speed of 75 miles per minute. They worked by an operator moving the arms to represent a letter, then the person in the next tower would spy the symbol through a telescope, and then relay the message to the next tower. When Napoleon invaded Russia, he carried a mini version of this, meaning he owned a mobile device that could send text messages. The arms of the mobile one were attached to the tent in the camp. However, it was of limited use as you needed hundreds of manned stations if you wanted to send a message from Moscow to Paris, and other than sketches there is little evidence to show that it was used.

- XL Tangent: The first two optical telegraphs were invented by engineer Claude Chappe, but they were destroyed by angry mobs who thought they were communicated with royalist sympathisers.

- [colour=#000080]XL Tangent: Daliso asks if it is an urban legend if Napoleon helped to invent mayonnaise. It is a myth.

General Ignorance

[colour=#000080]-XL: The last battle of the Napoleonic Wars was won by the French. The Battle of Wavre occurred when French reinforcements were on their way to Waterloo, which they did not know had already ended, and the Prussians tried to stop them The French technically won the battle, but by then Napoleon had already retreated and so there was no need for any soldiers to advance. Contrary to the ABBA song, Napoelon did not surrender at Waterloo, but retreated to Paris to rally support for a counterattack. He did not get the support however, and eventually he boarded the HMS Bellerophon and headed to St. Helena, where he was exiled. (Forfeit: Wellington)

- When the Temperance Movement was formed, they did not want to ban anything. Formed in the 1820s, they just want people to drink less, not outlaw it completely. (Forfeit: Booze)

- Tangent: The Temperance Movement was very much taken up in the USA as a proto-feminist issue, because women were seen as bearing the brunt of the problem of male drunkenness. The Women's Christian Temperance Union adopted the mantra: "The lips that touch liquor shall never touch mine."

- XL Tangent: The fact about the Women's Christian Temperance Union is illustrated with a picture from a short film called the Kansas Saloon Samshers, which mocked the movement and starred men in drag. The film satirised activist Carrie Nation, who went round bar and smashed them up with an axe. Her work still had an effect. Sandi was once having dinner in a restaurant in Maine, and when she asked for the wine list she was told that they area was dry for 30 miles, because of what Nation did. Sandi says she managed to get to nearest liquor store 30 miles away in 40 minutes, there and back.

- XL Tangent: Lynchburg, Tennessee, the county where Jack Daniel's is made, is dry, and thus you cannot consume it in the place where it is made.

- The world's longest animal is a siphonophore. In Series A, QI said it was the lion's mane jellyfish, and then in Series C it was updated to the bootlace worm. In 2020, a new siphonophore was found in the deep ocean off the coast of Australia that is 120m long. The creature consists of a long string of thousands of smaller creatures called zoids, and their only job is to keep the larger creature alive. Some zoids propel the creature along, some may feed the animal, some act as gonads and so on. The zoids cannot live on their own, which is why the large collection is seen as an individual. (Forfeit: Blue whale; Jellyfish)

- XL Tangent: Australian and New Zealand locals call the creatures: "Long, stringy, stringy thingies".

Scores

- Rob Beckett: 4 points
- Sarah Millican: -9 points
- Daliso Chaponda: -12 points
- Alan Davies: -27 points