QI

Go tricking and treating with Sandi Toksvig and her guests, Ria Lina, Eshaan Akbar, Jimmy Carr and regular panellist Alan Davies.

Topics

- German chocolate cake originates from the USA. The cake is so called because it is named after its Anglo-American inventor Samuel German, who developed a product in 1852 of baking chocolate that was already a little bit sweeter. The panel are all given chocolate cakes, but they could not have German chocolate cake because it contains nuts and it might set of a nut allergy in a member of the audience. (Forfeit: The Black Forest)

- XL Tangent: Confusion over German chocolate cake arrived almost as soon as it was invented. It was invented in 1957, and in 1963 President Lyndon Johnson served the cake to German chancellor Ludwig Erhard, mistakenly thinking the cake was German when it wasn't.

- Tangent: Jimmy suggests that "nut allergy" sounds like a good euphemism for a lesbian. Ria replies: "Can I just say as a hetero woman, you don't have to be a lesbian to have a nut allergy."

- The panel are shown a photo of a long, thin metal sculpture held by wires, and are asked what it is. It is the Skylon, which was built as part of Festival Hall and was the centrepiece of the Festival of Britain. It was 90 metres high and was kept erect through tension. It was the largest object in the world supported by wires, but was pulled down a year after it was built. Proposals to take it to Scarborough, Morecambe and the USA were rejected because it was too expensive. It was eventually sold to a scrap metal dealer in White City, with some ending being used for rearmament in the Korean War, and some made into commemorative letter openers. A student at the University of London's Air Squadron named Philip Gordon tried to climb up it and hang a pair of knickers from the top of it, climbing it at midnight disguised as a work and planning to jump into the Thames to escape. By the time he reached the top however, he changed his mind and put a scarf on it. Many people disliked the Skylon, with the Sydney Morning Herald calling it, "phallic flippancy". The Skylon is an example of "tensegrity", a portmanteau of "tension" and "integrity", a term coined by architect Richard Buckminster Fuller.

- What's The Treatment, Sandi?: A series of questions in which Sandi asks about treatments for illnesses. The treatment to stop snoring is circular breathing. You should train yourself to inhale through the nose whilst blowing through your mouth. The best way to do this is to practice on a didgeridoo, which was discovered by Zurich scientists in 2006 who made a group of snorers practice it every day for four months.

- Tangent: Jimmy has read a book about breathing, and in that it said you need to breathe through your nose to stop snoring, so the best way to stop snoring is to put a bit of tape on your mouth. Jimmy also says that he snores a bit and that his girlfriend has noise-cancelling fists.

- XL: The world's most expensive tea towel was one that was painted on by Vincent Van Gogh. Van Gogh often ran out of canvasses because he worked so quickly, so he would also paint on paper, cloth, older paintings, tablecloths and tea towels. One of these towels, a still life of some flowers in a vase, sold in 2000 for £2.1million. The panel are shown an image of another tea towel painting by Van Gogh, called Daubigny's Garden, which is now in the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam. Amother of his paintings, Olive Trees, has an accidentally inserted grasshopper in it, which no-one discovered until 2017.

- XL Tangent: In Asian culture, people use tea towels to wrap up chapattis in. Eshaan's cousin made some chapattis, but put them in a tatty tea towel, which resulted in her getting divorced. Eshaan argued that the money caused by the divorce means that tea towel is the most expensive.

- The panel are shown a painting and are asked what a fly is doing in it. It is an example of "musca depicta", and it is designed to show how skilful the artist was, in that the artist make trick the viewer into thinking that an actual fly has landed on the picture. This relates to the concept of "trompe-l'oeil", a "trick of the eye". The first example of this is believed to be a painting competition in ancient Greece between artists Zeuxis and Parrhasius. Zeuxis painted some realistic grapes which reportedly birds flew down and tried to take. In response Parrhasius painted a curtain that was so realistic that Zeuxis himself was fooled and tried to push it to one side.

- Tangent: Alan asks whether if all these ancient Greek stories are just nonsense. To which Sandi enters a mock anger and tears up her question card.

- Tangent: The panel are shown another painting, this one of a bunch of flowers where a half-drawn curtain has painted over it. Painted by Adriaen van der Spelt in 1658, little is known about him other than he had a nasty third wife who drove him to his grave.

- XL Tangent: Sandi's favourite example of trompe-l'oeil is the ceiling of the Sant'Ignazio church in Rome, which looks like a domed ceiling, but it is actually flat. It was painted by Andrea Pozzo in the 17th century.

- XL Tangent: In the 1990s, the public toilets in Schiphol Airport had pictures of flies in the urinals, so that patrons were given something to aim at. The Victorians did something similar, but as a joke they used honey bees, as the taxonomical name for them is "Apis mellifera".

- The panel are shown a drawing of a casement ironclad ship and are asked what trickery it was involved in. In 1862, the Indianola was used by the Union Army in the American Civil War in battles on the Mississippi River. However, it had to be abandoned, and the Confederates tried to salvage it. The Unionists stopped this by building a fake ironclad out of timber, tar and a toilet which they called the Black Terror. It flew both the US flag and a skull and crossbones. It cost $8.63 to make ($208 in today's money), and a tar fire was lit to make it look like smoke was coming out of the engine. The Confederates were fooled by it, and thus they destroyed the Indianola rather than salvaging it, as they thought the Unionists were coming to get it. The result of this was the Unionists crying with laughter at the site of the Confederates being tricked.

- Tangent: The youngest a soldier could be legally in the American Civil War was nine-years-old. The biggest killer in the war was diarrhoea, but it is also true that in many wars disease kills more than actual fighting. In the American Civil War there was a code of honour where you would not shoot someone while they were going to the toilet.

- Tangent: Another wartime dummy tricked occurred in World War I, when a horse was killed in No Man's Land, and the French decided to convert the body into a lookout. During the night, they swapped the actual body with a papier mache version. A soldier could thus hide behind it, using the anus as a gun port. Papier-mache heads on sticks were also used during the war, which they put up over the trenches. The panel are given copies of these, with Alan and Eshaan pretending their soldiers were in love.

- XL Tangent: Peter Wessel, a great Danish military hero nicknamed "Tordenskjold" ("Thunder Shield"), is the subject of a mythical story where he once tricked the Swedes into thinking that a huge force in the town of Marstrand, but in fact he just paraded the same troops in and out of the town square, day and night, over and over again. The trick caused the Swedes to surrender because they overestimated how many troops there were. The trick is called "Tordenskjold Soldater". Ria Lina regretfully asks how to tell the difference between the Danes and the Swedes, to which Sandi replies: "Well, we know who's losing, anyway."

- What's The Treatment, Sandi?: The best way to stop your toe from dropping off is to amputate it beforehand. Dactylolysis spontanea is a very rare condition where the little toe, normally on both feet, atrophies and falls off. A constrictive ring of tissue forms at the base of the toe, restricting oxygen. It can be caused by injury, infection, or sometimes for no clear reason at all. It is primarily found in males of African descent. Amputation is less painful and you are less likely to have an infected wound.

- XL: The trivial trick that can stop you falling asleep at the wheel is putting trivia questions on the side of the road. The Bruce Highway in Queensland, Australia, is over 1,000 miles long, and a dull road connecting Brisbane and Cairns. Due to the danger of drivers falling asleep at the wheel, in order to keep motorists alert there are trivia questions on "Fatigue Zone" road signs, with the answers a bit further on. Questions include: "What is a monotreme?" (a mammal the lays eggs), "What made Gympie famous?" (large amounts of gold), and "Coldest town in Queensland?" (Stanthorpe).

- [colour=#000080]XL Tangent: Sandi was once on a superhighway in the US, and she drove past someone who was fully asleep, up against the window of their car. She drove as fast as she could to avoid him, but she spotted him at the next service station so he clearly survived. Jimmy replies: "You know the driver's on the other side in America?"

- XL Tangent: In the USA at the start of the 20th century, the Farmer's Anti-Automobile Association wanted to install trick road signs reading: "The speed limit this year is a secret. Motorists breaking it will be fined $10." People believed it was a genuine rule, despite it being a hoax. The first man in Britain to be fined for speeding in Britain was Walter Arnold in 1896, who did 8mph when the speed limit was 2mph. He was chased down by a policeman on a bicycle and fined a shilling for speeding. He was also fined five shillings for not having a man waving a red flag in front of him. The law ended up being changed after he was brought to court.

- XL Tangent: There is a 3D zebra crossing on St. John's Wood High Street.

- XL Tangent: One of the worst traffic jams ever was in Beijing in 2010. It was 63 miles long, lasted 12 days, and part of the problem was heavy lorries heading into the city as part of a road construction programme intended to ease traffic problems.

- Sandi puts on a pair of colourful glasses and asks who she looks like now. The answer is Milla Jovovich, the actress who has killed more baddies on screen than any other - at least that is what facial recognition software would think Sandi looks like. In 2016, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University found they could trick such software into mistaking their identity by using a pair of colour glasses. A middle-aged male researcher wearing such glasses was able to be mistaken by the software for Jovovich. The software works by looking for little bits of specifics that let the programme know it is that particular person. The programme however ends up looking at the glasses rather than the face, thus being tricked.

- XL: The sound of music can leave a bitter taste in your mouth. The panel eat two identical pieces of chocolate while listening first to some legato music, then to some staccato. Most people find that when listening to the legato, the chocolate tastes more sweet, and staccato makes it more bitter.

- XL Tangent: Austrian psychologists in 2016 showed that people who prefer bitter tastes have a more malevolent personality, and are more extroverted.

- What's The Treatment, Sandi?: The thing that was attempted to be treated by shoving a piece of cloth up your nose and setting fire to it was excessive sleeping. In 1738, Frenchwoman Elizabeth Orion slept 18 hours a day, and no-one could wake her. This lasted for years, then one Dr. Brady examined her to make sure she was not faking this. He shouted loudly at her, stuck a pin in her flesh right through to the bone, and finally dipped a piece of cloth in alcohol, set it on fire and shoved it up her nose. None of these woke her up, and she ended up waking up naturally, "ate heartily and did some spinning." At one point, the people in her village tried to cure her by rubbing her back in honey and laying her in front of a beehive on a hot day.

- Tangent: 13th century physician Bernard de Gordon recommended jolting someone out of a coma by holding a squealing pig in their face.

General Ignorance

- Out of a human, a pig, a cow, a walrus and an elephant, the human has the most body fat related to their size. It is different for professional athletes however. For example, the footballer Ronaldo is 7% body fat. A study of low fertility in captive elephants first lead to researchers thinking it was something to do with diet, but actually the low fertility is caused by stress. Humans on the other hand are sometimes known as the fat primate. (Forfeit: Walrus)

- Tangent: If you took all the fat from a larger blue whale, it would weigh too much to be legally transported on British roads.

- Over 150 years ago, the American holiday in which people dressed in scary masks, gave candy to children and pulled pranks on unsuspecting passers was Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving masking comes from much older traditions which came from Europe. These include mumming, the practice of going door-to-door asking for food or money, sometimes in exchange for a song. (Forfeit: Halloween)

Scores

- Ria Lina: Score not given.
- Jimmy Carr: 3 points
- Eshaan Akbar: -9 points
- Alan Davies: -26 points