AS Christmas comes around, the QI Elves (Stephen Fry’s nickname for the writers and researchers behind BBC 2’s hit panel show QI) are bustling away in their book-lined office in London’s Covent Garden, stockpiling the last facts of the year.
The Elves work all year round turning their discoveries into questions for QI, a sister radio show The Museum of Curiosity for Radio 4, a weekly podcast No Such Thing As A Fish and a string of bestselling books. The most recent, The Third QI Book Of General Ignorance, features 180 questions which would set off the klaxon if asked on the QI set, while 1,234 QI Facts To Leave You Speechless collects their latest favourite finds.
Did you know, for example, that flowers get suntans, bees can fly higher than Mount Everest – and the first BBC radio presenter with a northern accent was hired during the Second World War to make it harder for the Germans to produce fake news bulletins?
QI thrives on the love of a good fact and the word "fact" has its own curious history. When it first appeared in English in the early 15th century, it had a quite different meaning to the one we use today. It came from the Latin facere, "to do or make", and meant "something done" – a deed or act. And, for the first 100 years of its existence, it carried mostly negative connotations.
Just as "silly" once meant "holy" and "bully" meant "sweetheart", "facts" weren’t so much true as bad.
The world, the truth and particularly the language is in flux everywhere. Today, "fact" is used as a signifier of truth – something that has actually occurred – but, as keen viewers of QI will know, even the best facts often don’t last for ever.
One hundred years from now, the fact that a footballer is three times more likely to be bitten by Luis Sua?rez than by a snake will be meaningless, and no-one will care that four times as many babies were named Walter because of Breaking Bad.
On the other hand, it’s likely that bees will continue to have five eyes. Starfish will still breathe and smell through their feet. And there will be new coincidences and morsels to discover and tell your friends about in the pub. Facts are at their most magical when they’re living, breathing things. And at Christmas time, when the nights draw in and fairy lights sparkle, that’s when quizzes come into their own. They’re a way to come together, safely out of the cold, to ponder things you haven’t heard before and to try and remember old favourites.
A good quiz shouldn’t depend on how many questions you may or may not know. It’s about setting your brain a challenge against a lucky dip from all the information in the world and seeing what comes up. If you’re correct, it’s points all round and if not, you’ve added to your stash of knowledge for the next one. Have a very Merry Christmas and good luck!
Christmas Quiz
Exclusively written for the Sunday Herald by the QI Elves
1. Who wrote The Snowman?
2. What is the main alcoholic ingredient of a Cosmopolitan cocktail?
3. True or false: Finnish budget meatballs have so little meat in them they have had to be renamed "balls".
4. Which celebrity animal did John Wayne claim to have won in a game of poker?
a. Skippy the Bush Kangaroo
b. Lassie the dog
c. Mr Ed the talking horse
5. The Mysterious Affair At Styles is the first in a series starring which fictional detective?
6. Throbber and Friendstalker were early contenders as names for which popular website?
7. True or false: there are more plastic flamingos in the US than real flamingos.
8. In the TV show Friends, what was the name of Ross’s pet monkey?
9. Which title was the UK’s bestselling book 2014?
a. Minecraft: The Official Construction Handbook
b. Awful Auntie by David Walliams
c. The Fault In Our Stars by John Green
10. On average, what do pigeons in London have 1.6 of?
11. What was the name of the Spice Girls’ second album?
12. Which board game started as a way of teaching children the effects of karma?
13. Which hit TV show is an anagram of "Foregone Maths"?
14. What is Oxford Dictionaries' "word of the year" 2015? (Hint: it doesn't have any letters.)
15. Which of these is NOT an official International Air Transport Association airport code:
a. CAT
b LOL
c. OWL
16. What is the first number which, when written out, has all its letters in alphabetical order?
17. True or false: Johnny Cash’s song Ring Of Fire was used in a commercial for haemorrhoid cream.
18. Before becoming a TV celebrity, who made a living selling Paddington Bears?
a. Philip Schofield
b. Claudia Winkleman
c. Jeremy Clarkson
19. What is the main ingredient of pontefract cakes?
20. True or false: the fastest bus in the world is powered by cow dung.
21. Which red-haired children’s book character has the middle names Delicatessa Windowshade Mckrelmint Ephraim’s Daughter?
22. How many Americans think they’re in the top 1% of earners?
a. 1%
b. 10%
c. 19%
23. True or false: Smoky Bacon Pringles are suitable for Vegans.
24. What is Action Man’s actual name?
a. Matthew Exler
b. Mike Goodness
c. Max Strength
25 For one point each, list the 12 gifts given by my true love in The 12 Days Of Christmas
Answers:
1. Raymond Briggs 2. Vodka 3. True 4. b. Lassie the dog 5. Hercule Poirot 6. Twitter (they were among several words considered – and rejected – as names for the messaging site back in 2006, when the project was being founded). 7. True 8. Marcel 9. c, The Fault in Our Stars by John Green 10. Feet (Pigeons missing some or all of their toes bring the average down. Toe loss can be caused by the birds becoming tangled in wire and losing circulation to parts of their feet or from infections caused by standing in their own waste.) 11. Spiceworld 12. Snakes and Ladders. (It began life as an ancient Indian game called Moksha Patamu. It showed how you can attain salvation through doing good, whereas by doing evil one will be reborn to lower forms of life.) 13. Game of Thrones 14. The tears of joy emoji 15. OWL 16. Forty 17. False, permission was denied by the singer's family 18. Jeremy Clarkson (His mother ran a business making Paddington bears which began when she made some as Christmas presents for Jeremy and his sister Joanna.) 19. Liquorice 20. True (Reading Buses' Bus Hound, which runs on compressed natural gas and is painted black and white like a Friesian cow, set a land speed record for buses when it was recorded doing 76.785mph in May this year.)21. Pippi Longstocking 22. c 19% 23. True 24. a. Matthew Exler 25. A partridge in a pear tree, 2 turtle doves, 3 French hens, 4 calling birds, 5 gold rings, 6 geese a-laying, 7 swans a-swimming, 8 maids a-milking, 9 Ladies Dancing, 10 Lords a-leaping, 11 Pipers Piping, 12 Drummers Drumming
QI’s new books 1,234 QI Facts to Leave You Speechless and The Third QI Book Of General Ignorance are out now. This year QI have launched a Quite Interesting gift collection featuring puzzles, illusions and tricks which is available at qi.com/merchandise
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