Life as an elf

Hi there, my name’s James and I’m a QI elf, though if you’re a regular on QI.com you might know me better as Eggshaped.

I’m living proof that anyone can become a QI researcher. After the head gnomes saw me posting quite interesting facts on the forum at QI.com, I was asked to help out on the C series, and by the D series I was a fully paid-up member of the research team. Here we are now, the next series has been commissioned and we’ve already begun work on subjects beginning with the letter E; I thought I’d give you a quick idea of how the process works.

There are about 10 elves in all, most of whom spend most of the week working from home. Every week we’ll meet up at the QI club in Oxford, sitting around a large oval table with a strong pot of coffee, a large teapot and a couple of bottles of water. We sit surrounded by bookcases full of Lithuanian dictionaries, hefty tomes about string theory and (of course) the Encyclopaedia Britannica and OED.

The head elf will kick things off by recounting any news from the previous week and we will then head round in a clockwise direction with each elf explaining what they had been researching in the previous week. As a very rough rule of thumb, we’d each hope to get around 5 subjects covered in a week: sometimes we have a question ready and try it out on the other elves, and at other times we would just go through the research and the question will present itself from the following conversation. Of course the specific subject matter is strictly secret, if I told you I’d have to kill you, and we don’t really want to lose viewers if we don’t have to. However, you can look forward to some incredible stories and facts about Europe, Epidemics and Electricity. The meeting will continue, through lunch, until each elf has had his or her turn, and then we’ll head off to the pub – which is where the real work is done!

Fancy becoming a QI elf? Well the best way is to head over to QI.com and get posting. The elves are always there, and always on the lookout for new talent.