Daily Telegraph QI Column - Week 12

It's the D column this week in the Daily Telegraph. Read up on Daisies, Dandelions, Drugs, Drinking, Darts, Disorder, Disability, Derby, Death and Doctors right here.

A Guide to QI Recordings 2007

QI Recordings take place at The London Studios (located on the South Bank near Waterloo). They will start in just 2 weeks time and tickets for the first two shows have already been issued.

The studio has a capacity of approx 400-500 (we counted the number of rows and seats). However, the show is very popular and getting into the recordings can be a challenge. At least half of the seats are deliberately double-booked (sometimes it has looked like the entire audience has been double-booked). Arriving early is essential because the show is so popular. Doors open at 18:45 but arriving before 18:00 is necessary to guarantee entry.

If you're travelling any distance or at any expense arriving even earlier is advised. You shouldn't take any risks because travel and accommodation costs cannot be refunded by applause store. If you're travelling from outside the UK I advise that you call applause store (instead of using the online application) in order to request priority tickets. They are not always available but if you can get them they will ensure that you will gain entry (you'll still have to make sure that you arrive by 18:00 though as this is the point when the two queues are separated).

The nearest tube station is Waterloo station on the Jubilee, Northern, Bakerloo, and Waterloo and City lines. It's about 5 minutes walk from Waterloo to the studios, check this map (the studios are marked as "The London Television Centre").

Once in the studio you will be able to go to the toilet before the start of the show. However, problems often arise from people darting to the toilets as they walk in. Applause store staff request that you wait until you have sat down before going to the toilets.

Recordings normally take between 2:45 and 3:15 from doors open with a finish time between 21:30 and 22:00. However, the recording itself isn't normally longer than 2 hours. The first three quarters of an hour after doors open are required to get everyone seated, the crew to get ready and for the warm-up guy (Stephen Grant being a regular star) to do his stuff.

Since the recording takes nearly two hours, there's a lot that only you and the audience will ever see. Most of what is cut will go simply for time, although with the guests you get on some shows a significant amount can't be broadcast even at 22:00 on a Friday night.

I look forward to meeting some of my blog's readers at the recordings...

P.S. The Telegraph column should be available tomorrow and I'm hoping for another exclusive feature somewhen towards the end of this week.

QI Book Releases For 2007

QI will be releasing two books later this year. The 4th October will be the UK release date for The Book Of Animal Ignorance (pictured) which is the sequel to the 2006 Amazon global Christmas no1 bestseller The Book Of General Ignorance.

Also due for release on 1st November will be The QI Annual, 2008. This will be the first QI annual so make sure you buy two - one to scribble away in and the other to put in a sealed plastic bag until it's worth more than a Blue Peter first edition.

Read more about the two releases here (opens as a .pdf file)

Meanwhile The Book of General Ignorance will go on sale in the USA (with a different cover) from 7th August 2007. You can pre-order a copy from Amazon.

Edit (Mon 23/04): Coming later this week, A Guide to QI Recordings.

Daily Telegraph QI Column - Week 11

This Saturday's QI column is all about Table Tennis. You can already read the full column right here.

Some Quite Interesting Widgets

As some of you may already know, you can get my blog in widget form. It's a nice graphic that fits snugly into your website's sidebar with links to the posts on this blog. It updates automatically. Now you can also get a widget that will display an updated list of Rolling News stories on your website from QI.

I've already added one in my left hand sidebar (doesn't it look nice). If you would like a widget just like it for your own website/blog go here. You can even change the style to fit your own website. All that you need to do is click "get this widget" (register if you are not already), add it to a panel and then install that panel on your page. If you're using blogger (like me) you wont even need to copy and paste any code.

If you want to get the widget that displays links to posts on this website then go here and follow the same steps described above.

A Quick Welcome to Andrew

Welcome to Andrew, a new author on the blog. Andrew is a QI veteran having watched all of the episodes in the D series being recorded as well as a significant proportion of the C series.

Andrew will be writing up some reviews of the forthcoming E series recordings (the ones that I'm not able to see).

QI Series D Repeats on BBC2

Some episodes of series D of QI are going to be repeated on BBC2. Episode 1 of series D will air tonight (Friday 13th) at 10:00pm. Guests include Sean Lock, Jo Brand and Jimmy Carr.

Daily Telegraph QI Column - Week 10

The 10th QI column takes an interesting look at Dictionaries this week.

QI's Fry Nominated for BAFTA

Stephen Fry has been nominated for his work on QI for the Entertainment Performance Award for the UK's 2007 British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards. He'll face strong competition from Ant & Dec for Saturday Night Takeaway, Paul Merton for Have I Got News for You and Jonathan Ross for Friday Night with Jonathan Ross. The award is considered one of the more prestigious BAFTAs.

Fry has been nominated for QI for the award on two previous occassions but failed to win. Paul Merton and Jonathan Ross (twice) have both received the award since 2000.

Daily Telegraph QI Column - Week 9

It's a seasonal column this week. Read plenty of QI facts about Easter here.