Saturday 24 February 2007

Quite Interesting Transcripts

So, you've heard something on QI that you really want to know more about. Maybe it's something to do with your job, your schoolwork or just something you're really interested in. However, you can't really remember what was said or on which episode. Well if the idea of sitting through hours of QI on YouTube (although plenty of us do that anyway) to find out what was said isn't an option for you, then this website will be perfect for you.

Sarah (aka Minerva Moon) has spent the last year writing transcripts of episodes of QI. Now you can quickly read through whole QI episodes to find what you're looking for. Simply using your browser's find function (ctrl+f) could let you find in seconds what would have otherwise taken you hours.

However, Sarah now needs your help. Writing a transcript can take anything up to 10 hours of work. So getting through a whole series, let alone 4 of them, takes a lot of dedication. If you would like to volunteer to transcribe an episode, fill out the form here.

Friday 23 February 2007

Daily Telegraph QI Column - Week 3






This Saturday's QI column is all about Lasagne. You could buy the Telegraph and read it tomorrow. Alternatively, they've already put it on their website and you can read the column in full here.

Wednesday 21 February 2007

QI Wins Award

QI has won the British Sitcom Guide’s Best Comedy Quiz Show of 2006 Award. Have I Got News For You came in a close second place followed by 8 Out Of 10 Cats.

The online members of the BSG voted for the awards. An odd quirk was that members also voted for what they thought were the worst programmes of 2006. In QI’s category this misfortune fell to Channel 4’s Best of the Worst.

A big thanks to everyone that voted for QI (well, not the ones that voted for QI as worst).

Saturday 17 February 2007

Daily Telegraph QI Column - Week 2

The Fall of Baghdad is this week's subject for the Daily Telegraph QI Column.

Thursday 15 February 2007

Liffs

The Meaning of Liff was a book written by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd in 1983. Liffs are things that have no word to describe them in the English language and are married to a place name from anywhere in the World. John Lloyd, also being the producer of QI, started a thread on the QI Forum all the way back in 2003. Since then, the thread has grown into the most hilarious thread on the forum.

Plenty of good examples from the forum include:

Noards
The bits of wall behind a radiator that never get painted.

Great Knowley
One whose sole contribution to society is watching repeats of Eggheads all day and being a pub know-all in the evening. The worst kind of smartarse.

Little Knowley
An eight-year-old Countdown champion. The second worst kind of smartarse.

Pirnmil
I small system of shafts and gears typically found within the engines and other apparatus of ocean liners built between 1940 and 1965.

Poughkeepsie
The person who initiates and then commentates upon another person's colonic irrigation.

You can read or contribute to more than 700 Liffs in this thread. Alternatively you could buy one of 3 books by John Lloyd and Douglas Adams here on amazon. You can also read the Liffs which will appear in every Saturday edition of the Daily Telegraph here.

Monday 12 February 2007

QI's Live Online Quiz

This Friday will see the return of QI's Live Online Quiz. The quiz is run and organised by members of the forum and run on an external chat room. The quiz master changes each week. Since the quiz master has control over writing the quiz, the scoring and pretty much everything it's never exactly the same from week to week.

The quiz is loosely based around the show. Many of the questions will have klaxon answers that will lose players points. Scoring has usually been in the format: 5 points for first correct answer, 2 points for second correct answer and -10 points for a klaxon. However, that often changes, especially for harder questions.

A common theme has been for one round of questions to be posted on the forum. Answers are then sent as a private message to the quiz master, ensuring that those who are slow typers aren't at a disadvantage.

Anyone can join in with the quiz. If you want to then go to this link at 8:00pm GMT on Friday (16th February). The quiz will be hosted by 96aelw (aka Alfred) this week and Suze 2 weeks later.

Friday 9 February 2007

First QI Column in the Daily Telegraph

A reminder that tomorrow's (Saturday's) Telegraph will include the first QI column. The first column will be about (since this is QI) things concerning the letter A. You can now view that column, and any future columns when they appear, at this portal on the Telegraph's website.

Make sure that you bookmark it!

Thursday 8 February 2007

The D Series Revealed

The private boards on the QI forum used by the elves to discuss the research for the D series (the last series to air in the Autumn of 2006) have now been made publicly available.

For anyone interested in the research for the D series and the questions used, this will be a great resource. Particularly if you want to quote something from the show and require the original research/sources to do so.

You can view them here:

D Series Research

D Series Questions

D Series GI

Sunday 4 February 2007

Changelings

For the next few months, I'm going to take a more detailed look at some of the website's and the forum's more interesting features. To begin with I'll introduce you to changelings.

Changelings was first invented by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (or Lewis Carroll as you are more likely to have known him). I first came across it when it was posted on a forum by Len Porter of Brighton, from which I adapted it for the website.

Changelings is a word game. Words are of a fixed length (either 6, 7 or 8 letters long) and from the start word players must change one letter with each turn and then make an anagram of the new word. Repeats are not allowed.

The challenge of the game is to find words that no one can reply to because it is a 'dead end' or words that are so difficult to follow that no one replies within 3 hours. Players earn points through the game which lasts either 4 or 6 weeks. Those with the most points win the game.

The next game of changelings has just started in QI's games room. You can play here:

http://www.qi.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=5935&start=0

If you would like to start a game of changelings on your own forum you can read a copy of the rules here:

http://geocities.com/marmaladepublications/Changelings.pdf

Saturday 3 February 2007

Daily Telegraph Column

If you would like to read the QI Column in today's Telegraph you can view it online here:

http://tinyurl.com/2zpzju

Also, at Christmas, QI produced a quiz for the Telegraph which you can see here:

http://tinyurl.com/2eh4oj

Friday 2 February 2007

A Quite Interesting Announcement

From Saturday the 10th of February QI will have a Quite Interesting Column in the Daily Telegraph. It will be published weekly in the Saturday Daily Telegraph's Weekend section for the next year. The first column will be about the letter A, and every other letter will feature for a column at some point. However, there will be 26 more columns devoted to any number of topics.

However, you don't have to wait another week to see QI appearing in the Telegraph, there will be an excellent feature in the weekend section tomorrow with an interview by John Lloyd.

If you want to contribute to the column don't be afraid to sign up to the QI forum and write about subjects that you think are interesting. It might just get your stuff into a national newspaper.