Haven't I Read This Somewhere Before?...

[Purple Tentacle]

Every time I watch QI I can't help feeling that it's the equivalent of that kid in the playground who would say

'How many fingers am I holding up'
'Five'
'Aaah, no, four actually, the thumb is not a finger'

or those tedious tossers who correct you when you call white or black 'colours'.


Or those fuckwit astronomers who get into a massive strop because Pluto is classified as a planet.

it's just so bloody wearing, constant trivia does not equate intellectual stimulation.


Oh, and Alan Davies is a cunt.

[thepuffpastryhangman]

...it would have been a totally different and better show if made in 1992...

I didn't see this until after I'd made my post. I don't mean to insight anyone.

[Bert Thung]

constant trivia does not equate intellectual stimulation.

Oh, and Alan Davies is a cunt.

Just about the perfect description folks

[The Mumbler]

Every time I watch QI I can't help feeling that it's the equivalent of that kid in the playground who would say ...

It really is an 'aaaah' situation, the whole programme.  And there's something weighed down about its presentation which means that the actual information divulged comes a very poor second to the metaphorical point-scoring that is encouraged.  I rarely come away from it with any real sense that I've learned something.   I find the idea that Stephen Fry and John Lloyd, of all people, are behind this sort of emptiness deeply dispiriting.  It only starts to have any value when you pit it against BBC4's other 'self-conscious place to think' programmes, Never Mind The Full Stops and Mind Games (two more 'aaaaah' programmes), but only because the latter two are actually unwatchable.

[Harfyyn Teuport]

Honestly though, how many days *are* there in a week?

[rudi]

When Sessions or someone equally knowledgable is on, they're not bullied or shouted down by Davies at all

Sean Lock turned into exactly that sort of playground bully when Rory McGrath had the temerity to know all the answers though.

[Oscar]

Honestly though, how many days *are* there in a week?

Hmm? Hmm? Eh?

[Mr. Bleaney]

sorry -there are seven days in a week, aren't there? Am I being thick?

[Harfyyn Teuport]

Do I have to play the dolt and say "seven" first so that someone will rush in and correct me with a condescending "Oooh! Deary me, no my boy!", because I will, I'm genuinely intrigued.

Alright then.

Honestly though, how many days *are* there in a week?

Seven.

[Godzilla Bankrolls]

Are you talking working days, or are you including weekends?

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

I always go by Richard Hoggart's mantra in Uses Of Literacy, a book that Fry must have read, which argues that knowledge should be used as a benefit to others and not as a weapon. And QI does use it as a weapon, to mock the ignorant and throw its hands up in despair at how you could possibly think that there were only seven days in a week.

That's even more true of Never Mind the Full Stops, especially the bit where viewers send in photographs of ungrammatical grocers' signs. They all shake their heads wearily and say 'Aaaagh, he's put the apostrophe in the wrong place! Dear me!' Cunts like Julian Fellowes have no interest in actually doing anything about punctuation ignorance - all they want to do is jeer at it.

I wouldn't mind Alan Davies' schoolboy act if it was used sparingly, but he dominates the whole show. I suspect he's supposed to be some kind of Rose Tyler-type 'conduit' for the viewer in case Fry and co get too heavy.

QI should be bloodymindedly highbrow, I think - just like A Bit of Fry and Laurie was. And make no apologies for it. Cut out the sneering, but cut out the spoonfeeding too. It's not smug, but it still shouldn't be scared of appearing that way.

[Mr. Bleaney]

What are days for?
Days are where we live.