| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
MatC
Joined: 10 Mar 2007
Posts: 126
|
 Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2009 10:15 am Post subject: Competition: The QI Annual 2010 |
 |
|
Amongst the many strange jobs I do, I am one of the researchers (or “Elves”) on the BBC TV panel game QI.
As you may know, every year we produce a QI Annual, full of all the fascinating and comical type of material you find on the TV show, along with illustrations by many of Britain’s leading cartoonists.
The far-sighted folk at Faber & Faber - who publish all QI’s books - have given me ten copies of this year’s Annual to give away to you.
If you’d like to have a chance of winning one, simply tell me a Quite Interesting fact concerning something beginning with the letter G.
Post your entries here (or email them to me via www.matcoward.com, or send them to me here via PM), and Faber will send a free copy of the book to the ten people who, in my supposedly expert and entirely final opinion, provide the most Quite Interesting items.
The closing date for entries is 17th December 2009.
Carry on! |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
MatC
Joined: 10 Mar 2007
Posts: 126
|
| Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 10:46 am Post subject: |
|
|
The first two entries, from people who emailed them to me ...
MIKE says:
'Gelert's Grave'.
According to legend, the stone monument in the field marks the resting place of 'Gelert', the faithful hound of the medieval Welsh Prince Llewelyn the Great.
The story, as written on the tombstone reads:
"In the 13th century Llewelyn, prince of North Wales, had a palace at Beddgelert. One day he went hunting without Gelert, "The Faithful Hound", who was unaccountably absent.
On Llewelyn's return the truant, stained and smeared with blood, joyfully sprang to meet his master. The prince alarmed hastened to find his son, and saw the infant's cot empty, the bedclothes and floor covered with blood.
The frantic father plunged his sword into the hound's side, thinking it had killed his heir. The dog's dying yell was answered by a child's cry.
Llewelyn searched and discovered his boy unharmed, but near by lay the body of a mighty wolf which Gelert had slain. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
MatC
Joined: 10 Mar 2007
Posts: 126
|
| Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 10:48 am Post subject: |
|
|
BARRY writes:
According to Captain Francis Grose's A Classical Dictionary of the
Vulgar Tongue (3rd ed.) 1796), the word 'Gigg' can mean: a nose; a
hog's snout; fun; jest; wanton; high one-horse chaise; "a woman's
privities". Surely an unusual gallimauffrey of meanings for one word? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Ali_L
Joined: 11 Jul 2008
Posts: 266
Location: wakefield
|
| Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 11:26 am Post subject: |
|
|
What a fantastic job 
Anyway, here's my effort:
Geckos have the worst split ends, but should keep away from the hairdresser at all costs. It's the tiny hairs on their feet that enable a gecko to stick to anything.
Millions of microscopic hairs (or 'setae') each split into 1,000 tips that are so small they can only be seen with an electron microscope. They are tiny enough to take advantage of a weak attraction between individual molecules called van der Waals forces.
The adhesion of a billion or so hair tips creates enough force to enable a gecko to run up walls, walk upside down on polished glass or support their body weight by a single toe. Their 'stickiness' requires minimal attachment force, leaves no residue, detaches easily, is self-cleaning, works underwater, in a vacuum and on nearly every surface material.
_________________
http://www.alisonlittlewood.co.uk |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
MatC
Joined: 10 Mar 2007
Posts: 126
|
| Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 11:38 am Post subject: |
|
|
I have to admit, Ali, it's not the worst job I’ve ever had ...
Excellent stuff on geckos.
And here is an entry emailed to me from LIZA:
| Quote: | | Gaberlunzies were itinerant storytellers and musicians who took all the gossip from farm to croft etc. They also mended lamps, trimmed wicks and sharpened knives. Gaberlunzie: old Scottish - from gaber = gossip and lunzie= light. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
MatC
Joined: 10 Mar 2007
Posts: 126
|
| Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2009 4:27 pm Post subject: |
|
|
And PETER writes:
| Quote: | | G is for gold, as in gold medal. Lists of Olympic winners frequently describe them all as gold medallists. However at the first Olympics in 1896, the winners were awarded a silver medal and runners-up a bronze. Third-placers, along with everyone else, had to make do with a medal for competing. In the second Games of 1900 in Paris, there was a variety of prizes, many winners receiving cups and trophies, and the runners-up such useful objects as an umbrella (for the pole vault) and a penknife (for the hurdles). |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
MatC
Joined: 10 Mar 2007
Posts: 126
|
| Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2009 10:34 am Post subject: |
|
|
An email from ALAN:
| Quote: | The Great Exhibition of 1851 included amongst it attractions, the world’s first public lavatory: the Monkey Closets installed in the Retiring Rooms of The Crystal Palace by the engineer George Jennings. 827,280 visitors paid one penny a time, for which they received a clean seat, a towel, a comb and a shoe shine. Hence the phrase "to spend a penny".
As Kenneth Horne once said, it may not be very funny but at least it’s clean. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
MatC
Joined: 10 Mar 2007
Posts: 126
|
| Posted: Mon Dec 14, 2009 11:08 am Post subject: |
|
|
Emailed entry from NICK:
| Quote: | first off, some history on the letter G:
7th letter of the alphabet. It is a usual symbol for a voiced velar stop, as in the English go. It was originally a differentiated form of Greek gamma, which has C as its formal Roman correspondent. In musical notation G represents a note on the scale. In physics, G stands for the gravitational constant.
Grasshoppers:
We all know what these look like, and have defiately heard them in the summer months chirping away , but did you know that they have ears on their legs or do they? grasshoppers are easily distingishable from bush crickets as they have antennae that are shorter than their body. so there are 2 distinct types, the long horned and the short horned. Short horned being grasshoppers as we know them and the lng horned being the bush crickets, or mole crickets etc.
Short horned grasshoppers have ears in the sides of the abdomen. Long-horned grasshoppers (bush crickets) and crickets have ears in the knee-joints of their front legs. so this would be a great QI trap question ;)
and locusts are actually grasshoppers, who change their behaviour and breeding when they gather in swarms, or least thats what it was always thought, until scientists found a link related to the grasshoppers happiness!
(this next bit is pulled from http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/health/happiness-chemical-turns-humble-grasshoppers-into-marauding-locusts_100148915.html )
Washington, Jan 30 2009 (ANI): Scientists from the UK and Australia have uncovered the underlying biological reason why locusts form migrating swarms.
They have identified an increase in the chemical serotonin (a chemical also found in human brain that makes them feel happy) in specific parts of the insects” nervous system as initiating the key changes in behaviour that cause them to swarm.
According to scientists, blocking or reversing this chemical switch could offer a way to battle swarms using more environmentally friendly approaches.
The findings could be used in the future to prevent the plagues, which devastate crops (notably in developing countries), affecting the livelihood of one in ten people across the globe, the researchers added.
Desert locusts usually live shy, solitary lives. But every now and again they join together in gregarious bands that actively seek out each other until they form hungry swarms.
However, how this dramatic transformation comes about has been a mystery.
Now, scientists have identified that serotonin is indeed the causal link between the experience of being in a crowd and the change in behaviour.
For the study, first, locusts were injected with specific chemicals that block the action of serotonin on its receptors: when these locusts were exposed to the same gregarizing stimuli, they did not become gregarious.
Second, chemicals that block the production of serotonin had the same effect.
Third, when injected with serotonin or chemicals that mimic serotonin, locusts turned gregarious even in the absence of other locusts.
Finally, chemicals that increased the natural synthesis of serotonin enhanced gregarization when locusts were exposed to the tickling stimuli.
This indicates that it is the synthesis of serotonin that is driven by these specific stimuli and in turn changes the behaviour.
|
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
MatC
Joined: 10 Mar 2007
Posts: 126
|
| Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2009 12:46 pm Post subject: |
|
|
RANDOM writes:
| Quote: | | Gilgamesh is the oldest (probably) historical character we've got written evidence for. Making him the most famous person ever, I suppose. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
MatC
Joined: 10 Mar 2007
Posts: 126
|
| Posted: Wed Dec 16, 2009 2:49 pm Post subject: |
|
|
PETER emailed this entry:
| Quote: | There are more extinct languages from Africa beginning with the
letter G than any other
Gey from Cameroon
Gafat and Geez from Ethiopia/Eritrea (though Geez could be said to be used in religious ceremonies)
Gamo-Ninji from Nigeria
Gule from Sudan
In addition Guonda from Chad has only a few elderly speakers left
Source www.ethnologue.com/ - languages of the world |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
MatC
Joined: 10 Mar 2007
Posts: 126
|
| Posted: Sat Dec 19, 2009 11:04 am Post subject: |
|
|
This is from ALEX:
| Quote: | The difference between the 'g' and 'w' sound was not well established in French early in the middle ages and as a result loan words from the norman conquest onwards have reflected this.
Guard, warden, Guardian etc all have similar roots, Words like war, warrior, wardrobe, exist in French with the 'G' Guerre guerrier garde-robe.
This means that Gawain is referred to in some early texts as Wawen. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Ali_L
Joined: 11 Jul 2008
Posts: 266
Location: wakefield
|
| Posted: Fri Jan 15, 2010 4:02 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Hi Mat,
I just got my copy of the Annual. Thank you very much, it looks like great fun!
Ali
_________________
http://www.alisonlittlewood.co.uk |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
MatC
Joined: 10 Mar 2007
Posts: 126
|
| Posted: Fri Jan 15, 2010 9:14 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Thanks, Ali - hope you enjoy it! |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
