Lovely

"Lovely" is the eighth episode of the L Series of QI and the 162nd episode overall. It first aired on 28 November 2014 on BBC Two, and the XL version aired the following day on the same channel. The episode featured the first appearance of Tony Hawk. It was preceded by "Lethal" and followed by "Ladies and Gents".

Scores

Numbers in brackets mark appearances - e.g. "(2)" means "(second appearance)".

1. Tony Hawk (1): 7 points
2. Aisling Bea (2): -6 points
3. Alan Davies (162): -7 points
4. Josh Widdicombe (4): -36 points

Buzzers

• "The Lovely" Josh Widdicombe: "Love is all around me" (from "Love Is All Around" by Wet Wet Wet)
• "The Best Beloved" Aisling Bea: "Love and marriage" (from "Love and Marriage" by Frank Sinatra)
• "That Love Machine" Tony Hawks: "Let there be love" (from "Let There Be Love" by Nat King Cole)
• "A Complete Luvvie" Alan Davies: "I like it / I like it / I like the way you run your fingers through my hair" (from "I Like It" by Gerry and the Pacemakers)

Subjects

• A wide array of foods have been considered throughout time to be aphrodisiacs, ranging from stewed prunes to frog juice. Each contestant is given a food which is supposedly an aphrodisiac:
  • Aisling Bea - oysters
  • Alan Davies - a potato - when potatoes were introduced to Ireland, the population suddenly grew (as starvation decreased).
  • Tony Hawk - champagne
  • Josh Widdicombe - chocolate
• (XL only) Valentine's Day cards were very popular in the Victorian era, and some Victorians sent "vinegar valentines", a type of hate mail. They would accuse people of being ugly, drunk, snobbish etc.
• The Duke of Wellington went out with one of Napoleon's exes (Josephine Weimar), who considered Wellington to be better at sex. Three of Napoleon's lovers were named Josephine (his wife Joséphine de Beauharnais and mistresses Josephina Grassini and Josephine Weimer).
• Tent cobweb spiders would bite their arm off to get their leg over. The front two 'legs' (pedipalps) of the male spiders function as penises; they tie silk around one of these legs and pull it off to attract a female. Doing this allows them to move 44% faster. The female will kill the male after mating.
• Nanny goats were named this because they were sometimes used to feed children whose mothers were considered immoral, as it was thought they would pass on this immorality through their breast milk. Donkeys were sometimes used instead. In the 1500s and 1700s, many goats were given mercury (which was considered a cure for syphilis) and their breast milk was given to syphilitic babies. This practice killed both goats and babies.
• 'Bundling' (putting a man into a sack) was used by Puritans to prevent young men from having sex before marriage, but still allow a couple to sleep together. Sometimes, instead, a board was placed between the couple.
• (XL only) Lazzaro Spallanzani discovered what sperm was for after putting male frogs in underpants. He did this to stop them ejaculating on frogspawn. Spallanzani also performed the first artificial insemination on a spaniel, discovered the use of echolocation by bats, found that some snails can regenerate heads and tested digestion by attaching string to a bag filled with food, consuming it, and pulling it back up again.
• Psycho was the first film to show a flushing toilet. Psycho took 30 days to film, which isn't long, but 7 days were spent on the infamous shower scene.
• (XL only) Half the brides in London went to prison because weddings were often held there. Special prisons were used to hold people in debt; many people held there were priests, so couples would have cheap weddings in the debtor's prisons. 'Fleet weddings' ended in 1753 when Lord Hardwicke passed a marriage act. Gretna Green became the new place to go to for a cheap wedding.

General Ignorance

• A Welshman should wear garlic or an onion in his hat; this practice occurred in the Battle of Heathfield according to Alan Davidson, although this is disputed.
• The part of the atmosphere which blocks out UV radiation is the ozone layer, but it is not the ozone itself which does this. The ozone layer contains only 50 parts per million of ozone (O₃).
• The largest waves in the world are found underwater: subsurface waves, discovered by satellites, travel a few centimeters per second. "Tsunami" is Japanese for "harbour wave", not "tidal wave", which is a misnomer.

Ending quote

Stephen Fry's ending quote is the last words of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, an English essayist: "It's all been very interesting."

Spend a Penny bonus

The Spend a Penny bonus, appearing throughout the L Series, is to be used by panellists when they think an answer is related to lavatories.

External links

• "Lovely" at qi.com
• "Lovely" at British Comedy Guide
• "Lovely" at IMDb
• Curator's Blog for Lovely at qi.com