QI's little helpers

OPINION INTERVIEW

QI’s little helpers Digging up fascinating and unlikely facts is all in a day’s work for Stephen Fry’s team of elves. New Scientist visited their workshop

Tell us a bit about your TV programme, QI James Harkin: It’s based on the idea that

That’s a specialist skill. James: I think that’s kind of it. When I studied

everything is interesting if you look at it in the right way. We find interesting things then ask comedians to answer impossible questions about them.

maths, for instance, the thing that I enjoyed most was the history.

How did the show first come to be made? James: The story goes that when John Lloyd

[the show’s creator] had kids, he realised that he didn’t know the first thing about anything. So he started reading encyclopaedias. He decided to make an encyclopaedia without the dull bits. Anna Ptaszynski: His son Harry was a massive inspiration. When he was 4 or 5 he would ask John weird questions: Why are we here? What is the sun? It made John realise that, as soon as we finish formal education, we suddenly stop asking those kinds of questions. I suppose that’s what we are trying to do. Your job is to research the questions, so why are you known as “elves”? James: I think we got our name from Stephen

Fry, the host, who is a fan of Tolkien. He had to reference us in the first series and off the top of his head called us elves. So we ran with it. How do you get to become an elf? Anna: It’s unorthodox. James has the best story. James: I studied maths and physics at uni, and

was working as an accountant. I was doing my work quickly so I had a lot of time to spend on the internet. I found the QI talk forums where they come up with questions and got involved. Luckily enough, they grabbed me and dragged me to London and gave me a job. So why aren’t you a mathematician or physicist? James: Not good enough. Andrew Hunter Murray: Anybody can do degree-

level maths, but finding interesting facts… 40 | NewScientist | 20/27 December 2014

But then you became an accountant… James: I needed to pay the bills. Before you worked for QI, did you all have magpie-like minds, always collecting facts and esoteric ideas? Anne Miller: Yes. We’re the ones in the pub who

go, “The funny thing about cheese, guys…” And everyone rolls their eyes. Andrew: The writer Neil Gaiman says that writers have the same number of ideas as other people but just happen to write them down. I think we probably come into contact with the same number of interesting facts as other people, but we are always collecting them. What makes a good QI fact? Andrew: What we’re looking for is the

unexpected thing that makes you want to tell other people. The key element is that you immediately want to communicate it. James: Unless someone puts you on the spot. Then you can’t think of anything. Andrew: I’ve always got mine at the ready: kangaroos have three vaginas. Anne: Mine is that a baby puffin is called a puffling. That’s my favourite fact.

Profile The QI Elves are the researchers for QI (Quite Interesting), a BBC comedy panel show hosted by Stephen Fry in which guests attempt to answer weird and wonderful questions based on facts gathered by the team. Their ranks include (from left to right) Anne Miller, James Harkin, Anna Ptaszynski and Andrew Hunter Murray

James: Every day you find something and think “that is amazing, must keep that, it will come in useful one day”.

When you find a fact that you want to keep, what do you do? Anne: You store it. Anna: You keep it safe. Andrew: But it isn’t always clear where it should

go – every fact has several branches off it, and if you follow one, you can suddenly end up in different territory and find this whole chain of interesting things along the way. You also do a podcast called No Such Thing as a Fish where you discuss favourite facts with what sounds like incredible knowledge. Andrew: We take each other’s facts away and

do our homework on them. So when we come back to do the podcast we all have something.

For more opinion articles, visit newscientist.com/opinion

Photographed for New Scientist by Marc Schlossman

human languages. They react with fear to adult male voices from tribes that hunt elephants but are not bothered by voices from tribes that don’t. Also, an elephant has more muscles in its trunk than a human has in their entire body. Is there a serious purpose to all of this? Andrew: We think there is, although it can

sound a bit pretentious to talk about it. Talk about it anyway. Anne: I think it’s about finding out more about

the world and making people feel a bit better along the way. The one thing I love about QI is that you can be stupid. You can say “I don’t know”. We all have different knowledge and we like to share it. Anna: It is basically a funny TV show, but we would love QI to have a bigger effect. In school, you start with the basic stuff and memorise it. But think if you instead started with the weird and quirky stuff that piques your interest, and then learned how it works and why. I would love it if people were learning more like that. Andrew: We often try to remind ourselves that

“We’re the ones in the pub who go, ‘The funny thing about cheese, guys...’ ” the fourth basic urge, after food, sex and shelter, is curiosity. We bridle a bit at being called trivia because there’s nothing trivial about finding out more about the world, whether it’s atomic structures or hairdressers in North Korea.

The impression is that you just know loads of stuff off the cuff. Andrew: Yes, forget what I said – we know it all. How carefully do you check your facts? Anne: We’re as careful as we can be. But we

still get emails from people. James: Facts are always changing and there’s not much we can do about that. But we try and get a couple of sources on every fact we put in. Of course, everyone makes mistakes. What is your biggest howler? Anna: There is one that we thought was true –

and I still think maybe you’ll find evidence that it is – that the government owns 100,000 cats in order to catch the mice in various public buildings. It’s an oft-repeated thing. It’s been in the newspapers. But it is very hard to verify.

James: Another is that we said poodle

grooming was an Olympic sport in Paris in 1900. It turns out we fell for an April Fool in The Daily Telegraph. Anna: Remember, we are looking for facts that seem like they’re not true. What is your favourite science fact? James: Mine is generally whatever I’ve heard

recently. I read in New Scientist that the corona of the sun is hotter than the centre, and no one can work out why. It rains plasma on there as well. I think it’s fascinating that something so basic has so many mysteries. Anne: Mine is that baby elephants have to be taught to use their trunks. That tickles me. James: An elephant’s sense of smell is so good that they can tell the difference between two tribes. Andrew: They can also differentiate between

If you weren’t elves, what would you do? Anna: I recently got a really strong urge to be an

anthropologist. I think it would be really great to go around the world and meet people who are unbelievably different. James: I thought that I would like to be a writer and genuinely thought I would like to write for New Scientist. Maybe one day. Do your family and friends enjoy your endless curiosity? Andrew: They are deeply ashamed. Anna: It depends. Sometimes my friends

get hacked off with the constant facts in the middle of conversations. James: I think my friends just put up with it as a personality quirk. Anna: Like an illness. n Interview by Graham Lawton and Tiffany O’Callaghan. See page 89 for the QI Elves quiz 20/27 December 2014 | NewScientist | 41