The Idler

Idler 41: The QI Issue

We are born free but are everywhere in chains.

Our culture needs some fresh air. We are boring ourselves to death by re-packaging the same flavourless pap based on a patronizing and second-hand version of what we think other people want. Meanwhile, out there, the world is as complex, beautiful, and mysterious as ever.

Which is why QI and The Idler have joined forces to celebrate curiosity. As Dorothy Parker once sagely noted, curiosity is the cure for boredom, but there is no cure for curiosity. It is endless and free, unlike television, wine or the water in our taps. It is more pleasurable and reliable than sex. It’s what makes us human.

Your hosts are Mr John Lloyd, founder of QI and the producer of legendary television shows, including Blackadder and Spitting Image, and Mr John Mitchinson, co-creator with Mr Lloyd of The Books of Ignorance (General and Animal). They have filled every spare inch with the absurd and curious learning that fans of QI will know and expect.

In addition, there is the first ever published extract from Mr Lloyd’s ‘lost’ novel, fifteen never-before-seen, spanking-brand-new General Ignorance questions, the QI prospectus for a New School, Mr Justin Pollard’s list of history’s wildest stories and William Morris is rescued from ye olde gift shoppes and restored as a revolutionary hero for our times.

So, read on, and help us overthrow the tyrant boredom. You have nothing to lose but your chains.

You can order it from the Idler shop here. Also available at Amazon.co.uk.