QI

[Tonyblack]

 

[Dotsie]

Just watched QIXL, and it occurs to me that

maybe the reason that it used to be compulsory to have a moustache in the British army was to make sure they were all men? It was so strict you'd be imprisoned for not growing one, which seems a bit harsh unless there was a good reason.

 

[Tonyblack]

It's certainly an interesting thought.

 

[Quatermass]

You know, that comment about

moustaches

in that period reminded me of a snarky comment Ben 'Yahtzee' Croshaw (who should one day be a guest on QI, he'd be good) made when reviewing a video game.

Some of the characters [of the video game] are difficult to take seriously...[like] the SAS commander who has the kind of absurd facial hair that would indeed have given him a proud military bearing circa 1915 but these days just makes him look like a German porn star.

 

[Tonyblack]

I hate to say this, but I think the whole 'moustache' thing on QI is nonsense. Yes a lot of people in the army had moustaches for a fairly short period, but I really don't think they were compulsorary.

They certainly weren't during the Naploeonic War. Perhaps our most famous soldier of the time, Sir Arthur Wellesley (the Duke of Wellington) is always depicted clean-shaven.

Contemporary photographs of the British Army during the Boer War show some people with moustaches and some without.

I very much doubt whether they would have been arrested for shaving off a moustache.

Perhaps Dixie has some thoughts on the matter.

 

[Penfold]

I don't know if this adds to the 'Great Moustache Debate' but it looks as though it was more a fashion statement than a regulation. Mind you, it is Wiki, so what is written might not be completely accurate either.

Until the mid-19th century, facial hair was unusual in the British military, except for the sappers. During the Crimean war, facial hair was a novelty; giving in to the pressure of fashion in a remarkably hairy era, Foot Guards allowed all ranks to grow large moustaches, once they got to the Crimea, and by the time of the Battle of the Alma, they were getting quite hirsute. By the winter they were permitted full beards

 

[Tonyblack]

I don't know if anyone saw the extended version of QI, with Frank Skinner?

They were talking about punctuation marks and how silly it is that you can just use one key on a keyboard to type a semi-colon, but have to use two to type a colon. Frank said that he'd found himself using a hyphen instead of a colon because of this.

I do the same thing. How lazy is that?

 

[SpideyGirl]

Yeh I saw it...

Thought the symbol woth the question mark and exclamation mark together was quite cool though.

 

[Tonyblack]

Really‽

 

[SimsKatie]

I grew up with American style keyboards, which are slightly different that UK ones. Still does my head in sometimes!

 

[Tonyblack]

I grew up with American style keyboards, which are slightly different that UK ones. Still does my head in sometimes!

Tell me about it! Everytime I visit Sharlene in Tucson, it takes me ages to work out where the @ symbol is.

 

[Dotsie]

When we went to Turkey, I couldn't find the @ at all. I had to copy and paste it from a web page

 

[Tonyblack]

It's above the 2 on an American keyboard.

Using a Dutch keyboard was fun as well, as you'd suddenly produce weird characters and not know how you'd done it.

When I used to stay at my friend's, I'd have a battle with Word until it realised that I was writing in English and not misspelling Dutch.

 

[Sjoerd3000]

Hungarian keyboards are fun aswell

They don't use QWERTY but QWERTZ (I think )

 

[Kin Arad]

Really‽

how do you do that

 

[Tonyblack]

Really‽

how do you do that

It's an ASCII code character and recognised by the board's software.

I wrote it in Word and pasted it here.

 

[SpideyGirl]

 

[CrysaniaMajere]

I don't know if anyone saw the extended version of QI, with Frank Skinner?

I watched the first episodes, then noted this. Are XL episodes the same with added cut scenes, or are they different episodes?
I know I could watch them but I can't bring myself to do it much easier and faster to ask here, if someone would be so kind...

 

[Tonyblack]

I don't know if anyone saw the extended version of QI, with Frank Skinner?

I watched the first episodes, then noted this. Are XL episodes the same with added cut scenes, or are they different episodes?
I know I could watch them but I can't bring myself to do it much easier and faster to ask here, if someone would be so kind...

The XL episodes have more in them than the other ones, which are editted and cut-down versions.

 

[CrysaniaMajere]

Thanks

I'll just watch the XL version then.