Quite Interesting - Stephen deep fried

I have a soft spot for Stephen fry. Maybe it is because Stephen fry IS a soft spot. Generally  I don’t really like intellectuals. They think they are smarter than me which in turn brings me to show them that they are not and it's just exhausting. It can take up to a full afternoon to crush an intellectual's spirit. But it's a public service so I have to do it. And you know what, I will not admit it out loud but it is kind of fun.

The way to brutalize intellectuals is to invent stuff up, and back it up with extremely concrete evidence and written reference that I have just pulled out of my derriere. "I don’t remember if it was doctor grawlberg, or that other guy from san-diego university that did  that research last year where they proved that…." And then you just add something that might sound credible. They can't compete. They work with an extremely limited arsenal as they usually actually try to stick to reality.

Now, you might say this is a dirty trick, and that I am a moron. Both assumptions are not totally wrong, but that is beside the point. Intellectuals like facts, they like quotes by dead people, they like to call their big brother to help them as they hide behind a big book

.Stephen fry is another breed of intellectual. He is truly curious, has a vivid imagination that carries him to unexpected, and often quite disturbed parts of the human think process, and above all – he appreciates a good laugh, a stupid pun, a knock knock joke and buzzers that make obscene noises. 

As the "banter master" in QI he shows one more quality that is charming. He is truly interested, which makes him truly interesting. Quite interesting.

Whatever is interesting we are interested in. Whatever is not interesting, we are even more interested in.
There is no real score in the show and points are giving to answers which are funny or interesting and not which are boring and right. Which brings a kind of trivia related banter I personally find "quite" entertaining. When you add to the mixture some of the most brilliantly silly people around, and a couple of permanent fixtures like the super naïve sheep boy Alan Davis, you got a recipe for extraordinary cerebral tickling.

If you look at the geographical roots of such a show, there is no other place it could have sprouted in, and stay on air for so long (eleven seasons and going strong) other then Britain.

The "quite" interesting is a dead giveaway.The  understatement factor of something that is hilariously interesting, but with a stiff upper cortex. And you couldn’t really expect something like QI to come from the states or mainland Europe.

In American it would have become "totally cool" with trivia about movie stars and big shinny prices, and in Europe every answer would be an hour long discussion with a lot of French people going pffffff in disgust as they hear zi answers of zi ozer contestants. India maybe. But that's just tanned british innit?