QI continues to blot the midweek BBC schedules, sloshing around the comedy quiz genre in an entirely pointless, middle class way. Not that there are any comedy quiz shows that aren’t middle class; Radio 4 remains their spiritual home, where any trumped up theme is an excuse for establishment luvvies to engage in mutual masturbation and bad puns. But QI is particularly repellent. The object is to give long-winded comedy answers rather than obvious ones, which is how every other one of these shows from Never Mind The Buzzcocks to the Newsquiz works, except that they at least have a pretence of an overarching theme. QI plumbs new depths of verbose palliness – I nearly lost my dinner after witnessing Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie and John Sessions reminisce about parties they’d attended. And when the guests are actually displaying their useless knowledge, the effect is of a load of sad Open University lecturers sitting in the pub and trying to get one up on each other. Alan Davies looks as if he’s had to drink himself half-unconscious just to get through each edition, with obnoxious results, while Stephen Fry peers owlishly at the autocue as if he’s never seen one before. When will producers accept that the ONLY good comedy quiz show is I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue, and ever more shall be so?