"I'm sure there are people who think 'I wonder what they all talk about when they're not doing QI', and it's exactly the same..."
"It's true, it's the only reason we started the podcast, we thought 'Well we might as well press record. We're just saying facts. It's all going to waste.'"
No Such Thing As A Fish is a weekly British podcast series produced and presented by the researchers behind the BBC Two panel game QI. In it each of the researchers, collectively known as "The QI Elves", present their favourite fact that they have come across that week.
The most regular presenters of the podcast are James Harkin, Andrew Hunter Murray, Anna Ptaszynski and Dan Schreiber, although other QI researchers also make appearances, and there are guest presenters on some episodes.
Since the launch of the podcast it has attracted 700,000 subscribers. In 2014 No Such Thing as a Fish was named by Apple as the "Best New Podcast" that year. In 2015 and 2016 it won the "Internet Award" in the Chortle Awards.
In May 2016, a television spin-off series entitled No Such Thing As The News began on BBC Two.
Episodes[]
As of 27 April 2022, there have been 422 episodes of the main podcast, 15 episodes of International Factball, and several non-numbered specials. There have also been 13 episodes of No Such Thing As The News.
The regular presenters appear in most of these episodes, although some guest presenters have appeared.
Introduction[]
The first 43 episodes of the podcast begin with a clip of James and Dan discussing the reason behind the name. This intro clip comes before the theme tune 'Wasps' is played.
James: We ran it on QI a few years ago...
Dan: Yeah?
James: ...um, which was [that] there's no such thing as a fish.
Dan: What do you mean there's no such thing as a fish?
James: No, seriously, it's in the Oxford Dictionary of Underwater Life. It says it right there, first paragraph, "there's no such thing as a fish".
Amusingly, the book is actually called the Oxford Encyclopedia of Underwater Life. After Episode 41: No Such Thing As Reginald the Red-Nosed Reindeer, the clip is not used.