Apparently, it’s been Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor’s life goal to sit on the panel of the BBC show QI. After appearing on Radio 4’s Museum Of Curiosity and podcast No Such Thing As Fish, he finally got his wish. This isn’t some new aim he’s given himself when he’s bored in the back of the Slipknot tour bus, though. In 2013, he went so far as making it one of his New Year’s resolutions. Here’s some quite interesting things he – and we – learnt from him achieving his goal.

Goals for 2013: quit smoking, get on 'QI', bring the world to its knees… and quit smoking. Need that last one TWICE… -HoGaBpt2April Posted by Corey Taylor on Thursday, January 3, 2013

A Belfast teacher can shout louder than a Slipknot gig

The loudest noise recorded in the Guinness Book Of Records is, ironically, a Belfast teacher shouting the word “quiet”. It was recorded at 121 decibels to which Taylor responded: “Our gigs top out at 109, so that’s stupid.” Agreed.

Helium makes an alligator’s voice sound lower


You’d think, as did Taylor, that helium would have the same effect on an alligator’s grunts as it does on our own voices. You would be wrong. According to host Sandi Toksvig, helium doesn’t actually change the pitch of your voice, it merely changes the timbre of it, hence why an alligator on helium sounds deeper than normal.

Vitamin C doesn’t prevent colds

Taylor won’t be stocking up on oranges anymore. He guessed that vitamin C prevents colds, as many of us probably would have said. Turns out it’s vitamin D that actually stops you getting a bad case of the sniffles.

Most ducks don’t quack

The frontman’s notion that putting a duck in an echo chamber would make it pregnant wasn’t quiiiite right (who knew?), but it did lead to the revelation that most ducks don’t actually quack. Female mallards are the main offenders when it comes to quacking, while other ducks coo and yodel. “This show, man,” drawled Taylor in disbelief on hearing the news.

You can’t constantly crack your knuckles

The sound of cracking knuckles is bubbles in the gas in your hands popping. You can’t do it more than once in a row because you need to wait for the bubbles to build back up again. As it turns out, Taylor’s pretty good at cracking both his knuckles and his jaw. Gross.

Watch the full episode on BBC iPlayer.