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Quite Interesting Facts #1
1,227 QI Facts to Blow Your Socks Off
QI is the smartest comedy show on British television, but few people know that we're also a major legal hit in Australia, New Zealand, Israel and Africa and an illegal one on BitTorrent. We also write books and newspaper columns; run a thriving website, a Facebook page, a Twitter feed; and produce an iPhone App and a sister Radio 4 programme. At the core of what we do is the astonishing fact - painstakingly researched and distilled to a brilliant and shocking clarity. In Einstein's words: 'Everything should be as simple as possible, but not simpler.' Did you know that: cows moo in regional accents; the entire internet weighs less than a grain of sand; the dialling code from Britain to Russia is 007; potatoes have more chromosomes than human beings; the London Underground has made more money from its famous map than it has from running trains; Tintin is called Tantan in Japanese because TinTin is pronounced 'Chin chin' and means penis; the water in the mouth of a blue whale weighs more than its body; Scotland has twice as many pandas as Conservative MPs; Saddam's bunker was designed by the grandson of the woman who built Hitler's bunker; Under the Wildlife and Countryside Act of 1981, it is explicitly illegal in Britain to use a machinegun to kill a hedgehog. 1,227 QI Facts To Blow Your Socks Off will make you look at the universe (and your socks) in an alarming new way.
336 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 1, 2012
332 people are currently reading
2978 people want to read
About the author
John Lloyd
225 books138 followersJohn Hardress Wilfred Lloyd is an English television and radio comedy producer and writer. His television work includes Not the Nine O'Clock News, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Spitting Image, Blackadder and QI. He is currently the presenter of BBC Radio 4's The Museum of Curiosity.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 213 reviews
July 13, 2020
3.5 stars
I found this in a free library and it certainly was quite interesting. I love facts and this certainly included some fascinating ones.
I was amused that Jeremy Paxman didn't make it into his college's university challenge team. I really couldn't believe the average British woman spends £100,000 on make up in a lifetime, considering many of us will spend next to nothing some must be spending even more. I also found it hard to believe that 1 in 50 Scots are heroin addicts. I loved that St Bridgid performed the miracle of turning her bath water into beer. Evidently almost any domestic cat can outrun Usain Bolt. Some sad facts that I've heard before such as 99% of all the species that have ever lived are now extinct and that war kills more civilians than soldiers. Finally a very apt fact for our current situation- if everyone in the world washed their hands properly, a million lives could be saved a year.
An interesting book to flick through or just read cover to cover.
I found this in a free library and it certainly was quite interesting. I love facts and this certainly included some fascinating ones.
I was amused that Jeremy Paxman didn't make it into his college's university challenge team. I really couldn't believe the average British woman spends £100,000 on make up in a lifetime, considering many of us will spend next to nothing some must be spending even more. I also found it hard to believe that 1 in 50 Scots are heroin addicts. I loved that St Bridgid performed the miracle of turning her bath water into beer. Evidently almost any domestic cat can outrun Usain Bolt. Some sad facts that I've heard before such as 99% of all the species that have ever lived are now extinct and that war kills more civilians than soldiers. Finally a very apt fact for our current situation- if everyone in the world washed their hands properly, a million lives could be saved a year.
An interesting book to flick through or just read cover to cover.
August 20, 2015
I used to be a boghandler, that's 'bookseller' in Danish. If there are enough diamonds in the world to give everyone a cupful, why are they so expensive? Did you know Bram Stoker, author of Dracula, married Oscar Wilde's first girlfriend? There's a joke in there somewhere, I know it.
The point is, these 1,227 QI Facts are eye-opening, hilarious and just plain weird. Trivia isn't for everyone but this is a great toilet or coffee table book, something you can dip in and out of whenever the mood takes you. And you know those awkward moments when you realize you've nothing to talk about when you're stuck with someone you're forced to interact with, well you can use the gems in these pages as little conversation starters. Just memorize a few.
At £0.20 for the Kindle edition, this was a steal. The only thing that could've made it better would be if Stephen Fry had written it.
Below are a few of my favourites - which seem to revolve around sex, death and books - are grouped into definitions & translations, literary facts and general trivia.
DEFINITIONS & TRANSLATIONS
The point is, these 1,227 QI Facts are eye-opening, hilarious and just plain weird. Trivia isn't for everyone but this is a great toilet or coffee table book, something you can dip in and out of whenever the mood takes you. And you know those awkward moments when you realize you've nothing to talk about when you're stuck with someone you're forced to interact with, well you can use the gems in these pages as little conversation starters. Just memorize a few.
At £0.20 for the Kindle edition, this was a steal. The only thing that could've made it better would be if Stephen Fry had written it.
Below are a few of my favourites - which seem to revolve around sex, death and books - are grouped into definitions & translations, literary facts and general trivia.
DEFINITIONS & TRANSLATIONS
Words we need to read in romance novels:
Blissom vb. To bleat with sexual desire.
Meupareunia n. Sexual activity enjoyed by only one of the participants.
Callypygian adj. Having beautiful buttocks.
Areodjarekput is an Inuit word meaning ‘to exchange wives for a few days only’.
Gymnophoria is the sense that someone is mentally undressing you.
Words we need to use in everyday life:
Eye-servant n. One who only works when the boss is watching.
Hemipygic adj. Having only one buttock; half-arsed.
Deipnophobia n. The fear of dinner party conversations.
Nomophobia n. The fear of being out of mobile phone contact.
The symbols used by !$%@ing cartoonists to indicate swearing are called grawlixes.
The pleasant smell of earth after rain is caused by bacteria in the soil and is called petrichor – from Greek petros, ‘stone’ and ichor, ‘the fluid that flows through the veins of the gods’.
The Finnish word for pedant, pilkunnussija, translates literally as ‘comma fucker’.
Cockshut is another word for twilight – the time of day when chickens are put to bed.
Ultracrepidarian n. Someone who doesn’t know what they’re talking about.
Until the 19th century the English word for actors was ‘hypocrites’.
LITERARY FACTS
The road signs of the Austrian village of Fucking are set in concrete to deter thieves.
More than 50% of NASA employees are dyslexic, hired for their superior problem-solving and spatial-awareness skills.
The Dyslexia Research Centre is in Reading.
Fewer than 5% of blind or visually impaired people in the UK can read Braille.
1,500,000 [Americans] are injured [each year] as a result of doctors' bad handwriting.
25 million Bibles were printed in 2011, compared to 208 million IKEA catalogues.
2.5 million Mills & Boon novels were pulped and added to the tarmac of the UK’s M6 toll motorway to make it more absorbent.
Within 200 yards of the flat in Islington where George Orwell had the idea for 1984, there are now 32 CCTV cameras.
Oprah is ‘Harpo’ backwards. Oprah Winfrey’s real name is Orpah (after the sister of Ruth in the Bible) but no one could say or spell it properly so she eventually gave up correcting them. [Harpo is the stepson of Oprah's character in the film adaption of Alice Walker's The Color Purple.]
The Malleus Maleficarum, a 15th-century treatise on witchcraft, warned that witches stole men’s penises and kept them in birds’ nests.
In online dating sites you are more likely to come across a teacher or lecturer than someone from any other profession.
Every year, a thousand letters arrive in Jerusalem addressed to God.
Casanova was a librarian.
GENERAL TRIVIA
Every human being starts out life as an arsehole: it’s the first part of the body to form in the womb.
In the 19th century, [doctors literally 'blew smoke up your arse' (rectal inflation)] to resuscitate the drowned.
The penalty for adultery in ancient Greece involved hammering a radish into the adulterer’s bottom with a mallet. Radishes were a lot longer and pointier in those days.
Sucking a king’s nipples was a gesture of submission in ancient Ireland.
More than 50% of koalas have chlamydia.
Baby koalas are weaned on their mother’s excrement. It is consumed directly from their mother’s bottom in the form of ‘soup’.
Male fruit flies rejected by females drink significantly more alcohol than those that have had a successful encounter.
A female ferret will die if she doesn’t have sex for a year.
Until 1857, it was legal for British husbands to sell their wives. The going rate was £3,000 (£23,000 in today’s money).
Vatican City has the highest crime rate in the world. Though the resident population is only just over 800, more than 600 crimes are committed there each year.
In Japan only 2% of adoptions are of children; 98% are adult males aged 25 to 30.
Aerosmith have made more money from Guitar Hero than from any of their albums.
Each year, drug baron Pablo Escobar had to write off 10% of his cash holdings because of rats nibbling away at his huge stash of bank notes.
St Vitus is the patron saint of oversleeping.
In 2010, the Catholic Church had an income of $97 billion. [That's more than Apple.]
Italy’s biggest business is the Mafia. It turns over $178 billion a year and accounts for 7% of GDP.
Sudan has more pyramids than Egypt.
The US has only 5% of the world’s population, but almost 25% of its prison population.
In 1672, an angry mob of Dutchmen killed and ate their prime minister.
The Aztecs sacrificed 1% of their population every year, or about 250,000 people. They also sacrificed eagles, jaguars, butterflies and hummingbirds.
After George W. Bush was re-elected president in 2004, the number of calls from US citizens to the Canadian Immigration authorities jumped from 20,000 to 115,000 a day.
Modern homing pigeons find it more convenient to follow motorways and ring roads and turn left and right at junctions rather than using their in-built navigational abilities.
Most antibiotics are made from bacteria. And bacteria can get viruses.
July 13, 2020
Quite interesting!
Fascinating facts about practically everything are included in this very readable volume. Because it is QI-based, one can assume that everything within the covers is genuine but one would be forgiven for wondering whether some of the facts are spoofs (of course, they aren't). But one could always consider Mark Twain's quote, 'Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.'
For instance, did Sylvester Stallone really clean out lion cages before becoming an actor? Did Argentine scientists really test hamsters to discover that giving them Viagra helps them to recover from jet lag 50% faster? Does a snowflake that falls on a glacier in central Greenland take 200,000 years to reach the sea? I wonder how they checked this one?
Are baboons in Chile more receptive to poetry than the average Chilean? Seven Chilean scientists thought so after they had held a reading in the baboon enclosure of Santiago Zoo! And would a marshmallow travelling at sea level not begin to melt from friction caused by air resistance until it reached Mach 1.6 (1,218mph)? Clever these scientists who work such things out.
Ones that are more amusing (and more possibly true - they all are!) include the longest place name in the UK with no repeated letters (think about it, answer at the end), Alice, the third largest town in Australia's Northern Territory used to be called 'Stuart' (Neville Shute must have been delighted it changed its name because 'A Town Like Stuart' doesn't seem to have the same ring about it!), 'Mother-in-law' is an anagram of 'Hitler's woman' (that explains plenty and many gentlemen would perhaps already have known this!), Leo Tolstoy's wife wrote out the drafts of 'War and Peace' for him, in longhand, six times - brave Sophia, reading it once is enough!
And when a medium in a trance offered to answer any question, Groucho Marx asked, 'What's the capital of North Dakota?' Well, I'm sure the medium found this far too easy for everyone knows it is Metternich ... oh, sorry Bismarck, well I knew it was the name of a German statesman.
On the literary front, Charles Dickens considered Small Sam, Little Larry and Puny Pete before settling on our well-known and well-liked Tiny Tim and his alternatives for Chuzzlewit included Sweetledew, Chuzzletoe, Sweetleback and Sweetlewag; perhaps Martin Sweetlewag might have caught on as well as Martin Chuzzlewit has, who knows? John Steinbeck used 300 pencils writing 'East of Eden' (which leads me to wonder how many Sophia Tolstoy used in transcribing 'War and Peace') and Evelyn Waugh might never have written 'Decline and Fall', 'Scoop', 'Brideshead Revisited' and the rest if he had succeeded in drowning himself during his first teaching job in 1925; he went out to sea to commit the act but turned back after being stung by a jellyfish!
Finally I'm sure we all know an ultracrepidarian, for that is someone who doesn't know what they are talking about and I have discovered that I am probably a great dringler, for to dringle is to waste time in a lazy manner!
As I said at the beginning, it is indeed a quite interesting, and enjoyable, book with plenty of fascinating facts that they say, 'will blow your socks off' - I must confess mine are still on!
Oh, by the way, the longest place name in the UK with no repeated letters is, of course (!), Bricklehampton, a village in Worcestershire.
Fascinating facts about practically everything are included in this very readable volume. Because it is QI-based, one can assume that everything within the covers is genuine but one would be forgiven for wondering whether some of the facts are spoofs (of course, they aren't). But one could always consider Mark Twain's quote, 'Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.'
For instance, did Sylvester Stallone really clean out lion cages before becoming an actor? Did Argentine scientists really test hamsters to discover that giving them Viagra helps them to recover from jet lag 50% faster? Does a snowflake that falls on a glacier in central Greenland take 200,000 years to reach the sea? I wonder how they checked this one?
Are baboons in Chile more receptive to poetry than the average Chilean? Seven Chilean scientists thought so after they had held a reading in the baboon enclosure of Santiago Zoo! And would a marshmallow travelling at sea level not begin to melt from friction caused by air resistance until it reached Mach 1.6 (1,218mph)? Clever these scientists who work such things out.
Ones that are more amusing (and more possibly true - they all are!) include the longest place name in the UK with no repeated letters (think about it, answer at the end), Alice, the third largest town in Australia's Northern Territory used to be called 'Stuart' (Neville Shute must have been delighted it changed its name because 'A Town Like Stuart' doesn't seem to have the same ring about it!), 'Mother-in-law' is an anagram of 'Hitler's woman' (that explains plenty and many gentlemen would perhaps already have known this!), Leo Tolstoy's wife wrote out the drafts of 'War and Peace' for him, in longhand, six times - brave Sophia, reading it once is enough!
And when a medium in a trance offered to answer any question, Groucho Marx asked, 'What's the capital of North Dakota?' Well, I'm sure the medium found this far too easy for everyone knows it is Metternich ... oh, sorry Bismarck, well I knew it was the name of a German statesman.
On the literary front, Charles Dickens considered Small Sam, Little Larry and Puny Pete before settling on our well-known and well-liked Tiny Tim and his alternatives for Chuzzlewit included Sweetledew, Chuzzletoe, Sweetleback and Sweetlewag; perhaps Martin Sweetlewag might have caught on as well as Martin Chuzzlewit has, who knows? John Steinbeck used 300 pencils writing 'East of Eden' (which leads me to wonder how many Sophia Tolstoy used in transcribing 'War and Peace') and Evelyn Waugh might never have written 'Decline and Fall', 'Scoop', 'Brideshead Revisited' and the rest if he had succeeded in drowning himself during his first teaching job in 1925; he went out to sea to commit the act but turned back after being stung by a jellyfish!
Finally I'm sure we all know an ultracrepidarian, for that is someone who doesn't know what they are talking about and I have discovered that I am probably a great dringler, for to dringle is to waste time in a lazy manner!
As I said at the beginning, it is indeed a quite interesting, and enjoyable, book with plenty of fascinating facts that they say, 'will blow your socks off' - I must confess mine are still on!
Oh, by the way, the longest place name in the UK with no repeated letters is, of course (!), Bricklehampton, a village in Worcestershire.
December 6, 2012
If you enjoy the QI programme, you'll love this fantastic collection of the weird and the wonderful. I got it in the Kindle format for the bargain price of 20p and read it all the way through without stopping. Now I'm going through it again reading out loud to anyone who'll listen. One point is that this is probably better bought in the print format as it's the perfect coffee table book; your friends will enjoy dipping in - but they'll have trouble putting it down.
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August 9, 2018
[First Read: 25th December, 2012. Four Stars.
Second Read: 25th March, 2018. Three Stars.]
QI is one of the most popular British comedy panel shows. It's intellectual prowess is unrivalled, as is its humour.
1227 QI Facts to Blow Your Socks Off does exactly what it says on the tin: a book full of (1227) facts that are simultaneously wonderful, funny, intriguing and down-right weird. A wonderful book to dip in and out of. It's not set out in any kind of order: there are no themes or sections, it's simply a list of facts to give you The Knowledge. Use it wisely.
Downgraded because a.) it's just a long list of facts. Whilst they're fun and unusual facts the later books from QI are interspersed with more information and snippets from the show, so this is a bit bland, and b.) because four stars made me pull a face.
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Second Read: 25th March, 2018. Three Stars.]
QI is one of the most popular British comedy panel shows. It's intellectual prowess is unrivalled, as is its humour.
1227 QI Facts to Blow Your Socks Off does exactly what it says on the tin: a book full of (1227) facts that are simultaneously wonderful, funny, intriguing and down-right weird. A wonderful book to dip in and out of. It's not set out in any kind of order: there are no themes or sections, it's simply a list of facts to give you The Knowledge. Use it wisely.
Downgraded because a.) it's just a long list of facts. Whilst they're fun and unusual facts the later books from QI are interspersed with more information and snippets from the show, so this is a bit bland, and b.) because four stars made me pull a face.
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December 2, 2013
Loved it! I thought a book of facts would bore me after awhile and I'd want to read something else, but I tore right through. The way it's organized is almost poetic!
November 4, 2012
I have a weakness for books like this. It's really just a list of facts, some more fascinating than others. The most memorable ones of course involve penises (Kinsey could insert a toothbrush into his, bristle-end first; barnacles can have penises up to 20x longer than their body) and such things. Many of them will be familiar from even a few episodes of QI (I recognised a handful from the most recent series, anyway), and some were unfortunately also very familiar to me from Mark Forsyth's The Horologicon, which I'm also reading at the moment. Hmmm.
July 29, 2016
A great book to read before bed!
The average pencil can write 45,000 words, or a single line 35 miles long.
George W. Bush named The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle as his favourite childhood book. It was published when he was 23 years old.
The average pencil can write 45,000 words, or a single line 35 miles long.
George W. Bush named The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle as his favourite childhood book. It was published when he was 23 years old.
July 31, 2017
Özümə maraqlı gələn faktları sitatlara əlavə etmişəm və sayları cəmi 43-dür. Ara-sıra maraqlı idi, təkrarlar da gözdən yayınmadı. Muzey faktov səhifəsini ardıcıl oxuyursan sanki. Kitabın formatı onsuzda belə olacağını xəbər verirdi, ona görə gözlənilməz birşey yoxdur. Oxuyun, özünüzü ağıllı göstərib hamının zəhləsini tökmək üçün ideal vasitədir.
March 28, 2015
Fascinating and fun facts about pretty much anything and everything.
October 8, 2013
"The average house cat is faster than Usain Bolt." Fun little book, endlessly useful for annoying a spouse while he/she is trying to do something else.
January 3, 2018
None of the facts "blew my socks off" but they were amusing/interesting. Some of the facts I liked where:
Some Pigs suffer from Mysophobia, the fear of mud.
Thomas Edison's last breath is held in a vial at the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit.
In 2011, cheese was the most stolen food in the world.
Some Pigs suffer from Mysophobia, the fear of mud.
Thomas Edison's last breath is held in a vial at the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit.
In 2011, cheese was the most stolen food in the world.
May 24, 2020
Purely a non fiction filled with utterly fictional facts and I devoured almost every part of the book insanely.
Detail reviews with facts interesting in my eyes will follow soon.
Oh and EID MUBARAK.
Detail reviews with facts interesting in my eyes will follow soon.
Oh and EID MUBARAK.
February 4, 2017
As per usual, QI is very good in the sock removal department. I always adore the books QI put out, each with new and odd facts and figures you never knew you never knew, or ever needed to know for that matter. This is a quicker book to get through, filled with short snippets of information rather than the pages and paragraphs of previous books. I think John Lloyd mentioned in the introduction the lay out it similar to reading poetry, and it is. Each fact is centred and broken up into 3 or 4 lines and are just little bites of information that make you go 'oh,' and then you move on. Or you are like me and you go 'really?' and then read it again to make sure you weren't seeing things and get rather impressed on the inside at the world. I'm not saying that will be every one's response but just letting you know it is a possible reaction and don't shy away from it, it's glorious.
There is also no real structure to this, no alphabetising, no subject categories, nor are there questions; simple facts. Though there has been some rather clever editing that manages to connect each fact with the previous and following rather well.
This is an easy read, but also very fun. You just read these snippets and hope it all gets absorbed into your brain for future reference. But even if it isn't, just knowing it at the time and thinking it was amazing or even simply quite interesting is a pretty good thing. And who knows what odd fact will pop into your brain when the need arises, then you can wow your friends and be one of us who just knows weird and strange facts about everything. Don't shy away from it. Join us!
There is also no real structure to this, no alphabetising, no subject categories, nor are there questions; simple facts. Though there has been some rather clever editing that manages to connect each fact with the previous and following rather well.
This is an easy read, but also very fun. You just read these snippets and hope it all gets absorbed into your brain for future reference. But even if it isn't, just knowing it at the time and thinking it was amazing or even simply quite interesting is a pretty good thing. And who knows what odd fact will pop into your brain when the need arises, then you can wow your friends and be one of us who just knows weird and strange facts about everything. Don't shy away from it. Join us!
January 17, 2013
This was a bit of a disappointment. Not because I expected it to be a little more organised, like the other QI books I've got (not yet finished), and not because it is frankly a bit of a bog book. No, I was disappointed because the "facts" came nowhere near to blowing my socks off.
I may have become jaded, but revelations such as "In 2010, YouTube was watched 700bn times, but 99% of the views were of only 30% of the videos" were humdrum and unsurprising. "only 2% of women describe themselves as beautiful" says far more about the survey in question than the supposed self-image (or, I suspect, more likely self-effacement) of the women. Some are just fatuous: "The exchange rate in Vietnam [of all places!!!] is about 20,000 dongs to the dollar". What exactly are we supposed to make of, or marvel at in, this? That "dong" sounds funny? (It does indeed). That some currencies are in high denominations? (you astound me). "27,000 trees are felled each day for toilet paper". Apart from the supposed naughtiness of toilet paper over any other type of paper, where does this go? How much per person in the world? To what other uses is the tree put? Taken alone, this number is meaningless.
Some were good: "if your stomach acid got onto your skin it would burn a hole in it". Interesting, an insight into the diversity of the body, a reminder of our complexity and fragility. Fine, this is the kind of stuff I want. Others were also good, but my Kindle won't allow me to copy and paste and I can't be bothered (Soz) to copytype. But it was nowhere near enough.
I don't expect a 100% hit rate, but this was a pretty shallow effort.
I may have become jaded, but revelations such as "In 2010, YouTube was watched 700bn times, but 99% of the views were of only 30% of the videos" were humdrum and unsurprising. "only 2% of women describe themselves as beautiful" says far more about the survey in question than the supposed self-image (or, I suspect, more likely self-effacement) of the women. Some are just fatuous: "The exchange rate in Vietnam [of all places!!!] is about 20,000 dongs to the dollar". What exactly are we supposed to make of, or marvel at in, this? That "dong" sounds funny? (It does indeed). That some currencies are in high denominations? (you astound me). "27,000 trees are felled each day for toilet paper". Apart from the supposed naughtiness of toilet paper over any other type of paper, where does this go? How much per person in the world? To what other uses is the tree put? Taken alone, this number is meaningless.
Some were good: "if your stomach acid got onto your skin it would burn a hole in it". Interesting, an insight into the diversity of the body, a reminder of our complexity and fragility. Fine, this is the kind of stuff I want. Others were also good, but my Kindle won't allow me to copy and paste and I can't be bothered (Soz) to copytype. But it was nowhere near enough.
I don't expect a 100% hit rate, but this was a pretty shallow effort.
January 31, 2016
As far as a book of facts goes, this book covered an interesting selection. There were sections on the etymology of words from many different languages, and facts about people, places, animals and artefacts. They all linked together excellently, usually bouncing off the previous fact - for example "Asteroid 1,227 is called Geranium" leads to "The ozone layer smells faintly of geraniums" - thankfully that's where the geranium related facts end.
Unfortunately, very few facts (precisely zero in fact) blew my socks off. I read this book on my Kindle and I highlighted a number I thought were interesting so that I can locate them easily in the future, should I so desire. On a couple of occasions whilst reading this book I found that I had new found knowledge that I was able to insert into conversation at suitable times, so some facts must have become ingrained in my brain.
If you want a quick, interesting, purely factual book, this is excellent. Although why you're going to need to know that "A newborn giant panda weighs less than a cup of tea" I have no idea!
Unfortunately, very few facts (precisely zero in fact) blew my socks off. I read this book on my Kindle and I highlighted a number I thought were interesting so that I can locate them easily in the future, should I so desire. On a couple of occasions whilst reading this book I found that I had new found knowledge that I was able to insert into conversation at suitable times, so some facts must have become ingrained in my brain.
If you want a quick, interesting, purely factual book, this is excellent. Although why you're going to need to know that "A newborn giant panda weighs less than a cup of tea" I have no idea!
July 7, 2025
I absolutely adore random facts so when I saw this book I couldn't resist. It is an absolutely fantastic collection of facts that range from ridiculous, hilarious and really educational. I couldn't recommend it more for anyone who likes to know random things about our world and it is also great for those pub quizzes!
February 10, 2013
Bought this on Kindle for 20p and its brilliant. Definitely worth reading though its not one of those books you can read on you're own. You end up having to tell someone, anyone that you can find what fact you just read.
September 1, 2013
An awesome book of facts. I could not put it down until I finished reading it. Some seem so unbelievable that you want to fact check them. When you do, you seem shocked that they are all true!
I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads.
I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads.
April 12, 2015
Another random kindle. Loosely grouped trivia taken from the QI quiz show. Not the sort of thing to read as a book, more the sort of thing that sits in the toilet to be opened at random and enjoyed.
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October 10, 2013
I can't help myself, I love random fact books. I thought this was a good one, and I certainly learned a lot.
January 3, 2014
A fun and interesting read, full of wonderfully repeatable soundbites. It never ceases to amaze.
January 26, 2014
Very huh!-worthy.
January 22, 2015
Good subway reading that doesn't reqire great brain effort. Quite interesting if you like learning odd things that you'd never think normally:)
July 3, 2014
Quite interesting facts indeed! I liked the way they did all poetically come together in the way they were ordered -- we can draw so many connections between the lines themselves.
June 27, 2014
Knowledge!
May 12, 2018
I liked a lot of the facts. A few I thought were off. For example: a Smoug is defined as a small, unimportant Scottish person. It's better defined as a Scottish word for a small, unimportant person. Another; Oprah is said to be the misspelling of Orpah, Ruth's sister in the Bible. Orpah is in the Bible, though she is Ruth's sister in law. Whether or not they are sisters isn't mentioned.
Facts I liked:
-The speed of wind has fallen by 60% in the last 30 years.
-Wars kill more civilians than soldiers; in a war the safest place to be is usually in the army.
-The EU spends over a billion Euros a year on translation.
-The electrical energy that powers each cell in our bodies works out at 27 million volts per yard, the equivalent voltage of a bolt of lightning.
-An animal the size of an elephant could evolve to an animal the size of a sheep in 100,000 generations, but for an animal the size of a sheep to evolve to the size of an elephant would take 1.6 million generations.
-The French philosopher Voltaire's explanation for why the fossils of seashells are found on mountaintops was that they had been left there by ancient picnickers with a taste for seafood.
-The best-selling work of fiction of the 15th century was The Tale of Two Lovers, an erotic novel by the man who later became Pope Pius II.
-In Maori, the word Maori means "normal".
-Until the late 15th century, the word "girl" just meant a child. Boys were referred to as 'knave girls' and female children were 'gay girls'.
-Highways in western USA are based on the migratory routes of bison.
-Two-thirds of all the people in the world who have ever lived to be 65 are still alive today.
-99% of Austrians are German, though most Austrians insist that they aren't.
-There are at least 27 million slaves in the world today, more than were ever seized from Africa in the 400 years of the slave trade.
-The animal rights group PETA claims that cows can suffer humiliation if people laugh at them.
-A female ferret will die if she doesn't have sex for a year.
-Zischeln is a useful German verb meaning "to whisper angrily"
-Hungarian has no words for "son" or "daughter" but nine specific words for different kinds of brother or sister.
-All polar bears are Irish: they're descended from brown bears that lived in Ireland over 10,000 years ago.
-More than half the world's population is under 25 and more than half of it is bilingual.
-Per gram per second, more energy runs through a sunflower than through the Sun itself.
-There are thought to be 100,000 uncharted mountains under the sea. Only 1,000or so have ever been mapped.
-Aborigines, whose culture reaches back to the last Ice Age, have names for (and can locate) mountains that have been under the sea for 8,000 years.
-In Inuktitut, iminngernaveersaartunngortussaavunga means "I should try not to become an alcoholic."
-Vatican City has the highest crime rate in the world. Though the resident population is only just over 800, more than 600 crimes are committed there each year.
-40% of the human race did not survive beyond their 1st birthday.
- The word 'time' is the may commonly used noun in English.
-1/3 of Russians believe the sun revolves around the earth.
- center of the galaxy tastes like raspberries.
Quotes I liked:
"Do not become a mere recorder of facts, but try to penetrate the mystery of their origin. "- Ivan Petrovich Pavlov
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts. "- Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Facts I liked:
-The speed of wind has fallen by 60% in the last 30 years.
-Wars kill more civilians than soldiers; in a war the safest place to be is usually in the army.
-The EU spends over a billion Euros a year on translation.
-The electrical energy that powers each cell in our bodies works out at 27 million volts per yard, the equivalent voltage of a bolt of lightning.
-An animal the size of an elephant could evolve to an animal the size of a sheep in 100,000 generations, but for an animal the size of a sheep to evolve to the size of an elephant would take 1.6 million generations.
-The French philosopher Voltaire's explanation for why the fossils of seashells are found on mountaintops was that they had been left there by ancient picnickers with a taste for seafood.
-The best-selling work of fiction of the 15th century was The Tale of Two Lovers, an erotic novel by the man who later became Pope Pius II.
-In Maori, the word Maori means "normal".
-Until the late 15th century, the word "girl" just meant a child. Boys were referred to as 'knave girls' and female children were 'gay girls'.
-Highways in western USA are based on the migratory routes of bison.
-Two-thirds of all the people in the world who have ever lived to be 65 are still alive today.
-99% of Austrians are German, though most Austrians insist that they aren't.
-There are at least 27 million slaves in the world today, more than were ever seized from Africa in the 400 years of the slave trade.
-The animal rights group PETA claims that cows can suffer humiliation if people laugh at them.
-A female ferret will die if she doesn't have sex for a year.
-Zischeln is a useful German verb meaning "to whisper angrily"
-Hungarian has no words for "son" or "daughter" but nine specific words for different kinds of brother or sister.
-All polar bears are Irish: they're descended from brown bears that lived in Ireland over 10,000 years ago.
-More than half the world's population is under 25 and more than half of it is bilingual.
-Per gram per second, more energy runs through a sunflower than through the Sun itself.
-There are thought to be 100,000 uncharted mountains under the sea. Only 1,000or so have ever been mapped.
-Aborigines, whose culture reaches back to the last Ice Age, have names for (and can locate) mountains that have been under the sea for 8,000 years.
-In Inuktitut, iminngernaveersaartunngortussaavunga means "I should try not to become an alcoholic."
-Vatican City has the highest crime rate in the world. Though the resident population is only just over 800, more than 600 crimes are committed there each year.
-40% of the human race did not survive beyond their 1st birthday.
- The word 'time' is the may commonly used noun in English.
-1/3 of Russians believe the sun revolves around the earth.
- center of the galaxy tastes like raspberries.
Quotes I liked:
"Do not become a mere recorder of facts, but try to penetrate the mystery of their origin. "- Ivan Petrovich Pavlov
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts. "- Daniel Patrick Moynihan
April 30, 2019
This was a fun read! I love learning new things; and I hope you do too!
These little gems, of trivia, were my favorites.
A. The word "time" is the most commonly used noun in English.
B. Under extreme high pressure, diamonds can be made from peanut butter.
C. For 48 years after canned food was invented, people who wanted to eat it had to use a hammer and chisel. The can opener wasn't invented until 1858.
D. Jack Bauer, the lead character in the hit TV series, killed 112 people in the first five seasons of the show. (One of my favorite series of all time! I am positive all those were in self defense! LOL)
E. If you have a pizza with radius Z and thickness A, its volume is PI*Z*Z*A.
F. The amount of water on Earth is constant, and continually recycled over time; some of the water you drink will have passed through a dinosaur!
G. There is one and a half times more caffeine in milk chocolate than in Coca-Cola.
H. Thomas Edison proposed to his second wife in Morse Code.
I. John Wayne, once won Lassie the Dog, in a game of poker.
So, why only four stars and not five?
These authors seem to have an obsession with certain parts of the anatomy that I do not want to know anything more about!
Whether it be an insect, animal, or human, they talk about those parts way too much!
As Lord Byron wrote, "Tis strange - but true; for truth is always strange; Stranger than fiction."
These little gems, of trivia, were my favorites.
A. The word "time" is the most commonly used noun in English.
B. Under extreme high pressure, diamonds can be made from peanut butter.
C. For 48 years after canned food was invented, people who wanted to eat it had to use a hammer and chisel. The can opener wasn't invented until 1858.
D. Jack Bauer, the lead character in the hit TV series, killed 112 people in the first five seasons of the show. (One of my favorite series of all time! I am positive all those were in self defense! LOL)
E. If you have a pizza with radius Z and thickness A, its volume is PI*Z*Z*A.
F. The amount of water on Earth is constant, and continually recycled over time; some of the water you drink will have passed through a dinosaur!
G. There is one and a half times more caffeine in milk chocolate than in Coca-Cola.
H. Thomas Edison proposed to his second wife in Morse Code.
I. John Wayne, once won Lassie the Dog, in a game of poker.
So, why only four stars and not five?
These authors seem to have an obsession with certain parts of the anatomy that I do not want to know anything more about!
Whether it be an insect, animal, or human, they talk about those parts way too much!
As Lord Byron wrote, "Tis strange - but true; for truth is always strange; Stranger than fiction."
January 3, 2021
I approached this book while I was looking for a fun read with random facts, it didn't disappoint in that matter, but I was surprised by a few things about the book itself. Being based on the QI show (which I have never heard of) makes most of the facts and concepts in the book oriented to British audience/culture. You will encounter many points were it is assumed you know it is in Britain whenever not mentioned otherwise, for example "The Dyslexia Research Centre is in Reading". The second notice was that many of the facts are related to language (e.g. Muntin n. The thin strip of wood or metal that divides the panes of glass in a window. ) and mind twisters rather than scientific or statistical facts. However, the book is really attractive and in bite-size that you may lose yourself in it for a couple of days until finished. It seems that most of the facts would be forgotten very fast, so it is better to highlight your best facts and collect them somewhere. My best fact within the book was that "Dune, by Frank Herbert, the world’s best selling science fiction novel, was rejected over 20 times before being accepted by a publisher of car manuals!"
January 28, 2021
Fun read! I finished the book in daily doses during my exams ,so more often than not these facts were the highlight of my day, tbh.
The facts in the book ranged from interesting and funny to gross and weird. Like look at these two from the book:
"Thomas Edison’s last breath is held in a vial at the Henry Ford museum in Detroit."
Umm WHY?! I was imagining someone with a vial standing besides Edison’s bed and being like "Wait is he dying? Let me store his last breath in this little bottle just for fun instead of getting him help or something. Great idea huh." and...
"After Einstein died, his brain was pickled, sliced into 240 cubes and left in a box marked ‘Costa Cider’ for 20 years."
WHAT! WHY WOULD THEY EVEN? WHAT PURPOSE WOULD THAT EVEN SERVE?! AND PICKLED FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE!
To conclude, my feet are now cold because I no longer have any socks left.
The facts in the book ranged from interesting and funny to gross and weird. Like look at these two from the book:
"Thomas Edison’s last breath is held in a vial at the Henry Ford museum in Detroit."
Umm WHY?! I was imagining someone with a vial standing besides Edison’s bed and being like "Wait is he dying? Let me store his last breath in this little bottle just for fun instead of getting him help or something. Great idea huh." and...
"After Einstein died, his brain was pickled, sliced into 240 cubes and left in a box marked ‘Costa Cider’ for 20 years."
WHAT! WHY WOULD THEY EVEN? WHAT PURPOSE WOULD THAT EVEN SERVE?! AND PICKLED FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE!
To conclude, my feet are now cold because I no longer have any socks left.
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