1,227 QI Facts to Blow Your Socks Off by John Lloyd, John Mitchinson Page B
Authors: John Lloyd, John Mitchinson
the world
and almost twice as many as China.
Chess, Ludo and Snakes and Ladders
were all invented in ancient India.
Snakes and Ladders was called
Moksha Patam
– ‘the path to liberation’.
South-east England
has a lower annual rainfall
than Jerusalem or Beirut.
50 to 100 people kill themselves
on the London Underground each year,
but official records state that
only three babies
have ever been born there,
in 1924, 2008 and 2009.
Women make
25% of the films in Iran,
compared to
4% in the US.
By 2025, there will be more
English speakers in China
than in the rest of the world put together
A new skyscraper
is built in China every five days.
By 2016, there will be four times as many
as in the whole of the US.
The electrical energy
that powers each cell in our bodies
works out at 30 million volts per metre,
the equivalent voltage
of a bolt of lightning.
The Netherlands
exports more soy sauce
than Japan.
Tokyo
has three times as many
Michelin-starred restaurants
as Paris.
Bricklehampton
is the longest place name in the UK
with no repeated letters.
A vulture can safely swallow
enough botulinum toxin
to kill 300,000 guinea pigs.
More than seven times
as many people in the UK
visit museums and galleries every year
as attend Premier League football games.
Manchester United
is the most hated brand in Britain
and the 7th most hated in the world.
Angola has the world’s best record
at football penalty shoot-outs.
They have never lost one.
Ants nod to each other
as they pass.
The Swiss
own more guns per head
than the Iraqis.
Saudi women
have won the right to vote,
but not the right
to drive to the polling station.
In Norway, ‘Odd’ and ‘Even’
are common male first names.
You can even (oddly)
have ‘Odd-Even’.
Richard the Lionheart’s
younger brother, John,
was nicknamed ‘Dollheart’.
A
smellsmock
is a priest
who indulges in extra-curricular
activities with his flock.
Japanese sheep go
‘meh’.
Gymnophoria
is the sense that someone is
mentally undressing you.
A
gynotikilobomassophile
is one who loves to
nibble women’s earlobes.
The Afrikaans
for an elephant’s trunk is
slurp
.
Brenda
means ‘inside’
in Albanian.
Baghdad means
‘God’s gift’
in Persian.
The first man to use the word
‘bored’
was Lord Byron in 1823.
The world’s oldest living thing
is a patch of Mediterranean sea-grass
between Spain and Cyprus.
It is estimated to be 200,000 years old.
The word
Twinings
in the tea company’s
original 300-year-old typeface
is the oldest continuously used
commercial logo in existence.
Every time he made a cup of coffee,
Beethoven counted out exactly 60 beans
to make sure it was always
exactly the same strength.
A female chimpanzee
in a fit of passion has the
strength of six men.
Higgs bosons,
assuming they exist at all,
exist for approximately
one zeptosecond –
a thousandth of a billionth
of a billionth of a second.
The Hundred Years War
lasted for
116 years.
There are more pigs in China
than in the next
43 pork-producing countries combined.
Some pigs suffer from
mysophobia,
the fear of mud.
Tyrosemiophile
n.
One who collects
cheese labels.
Ultracrepidarian
n.
Someone who doesn’t know
what they’re talking about.
Zemblanity
n.
Bad luck occurring
just as expected:
the opposite of serendipity.
Zinzulation
n.
The sound made
by power saws.
The seven years’ preparation
for the 2008 Beijing Olympics
reduced unemployment in the city to zero
and increased the average income by 89.9%.
Many of the doves
released at the opening ceremony
of the 1988 Seoul Olympics
were accidentally roasted alive
when the Olympic flame was lit.
More than 50% of Team GB’s medals
in the 2012 London Olympics were
and almost twice as many as China.
Chess, Ludo and Snakes and Ladders
were all invented in ancient India.
Snakes and Ladders was called
Moksha Patam
– ‘the path to liberation’.
South-east England
has a lower annual rainfall
than Jerusalem or Beirut.
50 to 100 people kill themselves
on the London Underground each year,
but official records state that
only three babies
have ever been born there,
in 1924, 2008 and 2009.
Women make
25% of the films in Iran,
compared to
4% in the US.
By 2025, there will be more
English speakers in China
than in the rest of the world put together
A new skyscraper
is built in China every five days.
By 2016, there will be four times as many
as in the whole of the US.
The electrical energy
that powers each cell in our bodies
works out at 30 million volts per metre,
the equivalent voltage
of a bolt of lightning.
The Netherlands
exports more soy sauce
than Japan.
Tokyo
has three times as many
Michelin-starred restaurants
as Paris.
Bricklehampton
is the longest place name in the UK
with no repeated letters.
A vulture can safely swallow
enough botulinum toxin
to kill 300,000 guinea pigs.
More than seven times
as many people in the UK
visit museums and galleries every year
as attend Premier League football games.
Manchester United
is the most hated brand in Britain
and the 7th most hated in the world.
Angola has the world’s best record
at football penalty shoot-outs.
They have never lost one.
Ants nod to each other
as they pass.
The Swiss
own more guns per head
than the Iraqis.
Saudi women
have won the right to vote,
but not the right
to drive to the polling station.
In Norway, ‘Odd’ and ‘Even’
are common male first names.
You can even (oddly)
have ‘Odd-Even’.
Richard the Lionheart’s
younger brother, John,
was nicknamed ‘Dollheart’.
A
smellsmock
is a priest
who indulges in extra-curricular
activities with his flock.
Japanese sheep go
‘meh’.
Gymnophoria
is the sense that someone is
mentally undressing you.
A
gynotikilobomassophile
is one who loves to
nibble women’s earlobes.
The Afrikaans
for an elephant’s trunk is
slurp
.
Brenda
means ‘inside’
in Albanian.
Baghdad means
‘God’s gift’
in Persian.
The first man to use the word
‘bored’
was Lord Byron in 1823.
The world’s oldest living thing
is a patch of Mediterranean sea-grass
between Spain and Cyprus.
It is estimated to be 200,000 years old.
The word
Twinings
in the tea company’s
original 300-year-old typeface
is the oldest continuously used
commercial logo in existence.
Every time he made a cup of coffee,
Beethoven counted out exactly 60 beans
to make sure it was always
exactly the same strength.
A female chimpanzee
in a fit of passion has the
strength of six men.
Higgs bosons,
assuming they exist at all,
exist for approximately
one zeptosecond –
a thousandth of a billionth
of a billionth of a second.
The Hundred Years War
lasted for
116 years.
There are more pigs in China
than in the next
43 pork-producing countries combined.
Some pigs suffer from
mysophobia,
the fear of mud.
Tyrosemiophile
n.
One who collects
cheese labels.
Ultracrepidarian
n.
Someone who doesn’t know
what they’re talking about.
Zemblanity
n.
Bad luck occurring
just as expected:
the opposite of serendipity.
Zinzulation
n.
The sound made
by power saws.
The seven years’ preparation
for the 2008 Beijing Olympics
reduced unemployment in the city to zero
and increased the average income by 89.9%.
Many of the doves
released at the opening ceremony
of the 1988 Seoul Olympics
were accidentally roasted alive
when the Olympic flame was lit.
More than 50% of Team GB’s medals
in the 2012 London Olympics were
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