was made of papier mâché.
To ‘baffle’ someone
once meant to subject them
to public disgrace
by hanging their picture
upside down.
Edward Elgar (1857–1934)
is the only major composer
to have mastered
the bassoon.
The Wars of the Roses
weren’t called that.
Sir Walter Scott invented the name
four centuries after the conflict.
A walleteer
is an indispensable word
for someone who has a wallet.
Before becoming an artist,
Magritte was a professional
wallpaper designer.
The playwright
Tennessee Williams (1911–83)
choked to death
on a bottle cap.
If the mass in a one-kilogram bag of sugar
could be converted into energy,
it would be enough to drive a car
non-stop for 100,000 years.
There were no recorded boxing matches
anywhere in the world
between the fall of the Roman Empire
and 1681.
Only three
of the original 60 clauses
of Magna Carta
are still in force.
The soldiers of Edward III
dressed up as swans for banquets.
The king himself came
as a pheasant.
The EU
spends over a billion Euros a year
on translation.
A third of the 250 Americans
who catch leprosy every year
get it from
armadillos.
90% of the bullets
bought by the Ministry of Defence
are used for training purposes.
The number of ten-year-olds
in Britain who hold
legal shotgun licences
is 26.
More than a third
of the world’s smokers
are Chinese.
A lethal dose of caffeine
is about 50 double espressos.
Red Bull
was originally called
Red Water Buffalo.
President Obama’s secret-service nickname
is ‘Renegade’. Ronald Reagan’s nickname
was ‘Rawhide’, Bill Clinton’s was ‘Eagle’
and George W. Bush was known as
‘Trailblazer’.
MI5 used to own special kettles
that it kept specifically for
steaming open envelopes.
Sitting in a 15-minute meeting
uses more energy
than Usain Bolt expends
over three 100-metre sprints.
Almost any domestic cat
can run faster than
Usain Bolt.
Over a distance of about a mile,
a carrier pigeon
is faster than a fax machine.
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.
Brazil nuts are so radioactive
that a pocketful will set off the alarm
at a nuclear power station.
The Oxford English Dictionary
takes 9,000 words to describe
the 45 different meanings
of ‘at’.
A male rhinoceros beetle
can lift 850 times
its own body weight.
Alan Turing,
the father of computer science,
chained his mug to a radiator
to stop anyone else at work from using it.
The proud owner
of the first silicone breast implant
was a dog called Esmeralda.
There are only
two beret factories
left in France.
In 1367, King Charles V of France
explicitly banned the wearing
of shoes shaped like penises.
In 2008, pet hamsters
were banned in Vietnam.
Monty Python’s Life of Brian
was marketed in Sweden as
‘The film that’s so funny,
it was banned in Norway.’
The banning of the fez
led to riots, executions
and a thriving fez-smuggling trade.
The Turkish
for ‘ski’ is
kayak.
Dalek
is Croatian for
‘far-away thing’.
Smegma
is Latin for
‘detergent’.
The Afrikaans
for ‘astrology’ is
sterrewiggelary.
Theoretically the Pope can resign
but, since he is the Supreme Pontiff,
there is no one qualified
to accept his resignation.
Vatican City
is the only place in the world
where cash machines
offer instructions in Latin.
Since the Second World War,
only 20 babies born in the UK
have been called Adolf.
The ‘G-spot’ was nearly called
the Whipple Tickle –
after Professor Beverley Whipple,
who coined the expression
that we know today.
Cow’s hooves
are used to make
the foam in fire extinguishers.
The first potatoes
introduced to Britain
were used to make desserts.
In 1976,
one person in the USA
was killed by an outbreak of swine flu,
but the vaccine introduced to combat it
killed 25.
There are 1,000 times
as many bacteria
in your gut
as there are stars
in the Milky Way.
Bacteria
are about as different
from viruses as
metronomes are
from giraffes.
Most antibiotics
are made from bacteria.
Bacteria
can get viruses.
Viruses can get viruses.
A new one recently discovered
in a French cooling tower
was found to be infected
by another, smaller one.
Scallops
have up to 100 eyes.
The praying mantis
has only one ear,
which is located
between its legs.
Until the 19th century
the English word
for actors was
‘hypocrites’.
The Japanese
for ‘handbag’ is
handubagu.
In 1947, the Duke of Windsor
bought the Duchess of Windsor
a black patent leather
Hermès wheelbarrow.
In 1915, the lock millionaire Cecil Chubb
bought his wife Stonehenge.
She didn’t like it,
so in 1918 he gave it to the nation.
Since 1815, Belgium has paid
the Duke of Wellington’s family
more than $46 million
as a reward for winning
the battle of Waterloo.
The First World War
officially ended on
3rd October 2010.
Wars kill more civilians
than soldiers: in a war,
the safest place to be
is usually in the army.
The world’s worst ma
ritime disaster
was the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff
by a Soviet submarine in 1945,
with the loss of 9,343 lives.
35 years after leaving school,
the majority of people
can still identify
90% of their classmates.
The speed of the wind
has fallen
by 60%
in the last
30 years.
Half of all the species
in the world live in
the rainforest canopy.
The human brain
is more complex
than an exploding star
or the US economy.
Every day,
plants convert
sunlight into energy
equivalent to six times
the entire power consumption of
human civilisation.
For a million years,
the human population of the Earth
was less than 26,000.
The last two speakers
of the Mexican language Zoque
are both in their seventies
and refuse to speak to one another.
More than one in five Americans
believes that the world will
end in their lifetime.
Thomas Edison’s last breath
is held in a vial
at the Henry Ford museum in Detroit.
99% of all the species
that have ever lived
are now extinct.
Tasting Notes
Anyone who is practically acquainted with scientific work is aware that those who refuse to go beyond fact rarely get as far as fact.
T. H. HUXLEY (1825–1895)
This book is rather like a whisky still – an immense amount of malted barley, water and smoke have gone in at the top to produce the slow drip of concentrated liquor at the bottom. Feeding that still, alongside the three of us, have been the matchless team of QI Elves led by Bo’sun Justin Pollard and Piers ‘Flash’ Fletcher. Andrew Murray, Anne Miller and Alex Bell have done most of the heavy lifting. Will Bowen, Molly Oldfield, Chris Gray, Rob Blake, Jenny Doughty and Liz Townsend pitched in at key points and Sarah Lloyd’s careful management made sure we ended up with cask-strength single malt and not a cheap supermarket blend.
Once again the Faber team of Stephen Page, Julian Loose, Eleanor Crow, Paula Turner and Dave Watkins proved they are the best in the business.
Now its over to you. The sources for each fact can be found online at www.qi.com/1227. Please do let us know if you have a quibble or a correction. And add your own discoveries via our Twitter account @qikipedia. As Mark Twain once reminded us:
Get your facts first, and then
you can distort them
as much as you please.
Index
This is here to help you find your favourite bits. Like the facts themselves, we’ve kept it as simple as we can. The rule is: each entry has only one word.
If you can’t find ‘polar bears’ try ‘bears’; for ‘Adam’s apple’ try ‘apple’ or ‘Adam’s’ and so on. Capital letters at the start of an entry indicate a proper noun or name – ‘bugs’ are insects and ‘Bugs’ is the Bunny.
007 1; 3-D 2; 7-Up 3
Abercrombie 1;
Aborigine 1;
abortion 1;
accidents 1, 2, 3, 4;
accountants 1;
acrobat 1;
actors 1, 2;
Adams 1, 2, 3;
adoptions 1;
adrenaline 1;
adultery 1;
advertising 1, 2;
Aerosmith 1;
Afghanistan 1, 2;
aid 1;
airports 1, 2, 3, 4, 5;
Albania 1, 2;
Albanian 1, 2;
alcohol 1;
Aldrin 1;
Alexanders 1, 2;
aliens 1;
Alka-Seltzer 1;
allergies 1;
amoebas 1;
anaesthetics 1;
angina 1;
Anglo-Saxon 1;
Annes 1;
anorexia 1;
anteaters 1;
antelopes 1, 2;
anthems 1, 2, 3;
anthropologists 1;
Antigua 1;
ants 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6;
anuses 1, 2;
apartments 1;
apes 1, 2;
aphids 1;
Apollo 1, 2;
apples 1, 2;
Apple 1, 2;
Arabic 1, 2;
archbishops 1, 2;
Archimedes 1;
armadillos 1;
arsehole 1;
arses 1, 2, 3;
arthritis 1, 2;
Arthurs 1, 2;
aspirin 1;
asteroids 1, 2;
asthma 1;
astrology 1;
astronauts 1, 2;
atoms 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6;
Aurora 1;
Austrian 1, 2;
awning 1;
Aztecs 1
babies 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 13, 14;
baboons 1;
Bach 1;
bacon 1;
bacteria 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6;
badgers 1, 2, 3;
baking 1;
balloons 1;
bananas 1, 2;
bands 1;
Bang 1;
banging 1, 2;
Bangladesh 1;
banks 1, 2, 3;
bans 1, 2, 3, 4, 5;
barley 1;
barn 1;
barnacle 1;
Barnacle 1;
baseball 1;
basketball 1;
bassoon 1;
bastards 1, 2;
bats 1, 2;
baths 1;
bathwater 1;
battles 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6;
BBC 1, 2;
beans 1, 2;
beards 1, 2;
bears 1, 2, 3, 4;
beavers 1;
beds 1, 2, 3;
beefsteaks 1;
beekeeping 1, 2;
beer 1, 2, 3;
bees 1, 2, 3, 4;
Beethoven 1, 2;
beetles 1, 2, 3, 4;
behind 1, 2, 3, 4;
beliefs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6;
Bens 1, 2;
bends 1;
berets 1;
Bethlehem 1;
Beyoncé 1;
Bible 1, 2, 3 4, 5;
bicycles 1, 2, 3, 4;
billionaires 1;
biofuel 1;
Bills 1, 2, 3, 4;
biologists 1;
birds 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,6, 7, 8, 9;
Birds 1;
birdseed 1;
birthdays 1, 2;
biscuits 1;
bishops 1, 2, 3;
bison 1, 2;
blackberries 1;
blackboard 1;
blackcurrants 1;
bleating 1;
blinking 1;
Blitz 1;
blood 1, 2;
blue 1, 2, 3, 4;
boa 1;
boar 1;
boats 1, 2;
Boatswain 1;
Boeing 1, 2, 3;
Bog 1;
Bolt 1, 2;
bombing 1;
bombs 1, 2;
bonobos 1;
bookseller 1;
Boring 1;
bottoms 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7;
botulism 1, 2;
Bovril 1;
boxes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5;
boxing 1, 2;
Braille 1;
brains 1, 2, 3;
bran 1;
breakfast 1, 2, 3, 4, 5;
breast 1;
breath 1, 2, 3;
Bricklehampton 1;
Brimaquonx 1;
Britain 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21;
British 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20;
broadcasting 1;
Broadmoor 1;
broccoli 1;
Broccoli 1;
brushes 1, 2, 3;
bubblewrap 1;
Budding 1;
buds 1, 2;
bugs 1;
Bugs 1;
bulbs 1, 2;
bullets 1, 2, 3, 4;
bulls 1;
Bulls 1, 2;
Burberry 1;
burglars 1;
butter 1, 2, 3, 4;
butterflies 1;
buttocks 1;
buzz 1;
Buzz 1;
buzzing 1
Caesarean 1;
cabbage 1;
caffeine 1, 2, 3;
cake 1;
cages 1;
Cambridge 1, 2, 3, 4, 5;
camels 1, 2, 3;
canal 1;
canaries 1;
candles 1, 2, 3;
candyfloss 1;
cannabis 1;
cannibal 1;
canning 1;
carbon 1, 2;
cardboard 1;
cards 1, 2, 3;
Cardiff 1;
carriers 1;