Lions won’t attack cows with eyes on bums...
Weird and wonderful facts brought to you by the team behind QI
■ Nobody knows who named the Earth.
■ A smartphone contains more computing power than the whole of NASA had in 1969.
■ On a single day in 2018, volunteers in India planted 66 million trees.
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■ All the Slinkys ever made would encircle the world 150 times.
■ Each year, Britons use enough wrapping paper to cover the Moon.
■ Postman Pat’s full name is Patrick Clifton. Fireman Sam’s is Samuel Peyton Jones.
■ Vranyo is Russian for lying – even when everyone knows that’s what you’re doing.
■ In the 10 seasons of TV’s Friends, the six main characters drink 1,154 cups of coffee.
■ A glass of calvados (apple brandy) contains seven apples.
■ Beatrix Potter shot a squirrel out of a tree to provide a model for Squirrel Nutkin.
■ The first advert on Channel 5 was for Chanel No.5.
■ Van Gogh’s Olive Trees has a dead grasshopper embedded in the paint. ■ The word for the inside of the elbow is “chelidon”.
■ Painting eyes on cows’ bottoms stops lions attacking them.
■ Horses have three more facial expressions than chimpanzees. ■ Lloyd’s of London insured Ken Dodd’s teeth for four times more than they did the Titanic. ■ Names of Greek ocean gods included Poseidon, Triton, Oceanus and Doris.
■ On the set of Jaws, the shark was nicknamed Bruce, after Steven Spielberg’s lawyer.
■ In 2017, a court in Indonesia blamed an increase in the divorce rate on the sudden popularity of pigeon racing.
■ Yellow tennis balls, which look better on colour TV, were the idea of David Attenborough when he was Controller of BBC2.
■ Elephants can hear better with one foot off the ground.
■ Peter Carl Fabergé made 50 exquisite Fabergé eggs – and one Fabergé potato.
■ TITSUP is a military acronym for Total Inability To Support Usual Performance.
■ Blowing out the candles on a cake increases the bacteria on it by up to 1,400%. ■ During the Second World War, fish-and-chipshop managers were exempt from military service.
■ Donald Trump is the first US president in 168 years not to have a pet in the White House.
■ Peas can be used to treat constipation in fish.
■ The German for contraceptive pill is “antibabypille”.
■ The Irish get through 50 beer mats per person per year. DO you know Postman Pat’s surname or the term for the inside of your elbow?
And have you ever wondered how to cure a goldfish’s constipation or how to stop a lion from attacking a cow’s bottom?
You’ll find the answers amid
■ The hands of a human foetus touching the walls of the womb causes the fingerprints to form.
■ The verb “run” has 645 meanings in English.
■ The Russian intelligence service keeps Hitler’s teeth in a cigar box. an array of bizarre trivia in a new book compiled by the team behind TV’s hit series QI.
John Lloyd, James Harkin and Anne Miller came up with 2,024 QI Facts To Stop You In Your Tracks. But we think they’re more than just Quite Interesting – they’re absolutely fascinating...
■ Beyoncé has released more perfumes than albums.
■ God and Jesus are the only characters in The Simpsons to have five fingers on each hand.
■ ■ The heat-proof sleeve on the outside of a disposable coffee cup is called a “zarf”. ■ In 2017, a Japanese rail company apologised after one of its trains departed 20 seconds early.
■ During the Christmas truce of 1914, one English soldier got a haircut from a German who used to be his barber in Holborn.
■ Denmark hated the letter Q so much they abolished it in 1872.
■ The lost property office at Dublin airport has an unclaimed tombstone with the words: “You will always be remembered, never forgotten.”
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■ A “philodox” is someone who loves their own opinion.
■ George V had a dragon tattoo on his arm.
■ Dogs see in blue and yellow.
■ There are more than 4,000 pubs in Britain called the Red Lion.
■ Chickens communicate using more than 200 distinct noises.
■ The first Kleenex tissues were made from the same material as the gas-mask filters during the First World War.
■ Sloths can hold their breath for 40 minutes.
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■ Woodpeckers bang their heads into trees at 15mph, 12,000 times a day.
■ To “poon” is to prop up a piece of wobbly furniture with a wedge under the leg.
■ Britain exports more than 50,000 boomerangs to Australia every year. ■ A rooster cannot hear how loud its own crowing is.
■ The average plastic bag gets used for 12 minutes but takes up to 1,000 years to biodegrade.
■ As much Prosecco is drunk in the UK each year as the annual rainfall on Wembley Stadium.
■ Mosquitoes are responsible for half the deaths in human history. ■ ■ The tagline for the National Poo Museum on the Isle of Wight is “Have You Been?” ■ The wingspan of a Boeing 747 is longer than the distance travelled during the Wright brothers’ first flight.
■ The US uses more electricity for air-conditioning than the whole of Africa uses for everything.
■ ■ Breathing the air in New Delhi is equivalent to smoking 45 cigarettes a day. Extracted from 2,024 QI Facts To Stop You In Your Tracks by John Lloyd, James Harkin and Anne Miller, published by Faber, £9.99.