QI is undoubtedly one of the most interesting trivia shows on TV.
The team behind the British TV show QI has a new book out, with some incredible facts they have come across during their research for the show.
John Lloyd, James Harkin and Anne Miller, researchers for QI, have published 2,024 QI Facts To Stop You In Your Tracks and each
page is guaranteed to make you a hit at the next pub quiz.
Here are some absolutely fascinating facts for you to bring up next time you're having to make small talk with someone and want to sound extra smart:
• The German for contraceptive pill is "antibabypille".
• Blowing out the candles on a cake increases the bacteria on it by up to 1400 per cent.
• Your fingerprints are caused by your hands touching the walls of the womb when you're a foetus.
• The word for the inside of the elbow is "chelidon".
• Van Gogh's Olive Trees has a dead grasshopper embedded in the paint.
• The verb "to run" has 645 meanings in English.
• Sloths can hold their breath for 40 minutes.
• The average plastic bag gets used for 12 minutes but takes up to 1000 years to biodegrade.
• Mosquitoes are responsible for half the deaths in human history.
• Autotopagnosia is a condition characterised by the inability to locate and orient different body parts. People who suffer from this condition literally can't tell their ass from their elbow.
• The lost property office at Dublin airport has an unclaimed tombstone with the words: "You will always be remembered, never forgotten".
• The heat-proof sleeve on the outside of a disposable coffee cup is called a "zarf".
• Elephants can hear better with one foot off the ground.
• Postman Pat's full name is Patrick Clifton. Fireman Sam's is Samuel Peyton Jones.
• The smell of Play-Doh is trademarked.
