1,227 QI Facts to Blow Your Socks Off Read Online Free PDF Page B

zeroes.
     
    In 2010, YouTube was watched
    700 billion times, but 99% of the views
    were of only 30% of the videos.
     

    In 1900, all the world’s mathematical
    knowledge could be written in about
    80 books; today it would fill
    more than 100,000.
     
    In 2005, the 54 billionaires in Britain
    paid only
£
14.7 million in income tax
    between them. Of this,
    £
9 million came from
    James Dyson.
     
    In 2011, only nine of the 62 owners
    of apartments in One Hyde Park, London,
    the world’s most expensive block of flats,
    paid any council tax.
     
    Over 600,000 companies
    (including 25 with flats in One Hyde Park)
    are registered in the British Virgin Islands
    (population 28,882).
     

    In the first month of its life,
    a silkworm puts on
    10,000 times its birth weight.
     
    A female ferret
    will die
    if she doesn’t have sex for a year.
     
    A six-inch catfish has
    more than
    250,000 taste buds.
     
    A full Kindle
    weighs a billionth of a billionth
    of a gram
    more than a brand-new one.
     

    There are over 1,200 species
    of bat in the world
    and not one of them is blind.
     
    There are 4,800 species
    of frog in the world
    but only one of them goes ‘ribbit’.
     
    Eight times as many people belong to
    the National Trust
    as to the
    Conservative, Labour and
    Liberal Democrat parties
    combined.
     
    Every human being
    starts out life as an arsehole:
    it’s the first part of the body
    to form in the womb.
     

    51% of British women under 50
    have never been married:
    twice as many as in 1980.
     
    Kanye North and Kanye South
    (but not Kanye West)
    are parliamentary constituencies
    in Botswana.
     
    The animal rights group PETA
    claims that cows can suffer humiliation
    if people laugh at them.
     
    Wagamama
    is Japanese for ‘selfish’.
     

    In 2009, Exxon made $19 billion profit
    but received a $156 million
    federal tax rebate.
     
    Only 2% of women
    describe themselves
    as beautiful.
     
    In the 1950s,
    3-D films
    were known as
    ‘deepies’.
     
    Loch Ness
    is deep enough
    and long enough
    to contain the entire
    population of the world
    ten times over.
     

    40% of the electricity in Pakistan
    goes missing, half of it stolen:
    if there’s a power cut
    (which is often),
    they just steal the wires.
     
    In 2011, British trains were delayed
    by 16,000 hours because of people
    stealing metal parts from the railways.
     
    After Einstein died,
    his brain was pickled,
    sliced into 240 cubes and
    left in a box marked ‘Costa Cider’
    for 20 years.
     
    Sir Walter Raleigh’s devoted widow
    Elizabeth kept his decapitated head
    with her in a velvet bag
    for 29 years.
     

    Forflitten
adj.
    Overwhelmed
    by unreasonable
    and out-of-proportion
    scolding.
     
    Forwallowed
adj.
    Weary with being
    tossed about.
     
    Rhinorrhea
n.
    The medical condition
    otherwise known as
    ‘a runny nose’.
     
    Subitise
vb
    To perceive the number
    of objects in a group
    without actually
    counting them.
     

    An
acrocomic
is someone with long hair.
    According to the
Oxford English Dictionary
,
    the word hasn’t been used
    since it was coined in 1626.
    Until now, that is.
     
    The word ‘unfriend’
    first appeared in print in 1659.
     
    Berk
and
charlie
(as in ‘a proper charlie’)
    are rhyming slang for
    ‘Berkshire Hunt’ and ‘Charlie Hunt’.
     
    The most popular beers
    in Turkmenistan are called
    ‘Berk’ and ‘Zip’.
     

    As a reward
    for winning the part of Harry Potter,
    the 11-year-old Daniel Radcliffe
    was allowed to stay up
    and watch
Fawlty Towers
.
     
    Durham University
    offers a Harry Potter module.
    It includes the topic
    ‘Gryffindor and Slytherin:
    prejudice and intolerance in the classroom’.
     
    The word ‘school’
    comes from the ancient Greek for
    ‘free time’.
     
    In particle physics, a ‘barn’ is an area
    that covers a billionth of the cross-section
    of a silk fibre. It’s called a barn because
    (in subatomic terms) it’s so huge.
     

    In 2010, twice as many Britons died
    in accidents in their