Book Review: 1,227 Qi Facts to Blow Your Socks Off by John Lloyd

https://youtu.be/81U1YVGvIMQ

YouTube Channel: QI (Official Channel)

There are plenty of factual books to obtain from libraries and bookstore shelves that contain an abundance of interesting facts about a variety of topics. Most books focus on facts about a particular personal interest, such as animals or astrology, just to name a few. But I’ve recently come across a book of incredible interest and peculiar facts that really do rock your socks off! Every word that springs from the pages keep you wanting to read more and more. Some of these facts make you laugh, some make your jaw drop, though just about every single fact is one that you feel you must share with someone else. This is why I must recommend reading 1,227 Qi Facts to Blow Your Socks Off. From start to finish you will be entertained by the most unbelievable facts about everything and everyone that ever existed.

You will learn new words to impress even your wittiest of friends such as:

  • “A gynotikilobomassophile is one who loves to nibble women’s earlobes”
  • Anthophobia is the fear of flowers”
  • “A williwaw is a sudden gust of wind coming off a high plateau.”

And incredibly bizarre words from different languages and their meaning such as:

  • Mollynogging” is an old Lincolnshire word for hanging out with loose women.”
  • Katujjiqatigiittiarnirlu is Inuktitut for ‘simplicity’.”
  • “The Turkish word for ‘cannibal’ is ‘yam yam’.”

You will learn interesting facts about historical figures that somehow seem to get skipped in the pages of factual history books such as:

  • “Salvador Dali was terrified of grasshoppers.”
  • “The Queen of England is related to Vlad the Impaler”
  • “King George III’s urine was blue.”

Facts about food:

  • “More than 80% of the world’s, population takes caffeine, in tea, coffeee or cola, every day.”
  • “The first potatoes introduced to Britain were used to make desserts.”
  • “In 2011, Birds Eye sold 225 billion frozen peas: enough to fill 40 Olympic swimming pools.”

Facts about books and literature:

  • “Early draft names for Walt Disney’s seven dwarfs included Flabby, Dirty, Shifty, Lazy, Burpy, Baldy and Biggo-Ego.”
  • “In the novel that the filmPinocchio’ was based on, Jiminy Cricket was brutally murdered and Pinocchio had his feet burned off and was hanged by villagers.”
  • “Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula, married Oscar Wilde’s first girlfriend.”

Facts about war:

  • “British troops in India during the Second World War were issued with memorable advice: ‘Defeat the Axis, Use Prophylaxis’.”
  • “Wars kill more civilians than soldiers: in a war, the safest place to be is usually in the army.”
  • “The Nazis made it illegal on pain of death for apes to give the ‘Heil Hitler’ salute.”

And random facts about anything and everything that really plays no significance to life whatsoever such as:

  • “The word pencil comes from a Latin word meaning ‘small penis’.”
  • “In 2010, Ghana banned the sale of second-hand underpants.”
  • “If you have a pizza with radius z and a thickness a, its volume is pi*z*z*a*.”

Whatever your personal interest may be, there are hundreds of different facts to add to your ever-expanding knowledge when you read. These facts will amuse, excite, entertain, horrify and bewilder any person willing to read it.

Featured image via QI

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