QI: The Second Book of General Ignorance

by John Lloyd

  swallow big objects 1

  tail 1

  sneezing

  during sex 1

  in response to bright light 1

  snow 1

  sound

  in space 1

  speed of 1

  South African pilchards 1

  South Pacific 1

  Southern Pole star 1

  sovereigns 1

  Soviet Union, and Second World War 1

  space, sound in 1

  Spanish Armada 1

  Spanish Civil War 1

  Spanish national anthem 1

  species

  discovering new 1

  naming of 1

  Specific Anthropomorphic Mannequin (SAM) 1

  spectacles 1

  speed cameras 1

  destruction of 1

  Spelling Reform Bill 1

  Spencer, Percy 1

  sperm

  human 1

  octopus 1

  Spiderman 1

  spiders 1

  sportsmen, and huddles 1

  Spratly Islands 1

  staircases, helical 1

  Stalin, Joseph 1

  stamps 1

  stars, finding north through observing 1

  Steamboat Willie 1, 2

  steel balls 1

  Stevenson, Robert Louis, Treasure Island 1

  ‘stiff upper lip’ 1

  stiffness, measuring 1

  Stilton cheese 1

  Stilton (town) 1

  stings, treatment of jellyfish 1

  Stone Age 1

  Stowe, Harriet Beecher 1

  Straits of Gibraltar 1, 2

  stratosphere 1

  streptomycin 1, 2

  stripes and appearance 1

  substances

  hardest known 1

  strangest 1

  Sudan 1, 2

  sugary drinks/food 1

  suicide (s)

  and handwriting 1

  and recessions 1

  and Wall Street Crash (1929) 1

  Sullenberger III, Captain Chesley ‘Sully’ 1

  Sun

  rising of 1

  setting of 1, 2

  water vapour traces 1

  supercooling 1

  Superman 1

  swallowing 1

  sweat/sweating 1, 2

  swordtail fish 1

  Table Alphabeticall 1

  tapestries 1

  tartan 1

  taste

  fifth (umami) 1, 2

  and tongue 1

  TATT (‘tired all the time’) syndrome 1

  Tattersall, Ian 1

  tautonyms 1

  tea 1

  tectonic plates 1

  teeth, effect of fizzy drinks on 1

  Telford 1

  Telford, Thomas 1

  temperature

  coldest recorded in England 1

  country with widest range of 1

  in oceans 1

  on Titan 1

  of water 1

  Temple, Frederick 1

  testosterone 1, 2, 3

  Thames helmet 1

  Thatcher, Margaret 1

  Thing, The (film) 1

  Thirty Years War 1

  Thompson, Dr Peter 1

  Thomsen, Christian Jürgensen 1

  Three-Age System 1

  3-D 1, 2

  Thrombosis Institute 1

  thujone 1

  Tibet 1

  tidal locking 1

  tides, Mediterranean 1

  Titan 1

  titan (bank note) 1

  Titanic 1

  toe cleavage 1

  toilet 1

  see also lavatories Tokyo, Michelin stars 1

  tongue

  swallowing of 1

  and taste 1

  tongue map 1

  Tours, Battle of (732) 1

  Towton, Battle of (1461) 1

  trains 1

  transient paraesthesia 1

  Tre Skillin Yellow stamp 1

  treasure maps 1

  trees 1

  Trehane, Sir Richard 1

  Trollope, Anthony 1

  troposphere 1, 2

  Troy weight 1

  tuberculosis 1, 2

  Tuf Tuf Club 1

  Tunisia 1

  Turpin, Dick 1

  Turritopsis nutricula 1

  Twain, Mark 1, 2, 3

  umami 1, 2

  Unger, Donald L. 1

  United States

  burning of American flags 1

  constitution 1

  electoral system 1

  and English language 1

  and First World War 1

  Flag Code 1, 2

  orange producer 1

  Pins and Needles Day 1

  plane crashes 1

  Presidents of 1

  and sinking of Lusitania 1

  and ‘stiff upper lip’ term 1

  toilet hygiene 1

  use of gavel 1

  weight of average citizen 1

  Uranus 1

  urine

  frozen 1

  and treatment of jellyfish stings 1

  US Embassy (Grosvenor Square) 1

  Uys, Jamie 1

  vampire bats 1

  Varah, Chad 1

  Vasari, Georgio 1, 2

  Vatican 1, 2, 3

  lowest age of consent 1

  Venetian glass 1

  Venezuela 1

  ‘veni, vidi, vici’ phrase 1

  Venus 1

  Vermouth 1

  Versailles, Treaty of 1

  vertebrae 1

  vertigo 1

  Vertigo (film) 1

  Viking helmet 1

  Vin Mariani 1

  vinegar, and jellyfish stings 1

  Virgil, Aeneid 1

  viruses 1

  vision 1, 2

  Vitamin A poisoning 1

  Vitruvius 1

  voles 1

  von Baer, Karl Ernst 1

  von Helmholtz, Hermann 1

  von Hipper, Admiral Franz von 1

  von Rosenhof, Johann Rösel 1

  Vulgar Latin 1

  Waksman, Selman 1

  Wales 1

  Walk, R. D. 1

  Wall Street Crash (1929) 1

  Wars of the Roses 1, 2

  Washington, George 1

  wasps, Ichneumon 1, 2

  water

  boiling point 1

  boiling point on mountains 1

  drinking of 1

  freezing of 1

  saltiest 1

  strangeness of 1

  water voles 1

  Waterloo, battle of 1, 2

  Watson, James 1

  Watusi cattle 1

  weather forecasting, invention of 1

  Weems, Mason Locke 1

  Weimar Republic 1

  Weismann, August 1

  Welles, Orson 1, 2

  Wellington, Duke of 1, 2

  Westminster, Duke of 1

  whale-tail 1

  whalers 1

  whales 1

  Blue 1, 2

  killer 1

  White, Gilbert 1

  Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (play) 1

  Wicked Lady, The 1

  wigs 1

  worn by Romans 1

  Wilberforce, Samuel 1

  Wilhelm II, Kaiser 1

  William the Conqueror 1

  Wilson, Frank J. 1

  Wind in the Willows (Grahame) 1

  windows 1

  and keeping cool 1

  Wizard of Oz, The 1

  Wodehouse, P. G. 1

  Wolfenden, Sir John 1

  women

  showing of cleavage 1

  and testosterone 1

  Women’s Institute 1

  Wonder Woman 1

  World Health Organization (WHO) 1, 2

  wormwood 1

  wrecking 1

  Wren, Sir Christopher 1

  Wright Brothers 1, 2, 3

  Y chromosome 1

  Yacoub,
Magdi 1

  yaks 1, 2

  Yan Tan Tethera 1

  yoga 1

  Yorkshire Air Museum 1

  Yorktown, siege of (1781) 1

  Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) 1

  yurt 1, 2

  Zanclean Flood 1

  Zappa, Frank 1

  Zela, Battle of (47 BC) 1, 2

  About the Author

  John Lloyd is a broadcaster by trade. As a radio producer he devised The News Quiz and To the Manor Born before moving to television to start Not the Nine O’Clock News, Spitting Image and Blackadder. He lives by the motto of the German mystic Henry Suso (1300–66): ‘By ignorance the truth is known.’

  John Mitchinson is from the world of books. The original Marketing Director of Waterstone’s, he became Managing Director of Cassell, where he published The Beatles, Michael Palin and Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. He’s with the Chinese philosopher Lao-Tzu: ‘To know that you do not know is the best. To pretend to know when you do not know is disease.’

  By the Same Authors

  THE BOOK OF GENERAL IGNORANCE

  THE BOOK OF ANIMAL IGNORANCE

  ADVANCED BANTER: THE QI BOOK OF QUOTATIONS

  THE QI BOOK OF THE DEAD

  THE QI ‘E’ ANNUAL

  THE QI ‘F’ ANNUAL

  THE QI ‘G’ ANNUAL

  THE QI ‘H’ ANNUAL

  also by John Lloyd (with Douglas Adams)

  THE MEANING OF LIFF

  THE DEEPER MEANING OF LIFF

  Copyright

  First published in 2010

  by Faber and Faber Ltd

  Bloomsbury House

  74–77 Great Russell Street

  London WC1B 3DA

  This ebook edition first published in 2010

  All rights reserved

  © QI Ltd, 2010

  Illustrations © Mr Bingo, 2010

  The right of QI Ltd to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly

  ISBN 978–0–571–27375–1