QI is like TYWKIWDBI on steroids - updated

Selections from an article in The Telegraph, the content of which is in turn selected from a new book - 1,339 QI Facts to Make Your Jaw Drop - the contents of which is in turn selected from the massive archives of the QI Universe:

All the mountains on Saturn’s moon Titan are named after peaks in The Lord of the Rings.

Agatha Christie was a keen surfer.

Lord Kitchener had four spaniels called Shot, Bang, Miss and Damn.

At any one time, 45 million people in the world are drunk.

The Beatles classic Yesterday was originally entitled “Scrambled Eggs”.

Since 1990, more people have been killed by sandcastles than by sharks.

Wordsworth had no sense of smell.

Your eyebrows renew themselves every 64 days.

If Jane Austen hadn’t broken off her engagement, she would have been known as Mrs Harris Bigg-Wither.

Sgiomlaireachd (pronounced “scum-leerie”) is a Scots Gaelic word meaning “the kind of friend who only drops in at mealtimes”.

There is one Kalashnikov assault rifle in circulation for every 70 people on Earth.

There is only one sneeze in the Bible. [error - see Comment below]

The only member of ZZ Top who doesn’t have a beard is drummer Frank Beard.

Silent letters in words such as “knife” and “psychic” are called aphthongs.

Splenda was an insecticide that became a sweetener when a lab assistant misheard an instruction to “test it” as “taste it”.

For more, see the book - and the program (which sadly doesn't air in this country).  I believe I recall one of the QI elves visiting this blog some years ago.  Still here??

Reposted from 2013 to add a couple more facts from the book, with links to sources:

James Dean’s last appearance on film before his fatal carcrash in 1955 was in a road-safety commercial. 

Holly Golightly from Breakfastat Tiffany’s was originally going to be called Connie Gustafson.

In 1379 a baby girl in Yorkshire was christened Diot Coke

In the Koran, Jesus is mentioned five times more often than Mohammed.

Herbert Spencer, who coined the phrase “survival of thefittest,” was the only one of eight siblings to reach adulthood.

In 1796, in a cricket match between Greenwich Pensionerswith One Arm and Greenwich Pensioners with one Leg, Greenwich Pensioners withOne Leg won by 103 runs.

The first image on American television was the dollar sign.

At its mouth, the Amazon River is nearly as wide as theThames is long.

When he died, Dr. Atkins (of the best-selling Atkins diet)weighed over 18 stone.

Americans have invaded Canada twice, in 1775 and 1812.  They lost both times.

According to the Vatican, you can reduce the time you spendin purgatory by following the Pope on Twitter

The 1339 fact book has since been supplemented by several additional publications, all of which have been compiled into a seven-volume boxed set of 10,000 facts.