More interesting facts from QI: The Book of General Ignorance

‘Something’s “poisonous” when you bite it, but it’s “venomous” when it bites you.’ – Hence a “poisonous” snake would be a grass snake, although vipers and cobras are “venomous”.

Nero couldn’t have been playing the fiddle while Rome burned, as the fiddle wasn’t invented till the 15th century. In fact, Nero was more than 56km away at his seaside holiday home, and raced back to Rome upon nearing the news to take charge of the fire-fighting efforts.

Underwired bras act as portable lightning conductors in a storm.

There is no such thing as Tutankhamun’s curse.

random pieces of information

Soybeans represent the US’ single-biggest export to China: $9.19 billion in 2009, topping the combined value of semiconductors and plastic materials, U.S. data show. (Source: I’ve forgotten)

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In America, one might call one’s professor “Professor So-and-so” in the beginning, but as the relationship grows closer, one might start using the Professor’s first name. (Source: My Japanese textbook)

(I didn’t know that!)

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All blue-eyed people are mutants. The first blue-eyed human only appeared about 5,000 years ago. (Source: QIkipedia)

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China has 446 million pigs – more than the next 43 pork-producing countries combined – and consumes half of the world’s pork each year.

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some trivia

This blog is so dead, mainly because things have been really busy for the past two and a half weeks. Unfortunately now is only the mid-point in this marathon – I will have to get through next week’s trip and write up my report within a week after I return. Sigh!

Anyway, here’s some trivia.

Did you know that ComfortDelGro runs 13% of London’s bus network? According to Monocle (which is an amazing magazine), ComfortDelGro is one of the world’s biggest transport companies – they have 46,000 vehicles! Their buses are in Australia, Ireland and Scotland, while their taxis are in Aberdeen, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Ho Chi Minh City and Liverpool. Their taxis are also in China, and they are even the 3rd largest taxi operator in Beijing!

       

 

Speaking of China, although the water usage per capita is only 20% of the global average, 660 cities in China suffer from water shortage, with 110 of the cities having severe water shortages.

Everyone also knows about China’s sizable investments and interest in Africa. Did you know that China convinced the African countries in which it invests heavily to close down the Taiwanese embassies they were hosting?

Did you also know that for every 1% increase in GDP, 1.03% of energy is expanded, and whenever an urban population grows by 1%, 2.2% more energy is consumed? Our growth comes at a sizable cost to the environment.

How much energy do you think Singapore consumed for all these?