Useless facts. Share yours. No googling allowed.

[SeasickSteveIsMyBoyfriend]

Mona Lisa has no eyebrows.

Its illegal for a woman to eat chocolate on a bus.

111,111 x 111,111 = 12345654321

Mike Nesmith's of The Monkees. His Mum invented Tippex.

Dick Van Dyke was 6 months older than Lionel Jeffries when they made Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (even though LJ was playing the father)

The hyoid is the only bone in the body that doesn't articulate with any other

The tongue is the only muscle which is only attached at one end

The TV series MASH lasted 8 years longer than the Korean war it was portraying

The man who was originally cast as the tin man in The Wizard of Oz developed a severe allergic reaction to the aluminium paint used as make up and had to be hospitalised. He was replaced and the film made without him: but he outlived all other principal cast members.

Debbie Reynolds wasn't a dancer when she got the part in Singin' in the Rain. Gene Kelly was rude to her about her dancing abilities and she ran to hide and cry under a piano. Fred Astaire found her and agreed to teach her and help her improve.

The hand rails on an underground train are the same colour as the line you are travelling on, eg if you are on the central line they will be red and if you are on the circle line they will be yellow, etc.

my favourite fact.

the word 'plumber' comes from the latin word for 'lead' (as in lead pipes)

which is Plumbum

This thread is like a Mumsnet episode of QI except without the reassurance that teams of researchers have actually checked the facts.

Moffit, not all of them. Works for the Victoria line (light blue on the map) but I think it's yellow on the District line (green on the map). Can't remember whether the Jubilee line has grey handrails but I suspect not.

The designer of the tube map was called Harry Beck. He had the brilliant idea that the map didn't need to represent the actual geography of the lines and London above ground ? once you are underneath, the only thing that matters is the relationship of the lines to each other. Tube maps before Beck were far more messy. But his map catches people out because it doesn't show how close some of the stations on different lines are to each other so people who haven't checked sometimes go on very long journeys changing tube lines rather than just walking five minutes. (It's quicker to walk from Covent Garden to Charing Cross than to change at Leicester Square, for instance.)

The idea that Hitler was a vegetarian is a myth. But he was very concerned about cruelty to animals. (Interesting thing about the supposed vegetarianism is how keen many people are to believe it...)

Luna, would Henry's legal two wives be Jane Seymour and Catherine Parr? On the grounds that his marriage to Catherine of Aragon was annulled, Anne Boleyn was accused of witchcraft, poor old Catherine Howard was not a virgin (which apparently made that marriage illegal) and he had some excuse about Anne of Cleves?

Oh, and the Black Box flight data recorder is actually orange. To make it easier to locate after an accident.

A london cab driver by law HAS to keep a bale of hay in the boot of the cab.

Apologies if these have been mentioned already:

It is impossible to lick your own elbow.

Domesticated cats think they are kittens - in the wild cats lose the ability to purr as they get older, only kittens purr as it helps to stimulate milk production from the mother.

Cows can walk up stairs but cannot walk down them.

And for all you West Wing fans out there, there are only 3 words that begin with the letters "dw": Dwarf, Dwell and Dwindle.

You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching TV.

Ah CaveMum that so sweet about cats!

does that mean dh is keeping fit when he falls asleep in front of the telly?

Cat facts are never useless Pinot

1981 Grand National Winner Aldaniti was named after his breeder's grandchildren:

Alastair
David
Nicola
Timothy

The sticky out bits on jigsaw puzzle pieces are called lugs.

Can I just ask, after reading this thread, how many people have tried to lick their own elbow?

Me. Just now. After you asked.

I can't, but lots of people on YouTube can!

Guilty. I measured my foot against my forearm, too. (It was tricky but, unlike elbow-licking, not impossible!)

Not after reading this thread, but I have been known to attempt it many, many a couple of years ago

This thread is great. I'm chucking out the Tena lady and clenching my teeth for the rest of pg#3. (See pg 1)

Cats whiskers are as long as the widest part of their body.

abbreviation hell. Pg = preg and page!!!

A rabbit's tail is called a scut

I've remembered another one that I don't understand, maybe someone can explain the logic behind it to me....

Apparently, if you went back, with your family tree, right back as far as time began, your family tree would contain more people (or grunting neanderthals, or things that crawled out of the primeval swamp) than there are humans who have ever lived.

How can that be huh? How? How? (has incest got something to do with it????) (I bet this turns out to be another weirdy penis fact)

might it be that it has an entry in your family tree for your great-great-great-great second cousin twice removed, and also an entry for your great-great-great-great grandmother, and they happen to be the same person? (repeat an infinite number of times)