'I love these books ... the best books ever. Brilliant' Chris EvansQI is the smartest comedy show on British television, but few people know that we're also a major legal hit in Australia, New Zealand, Israel and Africa and an illegal one on BitTorrent.

We also write books and newspaper columns; run some (frankly thriving, if we do say so ourselves) social media pages; and some of us appear on The Zoe Ball Breakfast Showon BBC Radio 2 every week to answer your questions.

At the core of what we do is the astonishing fact - painstakingly researched and distilled to a brilliant and shocking clarity.

In Einstein's words: 'Everything should be as simple as possible, but not simpler.'Did you know that: Cows moo in regional accents. The entire internet weighs less than a grain of sand. Tintin is called Tantan in Japanese because TinTin is pronounced 'Chin chin' and means penis. The water in the mouth of a blue whale weighs more than its body. Under the Wildlife and Countryside Act of 1981, it is explicitly illegal in Britain to use a machinegun to kill a hedgehog. 1,227 QI Facts To Blow Your Socks Off will make you look at the universe (and your socks) in an alarming new way.