This is the Yorkshire edition of the humorous dictionary of toponymy and etymology, created by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd. If you opened this book expecting to find a variety of quaint thee and thy-based colloquialisms with the odd "ee-by-gum" and "tha'll be reet" thrown in for good measure, you may be a little disappointed...However, if you picked up this book because you're curious about things for which no words exist, and have a mild interest in random Yorkshire villages with quirky names - then you're in luck! The Yorkshire Meaning of Liff twins some of the obscurely wonderful, often unheard of and wastefully under-used place names of this glorious county, with the numerous experiences, feelings, situations and objects which we all know but, for some reason, have no words attributed to them. In no time at all you could be waxing lyrical about your most recent denaby main; empathising with friends who have also suffered a grimston, or expressing a whiston acquired during a state of galphay...

This book, first published in 1986, examines the miners’ strike of 1984-5 – an event that formed the decisive break with a forty-year-old British tradition of political and industrial compromise. The stakes for the main parties were so high that the price each was willing to pay, the loss each was willing to sustain, exceeded anything seen in an industrial dispute in half a century. This book examines and assesses the strike’s full implications, and puts it into its historical and political context.

John Lloyd was the poster boy of British tennis - a former British number one, Grand Slam finalist, Wimbledon mixed-doubles champion and Davis Cup captain. Remarkably, he and his two brothers, David (of leisure club fame) and Tony, all played in the singles championship at Wimbledon in the same year: a testament to the parents who believed in their sons' dreams as the boys batted tennis balls against a garage wall in Essex. Told with humour and honesty, John's autobiography is filled with intimate insight and captivating tales of Hollywood celebrities, tennis icons, broadcasting greats and loves lost - from his marriage to the legendary Chris Evert and dealings with Donald Trump to his sobering battle with cancer and drug addiction at the heart of his family. As the story unfolds, the John of today sends letters of advice to his former self in a yearnful act of 'if I only knew then what I know now'. What we now know for certain is that John Lloyd has lived an extraordinary life.

An indispensable compendium of popular misconceptions, misunderstandings and common mistakes culled from the hit BBC show, QI. From the bestselling authors of The Book of General Ignorance comes a noticeably stouter edition, with 26% extra facts and figures perfect for trivia, pub quiz and general knowledge enthusiasts. The QI team sets out again to show you that a lot of what you think you know is wrong. If, like Alan Davies, you still think the Henry VIII had six wives, the earth has only one moon, that George Washington was the first president of the USA, that Bangkok is the capital of Thailand, that the largest living thing is a blue whale, that Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, that whisky and bagpipes come from Scotland or that Mount Everest is the world's tallest mountain, then there are at least 200 reasons why this is the book for you. The researchers at QI have written many bestselling books including such titles as The QI Book of General Ignorance and 1,277 Facts To Blow Your Socks Off. They now present a noticeably stouter edition, an indispensable handbook for trivia lovers, pub quiz enthusiasts and general knowledge experts alike. And remember - everything you think you know is still wrong.

This book, first published in 1986, examines the miners' strike of 1984-5 - an event that formed the decisive break with a forty-year-old British tradition of political and industrial compromise. The stakes for the main parties were so high that the price each was willing to pay, the loss each was willing to sustain, exceeded anything seen in an industrial dispute in half a century. This book examines and assesses the strike's full implications, and puts it into its historical and political context.

Seed inoculation is the practice of effectively introducing a high number of nitrogen-fixing bacteria (Rhizobium or Bradyrhizobium) on the surface of legume seeds prior to planting. The bacteria penetrates the root, resulting in the formation of root nodules that fix nitrogen from the air, and make it readily available to the plant. This book describes the need, the development and the use of rhizobia, and how this process may be reproduced successfully around the world, especially in underdeveloped agricultural countries.

The Meaning of Liff has sold hundreds of thousands of copies since it was first published in 1983, and remains a much-loved humour classic. This edition has been revised and updated, and includes The Deeper Meaning of Liff, giving fresh appeal to Douglas Adams and John Lloyd's entertaining and witty dictionary. In life, there are hundreds of familiar experiences, feelings and objects for which no words exist, yet hundreds of strange words are idly loafing around on signposts, pointing at places. The Meaning of Liff connects the two. BERRIWILLOCK (n.) - An unknown workmate who writes 'All the best' on your leaving card. ELY (n.) - The first, tiniest inkling that something, somewhere has gone terribly wrong. GRIMBISTER (n.) - Large body of cars on a motorway all travelling at exactly the speed limit because one of them is a police car. KETTERING (n.) - The marks left on your bottom or thighs after sunbathing on a wickerwork chair. OCKLE (n.) - An electrical switch which appears to be off in both positions. WOKING (ptcpl.vb.) - Standing in the kitchen wondering what you came in here for.

The Third Book of General Ignorance gathers together 180 questions, both new and previously featured on the BBC TV programme's popular 'General Ignorance' round, and show why, when it comes to general knowledge, none of us knows anything at all. Who invented the sandwich? What was the best thing before sliced bread? Who first ate frogs' legs? Which cat never changes its spots? What did Lady Godiva do? What can you legally do if you come across a Welshman in Chester after sunset?

The eye-popping, gob-smacking, rib-tickling phenomenon that is QI serves up a brand new selection of 1,423 facts to bowl you over.

Iceland imports ice cubes

A group of ladybirds is called a loveliness

It is illegal in Saudi Arabia to name a child Sandi

Eight billion particles of fog can fit into a teaspoon

People who read books live longer than people who don't

Prince Philip was born on a kitchen table in Corfu

No human beings have ever had sex in space

Netflix's biggest competitor is sleep

Mice sigh up to 40 times an hour

Just when you thought it was safe to start showing off again, the bestselling authors of The Book of General Ignorance and 1,277 QI Facts To Blow Your Socks Off are back. With a foreword by Stephen Fry, this parcel of unimaginable information is here to solve a few common misconceptions, mistakes and misunderstandings. Octopuses have six legs, oranges aren't orange, bats aren't blind, napoleon wasn't short, vikings didn't wear horned helmets, there is no such thing as a fish. QI: The Second Book of General Ignorance is the essential set text for everyone who's proud to admit that they don't know everything, and an ideal stick with which to beat people who think they do. John Lloyd and John Mitchinson are the bestselling authors of QI: The Book of General Ignorance and 1,277 QI Facts To Blow Your Socks Off. Here they present a wonderful collection of astonishingly interesting facts, perfect for pub quiz lovers, trivia buffs and general knowledge experts alike.

Welcome to QI: The Book of the Dead, a biographical dictionary with a twist - one where only the most interesting people made it in!QI have got together six dozen of the happiest, saddest, maddest and most successful men and women from history. Celebrate their wisdom, learn from their mistakes and marvel at their bad taste in clothes. Hans Christian Anderson was terrified of naked women, Florence Nightingale spent her last fifty years in bed, Sigmund Freud smoked twenty cigars a day, Catherine de Medici applied a daily face mask made of pigeon dung, Rembrandt van Rijn died penniless and Madame Mao banned cicadas, rustling noises and pianos. Carefully collected and ordered by the QI team into themed chapters with thought-provoking titles such as 'There's Nothing Like a Bad Start in Life', 'Man Cannot Live by Bread Alone'. Each chapter reveals hilarious insights into the true nature of the most interesting people who ever lived, including Isaac Newton, Genghis Khan, Sigmund Freud, Florence Nightingale and Karl Marx. From the bestselling authors of The Book of General Ignorance and 1,277 Facts to Knock Your Socks Off, comes a fun and inspirational biographical dictionary, with motivational stories about the famous and the obscure.

QI The Pocket Book of Animals is John Lloyd and John Mitchinson's funny, eccentric and confounding handbook filled with interesting animal facts and figures. Join the QI team for an off-road safari into the wildlife, past one hundred of the most unusual members of the animal kingdom, armed with illuminating illustrations and diagrams by award-winning artist Ted Dewan. Amongst the weird, wonderful and really quite interesting animal facts, meet albatrosses that fly non-stop for ten years, leeches with 34 brains, koalas that don't drink, geese that mourn their dead and lobsters that live for a century. marvel at elephants that walk on tiptoe, pigs that shine in the dark, and woodpeckers that have ears on the end of their tongues. Collected by the writers of the hit BBC show, QI, and authors of the international bestsellers The Book of General Ignorance and 1,227 QI Facts To Blow Your Socks Off, QI The Pocket Book of Animals is an animal encyclopedia that even David Attenborough would learn something from. And remember - everything you think you know is wrong.

Join QI's expedition into the animal kingdom to encounter 100 of its most remarkable subjects. Marvel at the elephants that walk on tiptoe, pigs that shine in the dark, and the woodlouse that drinks through its bottom. Albatrosses can fly non-stop for ten years without touching the ground Box jellyfish have twenty-four eyes Geese mourn their dead Koalas don't drink Monkeys pay to look at porn Lobsters live for a century Mice sing while having sex Spiders can fly

The ultimate compendium of crisp one-liners, knockout jokes, droll asides and universal truths collected over the years by the creators of QI. 'You know 'that look' women get when they want sex? Me neither.' Steve Martin 'You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from nesting in your hair.' Chinese proverb 'The Beatles are dying in the wrong order.' Victor Lewis-Smith 'Cauliflower is nothing but a cabbage with a college education.' Mark Twain 'Depend on the rabbit's foot if you will, but remember: it didn't work for the rabbit.' R.E. Shay 'If it were not for quotations, conversation between gentlemen would be an endless series of 'what-ho's!'' P.G.Wodehouse

In the multi-agent systems area, linking theory to practical applications is still a fertile research topic. The aim of the workshop on Declarative Agent Languages and Technologies (DALT 2009), in its seventh edition this year, is to achieve this goal, which needs developing and using advanced declarative technologies and languages, particularly agent programming, communication languages, and reasoning and decision-making mechanisms. Developing these technologies is a particularly challenging issue from many perspectives: formal foundations, pr- ticalfeasibility, degreeof?exibility, etc. Inthiscontext, thedeclarativeparadigm is arguably the most appropriate as unlike imperative approaches, the focus is onwhatthe solutionshouldaccomplishratherthanondescribing howto acc- plish it. This is because agentcomputing, as a paradigm, is about describing the logic of computation instead of describing how to accomplish it. DALT is about investigating, studying, andusing the declarativeparadigmaswell ascombining declarative and formal approaches with engineering and technology aspects of agents and multi-agent systems. This volume presents the latest developments in the area of declarative l- guagesandtechnologies, whichaimtoproviderigorousframeworksfordesigning, specifying, implementing and verifying autonomous interacting agents. These frameworksarebasedoncomputationallogicsand other formalmethods suchas mathematical models and game theoretical approaches. Using such models and approaches facilitates the development of agents that reason and act rationally while at the same time being able to verify the behavior of these agents against their speci?cation. The main theme of DALT 2009 was the further advan- ment of relevant speci?cation and veri?cation techniques, such as, for instance, modal and epistemic logics, model checking, constraint logic programming, and distributed constraint satisfa

'I love these books ... the best books ever. Brilliant' Chris Evans This is an astonishing trove of the strangest, funniest, and most improbable tidbits of knowledge from the clever lot at the hugely popular BBC quiz show QI. The sock-blasting, jaw-dropping, side-swiping phenomenon that is QI serves up a sparkling new selection of 1,342 facts to leave you flabbergasted. Did you know that: Trees sleep at night. Google searches for 'How to put on a condom' peak at 10.28pm. There is no word for time in any Aboriginal language. Scotland has 421 words for snow. Emoji is the fastest growing language in history. Astronauts wear belts to stop their trousers falling up. The name Donald means 'ruler of the world'. Tanks are exempt from London's Congestion charge. The world's only Cornish pasty museum is in Mexico. When you blush so does the lining of your stomach. A group of unicorns is called a blessing. If there are any facts you don't believe, or if you want to know more about them, all the sources can be found on www.qi.com

A liff is a familiar object or experience that English has no word for. Afterliff, its long-awaited sequel, corrects this disgraceful oversight by recycling the names found on signposts. This brilliant successor to Douglas Adams' and John Lloyd's 1983 classic The Meaning of Liff features over 900 essential new definitions, including: Anglesey n. Hypothetical object at which a lazy eye is looking. Badlesmeare n. One who dishonestly ticks the 'I have read and agree to the Terms and Conditions' box. Caterham n. An overwhelming desire to use the Pope's hat as an oven glove. Clavering ptcpl v. Pretending to text when alone and feeling vulnerable in public. Eworthy adj. Of a person: worth emailing but not worth phoning or meeting. Kanumbra n. The sense that someone is standing behind you. Ljubljana interj. What people say to the dentist on the way out. Loughborough n. The false gusto with which children eat vegetables in adverts. Sorrento n. The thing that goes round and round as a YouTube video loads. Uralla n. A towel used as a bathmat. In 1983, John Lloyd and Douglas Adams authored The Meaning of Liff, a bestselling humour classic which went on to sell hundreds of thousands of copies. John Lloyd's other books include 1,411 QI Facts To Knock You Sideways and The Book of General Ignorance.

The QI Annuals are the nearest things to having the hit BBC1 TV show live in your living room. Top comedians and brainiacs, from Stephen Fry and Alan Davies to guests such as Phill Jupitus, Jo Brand, Clive Anderson, Jeremy Clarkson and Rowan Atkinson, have joined top cartoonists and illustrators, and the estimiable QI elves themselves in the first three QI Annuals, covering the letters E, F and G (starting at A is so overrated). Collected by the writers of the BBC show, QI, and authors of the worldwide bestsellers The Book of General Ignorance and 1,227 QI Facts To Blow Your Socks Off, here is a hilarious and informative selection of the QI team's fun facts. Featuring the likes of Stephen Fry, Alan Davies and many other QI guests, this bumper paperback edition is the perfect Christmas gift for pub quiz experts, fans of Guinness World Records and lovers of all things QI.

Seed inoculation is the practice of effectively introducing a high number of nitrogen-fixing bacteria (Rhizobium or Bradyrhizobium) on the surface of legume seeds prior to planting. The bacteria penetrates the root, resulting in the formation of root nodules that fix nitrogen from the air, and make it readily available to the plant. This book describes the need, the development and the use of rhizobia, and how this process may be reproduced successfully around the world, especially in underdeveloped agricultural countries.

Earth - a small, insignificant planet. Entirely devoid of intelligent life. At least that's according to the legal documents. The Doctor, Romana and K9 find themselves at the centre of a most unusual trial. An intergalactic corporation wants to bulldoze the planet for a development project. Only a previous court's preservation document is standing in their way. The Doctor has been summoned as an expert witness. If he can prove Earth contains intelligent life, the whole world will be saved. But with a fortune at stake... it was never going to be that simple. Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Lalla Ward (Romana), John Leeson (K9), Julian Wadham (Judge Perigord Trent), Spencer Banks (Kovaks), Nicholas Briggs (Foreman of the Lost Jury), Richard Laing (Skorpios/Lieson Tilpractive-Frong/Geoff), Christopher Naylor (Villager), Paul Panting (Smilax), Jane Slavin (Clerk), Jeany Spark (Tragacanth/Cham’Yal). Other parts played by members of the cast.

'I love these books ... the best books ever. Brilliant' Chris Evans QI 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.

At two o'clock, under a brilliant moonlight, and with a single guide, we started for the Pacific. The road was level and wooded. We passed a trapiche or sugar-mill, worked by oxen, and before daylight reached the village of Masagua, four leagues distant, built in a clearing cut out of the woods, at the entrance of which we stopped under a grove of orange-trees, and by the light of the moon filled our pockets and alforgas with the shining fruit. Daylight broke upon us in a forest of gigantic trees, from seventy-five to a hundred feet high, and from twenty to twenty-five feet in circumference, with creepers winding around their trunks and hanging from the branches. The road was merely a path through the forest, formed by cutting away shrubs and branches. The freshness of the morning was delightful. -from Chapter XIII As a Special Ambassador to Central America in 1839, American diplomat and writer JOHN LLOYD STEPHENS (1805-1852) witnessed civil war, explored Mayan ruins, and even bought a city for $50. He turned his real-life adventures in the jungles and villages of that fabled land into this classic of travel literature. Originally published in two volumes in 1841-and followed up by 1843's Incidents of Travel in Yucatan (also available from Cosimo)-Stephen's enthralling exploits introduced American and European readers to the mysteries of the Maya sites. Complemented by beautiful illustrations by English artist and architect FREDERICK CATHERWOOD (1799-1854), also included in this new edition, Stephens' evocative prose reads like the best adventure fiction, and continues to delight readers today.

The threat of terrorism and the increasing power of terrorist groups has prompted a rapid growth of the security services and changes in legislation, permitting the collection of communications data. This provides journalism with acute dilemmas. The media claims responsibility for holding power to account, yet cannot know more than superficial details about the newly empowered secret services. This book is the first to analyze, in the aftermath of the Snowden/NSA revelations, relations between two key institutions in the modern state: the intelligence services and the news media. It provides the answers to crucial questions including: how can power be held to account if one of the greatest state powers is secret? How far have the Snowden/NSA revelations damaged the activities of the secret services? And have governments lost all trust from journalists and the public?

Think Magellan was the first man to circumnavigate the globe, baseball was invented in America, Henry VIII had six wives, Mount Everest is the tallest mountain? Wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong again.
Misconceptions, misunderstandings, and flawed facts finally get the heave-ho in this humorous, downright humiliating book of reeducation based on the phenomenal British bestseller. Challenging what most of us assume to be verifiable truths in areas like history, literature, science, nature, and more,
"The Book of General Ignorance" is a witty "gotcha" compendium of how little we actually know about anything. It'll have you scratching your head wondering why we even bother to go to school.
Revealing the truth behind all the things we think we know but don't, this book leaves you dumbfounded about all the misinformation you've managed to collect during your life, and sets you up to win big should you ever be a contestant on Jeopardy or "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire."
Besides righting the record on common (but wrong) myths like Captain Cook discovering Australia or Alexander Graham Bell inventing the telephone, "The Book of General Ignorance" also gives us the skinny on silly slipups to trot out at dinner parties (Cinderella wore fur, not glass, slippers and chicken tikka masala was invented in Scotland, not India).
Thomas Edison said that we know less than one millionth of one percent about anything: this book makes us wonder if we know even that much.
You'll be surprised at how much you don't know Check out THE BOOK OF GENERAL IGNORANCE for more fun entries and complete answers to the following:
How long can a chicken live without its head?
About two years.
What do chameleons do?
They don't change color to match the background. Never have; never will. Complete myth. Utter fabrication. Total Lie. They change color as a result of different emotional states.
Who invented champagne?
Not the French.
How many legs does a centipede have?
Not a hundred.
How many toes has a two-toed sloth?
It's either six or eight.
How many penises does a European earwig have?
a)Fourteen
b)None at all
"c)Two (one for special occasions)
"d)Mind your own business
Which animals are the best-endowed of all?
Barnacles. These unassuming modest beasts have the longest penis relative to their size of any creature. They can be seven times longer than their body.
What is a rhino's horn made from?
A rhinoceros horn is not, as some people think, made out of hair.
Who was the first American president?
Peyton Randolph.
What were George Washington's false teeth made from?
Mostly hippopotamus.
What was James Bond's favorite drink?
Not the vodka martini.

The Third Book of General Ignorance gathers together 180 questions, both new and previously featured on the QI's popular 'General Ignorance' round. For the past decade, the QI team have been patiently correcting the myths, misunderstandings and misplaced certainties that go to make up 'general knowledge'. The first Book of General Ignorance, published in 2006, became an instant international bestseller and has been translated into 29 languages. The Second Book of General Ignorance in 2010 set the record straight on hundreds more areas of everyday wrongness. Now, the QI team returns to complete the trilogy. The Third Book of General ignorance gathers together 180 more questions to which the answers all seem perfectly obvious. Some have appeared in the BBC TV programme's 'General Ignorance' round, but many appear here for the first time. What they prove, beyond all reasonable doubt, is that none of us know anything at all. The largest pyramid isn't in Egypt The Nile isn't the world's longest river The Himalayas aren't the longest mountain range 'Jingle Bells' wasn't written for Christmas Whalebone isn't made of whale bone Most deserts aren't made from sand The ozone layer isn't made of ozone Cowboys didn't wear Stetsons All snakes are venomous Not all fish live in water