QI Annual 2009 - Tapa dura

The festive fiefdom of QI follows last year's estimable 'E' Annual with a farrago of 'F'-themed fabulousness. Filled with the fabrications of Fry and friends, it's a feast of fascinating facts, from fish and frogs to ferrets and Freemasons, from the frozen fields of Finland to the fruit-fringed forests of Fiji, filled with flies, flags, flamingos, fleas, floods, flowers, fog, food, football, forests, fossils, fungi, fur and furniture . . . You get the idea. It's the nearest you'll get to having the phenomenal BBC show live in your front room. It's often said that 96% of the universe is missing, composed of so-called 'dark matter'. But isn't it interesting that the remaining 4% can be compressed into just 96 pages of fabulous, free-wheeling fun?

John Lloyd CBE is the creator of QI and founding producer of The News Quiz, Not the Nine O'Clock News, Spitting Image, Blackadder and No Such Thing As The News.