Is your man forever peppering conversations with random facts, like ‘mercury is the only metal that’s liquid at room temperature’ or ‘Carlsberg Special Brew was invented for Winston Churchill’? If so, don’t worry: lots of men are addicted to useless information – and it’s not really their fault. Mark Mason, author of a new book on the subject, explains why the male brain has such a huge fascination with tiny facts.

1. For men, everything is related

These facts aren’t random after all. Trivia always works along tangents: it’s only when your man hears a Moby track that he remembers the musician took his name from distant ancestor Herman Melville, author of Moby Dick. And then that the same novel also contained a character called Starbuck – hence the coffee chain’s title. Information can lay hidden for years, only surfacing when the right prompt comes along.

2. It's all part of a pattern

The human brain has a tendency – called ‘apophenia’ – to see patterns even where there are no patterns. So when we spot that there are four football clubs whose names begin and end with the same letter (Liverpool, Aston Villa, Northampton Town and Charlton Athletic), we like the symmetry. That’s why we remember it as a piece of trivia.

3. Men think like machines

Men tend to have ‘systemising’ brains, rather than the ‘empathising’ brains possessed by women. A systemising brain likes analysing, exploring or constructing systems. Professor Simon Baron-Cohen of Cambridge University explains that this is why men like processing knowledge – facts are a system just as much as a car engine or a computer is.

4. They don't mind if the facts are irrelevant

‘The escalator at Angel Tube station is the longest in western Europe’ might appear to be useless information – but as Baron-Cohen explains, ‘a systemising brain starts off by trying to absorb as much as it can about everything, then starts looking for patterns.’ Which is to say, men store up useless facts because one day they might, just might, become useful.

5. It's a buddy thing

Men use trivia to bond with each other. ‘It’s a part of “bloke equipment”,’ says actor and trivialist John Sessions. ‘It goes back to the guy at school who knew all the cricket averages.’ Swapping facts is the adult equivalent of swapping Top Trumps cards in the playground.

6. It makes them feel important

Men use trivia to feel closer to their heroes. Sessions, a huge Rolling Stones fan, loves the fact that Keith Richards was a choirboy at the Queen’s coronation. ‘It’s such a Keith thing to do,’ he says. ‘Rather than get a knighthood, sing at the coronation as a child, then become the Prince of Darkness.’ Knowing the fact lets a fan feel more of a connection and ownership with his objects of admiration.

7. It satisfies their curiosity, kind of

At its most fundamental, trivia symbolises one of the human race’s most defining qualities: curiosity. Aristotle said that ‘all men by nature desire to know’. ‘Maybe he meant women as well,’ says QI producer John Lloyd. ‘Probably not, actually. They were all terribly sexist, the Greeks. Aristotle claimed that women had more teeth than men did. He was married at least twice – he obviously never bothered to look in his wives’ mouths and count.’ Male curiosity still has its limits today. Your man will spend hours Googling trivia on his new Blackberry – but when it comes to finding out how the new washing machine works, he can develop a sudden lack of interest.

‘The Importance of Being Trivial: In Search of the Perfect Fact’ is published by Random House. www.theimportanceofbeingtrivial.com