the 100 things we didn't know last year I discovered

[almaty 19]

1. Pele has always hated his nickname, which he says sounds like "baby-talk in Portuguese".

More details

2. There are 200 million blogs which are no longer being updated, say technology analysts.

More details

3. Urban birds have developed a short, fast "rap style" of singing, different from their rural counterparts.

More details

4. Bristol is the least anti-social place in England, says the National Audit Office.

More details

5. Standard-sized condoms are too big for most Indian men.

More details

6. The late Alan "Fluff" Freeman, famous as a DJ, had trained as an opera singer.

More details

7. The lion costume in the film Wizard of Oz was made from real lions.

More details

8. There are 6.5 million sets of fingerprints on file in the UK.

More details

9. Fathers tend to determine the height of their child, mothers their weight.

More details

10. Panspermia is the idea that life on Earth originated on another planet.

More details

11. An infestation of head lice is called pediculosis.

More details

12. The Pope's been known to wear red Prada shoes.

More details

13. The fastest supercomputer in the UK can make 15.4 trillion calculations per second.

More details

14. Online shoppers will only wait an average of four seconds for an internet page to load before giving up.

More details

15. Donald Rumsfeld was both the youngest and the oldest defence secretary in US history.

More details

16. Spending on Halloween has risen 10-fold - from £12m to £120m in the UK, in five years.

More details

17. Coco Chanel started the trend for sun tans in 1923 when she got accidentally burnt on a cruise.

More details

18. Up to 25% of hospital keyboards carry the MRSA infection.

More details

19. The UK population grew at a rate of 500 per day last year as immigration out-stripped emigration.

More details

20. Sex workers in Roman times charged the equivalent price of eight glasses of red wine.

More details

21. English is now the only "traditional" academic subject in the top 10 most popular university courses.

More details

22. The number of people committing suicide in the UK has fallen to its lowest recorded level.

More details

23. More than one in eight people in the United States show signs of addiction to the internet, says a study.

More details

24. One third of all the cod fished in the world is consumed in the UK.

More details

25. In Kingston upon Thames, men on average live to be 78. In Kingston-upon-Hull it is 73.

More details

26. Each person sends an average of 55 greetings cards per year.

More details

27. Just one cow gives off enough harmful methane gas in a single day to fill around 400 litre bottles.

More details

28. More than 90% of plane crashes have survivors.

More details

29. Tony Blair’s favourite meal to cook is spaghetti bolognaise.

More details

30. The brain is soft and gelatinous - its consistency is something between jelly and cooked pasta.

More details

31. The Mona Lisa used to hang on the wall of Napoleon’s bedroom.

More details

32. Barbie's full name is Barbie Millicent Roberts.

More details

33. Eating a packet of crisps a day is equivalent to drinking five litres of cooking oil a year.

More details

34. Plant seeds that have been stored for more than 200 years can be coaxed into new life.

More details

35. There were no numbers in the very first UK phone directory, only names and addresses. Operators would connect callers.

More details

36. The InterCity 125 train was designed by the same man who came up with the angle-poise lamp and Kenwood Chef mixer.

More details

37. Pavements are tested using an 80 square metre artificial pavement at a research centre called Pamela (the Pedestrian Accessibility and Movement Environment Laboratory).

More details

38. A common American poplar has twice as many genes as a human being.

More details

39. The world's fastest supercomputer will have its speed measured in "petaflops", which represent 1,000 trillion calculations per second. More details

40. The medical name for the part of the brain associated with teenage sulking is "superior temporal sulcus".

More details

41. Some Royal Mail stamps, which of course carry the Queen's image, are printed in Holland.

More details

42. Helen Mirren was born Ilyena Lydia Mironov, the daughter of a Russian-born violinist with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

More details

43. There is only one cheddar cheese maker in Cheddar, even though cheddar is the most popular hard cheese in the English-speaking world.

More details

44. For every 10 successful attempts to climb Mount Everest there is one fatality.

More details

45. Cows can have regional accents, says a professor of phonetics, after studying cattle in Somerset

More details

46. Involuntary bad language, a symptom affecting about one in 10 people with Tourette's syndrome, is called "coprolalia".

More details

47. Watching television can act as a natural painkiller for children, say researchers from the University of Siena.

More details

48. Allotment plots come in the standard measure of 10 poles - a pole is the length of the back of the plough to the nose of the ox.

More details

49. When filming summer scenes in winter, actors suck on ice cubes just before the camera rolls - it cools their mouths so their breath doesn't condense in the cold air.

More details

50. There are 60 Acacia Avenues in the UK.

More details

51. Gritters come out in hot weather too - to spread rock dust, which stops roads melting.

More details

52. Forty-eight percent of the population is ex-directory.

More details

53. Red Buttons - real name Aaron Chwatt - took his surname from the nickname for hotel porters, a job he did in his teens.

More details

54. The CND symbol incorporates the semaphore letters for N and D for nuclear and disarmament.

More details

55. While 53% of households have access to a garage, only 24% use them for parking cars.

More details

56. Mortgage borrowing now accounts for 42% of take-home salary.

More details

57. The word "time" is the most common noun in the English language, according to the latest Oxford dictionary.

More details

58. Forty-one percent of English women have punched or kicked their partners, according to a study.

More details

59. Dogs with harelips can end up with two noses.

More details

60. The ####### derives its name from the ancient Greek word kleitoris, meaning "little hill".

More details

61. A domestic cat can frighten a black bear to climb a tree.

More details

62. Thirty-four percent of the UK has a surname that is ranked as "posher" than the Royal Family's given name, Windsor.

More details

63. The Downing St garden is actually a Royal Park.

More details

64. Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobiacs is the term for people who fear the number 666.

More details

65. The more panels a football has - and therefore the more seams - the easier it is to control in the air.

More details

66. One in four smokers use roll-ups.

More details

67. Music can help reduce chronic pain by more than 20% and can alleviate depression by up to 25%.

More details

68. The egg came first.

More details

69. Humans were first infected with the HIV virus in the 1930s.

More details

70. Sir Paul McCartney is only the second richest music millionaire in the UK - Clive Calder, is top.

More details

71. Publishers have coined the term "Brownsploitation" for the rash of books that have sprung up in the wake of Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code blockbuster.

More details

72. Modern teenagers are better behaved than their counterparts of 20 years ago, showing "less problematic behaviour" involving sex, drugs and drink.

More details

73. George Bush's personal highlight of his presidency is catching a 7.5lb (3.4kg) perch.

More details

74. Britain is still paying off debts that predate the Napoleonic wars because it's cheaper to do so than buy back the bonds on which they are based.

More details

75. Five billion apples are eaten a year in the UK.

More details

76. In Bhutan government policy is based on Gross National Happiness; thus most street advertising is banned, as are tobacco and plastic bags.

More details

77. Metal detector enthusiasts are referred to as "detectorists"; there are about 30,000 in the UK.

More details

78. The Labour Party spent £299.63 on Star Trek outfits for the last election, while the Tories shelled out £1,269 to import groundhog costumes.

More details

79. The best-value consumer purchase in terms of the price and usage is an electric kettle.

More details

80. Camel's milk, which is widely drunk in Arab countries, has 10 times more iron than cow's milk.

More details

81. Iceland has the highest concentration of broadband users in the world.

More details

82. There are 2.5 million rodent-owning households in Britain, according to the Pet Food Manufacturers' Association.

More details

83. Rainfall on the roof and gutters of a three-bed detached house can amount to 120,000 litres each year.

More details

84. Thinking about your muscles can make you stronger.

More details

85. The age limit for marriage in France was, until recently, 15 for girls, but 18 for boys. The age for girls was raised to 18 in 2006.

More details

86. Six million people use TV subtitles, despite having no hearing impairment.

More details

87. Goths, those pasty-faced teenagers who revel in black clothing, are likely to become doctors, lawyers and architects.

More details

88. Nelson Mandela used to steal pigs as a child.

More details

89. There are an average of 4.4 sparrows in each British garden. In 1979, there were 10 per garden.

More details

90. The Himalayas cover one-tenth of the Earth's surface.

More details

91. Lord Levy, recruited by Tony Blair to raise money for the Labour party, made his own fortune managing Alvin Stardust, among others.

More details

92. In a fight between a polar bear and a lion, the polar bear would win.

More details

93. If left alone, 70% of birthmarks gradually fade away.

More details

94. There are two million cars and trucks in Brazil which run on alcohol.

More details

95. US Secret Service sniffer dogs are put up in five-star hotels during overseas presidential visits.

More details

96. Flushing a toilet costs, on average, 1.5p.

More details

97. Tufty the road safety squirrel had a surname. It was Fluffytail.

More details

98. A "lost world" exists in the Indonesian jungle that is home to dozens of hitherto unknown animal and plant species.

More details

99. The term "misfeasance" means to carry out a legal act illegally.

More details

100. In the 1960s, the CIA used to watch Mission Impossible to get ideas about spying.

More details

.

1. Komodo dragons can have virgin births with offspring produced without any male contact.

More details

2. The human nose, pressed to the ground like a dog's, is sensitive enough to track a scent laid in an open field.

More details

3. In Japan the term "Paris syndrome" describes the psychological damage experienced by tourists shocked by the rudeness of Parisians.

More details

4. A two-headed reptile has been found in fossil form in China.

More details

5. There will be 18 million vehicles on the UK's roads this weekend.

More details

6. Comedy duo Laurel and Hardy had to provide their own clothes for their movies.

More details

7. The final Harry Potter book was planned, in part, a dozen years ago, says JK Rowling.

More details

8. The Turkmenistan president, Saparmurat Niyazov, who died this week, had banned beards, ballet, gold teeth, opera and recorded music on television.

More details

9. The Vauxhall Belmont is the car most likely to have been stolen last year.

More details

5. Standard-sized condoms are too big for most Indian men.

hmmmmmmmmmmmm...i assumed that must mean american indian...

[Sofiyya 1,687]

5. Standard-sized condoms are too big for most Indian men.

You must have missed the OT thread on that one!

And, you listed it twice.

Edited December 28, 2006 by szsz

[mybackpages 0]

2. There are 200 million blogs which are no longer being updated, say technology analysts.

More details

I am responsible for ONE of these!

[almaty 19]

5. Standard-sized condoms are too big for most Indian men.

You must have missed the OT thread on that one!

And, you listed it twice.

nope,.,just making a comment