I always knew there were people out there researching some weird and wonderful stuff… but I stumbled on this really random compilation of crap from the last year and some of it is really kinda interesting  🙂

100 things we didn’t know last year
from the BBC Magazine Monitor.

Interesting and unexpected facts can emerge from the daily news stories and the Magazine documents some of them in its weekly feature, 10 things we didn’t know last week. To kick off 2009, here are some of the best of last year.

1. Victorians believed smoking cleared the lungs – and struck off Dr Thomas Allinson, who founded the bakery of the same name, for describing nicotine as a "foul poison" and advocating healthy eating.
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2. Police are not required to clean up a crime scene once evidence has been gathered.
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3. Octopuses need mental stimulation.
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4. Etiquette dictates that at dinner parties, a man should always talk to the woman on his left during the first course, and right during the main course.
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5. Both men and women find long legs in the opposite sex attractive, but not too long.
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6. Carrots used to be purple.
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7. Only offal-free versions of haggis are available in the United States.
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8. A bear helped carry ammunition for Polish troops during World War II.
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9. Swedes have a word for a man who visits prostitutes – torsk.
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10. The age at which we are most vulnerable to depression is 44, while a 70-year-old who is physically fit is, on average, as happy and mentally healthy as a 20-year-old.
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11. Cumbria is the safest county in England and Wales.
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12. Every year, the world’s deserts produce 1,700 million tonnes of dust.
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11. St Kilda has no rats.
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12. The oldest Mormon congregation in the world is in Preston, Lancashire.
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13. A fire at a landfill site in Guernsey has been smouldering for three years.
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14. Brain tumours can be diagnosed by a handshake.
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15. Whales catnap.
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16. If housewives got salaries at the going rate for doing household chores, they would on average earn £30,000.
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17. For the first time in US history, more than one in every 100 American adults is behind bars.
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18. 23% of plastic bags used in the UK are from Tesco.
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19. Prison pay is on average £9.60 a week.
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20. The average midweek bedtime is between 10pm and 11pm.
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21. Short men are more likely to be jealous.
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22. Toasters are banned in Cuba.
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23. The most frequently used term of abuse in schools is "gay".
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24. Men eat more Brussel sprouts and broccoli than women.
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25. Lions were kept in the Tower of London in the 14th century.
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26. Up to one quarter of the sand on shorelines can be composed of plastic particles.
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27. It costs $100,000 to hunt a rhino in South Africa.
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28. The Olympic torch is designed to withstand winds of up to 65km an hour and stay alight in rain up to 50mm an hour.
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29. Each year 40,000 people pay homage at the California garage where the founders of Hewlett Packard started out.
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28. Rice was once considered so important in Japan that it was worshipped as a god.
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29. About 86% of fathers attend the birth of their children.
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30. Smells can drift across the Channel.
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31. The language of space is English.
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32. There are 109 journeys between London’s Tube stations that are quicker to walk.
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33. A severed finger tip can grow back naturally.
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34. The most common "combination craving" for a pregnant woman is pickles and peanut butter.
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35. Punch and Judy puppeteers are called professors.
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36. Some 1.3 million unopened yoghurt pots are thrown away each day in the UK.
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37. The Ministry of Defence has amassed 160 files on UFOs, containing details of 8,000 sightings.
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38. Sloths aren’t lazy.
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39. Brain chemical oxytocin makes us trust strangers with money.
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40. You can lessen jet lag by not eating.
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41. Women are banned by law from Mount Athos in Greece, home to 20 monasteries.
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42. One of the earliest Mars Bars was pineapple-flavoured. It flopped.
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43. Biscuits are key to clinching deals.
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44. Syria has the world’s largest restaurant, seating 6,014 diners.
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45. Pigs can suffer from mysophobia, a fear of dirt.
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46. A petaflop is a measurement of computing speed equivalent to one thousand trillion calculations a second.
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47. Schools influence the smoking habits of young people.
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48. A bespoke garment does not necessarily need to be handmade.
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49. A Volvo can accommodate 13 people.
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50. The Royal Family costs the equivalent of 66p per person in the UK.
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51. An income of £13,400 is required to enjoy a minimum standard of living in the UK.
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52. Everton, Aston Villa and Fulham are among the football clubs that were created from Sunday schools.
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53. Pears sink while apples float.
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54. A monsoon is a wind, rather than rain.
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55. Young teenagers are drinking less and consuming fewer drugs.
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56. White Americans are 14% more likely than other ethnic groups to survive cancer.
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57. Faking one’s death is known as pseudocide.
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58. Having fat friends increases your risk of obesity.
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59. Bees act in a similar way to serial killers.
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60. Liz Taylor has broken her back five times.
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61. Robins only became a symbol for Christmas in the 19th Century, when postmen – who mostly brought mail at Christmas – wore scarlet waistcoats and were known as Robin Redbreasts.
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62. Pet dogs can catch human yawns.
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63. Mills and Boon still publish at least one sheikh romance a month.
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64. A rooftop luggage carrier increases fuel consumption by 20%.
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65. A 72oz steak is about the size of a large telephone directory. And since 1960, 8,000 people have managed to eat one – plus all the trimmings – in under an hour.
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66. Misheard song lyrics are known as mondegreens.
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67. Twenty-three wedding cakes were made for the nuptials of Charles and Diana.
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68. Shetland is the fattest part of the UK.
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69. E-mail addresses beginning with "A", "M" or "S" get more spam than those starting with "Q" or "Z".
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70. You can dive from 35ft into 12in of water – and only suffer bruising (with a lot of training).
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71. Baseball was played in Surrey in 1755.
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72. Portraits of famous people often look like the painter instead.
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73. Texting impairs drivers more than alcohol.
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74. Kenyan women eat stones.
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75. The ideal drive is 16 minutes long.
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76. Henry V invented passports.
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77. Bradford and Bingley has registered the raising of the bowler hat as a trademark.
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78. There are two £1m banknotes still in existence. Nine were made after World War II.
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79. The word "unbepissed" means "not being urinated on".
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80. Goats wear condoms.
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81. The world’s longest insect is 56cm long.
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82. Prince Charles could have had a cameo in Doctor Who.
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83. Gay couples can’t commit adultery.
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84. Stars make noise.
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85. The United Arab Emirates, along with the US, has the largest ecological footprint per person.
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86. There’s a town in Uruguay called Fray Bentos.
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87. Barack Obama supports West Ham.
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88. Saddam Hussein’s yacht had an escape tunnel leading to a submarine.
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89. The QE2 does 49 feet to the gallon.
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90. The song Two Little Boys was probably about the American Civil War.
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91. On the Buses star Reg Varney opened the UK’s first cash dispenser.
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92. Camel urine is sought after for its medicinal effects in India’s Bihar state and sells for £1.34 a litre.
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93. Police use curry to hasten the re-emergence of swallowed drugs.
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94. The 999 emergency number was chosen over 111 because telegraph wires rubbing together in the wind transmitted the equivalent of a 111 call.
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95. The Sydney Opera House was inspired by a peeled orange.
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96. A street light costs about 15p a night to keep lit.
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97. Emily, of Bagpuss fame, was paid with a bag of sweets.
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98. Councils are banning number 13 houses on new developments.
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99. Sneezing can be a sign of arousal.
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100. Leonard Cohen’s original Hallelujah has more than 80 verses.
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I saw this article on the BBC News website just before Christmas and it’s been annoying me.  Beluga caviar imports have been banned or restricted for quite some time due to dwindling numbers of sturgeon in the Caspian…. which has been positively unbearable Darrrhlings! For the little people like us!  Why have you seen the price of decent caviar Sweeties?  Well… no I haven’t either and couldn’t give a shit…. but I digress.

A few days before Christmas Italian Customs officials confiscated some 40kgs of the stuff which has a street value of approximately USD$550,000…. and the powers that be in their infinite wisdom have decided to disseminate it to the Milanese poor and/or homeless via charitable shelters and hospices as a special Christmas treat.  

Does anyone else see a fundamental flaw in this cunning plan?  Yeah okay they can give all these poor people an unexpected (and for all we know possibly unwanted) Christmas treat or maybe they could have sold the stuff to the highest bidder and fed the city’s homeless and disaffected for who knows how many months.  Perhaps that sort of money would be better off getting those same downtrodden folks into suitable programs to assisst with providing accommodation or employment or training.  Who knows how far half a millon dollars would go towards useful programs to assist the poor in a town like Milan.  

But donating the ridiculoulsy expensive caviar as a extravagant Christmas gift?  That just seems plain stupid to me.

Beluga caviar seized by Italian customs officers is
to be distributed to poor people in Milan as a Christmas gift.
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IVF is a shit of a thing to go through.  It is emotionally draining, physically demanding, hideously expensive, indescribably invasive and downright demoralizing from go to woe.

Every time I see a news article about some pathetic excuse for a parent who doesn’t cherish their children… something in the back of my head goes “That’s not fair – how come this arsehole can have kids and I can’t?”.  It doesn’t have to be a tragic homicidal incident – though those cases have been known to see me in the kitchen crying over the weekend papers, and it doesn’t even have to be criminally negligent to make my brain strike up that tune – though those cases too really get my hackles up.  Especially the ones where some mother hasn’t protected her children from their step-dad/new boyfriend and it all goes horribly pear shaped and before you know it you’ve got an infant in hosptital with shaken baby syndrome or you find yourself reading reports of damage to a toddler that tells of so many fractures and repeated injuries that it reads like the poor bub has been hit by a truck.  But I’m getting a little off track…

Even little things can trigger my “Why?  Oh why, are fuckwits like this able to breed and I’m not?”…. little things like an article which Mr K just flicked me a few moments ago.  These people (in absence of evidence to the contrary) we assume love their children as parents should but for some unknown reason have deemed it appropriate to name their children –

• Adolf Hitler Campbell
• JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell and
• Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell.

The father claims he chose the name ‘Adolf Hitler Campbell’ because ‘no one else would have that name’ and that ‘they’re just names you know’.  I note the article mentions their house is decorated with swastikas and he claims to have been related to a memeber of the SS but of course his decision to name his children thus has nothing to do with admiration or identification of Nazi ideals etc.

How can these people be so cruel?  Is increasing the likelyhood of your child being socially ostracized at school or worse – bullied and maybe even beat up on a regular basis – tanatmount to willful neglect?  Or maybe you could argue that it’s actually some sort of constructive abuse for they certainly seem to be providing the conditions for abuse to occur albeit likely not by their own hands.

As far as I can see…. not being able to get an inscription on a cake?!?!  Well that’s going to be the least of that poor little bugger’s problems throughout what will no doubt be very harrowing and difficult formative years.  I wish we could look forward and see just how long it takes for those children to first – come up with some decent nicknames and second – change their names by deed poll once they reach whatever age is legally required in New Jersey to do so.

The internets is an amazing place.  Every day you stumble over something new.  Interesting things, alarming things and of course the just plain weird things.  

Things I learned today… December 10th 2008 –

the Governor of Illinois is corrupt (corrupt politican … quelle surprise)
Rio Tinto is sacking 14000 people
intelligent men produce better quality sperm
Zimbabwee is getting more pooched by the minute
and umpteen other bits and bobs…

But here’s one you don’t see every day…

A young Chinese woman was left partially deaf following a passionate kiss from her boyfriend.

The 20-something from Zhuhai in Guangdong province arrived at hospital having completely lost the hearing in her left ear, said local reports.The incident prompted a series of articles in the local media warning of the dangers of excessive kissing.

"While kissing is normally very safe, doctors advise people to proceed with caution," wrote the China Daily. The doctor who treated the girl in hospital was quoted in the paper explaining what had happened.

"The kiss reduced the pressure in the mouth, pulled the eardrum out and caused the breakdown of the ear."  The chorus of warnings was echoed by the Shanghai Daily, which wrote: "A strong kiss may cause an imbalance in the air pressure between two inner ears and lead to a broken ear drum."

The young woman is expected to regain her full hearing within about two months.