3 months
c) 9 months
[Answer: b) three months.]
Three-quarters of the world’s population wash from top to bottom in the shower.
More money is spent on gardening than on any other hobby.
£25,000 is the highest price paid for a donkey in the UK. The prized beast was a racing donkey called Minstrel.
Many sailors believe a cat on board a ship means:
a) a lucky trip
b) an unlucky trip
c) Rolf Harris is filming a new series of Animal Hospital
[Answer: a) a lucky trip. Although it would be unlucky for the cat if it suffered from seasickness.]
It’s estimated that only 5 to 10 per cent of the world’s information has been digitised.
A Scottish taxi driver earned £12,000 driving a woman with a fear of flying 16,000 miles around America.
Austria was the first country to ever use postcards.
UK fish and chip shops currently use 60,000 tonnes of fish and 500,000 tonnes of potatoes a year …
…and we eat around 300 million servings of fish and chips a year – five for every person.
The role of Hamlet is the largest part in any Shakespeare play with 1,422 lines.
There are no female speaking parts in the whole of the film Lawrence of Arabia.
Movie factoid, courtesy of Jonathan Ross – Gone with the Wind is the only Civil War epic ever filmed without a single battle scene.
California has issued six drivers licenses to people named “Jesus Christ”.
Charles Dickens mentions a fried fish shop in his novel Oliver Twist – but it was not until the 1860s that the trade took off. So Dickens invented them!
The world’s first mobile phone was invented by Martin Cooper in April 1973.
In China, fish and chips are served with:
a) sugar
b) soy sauce
c) a smile
[Answer: a) sugar. Obviously makes for some sweet ‘sole’ food … ]
You share your birthday with at least 9 million other people around the world.
“ Beanz Meanz Heinz ” was voted the world’s most popular advertising slogan ever. My favourite was for milk in the 70s: “Watch out, watch out – there’s a Humphrey about!”
The first man to orbit the Earth, Yuri Gagarin, was in space for 108 minutes.
Notre Dame Cathedral was started in 1015 and completed in 1439 … possibly the same firm of contractors who look after the escalators on the Northern line today.
The poet William Wordsworth could only sleep standing up.
An inventor in Brazil claims he has built a car that can run on urine, and does 20 miles to the gallon. Taking the piss.
The world’s largest meat pie was shared by 50,000 people at Denby Dale in Yorkshire in 2000.
Working parents with two children at school spend up to £2,400 on childcare and entertainment during the summer holidays.
Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector, was famed for his sense of humour and as a young man would put sticky sweets onto his guests’ chairs and trick them into sitting down.
In October 1833, 10-year-old Barney Flaherty became the world’s first paperboy after seeing an advert in the New York Sun.
In one year in New York, more than 8,000 people had been treated for dog bites – and one person suffered a penguin bite.
Cinderella is officially the nation’s favourite fairy tale, followed by Sleeping Beauty and Hansel and Gretel.
Hollywood film star Fatty Arbuckle was cleared of a charge of murder, but the case ended his career.
The first known contraceptive was crocodile dung, used by Egyptians in 2000 BC.
Antarctica is the only continent without reptiles or snakes.
Washing a chicken before cooking it is more dangerous than not doing so. The cooking will kill any food poisoning bacteria, while washing the bird can spread bacteria to nearby taps, and kitchen surfaces.
Wayne Rooney became the youngest footballer ever to score for England when he got the first goal against Macedonia in September 2003 at the age of 17 years 317 days.
Tin Henman’s great grandmother, Ellen Mary Sewell, was the first woman to serve overarm at Wimbledon … when he plays her now, she still beats him.
When the UK adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752, 11 days disappeared.
Honey is the only food that does not spoil.
Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev, a Russian dramatist who died in 1883, possessed the heaviest human brain on record at nearly 4lb 7oz.
What do Chrissie Hynde, Roger Moore, Roseanne and Eddie ‘The Eagle’ Edwards have in common?
a) They all auditioned for the role of James Bond.
b) They all guest-presented BBC’s Top of the Pops.
c) They all once washed dishes for a living.
[Answer: c) They all once washed dishes for a living. Maybe one or two of them shouldn’t have given up the day job.]
The fortune cookie was invented in 1916 by George Jung, a Los Angeles noodlemaker.
(Yesterday when I was Jung.)
