The BBC has published a list of 100 things we didn’t know this time last year… what an exciting year for new discoveries 2005 was!
Among my personal favourites are
- Number 6: WD-40 dissolves cocaine – it has been used by a pub landlord to prevent drug-taking in his pub’s toilets;
- Number 18: If all the Smarties eaten in one year were laid end to end it would equal almost 63,380 miles, more than two-and-a-half times around the Earth‘s equator;
- Number 29: When faced with danger, the octopus can wrap six of its legs around its head to disguise itself as a fallen coconut shell and escape by walking backwards on the other two legs, scientists discovered
- Numbers 76 and 77: The day when most suicides occurred in the UK between 1993 and 2002 was 1 January, 2000. The only day in that time when no-one killed themselves was 16 March, 2001, the day Comic Relief viewers saw Jack Dee win Celebrity Big Brother.
I already knew number 19…
And the fact that Tim Henman has a tennis court at his new home in Oxfordshire which he has never used explains a lot… you’re supposed to practice mate.
[Via BBC News]
