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10 things we didn't know before the 35th week of 2010

1. Apples originated in Kazakhstan.
2. Ray Winstone turned down the part of McNulty in The Wire.
3. It is illegal to dry clothes in various parks in Whitstable, Kent.
4. The UK's newest submarine will last 25 years without needing to be refuelled.
5. The Queen washes up.
6. Tony Blair was nervous meeting Des O'Connor.
7. Usain Bolt was called VJ as a child, because his mother thought he needed a nickname. It doesn't stand for anything.
8. Guinness can be deep-fried.
9. The biggest crisp factory in the world is in Leicester.
10. Britons drink less alcohol than the European average.

(Borrowed from the BBC)

10 things we didn't know before the 34th week of 2010

1. The Tube carries more passengers than the whole of the national rail network.
2. The optimum time to book a flight is eight weeks before departure.
3. The Stig was originally going to be called The Gimp.
4. Milk used to be watered down, then coloured yellow with toxic lead chromate to make it look creamy.
5. It's possible to watch 28,000 films in a lifetime.
6. Sumo wrestlers can't use iPhones because their fingers are too fat.
7. The socks-with-sandals look came from the Romans.
8. Tornados can burn.
9. Putting a cat in a bin is not illegal.
10. Traffic jams can last nine days.

(Borrowed from the BBC)

10 things we didn't know before the 33rd week of 2010

1. Roadside trees slow down cars.
2. School uniforms cost less than £5.
3. Only 10% of words in a text message are not written in full, on average.
4. You can get six A grades at A-level and still not be offered a university place.
5. One in three adults takes a soft toy to bed, according to new research.
6. Dogs can walk upright.
7. Man was not responsible for the extinction of the woolly mammoth.
8. The average person spends around 15 hours 45 minutes every day awake.
9. Children with squints are less likely to be invited to birthday parties.
10. Urine could be a source of renewable energy.

(Borrowed from the BBC)

10 things we didn't know before the 32nd week of 2010

1. Pea plants can grow inside a human lung.
2. In Switzerland you can be fined $1m for speeding.
3. Seaside towns and the Isle of Man used to have postcard censorship committees.
4. The penguin on Penguin books was named Frostie after one of the editors at the publishing house.
5. Nationwide supermarket bans exist.
6. Naturalist Charles Darwin left the Victorian equivalent of about £13m today, and Charles Dickens £7m when they died.
7. Fishermen in Britain have a one in 20 chance of being killed on the job during the course of their working lives.
8. The Qwerty keyboard layout isn't random - it's to keep commonly used letters apart.
9. Some hardened sauna users can stand temperatures of up to 160C.
10. Honeybees are cleverer at certain times of the day.

(Borrowed from the BBC)

10 things we didn't know (catch up)

Because I've been away, and I know you wouldn't want to miss out...

10 things we didn't know before the 29th week of 2010

1. Twenty babies born in the UK since World War II have been named Adolf.
2. Thursday is the grumpiest day, according to research in the US.
3. In Brazil, a social networking site called Orkut has more members than Facebook and Twitter combined.
4. Beer can have an alcohol content of 55%.
5. Jokes can be protected by copyright, in theory.
6. Blood can be mixed with pulp to make a page in a book.
7. A sum of £650m can buy you about 7% of the world's cocoa.
8. Before 2008, prisoners were allowed to have fancy dress parties and comedy nights.
9. Black parents can have white, blond-haired children.
10. Tour de France etiquette dictates that cyclists should not overtake the leader if he suffers mechanical problems.

(Borrowed from the BBC)

10 things we didn't know before the 30th week of 2010

1. One in five UK women will not have children, many by choice.
2. Gooseberries have been in England since at least 1275, when the king shipped over plants from France to grow at the Tower of London.
3. International athletes coming to London for the 1948 Olympics had to bring their own towels.
4. And half the pigeons brought to the stadium to be released for the opening ceremony died in the heat.
5. A man thought to be Tokyo's oldest had, in fact, been dead for 30 years.
6. Dogs mimic their owners.
7. And one in three are obese.
8. Snooker world championships used to last a year.
9. One in 36 pound coins is fake.
10. The world's most ancient living creatures are a breed of shrimp which live in south-west Scotland.

(Borrowed from the BBC)

10 things we didn't know before the 31st week of 2010

1. Rotterdam is Europe's busiest port.
2. Beach huts in Scarborough cost nearly as much as a one-bedroom flat. 
3. Buttocks are hardest to tan.
4. Last year, Iceland became the first country with an openly gay head of state.
5. Middlesex was first documented in the Eighth Century.
6. Winston Churchill concealed a reported UFO sighting while prime minister because he feared it would cause mass panic and make people question religion.
7. One in five drivers killed in road accidents has some kind of drug in his body.
8. Hormones can affect shopping habits.
9. William, Alice and Robert are names the English adopted from the Normans. More details 10. Fourteen swimmers have been rescued from The Thames in the last six months.

(Borrowed from the BBC)

10 things we didn't know before the 27th week of 2010

1. You can get inflatable TV screens. 
2. Meerkats have family "traditions" that are passed down through generations.
3. Two year olds have woodwork lessons, using hammers and nails.
4. A salary of £14,400 is the minimum a single person needs for an acceptable standard of living.
5. The world's tallest tent is 150m (490ft) high.
6. Lady Gaga has over 10m fans on Facebook.
7. Hamburger-related injuries are on the rise in Taiwan.
8. The common octopus is the most intelligent invertebrate.
9. Liquid can stop bullets. 
10. The male squid's sexual organ is almost as long as its whole body.

(Borrowed from the BBC)

10 things we didn't know before the 26th week of 2010

1. Ancient whales had really big teeth.
2. German fans moo at England football players and fans.
3. The process of encrypting secret data in images or text is called steganography.
4. The name comes from Steganographia, title of a book written in 1499.
5. Some 14 million British homes date from when asbestos was widely used as a building material.
6. The celebrity perfume market is estimated to be worth £255m in the UK alone.
7. Wonder Woman was originally an Amazon.
8. A Gazan man has more than 430 grandchildren (and 11 wives over his lifetime).
9. BBC Radio 2 was once called the Light Programme, and Radio 3 the Third Programme. 
10. Withdrawn banknotes are shredded and sometimes used in compost.

(Borrowed from the BBC)

10 things we didn't know before the 25th week of 2010

1. More than 5,000 so-called mosquito alarms, which emit a sound to disperse teenage groups, are in operation in the UK.
2. Human hair is used as a food additive.
3. Italy's footballers were pelted with rotten fruit when they arrived back in the country after an early exit from the 1966 World Cup.
4. Scotland has the highest proportion of cocaine users in the world. 
5. Tennis matches can last three days.
6. There are 820 government websites.
7. More than eight million visits were made to news websites every minute, on the night Barack Obama won the US presidential election. On the first day of the World Cup, there were 12m visits per minute.
8. General Stanley McChrystal only eats one square meal a day.
9. Nottingham Forest players got drunk the night before winning the League Cup final in 1979.
10. There are 6,000 islands in Greece, but only 227 are inhabited.

(Borrowed from the BBC)

10 things we didn't know before the 24th week of 2010

1. Whale poo helps absorb CO2.
2. The BBC failed to record Charles de Gaulle's famous broadcast to German-occupied France.
3. Vuvuzelas are pitched at the B flat below middle C.
4. Male menopause exists (in 2% of men).
5. Britain's VAT of 17.5% is one of the lowest rates in Europe.
6. That "USA WINS 1-1" headline in the New York Post? They were joking.
7. Men were taught to change nappies at Fathercraft classes in the 1920s.
8. The government considered blocking North Korea from the 1966 World Cup.
9. Using the words "Games" and "2012" could land advertisers a £20,000 fine come the next Olympics.
10. Mathematicians busk.

(Borrowed from the BBC)

10 things we didn't know before the 23rd week of 2010

1. The number of snakes in the world is falling.
2. Indigenous Bolivians wear bowler hats because of the English.
3. The top sponsors of the World Cup pay on average £75m.
4. Forty-two people die on South African roads every day, on average. 
5. Motor racing is popular in the West Bank.
6. More than one in 10 websites is pornographic.
7. When one police diver is under water, another four remain on dry land.
8. If all the worldwide television coverage of the 2006 World Cup was shown on one channel, it would take more than eight years to watch.
9. Man can beat a horse in a running race, in the right conditions.
10. A seal's whiskers can detect fish movement 100 metres away.

(Borrowed from the BBC)