10 things we didn't know last week
17:38 UK time, Friday, 20 April 2007
Snippets from the week's news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience.
1. Mr Man author Roger Hargreaves is Britain's third best-selling author, having sold more than 100 million books.
2. Termites are cockroaches, according to the Royal Society's Biology Letters journal.
3. Denmark is the happiest country in Europe; Italy the unhappiest. (The UK was 9th out of 15.)
4. Kate Middleton's family tree has been traced back 200 years to ancestors who survived coal mining, malnutrition and a cholera epidemic in the North East.
5. Male doctors are twice as likely to drink and drive as anyone outside the health service.
6. Dr Seuss' name is pronounced Dr Zoice.
7. A water-tight denial by a politician – as opposed to one that leaves room for later manoeuvre - is known as a Sherman pledge. The other sort is called a non-denial denial.
8. Chocolate is better than a passionate kiss, causing a more intense and longer-lasting buzz, and doubling the heart rate.
9. The average Briton has sex 4,239 times.
10. Spiralling obesity rates are forcing councils to upgrade their crematoria, to take wider coffins.
Soures: 1 - the Times, 16 April; 4 – the Observer, 15 April; 5 – the Times, 16 April; 6 – Daily Telegraph, 19 April; 9 – News of the World, 15 April.
Seen 10 things? . Thanks to Nicky Johns for this week's picture of 10 pear blossom flowers.
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