³ÉÈËÂÛ̳

Re 100 things, no. 58 - presumably that's to wash down all the eggs.
Colin, Exeter, UK

We here in Saint Vincent & The Grenadines would argue fact 50 in your yearly 100 things!Charlton, Kingstown, StV

If anyone fancies a change of career in the New Year, it looks as if there is a proofreader position available at Number 11 Downing Street if the last image here is anything to go by.
Sam Hoggarth, London

Alex, Thursdays letters - I fear you've missed the joke: Dwarves, plural of dwarf (Noun)
A member of a mythical race of short, stocky humanlike creatures [and quite commonly found in films such as The Hobbit]. Forget the ODEC - you need a copy of LOTR.
Dave, Surrey

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1. Bond star Daniel Craig does not like his knees.
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2. In China, crowded public swimming pools are called boiling dumplings.
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3. People eat Christmas trees.
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4. Goats have accents.
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5. Authors who finish other writers' works are known as "continuators".
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6. A horse fly is named after Beyonce.
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7. State workers in South Carolina answer the phone with, "It's a great day in South Carolina."Ìý
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8. There are 364 different ways to mis-spell the name of the Welsh village Betws-y-Coed.
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9. Moths have a taste for Chardonnay.
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10. More babies were born in the UK during 1920 than in any other year.Ìý
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11. The world's hottest chilli pepper can burn its way through gloves.
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12. The average US share holding lasts 22 seconds.
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13. The early horse shrank to the size of a cat.
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14. King's Lynn is the caravan capital of England and Wales.
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15. Fans of snowdrops are known as galanthophiles.
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16. Hitler was embarrassed about a photograph showing him wearing lederhosen.
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17. Lizards can survive a spin in the washing machine.
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18. Female fish fancy males who flirt with other males.
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19. Lord Byron was one of the first diet icons.Ìý
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20. Spiders appear bigger when you're afraid of them.
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21. The longest word ever used in the House of Commons is floccinaucinihilipilification.
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22. Horses can be borrowed from the Metropolitan Police.
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23. Wearing a white lab coat helps you perform better in tests.
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24. Richard Dawkins invokes God when flustered.
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25. Birds take "girls only" holidaysÌý
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26. Bees have different personalities and some are thrill-seekers.
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27. Sex-starved fruit flies turn to drink.
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28. Barack Obama knows sign language.
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29. The first silicone breast implant was carried out on a dog called Esmerelda.Ìý
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30. Ernest Hemingway cried after he was forced to shoot his injured cat.
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31. A tweet by Jamie Oliver is worth $3,250 (£2,044).
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32. Ants inoculate themselves by licking each other.
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33. Holding a gun makes someone look taller.Ìý
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34. A dog can be best man at a wedding.
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35. The polar bear is 450,000 older than previously thought.
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36. Bob Marley banned smoking at home.
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37. Robert Redford didn't want to include hit song Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head in the 1969 film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
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38. Occultist Aleister Crowley had his own chess column in the Eastbourne Gazette.
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39. Listening to opera helps mice recover from heart surgery.
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40. Timbuktu is twinned with Hay-on-Wye in Wales.
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41. Bees don't like babysitting their nephews and nieces.
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42. David Cameron thought LOL was shorthand for "lots of love".
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43. A woman's "gaydar" improves when she is ovulating.Ìý
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44. Beetles like living near street lights.
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45. On a French keyboard you have to press the shift key to get a full stop.
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46. Beijing has a "two flies" rule in its public toilets.
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47. Roy Hodgson is in the acknowledgments of Sebastian Faulks's novel A Week in December.
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48. The tastiest tomatoes are not uniformly red.
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49. Rihanna has sold more UK singles than the Rolling Stones.Ìý
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50. Only two countries retain the definite article in English - The Bahamas and The Gambia.
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51. Enoch Powell used to do impressions of Antiques Roadshow.
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52. The US government is sceptical about the existence of mermaids.
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53. One in three South Koreans follow Manchester United.
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54. It takes more energy to sit through a 15-minute meeting than it takes Usain Bolt to run three Olympic 100m races.
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55. Female crickets eat male virgins.
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56. Jumping off a tall building wearing Batman's cape would result in a crash landing at 50mph.
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57. The Nazis plotted to kill Sir Winston Churchill with an exploding bar of chocolate.
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58. Mexicans drink more bottled water per capita than any other country.
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59. ANC guerrillas contacted London to get the exact wording of a speech from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.
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60. A patas monkey would beat Usain Bolt's 100m world record by three seconds.
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61. Men's brains are designed to shut down after sex.
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62. The US airforce trains more drone pilots than actual pilots.
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63. The earliest known use of "OMG" was in a 1917 letter to Winston Churchill.
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64. Olympic swimmers pee in the pool.
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65. When a player signs for Man City, the club already knows his girlfriend's taste in restaurants.
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66. In Italian, there is a word for a summer hit song that is played everywhere you go - tormentone.
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67. The favourite number of Count von Count from the Muppets is 34,969.
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68. Chimpanzees have a secret handshake.
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69. A hurricane can make the Mississippi River run backwards for 24 hours.
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70. There has only ever been one Secretary of State for Wales named Jones.
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71. Spoof disaster movie Airplane! elicits three belly laughs per minute from viewers - more than the Life of Brian's 1.2.
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72. Only two flavours - chocolate and lavender - are interpreted the same way whether eaten or smelt.
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73. The average Mexican eats 430 eggs each year, the highest per capita amount of any nation.
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74. The oldest dental filling has been found in a Stone Age tooth.
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75. Ed Sheeran is the most pirated artist in the UK.
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76. One in every 10 people uses the same Pin number - 1234.
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77. Bexhill, Sussex, has more centenarians per head of population than anywhere else in the UK.
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78. Honey can turn blue and green.
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79. Shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna was part of the choir that sang the theme tune to Mr Bean.

80. The Duchess of Cambridge grows her own potatoes.

81. People prone to feeling guilty make for the best friends.

82. Women get more stressed than men when they read bad news stories.
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83. Men named Brian and women called Helen have the best credit profiles in the UK on average.

84. Michael Fish has about a hundred fish-themed ties.

85. Flying ant day is a myth.
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86. Some 10% of UK lottery millionaires buy a caravan.

87. It takes six hours to reset the Big Ben clock from BST to GMT.

88. Watching a horror film burns more calories than movies of other genres.

89. Ikea has sold over 11 billion meatballs in the UK.
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90. Mars has soil similar to Hawaii's.
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91. New Scotland Yard is actually New New Scotland Yard.
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92. Abraham Lincoln is the US president who has been portrayed most on film.

93. The staff carried by the next Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has a rock badger carved on it because he once burst out laughing while reading aloud in church a biblical passage about the animal.

94. There used to be first-class carriages on London's Tube and the Paris Metro.
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95. Virgin birth is possible for wild snakes.
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96. People are more likely to spend banknotes when they are grubby.

97. Men with a partner increase the space between themselves and an attractive woman if exposed to the bonding hormone oxytocin.

98. Nude dancing in strip clubs is a form of free speech in the US.
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99. The perfect number of baubles on a Christmas tree is 0.206 multiplied by the height of the tree in centimetres.

100. Great apes have mid-life crises.
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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

The papers are often in a quandary at this time of year. Christmas is over. New Year hasn't quite arrived.

And yet as (nearly) everyone is still on holiday, there is no news.

So it is hardly surprising that many are suitably excited by Kate Winslet's "secret wedding" - to the newly named Ned RocknRoll, formerly known as Abel Smith, and also nephew of Sir Richard Branson - to splash them across their front pages.

No matter that the wedding was three weeks ago. Even better, it seems, considering no-one knew about it. "," reports the Daily Mail, which quotes "friends" saying they were married in a "really romantic, private ceremony".

"Certainly, the fact that she has embarked upon another union without any kind of pre-nuptial agreement to protect her £12million fortune certainly marks her down as a romantic", the paper's Alison Boshoff muses.

However perhaps slightly less generously, the paper points out this is her third marriage. "Is this the Winslet way? It seems she is in the habit of leaving less time than is entirely polite between ditching one man and taking up with another," it asks.

The Daily Telegraph takes the same theme on a different tack. "," it says. "," is the Daily Express' version, which goes on to reveal that Kate was given away by her Titanic co-star Leonardo DiCaprio.

Meanwhile the Sun has an "exclusive" in the form of Sir Richard's wedding present. it gushes. The gift? A 60-mile Virgin Galantic flight into space.

Paper Monitor imagines the couple are over the moon.

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Colin Main, they have, but their hair hasn't. It's even weirder than we thought. Oh, and for Robert from Sheffield:- 10 times...but why?
Graham, Purmerend, NL

Rob, Monday's letters:
to dwarf, a verb, to make someone appear small. Dwarf, a noun. No explanation needed. I suggest you buy a copy of ODEC (I'll get my Hart's rules)
Alex, Grand Rapids, MI (currently in London on vacation)

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

Boxing day is sofa day. At least that's the conventional wisdom.

But leafing through the papers, two alternatives to homo couchpotatiens hove into view.

The Daily Mail - the story of the Christmas sales. Meet homo retailiens.

The paper tells readers how police were deployed "to control the hordes as they run screaming through stores". A picture of the Selfridges perfume department is offered as exhibit A.

"Their eyes blazed as their arms stretched out in desperation," goes the not-at-all melodramatic drop intro. "The frenzied scene at a London perfume counter was repeated around the country as shoppers besieged stores on the first day of the sales."

The other interesting creature on view is homo outdoorsiens. The Daily Telegraph front page shows a scarlet-coated member of the Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire hunt leaping over a fence amid a pack of hounds.

The Daily Mirror takes a different line. "They are back killing foxes," is its take.

A less controversial branch of homo outdoorsiens can be seen in many of the papers - winter swimmers.

In Sidmouth, Devon it was a bit of a close shave after some of the swimmers were swept onto barnacled rocks. "Swimming into terror" is the Mail's once again not-at-all melodramatic take.

The Mirror concentrates on the many bracing bathes that passed off safely. Oh, and.

"Here's a cheeky way to promote your home town while splashing around in the chilly sea," the story says beneath a picture of two bikini-covered bottoms spelling out the word Tenby. "The giggling pair were among hundreds of revellers up and down the land enjoying a traditional Boxing day dip."

Ah, the reveller. Homo revelliens. We'll be hearing more of him and her in the coming days, Paper Monitor suspects.

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It was something that was bothering Paper Monitor, really it was. Just who would take charge in the event of a Zombie invasion. And this appears to be something that members of the public have on their mind, too.

A response to a recent Freedom of Information request by a member of the public has clarified the situation, according to the Telegraph.

"In the event of an apocalypse brought about by an army of the undead," it's the Cabinet Office, and not the Ministry of Defence - as expected - that would be responsible for returning "England to its pre-attack glory," .

The writer seems surprised that the government has already assigned the role to a particular department and appears impressed by authorities' "level of readiness for a zombie onslaught".

Public bodies, it appears, get asked all kinds of questions about zombies, wizards and vampires as in the form of freedom of information requests. And they all need to be answered. Critics have accused such people of being time-wasters who are simply squandering taxpayer money.

The Daily Mail has a report on time-wasters, detailing some of received by the emergency services this year. Here's one received by the police in North Wales.

"An angry dad dialled 999 to report his teenage son for refusing to go to bed. The schoolboy, 14, was playing on his games console at midnight and ignored his parents' pleas to switch it off and get some sleep. The late-night row got so heated the boy's father picked up the phone and dialled 999."

Now Paper Monitor thinks this boy needs to be watched closely. Maybe the parents have very real concerns. After all, zombies don't need to go to bed.

This correspondent is now seeing the undead everywhere. A nervous glance out of the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s window onto Oxford Street. Hordes of dead-eyed people are marching up and down.

It's apparently been going on since the early hours - all around the country. Marching and up and down, staring into shop windows. According to the Mirror, some are expected in Oxford Street.

Someone call the Cabinet Office.

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Have John Kerry and ever been seen in the same room as each other? I think we should be told.
Colin Main, Berkhamsted

10 things we didn't know last week...2. ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ journalists cannot use basic grammar. Reindeer is both singular and plural. Write it 10 times, please.
Robert, Sheffield

Dear Tom, as we how have a second row over the police conduct at the Gate, should we be calling this GateGateGate?
Adrian, London

Are we taking bets on how long until the next hosepipe ban is announced? Put me down for May 2013.
Michael Hall, Croydon

Shouldn't that be 'The Hobbit *dwarves* box office rivals'? And shouldn't we be told in which office the boxing took place?
Rob Mimpriss, Bangor, Gwynedd

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

You are, by now, safely ensconsed in front of a roaring fire, mince pie and glass of mulled wine in hand, the rain-sodden chaos of your journey a fast fading memory.

That at least, is how Fleet Street appears to picture you.

How else, wonders Paper Monitor, to explain the almost complete absence of weather stories on the front pages on Christmas Eve?

The rain continues to fall in many parts of the country, making long journeys potentially perilous for millions.

But the great Christmas getaway was last week's story, the papers appear to have decided, leaving the problem of what to do with this weird, spare day, on which nothing of any note appears to be happening.

Only the Daily Express splashes on the weather, warning that . The same story is relegated to inside pages in the rest of the papers.

The front page void is filled by the Queen in 3D specs according to The Guardian, as she gets a preview of her Christmas speech, which is being recorded by Sky television.

And Paul Daniels. The TV magician's fears that the groupies he attracted when he first hit the big time in the 1970s may not have all been 16 dominate the tabloids.

Only The Sun has the brass neck to call the story, which appeared on Daniels' own blog a few days ago and is covered in most newspapers,

Not every tabloid has splashed on Daniels' nervy revelations.

The Daily Star has a made-up story on its front page.

" at the Middleton family home - and our amazing snaps show the couple as you have never seen them before..."

And, when you turn to page 6 and 7, there they all are whooping it up around a festive table groaning with turkey and all the trimmings.

Except it's not them. It is one of artist Alison Jackson's famous hoax tableau, which featured in other newspapers last week.

Star readers do not discover this fact until eight paragraphs into the accompanying story, which, Paper Monitor reckons, deserves some sort of award for commitment to a hoax. At least they put some creative effort in to filling the Yuletide void.

Merry Christmas readers!

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