100 Things We Didn't Know This Time Last Year

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]