Interesting Facts

The Chilcot report into the Iraq war cost £10,375,000.00. It consists of 12-volumes containing 2.6 million words. (The inquiry was launched on 30 July 2009, to cover the period of 2001 to the end of July 2009.  Over 100 witnesses were called. The findings of the report were that British military action was not the last resort, that policy on Iraq was made on the basis of flawed intelligence that was never challenged, and that the overall severity of the threat posed by Iraq, particularly the existence of weapons of mass destruction, was grossly overstated, and presented with a certainty that was not justified.) The whole report can be downloaded here: http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/

A copy of Shakespeare's First Folio has been discovered at a stately home on a Scottish Island, just in time for the 400th anniversary of his death. (The book contains 36 of the bard's plays, and was published in 1623, seven years after his death.  It brought together the majority of his plays for the first time, without which there would be no copies  for more than half of them, including Macbeth and The Tempest. T he book had been in the library of Mount Stuart House on the Isle of Bute for more than 100 years, and was confirmed as genuine by Emma Smith, Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Oxford University.  It's quite a find, as a previous copy sold for £2.8m in 2006.)

The UK is about to introduce a sugar tax on soft drinks, which will add at least 18p a liter to sweet fizzy drinks. (The tax will be levied according to how much sugar is added to a drink. According to the BBC, there will be two bands - one for total sugar content above 5g per 100 millilitres and a second, higher band for the most sugary drinks with more than 8g per 100 millilitres. Analysis by the Office for Budgetary Responsibility suggests they will be levied at 18p and 24p per litre. It is estimated that it will raise around £520m a year, which the government has pledged will be spent on increasing the funding for sport in primary schools. So, does this mean people will drink less sugary pop? Probably not, they'll just have less money to spend on fruit.) The sugar tax has an interesting history:- First they said they wouldn't, then they said they might, now they have: Talk about flip flopping:- http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/david-cameron-rules-out-s...

According to the Indian Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, smartphone sales in India reached 100 million by the end of December, 2015. (India is growing at a phenomenal pace and the government is looking to expand rural development with broadband being laid out in rural India. According to data from analyst firm CyberMedia Research (CMR) 94% of feature-phones (as opposed to smartphones) sold in India were priced below 2,000 rupees  £21.)

You can be fined up to £150 for dropping litter in the UK.  (Previously fines had been set by councils, varying between £50 and £80, however now under guidelines drawn up by the Department for Communities and Local Government, litter bugs could face an on the spot fine of £100, and if they do not pay up within a designated period it could increase to £150. Fear of being fined shouldn't stop people from littering.  A wish to live in nice surroundings should be enough.)

The Queen has dropped out of the top 300 in the Sunday Times Rich List, for the first time. (The richest man in Britain is Warner Music owner Len Blavatnik with a fortune of £13.17bn! The Queen had been in the Rich List every year since she actually topped the first list in 1989, but you need a personal fortune of £100m to become one of the 1,000 richest people in the country. That's up £15m compared with the entry point of £85m in 2014. In 1997 it took a fortune of just £15m to join Britain's richest 1,000 people. Did I just say just £15m? Ridiculous!)

There are an estimated 100 to 150 chick sexers in the UK, but the industry is struggling to recruit trainees. (It takes up to 3 years to train to be a chick sexer, where you have to learn to spot 'minuscule differences' to determine whether a chick will grow up to be a rooster or a hen. After training you are expected to be able to sort between 800 and 1,200 day-old old chicks an hour, that's between three and five seconds per chick, achieving an accuracy of around 98 per cent. Once trained the pay is £40,000 per annum, but an industry spokesperson said "'I think the problem is the job itself. You are spending hours every day staring at the backside of a chick. That is not seen as being attractive." I guess you could end up being the butt of a few jokes.)

What price friendship? Well £6,800 actually. (According to a survey by the Post Office UK adults have spent on average £158 on gifts for their closest friend in the last year. Around £62 is spent on Christmas presents and £47 on birthday gifts, which over a lifetime adds up to £6,800, and one in seven people will fork out more than £100 on a friend’s Christmas present. When a best friend has children, the costs become even higher, adding an additional £53 annually. The survey doesn't mention regifting. (Giving a present you've received to someone else. I always give people permission to do this.) ) 

888,246 poppies have been planted by volunteers at the Tower of London, and an estimated 4 million people have visited the installation, Blood Swept Lands And Seas Of Red, since the first ceramic poppy was placed on 5 August. Taken by Stu Smith CC by ND 2.0 (The exhibition was the brainchild of Derbyshire-based ceramic artist Paul Cummins. It was set up to commemorate the 100 years since the beginning of the First World War with each poppy representing each British and Commonwealth death during the conflict. The day after Armistice Day, a team of 8,000 volunteers will begin dismantling the poppies, and a nationwide tour will see smaller installations set up temporarily across the UK. It is expected that the last poppy will be taken away down from the Tower of London in three weeks’ time.) More information on the significance of the poppy (opens in a new window):- The Poppy Poppy Day

There are 191 drivers in the UK aged 100 and over. (The oldest is a 107-year-old woman. In Britain, you need to have an eye test just before your 70th birthday, but after turning 70, all you have to do is declare whether or not you are fit to drive, the self-declaration has to be filled in every 3 years, but it is not backed up by any formal medical or driving tests. Some people are calling for a change in the law.  Recently an 84 year old woman died recently after colliding with several cars and then crashing into the central reservation whilst driving the wrong way on the A1 in Northumberland. I'd happily see the old git in a Merc who drove into the side of our camper van in Portugal taken off the road (it is only a little bump, but he didn't even apologise even though we let him go without fussing), but that said, last year the Daily Mail reported on Arthur Whitaker, who at 100 years old had spent 85 years behind the wheel, and clocked up a staggering 2.5 million ...