Interesting Facts

14th April 2014 - 276 female students, who were sitting their final exams in the village of Chibook, Nigeria were abducted. Most are still missing.

According to research carried out on the 2014 census study 48.8% of the population of England and Wales say they don't identify with any religion. (The number of 'nones' is now above 50 per cent, almost double the figure of 25% recorded in the census just three years earlier. People defining themselves as Christian, including Anglicans, Catholics and other denominations, made up 43.8% of the population. The Church of England expects congregations to continue to fall for another 30 years as the population ages and younger generations shun faith. I just think they should put a reply on the census that says, "Mind your own business". )

The UK government paid social media giant Facebook 113 times more in taxpayers’ money for advertising than Facebook paid in corporation tax in the UK. (Government departments spent £489,329 in the 2014-15 fiscal year for advertising on Facebook, who only coughed up £4,327 in corporation tax. They only had to pay such a tiny amount because they recorded a £28.5million loss in the UK, but at the same time they handed staff £35million in share bonuses. Increasingly it seems that the job of governments is to be cleverer than corporations, but I want to know the answer to one question, "What on earth were they advertising?")

According to educational charity, the Sutton Trust if you have a private education, you are considerably more likely to get to the top of British public life. (Their research shows that Oxbridge graduates are over represented in top jobs in fields as diverse as the law, politics, medicine, journalism, and even acting. In 2014 the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission reported that 59% of the Cabinet were Oxbridge graduates (compared to the average of less than 1% of the public as a whole). This recent research shows that although only 7% of the population attend independent fee-paying schools, almost three quarters (71%) of top military officers were educated privately, with just 12% having been taught in comprehensive schools. Sir Peter Lampl, chair of the Sutton Trust, said: “As well as academic achievement, an independent education tends to develop essential skills such as confidence, articulacy and teamwork, which are vital to career success." Sir Peter, I think y...

According to a report from the Department of Transport, the slowest road in England is the A306 Northbound at Richmond, which has a rush hour speed of just 3.5 mph. (We are slowing down: In the year ending to December 2015, average speeds on local ‘A’ roads in England during the weekday morning peak were a measly 23.4 mph. The actual speed limit on a dual carriageway can vary from 40mph and 70mph, but you'll be lucky to get the chance.  One theory is that roads are getting congested by all the online shopping deliveries. Outside of London Nottingham is home to the slowest road: The A6005 Eastbound with rush hour speeds of just 6.4 mph.  This shouldn't come as a surprise to Amatsu.)

According to research carried out by the High Pay Centre, among FTSE 100 companies, the average pay of a chief executive is almost £5 million. (They found that average executive pay in the UK jumped to £4.964 million in 2014, compared with £4.129 million in 2010.  The figure was 183 times the earnings of average full-time workers, up from 160 times in 2010. The top 10 highest-paid chief executives (CEOs) were paid over £156 million between them in 2014, prompting fresh calls for action to curb executive pay. We have a minimum wage, maybe it's time to have a maximum wage too.)

According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization over a billion tourists travelled abroad in 2014. (That's 51 million more than in 2013. The biggest growth destinations were the Americas, with 7% more tourists, followed by Asia and the Pacific at 5%, and Europe with 4% growth. The world is on the move!)

According to a report from the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, the Saturday job is dead. (In the 90s, nearly half of sixth-formers (16-17-year-old students) in the UK had a Saturday job, but that number had fallen to 18% by 2014. Now, before you say it's because youths of today are a bunch of lazy so and sos, it seems it's because they prefer to spend their time studying.  And they could well be right for doing so, as research from the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex found that taking a part-time job  while studying for exams, helped students gain work skills and pocket money for those teenage essentials, but had a negative impact on their exam results. I would still take a Saturday job.  No one cares about your exam results after a few years, but people always value experience.) Source

According to research by the social mobility and child poverty commission, old-fashioned snobbery is alive and kicking in the UK. (Elite British companies are thwarting the career prospects of talented working-class applicants and recruiting applicants from public schools because of their accents and mannerisms. The commission examined recruitment at 13 elite law, accountancy and financial companies who between them appoint 45,000 of the top jobs in the country. It found that 70% of jobs offered by those firms in 2014 went to applicants from public or selective schools, even though such schools only educate around 11% of the population. I'm not in the least surprised, but it's their loss. If you are talented, but turned down for a job because you aren't "posh" enough, open your own company, and put them out of business in a few years.) !Note - A public school is a private school in the UK.  I went to a state school. Source

Here's a scary statistic: According to crime figures, there has been a 60% rise in the number of children in the UK being investigated by police for violent crimes against their parents. (The number of suspects aged 17 or under in the Metropolitan Police area rose to 1,437 in 2014 from 895 in 2012. The youngest was just seven. I'm not sure what you can do if your own child attacks you. There's even a helpline, Parentline Plus, for parents who face this kind of abuse. Scary!)

According to the Halifax bank, over the last 27 years pocket money in the UK has outstripped wages with payouts to children up 462%. (Children have seen a rise from on average  £1.13 a week to  £6.35, but over the same period, the typical annual wage for working adults has increased by just 188%, from £11,648 in 1987 to £33,511 in 2014. I think the difference is that children aren't afraid to ask for a rise.  After all, no one is going to sack them because they cost too much, are they?) Of course parents paying out pocket money might want to click here (sorry kids).

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!)

According to the Kennel Club, in the UK more than 10,000 dogs a year are poisoned after eating everyday items such as onions, grapes, paracetamol and chocolate. (Between 2010 and 2014 56,000 dogs were treated for poisoning. Painkillers were the most common cause of poisoning, followed by rat and mouse bait, and chocolate. Chewing gum, laundry detergent, sultanas, grapes and raisins along with onions, garlic and leeks all cause health problems that can be fatal to our 4-legged friends.)

According to figures from the Nursing and Midwifery Council, in 2014, 1 in 4 British nurses had to be recruited from abroad. (Seemingly there aren't enough nurses coming out of training because of cuts in training budgets. The good news is that agencies are making a fortune, and hospital trusts get to go on recruitment trips around the world.)

According to the Marine Conservation Society, the number of used wet wipes littering UK beaches has increased by 50% in the last year. (Rubbish along the coast of the UK rose by 6.4% from 2013 to 2014, and volunteers collected 2,501 bags of rubbish from coastlines, including 273,747 items of litter. That worked out at 2,457 pieces of rubbish per kilometre - up from 2,309 bits per kilometre in 2013. Discarded items found included a colostomy bag, a plastic hand, a piping gun nozzle, a bra strap and - on one beach alone - nine pairs of shoes!)

The Queen sent her first Tweet at the Science Museum on 24th October 2014. (At 11:35 am she removed a glove as she pressed "Post" to tweet ""It is a pleasure to open the Information Age exhibition today at the @ScienceMuseum and I hope people will enjoy visiting. Elizabeth R," using the @BritishMonarchy account. By 11:39 am she had her first troll who wrote: "Welcome to Twitter. Abdicate!" I wonder if she blocked him / her.)

18th September 2014 Scottish voters will decide whether or not to remain part of the United Kingdom.  Aye or Nay? http://www.learnenglish.de/diarypage.html

According to a study carried out by the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, UK schoolchildren are taking up pop instruments due to the influence of reality TV shows like the X Factor. (In 1999 the instrument plaed by most kids was the recorder, in 2014 it is the electric keyboard. 1999 Recorder – 19% Keyboard – 9% Piano – 8% Acoustic guitar – 5% Drums – 4% Violin – 2% Flute – 2% Electric guitar – 1% Percussion – 1% Bass guitar – 0% 2014 Keyboard – 30% Piano – 28% Recorder – 28% Acoustic guitar – 20% Drums – 14% Electric guitar – 13% Violin – 12% Flute – 7% Percussion – 6% Bass guitar – 5% I would think that with synthesisers, the electric keyboard encompasses all the instruments.) 

The top teams at the World Cup are Brazil, Germany and Italy. (To date, the points they have are as follows:- Brazil - 20 tournaments / 101 games / 224 points Germany - 18 tournaments / 103 games / 209 points Italy - 18 tournaments / 83 games / 156 points Poor Italy are already out, which opens up the 3rd place, and maybe we will see a Brazil vs Germany final.  What do you think?)

9th May 2014 - Lost Sock Memorial Day Here's a short story from the Magazine: An Odd Profession