Interesting Facts

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 researchers from Bristol University's Tobacco and Alcohol Research Group, the shape of a glass can affect the speed at which we drink. (They found that straight glasses cause people to drink more slowly than curved ones. In a test people with straight glasses were 60% slower when consuming alcoholic beverages than those drinking from curved glasses. Markings on a glass also slowed the speed at which people drank. People with a marked glass took an average of 10.3 minutes to finish a pint, while the non-marked glass group took 9.1 minutes. Unfortunately I think this means pubs and restaurants will soon be removing all markings and serving everything in curvy glasses.)

According to research from Heinz Cup a Soup, 31% cent of Brits are so protective of their favourite cup or mug that they would never let anyone else drink from it. (In fact nearly 60% of Brits have an "emotional attachment" to their favourite mug, and a third said they would feel "angry" or "totally devastated" if their mug broke, with 42% adding that their favourite mug is not replaceable. According to food psychologist Christy Fergusson we become attached to these simple everyday objects.  Thaler coined the term 'endowment effect'. When we touch something, it almost becomes an extension of us. You can create a deeper connection to it and associate memories, emotions and feelings with objects. It's a mug!)

Over the last 50 years short-sightedness amongst children in the UK has doubled. ( In the 1960s just 10% of British 12 and 13-year-olds had myopia, today that is 23%. Experts are blaming this increase on our increasingly indoor lifestyles and use of computers.   And it's not just happening in the UK, in the US in the 1970s 25% of children were diagnosed myopic, by the year 2000 this had risen to over 40%.  In China The journal Nature reported that around 90% of China's teenage and young adult population are short-sighted, up from 10 to 20% of the total population 60 years ago. One Chinese city is so worried, they are experimenting with transparent classrooms to expose children to more sunlight. How about giving them more time and space to play outside?)

According to figures from the Office for National Statistics, on average British mums spend 3 hours a day on housework and cooking, whereas fathers spend an average of three quarters of an hour. (In 8 out of 10 couples, women do all the washing and ironing, but things are changing, a magazine survey in 1999 revealed that among the over-60s age group, none of the men surveyed ever did the washing! Of course in 1980 only 31% of women had a full-time or part-time job compared to 55% today. According to therapist Julia Cole, most men still expect women to do the housework, and if men do it, they act as though they are doing their partner a favour; saying things like: 'I've done the washing up for you' instead of regarding it as something which benefits both of them.)

Good news for once! Some areas of the brain do not peak until we are in our fifties. (A published paper in the journal Psychological Science, states that each cognitive skill peaks at a different age. For example, raw speed in processing information appears to peak around age 18 or 19, then immediately starts to decline. Short-term memory continues to improve until around age 25, when it levels off and then begins to drop around age 35. The ability to recognize faces improves until the early 30s before gradually starting to decline,  but the ability to evaluate another person's emotional state peaks in our 40s or 50s. At 60 we are still learning new vocabulary skills, and between 60 - 70+: our intelligence actually peaks. I think the main point is, just keep learning, keep on learning, learn, learn learning.)

Australia has been invited to take part in the Eurovision song contest, as part of the competition’s 60th anniversary celebrations. (The Australian contestant, is yet to be chosen, but they will fight it out in the semi-final, and hopefully the final, which this year is being held in Vienna, Austria. It must be down to continental drift.)

A businessman meeting a client in a London hotel (The Wellesley in Knightsbridge) was charged £75.00 for 3 bottles of water (yes water). (The water, San Pellegrino, which usually costs about 60p a bottle, actually costs a profit mongering £5.50 per bottle in this particular tourist trap, and there was also a service charge of £8.33, but if you can do mental arithmetic, you'll see that that still doesn't add up: It would have been £24.83. Which is bad enough. But no, the Wellesley, seemingly owned by Arab Investments´ City and Country Hotels, has a minimum charge of £25 per person for anyone using its bar after 4pm. They should remember that the blessings of water come with human responsibility for its proper use. Is there anything he can do? No.  That's why when you are eating out in the UK, it's important to check the prices on the menu and ask if there is any cover / service charge. Of course at a business meeting, you don't want to be seen to be niggar...

Imagine this, you have a blood clot and you're being rushed to hospital, then the ambulance stops and you realise it's to pick up a couple of hitchhikers. Well, that's exactly what happened to  60 year old Glenn Buscombe. (He was in the vehicle when it picked up a pair of hitchhikers, and dropped them in the next town before taking him to A&E in Plymouth. Unsurprisingly one of the hitchhikers was a woman in a skimpy skirt.) Source

According to Alzheimers Research UK, the estimated cost of caring for people with dementia in 2014 will be £23.6 billion. (The number or people in the UK aged 60+ who will be living with dementia is projected to double over the next 25 years and to reach 2 million by 2050, which will cost an estimated £59.4 billion. We can only hope current research will advance enough to prevent this silent plague.)

According to data from life insurance companies you are less likely to die in your 50s and 60s than at any other time in your life. (Good news for anyone facing middle age.)

How many Heathrow workers does it take to change a light-bulb? (The answer is - none, because since opening in 2008, not a single bulb has been replaced in terminal 5's departure lounge at Heathrow. In some areas up to 60 per cent of the lights have blown, but they haven't been replaced because there is no safe way to reach them. The people who designed the terminal, which cost £4.5billion, appear to have overlooked basic maintenance, light-bulbs need to be changed, and some of them are positioned 120ft above the ground. I would have thought pulleys and lifts would have been on the specs, but seemingly not. They have tried cherry-pickers and hydraulic boom lifts to replace the downlighters, but none were deemed to be practical or safe enough, and now, a team of specialist wire walkers has been given the job of stopping the lights from going out completely. It will take four months and cost millions of pounds. I wonder if they will play circus music whilst they ...

According to a report by Ofcom, half of all UK teenagers own smartphones. (Yes, the Communications Market 2011 report from Ofcom shows that that smartphone ownership is still on the rise and that teenagers are obsessed with their phones. The report findings show that teenagers are much more likely to own a smartphone than adults and are more obsessed with them. 48 per cent of teenagers own a smartphone compared to just 27 per cent of adults. 60% of teenagers who owned a smartphone described themselves as “highly addicted” to their handsets. Only 37 per cent of adults felt that way. I'm really glad I'm not a teenager any more.)

People in the UK prefer to drink their tea at a temperature of 56-60°C. (It's probably why we add cold milk to it and it is lucky, as adding cold milk makes it cool enough to reduce the risk of developing cancer of the oesophagus. According to research at the University of Tehran, drinking hot tea (65-69°C) is associated with twice the risk of developing oesophageal cancer, and drinking very hot tea (70°C or more) is associated with an eight-fold increased risk. I'm glad I drink my tea with milk.)

In the UK TV licences have been sold at Post Offices for more then 60 years - but will not be sold there after July. (Seemingly you will be able to buy them in supermarkets - like everything else.)