Interesting Facts

Spain will reimpose border checks for a European Central Bank (ECB) meeting in Barcelona in May. (The only grounds for restoring border controls under the Schengen Treaty (the EU's passport-free travel treaty) is a threat to public order. Now why on earth would they think that a meeting of bankers would be a threat to public order?)

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the longest bench in the world is 613.13m. (The record was set on 27th August 2005 at a stadium in Szlachta, Poland. But the seaside resort of Littlehampton in the UK is trying to break the record. People seem to take this all quite seriously, with Geneva claiming to have the longest wooden bench, a 120m structure built in 1767 out of 180 boards. There's also a 501m long bench in Germany, along the Keil canal. Barcelona says it has longest park bench, a twisting, Gaudi-inspired piece of art, and Russia had the longest painted bench before they had it broken into 100 separate structures to be spread throughout Moscow.)

Spain is Europe’s largest consumer of cocaine and hashish. (A new study has found the air in Madrid and Barcelona is laced with large amounts of drugs - most prominently cocaine. In both cities the studies were carried out close to universities and concentrations were higher at the weekend.)