Interesting Facts

25th July 1943 - Italian dictator Benito Mussolini stepped down as head of the armed forces and the government. 1969 - Senator Edward Kennedy plead guilty to leaving the scene of a crime following the Chappaquiddick car crash. 1978 - The first so called 'test tube baby' was born in Manchester, England. 1992 - The Olympic Games opened in Barcelona with all countries present for the first time in modern history. 2000 - 113 people died when Concorde crashed minutes after take-off from Charles de Gaulle airport near Paris. Concorde was out of service for more than a year after the Paris crash, it struggled to attract enough passengers and was retired in October 2003 as it was no longer profitable.

The world's first indoor curling match, on artificial ice, took place in Manchester, in 1877. ( Unfortunately the rink closed soon after the match was played. Curling made its Olympic debut in Chamonix in 1924, but it didn't become a permanent Winter Olympics sport until  Nagano in 1998 . The UK has gone a bit nuts over curling, as we have won a medal, and should win another later today.  After these Olympics I doubt we will hear of it again for 4 years.)

Allegedly, some Winter Olympic contestants are turning over their social media accounts to sponsors. (They are agreeing to quotas of postings on their Twitter and Facebook accounts, letting other people send commercial messages in their name. If you are shocked by this, you probably think that your favourite pop star / film star sits tweeting away all day. That said, it's not really the spirit of the Olympics, is it? I can promise you, this though.  This is me. Sitting at my keyboard with my fingers tapping the keys. Of course you only have my word for that, and I'll admit I feel a little jealous. I can't imagine having assistants.)

Jenny Jones has won Britain’s first ever Olympic medal for a snow based event. (Of course she's not the first Brit to be given one, but  Alain Baxter, who won a slalom bronze medal at the Winter Olympics in   Salt Lake City in 2002 , had to hand it back after testing positive for a banned stimulant.)

The final quarterly economic report published by the UK government's Department for Culture Media and Sport has revealed that the overall cost of delivering the Games was £8.92 billion. (That works out at £142 per head for every man, woman and child in the UK. They were very proud of the fact that it was lower than the £9.3bn they eventually set aside, but no one should forget that the original budget, put forward at the Olympic bid was a mere £2.4bn. Only governments get away with this kind of thing, if I did it I would be sacked, or jailed.)

Swimmer Michael Phelps is now the Olympic games's most successful ever athlete. (Having won yet another gold in the men's 200m freestyle relay at the Olympics in London 2012, the US swimmer from Baltimore, America, is now the proud owner of 15 gold, two silver and two bronze medals, and he still has three races to come! The bookies are giving odds-on for him to finish his Olympic career with 22 medals, and if I gambled I would take that bet.)

15,000 volunteers helped out at the    Olympics opening ceremony. (In addition there were  three cows, 10 chickens, and 70 sheep among the cast.  The whole thing cost  £27 million, but imagine how much more it would have cost without the volunteers.)

Sir Paul McCartney, Mike Oldfield, Dizzee Rascal, Frank Turner, Underworld and Emeli Sande were paid a nominal fee of  £1 for their performances at the Olympic Opening Ceremony.  (They had agreed to play for nothing, but h ad to be charged token fee to create a contract with the London 2012 organisers.  Ah - contracts and lawyers, they don't understand the word "volunteer".)

Members of Egypt's Olympic team have allegedly been given fake Nike gear. (An eagle-eyed synchronised swimmer, Yomna Khallaf, said her workout bags had a big Nike logo in the front but the zippers had Adidas branding on them. Maybe it's not a fake, maybe it's industrial sabotage!)

The oldest Olympic medalist is Britain's John Copley. (A lot of people believe it was Swedish shooter Oscar Swahn, who won his last medal at age 72, but Mr Copley was 73 when he won a silver medal in the 1948 Olympics. Of course his medal was for "etching", but a medal is a medal.)

Interesting Food?  Olympics? Have I gone mad? No, but I am incensed, because this little factlet is about French fries at the Olympics. The fast food chain  McDonald’s has been given sole rights to offer French fries by the International Olympic Committee, because they are the official restaurant sponsor for London 2012 and have paid a small fortune for the privilege. (The 800 other eateries at Olympic venues nationwide will be allowed to sell the British favourite fish and chips — but not chips on their own. A note posted at the Olympic venue reads, “Due to sponsorship obligations with McDonald’s, Locog have instructed the catering team they are no longer allowed to serve chips on their own. The only loophole to this is if it is served with fish. Please understand this is not the decision of the staff serving up your meals, who given the choice would gladly give it to you. However they are not allowed.” Now IMHO there is no problem - French fries are not chips...

Great Britain (Team GB) will field a team of 542 sports people in the 2012 Olympics. (Their ages range from 15 to 56.  I could have been a contender!)

If someone takes a new born baby to some areas of the 2012 Olympics, they will need to have a ticket - for the baby. (After a lot of confusion about the status of babes in arms, Locog have now confirmed that babies aged 12 months or under, will be allowed into almost all London 2012 venues without a ticket but they have to be strapped securely to a parent or carer in a baby carrier, sling or similar item. The only exceptions are Wembley Stadium, St James' Park, Old Trafford and North Greenwich Arena, where existing licensing agreements mean all spectators need a ticket, regardless of their age.Organisers Locog have said that every baby for these venues will need a ticket, even if they do not need a seat.)

If you want to buy a beer at the Olympics it will cost the equivalent of £7.23. (A 330ml bottle of Heineken lager at the Games will cost £4.20, which is the equivalent of £7.23 for a pint. This is more than double the national average price of £3.17. And it doesn't stop there;  bars at the official Games venues will also charge £4.80 for a small glass of 'London 2012' red wine, £2.30 for a 500ml bottle of Coca-Cola and £2 for a cup of tea! If you're feeling peckish, you will pay a whacking £2.10 for a toasted teacake, and a portion of cod and chips will set you back at least £8! The good news is you can take your own refreshments (in a soft bag), but you're not allowed to take your own beer or any other alcohol.  Kerching! I'm glad I'll be at home watching it on the tele with a fridge full of beer, a cellar full of wine, and I'm sure I can rustle up a fish finger sandwich.)

The centre of an Olympic archery target is gold. (Olympic Archery targets  are 122 centimetres in diameter, with the gold ring at the centre (worth a maximum 10 points) measuring just 12.2cm. Archers shoot at the target from a distance of 70 metres. I would have lost any trivia quiz before I discovered this, as I was convinced it was red.)

What has Shakespeare got to do with the Olympic games? Well, next year, as part of the 2012 Olympics arts programme, the South Sudanese Kwoto Theatre Company will perform Shakespeare's Cymbeline in Juba Arabic at the Globe theatre in London. (In fact, beginning on 21 April 2012, the Globe will present a programme of multi-lingual Shakespeare productions for the London 2012 festival. 37 international companies will present every one of Shakespeare's plays in a different language over six weeks. So there you have the link. And talking of links, you can read more about it here:- http://globetoglobe.shakespearesglobe.com/)

The Olympic torch relay will last 70-day relays, and it will be carried from Land's End, travelling 8,000 miles before arriving at the Olympic Stadium on 27 July for the lighting of the cauldron at the opening ceremony. (There will be 8,000 torchbearers along the way, one for each mile of the stretch, and the route was worked out so that it will come within an hour's travelling time of 95% of the UK population. Funnily though it won't be travelling through Much Wenlock, which is known as the birthplace of the modern Olympics.)

The London 2012 Olympic torch will be a three-sided golden cone with the flame burning through its perforated shell. (It was created by east London designers Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby and it's made from an aluminium alloy with 8,000 laser-cut circular perforations in its double-skinned exterior. Edward Barber, one of the designers said, "... it had to feel like a functional object, a piece of sporting equipment like a baton". Unfortunately, some people have likened it to a great big, golden, cheese-grater.)

If you buy a ticket for the 2012 Olympics you will have to sign a terms and conditions document, which runs to 7,350 words. (The document, published by the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (Locog) listing all the rules and regulations that will cover the games. A spokesman for Locog said the organisers wanted spectators "to have lots of fun". "We have to prepare for any eventuality," he added. "Our terms and conditions give us the scope to deal with any incidents which may occur, but our approach will be pragmatic and looked at on a case-by-case basis." So that means Prince Charles will be able to scoff whatever he wants and keep up to date on his Tweets then.)

According to the Telegraph (big pinch of salt needed then) bottles of water, mobile phones, picnics and umbrellas could be banned at the London 2012 Olympics. (A list of rules says the following items are banned: "Food, alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, liquids in containers of greater than 100ml in size, umbrellas, horns, whistles, drums, rattles, musical instruments, or any other devices that in the opinion of Locog may disturb a session (including mobile telephones), flasks, Thermoses and in general any material that Locog may deem dangerous or that may cause damage or disruption to a session." I think they should ask stupid bureaucrats to the list too.)