Interesting Facts

17th March 1861 - Modern Italy became unified under the house of Savoy. 1992 - South African whites voted to end minority rule. 2.8 million whites who cast ballots, slightly more than 1.9 million (68.7 percent) voted to give Mr. de Klerk the mandate he had sought. In his own words "Today will be written up in our history as one of the most fundamental turning point days in the history of South Africa. Today we have closed the book on apartheid -- and that chapter is finally closed."

For everyone who was in today's Skype session.  Who does Greece owe money to? In Euros Germany - 68.2bn France - 43.8bn Italy - 38.4bn Spain - 25bn IMF - 21.4bn  (International Monetary Fund) ECB 18.1bn  (European Central Bank) The Netherlands 13.4bn The US - 11.3bn The UK 10.8bn Belgium 7.5bn Austria - 5.9bn Finland 3.7bn (I told you everyone needs to start learning big numbers nowadays.)

13th June 1249 – Alexander III was crowned King of Scotland. 1525 – Martin Luther married Katharina von Bora, against the celibacy rule decreed by the Roman Catholic Church for priests and nuns. 1625 – King Charles I married French princess Henrietta Maria de Bourbon. 1774 – Rhode Island became the first of Britain's North American colonies to ban the importation of slaves. 1886 - Fire destroyed nearly 1,000 buildings in Vancouver. 1912 - Albert Berry made the first parachute jump from an airplane. 1934 – Adolf Hitler and Benitto Mussolini met in Venice. Mussolini later described the German dictator as "a silly little monkey". 1970 – "The Long and Winding Road" became the Beatles' last Number 1 song. 1977 – James Earl Ray, the convicted murderer of Martin Luther King Jr. was recaptured after escaping from prison three days before. 1980 - The U.N. Security Council called for South Africa to free Nelson Mandela 1981 – At the Trooping of...

France, India and Italy all have laws banning the publication of opinion polls in the run-up to an election. (In France newspapers and media can't publish opinion polls up to 24 hours before an election. In India that is 48 hours, and in Italy, 15 days. Of course the opinion polls published in the UK were so wrong, it would be funny, if they didn't charge £8,000 to £12,000 for the privilege of using them.  The pollsters are blaming the public - for lying.)

A new device has been invented in Italy, a pizza printer. (You simply add the toppings you want, and what herbs you like, and the pizza will be printed to your specifications, and then baked - all in one.  You can set the size, depending on how hungry you are, up to 14", and the depth of the base, from crispy to deep pan.  You can even have your name baked on in cheese. The inventor, a pizza chef known as Igor Lovera, said, "This could put me out of business. From pressing "Print Pizza", it only takes about 30 minutes to get your personalised pizza. " Click here to learn more .)

According to the UKRC's “European Engineering Report” the UK has the lowest number of female engineers in the whole of Europe. (Only 9% of UK engineering professionals are women, compared to 18% in Spain, 20% in Italy, 26% in Sweden and 30% in Latvia. I wonder how many girls are given engineering as an option in careers advice days at school.)

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?)

New rules have been introduced into jails in Italy; Italian prisoners will have their sentences reduced by three days for every book they read while in jail. (They will be able to learn up to 48 days off a year, but will only be allowed to choose from a list of carefully selected books. I guess that's what you would call, turning over a new leaf.

According to research carried out by Time Magazine, Makati City in the Philippines is the selfie capital of the world, with 258 selfie-takers per 100,000 people. (TIME built up the database by searching more than 400,000 Instagram photos with  geographic coordinates tagged “selfie”. The top 10 were:- Makati City, The Philippines (258) Manhattan in the USA (202) Miami, USA (155) Anaheim and Santa Ana, the USA (147) Petaling Jaya, Malaysia (141) Tel Aviv, Israel (139) Manchester, England (114) Milan, Italy (108) Cebu City, The Philippines (99) George Town, Malaysia (95) I've never taken one.)

An estimated 1.3 million people now use e-cigarettes in Britain. (E-cigarettes are banned in Hungary, Brazil, Finland, Lebanon, Malaysia, and Singapore, and they can't be sold to under 16s in Italy. The Weatherspoons chain of pubs in the UK has banned them too.)

From 1 January 2014, jugs of olive oil and dipping bowls will be banned from restaurants in Europe. (After that date olive oil "presented at a restaurant table" must be in pre-packaged, factory bottles with a tamper-proof dispensing nozzle and labelling in line with EU industrial standards. The European Commission, a committee of nameless bureaucrats, has used special Common Agriculture Policy regulations to pass this weird bill. Their reason for the ban is "hygiene" and to protect the "image of olive oil" to attempt to benefit struggling industrial producers in Spain, Italy, Greece and Portugal. What a load of tosh!) Thanks to    + Luke Pettit for sharing this.

Castelnuovo Rangon, Italy has a bronze statue in the town square. (Nothing unusual here you might think, but this bronze statue is of a pig. Why? Because it is the home of Parma Ham, so the humble pig has probably done more to put it on the map than any generals or politicians. Parma Ham is protected by law, and can only be produced in the Parma region using pigs born and bred in Italy. Only hams that have been aged for a aminimum of 12 months are given the Ducal Crown and allowed to be sold as Parma Ham.) You can view the little porker here. View Larger Map Source: BBC

Police in Rome, Italy, have seized €3m (£2.3m)  of marijuana in a drugs raid in the city. (Now 340kg (750lb) of marijuana is in itself interesting, but what makes this story unique is the plants were being grown  in an old underground Metro tunnel that was built beneath Rome during the fascist era of Benito Mussolini. The tunnel, which is 1 km (0.6 miles) long was officially being used as a mushroom farm.) Source

I was shocked when I read that one of Italy's leading universities - the Politecnico di Milano - is going to switch to the English language. (The university believes that if it remains Italian-speaking it risks isolation and will be unable to compete as an international institution. Giovanni Azzone, the university's rector said, "We strongly believe our classes should be international classes - and the only way to have international classes is to use the English language." I guess it would be cool to study in Milan, but it also means it becomes just one more English speaking university amongst many.) Source

You can be fined or jailed for buying fake goods in Europe. (In France, the maximum fine for buying fake goods is 300,000 euros, or three years in jail and during a crackdown in Italy in 2010, a tourist was fined 1,000 euros for buying a fake Louis Vuitton bag for seven euros.)

Italy tops the EU chart for products that are protected under the The Traditional Speciality Guaranteed (TSG) label, which is similar to the 'appellation controllée' system used for wine. (It has over 200 products currently protected, including the Neapolitan pizza, and Prosciutto di Parma (Parma Ham to you and me). I wonder if I can protect my granny's jam tarts?)

The average harvest of tomatoes per hectare of land in Italy will tumble from 80,000kg last year to an average of 60,000kg this year. (The cause is, of course, the weather: The heavy rains in June flooded the fields and prevented roots developing, and the exceptionally high temperatures in July have weakened the tomatoes, which dry up, making flowers and fruit fall. The good news is that because of the same weather conditions the outlook for the grape and olive harvests is good, assuming there are no more freak weather conditions.)

According to the UK's Office for National Statistics Britons went on 10 million fewer trips abroad in 2009. (This was a drop of 15% and meant that altogether Brits saved £5.1 billion. The destinations worst hit were Spain, France, Italy and Portugal, and the USA saw a drop of 20%. I guess the "staycation" is here to stay.)

The average age of stay at home adults in Italy is one of the highest in Europe. (According to the Italian national statistics office more than seven out of 10 18-39-year olds still live with their parents. It's so bad that suggestions have been made that Italy needs a new law to force grown-up children to leave their parents' home. They've even got a name for them - bamboccioni - or "big babies". This all came to a head recently when a judge ordered a father to carry on paying a living allowance to his 32-year-old live-in daughter. I thought when I first read this that she might be retarded, in which case, fair does, but seemingly she graduated 8 years ago. I guess she knows she's got a cushy gig, I can only hope she supports her dad as he ages.) Source: BBC News

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has described himself as the most persecuted person "in the entire history of the world". (According to the BBC, he also said he was "the best prime minister we can find today". Me thinks Mr Berlusconi needs a reality check.)