Interesting Facts

According to the Sleep Council, the average Brit goes to bed at 11:15pm and gets just 6 hours and 35 minutes sleep per night. (Yes, not all Brits are lightweights like me.)

Paul Donovan called BT at 7.57pm on Saturday, August 1, to cancel his broadband package. He was put on hold with a pre-recorded message saying the 'lines were busy', a female voice then asked him to hold until one of their operators was free, he waited, and waited, and waited. Eventually, he went to bed, but he didn't disconnect and left his phone on charge. (When he got up on Sunday morning, he was still on hold - 14 hours and 31 minutes later, which is believed to be a UK record, but it's not a world record. That honour goes to Australian Andrew Kahn, who called Qantas Airways to confirm his flight from Adelaide, Australia, to New York City. He phoned the airline at 7:22 on a Wednesday evening and finally hung up at 11:01 Thursday morning. During his wait, he surfed the Internet, slept briefly and caught up on some reading, for 15 hours, 40 minutes and one second. How long would it take you to finally hang up? ) Source

It seem that we Brits don't like to be kept waiting. According to research by Interparcel we get grumpy very quickly if we are forced to wait for any length of time. (It seems we will only wait 5 minutes at a bar before walking off, 13 minutes for a delayed train and no more than 10 seconds for a web page to load. It seems strange for a nation renowned for its ability to form an orderly queue, but if you read this, I applaud your patience in waiting for it to load.)

Are you heading off on your summer hols? Well be warned, in a survey carried out by One Poll, shows that in the UK holiday rows start in the car after just 22 minutes. (The top 3 causes of rows starting are:- What music to play* Children distracting the driver Squabbles over who sits where 5% of rows.were caused by family members passing gas in an enclosed space. 15% of people had been in family rows so bad on car trips that they abandoned their holiday plans and went back home.) *Just play a bit of Cliff:-

The average CD (compact disc) can hold 74 minutes’ worth of recorded sound. (What's interesting about this is why they chose 74 minutes.  Why not 60 or 120?  Well allegedly, when CDs were developed by Philips and Sony in the 70s, one of the developers,  Norio Ohga,  decided that a single CD should be able to contain the longest recorded version of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, which is 74 minutes long. Luckily they didn't decide on the symphony Victory at Sea, by Richard Rodgers, it is 13 hours long!)

According to a study run by vouchercloud.com, 79% of office workers in the UK waste 4 hours and 22 minutes every day. (On average respondents believed that they actually did 2 hours and 53 minutes of productive work. The favourite pastimes that eat up "productive" time were:- 1.       Checking social media – 47% 2.       Reading news websites – 45% 3.       Discussing out of work activities with colleagues – 38% 4.       Making hot drinks – 31% 5.       Smoking breaks – 28% 6.       Texting /instant messaging – 27% 7.       Eating snacks – 25% 8.       Making food in office – 24% 9.       Making calls to partner/ friends- 24% 10.   Searching for new jobs – 19% Average time spent on each distraction: 1.       Checking social media – 44 minutes 2.       Reading news websites – 1 hour 5 minutes ...

Under new guidelines a train is considered "late" if it arrives more than 59 seconds behind time. (In the past, long-distance trains on British rail network were only considered to be late if they were 10 minutes behind time. So, how late is late?)

According to a survey run by Direct Line insurance, we need an extra 2 hours 45 minutes every day to do everything we want to do and have enough time to relax. (A basic need for most humans is to have seven hours of free time every day, but the average person nowadays (2013) only manages four hours, 14 minutes. In 1995, people had six hours and 57 minutes downtime, by 2000 that was reduced to six hours and 34 minutes. but nowadays it's a measly four hours, 14 minutes.  The culprit?  Technology.  So go on, switch off your computer and go and sit on the couch, or go and chill out in the garden, if you don't have a garden, take a walk in the park to feed the swans and get some fresh air.)