Interesting Facts

31st August 1997– Princess Diana, Al Fayed and their driver, Henri Paul, die in a high-speed car crash in a Paris tunnel. 1980 - Poland's Solidarity movement (Solidarnosc), was officially recognised. It is credited with playing a key role in the collapse of communism.

The tallest statue of Christ is in Poland. Photo Creative Commons: Source (Located in Swiebodzin Poland it is made out of concrete and measures 120 ft (36 m). It includes a 3 m tall metal crown and stands on top of a 16 m stone bank, so the total height is 52 m. Does anyone else think it looks as if it's out of Lord of the Rings?)

There are 12 net contributors and 15 net recipients within the EU. (Net contributors receive less money from EU funds than they pay into the joint coffers.  Net recipients receive more grants and benefits than they pay.  The largest net contributors include Germany (at 9 billion euros), France (6.4 billion), Italy (5.9 billion), Great Britain (5.6 billion) and the Netherlands (2.2 billion).  The leading net recipients are Poland (11 billion), Greece (4.6 billion), Hungary (4.4 billion), Spain (2.9 billion), and Portugal (2.9 billion).  Calculating that for each individual EU citizen, however, the picture looks different: Danes pay the most into EU coffers at 150 euros each, while Hungary receives the biggest payout - 442 euros per capita in aid money from Brussels.)

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.)

powered by ODEO A bear called Voytek helped carry ammunition for Polish troops during World War II. (No wonder the Germans shot Bruno.)

80% percent of children in Poland aged 12 to 18 use instant messaging, compared to 50% in the UK, says a survey published in the Daily Telegraph. (Luckily people are not forced to reply immediately to incoming messages. So, it's not very instant, is it?)