Interesting Facts

According to wine expert Jancis Robinson, author of The 24 Hour Wine Expert, any open bottle of wine – even a red – should be kept in the fridge. (Seemingly the old adage of serving red wine at "room temperature" was coined before the advent of central heating. Nowadays room temperature tends to be too warm, and we are drinking tepid red wine. According to the experts, refrigerating lighter reds such as beaujolais and pinot noir brings out all their fresh fruit flavours, and full-bodied reds such as cabernet sauvignon, shiraz and malbec benefit from being served cooler (around 17 or 18°C). Of course, it's unlikely we have any left in the bottle to store, but I'm going to try out this advice this weekend. ) 

According to a  study by the Energy Saving Trust, women like it hotter - in the home.  ( Women prefer the home to be 24°C on average, while men prefer a cooler 19°C, but each extra degree costs around £85 a year for a three-bed semi. However, it's women who win the “thermostat war".  Guys!  It's not a war, you just want to keep us happy!)

The poor old UK is suffering, Britain is officially colder than Siberia as temperatures plummet to a bone-chilling -12°. (It's actually too cold to grit the roads!) 

According to a study carried out by researchers from University College London and the University of Cambridge, central heating in the home may be making us fat. (The article suggests that the increase in indoor temperature due to heating the house has reduced the calories we use to stay warm; leading us to store the excess energy as body fat.  It goes on to says that the “thermal comfort zone” provided by modern living may be a factor in the Western world’s increasing rates of obesity. I'm sorry, but I've been without working central heating for a couple of weeks now, and I haven't lost an ounce, in fact I've been comfort eating and stuffing my face with chocolate, so I want my central heating back. (BTW - The engineer is here! Yippee! Fingers crossed.) ) 

With Britain sweltering in a heatwave, you might be surprised to learn that there is no legal maximum workplace temperature in the UK. (Basically you work till you drop.)

A heat wave is a prolonged period of excessively hot weather.  In England and Wales, heatwave conditions are reached when the maximum daytime temperature and minimum night-time temperature rise above the threshold for a particular region. (The length of time spent above the threshold determines the level. Level 1: Normal summer conditions. Level 2: 60% or higher risk that the temperature will be above the threshold levels for two days and the intervening night. Level 3: Temperature above the threshold for the preceding day and night, with a 90% or higher chance that it will stay above the threshold in the following day. Level 4: Anything above the other three levels. Each of the first three levels is associated with a particular state of readiness and response by the social and health services, and Level 4 is associated with more widespread response. The UK is currently set at Level 3.) http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/heat-health/

The coldest recorded temperature in the UK is -27.2° C. It was recorded three times in Scotland, twice in Braemar, 11 February 1895 and 10 January 1982 and once in Altnaharra on 30 December 1995. (The coldest recorded temperature in England so far, was -26.1° C, 10 January 1982 in Shawbury Shropshire. Brrrr!)

A type of starfish avoids overheating at low tide, by pumping itself up with cold seawater. This lowers its body temperature when it's exposed to the sun. (It's not that remarkable though. I do the same thing, but with beer.)

People in the UK prefer to drink their tea at a temperature of 56-60°C. (It's probably why we add cold milk to it and it is lucky, as adding cold milk makes it cool enough to reduce the risk of developing cancer of the oesophagus. According to research at the University of Tehran, drinking hot tea (65-69°C) is associated with twice the risk of developing oesophageal cancer, and drinking very hot tea (70°C or more) is associated with an eight-fold increased risk. I'm glad I drink my tea with milk.)

The temperature in remote regions of outer space is about 2.7 Kelvin (-270C; -454F). (But a vast physics experiment built in a tunnel below the French-Swiss border is fast becoming one of the coolest places in the Universe. The Large Hadron Collider is entering the final stages of being lowered to a temperature of 1.9 Kelvin (-271C; -456F) - colder than deep space. Brrrrr.)

The average water temperature of the UK's rivers and lakes is 5°C in winter, 18°C in summer. (This could explain why it took me so long to learn to swim.)

Minus forty degrees Celsius is exactly the same temperature as minus forty degrees Fahrenheit. (Yes, basically bloody cold!)

Eggs need to reach a temperature of 144 to 158 degrees Fahrenheit before they’ll turn from a liquid to a solid. (So, people who say "It’s hot enough to fry an an egg on the pavement," are usually ‘eggs’aggerating!)