Interesting Facts

According to the TUC (Trades Union Congress) 5.3 million people in the UK work an average of 7.7 hours of overtime a week. (Chief executives topped a list of those doing the most unpaid overtime, at an average of 13.2 hours a week, followed by teaching staff (12.1 hours), finance managers (11.3 hours) and managers in production and health care workers (10 hours). The TUC has called on people to take their full lunch break and go home on time, asking managers to set an example by leaving on time too. Oh dear, I never leave a session on time, but then I don't get paid either. The TUC would hate me.) Source

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) has added over 1,000 words. (New entries include air-punching - the act of thrusting a clenched fist into the air in elation or triumph. Agender for designating people who do not identify themselves as a particular gender. Bovver - part of the catchphrase of comedian Catherine Tate's teenage character Lauren (Bovvered?) Budgie smugglers - close-fitting swimming trunks Dudettes - the female form of dude. Fro-yo - the short form for frozen yoghurt. Starter marriages are short-lived first marriages. *Stupid o'clock - used to describe a time outside normal waking hours. *See!  I told you it would make it in eventually.) A couple of new abbreviations were added too:- ICYMI (in case you missed it) FWIW (for what it's worth)

According to researchers from the Sao Jose Faculty of Medicine in Brazil, time goes by more quickly when you're over 50. (In the study people were asked to close their eyes and mentally count the passing of 120 seconds.  They all counted too quickly. On average, men and women in the 15 to 29 age group counted down the 120 seconds in 115 seconds.  In the 30 to 49 age group they took 96 seconds, but the over-50s took just 86 seconds. This meant the oldest group perceived time as passing 25 per cent more quickly than the youngest did. The researchers believe it is possibly due to age-related changes in levels of brain chemicals involved in concentration and memory, both of which are involved in estimating the passage of time. I think it's more likely that at 50+ you simply have more to do, and feel you have less time to do it in.) Source PS -If you want to be able to count in seconds more accurately, say the number plus the word elephants.

This one could have been labelled under "time" too.  Seemingly the old "5 second rule" is a myth. (For those of you who don't know what it is, the 5 second rule says that if you drop some food on the floor, as long it hasn't beenthere for longer than 5 seconds, it's okay to eat it. In a survey commisioned by a cleaning technology company they found that 37% of Brits would eat food dropped on the kitchen floor. I'm not sure when the so called "rule" came into effect, but scientists are now warning people not to put their lives at risk of contracting E.coli or salmonella poisoning by eating dropped food.  Personally (as a dog owner) if I drop food, I'm not likely to be given the chance to eat it, Laika is much faster than me.)

Allegedly, the biggest watch in the world, is the Musk MR2129. (It was released in 2006 by a Japanese company. At 90mm in diameter and with a weight of 1.6 pounds its probably the heaviest watch too. Seemingly watch manufacturers call this "wrist presence".  It looks more like a clock with straps. Did anyone ever buy one?  Maybe the Hulk?)

A few years ago a survey confirmed what everyone already knew, that Monday is the most miserable day of the week in the UK, but a new survey, has pinned it down to a particular time. (The survey, commissioned by broadband provider Plusnet, found that 11:17am on Mondays is the most miserable time of the week. Even worse, less than a quarter of Brits feel happy before midday, but the good news is we have cheered up by 2.35pm. I have the perfect solution, move to a different time zone.)

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

According to a survey conducted by Asda, the best time to have a conversation with a man is 8:15pm. (Unfortunately the women in the survey said they would probably bring up a tricky topic at 8:20am We might not be from different planets, but it looks as if we run on different time-zones.)

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.)

2015 will be one second longer than a normal year. (The Paris Observatory, in France has said that 30 June 2015 will be one second longer, as what is called a "leap second" is added to the day to account for discrepancies between Earth time and atomic time, due to the slowing rotation of the Earth. This will be the 26th leap second to be added since 1972, and the extra second will be added at 11:59:60pm UTC on 30 June, bringing the total number of seconds for 2015 up to 31,536,001. What will you do with your extra second?)

According to Internet analysts Kleiner Perkins, the U.S. is the sixth-worst nation when it comes to staring at screens. (At the top of the list is Indonesia, where people spend an average of 540 minutes, or 9 hours each day, followed by the Philippines, China, Brazil, Vietnam and in 6th place the USA. In the United States, people spend an average of 444 minutes every day looking at screens, or 7.4 hours. That breaks down to 147 minutes spent watching TV, 103 minutes in front of a computer, 151 minutes on a smartphone, and 43 minutes with a tablet. I wonder when it will be 18 hours a day because of Google glass.)  Source

Mo Farrar is the fastest Englishman to finish the London Marathon. (He came 8th in the marathon, but broke the British record with a time of 2 hours, 8 minutes and 21 seconds.  Only 4 minutes behind the winner, Kipsang Wilson from Kenya (who set a track record of 2 hours 4 minutes 29 seconds). Of course the English press are having a field day of negativity at his expense, just because he didn't win, but he will always be a winner to me.) http://www.learnenglish.de/aprdiary14.html

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 published by the Center for Ethics, Harvard University, in the USA, we are more likely to lie and cheat in the afternoon. (The study, called The Morning Morality Effect - The Influence of Time of Day on Unethical Behavior, found that if we’re usually ethical to begin with, our ethics slip a bit in the afternoon, but people who tend to cheat regularly were just as likely to do so in the morning as in the afternoon. )

Spain is seriously considering moving back a time zone, which would align it with the UK and Portugal. (Currently Spain's clocks run on CET (Central European Time), the same as Germany, France etc., but some people are arguing that Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) (and its summer equivalent, BST) would suit Spain's daylight hours. According to said Ignacio Buqueras, president of the National Commission for the Rationalization of Spanish Time, Spain needs to create new habits to allow them to improve their productivity and at the same time allow them to ensure a work-life balance. Interestingly CET was only adopted by Spain, along with other European countries, during the Second World war when Nazi-occupied France switched to German time, Spain followed suit. However, while countries such as the UK and Portugal moved their clocks back again after the war, Spain's dictator Francisco Franco decided not to.  I think that's as good a reason to change as any.) Sources: ...

According to National Rail statistics, nearly 33.3% of Britain's trains are late. (Virgin trains were the worst culprits, with only 47% of their trains on the West Coast Mainline arriving on time.  The best performers were Chiltern Railways with 87.5 per cent and London Overground with 86.2 per cent.)

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.)  

Between 2010 and 2012, the Metropolitan Police made over 110,000 calls to the Speaking Clock. (This might sound funny, but it cost more than £35,000! So, if you want to know the time, please don't ask a policeman.  It costs too much!)

According to a report published by Renaissance Learning, pupils in the UK struggle to understand GCSE exam papers. (Their reading skills are so poor at the end of secondary education due to a lack of time spent practising how to read.  This is so sad.) Source