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 carried out by lastminute.com around 2.5 million Brits waste their weekends then lie about what they did. (People will regularly lie about their weekends to make them sound more interesting, and the main culprit for all these porky pies is social networking. So, the next time you read someone's update on Facebook or Twitter, take it with a pinch of salt.)

According to a poll by Travelodge, over 27% of British adults feel forced to lie when asked about their weekend activities. (A poll of 5,000 adults found that the pressure to maintain the illusion of an active social life led to more than 27 per cent of adults being "economical with the truth". They have even coined a word for this, "Weekendvy". The top five most popular activities Britons will pretend they did over the weekend, when they didn't are:- * Painted the town red on Saturday night with their partner or friend * Visited friends * Went to a dinner party * Went out for a romantic meal * Took a short break – when really they just described a previous experience where they took a UK short break and made it sound like they went at the weekend. By the way: I spent the weekend in the garden, planting potatoes. Honest!)

According to a survey by The Dante Alighieri Society in Italy, the following English words are the least popular when used instead of Italian:- weekend 11% OK 10% welfare 8% briefing 5% mission 4% location, bookshop, devolution 3% computer, know-how, privacy, shopping 2% (So what's wrong with these words? Seemingly they're just not Italian enough. Well of course they're not - they're English! But then quid pro quo, we've been speaking bits of Italian for centuries, ever since they invaded us (The Romans).)