Interesting Facts

In 2011 43,069 cosmetic operations took place in Britain. (A 6% increase on 2010 figures of 38,274. I cannot even imagine going under the knife willingly, never mind actually paying for the privilege for cosmetic surgery with all the risks that carries.  How could anyone trust a medical professional who is willing to slice people open to give them bigger boobs?)

Researchers at Harvard University and Google have found that the English language has expanded by 8,500 words a year in the new millennium and now stands at 1,022,000 words. ( But nearly half of the new words are not included in any dictionary and are dubbed lexical "dark matter". They are either slang or invented jargon.  Which is why we have the Urban Dictionary.)   Source

The organising committee for the London 2012 Games, Locog, revealed yesterday that it had over-estimated by a quarter the number of rooms needed by officials, media and sponsors. It has now handed back 120,000 of the total 600,000 nights booked for the sporting event. (These needless reservations could be a key factor in a tourism slump set to cost Britain billions over the Olympics. Analysis for The Independent suggests up to one million beds will now go unsold over the Olympic period. One trade association estimated income could slump by up to £3.5bn during July and August! So much for Olympic gold.) Source: The Independent

On average it takes 16 seconds for men to manoeuvre into a parking space, compared with 21 seconds for women. (Scientists from Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany, found men were better at driving both head-on into the space and reversing into it.  However, the biggest difference was in parallel parking, where men were found to be five per cent better in their handling and positioning of the vehicle. Okay men - you win! (Just in time for the self parking car.)) Source If you need proof - http://youtu.be/bQnP-2ewBpQ

Among the first jobs advertised in UK Job Centres were piano regulator, picture frame gilder and " girl confectioner's packer". (I guess they weren't worried about equality back then.)

A 4ft tall, papier-mache haggis sparked a security alert in Scotland. (The haggis, sporting a pink kilt and ‘honest sonsie face’, and bearing a tag which read "this haggis needs friends", was discovered by shocked passengers in a luggage compartment on the train before the alarm was raised. It is thought the haggis was part of an art project, and had been placed on the train as a joke to mark the annual Scottish celebration Burns Night. ) Source

There have been 92 deaths in Eastenders since it began in 1985. (This doesn't seem too farfetched, but 22.8% of the deaths were murder, a rate far above Britain's real figure of 0.032 per cent, and there is going to be yet another one soon. There is even a death map on the BBC:- http://www.bbc.co.uk/eastenders/games/death_map/ Cheerful stuff. )